It's funny,today I just received "Profit Over People:neoliberalism and global order" by Noam Chomsky, from amazon books.I just briefed through it,it's mainly about the new form of liberalism,its pro corporate system of economic and political policies, that is waging a form of class war worldwide. 

Ummm. Yes. I think that's how we have discussions. i.e. by expressing our own sentiments.

Ditto. Me too. lol.

Of course, just not two-partisan politics, but multi-partisan politics. I always thought that was a good thing.

you're talking about corporatism, not capitalism

they deliver the mail well....

oh wait, they dont do that either

well corporatism is ultimately because of govt, not business, the govt doesnt follow the rules, interferes in the market and gives into big business, want to end corporatism than vote in people who actually give a fuck and know what they are doing

your tire example isnt an example of corporatism, though your company may not benefit from such a scenario, the consumer does

you got good customer service and loyalty, you just need to find areas where you can make economies of scale, lower your costs and become more efficient, as long as your making a good profit than your in good shape

I'm quite depressed that atheism is almost synonymous with leftism.

lol. OK.

Some of us can keep our ideologies separate without relating the two. Let's try it.

Example: "I don't believe in god, which has nothing to do with my beliefs regarding (make your own list)."

I'll even start...

I don't believe in god, which has nothing to do with my beliefs regarding fucking, farting, fraternizing with fools, foolery, fidgeting, fragging noobs, fishing, freedom. finances, socialism, or capitalism.

But governments corporatise precisely in the name of pandering to a prevailing capitalist idolatry in their electorate. The eventual demise of this sentiment is exactly what would reverse this problem, however, a propagandistic "socialism is evil, capitalism is apple pie" campaign is a historical reality for some modern societies, and corporatism does accurately represent the irrational fear of a socialist agenda that this has inhered in the people of those societies. 

Corporatism is ultimately because of wide-spread inhered sanctified reverence of the principles of capitalism, your government is doing exactly what it was created to do by representing that. The problem lies, I suggest, with the irrationality of this insistence that capitalism is an infallible demi-god of political right, it's nigh religious in some people.

The highly conservative do tend to be religious, thats all I was saying. I'm somewhere in the middle, possibly a bit leftish but I maintain a good distance from the "lunatic fringe". I don't generally care about what someone thinks as long as it's not in or going to be in my living room in the near future. But I would not lie and say there is not a bit more sympathy for a like minded individual maybe even a certain amount of strange mutual understanding that is enjoyable. I imagine most people feel this way even yourself.

After reading an article on a few atheists and possibly homosexuals being executed and suiciding in the middle east my first thought was "I wish there was something I could do to help those people." If they had been religious nuts or w/e I wouldn't give one of my rats asses.

I would like to come at this subject from a slightly different direction.  Instead of capitalism, socialism, communism - try thinking about it as competition, cooperation and symbiosis(?)  Since my background is ecology & evolutionary biology, I will tend to use examples from there. 

Every organism above the level of the simplest bacteria depends on symbiosis since many of the organelles (mitochondria, chloroplasts, etc.) were at one time free living organisms that have been incorporated into other organisms to the point that neither can survive without the other.  All multi-cellular organisms are dependent on close cooperation.  Not symbiosis exactly but very nearly.  At the level of free living organisms the dominant system is cooperation. You cannot survive without millions of other organisms in your gut, on your skin, in the environment around you.  As you move up in scale, cooperation continues to dominate.  Where competition is present, it is based on and requires an extensive web of cooperative organisms in order to be able to compete.  Competition in the natural environment is pretty sharply limited.  Predation is even more so.  If I recall correctly, if coyotes are surviving on mice, it takes 100 pounds of mice (in the environment) to support 1 pound of coyote.  This ratio (or one very much like it) carries across all predator/prey relationships.

If I carry the analogy into human society, I see much the same thing.  While I could probably provide for my food, shelter, clothing, transport, etc. by myself.  I would be so busy doing just that, I would not have time to do anything else.  In fact, I would probably not even have the time of energy to rise above the barest subsistence level on any of them.

