Guest MrRant Report post Posted September 9, 2002 And of course you love my posts in the Current Events folder. Especially the Statue of Liberty one! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Incandenza Report post Posted September 9, 2002 Hey, I suggest the "Dr. Tom" thread in Site Feedback be closed, and it was! ::in awe of own stroke with the Powers that Be:: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Cancer Marney Report post Posted September 9, 2002 Good move. That thread had been dead, buried, dug up, reanimated, hacked apart, and stitched together again. Killing it a third and final time was long overdue. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest DeputyHawk Report post Posted September 9, 2002 And of course you love my posts in the Current Events folder. Especially the Statue of Liberty one! what, this one? Yes we can... we are America. ::Statue Of Liberty poses and spits water on Europe:: best post ever. true story, too. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Some Guy Report post Posted September 9, 2002 ::Points out that Lady Liberty was a gift from the French, just to be a dick:: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest snowfan Report post Posted September 9, 2002 ::Points out that Lady Liberty was a gift from the French, just to be a dick:: points out that liberation from the Nazis was our gift to the French..... just to reciprocate. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest RazorxEDGE Report post Posted September 9, 2002 Smarkzone is pretty controversial. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Some Guy Report post Posted September 9, 2002 ::Points out that Lady Liberty was a gift from the French, just to be a dick:: points out that liberation from the Nazis was our gift to the French..... just to reciprocate. lol, very true. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest DrTom Report post Posted September 9, 2002 Smarkzone is pretty controversial. Good thing he's gone AGAIN then, no? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Some Guy Report post Posted September 9, 2002 Yes it is a good thing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest evenflowDDT Report post Posted September 9, 2002 Flow, Capitalism is based primarily on human greed, that's what makes it work so well. People by nature are more greedy than charitable. While I agree fully that capitalism is based on human greed, I refuse to believe that people are inherently greedy. From what I've experienced, in lower class levels, people stick together, and work together to better their community. To me, that's what "communism" is (apparently, its not the right definition, but I've never had the opportunity to read Marx's manifesto or taken any political science classes so its all I've got). For another example, I give the kibbutz system in Israel. Everyone works, everyone lives together, and everyone gets the same salary. Yet, there's no greed, nobody screws anyone else on the kibbutz over because they feel they're getting "less than they deserve". Greed is not a part of human nature, it has to be taught, and its prime teacher is capitalism. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest MrRant Report post Posted September 9, 2002 Not quite true. I am greedy because I want enough money to buy the things I enjoy. Capitalism hasn't taught me to want more. My nature is enjoyment and many expensive things bring me joy so I want money to buy said expensive things and since I wish lots of money I am greedy. And proud of it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest evenflowDDT Report post Posted September 9, 2002 My nature is enjoyment and many expensive things bring me joy so I want money to buy said expensive things... I realize this is going to come out totally wrong, but where do you think those "expensive things" come from? Capitalism is mainly responsible for these advancements and the promotion of them as "necessary". I'm not saying I also don't enjoy such advancements, but they're far from vital (e.g. driving a car that's not a Beamer will NOT kill you), and that the "importance" of such materialism is heavily promoted by capitalism, because that need is what causes the hunger for unnecessary advancement that fuels their system. It's possible to live happily without DVDs, computers, fine china, and anything else. People have been doing it for thousands of years. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Kotzenjunge Report post Posted September 9, 2002 MAJOR CAUSE OF DEATH BEFORE THE TWENTIETH CENTURY WAS BOREDOM, STUDY CONCLUDES I'm in too weird of a mood to be posting right now. Fo sheez, Kotzenjung Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest MrRant Report post Posted September 9, 2002 Its not needed to survive. I don't want a BMW because it was promoted as a better vehicle but it IS a better vehicle in most cases. Capitalism isn't responsible for advances.. there were communists that made scientific progress as well as Socialist Nazi's. Saying that I want better things because of quality doesn't make it Capitalism that made me want it. Do you think that when someone back in the days of Rome was at the corner market looking at some tomatoes she thought. "Well I want the tomato that doesn't look a bit rotted because of Capitalism." Wrong. Quality. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest DrTom Report post Posted September 9, 2002 Capitalism isn't responsible for advances.. there were communists that made scientific progress as well as Socialist Nazi's. Compare how many advances were made in the United States from 1917-1991, and compare how many came out of the Soviet Union. Add in Cuba. And China. Capitalism may not be responsible for advances, but it does provide people with an incentive to achieve, which communism does not. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest LooseCannon Report post Posted September 9, 2002 My nature is enjoyment and many expensive things bring me joy so I want money to buy said expensive things... I realize this is going to come out totally wrong, but where do you think those "expensive things" come from? Capitalism is mainly responsible for these advancements and the promotion of them as "necessary". I'm not saying I also don't enjoy such advancements, but they're far from vital (e.g. driving a car that's not a Beamer will NOT kill you), and that the "importance" of such materialism is heavily promoted by capitalism, because that need is what causes the hunger for unnecessary advancement that fuels their system. It's possible to live happily without DVDs, computers, fine china, and anything else. People have been doing it for thousands of years. Flow, I never found the argument that humans are inherently greedy and that capitalism works because it allows for that greed to be the most compelling argument in favor of capitalism, though it does have some rhetorical force. I think the more compelling argument has to do with the difference between central planning, which is innate in communist systems, and allowing the market to determine the optimal allocation of resources based on the aggregate motivation of the self-interested and allowing the government to correct for market failures. (That was a long sentence, I'm not sure if it made sense, but I'm in a bit of a hurry here.) When I say self-interested, that is not a synonym for "greedy," either. By self interested, all I mean to say is that, for example, if I'm in the mood to eat a chocolate donut, than I'm going to go buy a fucking chocolate donut. Correspondingly the baker where I buy the chocolate donut, perhaps notices that at the end of each evening, he sells more jelly donuts than he does chocolate donuts. Obviously, he's going to begin baking more jelly donuts than chocolate donuts. That's not greed. That's common sense. See how easily resources get allocated when we allow the market to determine what should be produced. If the baker has the capacity to bake 1000 donuts in a given day, he will find the optimum proportion of donuts to produce, such that he will find someone to buy all of his donuts every day. contrast this with central planning, which is inherent to communist systems, and you end up with 500 chocolate donuts and 500 jelly donuts, and probably 300 people end up settling for a chocolate donut, they don't even want. This is because communist systems require bureaucrats to determine the nation's production output. They have to decide how many cars to make, how many barrels of oil to refine, down to how many q-tips to manufacture. On top of that, the bureaucrats must then decide how to allocate resources to produce those products, hopefully hitting projections. Finally the bureaucrats must create a mechanism for how to distribute those goods without any regard to who really needs what, keeping in mind that the more you solve for who should get what goods, the more bureaucracy you create. Market economies operate much more smoothly, with the price one is willing to pay for a good, representing the value of that good to that person. And it really is amazing how well the system works based on very simple concepts of supply and demand and self interest. I, personally, do believe that market failures exist, and that the government should intervene to solve those market failures, and I'm probably fairly liberal in the amount of government intervention I'm willing to tolerate. But it is utterly essential that a market based system remains in place. On another note, Marx was somewhat interesting as a sociologist, but I would not read him for economic theory. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
