Home | Community | Message Board

Original Seeds Store
This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.


Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: North Spore Injection Grain Bag   Myyco.com Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale   Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   MagicBag.co All-In-One Bags That Don't Suck   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Bridgetown Botanicals CBD Concentrates   PhytoExtractum Buy Bali Kratom Powder   Original Sensible Seeds Bulk Cannabis Seeds

Jump to first unread post Pages: < Back | 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >  [ show all ]
Invisiblelaughingdog
Stranger
 User Gallery
Registered: 03/14/04
Posts: 4,829
Re: Capitalism [Re: The Blind Ass] * 1
    #26815676 - 07/10/20 05:36 PM (3 years, 8 months ago)

It has nothing much to do with any particular, government, capitalism, empire, communism, socialism, feudalism, or dictatorship. As soon as a population grows too large for members to actually know each other, (as in a tribe whose population just went above Dunbar's number), exploitation begins, which is followed by corruption.

After the hunter gatherer stage generally comes agriculture, a surplus store of grain, followed by exploding birthrate, followed by the beginnings of environmental degradation due to the need to feed even more people, and therefore cultivating more land, and chopping down more trees, and killing off of more of the local wildlife. This is accompanied by crowding & more waste, which is followed by more disease.

Next comes the temptation to conquer one neighbors and get their store of grain, goods, and possibly get their women and turn the men into sacrifices or slaves. (Welcome to your wonderful species with God given rights.)
In order to accomplish this, takeover, we get a soldier class, violence, torture, rape and pillage.

All the rest of civilized garbage from lawyers, taxes, & prisons follows shortly.
Today at around 7 billion unenlightened people, on the planet, all interconnected, with stores of nuclear weapons, on going cyber war, and the whole damn list of disasters, it is anybodies guess, of exactly where or when, the sand castle starts to crumble. Some might say it already did 6 months ago, or after WWII,...not that it matters now.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineVigilantevendetta
Reality Bender
Male


Registered: 04/11/20
Posts: 15
Last seen: 3 years, 7 months
Re: Capitalism [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26818428 - 07/11/20 11:10 PM (3 years, 8 months ago)

Capitalism is imperfect.  Any human developed system will be. 

BUT, capitalism encourages and maximizes innovation. 

It has given us medical advances, agricultural technology and helped reduce world poverty. 

Just like all things, it has a light and a dark side but I believe it’s better than any systems we’ve come up with so far.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisibleredgreenvines
irregular verb
 User Gallery

Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,061
Re: Capitalism [Re: Vigilantevendetta]
    #26818724 - 07/12/20 05:00 AM (3 years, 8 months ago)

how does capitalism provide medical advances?


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineVigilantevendetta
Reality Bender
Male


Registered: 04/11/20
Posts: 15
Last seen: 3 years, 7 months
Re: Capitalism [Re: redgreenvines]
    #26818819 - 07/12/20 07:13 AM (3 years, 8 months ago)

For instance, what company would spend billions developing life saving drugs, medical devices or new treatments with no financial incentive? 

The government *could* step in and act as that surrogate in other types of systems but when have they ever been good at anything?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisibleredgreenvines
irregular verb
 User Gallery

Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,061
Re: Capitalism [Re: Vigilantevendetta]
    #26818928 - 07/12/20 08:46 AM (3 years, 8 months ago)

many of the monopolistic capitalist drugs have natural variants that are equally effective but are not approved by the AMA + FDA, so what we have is a system that regulates who may or may not produce or approve the sale and use of drugs, a system of laws and oppressive practices but no clear benefit, only propaganda.

drug propaganda is actually why this site exists.


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineVigilantevendetta
Reality Bender
Male


Registered: 04/11/20
Posts: 15
Last seen: 3 years, 7 months
Re: Capitalism [Re: redgreenvines]
    #26819453 - 07/12/20 01:40 PM (3 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:
many of the monopolistic capitalist drugs have natural variants that are equally effective but are not approved by the AMA + FDA, so what we have is a system that regulates who may or may not produce or approve the sale and use of drugs, a system of laws and oppressive practices but no clear benefit, only propaganda.

drug propaganda is actually why this site exists.




Like I said, it’s an imperfect system.  I actually don’t have a nice opinion of pharma even though I started my career there.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineFreedom
Pigment of your imagination
Male User Gallery


Registered: 05/26/05
Posts: 6,016
Last seen: 12 hours, 7 minutes
Re: Capitalism [Re: DividedQuantum] * 2
    #26833688 - 07/20/20 06:16 AM (3 years, 8 months ago)

When I imagine myself and others are things that possess other things
and
I judge myself ruthlessly in comparison to others
and
My value depends on the things I posses (whether they be character traits, experiences, objects or people)

Idiotic competition reigns supreme and its never ever ever enough

Striving and striving and striving to be something or get something
for imaginary value

I don't even know how many servants I have (slaves?) sewing my clothes, growing my food, assembling my cell phones

I'll never know their names or see their faces

They work for my imaginary value, for my fleeting pleasures, to entertain and distract myself so I can live in an illusory world.

