The Socialism Thread

Over the last 6 months or so

I've been reading a lot of futurist theory

and political theory and moral philosophy

and the more I thought about things

the more one particular issue started to eat away at me

  On 9/22/2015 at 11:10 AM, hello spiral said:

CEO who raised price of old pill more than $700 calls journalist a moron for asking why

 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/09/21/ceo-of-company-that-raised-the-price-of-old-pill-hundreds-of-dollars-overnight-calls-journalist-a-moron-for-asking-why/

(Yes, it's literally a cure)

And how it costs about $150,000usd

And I started to think about what might happen

When we stumble upon radical life-extension therapies

Now, I've always been more or less a 'socialist'

(At least in the colloquial sense)

So all this didn't really change my position much

But rather I realized just how high the stakes really were

Now, the solution is very simple (theory-wise, not logistics-wise of course):

we all 'socialize' the cost of R&D for such pharmaceuticals

And then we all share in the fruits

For the last few years

Uber-right 'libertarianism' (aka 'anarcho-capitalism')

Has been a growing phenomenon here in the states

Especially among tech-minded, Silicon Valley types

Like Peter Theil

Who once said "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible"

And who openly advocates monopolies (i.e. companies that can charge $700usd/pill)

Now, radical life-extension is merely an engineering challenge

And as I've said previously

As its realization grows closer and closer

And the stakes grow higher and higher

There will be a reckoning of sorts:

People will truly have to decide if they're a dirty socialist

Or a freedom-loving sociopath

In 20 years

Fountainhead Paul will be telling us that it's a testament to our freedom

That poor people only live 25% as long as rich people

And that the most sacred freedom on earth

Is the freedom for corporations to price their products as they choose

Regardless of the social impact

Anyway, just something I've been thinking about lately

wait, was that a poem? in what verse?

  On 9/22/2015 at 4:57 PM, goDel said:

wait, was that a poem? in what verse?

See last three pages of FWP thread for (bizarrely long) discussion of my writing style

bernie is saying he's a socialist. wondering if that will doom him and give trump the apocalypse wheel.

i see your point, hard to disagree with.

the republicans have been using socialist as a slur against obama, not sure how bernie plans to win a general election proudly claiming to be a socialist.

Anything that is beneficial for the collective should be socialized, everything extra can be done by the market.

  On 9/22/2015 at 5:05 PM, LimpyLoo said:

 

  On 9/22/2015 at 4:57 PM, goDel said:

wait, was that a poem? in what verse?

See last three pages of FWP thread for (bizarrely long) discussion of my writing style

 

Would read if I would have a clue where to find this mystical FWP thread.

Favorite Wine Porn?

Funny Word Protocols?

bwu..

  On 9/22/2015 at 5:14 PM, azatoth said:

Anything that is beneficial for the collective should be socialized, everything extra can be done by the market.

agreed, but even this should be carefully regulated to prevent people being ripped off.

this is an interesting article about the current state of affairs with the UK utilities market.

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/jul/10/uk-energy-system-in-thrall-to-giant-utilities-customers-budget-renewables

as is often the case, the market rips off those who can least afford it. the elderly.

renewables are the way forward, especially the local co-operatives idea.

everyone just wants to be rich

  On 9/22/2015 at 5:58 PM, eugene said:

everyone just wants to be rich

i don't

I just want enough to be able to persue my projects

studies rather consistently show

That beyond helping to avoid the Maslowian unhappiness of poverty

wealth doesn't affect happiness

your imagination is limited by your lack of resources, you're psychologically inclined to imagine projects that you more or less can afford. your very belonging to a certain class does that.

it's kinda similar to when i was choosing new speakers not long ago, i avoided demoing speakers that were more than 1k$ that i could spend on that.

Clean diesel about to blow up like a mofo.

  On 9/22/2015 at 6:25 PM, eugene said:

your imagination is limited by your lack of resources, you're psychologically inclined to imagine projects that you more or less can afford. your very belonging to a certain class does that.

