MeBurger!

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I don’t think using terms that you disagree with is necessarily a straw man. If we had been arguing about the possibility of flight and my position was that all previous attempts had failed, you’d come back and say, “those weren’t attempts at flight, those were bad bird impersonations.”

On a separate note, I’ve got a question for you. If capitalism inevitably leads to people being poorer, why does this graph show that over the last 200 years the number of people in poverty has steadily declined?

“We’ll never survive!” “Nonsense. You’re only saying that because no one ever has.”

I really want to believe that a communist world is possible. Maybe I’m like the pessimists that doubted humans could ever fly. I just don’t see it ever working.

I really like that you defined all these terms. It makes it much easier to discuss the ideas when the language doesn’t get in the way. Thank you.

Would it be correct to state that every attempt at bringing about communism has failed thus far? From the Bolsheviks to Mao to Castro, none of them have succeeded. Is communism not what those movements were attempting to accomplish? Yes, things went badly, and the end result was not communism, but that doesn’t change the fact that those movements had the aim of ending capitalism, in favor of communism.

Every unregulated capitalist economy has devolved

Right, but I’m not arguing for unregulated capitalism. I think capitalism should be highly regulated. I’m arguing for fair markets that reward good actors and punish bad. I’m arguing for continually refining capitalism and fixing the problems. Which is why I keep having this argument. You’re obviously an intelligent person, motivated to change society for the better, with a good moral compass. I want you on my side. I want people to want to work on the actual problems, and not pin their hopes on some big idea that will fix everything, because that doesn’t exist.

Sure, there have been authoritarian governments that said they were socialist for PR.

This is the cognitive dissonance about Marxism that bugs me the most. You believe that a system such as Capitalism is so flawed that it must be replaced with something else, but you are unwilling to see that Socialism is also flawed in different ways. If you adhered to the principles of pure Marxism, you would see that Socialism as well must be discarded for a better alternative. Instead of seeing that, you will label every failed Socialist state as a fake. We need something else.

Steam engines literally led to the development of electric motors. Steam engines led to steam turbines which led to dynamos which led to electric motors, each invention building off the knowledge gained at the previous step.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_turbine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Algernon_Parsons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo

Your analogy is doubly flawed. Each type of engine you mention has strengths and weaknesses that depend on external variables. Internal combustion isn’t better at producing electricity for instance, which is why we mostly use external combustion to do that. Electric motors aren’t better than internal combustion, except that internal combustion is causing climate change. It’s also flawed because history has shown that Socialism doesn’t work better than Capitalism. I could see, if this were purely theoretical, someone arguing the benefits of Marxist ideas, but it’s been tried. In several places around the world, people tried to put in place the kind of changes you’re advocating. In every case it led to authoritarianism, brutal repression, and starvation. Does it suck that poor kids don’t have enough to eat, while Bezos builds space yachts? Yeah it sucks, but it’s not millions-starving-to-death levels of suck like we actually, not theoretically, got every time we tried Communism or Socialism or any kind of take-their-stuff-and-give-it-to-me-ism.

Was it straw man, or ad hominem? Are you thinking that I shouldn’t have called Marx stupid, or that I misrepresented his concept?

China, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, Cuba. Every single time, the state becomes authoritarian and repressive, ignoring human rights, starving and imprisoning huge populations. Eventually it either fails, or the state keeps the authoritarianism, but gets rid of the communism. Look at China and Vietnam. They’ve transitioned to a mostly market based economy, but kept the authoritarianism.

These are examples of everyone starving because centrally planned economies are a bad idea.

Russia

China

North Korea

Why do Marxists always assume people who disagree just aren’t smart enough to understand Marxism? It’s not difficult to understand the concept, it’s just dumb. Marx was old school I-am-very-smart.

I can absolutely draw you a line from the development of the steam engine to the electric motor to NASA. Every little thing that was wrong with steam engines led to better and better technology. Marxism is like saying, “the steam engine has problems, obviously mechanical engineering is doomed, lets breed better horses.”

Damn it. I fell for another stupid internet fallacy.

