09-26-2015 10:33 PM
#976
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09-27-2015 07:19 AM
#977
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So it's really a secondary motive. | |
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09-27-2015 07:39 AM
#978
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In my worldview, there are two parts to the profit motive. The first is the short-term in the sense of being able to provide for those needs that you listed earlier (hunger, thirst, shelter, etc.). This is the same as the motive for cavemen to go out and pick berries or whatever the hell they did, and it's tied to the immediate harvest of resources. It's also tied to being driven to reproduce and the behaviors that are needed for that. This is largely genetic/inherent/nature/etc. | |
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09-27-2015 10:54 AM
#979
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09-27-2015 12:48 PM
#980
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I don't know what's going on, but I find myself agreeing with about everything spoony has been posting recently. | |
09-27-2015 02:31 PM
#981
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09-27-2015 03:13 PM
#982
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the state exists by will of humans, but it also has its own agenda indifferent to that will. this isn't to say the state is sentient -- clearly it's not -- but that the bodies that make up the state often end up with different agendas than that of the people. |
10-08-2015 10:11 PM
#983
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02-22-2016 08:16 PM
#984
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Im bored waiting for time warner to not be shity, so I'm reviving this thread. You can thank time warner for that! | |
02-22-2016 08:40 PM
#985
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Here's a question. In spite of college, the internet, and much more free time...is our generation less skilled than prior ones? | |
02-22-2016 09:42 PM
#986
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I intended this to be no longer than six lines, as I don't have much time right now. But no can do. It's my English professor continually telling me to explain. |
Last edited by wufwugy; 02-23-2016 at 12:13 AM. | |
02-23-2016 06:05 AM
#987
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No, but you're asking the wrong question. Our generation is certainly exposed to more edifying stimuli per unit time. The average 30 year old today knows FAR more than the average 30 year old of yester-generation. The problem is that the market is not in need of people with an abundance of trivia knowledge. It is in need of whatever it demands. So, locally within populations, there are deficiencies in marketable skills in the current generation that perhaps didn't exist in the last generation. Thirty years ago, there was more demand for unskilled labor. There was more demand for trainable labor. Think of all the (actually quite lucrative) door to door vacuum cleaner salesman type jobs that existed in the 1980s that were supplanted by infomercials and eventually Amazon. | |
03-27-2016 08:37 AM
#988
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Barry Schwartz blows Capitalism out of the fucking water. | |
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03-27-2016 09:39 AM
#989
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03-27-2016 11:18 AM
#990
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This is an embittered man who laments the simple life of his memories, and rejects the simple life of today's children's memories. | |
03-27-2016 11:18 AM
#991
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His statement on the thesis for why the element of choice and freedom in capitalism creates welfare is incorrect. It is not "the more choice they have, the more freedom they have, the more welfare they have." Freedom of choice doesn't create welfare. Freedom of choice is a necessary backdrop for people to use other tools to create welfare. Freedom is the sample space. Events outside the sample space cannot happen. The more freedom, the more elements within the sample space that have the potential to be used to create welfare. |
Last edited by wufwugy; 03-27-2016 at 11:27 AM. | |
03-27-2016 11:23 AM
#992
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03-27-2016 11:25 AM
#993
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I'm pretty sure I agree with wuf on this one. | |
03-27-2016 11:33 AM
#994
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03-27-2016 11:33 AM
#995
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I have huge choice paralysis, especially at restaurants | |
03-27-2016 11:53 AM
#996
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It is not likely that this is caused by quantity of choices. |
03-27-2016 11:59 AM
#997
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The speaker's unintended thesis is that abundance is bad. |
04-10-2016 09:27 AM
#998
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04-10-2016 09:48 AM
#999
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Nah. This is a problem of building codes and regulations. | |
04-10-2016 11:39 AM
#1000
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His blog post is skimp on the details, so I can't address them. |
04-10-2016 02:57 PM
#1001
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04-10-2016 03:15 PM
#1002
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There are tons of examples of people, or groups of people, who know what's in my best interest better than me. | |
04-10-2016 04:15 PM
#1003
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The world and its people are better off by several orders of magnitude due to what you're calling a problem. Things are constantly, rapidly improving too. |
04-10-2016 04:27 PM
#1004
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You're on the right track. But we need to go deeper. |
04-10-2016 05:09 PM
#1005
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04-10-2016 06:06 PM
#1006
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Just like how society has punished homosexuality and now there are no homosexuals. |
04-10-2016 11:11 PM
#1007
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So basically capitalism and communism both suck, largely for the same reason. Greed. | |
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04-10-2016 11:32 PM
#1008
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Where would you get that idea? Capitalism is amazing. It's the reason why cars exist. It's why I can eat $1 sandwiches, watch films made in Denmark, and tell you how awesome capitalism is through this series of tubes. |
04-11-2016 08:48 AM
#1009
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04-11-2016 02:35 PM
#1010
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This isn't guesswork. The field of economics has long since come to the same conclusion. Economics is the study of how resources are produced, distributed, and consumed. Market capitalism is the paradigm by which the modern world has produced, distributed, and consumed resources. If you were to ask an economist who specializes in economic history, he would tell you the world of consumer products we have today emerged from market capitalism and that if instead the paradigm had been any of the other popular paradigms, there is no way to say that the same results would have come and it is likely the results would have been far less productive. |
10-01-2016 09:11 AM
#1011
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So with the idea that individuals best decide what their money is spent on what happens in the case of children? |
10-01-2016 09:56 AM
#1012
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Without capitalism you wouldn't have eyeglasses in the first place (that's a joke). | |
10-01-2016 10:04 AM
#1013
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Different systems can be better optimized on different scales. | |
