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laughingdog
Stranger

Registered: 03/14/04
Posts: 4,829
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Quote:
DividedQuantum said: ....
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. ...
. What sort of subjects do you write about?
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,825
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Lots of poetry, general philosophy, philosophy of mind and consciousness, hunter-gatherers, currently in the process of publishing a book about an alternative interpretation of quantum mechanics, and other stuff here and there.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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pineninja
Dream Weaver



Registered: 08/17/14
Posts: 12,468
Loc: South
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Remember to notify the book club.
-------------------- Just a fool on the hill.
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,825
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Will do.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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Kickle
Wanderer


Registered: 12/16/06
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Last seen: 8 minutes, 57 seconds
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: i would not trust advances from greed, but I would from careful scientists.
Who funds the scientists so they have time to be careful? It's a double edged sword no matter which blade you see first.
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,825
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Re: Capitalism [Re: Kickle]
#26856085 - 07/31/20 07:33 PM (3 years, 6 months ago) |
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Much of science is funded by government.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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Kickle
Wanderer


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Quote:
Microsoft's research and development expenditure amounted to around 19.3 billion U.S. dollars in its 2020 fiscal year
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In the last reported year, Google's parent company spent 26 billion U.S. dollars on R&D across its many properties.
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Amazon research and development expenses for the twelve months ending March 31, 2020 were $37.329B
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Social networking company Facebook spent 13.6 billion U.S. dollars on research.
Those 4 companies amount to almost 100 billion in R&D funding last year.
In comparison, the National Science Foundation was given a budget of 8.1 billion last year, a record high. Yes, most "basic" research is performed by the government. Meaning students and professors of universities which gives a disproportionate volume of mostly benign findings. Yet most of the research that gets put to use is completed by companies. Whether that be a tech company or a pharmaceutical company. Some companies do receive government funding and it usually has strings attached.
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,825
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Re: Capitalism [Re: Kickle]
#26856260 - 07/31/20 09:03 PM (3 years, 6 months ago) |
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Indeed, most research funding is either corporate or private, and for profit. I was just playing devil's advocate.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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Kickle
Wanderer


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Since the earliest trading, has there been any system besides capitalism? Doesn't trade itself indicate private property and ownership? Even if not in the same sense that we understand it today.
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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pineninja
Dream Weaver



Registered: 08/17/14
Posts: 12,468
Loc: South
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Re: Capitalism [Re: Kickle]
#26856590 - 08/01/20 02:44 AM (3 years, 6 months ago) |
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Trade is time spent also. My time for yours Doesn't need to be material.
-------------------- Just a fool on the hill.
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The Blind Ass
Bodhi



Registered: 08/16/16
Posts: 26,732
Loc: The Primordial Mind
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We call our system (here - where I am / US) capitalist - but really I have no idea what it actually is, other than being something similar to - yet altogether different from the ideal form of capitalism as was taught in college. Something about how grand systematic ideals mutate from their original form when implemented by man at large. I also can’t seem to get the right height & depth needed for a sustained look upon what it actually is. .
This cup of coffee I drink right now - if I trace back from it, I got some vision of how it came to me & the myriad transactions, toils, and endeavors needed to do so. I simply picked up the beans from a local grocery store - but there’s a lot more to it’s story than meets the eye. These dear little beans have been on quite the trip, and all the people that had a hand in it too- pure joy!
-------------------- Give me Liberty caps -or- give me Death caps
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,825
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Re: Capitalism [Re: Kickle]
#26856875 - 08/01/20 08:54 AM (3 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Kickle said: Since the earliest trading, has there been any system besides capitalism? Doesn't trade itself indicate private property and ownership? Even if not in the same sense that we understand it today.
I noted earlier in the thread:
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But with capitalism, you have those with enough capital to invest in certain businesses. If their investment is a good one, they have no responsibility to anyone -- their own employees, society, the government, the poor -- to compensate them at all, for any reason. Publicly traded companies become a thing, so you get people who hoard stock, or manipulate markets, arbitrage, what have you -- the little guy, and really the middle guy, never see any of this. And the act of making as much money as possible, and ruthlessly outperforming your competitors, become good things.
The logical outcome of such a system is what we have today: a tiny plutocracy with more money than several small nations. And everyone else to pick up the crumbs, and the system is failing.
So capitalism is not simply synonymous with the word "trade." It is in fact far more ultra-materialistic than almost every economic system to come before it. Communism would be the one exception.
So capitalism requires unlimited resources, and is based on the principle of "enlarging the pie" for all of society (although of course this has seldom applied to the poor). This mindset does not really apply to other forms of trade. Private property is a concept that goes back to the origins of civilization, but capitalism, though private property underlies it at its base, involves a lot more than this, in terms of the evolution of economics over time. For example, private property existed during the Middle Ages, but that was quite far from a capitalist world.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,706
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so it's like quantum mechanics: everything reduces to a mysterious relationship between time and gravity.
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_ 🧠 _
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Kickle
Wanderer


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I still think capitalism was born in the first trade. And as private property becomes broader and broader, ecompassing more and more, then that ownership emerges under the umbrella of capitalism. And it shifts over time. At one point in American history we had human beings who were private property. Hard to think of that as being in a capitalistic society, but it was. But would you define capitalism around owning a slave?
IMO the idea of private property is the crux of capitalism rather than the specifics of what is owned. We are a complex nest of ownership now but at the end of the day ownership is tied to what one can claim and defend. It always has separation at it's heart. Then and now IMO
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,825
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Re: Capitalism [Re: Kickle]
#26857540 - 08/01/20 04:46 PM (3 years, 6 months ago) |
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Well that's a perfectly valid opinion. On the other hand, we can distinguish capitalism from many other economic systems in history that are related but not the same. I would associate private property and trade as something more generalized to civilization itself than the specific category of capitalism. However, as you point out, capitalism is shaped by history, and so has an unbroken link with the past. So it just depends on how one wants to talk about it.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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Kickle
Wanderer


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Yeah I think I'm into the human nature stuff more than the specific manifestation of said nature. Bad habit in some ways because it's like seeing the forest but not the trees. And if you are looking for solutions to current problems, you're better changing a tree or several than trying to change a forest. Hopefully that wild analogy makes some sense
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,825
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Re: Capitalism [Re: Kickle]
#26859604 - 08/02/20 07:36 PM (3 years, 6 months ago) |
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Sure it makes sense. As long as we are consistent with how we frame our perspective, confusion can be avoided.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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laughingdog
Stranger

Registered: 03/14/04
Posts: 4,829
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An example of American capitalism run amok:
"What is Right to Repair? An introduction for curious people."
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