[Nicodimas]

Quote

Communism is the best government ever thought of, if you assume in a general goodness of humanity. With how I view humanity, good luck with Implementation.

Exactly I feel Anarcho-Capitalism would work the best. If you assign values to everything, life being the highest resource on the totem pole of course, you motivate people for true productivity. This way we use all the bad human traits for posistives by assigning high values to tasks with higher human need. Leadership is extremely important under this system and would probably faulter into a real nighmare easily is my crutch on implentation.

Unfortunately watching Goldman Sach, Federal Reserve, and certain people implement changes where they have complete control is horrifying atm looking at the numbers. Obviously the goverment must be able to come in and punish when corporation controls far too much power. Given free reign, greed is a real destroyer..

[Obdigore]

Nicodimas, on Aug 7 2009, 03:44 PM, said:

Quote

Communism is the best government ever thought of, if you assume in a general goodness of humanity. With how I view humanity, good luck with Implementation.

Exactly I feel Anarcho-Capitalism would work the best. If you assign values to everything, life being the highest resource on the totem pole of course, you motivate people for true productivity. This way we use all the bad human traits for posistives by assigning high values to tasks with higher human need. Leadership is extremely important under this system and would probably faulter into a real nighmare easily is my crutch on implentation.

Unfortunately watching Goldman Sach, Federal Reserve, and certain people implement changes where they have complete control is horrifying atm looking at the numbers. Obviously the goverment must be able to come in and punish when corporation controls far too much power. Given free reign, greed is a real destroyer..

Perhaps I don't understand Anarcho-Capitalism, but I don't think you have a government who comes in and punishes corporations who who have too much power. You also wouldn't be able to 'assign' a value on human life in this system, as the government cannot have much power in this type of society.

In addition, it is easy to a corporation to say 'just because we pay them 30c an hour, we aren't commiting a crime since we aren't depriving them of their life.'

[Sixty]

American history courses are absurdly nationalistic in many public high schools; it varies from district to district, however. My current summer reading assignment requires me to read Huckleberry Finn and:

Quote

...keep a reading journal. In the journal [I] will record quotations that reflect some of the traits that are uniquely American. These traits include:
-a spirit of independence
-the idea of the self-made man
--This is achieving personal goals by following morals
-the pursuit of the American Dream
--This is the individual's idea of being successful
-the quest for adventure and exploring new frontiers

Just read that, note the word "uniquely", and think about it for a second.

I'm not raging about it or anything, but the point is that American public school curriculum is far from unbiased.


As for communism: I used to think the idea of communism was amazing. Everyone would be treated equally and fairly. And then I realized that, due to innate human laziness, nothing would get accomplished. Therefore, instead of clawing for some unattainable ideal it's best to instead follow to the most practical method (which, from all we've seen throughout the course of human history, is capitalism).

I can see how government regulation is useful and even necessary when it comes to a capitalistic economy, but my personal opinion is that it's going too far (GM, for example...)

That's my 2 cents.

[Nicodimas]

Anarcho-Capitalism has goverment they only control law and military. There are some that the military is outsourced to private army like blackwater, but I don't believe in that. Just everything else should be controlled by private venture. I don't think you can enforce law without the force behind it unfortunately. Yea I realize how contradictary that sounds...

[Cougar]

Quote

...keep a reading journal. In the journal [I] will record quotations that reflect some of the traits that are uniquely American. These traits include:
-a spirit of independence
-the idea of the self-made man
--This is achieving personal goals by following morals
-the pursuit of the American Dream
--This is the individual's idea of being successful
-the quest for adventure and exploring new frontiers
--wearing a huge belt buckle with your name on it

Couldn't resist

[stone monkey]

Nicodimas, on Aug 7 2009, 11:23 PM, said:

Anarcho-Capitalism has goverment they only control law and military. There are some that the military is outsourced to private army like blackwater, but I don't believe in that. Just everything else should be controlled by private venture. I don't think you can enforce law without the force behind it unfortunately. Yea I realize how contradictary that sounds...