To keep the post short.  Our entire system depends on cooperation.  Competition is a minor component and sharply controlled.  Both of them are supported by symbiosis where appropriate.  We live in and depend upon a socialist/communist economic system because that is what works.  Capitalism depends on that to thrive.  If we forget that, we are setting ourselves up to crash the system that supports us.  

I could go on, but I think I will stop, kick the ball out and see what others think.

Fittest = the one with the most well adjusted (provided for, healthiest, etc.) grandchildren. 

Might makes for damned expensive to maintain. 

Best individual at soliciting cooperative activity from colleagues makes for strongest group leader and greatest fitness for entire group.

Yes, that hansom boy is my top guy.  His name is Skye, he is about 12 1/2 years old and is a red tri color Australian Shepherd.  And, no, they are not from Australia, that is just the name.

Fitness is defined as being able to get the greatest amount of your genome into following generations.  Babies, grand children, great grand children.  Straight from Darwin.  It has nothing with who has the biggest biceps.

The bull elk with the biggest harem is usually so worn out he dies the next season.  Just one example

The leader who does not waste lives and treasure usually has the fittest group.

You are right.  Questionable and narrowly interpreted - your point?

govt corporatists arent pandering to capitalists or capitalism, they are pandering to potential voting blocks and donors, its all about getting votes and keeping power, which they then use to supply an endless flow of govt goodies to their buddies

this isnt capitalism, so lets not pretend that it is

you seem to have been drinking the kool-aid when it comes to how most pro-govt people decide to couch their arguments

our govt was created to protect liberty, plain and simple

no one with any sense or who knows what they are talking about explains capitalism in the terms you've been using, if you want to learn what real free markets and capitalism is about you need to listen to guys like peter schiff, henry hazlitt, von mises or other austrian school economists

There are cases, like the Cheetah, that are exceptions.  Cheetahs went through a population "choke point" several millenia back that reduced their population and genetic variability so yes, there is less difference between two cheetah than we would expect.  The same is true for animals like aphids, Whiptail lizards and the like.  However, in normal genetics involving sexual reproduction, the first child carries 50% of your genome, the second gets another 25% out there, third adds another 12 1/2% and so on.  So lots of kids means you approach 100%.

The Whiptail uses parthenogenic replication and gets 100% out there with the first offspring.  And, it doesn't need to waste time and resources looking for a mate.  Pretty efficient process if the environment remains stable.  And we don't know, they may do gender change in response to certain environmental cues (fish and aphids are two examples of animals that do this) and go to "normal" sexual replication at need.  Remember too that even clones show variability.  I remember everyone's surprise when the first cloned cat looked nothing at all like it's genetically identical mother.  If I recall the mother was a calico and her kitten was a gray tabby.

And no, Darwin did not know about genetics, but he certainly did understand how inheritance works.  He did get details wrong, but that was a result of the time.  His estimate of the age of the earth came at a time when everyone else assumed goddunit 5.000 years ago.  Just imagine what the reaction would have been if he had said 4.8 billion years.

Lobbyists and special interest groups are not part of our current form of capitalism? They seem to fit hand in hand all too well.

If you really do some scraping and poking around you will find that early in the history of the US politicians worked for peanuts for the prestige of serving their country. Washington had to pay his own way around.

 Now we have lifetime politicians who are in for the $ and they enjoy working with major companies. This is not really a problem with capitalism it's just what we as the people have allowed to happen in our government, but it coincides directly with our economic system.

There is nothing similair about atheism and liberalism directly. Just as there is no direct link to light and dark but the sun has a say in it.

 There is a link and I think it's got something to do with an open mind. You can't deny a link, look up some statistics on atheists who are liberal as opposed to conservative, I believe you will find an overwhelming amount of atheists are liberal and the majority of the religious will be conservative. There is a reason for this and it key's them together like peas and carrots.

