One last thing about socialism and then Ill drop it

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
21

I just like my proposition because it creates freedom and beautiful incentives for real people. If it is also a guard against things you fear, thats okay too.

My main problem with the modern society isn’t that corpos get taxed too little, its that citizens get taxed at all. You’ve not expressed much interest in this subject of the government taxing citizens which I think is completely Babylonian in its barbarism, but this is the main issue for me.

Taxing 20 million plus companies is the perfect solution, because it doesnt harm any individuals and as a bonus it creates a yuge incentive for companies to stay moderately sized.

So its a Triple Whammy if you don’t mind my French.

22

I suppose if I get services I don’t mind being taxed. If I expect some group to drive over and risk their lives for pulling me out of a burning building, I am happy to have collective pooling of money to pay for these services. Where I draw the line around this and what I consider services and how I would like, say, money for defense and war calculated, I am not sure of. If you had a society where collective services could be paid for by taxing corporations, great.

For me fear is just another emotion. Can be problematic, sure, but I have no desire to eliminate fear (or anger, or desire, or joy, or disgust or…). I do want to know when they are habitual (often choosing one emotion when another is appropriate) and I don’t want to get frozen in any emotion. But emotions are just peachy.

However I wouldn’t say I fear corporations, per se. It’s too abstract. I don’t like what they do when unfettered. Even their reckless playing around with AI, nano-tech, gene tech and so on is a little too abstract to get me afraid. I do think they are and will continue to play fast and loose with all our lives. IOW I consider them a threat in those fields.

23

Yes but that you dont mind doesn’t mean that everyone doesn’t mind. Even if one person minds it is coercion and Im sure many more than one (me) mind.
And if it can be financed from companies above 20 million only, then why would you want to encumber humans with being basically property of the state? I mean thats literally what taxes mean. You pay to exist.

24

I said if it works with just taxing corporations, great. Are you really going to end people’s sense that things are coercion? Even if one mind thinks whatever happens in your system is coercion, there is a problem? How will you handle contract disputes?

25

I don’t understand why you are asking me questions as if Im Leader of the World, but im honoured.
Still Im irritated. Because, what you’re not doing is look at my solution and give it some serious thought.
Ive had this before. I come up with an elegant solution to very long standing problems and all I get from most people is kind of an indignation like now that I solved the problem all of a sudden it ceases to interest them, as if it isnt a real problem.

This solution solves two enormous problems, one of corporate dominance and the other of the theft at gunpoint that forced taxes factually represent.

I wonder if you have it in you to celebrate the birth of a useful idea. Most people don’t, which is why useful ideas usually get tossed aside, and the pleasure of complaining continues to delegate people into its various issues.

26

I am asking you questions about the plan you presented.

I was probing it with questions, which is part of what I consider giving something serious thought. I ask questions, get information.

You presented what seemed rather utopian. No indignation on my part in the least. Some skepticism. I asked questions in an area where I could not understand your confidence.

Of course the current problems are a problem. I focused on your solution. Sometimes people are great at noticing the problems but their solutions have problems. I could have sent you a Valentine’s card, but I figured you were a big boy and could take some serious questions and a little skepticism. I still figure you are a big boy, so I don’t know what you’re on about.

[/quote]
Me, I don’t celebrate until I am confident something has happened. I don’t do this about personal things, like celebrate I got a job after the interview before they call me. I don’t do this when presented by ideas that people are proud of, however great they sound, until I feel some serious degree of confidence it will work or see it in action, at least on a small scale.

To take an idea to implementation in society is not, as far as I know, just coming up with a great idea. It is being able to deal with all sorts of questions, criticism, confusions, requests, testing and so on.

This forum is littered with geniuses, all of whom have solved enormous worldwide problems. Very few of them seem to deal well with criticism or even mere questions.

I will lay money down that the person who does change society or the world for the better will be a person who can deal with questions, doesn’t pout and ask for people to celebrate short descriptions of untried things they’ve read on their computer screens and who welcomes the chance to get into detail, rebuff criticism, demonstrate the intelligence of their ideas, etc.

But here’s some celebration…
:banana-dance: :banana-blonde: :banana-angel: :banana-fingers:

I won’t bother you about your idea any more.

27

I see it the other way around - the people who solve he worlds problems (and I already solved hard sociopolitical issues in my home country in a decade ago) are the ones who actually come up with solutions and not the one who arbitrarily throw “criticisms” at solutions that miss all context of the solution.

