741 karma · joined January 4, 2015
Definitely true that application-specific design is often not worth the investment though. Chasing that 1000x improvement can easily cost you a year or two.
And we haven't had capitalism without rampant homelessness, corruption, systemic violence, exploitation of the global poor, and various other forms of avoidable misery. The status quo is bloody too, just not for people like me (and I assume like you).
> I do think we need a radical rethinking of the role of state in this in order to make it work though; ideally the state and worker collectives benefit from advantages that make it difficult for the capitalists to steamroll over them on the market, which over time leads to the weakening of capital
I want the same thing, but my understanding is that you can't get the state to align with workers against capital because capital will always outcompete workers at amassing resources simply through scale. One capitalist can extract surplus value from many many many workers at once, and use that value to buy more workers, to the ultimate end of buying the state through lobbying and funding campaigns.
Is there some way we don't end up back where we began?
So you get these well-meaning posts about how maybe life would be better if we could keep personal property and freedom and progress as a species, but lose the alienation from labour, coercive pressure, and basically everything else that literally defines capitalism and perpetuates what is bad about our system.
I had the same blind spot for most of my life, but at some point it dawned on me that everything I like about the current system is compatible with socialism, but the changes I would like to see are incompatible with capitalism.
I obviously agree that social programs are necessary for a just and humane society. But I also think the opposition from military-industrial complex, energy lobbies, and rent-seekers of all stripes make it impossible to implement these programs effectively. Because at the end of the day the root of the problem is capitalism.
When money is the name of the game in elections, the legislature, and even the justice system, how is it even theoretically possible to implement capitalism without the bad stuff? The best you can do is hope the capitalists are nice.
Would you have been okay with Russia going to Iraq's aid when the USA invaded the second time? You think it's fine if Russia not only fought American troops in Iraq, but bombed the USA as well? That would have been defense by your logic, since that's exactly what the USA did to Iraq in 1991.
Fascinating worldview indeed.
Also, in my field and in my region, $27k is massive funding. I don't know anybody who makes that much, let alone $44k, and we also don't get tuition or benefits covered. Our TA/RA union is currently striking because it's essentially impossible to live off of funding alone.
[1] https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-23-0...
Are you suggesting capitalism is not supposed to give control to the capitalist? Or that socialism is not supposed to give control to the workers? I thought my assessment was pretty uncontroversial. The point about which system yields "more" democracy is a pretty simple inference from there.
Or do you mean my last statement that democracy prevents corruption more than dictatorship? What do you propose we measure to verify or reject my hypothesis? No amount of data can prove it. But there's a pretty clear argument in favor of democracy: you can't stop corruption in a dictatorship if the dictator is corrupt; you can stop corruption in a democracy so long as the majority are not corrupt. A dictatorship can have close to 0 corruption or close to 100% corruption, it all depends on the dictator.
In a socialist utopia you have more democracy than in a capitalist utopia, because "true" socialism gives workers democratic control over their workplace, where as "true" capitalism gives full control of the workplace to the capitalist.
Indeed, democracy is better at preventing corruption than dictatorship.
Wanton military spending, bank bailouts, corporate tax cuts, etc. seem to be very common when money can buy legislators.
Aside from coordinating big groups to write tons of papers, he does a bunch of impressive wilderness exploration. I recommend checking out his website, there's some stunning photos:
[1] The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from A Secret World by Peter Wohlleben.
E.g., "We were in Vegas and saw an Elvis chapel, so we spontaneously decided to get married!"
They were in Vegas without any plans of marriage, saw a venue, and decided immediately to marry.
> Culture is what's uncontroversially and fearlessly blasted on front pages, and on mainstream TV.
My comments on dog-whistling were specifically targeted toward the one commenter talking about how politicians don't seem to care about white people.
If you want to go back to the broader discussion, on culture, then yes I agree. And what is blasted on front pages and mainstream TV is overwhelmingly white, with tiny pockets dedicated to other groups. To say that "whiteness" is a counterculture is absurd.
As an aside:
> the millions of white Democrats
The Democrat agenda also fits white people better than non-white people, though they make more effort than Republicans to acknowledge minorities.
As for why non-white Republicans vote that way, maybe they miss the dog-whistles, or maybe they think the racism of the party isn't directed at them (e.g., since they're "one of the good ones") or that it's outweighed by other factors (i.e., they hate taxes), or maybe they think the Republicans are the better of two evils. Not really relevant, since they aren't in this discussion. Do you have the critical thinking skills?
If you read the comment you're replying to, it answers that question immediately.
> Not really, though. Voting levels are low enough that they could conceivably focus their energies simply on getting more non-voting whites to vote.
They could, but their agenda fits white people better, for reasons that are evident to anyone with critical thinking skills. Hint: think about the dog-whistling some more.