____

I like to grow plants
they grow themselves
the air grows them the sun grows them the water grows them I grow them

Each one is so unique
alive
beautiful

I like to look at them
There is nothing I could say about looking at them
Magic is the closest I could come, and that word might be very misleading
the whole world is magic
and I feel awe at the magic of this world

along with the awe and beauty and magic
for this human
is despair, cause it doesn't mean anything at all

nothing I can buy will change that

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisibleredgreenvines
irregular verb
 User Gallery

Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,061
Re: Capitalism [Re: Freedom]
    #26833872 - 07/20/20 09:19 AM (3 years, 8 months ago)

possession should be redefined to access rights.

that way we can redefine matter, real estate, roadways, markets, factories, mines, farms, transportation, in conjunction with data using fair and equitable terms that respect human rights as well as rights of origination and creation.

it's all about access and authenticity in the request for access.

the next step is to explore the molecular level of this
particularly at the HTTP Get or Post
which is not yet in itself integrated with any localized or international rights brokering system.

we need to create that system to ensure that data is available to whom and to whatever needs or is entitled to it.

that system can also be tied to back end fact checking preventing runaway fake news, and prevention of unauthenticated data into a news feed.


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRJ Tubs 202
Male


Registered: 09/20/08
Posts: 6,123
Loc: USA Flag
Last seen: 15 days, 22 hours
Re: Capitalism [Re: laughingdog] * 1
    #26834282 - 07/20/20 01:19 PM (3 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

laughingdog said:

It has nothing much to do with any particular, government, capitalism, empire, communism, socialism, feudalism, or dictatorship. As soon as a population grows too large for members to actually know each other, (as in a tribe whose population just went above Dunbar's number), exploitation begins, which is followed by corruption.





:thumbup:    amen

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleRahz
Alive Again
Male


Registered: 11/10/05
Posts: 9,298
Re: Capitalism [Re: redgreenvines]
    #26834647 - 07/20/20 05:28 PM (3 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:
many of the monopolistic capitalist drugs have natural variants that are equally effective but are not approved by the AMA + FDA, so what we have is a system that regulates who may or may not produce or approve the sale and use of drugs, a system of laws and oppressive practices but no clear benefit, only propaganda.

drug propaganda is actually why this site exists.




Sounds like unfair business and government policy. Not the fault of capitalism. Although, I think it's apparent at this point that capitalism can be corrupted like any other system. Monopolies were once frowned upon as a practice of good stewardship. Oppressive practices are inherently anti-capitalist aren't they?


--------------------
rahz

comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace


"The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." - Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisibleredgreenvines
irregular verb
 User Gallery

Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,061
Re: Capitalism [Re: Rahz] * 1
    #26834756 - 07/20/20 06:32 PM (3 years, 8 months ago)

the creation of offshore factories staffed by slave workers (eg in Bangladesh) in order to provide products to Americans (and Canadians etc.) is oppressive, duplicitous, and flamboyantly capitalist.


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisiblepineninja
Dream Weaver
 User Gallery


Registered: 08/17/14
Posts: 12,468
Loc: South Flag
Re: Capitalism [Re: redgreenvines]
    #26836031 - 07/21/20 12:39 PM (3 years, 8 months ago)

Clearly no connection there....totally different countries....

Look at the amount of pollution they have...can't even keep their skies clean tsk tsk.


--------------------
Just a fool on the hill.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisibleredgreenvines
irregular verb
 User Gallery

Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,061
Re: Capitalism [Re: pineninja]
    #26836293 - 07/21/20 03:10 PM (3 years, 8 months ago)

maybe they can call the Swedish forest services to sweep the skies.


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineGandalfSon
Stranger
Registered: 07/01/20
Posts: 34
Last seen: 3 years, 6 months
Re: Capitalism [Re: redgreenvines]
    #26845500 - 07/26/20 04:32 AM (3 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:
how does capitalism provide medical advances?




Something to do with people being greedy and using greed for public gain instead of the Marxist world where nepotism leads to huge class divides.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisibleredgreenvines
irregular verb
 User Gallery

Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 38,061
Re: Capitalism [Re: GandalfSon]
    #26845568 - 07/26/20 06:25 AM (3 years, 7 months ago)

i would not trust advances from greed, but I would from careful scientists.