Cool. You registered 3  and a 1/2 years ago, and finally decided to post... that.

I should point out that Denmark is a part of Scandinavia, and secondly... "When in doubt, go for the dictionary!"

Cool! So are you still up for a threesome with me and Nigelthebold?

Fascinating. 

Genetic = of, relating to, caused by or controlled by genes

Viability = capable of living; especially:having obtained such form and development as to be normally capable of surviving outside the mother's womb.  Also; capable of growing and developing...also; having a reasonable chance of succeeding.

I suppose your definition might be correct if your society was in say, a maximum security wing of a particularly bad prison.  But since they don't allow the sexes to mingle in such institutions, the viability part just went down the crapper.

And what is the definition of weaker genes?  In a culture where people are rewarded for great musical talent, a person who had weak genes might be someone who couldn't carry a tune.  Should the musically inclined be free to eradicate those who can't play along?  Sometimes what appears to be a weakness is actually a strength.  Allergies to fava beans, or sickle cell anemia may appear to reduce fitness.  But both of those "weak" genes confer resistance or immunity to Malaria.  So how do you decide who to eradicate?

I would like to see something to support your contention that inherent predation on other animals or other humans is the watershed event you seem to think it is.  Domestication of animals?  Interspecies cooperation.  Development of agriculture?  Cooperative labor within groups and communities.  Industrial development?  Some competition and even exploitation, but try to run a factory without a willing labor force.  The more so as the technology becomes complex. 

I have seen cars build in factories where the workers were unhappy.  They are often sabatoged and always junk.  And do you want to own a computer that was made in a factory where the workers were inherently aggressive or violent?

Yes, many cultures are hierarchal (I think that is what you meant by stratified).  People are, dogs and wolves are but, ravens don't appear to be so I am not sure I understand your point.  If it is that the bad guys get the goodies, remember that if a wolf is too aggressive and violent, he or she gets thrown out of the pack.  The life expectancy of a lone wolf is usually less than a year.  He cannot survive without the cooperation and support of the pack.

However, most of that is irrelevant. You're deflecting, and honestly, you aren't doing a great job of it.

But hey... last one to the Bronze Age is a rotten egg, and it isn't because of using bronze tools in agriculture.

Whatever dance you are doing, I can assure you I've done it with another RRS'er here (back during March, when the original namesake of this thread appeared). In your favor, you are far more articulate, informed, educated, and (mind the pun) connected than he was.

Cooperation is interesting and fun to watch. Predatory/exploitative behavior usually comes out on top (civilization-wise and evolution-wise.)

Nope; Mischaracterization. About as much a mischaracterization as my statement "atheism is almost synonymous with leftism", but then, I can see now 'synonymous' was nought but a shit choice of words. I admit I'm a fan of hyperbole as anyone else is.

Replacing 'atheism' with 'humanism' and 'synonymous' with 'correlates' might have done the trick (despite DJ's inevitable disagreement, either way.)

A social animal? Mimicing other social animal-vermin? Blasphemy! Moving on...

Like your predecessor, "B199ER", you confuse 'modern creature comforts' for life essentials. There are two requirements for this conversation, and I assure you technology isn't one of them. (Instant communication helps, but isn't required)

Again, your quaint sociological analysis is considered and duly dismissed. Sociology has it's uses, and political/economic arguments aren't one of them. (at least imo)

Do you want me to list the things that have been gained through aggressive exploitation/predation? (aka, Imperialism, as Ken G. astutely worded)

You and I are citizens of one such achievement. Manifest Destiny and slave labor have built much of the industrialized superpower we are citizens of. Impressive, no? My (our?) nation actually postponed abolishing slavery after much of Europe had, simply because it was so damned profitable.

The phrase "to do a little wrong but to do so much right" comes to mind. Well, "right" and "wrong" are relative, after all.

Okay. Empires and/or kingdoms existed before navies did. Nice dodge, though. I'm going to personally dodge your asinine question about... living alone and (entirely?) self-sufficiently... as if it had any relevance to begin with.

