I think the biggest conundrum of capitalism vs government regulation is this:
I absolutely agree that government needs to exert some control of business in order to prevent unfair practices. The mortgage fund and housing bubble crisis was a perfect example. It should have been obvious, with so many offered loans, with every lender claiming its no lose (that since housing prices continue to rise, even failure to complete a mortgage wasn't a problem as the house would sell for more than the loan). It should have been obvious there would be a collapse. And when the house of cards started to fall, these businesses sold off bad debt claiming they were AAA funds.

So yes, government needs to regulate businesses when they start to drive out of the lines. But the biggest problem is the nature of government. Why they do not act is because government is run by people and corporations have learned long ago how to simultaneously take part in government and their business.

So, the biggest problem is how does one create a government which is not co-optable by business interests.

So if I go back to my sentences does this summarise your reply?

- Megacorps just another human group - humanity not guaranteed
- Capitalist legal framework = risk management of innovation until monopolies
- Tension between secrecy and openness is transversal to humans = compete vs cooperate in all biology
- Global vs national scale does not change power dynamics
- Scale balances OODA speed vs size via focused priorities - communities are attuned to their needs
- Competition is essential for democratic process - of ideas rather than people
- Monopoly is an emotional taboo - property accumulation is ultimately irrational
- Coercive violence is the moral lynchpin

+ it should be managed, outside measures needed
+ entitlement to basic material goods
+ tension between capitalism and stability - economic inequality consequence

Disagreements becoming clearer ;)

Human groups that try to define humanity are religious in nature, I'd rather keep that mindset separate from economics/politics. We actually agree as I see the humanity of capitalism not in the corporations but in the enforcement of property rights - basically the moral lynchpin is the absence of coercive violence, which to me should include property violations.

We also agree on the decentralized model benefits due to focus of communities being closer to the ground. There are coordination overheads but I'll park that for now.

I agree on competition of memes being currently underappreciated, with conformity of thought a huge elephant in the room of western societies. I disagree with competition of people being excessive, I'd rather say it only seems so relative to the above, whereas actually it also is underappreciated, the demand for more welfare being the perfect example. I don't need to say both of these anti-competitive trends are hugely related to a conception of moral humanity based on equality over freedom right? Wink wink... socialism boo hoo :)

Moving on to disagreements, you can see I don't agree on material entitlements per above. They are both ineffective and inhumane imo. I also disagree on lack of stability, but maybe semantics here. I did say myself capitalism smoothes progress; it necessarily causes progress. So stability as lack of progress conflicts with capitalism, whereas stability as lack of extreme fluctuations aligns with it. This will be a contentious point, suffice to say I see most economic crises, present one included, as due to fascism, not capitalism. Ergo politics tries to pick winners, makes most of us losers.

To finish commenting, we semi agree on external management of capitalism, and this may clarify the relation I see between it and democracy:
- First there is the humanity angle, the moral imposition is transversal obviously. I'd defend laissez faire logic where these morals should elevate freedom. Majorities today favor equality morals of welfare entitlement.
- Secondly, capitalism is inherently egalitarian, and democratic, since it disconnects all and any individual characteristics from market transactions' results. It's a perfect example of emergent order, which to me synergizes well with democratic liberty and conflicts with fascist authoritarianism (right or left-wing). The parallels with information theory are to me fascinating, in that the so called free market is kind of an encryption layer, doesn't matter who or why, I only see your bid amount, ergo your "vote" on the future, where you are literally putting your money where your whatever (mouth, ego, etc...) is.

I don't want to extend myself, but whereas a lot of folks see money and capitalism as facilitating efficient exchanges, and I agree that's true, the more important aspect to me is this democratic power emerging from capitalist markets. The moral balancing (because non coercive order) between individual competition and societal cooperation.

In response to Telika's post over here because it's too off topic for that thread.

"You didn't read it so I'll give you a second opportunity for that."

You don't have anything so you can't give anything.
(Just showing you how to be properly condescending, might as well do it right. I'll coach you for free!)

