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Thank you, eugh, it's incredibly annoying, like people miss a hundred year history lesson and want to repeat the mistakes of the past here.

Even the bottom 20% that everyone is so concerned about in the western world are better off than any time in history - heck, I have no qualms saying I'd rather be bottom 20% today than top 1% just 200 years ago. That is the level of productivity we've had, and primarily thanks to our economic system.

Could it use some tweaks? Sure, if you want to advocate free healthcare or college, go for it, but the main concepts are still quite good.

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This thread was full of generic ideological comments but you and another user took it into ideological flamewar, which is something we definitely don't want on HN. Please don't do this again, and especially please don't cross into being uncivil, as you both did.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14820194 and marked it off-topic.

Better is not necessarily good enough. Why would people not want a system which furthers their quality of life even more? It's not at all convincing to suggest that you shouldn't complain since things have improved somewhat under capitalism.

Things have improved immensely, more than any other time in history under capitalism. And we've watched other systems crash and burn. We don't need to experience it for ourselves, thanks.

We've also witnessed capitalist systems fail drastically, and other systems succeed impressively.

There is little historical comparison for what you quote as capitalism's success - nobody performed a double-blind trial to see if the industrial revolution and colonialism improved quality of life in non-capitalist systems.

> We've also witnessed capitalist systems fail drastically, and other systems succeed impressively.

Please, show me one country not rooted in capitalism which has "succeeded impressively" in recent decades.

Cuba. Despite a continuing embargo from one of the largest economies on the planet, and the collapse of its greatest allies over two decades ago, socialism in Cuba has eradicated homelessness and illiteracy, produced one of the best internationally-recognised healthcare systems on the planet.

If we lift the restrictions of "a few decades", you'd find that the USSR transformed a feudalist, barely-electrified nation into America's greatest opponent on the world stage, with a stake in the space race, in less than half a century.

Cuba is comparatively an incredibly poor nation that has missed many advancements of modern society in recent decades. Wages are dirt low, access to the internet is low, and from what I gather, access to modern anything in general is challenging. There are no great advancements coming out of Cuba. I don't consider that a success, I consider that a failure. I don't want to stop progressing or move backwards into a deep maintenance mode as Cuba has.

And that's just the economic side of things.

Are great advancements the measurement of good? Is progress for the sake of progress so great? To me, it's a question of the proverbial slaves building the pyramids: it's easy to insist that society should work for the improvement of technology if your quality of life is already secured by the people below you on the ladder.

You may not want to stop progressing, but ask Americans without healthcare coverage whether they would prefer government money going to research or to providing for their needs, and many of them will disagree with you.

Ever been to Cuba? They're in deep poverty and some of their 'homes' are not better than cardboard boxes.

And USSR never managed to turn to US greatest opponent, despite killing millions trying.

I have been to Cuba. In my experience, that's not an accurate description of their homes. And "deep poverty" is a meaningless statement in a country as different as that - despite a lack of wages, Cubans are well-provided for by the government, which is more than can be said of a good part of population in many Western nations.

>USSR never managed to turn to US greatest opponent

This is a very interesting take on world history. What do you consider the USSR's role in the world to be during the Cold War? What makes you reject most modern historical thought?

Cubans are well-provided? They're living on _rations_. When they got free access to Internet? Last year?

And USSR's role was the same as North Korea today - poor, unpredictable totalitarian country with nukes.

And there are those in the West who starve. Who better provides for the poor?

>And USSR's role was the same as North Korea today The US is not currently producing a huge amount of propaganda in a culture war against North Korea. There is no scare of North-Korean-sympathisers infiltrating American society, or its government. The West is not fighting any proxy wars with the Koreans, nor are they engaging in international competitions equivalent to the space race. There is no "North Korean sphere" - North Korea has no cultural or political influence over a broad group of nations around the world. North Korea does not constitute some kind of "fourth world".

There is no comparison.

What good are things when you are powerless and feel forgotten? You comparison is poor.

Quite a bit. I can live a much better life with some basic things in our modern society - modern medicine, a vehicle, a computer, easy access to good food for only a small part of my salary.

"Feeling powerless and forgotten" is something that just doesn't matter compared to those in my opinion.

I'm guessing you've never struggled financially ever in your life.

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