Communism

[draighox]

Perhaps you better explain your point then, because you appear to be saying, somewhat bizarrely, that capitalism promotes the production of good quality products because, when producing goods, people and companies have to put 'reducing the cost of production' above every other consideration and, when selling goods, will charge as much as they think they can get away with purely in the interests of maximising their own profit.

My point is, capitalism is the best regime, we currently have. It promotes competition, which creates vast diversity of goods: good quality, poor quality, cheap and expensive goods. It also determines progress of humanity and protects private property.

 

Right, so, in order to have intelligence, you've got to make money?

You have to work to earn what you have. If the government does everything for you, you'll lose the desire to get better.

 

Personally, I'm inclined to believe this is true, but that is my own personal belief, not a proven fact (or even a theory supported by significant amounts of evidence). As such, it could be wrong. All we really know for sure is that we exist. Therefore, until we get evidence otherwise, we have to operate on the assumption that aliens do not exist.

It's not quite like that. Say, we know five lakes of water. One contains fish, others don't. We definately know, that there are thousands of lakes further away, we just don't know, whether they contain fish, or not. The logical suggestion would be, there must be another lake with fish.

 

Do you not think mankind may be able to solve one hell of a lot of problems it's currently facing if it simply stopped competing with itself, and instead focused the resources of the whole of mankind on them?

Competition makes progress faster. Scientific progress. We will cure countless diseases, and invent countless things that will make our life easier.

[Darnoc]

It's not quite like that. Say, we know five lakes of water. One contains fish, others don't. We definately know, that there are thousands of lakes further away, we just don't know, whether they contain fish, or not. The logical suggestion would be, there must be another lake with fish.

 

Wrong. To take your example, we know five lakes with one containing fish. We know that there are other lakes, but haven't searched them for fish yet. Since we lack the necessary data, we are not able to make a probability calculation and therefore cannot say if it is probable that there are other lakes with fish in them. The only correct conclusion, until further evidence is uncovered at least, is this: it is possible that there are other lakes with fish in them, but we simply lack data to determine it once and for all and therefore must honestly say "We simply do not know."

 

Now apply this to the question of extraterrestrial life: We know one planet containing life (earth) and have searched other planets in our solar system without finding life. We know that other planets outside our solar system exist. But since Earth is the only planet we know to contain life, we have absolutly no idea, how probable the forming of life in the universe is and what forms it can take, ergo we simply have no idea if there are other planets with life on them.

[draighox]

OK, OK, you win.

[thranduill]

I am afraid tht IF aliens exist, and especially if they are different from us (let say

they look like a cow), we will try first to use them for meat and slaves....

[KzinistZerg]

I look at it this way- Aliens do exist. It’s just about a certainty- just about because we have not seen them. But anything lifelike that isn't terrestrial is an alien life form- this includes little green men from alpha centauri, giant alien life forms constructed out of plasma, and pond scum.

[draighox]

Hey, I remembered - somebody found dead bacteria on the Mars. Aren't they (bacteria) aliens?

[KzinistZerg]

If they actually found dead bacteria- yes.

 

That is, unless it is terrestrial stuff that got transported there. But unlikely.

 

If it's not terrestrial, it's alien (a far a life goes.)

[ThetaOrionis01]

This is straying somewhat from the topic of communism - unless you wish to speculate on the political organisation of bacteria, dead or otherwise?

[Zmid]

My point is, capitalism is the best regime, we currently have. It promotes competition, which creates vast diversity of goods: good quality, poor quality, cheap and expensive goods.

 

No it doesn't. It promotes the production of cheap goods. Yes, you occassionally get a company that tries to promote it's goods as being 'expensive but good quality', but, more often than not, that company simply doesn't stay in business. Of the ones that do, you will find that even they, somewhere along the line, have compromised quality for decreased cost.

 

Right, so, in order to have intelligence, you've got to make money?

You have to work to earn what you have. If the government does everything for you, you'll lose the desire to get better.

 

I'm not talking about the government doing everything for you. The government would only oversee the process of the resources generated by everyone being shared out to everyone on an equal basis. For the system to work, you would still have to put the work in, unless there was a good reason why you can't, it's just that, instead of you working almost exclusively for the benefit of yourself, you would be working for the benefit of everyone. Unfortunately, this is the fatal flaw that human nature produces - it is in our nature to be selfish.

 

Do you not think mankind may be able to solve one hell of a lot of problems it's currently facing if it simply stopped competing with itself, and instead focused the resources of the whole of mankind on them?

Competition makes progress faster.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

...and cooperation makes it faster still. However, I was actually thinking about some of the problems humanity faces right now. For example, did you know that, despite the fact that famine is regularly faced by many people, the human race as a whole actually produces more food than it needs? The only reason that famine still exists is that countries producing excess food do not ship this food to famine-stricken countries because it would cost them more than they are willing to spend, and, of course, this spirit of 'competition' that capitalism encourages.

[Malchik]

White Wolf, I am not sure feeding the starving alone is enough to help. It is a short term expedient but for the developed nations to help they need to address the underlying problems be they political or geographical. Therefore it would not be a good move for the overproduction simply to be offloaded even were the producers to be subidised for their trouble.

 

There is also the problem that those in the producing countries who have to pay for the produce might get restive and seek price cuts if the overproduction is just given away.

 

Food aid is needed for short term disasters but what most underdeveloped countries need is useful infrastructure and a stable political base (and initially it doesn't really matter what type of government it has) as long as it is not corrupt.

 

But to get back to capitalism being the best thing we have; given free rein most capitalistic societies move towards domination by a small number of monopolistic corporations. These do not promote competition but stifle it, often deliberately and in ways that are all but illegal. Think of Sony, Microsoft, Smithklein Beecham etc. This trend is becoming global as we all know. Thus I dispute the reasoning behind any assertion that capitalism is a torch bearer for competition.