All life is destined to fail. Ever heard of morality, it doesn't just have to do with ones self but there surroundings. All life is destined to fail, it is our blessing and our curse. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lYN_lXU9PA"]YouTube - Peter Ward: Earth's mass extinctions[/ame] ^This guy will show you how much you are wrong.
When capitalist and capitalist super powers around the world are competing for maximum profit, how could any effective measure be implemented to protect humanity. Only when the society is controlled by the people, in the interests of everyone can we ward off mass extinctions.
Don't give me that shit, a communist runs his country just like a ceo of a big company. You walk into a meeting with the top soviet advisors during the height of the soviet union, you would see the same thing that the head ceo's of coca cola meeting. Nothing but pie charts, spread sheats and TPS reports. Communism is just like capitalism, it is controlled capitalism, because of this it is just as much of a strain on the world resources and just as ineffective. You need to keep watching the video, he gets to talking about that exact problem. This Gaia utopian idea that life makes it better for itself is such bullshit, life does itself in. Maybe not quickly, but overtime it will meet it's own demise. Communism runs it's self just like a private company, almost mirroring what capitalist do.
"Runaway greenhouse (venus) is the worst fate of all" What is that even supposed to mean? There aren't any sources to back anything he says up, and the fact that he's trying to disprove that there's life elsewhere in the universe just degrades his credibility. What point is he trying to make? It's possible that very special types of bacteria could be living in the atmosphere of Venus, the atmosphere of Jupiter, and in the ice of Mars and even Europa.
Have you read anything that I've been saying. I must have repeated it 20 times, the Soviet Union was NOT communist. Here, let me make this easier for you to spot, you might miss it. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. the Soviet Union was NOT communist. Communism is the next step in society. It's an international, global system. It can't exist in one country. Under communism, there are no nations, no countries, just the earth. Under communism, the means of production are directly and democratically controlled by_the_people, not by the government, not by the state, not by individuals, but by the people. Communism is stateless, classless society. The soviet union wasn't classless or stateless. It wasn't communism. Simply because a nation is controlled by a communist party, does not mean it's communism. The Soviet Union was Stalinist.
I totally agree. That's such a hack of shit. How are freedom and equality not interpenetrating (that is, found deeply embedded within each other, all the time)? I think you have created a false duality.
No. Again you are not fully aware of the meaning of the term you fear: communism. Communism is the state of humanity in which the state has withered away through lack of use.
Private control of capital is the free-market. Any intereference from the state is not private, and it is not capitalism. I'm done here. edit: by done here I meant for the 5 minutes after posting this post
Something I don't think was asked yet, but what makes you so sure that socialism or communism would work? And I don't mean for you to repeat what you already said 200 times. Have you ever seen such a working society, a good one, ever lived in one, how did you come to such beliefs? And no, logic is not a valid answer, especially when any such logic only implies to your own beliefs...
It's a theoretical system, but there's no reason for it not to work. The conditions that Marx indicated that socialism would be born out of, did not exist in 1917 Russia. Trotsky said that it would start on the national arena, take place on the international arena, and end on the world arena. However, after Stalin took power, he focused all efforts on building socialism in one country, which is impossible. All attempts at revolution in other countries such as Germany, Spain, the UK, China, and etc were either crushed by counter-revolutionary forces, or ruined by the stupidity and arrogance of Stalin. That's why fascism rose in Germany, not because Hitler was a 'good leader' as some people like to say. Socialism was ruined by isolated factors. Stalin and his ideas, the bureaucracy within the soviet union, and the lack of a capitalist industrialization period. Revisionist forces within the Soviet Union degenerated the workers' state into a bureaucracy. It wasn't systematic, but rather the conscious actions of individuals. The original leaders of the Russian revolution were killed off one by one. That isn't an error of socialism, that was the conscious effort of Stalinism. Other examples of socialism, like China, are not even valid. The Chinese revolution was brought by guerilla warfare based on the peasantry, not the independent mass movement of the working class. The so-called revolution was born out of similar backgrounds, it was pre-industrialized, it wasn't ready for socialism. And from the beginning, it's easily recognisable that China was never socialist, but rather it was petty-bourgeois nationalism. Cuba is by no means socialism. It didn't even claim to be socialism until the Soviet Union started subsidizing it, it openly encouraged companies to come to cuba and use their workers for cheap labour. Here's the conditions. It has to start in the advanced countries, spread to every other country, abolish the nation-state system, and put the means of production and all state powers in the democratic hands of the working class. If those conditions don't exist, it's not socialism. Since those conditions have never existed, it would be a straw man's argument to say socialism doesn't work. No. Equal pay is equal slavery, we already have that now! Under communism, wages are abolished entirely. The super-productive forces have reached such an advanced level, that products are in super abundance. Everything that someone could want or need would be freely available to them. As I said before, it's all you can eat all the time. The technology already exists to feed and house a population of 18 billion.. A high standard of living can be afforded to all. Communism isn't "equality", because not everyone is equally capable. Communism is simply the abolition of private property, turning all industries into public property, placed under public control. It isn't government ownership, it's people ownership. The people control what they produce. The people decide what needs to get produced, how many products get produced, and how to distribute them. Man becomes master over his own labour and his own life. For the first time, humans will be truly free. It's emancipation. Government ownership and equal wages, is not communism. The term is State-Capitalism, that is, private property still exists, but it's owned by the state, who acts as the "boss", the capitalist. Communism is the abolition of such private ownership. Thus, once again, the Soviet Union was not communist.
It has to be the whole world. All or nothing. And capitalism (global I might add) comes first to build the infrastructure efficiently. You guys say it's a dream. I say the dream hasn't ended. I don't think there will be actual abolition, that is, except for the abolition of abolition.
An independent mass movement of the working people of all nations, lead by the revolutionary vanguard. Which is not too distant. Capitalism is failing all around us, and very soon people around the globe will start to see that, and search for alternatives.
So in your dream society, Kasu, what would you do if I didn't want to work and I just freeloaded? What would you do if everybody started doing that, causing collective production to decline and people reverting to self sustenance? Also, if there is no reward for hard work, what is the incentive to invest time and personal resources into developing new technology? Who organizes punishment of criminals? Eventually what will happen in your society is the democratic mob will effectively become the 'state', enforcing participation in their system. The desire for communism stems from class envy, as you are obviously envious of successful entrepreneurs, and it is envy that will bring down communism. "However human, envy is certainly not one of the sources of discontent that a free society can eliminate. It is probably one of the essential conditions for the preservation of such a society that we do not countenance envy, not sanction its demands by camouflaging it as social justice, but treat it, in the words of John Stuart Mill, as “the most anti-social and evil of all passions.†-FA HAYEK