They try to promote their non-white figures because their agenda and campaigning for the most part is so overwhelmingly targeted toward white voters that they have horrible reach into other demographics.
This is like the Black Lives Matter vs All Lives Matter debacle. Minorities are brought into the spotlight because there are systems and large groups of people actively working against them. Meanwhile, you don't need to "promote" whiteness, because that's seen as the default in America.
For the benefit of other readers though, I'll bite.
For instance, former congressman for Iowa Steve King tweeting about slavery [0] is pretty explicit. How about the slightly more abstruse but still pretty glaring white supremacist dog whistle [1] in response to a random Dutch guy complaining about muslims. He was in congress 2003-2021.
Of course Great Replacement rhetoric is also pushed pretty openly to rally white voters, with Tucker Carlson saying things like "demographic change is the key to the Democratic Party’s political ambitions", and congresswoman for New York Elise Stefanik running ads saying "[Democrats'] plan to grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington".
Do you accept these examples or do you need the GOP leadership to issue a letter signed by all party members stating they like white people?
[0] https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/1612505990305308672?s... [1] https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/1614259933469462528?s...
It's unwise to think of business owners as left or right leaning, or to think their espoused politics are any indication of how they will act when push comes to shove. Owners are always perpetuating class war against workers.
Not really, because while I am talking about how things ought to be, you are talking about how things are. Once again my point: this was evil and the people responsible deserve punishment. Saying they did nothing illegal is irrelevant since, as you say, laws and morality are not equivalent. If you don't believe evil should be punished, then you believe old laws should never change and new ones shouldn't be created. As you say, morality changes, so then why would laws remain unchangeable? How can we ever codify moral standards when people get more upset at outrage than at the immoral act?
There's no legal culpability in this case, but if society follows your lead there wouldn't be legal culpability in any future cases either. Next time an article reveals Johnson & Johnson has been knowingly putting poison in its baby powder or something like that, will you once more argue against the outrage and claim there's no legal culpability and the consumers could have been testing their baby powder, so really it's their fault?
> available within the body of scientific knowledge, based on the evidence I provided
Not really, the evidence you provided only said people knew CO2 could heat the world, but nothing about its effects on mankind (which Exxon did know about, per the previous leaks). And as you admit, you can't know if any voter or policy-maker actually knew. So how are we responsible for allowing Exxon's actions again?
I'm finished with this discussion, your nihilism is exhausting.
You're telling me people in power in 1923 knew that human oil consumption was causing climate change that would be detrimental to human life? If you asked Congress today many wouldn't agree with you, and I'm sure some of them sincerely believe there's no problem. Do you think voters knew back then? If this was common knowledge, why did Exxon have to suppress anything?
From the OP:
> Exxon knew of the dangers of global heating from at least the 1970s, with other oil industry bodies knowing of the risk even earlier, from around the 1950s. They forcefully and successfully mobilized against the science to stymie any action to reduce fossil fuel use.
My original argument was that this is evil and every individual in charge of suppressing this information and continuing to advocate for fossil fuel use deserves punishment. Do you agree? Because throughout this conversation what I've understood from your comments is that you think they did nothing wrong because people consume oil.
Obviously this question deserves more thorough and qualified treatment than I could give, but it doesn't seem outlandish to expect that the corporation should lose some 'rights' much like people do when they face consequences for crimes.
I would want the executives in this case to face personal consequences, like jail time, and I would want to e.g., prevent oil companies from lobbying, or nationalize them, or something to similar effect.
> the other 7.85 billion people on the planet could take up the responsibility
Something I haven't been able to communicate to you this thread, despite my best efforts, is that taking that responsibility is impossible when fossil fuel companies have mountains of money and power. Fossil fuel companies are worth more to elected representatives than constituents, and they have a vested interest in promoting fossil fuels in all sectors of society. They aren't meekly and reluctantly providing oil to us nasty consumers, they do their best to create and grow markets for their products. They are already doing 2 jobs: supply oil and ensure society doesn't obsolete them.
You speak as if people have always known fossil fuels cause climate change and simply like to act against their best interests, or that climate change is in our best interests. In my opinion, neither is true, and given that Exxon actively suppressed their own research on the matter, I think they would agree with me.
If I pay taxes I help subsidize fossil fuels. If I get an EV its manufacturer burned fossil fuels to create it and ship it to me.
Tell me who I can vote for to change this. Tell me how I can eat without using fossil fuels. Tell me how I can work without using fossil fuels. Tell me what choices I can make so that I am not to blame.
There is no such choice. I literally cannot avoid fossil fuels.
Maybe if we could all agree that the fault is indeed with fossil fuel companies, who not only provide oil but also lobby the government to prevent us from moving away from it. Maybe then, we could have the actual change you are clearly so invested in.