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Thats true. We cannot account for human qualities or rather "dis-qualities" when thinking up a new life, a new system a new everything. Because we cannot predict what we are, or what we are going to do. We change.... so therefore our system changes. |
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capatilism was created to benefit the elites in society. marx says it best with his definition of three kinds of people in a capitalist world. the land owners, the capatilists (ones with the $$$) and the workers. the workers are there to be exploited. they have to sell themselves and compete with one another making them less human. this is what is now happening to countries in globalisation. they are competing with one another and lowering their standards, working and environmental, just to make a quick buck. it's sad. wars and conflict can arise when countries do not want to surrender their dignity to the wealthier countries. see US vs. Nicaragua. then they're labeled as "bad", "communist" or, dare i say, "axis of evil". nicaragua was beaten to a bloody pulp by the US with terrorism tactics. 10,000s of people lost their lives. it was to remove the govt. humans are greedy? all emotions and attitudes people have are not natural. we are social. attributes, like greed are learned. would greed exist if society was not based on material goods? i think not. anti-capitalist? yes. without capatilism though i might not be listening to this damn fine album by cex titled 'oops, i did it again!'. but then again a factory worker in china may be getting paid a hell of a lot more than 50c to work a ten hour day. |
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?humans are greedy? all emotions and attitudes people have are not natural. we are social. attributes, like greed are learned. would greed exist if society was not based on material goods? i think not. " i think ur mostly right but not completely.. while people value material good so much because they are tought to, theres also a natural side to it: greed is just an expression of our natural instinct for self-preservation of course i will want more resources (food/money whatever) to myself (IMHO) even my cats steal each others food... |
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sorry, that was sort of fragmented: "of course i will want more resources (food/money whatever) to myself" ...i meant cus it will ensure my survival (well i didn't mean ME per say.. just people/animals in general) |
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the human we are today is much different to the human that walked the earth 30,000 years ago. apart from less body hair, we are a lot smarter. but, unfortunately we don't act it. by being greedy we are not showing our advancement as the highest being on earth. we should show more responsibilty. we have all the technology and resources we need for self-preservation. we don't use it. unfortunately most of the people on this earth are still acting like your two cats:) nothing we do is natural anymore. apart from eat, sleep and shit. |
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someone said earlier that we here are all spoilt brats -- i have to rise at 5am six days a week for a shitty job and use a computer that is total crap with a monitor that keeps cutting off -- i feel like a whore having to squander my life working for a system i hate, a system that taxes me out of any kind of pleasure - and our rulers use the money for themselves - to push themselves forward - someone said they weren't anticapitalist, but antigreed - capitalism wallows and rewards greed - stomp on your brother to rise up - the scum also rises - people who are anticommunism are either brainwashed suckers or terminal pessimists and have given up, condemning us all to a life of misery |
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"..people who are anticommunism are either brainwashed suckers or terminal pessimists and have given up, condemning us all to a life of misery " ...yes.. yes, that must be it *sarcastic* perhaps you should write down ur complaint about ur job and crappy computer and mail it to some korean kid who works in a fireworks factory im sure she would love to hear about it |
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aristocracy is the "ideal" goverment and is supposedly the best and most just. through the fall of this state, the various forms of government are seen in descending order : 1) Aristocracy 2) Timocracy 3) Oligarchy 4) Plutocracy 5) Democracy 6) Anarchy 7) Tyrannical -so, living in the democratic US of A we are obviously far from perfect, but at least we aren't ruled by fucking fidel castro or some shit like that. |
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i wouldn't call the US democratic. |
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hehe neither would i |
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technically it is |
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but i understand what you guys are saying |
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hmm. Latin "cracia". |
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you seem to have misinterpreted my point aminal, a thing i suspected would happen -- i was showing that not all the people on this messageboard are "spoilt brats" -- and that just because the rest of the world is fucked up, does not mean that we should all feel mass guilt and ignore our own plight. and also, i didn't say that we should be communists, but said we shouldn't be ANTI-communist -- and by communist i am not referring to the corrupt Soviet Union, but to the ideal of sharing, working together (which works at least as well as being competitive), and not allowing one person to be called "leader". being anti-capitalist does not of course mean one has to be anti-technology, not at all - in fact, i believe technology is the reason that money is becoming an obselete concept, and therefore capitalism. |
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hm.. sorry marlowe, i didn't mean to jump on u like that.. ur right about technology though, i think that as we become more and more thoroughly connected in a virtual world, material belongings have less and less significance. i think this is also where we get into word problems.. everyone uses the wors socialism and communism differently.. and almost nobody uses them as the concepts they were originally supposed to mean |