A couple reasons off the top of my head, 1.) You can’t let 20-30 kids loose without it ending in pandemonium, but you need kids to practice time management skills before college. Homework is a time where kids can learn to manage a workload, outside of the controlled environment of school. 2) Kids can’t candle a 9 to 5, they need recess and art, and music, and gym to give their brains a break. In the 7.5ish hours that kids go to school, there’s probably only 4 hours of work done. (but Bob, I only work like 30 minutes of any given day, and I’m an adult…)

Am I the only one who feels like productivity/organization tools for ADHD people is like bicycles for blind kids? Like, “yeah I can see how a functional person could find this useful, but what the heck am I going to do with it?”

She doesn’t want to be pregnant or she doesn’t want to have a kid? Two different problems with two different solutions.

I think we should prevent as many abortions as we can, while preserving everyone’s right to body autonomy.

How did your hypothetical woman get pregnant? In my hypothetical, ideal world that scenario should be exceedingly rare.

A person’s body is their own. From the skin in, it’s yours to do with as you please. You can’t make somebody wreck their body or risk their lives to satisfy your morality. I’m willing to debate this issue with someone who has done everything I’m their power to mitigate the risk of unwanted pregnancy. If not, I assume they’re just trying to control women’s bodies in order to secure their place in heaven, because the rest of christianity is hard.

And she doesn’t want to put the child up for adoption? That’s valid. Pregnancy has long term negative health impacts. Morally, I’m not opposed to abortion. I know some people are. I feel like I’m unwilling to debate the morality while all the practical steps to mitigate the risk haven’t been taken.

I would add, free, easily accessible sterilization should be the norm. I don’t want more kids, so I got sterilized.

Apply the scientifc method. Look at places and times with wide economic disparity. Were/are those good stable places with happy healthy populations, or was it bad. If you decide it’s a problem based on evidence, then look at solutions. If you don’t have examples, try things out and record the data. What worked and what didn’t. Don’t let your values bias you. I think that welath inequality is a problem, but I’m willing to listen to thoroughly researched, peer reviewed, data backed conclusions.

Karl Marx was an idiot. Let me explain…no there’s too much. Let me sum up. Replacing a whole system just because some parts of it don’t work is stupid. How do you know the system you put in as a replacement won’t also be broken.

Some people tried to replace capitalism with a totally different system and it went real bad real fast. This wasn’t an isolated incident. They tried it in a bunch of places and in none of them did it work. Marxism has been debunked in the field.

Marxism is the idea that you can fix problems with an ism. Got poor people? Try communism or socialism or half-cocked-ism. If your solution to a problem can fit on a bumper sticker it’s wrong.

Hot take: you shouldn’t subscribe to an ism.

You know what my political affiliation is? I’m an engineer. You want to solve a problem, you break it apart and fix the broken parts.

Abortion? Sure.

What’s the problem? Women are pregnant and they don’t wanna be.

Well how’d they get pregnant? They had unprotected sex, or they got raped(including all kinds here). Teach people how to use birth control and make it easy to get. Teach men about consent. Fund sex crime policing.

That takes care of the input side of the equation. What’s next? Oh yeah, they don’t wanna be pregnant. Why not? Because it could kill them, or wreck thier bodies. OK, well let’s fund research and support for maternal mortality issues (including post-partum). If a pregnancy is likely to kill a woman (like double the normal mortality rate) she should be allowed to abort, even if she’s not in immediate danger. You can’t force somebody to risk their life.

Any other reasons? Because the fetus is severely deformed and will die in pain if allowed to make it to full term? Abortion, no question. Honestly any other position on this one is fucked up. I’m sure of very little when it comes to God, but I’m sure it doesn’t want preventable suffering.

What else? Families can’t afford a kid? Free high quality childcare for everyone. Free healthcare for kids and post-partum mothers (probably for everyone but that’s a different topic).

What about adoption? Well, as they say, adoption is the answer to a different question. Just to cover all cases though, let’s fund high-quality adoption services, including counseling for the birth mother for as long as she needs.

How do we pay for it all? Taxes. Taxes are good for society. Shut the fuck up and pony up your fair share. If you use our stuff, eat our food, drink our clean water, taxes are what you owe.

These are just off the top of my head. The real answers are probably way more complicated, but it’s going to take work to figure it all out. This is how you fix a problem though. Lots of hard work to understand the whole thing, soup to nuts, and then you fix it all.

Does that make me a leftist?