Eg, a free market puts tremendous downwards pressure on profit margins. Identifying that means the powers that be fight against free markets with hook and crook - but it doesn't change the fact that if there is a free market it will find an equilibrium where people are indifferent to starting a new business.
A) empirically, that was wrong and disastrously so (not as bad as communism but very bad) B) assuming reflexivity can’t exist is silly even within the neoliberal framework. It’s like assuming that the dollar bill you see on the sidewalk must be fake because it’s there.
Notwithstanding that, what you say may be true.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit...
This is not only wrong, it's laughable. Governmental interference in the economy has grown over the last forty years, not shrunk. And not with good outcomes, either: the crash of 2008-2009 was due to too much government meddling over a period of decades finally catching up with everyone.
I thought it was because of irresponsible speculation in dubious securities backed by by corrupt rating houses?
And the dubious securities themselves were derivatives based on the housing market, which was in a huge bubble caused by government policies that basically forced banks to lend to people who couldn't afford the loans in order to encourage home ownership, as antepodius pointed out.
Fwiw, if you're going to call out communism, then you also have to include representative democracies.
It's reviled because it's inherently immoral. Its proponents are indeed usually racist idiots, but even if they had the best of intentions, it would still be immoral.
“If done right”, but I doubt it can ever _be_ done right...
What you said is not even an argument - it is just an expression of personal preference towards specific actions.
I like apples, you like bananas, where do we go from here?
I heard somewhere that there are three types of information: facts, fiction and fiction masquerading as facts.
It seems to me that you're engaging in the third type, as are many others who hear an opinion that seems to make sense and aligns with their preconceived preferences, which they then go on to repeat with an incredible level of certainty. I'd argue 99% of what people say is of this variety, which is a problem because it is so pervasive, that hardly anyone seems to notice. It's like we're in the matrix, maaan.
Which is the whole point. Eugenics is “fiction masquerading as fact”, as you put it. The core hypothesis (selective breeding works) is sound, but the traits that historical Eugenicists were trying to breed into the populace were all subjective, fictional correlates of what they thought were desirable. It’s not about MY preconceived preferences, but about what preconceived preferences the person running the eugenics experiment has.
When I say it can’t be done “right”, what I mean is that what constitutes the “eu-“ part of eugenics, meaning “good” or “best” is inherently subjective, and the choices of a particular experiment may end up being counterproductive to the goal of creating the “best” humans.
People liking water and not liking dying of thirst is not subjective.
You're using 'everything is subjective' to defend 'I don't have the faith in humanity to not fuck it up' and you cannot do that because everything is subjective is a non-sensical claim. What you're really expressing is deep pessimism, which I happen to share :)
What I think we should say is, eugenics is an excellent idea, but the current ruling elite is too infantile to implement it in a way that wouldn't lead to a dystopia of one type or another.
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Another interesting thought is to contemplate that we already enable some to breed and raise children in far better circumstances than other people, by design. Is that not eugenics? We're doing selective breeding and providing selective advantages and we always have. Is that not eugenics?
If you ask me, I'd rather we go extinct because of a scientific experiment of immense beauty, than the usual petty fight for limited resources where the rich sit back and watch, while the innocent slaughter each other by the millions.