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i didnt say i believed in capitalism when i said i wasnt really anti capitalist... i also didnt say i was anti communist... what i meant when i said i was anti greed was that greed is at the root of many problems...like the failure of both these economic systems.. i agree with the people who said greed is a natural thing...all animals could be considered selfish...its a natural instinct to watch out for oneself.. humans may have progressed past really needing this instinct..it doesnt mean it has gone away...people are always going to want more than they have...even if they have more than enough to survive ..im sure there are some exceptions..i was sorta generalizing there.. |
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follow up to: Watermelon man .. [don't think it works on mah computer?] too true .. yet - according to Marx (imo) we arent ready for Communism yet - and so - in a perverted kind of way : if one were a true Marxist - one at this point in time would be a Capitalist .. imo, if capitalism is halted prematurely, then this will only delay the dialectic leap to Communism .. ofcourse this is confounded by a whole heap of other variables. But in theory. Re: the greed - quite questionable .. Don't know if you are familiar with Hobbes ??? ie. the limited material sources (material scarecity) is always going to ensue SOME greed (or glory) .. But its quite cool stuff anyhow. |
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hey it's cool, no jumping done :) greed can spread easily when a few people have too much power - and having one person running a country more or less ensures that corruption will occur - look at nixon, surrounding himself with his cronies and fixers &tc - the link between psychotic sociapathicity and politics/business has been documented - if the whole population would open their eyes for just a day they would immediately lynch their congressman, their preacher, and their president. in my opinion, of course. |
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Who on earth would train for years to become a "Proffessional", go into a stressful, challenging job and work longer hours if there was no reward for it? Wouldn't everyone want to work in stressless, few hour "nice" jobs like gardening? You have to reward people for what they contribute to society. That said many people are solely motivated by greed and/or are vastly overpaid for the usefulness of their work e.g. film and pop stars. I don't believe in putting money over people, but I do feel that society should recognise (and reward) people such as doctors, engineers, architects, computing professionals, lawyers, etc. |
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The USA is a capit-mocracy, the party with most access to funds wins. Britain is going the same way. Communism (as in Russia) has proven to be crap, but it's not an exact replica of Marx's ideals by a long way. Everyone benefits from the rich and hard working, you use roads and the streetlights for the rich also benfit you as do most things. Even if only the rich had doctors, they would still treat poor people while there were no rich people ill at that time, so that they (the doctor) could make more money as well as doing good. One way to resolve this argument is look at your quality of life. Can you honestly say you "earn" *everything* you have/benefit from. By that I mean if you yourself lived in the mountains alone and built everything you used/did all "work" you needed yourself, would be as "well off" as you are now? |
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do you know the sums these people earn? are you saying that a lawyer, earning £200,000 p/a, actually gives a fuck about upholding a pure and equible vision of justice whilst charging outrageous prices? people who enter professions with noble ideals are soon forced to either change or quit - these professions have no room for ethics over money - it is ALL profit-oriented. if a doctor became a doctor truly to help people, he/she would take a minimal wage and resign rather than compromise principles; if a lawyer really cared about justice, he/she would take a minimal wage and fight the system. i am not denying there are individuals who are like this, but they are viewed with horror and alienated by their colleagues. oh, and are you saying that only professionals work long, hard hours? that seemed to be the hint you were making. professionals are there to perpetuate capitalism - it is a self-serving, self-referencing malaise. the soviet union was not a marxist country, and it was not a communist state, whatever it may or may not have claimed. and you seem to be stuck in the same mindset, judging "welloff" by the size of your bankbalance, your job, the size of your car (if you have one), the size of your abode --- being well-off, to me, is about being concerned for humans as a whole. you think that to make something of oneself, you have to focus on working hard for a living? people have different things to give -- saying a doctor is more important than, say, a farmer, is bullshit; yet an average doctor earns a hell of a lot more than an average farmer. |
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Excuse me, I have worked as a labourer, painter (as in houses rather than art), gardener, turn style man at a football ground and a waiter as well as a computing professional. I can honestly say that I contributed far more to society, worked longer hours and trained harder than I did in any of my other jobs as a computing professional. I am also paid more. What's wrong with that? You said "saying a doctor is more important than, say, a farmer, is bullshit..." No he's not, but as fewer people are intelligent enough to be one he should at least be rewarded to some degree. Compare another "manual" profession such as a landscape gardener to a doctor and tell me which is more needed by society. I think the same goes for artists in general, they are paid less (unless they are very good) as a piece of art in one person's home doesn't really improve society in any way. Art in the community is another matter altogether... |
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art doesn't improve WHICH society? you're right, it won't make anyone rich materially (except for the scabrous art collectors who hoarde their artworks in locked rooms). you seem to be placing money above art, am i right? which would make you a materialist. |
