Yes, people can be self interested, so we must reward that self interest and punish any selflessnes. That must be the only way to build a fair and just society.
Having to tell cynics that human nature is influenced by people’s conditions of life really gets tiresome, but I guess we’ll be doing it until we croak. The idea that human nature is fixed in the way you’re suggesting is antithetical to freedom of choice, and in a way, also linear time/historical progression.
I see you’re in the solarpunk server. Did you join to tell everyone that saving the ecosystem is hopeless, and we should accept our imminent extinction?
Via current capitalist systems, the only state sanctioned ways for me to Give Back to the community are based in religion or some branch of the military service.
Maybe I’m not looking hard enough. I could be wrong.
I think this might be telling on yourself a little bit, because I’m not really greedy or power hungry or prone to corruption, and most of the people I associate with aren’t either
Yes, of course, because when I said ‘most people’ I clearly meant everyone.
And if you, and most of the people you know, are in positions of power and not shitty people, then you’re either a pleasant person with nice friends, or lying. Either way, good for you.
Because only western people are shitty? Or only the western ‘elites’? Does being ‘elite’ from a non western country automatically absolve somebody from this?
I think I’m also going to need to get you to define ‘western’ and ‘elite’ here too.
Yes you are so smart and above it all. Magic human nature is to blame for everything, people are not products of their material reality at all. We should all just be misanthropic dorks and never try to do anything to better anything while spouting off rightwing idealist nonsense that is observably false.
No, I’m just as human as the rest of you. I just don’t believe people are capable of communism. Communism always ends with corrupt, power hungry dictators.
People are not capable of being better, if we were we would have done so by now. Humans have been around for 100,000 years or so, in various forms, so why in all our the known history, have we not been better yet? And why is it at all logical to assume we suddenly could be, despite this?
Humans have been around for 100,000 years or so, in various forms, so why in all our the known history, have we not been better yet?
Uhm, for like 95% of that time people have usually been better? There is little opportunity to become a dictator in a small group of hunter and gatherers and anthropological and archiological evidence points to many of these groups having been strongly egalitarian.
We’re plagued by those that’d rather let the invicible hand help carry the trickle up to the top rungs of the economic ladder.
300,000* years, and a lot of that history is lost, but there’s probably a lot more you just don’t know about. There’s a book called the dawn of everything: a new history of humanity by anthropologist David graeber and archeologist David wengrow that challenges the traditional view of human history. They provide evidence that early societies were much more complex than we’ve been led to believe.
Why do you seem to think a system beginning in the 16th century and developed in the 18th century would be better than something we could come up with today?
That book changed so much in my thinking, and made me realize how programmed I’ve been by post-enlightenment western philosophy. I’d internalized so much of the “progress equals inequality and hierarchies” way of thinking. That book showed me that indeed: “another world is possible”. We are not greedy, selfish and violent by nature, we are just the products of the environment we live in and the education we receive. We can be, and have been throughout human history, far better people than we currently are.
Communism always ends with corrupt, power hungry dictators.
What if head government positions in general are attractive to corrupt, power hungry dictators?
The Weimar Republic wasn’t communist, and it got a corrupt, power hungry dictator.
The United States isn’t communist, and it’s dealing with a corrupt, power hungry dictator.
Israel isn’t communist, and it’s dealing with a corrupt, power hungry dictator.
I wonder if maybe there are other factors in play that you aren’t considering.
always
Always? Are you sure? Let’s say there’s a corrupt, power hungry person looking for a government spot. How would communism make it easier for the person to get into power, than in a capitalist system?
Homosapiens have been around for 300,000 years. Homos (lol) have been around for millions of years. Homo erectus was around for just shy of two million years alone.
And for the vast majority of that time we weren’t engaged on a free market economy.
You’re just reiterating your observably false nonsense. Humans have improved from actual barbarians to slavers to civilised groups. Also “if everyone would just…” is not at all a communist position.
