[Outcast_Searcher]

How's your Equifax account doing? Do you have any expectations of privacy?

Ah, more babbling about doom.

As though because Equifax is run by incompetent idiots, computer security doesn't exist, and in fact can't possibly exist.

As if because someone opens up a false credit card account under your name, you're doomed. As if you can't monitor your credit. As if credit cards don't have lots of rules that protect consumers (who report problems promptly upon discovery) from fraud.

Yes, there are bad actors on the internet. And this is different now than the past decade plus?

Relax. Inconvenience isn't doom. If incompetence were doom, the Beltway would have doomed America long ago. You'll give yourself a stroke.

[Cog]

To expect humans, to all of the sudden adopt a self-less cooperation strategy, even though that has never happened with humans throughout history, is either hubris or just plain wishful thinking. Those that long for the hunter-gatherer days and romanticize them, forget about the anthropology record of cracked bones and skulls, so that the other tribe could get at the tasty stuff inside.

[Newfie]

There you go again, interpreting things never said.

I think you are quite right to believe we will never adored t a selfless cooperative society. Also we will likely pursue capitalism on smaller and smaller scales as we compete our way back into the Stone Age. No one here is advocating for a return to h-g, they are looking, hoping for some alternative.

And to be quite blunt how is small h/g communities competing against one another not the most pure form of capitalism?

[Cog]

There you go again, interpreting things never said.

I think you are quite right to believe we will never adored t a selfless cooperative society. Also we will likely pursue capitalism on smaller and smaller scales as we compete our way back into the Stone Age. No one here is advocating for a return to h-g, they are looking, hoping for some alternative.

And to be quite blunt how is small h/g communities competing against one another not the most pure form of capitalism?

Was I responding to you in some way? I think not. What I was stating was a general rebuttal to those starry-eyed creatures which in inhabit this forum who believe if we just went back to H/G it would be great. We would spend our days painting, having sex, occasionally hunt some meat while the women gather herbs and berries. That is not the reality of any primitive man. But the thought persists and I've seen it for the last ten years here and other places that engage in fantasy.

[GHung]

There you go again, interpreting things never said.

I think you are quite right to believe we will never adored t a selfless cooperative society. Also we will likely pursue capitalism on smaller and smaller scales as we compete our way back into the Stone Age. No one here is advocating for a return to h-g, they are looking, hoping for some alternative.

And to be quite blunt how is small h/g communities competing against one another not the most pure form of capitalism?

Was I responding to you in some way? I think not. What I was stating was a general rebuttal to those starry-eyed creatures which in inhabit this forum who believe if we just went back to H/G it would be great. We would spend our days painting, having sex, occasionally hunt some meat while the women gather herbs and berries. That is not the reality of any primitive man. But the thought persists and I've seen it for the last ten years here and other places that engage in fantasy.

"....rebuttal to those starry-eyed creatures which in inhabit this forum who believe if we just went back to H/G it would be great...."

See the part about interpreting things never said. Seems you can't be honest at all about other peoples' comments. I haven't seen anyone posit that reverting to an H/G society would be great. Ever. Not sure why you insist on twisting other folks' comments to your need to establish some sort of superior position. IMO, that is usually the result of a deeply-held insecurity, but I'm no expert. I just call it dishonest, at best.

O_S is prone to do the same thing. Nothing about my comment, above, was a 'doomer' position when read unfiltered and honestly. It just meant that technology is as much of a liability as most of our "progress" and endeavors seem to be. Calling the rising number of serious cyber crimes and data breaches, which can and are having life-altering impacts on peoples' lives and costing billions, "an inconvenience" is minimizing to the point of denial (or lying).