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I'm simply saying should an artist (who does something they enjoy for a "living") be rewarded as much as a person who does a job they dislike actually produces things we "Need" such as food etc.? A guy I know is a sculptor (he's very good BTW), and complains about the "hourly rate of pay" he gets for selling his work on average. I said "Why do you sculpt if it's so bad?", he said "I like it". I think you have to accept that most people would rather do something they like rather than work, but if you are a realist you understand that unless what you like to do benefits other people it's not a viable way to provide a "living". For example, I like to paint miniture figurines. I could get a job doing this (I'm good enough), but I choose to do something that society needs rather than wants (basically toys/entertainment). I am paid more as a result. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the capitalist system is messed up (politicans, corrupt lawyers&etc.), but it's by far the best. I think the solution is to have a capitalist system where people are not *too* materialistic. A capitalist system even works for artists- ones who please more people (the majority of society) are rewarded more than those who just do stuff they want. E.g. DAmien Hurst doing work to a brief for a chain of bars compared to an unknown artist working on stuff that he likes. |
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a capitalist society favours the populists and the unprincipled. man developed thru artforms and psychoactive plants - now they are trying to turn us against it. technology is making money and working for a living redundant - people are in poverty in the world because of capitalist nations refusing to help them without getting a little somethin' back -- and it is the countries stiffed in the last two centuries who are now still being stiffed. |
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Naw, even RDJ says drugs actually fuck up your creativity and you just think it's better whilst you're high. Some artists have done some "interesting" work whilst on drugs/through sleep deprivation (Bratby in particular), but to me painting on drugs reeks of amateur teen "artist" in the garage rather than a technically skilled painter. I'll talk to an artist friend of mine about this. The idea of technology is to eliminate boring/tiring work, not to make people redundant. That may be a side effect, but it's not the aim. I find it amusing that a lot of people who are technophobes use the net. If ludditism was a good idea we wouldn't be having this conversation now. In a perfect world all the crap jobs would be done by mindless automatons (robots) whilst people could just chill out and do their "hobbies". The only way this is going to happen is via better living through technology. |
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sorry, i meant we literally evolved because of psychoactive plants - there is serious evidence (naturally nayed-at by the establishment) that the big leap from dumb animals to not-so dumb animals occurred when we started eating psychoactive plants and basically tripped our way into evolved mental plateaux. i hope you don't think i am a technophobe - just the opposite. with the advent of cloning and GM and computer technology, all jobs can more or less be done away with - while the essential tasks would be taught to all by people who actually cared and would volunteer. and there are people who still care more about principle than about profitablilty. someone said earlier that humans are naturally greedy. i disagree - there are a minority who are greedy and they have the power and educate so that the greedy gain prominence - the majority are just being fucked by the greedy as they try to survive in the "democratic" system. if we educate people properly again, then a lot more people would be a lot better off. |
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One of the 8 aims of computing (I can't remember who, but some famous computer scientist) identified was basically the internet as we know it, but to require only 1 (one!) person as computer admin/webmaster. This would put a lot of people (Myself and Jedi Chris from here alone) out of jobs, but if we could spend time doing stuff we wanted as all work was done by robots or people who wanted to we would be happier I imagine. As to the Drugs/evolution theory I hadn't heard that, can you give me an URL (I'm not questioning your honesty, I'm genuinely interested)? I definately agree with the idea of better education of the practicality of alternatives to capitalism, such as the highly successful Israeli kibbutz communes (very low crime, good standard of living, good happiness of occupants, fairness &etc.). |
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antifreeze copulation |
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It really pisses me off to see models being paid thousands to walk down a catwalk wearing stupid clothes NO ONE will ever wear and people die cuase they don't food or clean water. That just really pisses me off... |
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it was a book by a socioanthropologist - i will try to remember what it is called... |
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Cheers Marlowe: Res: "Supermodels" are really arse and aren't even very attractive. My girlfriend's theory is that most fashion designers are gay and choose models that look like boys (plain faces, very thin) rather than the popular view that their "plainness" makes you look at theri clothes instead of them. I'm inclined to agree, why don't they just use ugly people so you look at the clothes? One of the reasons models clothes are so outlandish is the inevitable "toning down" that happens in all design processes. E.g. Designer wants quite outlandish innovative design. Client wants something new, but not so extreme that they can't sell any of the stuff. Designer forsees this and makes the original far more extreme and different than they want. This way when the client "tones it down" it's still close to the designers original vision and they are seen to have compromised too! Look at the stupid military fashions of 1996 in the UK, models walking with fake guns, Canteens and berets etc. on catwalks- actual social fashion change? Combat Pants. All designers, Multimedia designers, architects and engineers do this. That said, most catwalk fashion is really arse for anything other than fancy dress :) |
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...here we are: the author is terence mckenna, and i am pretty sure the book is "the food of the gods" i would paste the link to his amazon searchpage results, but half the time i attempt to paste links they don't work! :( well worth the read tho |