10-01-2016 12:21 PM
#1014
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10-01-2016 12:45 PM
#1015
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They're value judgments of course but I believe the distribution of resources in a strictly capitalist system tends to be overly skewed towards having a few very well-off individuals at the expense of the people in the middle and at the bottom. | |
10-01-2016 12:57 PM
#1016
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I think I'm going to approach this two different ways. The first is in a very macro sense. |
10-01-2016 01:03 PM
#1017
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I know this is very long so I don't expect you to watch, but in case you want to. Milton Friedman has long discussed how free market capitalism benefits the poorer more greatly than the richer. |
10-01-2016 01:12 PM
#1018
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If I understand you correctly, you're against such a program in principle because that wouldn't be capitalism and so should be dismissed regardless of being eminently better at face value. | |
10-01-2016 01:15 PM
#1019
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If you want some examples of how government benefits the rich and free markets benefit the poor.... |
10-01-2016 01:16 PM
#1020
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10-01-2016 01:18 PM
#1021
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10-01-2016 01:25 PM
#1022
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I embrace capitalism because it is better at total value. If socialism was capable of providing greater value, I would support that. But it hasn't and according to the best economics theory we got, it can't. |
10-01-2016 01:28 PM
#1023
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That's already the case. Capitalism improves access. Government bills its programs as helping the least fortunate, but it doesn't. This isn't entirely due to corruption either. For example, the least fortunate are made worse off by "good" programs to help them because those programs by nature are disincentives for their improvement. |
10-01-2016 01:30 PM
#1024
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10-01-2016 01:35 PM
#1025
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I wouldn't argue otherwise if you're comparing strict capitalism to strict communism. But it's not a black vs. white argument. There's a middle ground that you're happier believing can't be any better. I'm arguing it can. | |
10-01-2016 01:38 PM
#1026
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That is socialism. Social ownership requires government (otherwise ownerships would be private). Then we have the same problem of government, when it does what it naturally does and is meant to do, benefits the strongest. |
10-01-2016 01:40 PM
#1027
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10-01-2016 01:41 PM
#1028
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10-01-2016 01:43 PM
#1029
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10-01-2016 01:47 PM
#1030
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Maybe that's because you haven't looked. | |
10-01-2016 01:48 PM
#1031
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10-01-2016 01:53 PM
#1032
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I meant examples of how governments can improve capitalism. |
10-01-2016 02:04 PM
#1033
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Where does it say things need to be binary? Either full on padded-elbow mememe capitalism or some marxist utopia. Wouldn't it be better to pick the cherries from both? What stops us from embracing the economic strengths of capitalism in trade and production, while providing basic safety nets for everyone? With the massive changes to the labor markets in the next decades due to AI and robotics, close to 50% of the current jobs will be gone. There just won't be work for everyone. How does the free market address this? Oh yeah, by killing off the weaklings. | |
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10-01-2016 02:08 PM
#1034
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10-01-2016 02:11 PM
#1035
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If something other than capitalism could reasonably be expected to benefit in some areas, I'm open to it. |
10-01-2016 02:17 PM
#1036
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^Either you or I haven't properly read up on this. Already by 2020 7 million jobs are estimated to be lost, with 2 million new ones created. I have not heard any claims that overall more jobs would be created, and intuitively that sounds untrue. Source? | |
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10-01-2016 02:18 PM
#1037
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10-01-2016 02:26 PM
#1038
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10-01-2016 02:27 PM
#1039
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10-01-2016 02:31 PM
#1040
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10-01-2016 02:35 PM
#1041
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I didn't provide the economic philosophy for why (it's hard but also fun). Here are some elements to it: as productivity increases, the opportunity cost of more work increases, which incentivizes more leisure. Innovations like mechanization have led to people having more leisure time. This leads to even greater innovation since leisure time includes hobbies and other projects. New markets are created from this and over history we've seen this process grow the total economy. |
10-01-2016 02:38 PM
#1042
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It is possible that we should begin worrying about technology killing jobs when our comparative advantage of human capital (more or less our brains) is eliminated by AI. Even then, I don't think it would happen, probably because I think humans will always limit AI, but it is a question. |
10-02-2016 08:55 AM
#1043
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10-02-2016 09:19 AM
#1044
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How about nationalising the railways? By taking into public ownership of the railways, both public transport and goods freight can be made cheaper, either by cutting out profit, or by subsidising using tax. | |
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10-02-2016 09:26 AM
#1045
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The whole reason the trains are a mess is because government controls it all makes a huge monopoly eventually sells it at a tiny % of the cost it would otherwise sell for and then the people who bought it have a monopoly on the market. |
10-02-2016 09:32 AM
#1046
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Trains companies love this and I don't know why the consumer accepts it. The fact it isn't more integrated is madness. |
10-02-2016 09:37 AM
#1047
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I'm fairly sure the watchdog insisted that cheapest rail fares must be calculated and shown by the websites. I got that fare from National Rail Enquiries. | |
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10-02-2016 10:18 AM
#1048
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The invention of the combine harvester was the single greatest moment in modern history in a very real way. That one machine increased the amount of food a single person could produce by factors of ten. It literally put 80+% of farmers out of work. | |
10-02-2016 10:37 AM
#1049
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10-02-2016 10:54 AM
#1050
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Profit is essential to determining what works. Without he profit motive, the train system would maintain a stasis of gradual decline. We've seen this in public infrastructure everywhere. The reason the profit motive is so important is that it incentivizes producers of goods and services to innovate so that consumers want more of what they provide. |