It doesn't, because I have Type I Diabetes.

So... I guess your point (whatever the hell it is) is sound and undefeated because I need rDNA insulin in order to live? No, not really. I never contested the general assumption that humans are inherently social as a species.

You want to broadbrush Homo Sapiens Sapiens as a "cooperative" species solely on the basis of most of their endeavors having been achieved under social circumstances. I've already ceded that Human-animal-vermin are also social-animal-vermin. Your "cooperation" focus, is almost so pedantic and obsessive as to become purely academic.

A more productive focus of this already inane discussion would be why you are so fixed on the word "cooperation". Why are you, and how does it relate to socialism?

History books mention quite a bit about human endeavors achieved with cooperation. Unfortunately, for whatever tortured reasoning you seem to be employing here, the cooperative endeavors are out-weighed by the combative, predatory endeavors on a scale of... oh, I'd say 1:20. Even economics is filled with predatory/exploitative behavior; how do you suppose most of us ended up in our current recession to begin with? Because of "cooperation"?

No, in long term gains as well. Much of the current diplomatic and political status quo rests on things... not made of cooperation, but competition. An overwhelming abundance of it, in fact.

1. Hello to Ken Christiansen.  That's a really interesting story- have you gone into it in more detail elsewhere?

2. This was actually quite funny:

3. cj is right, of course, most of you are fighting over straw men and not addressing the real issues.

I find it funny that the little "political" tests usually place me at democrat, because they're one dimensional.

In reality I'm more of a Totalitarian Libertarian Capitalistic/Communist- treating the proper administration of different elements of society *ghasp* differently based on what is most likely to work in those cases.

And I tend to defer to the scientific method and the notion of a republic, as many massive state (or city)-sized test-tubes to determine what exactly those most functional methodologies are.  None of you really know what works until it's tried- neither do I. 

So, lets apply slightly different systems to each state, evaluate the efficacy relative to the populations (by proper blind statistical analysis rather than guesswork), and when/if the systems work, force them upon all of the states (therein I'm totalitarian), and iterate again with minor adjustments, and if we don't know what works or we aren't testing something, then let people do what they want (therein I'm libertarian).  As far as I'm concerned, the whole process of federal government could and should be done by an open source machine based on the feedback from surveys, which should be done in a double blind fashion and audited for transparency.

Some things work better cooperatively, some things work (at all) competitively and fail cooperatively.  Lets not pretend to have the ability to imaginatively simulate all of the nuances of a massive population's response to any particular socioeconomic system with any accuracy.

We're rational enough to recognize the reality of science over superstition in the field of philosophy- why not be rational enough to recognize science over assumption in the field of sociology.  It would be a trivial process to actually figure out what really works in an orderly fashion and agree to use that (whatever it happens to be)- why people can't agree to simply follow this practice is some combination of dogmatic certainty and simple idiocy; after all, why test it if they're already convinced their respective systems will work?

If she made that point, I would have opened my eyes in wonder, agreement, and (Ghasp? You mean gasp, right?!) excruciating joy of finding common ground.

This entire thread reads like the strawman army from Hell based on some whacky Voodoo Doll slash-fic gone horrifically wrong. I thank you, Blake, for pointing that out.

Science isn't dogmatic; perhaps the primary reason it falls on so many deaf ears nowadays (and always has, on basis of % of population).

Political science... is questionably scientific. Philosophy is irrelevant, for precisely the same reasons Bob Spence has illustrated already now -it's still just someone's opinion.

Whathedeuce made a good solid point in my trainwreck of a thread in Politics; that national politics are inexorably linked to national culture. I happen to enjoy my national culture, for some odd reason. As Jeffrick pointed out- so does many other hundreds of millions of animal-vermin lurking about throughout the globe.

Same here. Most efficient means to an end from point A to point Z. This appears to be a hard concept for European and Commonwealth territories to grasp; too much bugthought\\inefficiency in their culture.