[onlooker]

As usual Ghung is spot on. Technology and the "modern" world have just allowed us to reach this stage of planetary overshoot. They are not a panacea to the basic problem of our nature. This is not the same as advocating we go back to H/G bygone days. It is simply a recognition that our main task collectively is to improve "ourselves' rather than the world around us

[Newfie]

And another point of view.

https://www.google.com/amp/bigthink.com ... arkets.amp

A well-known example of irrational decision-making people's tendency to overvalue the things they own (I would pay $1 for a coffee mug but will demand $5 for an identical coffee mug that happens to be mine). This bias of "the mind" is called the "endowment effect" and is often assumed to be universal (and therefore explained as the work of evolution). But in this paper Coren Apicella, Eduardo Azevedo, James Fowler, and Nicholas A. Christakis found that some people and some minds don't have this bias at all. Rather than being built-in to human nature, they write, the endowment effect may be a habit of mind that people learn in market-oriented societies. If that's true, it means that (for this trait at least) the hunter-gatherers described in the research were more rational before they were exposed to modern capitalism.

[onlooker]

This is really now where we are in terms of predatory exploitative Capitalism. The middle classes of the West are being eviscerated in the never ending search for profit. The consumer base is shifting towards the East with the last gasps of the Debt Growth based Capitalism reaching natural limitations. And the modern Industrial Civilization will wither and collapse under resource shortages and its own internal flaws especially its tendency of concentrating wealth
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-va ... 52878.html

[KaiserJeep]

I really wonder just who it was that filled your young mind with Marxist twaddle. But then, there's no excuse for not growing out of such early educational abuse.

The actual thing that happened was WW2, and a large population bump we called "the Baby Boom" which followed that most desperate conflict. Those babies are now retiring in numbers unprecedented in human history. Most of them have accumulated wealth in the form of real estate, retirement accounts, and the like, which is no longer pumping money into the economy. These retired folks are also owed an enormous unfunded Social Security pension, plus medical insurance (Medicare) which constitutes a major portion of the Federal Government's debt.

Reasonable and prudent Congress Critters and Senabores would have planned for these financial expendatures which have been known about for 70 years or so. However, they did not, they continued to spend money like proverbial drunken sailors, while "kicking the can" down the road for the next Congress to demonstrate austerity. So we have a He!! of a financial mess to clean up.

Meanwhile, the idiotic economic musings of Marx and Engels have been tried over three dozen times, and seldom does a Marxist pretend economy last beyond a decade without imploding. The two that did so were China (which transformed itself into a curious Authoritarian Capitalism) and the USSR which created enormous human rights abuses with Gulags and the like, while trying to cleanse itself of Capitalist tendancies - impossible because Capitalism arises from the basic set of primate instincts that evolution equipped humans with.

But it really doesn't even matter what the rules are in whatever economic system you have, if the abusers of the rules are tolerated versus prosecuted. The abusers being those that cheat on taxes, pay for special interest legislation, and refuse to prosecute certain offenders who are members of their own political party. The fall of every Latin American version of Marxism is the clearest example of this, as the Latin American culture favors and excuses offenses by family and extended family members. Latin cultures are the least likely to create a successful Marxist state - if such is even possible.

[onlooker]

I do not dispute these succession of events. But that is just part of it. The other part is Globalization and how it has been designed by the rich and ruling classes to allow exploitation of the entire planet. Exploitation of the resources and of the people. So, we do not have to discuss Marxism or such. I never said Communism was some sort of panacea. But, I think you should admit the terribly unequal and unjust Capitalistic system. After all it is quite in line with your assertion of the primate underpinnings. In fact it is more fundamental. It is the Maximum Power principle seen in Ecology and among creatures within it. Here is link and a short synopsis. "Step 1. Individuals and groups evolved a bias to maximize fitness by maximizing power, which requires over-reproduction and/or over-consumption of natural resources (overshoot), whenever systemic constraints allow it. Differential power generation and accumulation result in a hierarchical group structure.

Step 2. Energy is always limited, and overshoot eventually leads to decreasing power available to some members of the group, with lower-ranking members suffering first.

Step 3. Diminishing power availability creates divisive subgroups within the original group. Low-rank members will form subgroups and coalitions to demand a greater share of power from higher-ranking individuals, who will resist by forming their own coalitions to maintain power.

Step 4. Violent social strife eventually occurs among subgroups who demand a greater share of the remaining power.

Step 5. The weakest subgroups (high or low rank) are either forced to disperse to a new territory, are killed, enslaved, or imprisoned.