Also unsure if you realise this or not but you have the same misanthropic ideology of a mass shooter.
Wow uneven development is not something Marxists have ever studied /s
I’m sorry but you don’t even have the faintest idea of what you’re talking about I don’t think we can hold a productive conversation. I hope you can educate yourself and move beyond your edgy teenager mass shooter ideology phase.
I’m probably twice your age. Over 50 people in my family, that I know of, were killed in the gulags and I grew up hearing about just how great communism was from my Polish family, who lived under communism till 1989.
I too though had a Marxist phase as a teenager and I so strongly believed people were capable of being better if only they would read Marx and follow his ideas.
And then I grew the fuck up and stopped believing in magical opposite world realities suddenly coming into fruition.
Power corrupts and those with power over us will always be corrupted. There is no such thing as a benevolent dictator.
60+ and still an edgy teenager with a misanthropic mass shooter ideology who speaks with authority on subjects without any study or investigation very impressive. For someone who allegedly read Marx your ability to not understand a single point Marxists make and instead spout off right wing talking points and strawmen is equally impressive.
If I lived with your level of cynicism and bleak ass outlook every day I would kill myself, but you’ve shown us all today that people are capable of going beyond expectations
As much as the Scotch ruined Scotland. Fair.
I mean yeah, they absolutely did.
Communism is fantastic in theory, but in reality it doesn’t work, and it won’t ever work, because our species just doesn’t work like that.
People are, by and large, greedy, power hungry and prone to corruption, and this is why we can’t have nice things and are destroying the planet.
Yes, people can be self interested, so we must reward that self interest and punish any selflessnes. That must be the only way to build a fair and just society.
Having to tell cynics that human nature is influenced by people’s conditions of life really gets tiresome, but I guess we’ll be doing it until we croak. The idea that human nature is fixed in the way you’re suggesting is antithetical to freedom of choice, and in a way, also linear time/historical progression.
I see you’re in the solarpunk server. Did you join to tell everyone that saving the ecosystem is hopeless, and we should accept our imminent extinction?
Via current capitalist systems, the only state sanctioned ways for me to Give Back to the community are based in religion or some branch of the military service.
Maybe I’m not looking hard enough. I could be wrong.
I think this might be telling on yourself a little bit, because I’m not really greedy or power hungry or prone to corruption, and most of the people I associate with aren’t either
Yes, of course, because when I said ‘most people’ I clearly meant everyone.
And if you, and most of the people you know, are in positions of power and not shitty people, then you’re either a pleasant person with nice friends, or lying. Either way, good for you.
So now you are moving goal post by adding in power, once your argument disappear ?
What are your opinions on piracy? Do you pirate software/media?
What about adblocking?
Are you done? Great. Carry on.
Ah, the human nature argument.
More like western elites’ nature.
Because only western people are shitty? Or only the western ‘elites’? Does being ‘elite’ from a non western country automatically absolve somebody from this?
I think I’m also going to need to get you to define ‘western’ and ‘elite’ here too.
Individualism and egotism are what make y’all bad people in general. I dare you to live a year in a country with communitarian values to deprogram.
Yes you are so smart and above it all. Magic human nature is to blame for everything, people are not products of their material reality at all. We should all just be misanthropic dorks and never try to do anything to better anything while spouting off rightwing idealist nonsense that is observably false.
No, I’m just as human as the rest of you. I just don’t believe people are capable of communism. Communism always ends with corrupt, power hungry dictators.
People are not capable of being better, if we were we would have done so by now. Humans have been around for 100,000 years or so, in various forms, so why in all our the known history, have we not been better yet? And why is it at all logical to assume we suddenly could be, despite this?
Uhm, for like 95% of that time people have usually been better? There is little opportunity to become a dictator in a small group of hunter and gatherers and anthropological and archiological evidence points to many of these groups having been strongly egalitarian.
We’re plagued by those that’d rather let the invicible hand help carry the trickle up to the top rungs of the economic ladder.