Like if I make an engine, you would ask: yeah but who will water my plants?

The ones who then address that question as if it is indeed an engine-problem (even if the engine is running perfectly) are not the ones I put my money on. But I know you would and you know what, I accept that from you.

28

Regarding socialism, it is a form of entropy. That’s what it is. It eats out the existing foundations and loosens existing norms and structures in order to release free energy like in an atomic reaction.

Well technically, all forms of collectivist politics and economics at state levels are this, socialism is just a shiny image and mask for moving in that direction. Even someone as stupid as Marx knew the process was capitalism to socialism to communism. He even wanted it, because again he was an idiot.

All states that don’t serve the peoples’ real interest are evil. The only state that legit does serve our interests would be a self-constrained one with limited rational power with checks and balances. Too bad that doesn’t exist anymore anywhere on the earth.

As for politics itself I don’t really believe in it anymore, what we are seeing today from any politics side or class is not really politics but a kind of theater show, a game. Trump is playing the game same as all the others do. Trump exists to stabilize the western American system for a short time longer so that the demographic shift and political indoctrination can keep going a bit longer, until the threshold is reached from which there is no going back. He is a kind of pressure release valve deployed by the globalists, whether or not he knows it (he probably does).

Trump allowed ISPs unlimited spying on everyone’s internet data and to sell that data, the ACA is not gone, Hilary and the Clinton foundation is not being charged or even investigated, he isn’t draining the swamp he is hiring it, wars in the Middle East and drone strikes continue, there is no wall, illegal immigration is still ongoing and massive, his tax law made only marginal changes that actually hurt people like me (I paid way more in taxes this last time for 2018 than ever before, on comparable income, and I know others in the same boat), he still props up fake Fox News and isn’t going shit about helping assange, no inquiry or even a word about Seth rich, it’s all just… a theater show. All of politics is a game being played on and with human beings, who don’t know it’s all a show.

Other than being the short term stabilizing force and pressure release valve Trump is also doin what is called revelation of method: he talks about a lot of true and bad things like fake news, globalism etc but he doesn’t actually do anything serious about any of it. It’s a normalization process.

So yeah, I’ll stick to my political observations and theories as I’m developing now in that thread, and leave actual “real politics” alone. I don’t care anymore about trump or anything in politics, it’s all bullshit. I like reading theories and discussing specific issues and ideas with others but otherwise I’ll just write my own stuff and be outside the system of it all. It’s incredible how effective the bullshit really is.

29

Indeed entropy can be “held together” by a combination of idea and desire. A reification of the desire can become a vacuum which tears at existing structures.
It matters to a degree how real the idea is, how much of actual function of worth it contains, because something that has no reality like the Spaghetti Monster simply doesn’t draw as much energy. To all popular ideas there is some truth, or rather, behind them is truth, something that wishes to be spoken and if nothing better is attempting it, then something like Socialism has a chance and when it takes it, it is impossible to reverse.

30

I disagree about Trump as you know but thats because I am operating from European theater, where his victory has made all the difference in the world. It has completely redeemed our (popular) relationship with the US and also prevented, Im as certain as one can be about things that didn’t happen, escalations with Russia. He defeated isis in Iraq and Syria, stopping the war there which had reigned all but one of Obamas years, and didn’t continue to invest in the other exploitation wars. He is thinking about firing Bolton over the idea of invading Iran. And that list goes on - Trump is a positive influence because of what he did not do, what he prevented, what he destroyed. Ray 1. But yes - one man, as we said back then, can’t take on a 40-60 trillion machine all by his lonesome. Of course he has been blackmailed out of his mind, there is always a pressure point if its just one man. Still Im sorry to hear about your taxes and the other stuff is bad enough that I completely understand your own lack of valuing of him. The world needs to take many other steps, and I should probably begin a pool over this Pluto ingress date Ive been working with.

31

It is all a game in as far as the internet is concerned. Trump allowing spying enables oversight on it, as we know it was already happening universally by at least several parties at once on every user. It is this which I consider to be the (an) AI - the universal thirst for user data. This selfvaluing form is powerful. Its not that I applaud it, its something that requires a whole techno-philosophical paradigm shift to deal with, meaning a decentralization of the internet, which seems pretty banally obvious - the way Mike Judges Silicon Valley portrays it is brilliant.