Step 6. Go back to step 1.

[KaiserJeep]

I do not dispute these succession of events. But that is just part of it. The other part is Globalization and how it has been designed by the rich and ruling classes to allow exploitation of the entire planet. Exploitation of the resources and of the people. So, we do not have to discuss Marxism or such. I never said Communism was some sort of panacea. But, I think you should admit the terribly unequal and unjust Capitalistic system. After all it is quite in line with your assertion of the primate underpinnings. In fact it is more fundamental. It is the Maximum Power principle seen in Ecology and among creatures within it. -snip-

I simply believe that there is nothing more fundamental than instinctual primate emotions instilled by evolution. The problem I am having with your viewpoint on this matter is the part of Marxism that you can't seem to let go of: the struggle of the social classes, which Marx dubbed the Proletariat (and you call the people) and the Bourgeoisie (which you call the rich and ruling classes).

In fact I don't believe those classes exist except as abstract concepts. In everything that one can measure about human beings, meaning intelligence and strength and visual acuity and even depth of emotions, ambition, and all manner of things, when you graph the results, you get a bell curve - with a low extreme, a bulging middle, and a high extreme. Individuals have a place somewhere on that bell curve, and one thing you could easily graph - because the government requires you to report such annually for purposes of taxation - are things such as income, capital assets, real property, personal property, etc. That which you call the "rich and ruling classes" are the high extreme of the bell curve.

There's no class of people who designed something called Globalization, or who conspired to exploit resources and people. Some people are better at such things than the vast majority, some are much worse, and suffer poverty for a variety of reasons. These people exist at different points on a bell curve of ability. Some of their behaviors cannot be taught, ever hear the term "trust fund baby", referring to an adult who is paid an income allowance his entire life, because a parent recognized a lack of ability, yet did not want their offspring to starve?

The Huffington Post is not a reasonable source of unbiased news, try balancing it with another publication such as The Wall Street Journal. Read the differing news in each and then decide where the truth lies.

[SeaGypsy]

Abandonment of the proletariat is the first order of the bourgeois in the aspiration to join the apparent ruling class, effectively established capital. Bourgeoisie can only succeed by either leeching off the proletariat (imitation of the ruling class) or by selling something manufactured by the proletariat. As soon as the proletariat gain wealth, it is their class duty to squander it, lest become one of the despised bourgeoisie. When the prollies gain power, the result is predictably vicious, genocide madness & mayhem. Oh this crazy world huh.

[Cog]

Inequality in capitalism is a feature not a bug.

[GHung]

Inequality in capitalism is a feature not a bug.

Fat fascist pig IS A BUG. Needs to be squashed.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Inequality in capitalism is a feature not a bug.

Fat fascist pig IS A BUG. Needs to be squashed.

Because socalists are never fat? Or fascist?

Or liberals are never fat? Or fascist?

Or anyone else?

Or you just think that the police have no authority to, for example, defend private property rights? How about when it's YOUR property?

[onlooker]

Don't worry Ghung, we will continue putting the Drug addicts in jail. Not treat their addiction and make them better and more hardened criminals in jail and more unstable to boot. Then let them out in a few years cause that is how we are making society safer and winning the War on Drugs. That is the bull our Conservative friends want us to believe haha

[Cog]

Want to use drugs and kill yourself with them, you have my permission. You want to be a drug addict and steal to support your addiction? I don't want you in jail, I want you executed.

[GHung]

Inequality in capitalism is a feature not a bug.

Fat fascist pig IS A BUG. Needs to be squashed.

Because socalists are never fat? Or fascist?

Or liberals are never fat? Or fascist?

Or anyone else?

Or you just think that the police have no authority to, for example, defend private property rights? How about when it's YOUR property?

This wasn't private property. It was a sit-down protest on a public college campus (UC Davis).

[Cog]

They were blocking the free passage of others who wanted nothing to do with their temper tantrum. Want to protest, there is some grass over there, go sit down there. You know, like a normal person not a spoiled brat would do.

[onlooker]

Yea, like they look so threatening. At least with BLM, some carry a threatening aura. But here well the picture is quite clear