300,000* years, and a lot of that history is lost, but there’s probably a lot more you just don’t know about. There’s a book called the dawn of everything: a new history of humanity by anthropologist David graeber and archeologist David wengrow that challenges the traditional view of human history. They provide evidence that early societies were much more complex than we’ve been led to believe.
Why do you seem to think a system beginning in the 16th century and developed in the 18th century would be better than something we could come up with today?
That book changed so much in my thinking, and made me realize how programmed I’ve been by post-enlightenment western philosophy. I’d internalized so much of the “progress equals inequality and hierarchies” way of thinking. That book showed me that indeed: “another world is possible”. We are not greedy, selfish and violent by nature, we are just the products of the environment we live in and the education we receive. We can be, and have been throughout human history, far better people than we currently are.
What if head government positions in general are attractive to corrupt, power hungry dictators?
The Weimar Republic wasn’t communist, and it got a corrupt, power hungry dictator.
The United States isn’t communist, and it’s dealing with a corrupt, power hungry dictator.
Israel isn’t communist, and it’s dealing with a corrupt, power hungry dictator.
I wonder if maybe there are other factors in play that you aren’t considering.
Always? Are you sure? Let’s say there’s a corrupt, power hungry person looking for a government spot. How would communism make it easier for the person to get into power, than in a capitalist system?
Homosapiens have been around for 300,000 years. Homos (lol) have been around for millions of years. Homo erectus was around for just shy of two million years alone.
And for the vast majority of that time we weren’t engaged on a free market economy.
Thanks for the correction, I really should have looked that up before writing it down.
That ‘free market economy’ wasn’t born of a vacuum with no prior human influence. We made it.
When you confuse capitalism for communism.
You’re just reiterating your observably false nonsense. Humans have improved from actual barbarians to slavers to civilised groups. Also “if everyone would just…” is not at all a communist position.
Also unsure if you realise this or not but you have the same misanthropic ideology of a mass shooter.
And no offence but ‘civillised groups’? Lmao, you’re going to have to define this too because fuck me does it reek of collonialism.
Estimates of the number of currently enslaved people range from around 38 million to 49.6 million, depending on the method used to form the estimate and the definition of slavery being used.
How are you defining babary? Just so I know exactly how to disprove your statement, please.
Wow uneven development is not something Marxists have ever studied /s
I’m sorry but you don’t even have the faintest idea of what you’re talking about I don’t think we can hold a productive conversation. I hope you can educate yourself and move beyond your edgy teenager mass shooter ideology phase.
I’m probably twice your age. Over 50 people in my family, that I know of, were killed in the gulags and I grew up hearing about just how great communism was from my Polish family, who lived under communism till 1989.
I too though had a Marxist phase as a teenager and I so strongly believed people were capable of being better if only they would read Marx and follow his ideas.
And then I grew the fuck up and stopped believing in magical opposite world realities suddenly coming into fruition.
Power corrupts and those with power over us will always be corrupted. There is no such thing as a benevolent dictator.
60+ and still an edgy teenager with a misanthropic mass shooter ideology who speaks with authority on subjects without any study or investigation very impressive. For someone who allegedly read Marx your ability to not understand a single point Marxists make and instead spout off right wing talking points and strawmen is equally impressive.
And just so we’re clear, because at this point my expectations for the people reading this are fairly low, ‘great’ in this context, is sarcasm.
As in, they did not actually find living under communism to be ‘great’.
If I lived with your level of cynicism and bleak ass outlook every day I would kill myself, but you’ve shown us all today that people are capable of going beyond expectations
Wow, what a ray of sunshine you are!
And who knew that lemmy communists were such an intelligent, thoughtful and all together pleasant bunch?
If you don’t like it here, kindly fuck off instead of shitting up the place
Lol I’m not even a communist
Good bit, very convincing character
Why waste time saying nothing? Please start using your brin