 

it's kinda similar to when i was choosing new speakers not long ago, i avoided demoing speakers that were more than 1k$ that i could spend on that.

if I somehow found myself 'needing' more than a few thousand dollars to do my projects

I hope I would realize that I had gone astray somewhere along the way

  On 9/22/2015 at 6:50 PM, LimpyLoo said:

 

  On 9/22/2015 at 6:25 PM, eugene said:

your imagination is limited by your lack of resources, you're psychologically inclined to imagine projects that you more or less can afford. your very belonging to a certain class does that.

 

it's kinda similar to when i was choosing new speakers not long ago, i avoided demoing speakers that were more than 1k$ that i could spend on that.

if I somehow found myself 'needing' more than a few thousand dollars to do my projects

I hope I would realize that I had gone astray somewhere along the way

 

I would love to go to space.

But I can't afford it.

  On 9/22/2015 at 5:58 PM, eugene said:

everyone just wants to be rich

Everyone.. where?

https://youtu.be/c5nfracXAt4?t=6m58s

blegh

  On 9/22/2015 at 7:20 PM, taubs said:

https://youtu.be/c5nfracXAt4?t=6m58s

 

blegh

That is indeed a knockdown argument.......for state 'socialism'

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FyyvzrMzJFg

Edit: against state socialism, that is

But to the extent that the state controls production

It's not socialism

  On 9/22/2015 at 7:04 PM, taubs said:

 

  On 9/22/2015 at 5:58 PM, eugene said:

everyone just wants to be rich

Everyone.. where?

everywhere. come on, who doesn't have an aspect of their life that could be improved with more money.

  On 9/22/2015 at 7:51 PM, LimpyLoo said:

But to the extent that the state controls production

It's not socialism

that's not correct. one true Scotsman alert.

"Socialism" is such a vacuous term. It's been abused by all sides as to become essentially meaningless.

The planet should be afraid:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/commentisfree/2015/sep/22/the-guardian-view-on-the-vw-crisis-the-planet-should-be-afraid

State control of prices/production (when there is a scarcity of resources/energy at any rate) is provably wrong. No matter how complicated a computer model we could possibly come up with, it'll simply never work.

Libertarian socialist models are as ludicrous as extreme/naive individualist Libertarian models, the former is an oxymoron, the latter is impossible to protect from balkanised fascism.

The main problem with socialism in general is that it tends to increase overall inefficiency and corruption, even if the motives are in the right place, it fails to take account of innate human shittiness, and so the assholes tend to rise to the top of everything and bugger everything up for the rest of us.

Our current global system isn't much better than this though, of course it's not a free market system either (and free doesn't mean 'no regulation' btw, it just means 'free from bad regulation'), so maybe we should have a proper go at that any see if it does any better. That doesn't mean we have to throw out all socialist concepts (welfare systems, progressive taxation, free education, etc.), but they need to be empirically validated.

Actually, that douchey pharma CEO is a great example of bad-regulation, it's not a good example of the evils of free market capitalism. He can only get away with that shit because it's too costly for anyone else to enter the market for that pill - despite the fact that the patent has expired. This isn't a problem in the EU, where a generic version of the drug could be fast tracked for little up-front investment, and the price would come down to a reasonable level pretty quickly. But the US has onerous FDA regulation, even for new generic versions of already approved drugs, and so it's just not economical for anyone else to enter the market. This would be true for all R&D if it weren't for the patent system, which protects the profits for a certain time allowing them to pay off the massive R&D investments they put in.

  On 9/22/2015 at 9:33 PM, caze said:

State control of prices/production (when there is a scarcity of resources/energy at any rate) is provably wrong. No matter how complicated a computer model we could possibly come up with, it'll simply never work.

Japanese and South Korean growth in the 1960s through 1980s would beg to differ. Both of these nations utilized significant state intervention in their economic growth.