AchillesUltimate

joined 2 years ago
[–] AchillesUltimate@lemy.lol 2 points 2 years ago

I guess I can't imagine a better system.

If people want propaganda there's literally nothing that could stop that.

Sure, every major news outlet is biased, but people can read what a variety of outlets have to say and synthesis the truth from that (there was an AI that did that a while back that was pretty cool) or people could much smaller sources (even one person) that's good at research that they somewhat trust and get their news there. The important thing is just that the government doesn't interfere and everyone's free to say whatever they want.

I don't like that news sources are corrupt, but they have so much power and influence that someone's going to figure out a way to bribe them no matter what.

[–] AchillesUltimate@lemy.lol 1 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Are you opposed to freedom of the press? Because what that gets you is press that exclusively peddles whatever the government (which is evil and seeks total domination and control) wants. Perfect for totalitarians in exactly the same way Lenin is saying a free press is perfect for the bourgeoisie, except to a far greater extent.

You might also argue for no news at all, but that also seems like an opportunity for the government to craft any narrative they want.

The best solution is to keep the government out of it and allow people to choose whichever news source they want. Allowing people to provide financial support to sources they like could even help that source grow and reach new people. The result is a flexible, continuous, and democratic system of determining which news source best satisfies the interests of the people. This is just applying capitalism to the news.

Granted this isn't a system without its issues, but those issues can be handled by people realizing one source is corrupt and switching to another. The issues in other systems (which are really the same issues, corruption and biases) are entirely uncontrollable and without solution.

[–] AchillesUltimate@lemy.lol 4 points 2 years ago

I might have the wrong definition of fascism, but I typically think of it as extreme government overreach and control. Capitalism, however, needs a free market and free-will exchange, both of which government restrict.

If you wanted to argue that capitalism inevitably devolves into fascism you might be able to, but I suspect that any economic system would just as easily devolve to fascism.

In order for capitalism to devolve into fascism, you'll have to corrupt the government (otherwise there's no way to override free will exchange). However, what exists in capitalism that makes this easier/provides additional incentives for this? Every system with a government will have powerful people who want to manipulate the government for more power.

[–] AchillesUltimate@lemy.lol 2 points 2 years ago

Remembering your playthrough of Nier Automata be like

[–] AchillesUltimate@lemy.lol 5 points 2 years ago

That's a remarkably interesting link, thanks for sharing.

[–] AchillesUltimate@lemy.lol 27 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Not just that. In order for the sun to be visible 24/7 from Antarctica during its summer, the light from the sun would have to morph from a circle into a right going around the whole earth. I have no idea what could cause that.

[–] AchillesUltimate@lemy.lol 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

This has confused me before, is there only one wind tunnel or something? Why on earth is testing time restricted? Can they not build more tunnels? Is there a safety reason it'd be bad to test the aerodynamics of the car a lot?

[–] AchillesUltimate@lemy.lol -1 points 2 years ago
  1. Employee and employer isn't the only thing in an economy, and competition in other areas is very fruitful for everyone.

  2. As for this area, yes, there's a pressure to try to exploit workers, but you can't exploit them too much or they won't work for you, competitors will steal them, they'll go off and found their own business, they might even form unions to apply extra pressure on you. There are lots of competing forces here.

[–] AchillesUltimate@lemy.lol -1 points 2 years ago

Wouldn't all the problems with a monopoly be 100 times worse when done by the government? You remove any potential for competition, government officials would still act in their own self interests (as they always have and always will), the government maintains their power through military force, there are no laws or legislations to stop them, it'd control everything it possibly could, and any objections are met with legal punishment.

I'm no fan of monopolies, but a totalitarian government (which is what every government strives for) is much worse.

[–] AchillesUltimate@lemy.lol -2 points 2 years ago

Capitalism is all about mutually beneficial, free-will exchange. When you engage in a transaction, it's because you believe what you are giving up is worth less to you than what you are receiving, otherwise you wouldn't engage in the transaction.

[–] AchillesUltimate@lemy.lol 16 points 2 years ago (9 children)

It's pretty bold to say that there's no evidence for him.

For starters, the claim that he existed is rather unextraordinary. That he was the messiah might be extraordinary, but just that a dude with that name who did some of the same things isn't too remarkable. This means that we don't need a ton of strong evidence. Compounded with the fact that he was (if he existed) poor, and therefore it's not expected that he'd leave much evidence, we need hardly anything to say the man existed.

Since there seems to be a consensus by experts that he existed, and since neither of us are experts (probably, I don't actually know about you), you need to either present a reason to be skeptical of those experts or present evidence contradicting their claim.

I'm not able to filter through everything Josephus and Tacitus wrote, interpret it in the intended context, and judge it's validity. Thus I need to trust other people's findings.

If you could show that these experts are unreliable (perhaps they're religiously motivated, though I think secular historians agree), then we could start from scratch and the burden of proof would be on people claiming the man existed.

[–] AchillesUltimate@lemy.lol 0 points 2 years ago

One valid use of government power is punishing people who murder, and I'm not exactly sure what power cartels have outside of that.

I googled it and the Wikipedia page said they're inherently unstable, but I don't know how reliable that is.

In any case, I don't see how my second example isn't a cartel itself. All the bread companies are colluding to set the price of bread artificially high. The problem is there isn't much to stop new competitors (or to stop members defecting).

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