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineWeyland
Seeker
Registered: 07/17/20
Posts: 14
Last seen: 1 year, 1 month
Re: Capitalism [Re: redgreenvines] * 1
    #26845959 - 07/26/20 11:29 AM (3 years, 7 months ago)

Admittedly these thoughts have come from my escaping the anger of the world around me and tripping or escaping with other substances. I fully admit these will likely be ill-formed, and I apologize for that upfront.

My stance on society is that having almost any society is a net good for the most people than having no society. This doesn't mean there are no atrocities in society and in fact because of society, but for my ideas to have any grounding, I had to accept that society and the social contract is a good thing.

The issue I grapple with is the exploitation of others for the benefit of the few. I have only grown up in the US, and I have visited a couple of European and Central American countries. Growing up, I would see so many people my age whose parents were either blue-collar folks that had a pension or some solid retirement or were small business owners (either trades or as a doctor or lawyer). Because of the part of the US, I grew up in, conservative values were taught as part of capitalist values. These people that I saw growing up worked often enough where most of my childhood when I visited friends' homes their fathers were all absent at work.

By the time I got to college, I was a full-fledged Libertarian, reading Ayn Rand, Ludwig von Mises, and other Free Market authors. I won't get too into it, but life really, really likes to shake up your beliefs like a hornet's nest, and through a series of events, I experienced large swaths of unemployment, medical bills, and legal headaches. I'll accept my privilege and not that I am nowhere near even a bad case. In fact, I was very lucky, and I was able to escape these potholes without a metric ton of debt to my name.

A lot of my friends and coworkers are not fortunate. At my age, more people are open about it, especially as they near the end of their debt, but these are people in their thirties and forties who were sold the notion that if you go to school, you'll get a degree. If you get a degree, you'll definitely get a job, AND THEN, at least when I was growing up, we were drilled daily to only work jobs you enjoy.  This is great if you enjoy a high-paying job, but unfortunately, that isn't the case. Again, I got lucky and my interests and skills opened a lot of doors for me, but it's a sad fact that for most Americans that never happens. I have a friend who graduated from college the same day I did. He's working three jobs, all having nothing to do with his degree.

With this anecdote in mind, I see prison stats that basically confirm the worst aspect of capitalism: slavery is still alive and legal. Twenty-eight or so states have private prisons, and in four states, they are not required to pay inmates anything whatsoever, yet they are allowed to force them to work. Further, private prisons are prisons that are owned by a private company. They don't do this for the good of society or to help the inmates, but they do it to contract the work out at a good rate for them, then make huge profits when the prison labor costs next to nothing. Then, they pay the county or whomever stocks the prison, usually based on a quota system. In fact, one state's prison industry change the bed count from two to three beds in a 5 x 8 room. Further, there's no attempts to separate non-violent crimes--drugs and abuse, property damage, loitering, or any other crimes that really deserve no jail time--from actual violent offenders. What ends up happening is a system where people make mistakes, get sent  to prison, then leave, but they have no money, and possibly are in debt, and no one will hire them because of their past. They join the recividism cycle, and they become a cog in the prison machine.

This can be extrapolated further with migrants and illegal immigrants who work for pocket change daily. So often, you'll hear from nationalists that we need to toss out all the so-called illegals, but it will never happen because Americans like fast, cheap labor, and Americans won't work for the low wages that migrants and other vulnerable populations are willing to work.

However, it's easy to take the idea that prisoners deserve it because they commited crimes or non-residents want this exploitation and the money is good to them.

Fine.

The US is run by so many billionaires (and multi-billionaires) that many bystanders believe they are one  good day from joining those ranks. For reference, I saw this on reddit, but if you are given $11,000 a day since 1776 to today, you still wouldn't be a billionaire. The fact is the billionaires own several media companies and other methods to reach the public, then they work on santizing their images as well as make them desirable. Reality TV about people who no one would know and who have no offerings to society beyond being rich for being known try to normalize this. Trump is a further extension of this as he tries very hard to "TV-ize" the presidency. I forget the exact exchange, but he announced he would make an announcement about some role, just like a TV show cliffhanger.

There are tons of systemic problems that I didn't even dare to touch in this, and I think that this shows how complicated and embedded capitalist ideals are within America writ large.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleDividedQuantumM
Outer Head
Male User Gallery

Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,851
Re: Capitalism [Re: Weyland] * 1
    #26846001 - 07/26/20 11:52 AM (3 years, 7 months ago)

Excellent post. As you imply at the end of it, even though you mentioned a multitude of the dysfunctions inherent in modern capitalist America, you barely even scratched the surface. We could go on and on about its failures.