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Thanks Marlowe. |
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very interesting discussion u guys! it was good to read... i just wishi was here to take part in it.. |
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hell, tell us what you think on the subject aminal! |
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Marlowe I just noticed your pic, does that mean you think the US should go to war or are you criticising its warlike nature? |
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Bloody hell! Trotskyists are taking over the internet. I'm on the blower to George W right now. "George, there are some commies in Canada. Add it to your Axis of Evil list and bomb them Bolshies sky high" "Ock,ock, ock splurt. Those darn pretzels" |
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Greed is good. It makes the world go round. |
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The fact is, there IS a lack of motivation in any group where your good/bad work will be watered down. In university we have group work where we all get the same mark. If I work really hard I will only see a slight benefit in *my* marks and similairly if I can't be arsed, I'll only lose a few. In large groups/societies this effect is magnified. You need "Thought Police"/Supervisors to stop people from not bothering. Hence 1984. You're actually a lot more "free" under capitalism, you can "choose" not to be a slave to the wage if you wish, under communism you are a slave to the state with no say in the matter. |
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People lack motivation because they have the good sense to realise that if they work harder they will see no improvement in their conditions. When you work for somebody else; make somebody else rich why work hard? The harder you work, the poorer you get. |
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In a communist state you see even less benefit than in a capitalist one. Personally I think people who work hard already subsidise the lazy too much. Don't get me wrong I believe in helping people who are *unable* to work, but it really pisses me off when you go to someone who has been on the dole (benefit) for years and their house is pretty much the same as yours. |
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Oh dear. Hello Tory-boy. Have you ever thought that people stuck on the dole can't get a job. You should have some idea, living in an area where Thatcher closed dwon a whole industry. Could you maintain your standard of life on £42 a week? |
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Look at it in an atavistic sense. If we were still little more than beasts we could choose who to give our surplus food etc too, nowadays it's just taken by the govt. and given to people you may never meet. Forgive me for sounding picky, but the very point of Charity, is by definition, *choosing* to give to another person/cause. I disagree with governments doing this on our behalf via taxes. |
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Hello - the people who expropriate all the surplus wealth in society are our employers NOT the government through taxes. They do it by paying us wages that are less than that which we produce. Thats where profits come from. 20% of the population own and control %80 of the wealth. 1/3 of children in Britain live on the poverty line while the likes of Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch etc sit on billions |
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I ddin't say that employers didn't, I just said the governement do (too). Look at it from an employer's point of view: if you employ someone you have to be sure it will be beneficial to you (or else why would you employ them?), the only way this really works is if they produce more wealth than that which they soak up, if you tried to break even, you would sometimes be making a loss. Once you consider things like sick pay, maternity leave, the neccessary increase in Personnel admin, tools for the employee etc. the only way to ensure it is a good idea is to give an employee only 2/3 of what they earn for the company. Of course if you are ethical, you would use this excess (when there *was* a surplus available) to improve the business/give efficiency bonuses & improve working conditions. |
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i'm an anticapitalist and i will be till i win the lotto :) |
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i love capitalism. i like my shoes cheap. i use my extra cash to wipe my arse. i buy tremendous amounts of food and let it spoil in the refrigerator. i upgrade my computer every 2 years just to have a machine 10 times faster than i need it to be. i drive an SUV and i keep it full of gold to weigh it down so i can burn more gas. no one is reading this |
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Why should we settle for the 2/3 (in most csases I assure you its a lot less)? To have rich you must have poor. Why can't we have a society where we all contribute and all take what we need. There's enough food to feed the world over twice yet 19,000 children die everyday as a result of third world debt. Why fight over the crumbs when we can take over the bakery? |
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yes jonesy, we live in a world of extremes - one minute gays are thrown in prison, the next they are new fashion accessory. one minute black people are not allowed to sit next to a white woman, the next, it's real hip to have a black friend. the will of money is to keep moving - anything that does not move, that remains static, is unhealthy... i only wish that i was good enough at hacking that i could wipe the data off the computers used by banks and all that anarchistic rot. people are being financially raped by the government and the corporations, then squandered or used to stockpile massive amounts of weapons that are useless against "terrorist" attacks, and only good for bombing children and women (everyone: "awwwwwwwwwwwww")... i don't want my tax money being used to fuck over other countries - i have seen no proof of osama bin laden's involvement in ANY terrorist attacks - he is a senile dying (if not dead) man, who's brother was in business with george dubya in the 80s... but then, the corporations are dying to have control over the middle-east so they can have their oil and their poppies. well, i've rambled on for long enough. |
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