Hate to point this out to you, but that's Libertarianism not anarcho-capitalism. Anarcho-capitalism (like all form of anarchism) posits no government whatsoever... Especially a government that exists simply to hold the monopoly on force. It also posits, like most other forms of anarchism, no codified laws. Agreements between individuals or groups of individuals are fine, but they have no binding force but that which those individuals choose to let them have. The point being that a person or grouping that fails to live up to their agreements will very soon not be able to make any kind of agreements with anyone and are hence stuffed (to use a technical term )

Anarcho-capitalism also posits that all facets of society be left to the market. And yes, you are being somewhat contradictory here, I notice, as you previously stated that governments have no place in telling the military how to fight wars. But if a government controls the military why would it not be able to tell it how to fight a war? Also, if a government controls the police and the military how are they going to be paying for them? If you're an anarcho-capitalist (or more accurately, it would appear, a Libertarian) you have to be opposed to the levying of taxes. In which case the military and the legal system have to charge for their services, which means the market takes over. And if you're not opposed to the levying of taxes then the only way a government such as the one you propose is going to be able to enforce them is to use the military and police to enter peoples homes and take their stuff. Which gets us into totalitarian territory I feel...

Is anyone getting the picture as to why I might disagree so vehemently with this particular viewpoint yet?

You also state that life has the highest value; I would argue that life is beyond all considerations of value because placing an actual value on life gets us into the territory of slavery; where the price of a slave (during the heyday of the Triangular Trade, that is) was the estimated monetary value of how much work you could get out of them in ten years. This was because after ten years it was expected that you'd have worked that particular slave to death... A human life is simply so much more than a figure on a balance sheet imo.

As it stands today, anarcho-capitalism is a nightmare of truly astonishing proportions. We know markets go wrong, we know markets exploit people, markets pander to some of the worst impulses that humans have; so I'm not sure why any sane person would believe that the market is the best way to run everything.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 08 August 2009 - 06:17 PM

[Coco with marshmallows]

stone monkey, on Aug 8 2009, 07:08 PM, said:

A human life is simply so much more than a figure on a balance sheet imo.

I agree. BUT

i have two rather depressing words for you on that score:

Life Insurance.

Its not something accountants or actuaries like to talk about, but ultimately, they
put a figure for human lives on balance sheets all the time.

On a more occasional scale, judges frequently award civil damages related to loss of life too.

To drag the thread back ontopic after my slight diversion,

I'd like to quote someone far wiser than me when it comes to my political views:

"A Conservative is a Liberal who's just been robbed.
A Liberal is a Conservatice who's just been caught"

Basically, it depends on the issue, and frequently can depend on my personal mood.

[Mentalist]

i'm somewhat left, I think. Social Democrat, probably.

I believe government should give us the basics (healthcare/education), to provide a level playing field for people from all walks of life, in a sense that everyone gets the same "starting capital" of health+ knowledge. I have no problem with free markets, as longas there are some very broad restrictions, to ensure it doesn't become a self-consuming runaway monster.

As for social views, i'm pro-choice, and I have nothing against alternative lifestyles, as long they're not waved in my face. if they are, i'll punch the waver--not because of what he chooses to be, but simply because he's in my face.

i'm also a nationalist on top of all that. but if defined in one word, i'd still say left.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

I'm probably a libertarian (by connotation) but not out of principle. I'm probably libertarian out of a complete lack of faith in government.

Anyhow I marked Centrist, because I truly am a centrist. I'm not a hawk, but I'm no peacemaker. Socially I don't care if you own a thousand assault rifles, or if you like to take it in the behind. Unusually, I'm not apathetic though. Call me vehemently neutral. I don't think there are a lot of times that the Government should intervene, and all of them are military or budgetary.

In the States we're the silent majority. When 40% turnout for an election is considered good, 20.001% of the population decides policy. I know that many people don't vote because they can't stand both parties, or their policy, or their candidates and are resigned to get screwed either way with or without voting. I think we need the option to vote blank, like Apt's homeland of Denmark (and probably many others).

Our political system sucks.

[Nicodimas]

Quote

I'm not sure why any sane person would believe that the market is the best way to run everything.

My goverment would be extremely loose of course.

You are leaving out the biggest and most important point. You are looking at this through a negative light. Reverse this part and really view it that credit is come from anything that better's others versus bettering a company.

The goverments would be run by the churches. This way everything is valued in morality based credits alone. This way the betterment of humanity could be reached. Essentially Religious-based Semi-Anarcho-Capitalism. It wouldn't be paticular to any one religion, but them all. It would be exactly like Warhammer 40k's Emperor and the goverment could feed on the idea of expansionism of the universe.

This is not the ideal world. This is the ideal human world. Now if we don't have the constraints of being finitely human.... Most people need to know an afterlife exists and that they get paid... Combine this with the belief of personal freedom<let the people get away with most anything> and you got a awesome system.

All for the God-Emperor!
(off to go watch entourage)

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Nicodimas, on Aug 9 2009, 07:47 PM, said:

Quote

I'm not sure why any sane person would believe that the market is the best way to run everything.