The thing that really galls me is that most people buy into it totally. I don't know if they give any real thought to it, but they want their nice house with a white fence and a shiny car to drive and short vacations and debt and possibly children -- the American dream. And it just nauseates me.

We place more emphasis on the accomplishments of entrepreneurs in this country than anyone else. Writers, artists, playwrights, scientists, mathematicians, teachers, historians -- these are not especially celebrated positions. And philosophers, or what remains left of such a type of person, are at the bottom of the list, mocked for having their heads in the clouds and not making meaningful contributions to society, as in the form of material products and "hard work."

Some people acknowledge these faults, but reason that, despite them, capitalism is the best system ever devised. Which can be easily shown false with some understanding of history and anthropology. I don't expect much to change, even despite the current crises, but we're as asleep at the wheel as ever as a nation, and all one can do is point it out.


--------------------
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineWeyland
Seeker
Registered: 07/17/20
Posts: 14
Last seen: 1 year, 1 month
Re: Capitalism [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26846115 - 07/26/20 01:11 PM (3 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

DividedQuantum said:We place more emphasis on the accomplishments of entrepreneurs in this country than anyone else. Writers, artists, playwrights, scientists, mathematicians, teachers, historians -- these are not especially celebrated positions. And philosophers, or what remains left of such a type of person, are at the bottom of the list, mocked for having their heads in the clouds and not making meaningful contributions to society, as in the form of material products and "hard work."




This stuff bothers me to my core. Humans evolved and became so dominant because of our ability to not only become good at a multitude of things but also because we can recognize where we are weak and give those roles to people where that's their strength.

I do a lot of work with art projects and things like that, and the biggest hindrance I had for a long time was that I couldn't quite figure out how to monetize my work. If I was working on something creative but not for profit, what's the point? Realizing that was kind of liberating.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleDividedQuantumM
Outer Head
Male User Gallery

Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,851
Re: Capitalism [Re: Weyland]
    #26846419 - 07/26/20 04:32 PM (3 years, 7 months ago)

Yes well, the arts are not a particularly viable way to make a living these days. On the one hand, our culture is at a low ebb in appreciating serious art and writing, and the film industry is shit these days. It's just all part of our general decline. Given the lack of widespread interest or enthusiasm for high quality work, there's just no money in things like poetry or painting or philosophy or lots of stuff. All the publishers and film studios and art patrons want is the lowest common denominator, to make as much money as they can. Certainly, there is not a one to one relationship between quality and profitability in creative endeavors.

I myself do a lot of writing, a fair amount of which is released in various places. I make next to no money doing it, and I don't know of anyone in my circle that does. John Grisham and Tom Clancy can make a million dollars with a book, but when I look at books like that, I'm glad I didn't write them.

But capitalist culture has decided that art and entertainment are the same, and all these companies care about is money. So to be even an excellent artist, it is a struggle to make a living at it.


--------------------
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisiblelaughingdog
Stranger
 User Gallery
Registered: 03/14/04
Posts: 4,829
Re: Capitalism [Re: Weyland]
    #26846428 - 07/26/20 04:38 PM (3 years, 7 months ago)


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: < Back | 1 | 2 | 3 | Next >  [ show all ]

Shop: North Spore Injection Grain Bag   Myyco.com Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale   Kraken Kratom Red Vein Kratom   MagicBag.co All-In-One Bags That Don't Suck   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Bridgetown Botanicals CBD Concentrates   PhytoExtractum Buy Bali Kratom Powder   Original Sensible Seeds Bulk Cannabis Seeds


Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* Capitalism vs. Socialism Poll
( 1 2 3 4 all )
TameMe 4,099 67 04/02/09 01:20 PM
by Icelander
* Why Capitalism Noteworthy 455 9 09/24/09 11:26 AM
by Silversoul
* Capitalism: A Love Story
( 1 2 3 4 all )
Free.Your.Mind 3,550 75 07/19/10 01:30 AM
by GazzBut
* capitalism at its finest
( 1 2 all )
PHARMAKOS 3,497 31 02/29/04 08:20 AM
by SkorpivoMusterion
* Thoughts on the Metaphysical aspects of capitalism Kalix 905 13 06/04/05 07:35 PM
by Kalix
* Poverty, Capitalism, and Epicurus DigitalDuality 968 7 05/06/04 06:34 AM
by GazzBut
* Karl Marx' Materialism as it relates to Capitalism Hefe 1,498 15 11/10/07 06:59 PM
by Silversoul
* Christianity, Colonialism, Capitalism and Islam. atomikfunksoldier 2,018 14 07/14/03 07:44 AM
by gnrm23

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Middleman, DividedQuantum
1,494 topic views. 3 members, 6 guests and 16 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2024 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.031 seconds spending 0.01 seconds on 16 queries.