My goverment would be extremely loose of course.

You are leaving out the biggest and most important point. You are looking at this through a negative light. Reverse this part and really view it that credit is come from anything that better's others versus bettering a company.

The goverments would be run by the churches. This way everything is valued in morality based credits alone. This way the betterment of humanity could be reached. Essentially Religious-based Semi-Anarcho-Capitalism. It wouldn't be paticular to any one religion, but them all. It would be exactly like Warhammer 40k's Emperor and the goverment could feed on the idea of expansionism of the universe.

This is not the ideal world. This is the ideal human world. Now if we don't have the constraints of being finitely human.... Most people need to know an afterlife exists and that they get paid... Combine this with the belief of personal freedom<let the people get away with most anything> and you got a awesome system.

All for the God-Emperor!
(off to go watch entourage)

Wat?

[Mentalist]

huh?

main problem arises when we remember that we're stil confined to a single planet and its oh-so-finite resources...

[MTS]

*scratches head* that's got to be the most far-fetched political philosophy I've ever encountered...

Another problem I see is religious cohesion, if this philosophy is supposed to encompass all religions...

This post has been edited by Mappo's Travelling Sack: 10 August 2009 - 05:31 AM

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I think the biggest problem is your philosophy came from a scifi game.

[Morgoth]

Raymond Luxury Yacht, on Aug 10 2009, 07:32 AM, said:

I think the biggest problem is your philosophy came from a scifi game.

created to sell miniature figures no less.

that's of course ignoring the fact that he wants the government to be the church

[Tapper]

Nicodimas, on Aug 10 2009, 04:47 AM, said:

Quote

I'm not sure why any sane person would believe that the market is the best way to run everything.

My goverment would be extremely loose of course.

You are leaving out the biggest and most important point. You are looking at this through a negative light. Reverse this part and really view it that credit is come from anything that better's others versus bettering a company.

The goverments would be run by the churches. This way everything is valued in morality based credits alone. This way the betterment of humanity could be reached. Essentially Religious-based Semi-Anarcho-Capitalism. It wouldn't be paticular to any one religion, but them all. It would be exactly like Warhammer 40k's Emperor and the goverment could feed on the idea of expansionism of the universe.

This is not the ideal world. This is the ideal human world. Now if we don't have the constraints of being finitely human.... Most people need to know an afterlife exists and that they get paid... Combine this with the belief of personal freedom<let the people get away with most anything> and you got a awesome system.

All for the God-Emperor!
(off to go watch entourage)

Wow, I got to give you virtual rep for derailing us with 40k stuff for a full page in what was up until now, a rather on-topic and quite serious discussion/ expression of view...

[Tapper]

Morgoth, on Aug 10 2009, 08:27 AM, said:

Raymond Luxury Yacht, on Aug 10 2009, 07:32 AM, said:

I think the biggest problem is your philosophy came from a scifi game.

created to sell miniature figures no less.

that's of course ignoring the fact that he wants the government to be the church

and sacrifice a million people a day to a machine

[Morgoth]

Tapper, on Aug 10 2009, 09:01 AM, said:

Morgoth, on Aug 10 2009, 08:27 AM, said:

Raymond Luxury Yacht, on Aug 10 2009, 07:32 AM, said:

I think the biggest problem is your philosophy came from a scifi game.

created to sell miniature figures no less.

that's of course ignoring the fact that he wants the government to be the church

and sacrifice a million people a day to a machine

and build spaceships out of wood to fight mutated humans worshipping ancient gods

[drinksinbars]

this has to be the nerdiest topic ever now. well done.

[Cougar]

Nicodimas, on Aug 10 2009, 03:47 AM, said:

The goverments would be run by the churches. This way everything is valued in morality based credits alone. This way the betterment of humanity could be reached. Essentially Religious-based Semi-Anarcho-Capitalism. It wouldn't be paticular to any one religion, but them all. It would be exactly like Warhammer 40k's Emperor and the goverment could feed on the idea of expansionism of the universe.

2 small points:

History (including present day) suggests that religious involvement in government is one sure way to really mess up your country.

Second how can you have Anarcho-Capitalism when the market is constrained by the morality of the church. Since this system relies entirely on the logic of the markets to define it's cultural norms, as SM has pointed out, the market can not be subject to the morality of a religion. For example if the most profitable business is a roaring trade in sex or abortions it's no good having this constrained by the church. What you actually seem to be describing is some kind of Laissez-faire theocracy.

Blood for the Blood god, unfettered free-market capitalism for the throne of Khorne.