" ...accept that sometimes the anti-SVP vote comes in "what's that for a disgustingly evil retarded proposition, oh, came from the SVP again, I see" chronology.
See. Chronology. 1) contact with disgustingly evil proposition, 2) notification of its origin. We live in a country that allows us to vote on laws/propositions/socoieta issues, more often than for people/parties. So we basically don't even need to check who it comes from, or what who suggests to vote how. It just happens, anecdotically, that the SVP is behind the most vomitive propositions, but that is a mere sidenote.
That is the opposite of a "where does it come from, it must be shit then" chronology."

You're missing my point in this post entirely. My point is not that you won't vote for a motion because it's from the SVP, my point is that you won't vote for the motion because you think you occupy the high moral ground and then reject anything that you see as below that high moral ground. So the problem here is that you believe to occupy the high moral ground, entirely based on your feelings instead of logic, reason and facts.
People like you shouldn't vote, if you have any regard for the benefit of the whole country. Screwing things up for yourself is your right but screwing things up for everybody is antisocial, the very thing you believe not to be. Because only the right wing can be antisocial in your world view.

Your chronology therefor looks like this:

1.) "This motion looks disgusting, I'll be against it"
2.) "Oh it's from the SVP, well no surprise there. Looks like I'm rightfully being against it."

"Now, if the SVP ideology suits your own beliefs, moral priorities, and sensitivity, the effect will be that, indeed, you'll agree with most of their propositions (and define your political sympathies through these individual propositions). By all means do. It just happens that they keep systematically pushing for everything I'll ever stand against (xenophobia, banking secrecy, militarism, antisocial policies, and the systematric destruction of human rights imperatives)".

Do you stand for/against anything, or aren't you a runner instead? You love Greece but turned your back on it when things went down the hill and I guarantee that you would do the same to Switzerland if things got bad here. I wouldn't want people like that on my side in any fight :(

Xenophobia: A phobia is an irrational fear. I examined the SVP policies in detail and there isn't anything irrational about their policies. The difference between me and you appears to be that you take a look at policies and too quickly dismiss them as "disgusting" and "vomitable" whereas I spend many hours acquiring all the data I can possibly get and debating the pros and cons, as I did in the case of the anti mass immigration and minaret ban initiatives - both of which I fully support, after in-depth deliberation.
There are right-wing voters who are xenophobic but that means they are irrational, not the policy they are voting for. It's possible to do the right thing for the wrong reasons and vice versa.

Banking secrecy: How considerate of you to be concerned about lost tax revenue of other countries...but really, you just want us to be in the EU because it's the "social" thing to do, to be on the crap level of the others and share their misery. I'm extrapolating, but most likely not that wrong.

Militarism: Look, I get it -> Violence = bad. I'm a descendant of Jainists who came up with the concept of non-violence when your ancestors were still trying to figure out how to best lube up boy's asses with olive oil. I've also taken an interest in Taoism and all that stuff, and yet I support our military which as you might know is a purely -defensive- military. We haven't invaded anyone in 500 years (5th centenary of Marignano coming up this September).
You make it sound as if the SVP wanted to arm the country to its teeth which is far from the truth, they are too stingy to turn the country into a militaristic nation but want us to be able to take care of our defenses ourselves.
Every anti-military person I've talked to lives in the world as it should be and not in the world as it is. If you can't see the difference, please don't vote.

Anti-social policies: Typical SP rhetoric, trying to make it sound like the left wing is social and the right wing is anti-social. Do you think that just by repeating this mantra over and over, it will become true? As I explained above, it is nothing but claiming the high moral ground, cheap and easy without arguments. My leftist colleagues don't understand why I'm not an SP supporter considering I'm a low income person (they somehow believe the left is better for the simple little citizen). It's hard to explain to them that I don't just vote for my personal benefit in the short run but for the benefit of the entire country on the long run. Which is why I don't support initiatives like the "minimal guaranteed income" even if I would earn decisively more money if such a policy were put in place. Very funny that leftists tell me to be selfish instead and vote for the left instead of voting for the "antisocial" right...

Human rights: Missing the point entirely, SVP policy is not about eroding human rights but about -not- eroding our country's autonomous rights. A point leftists are continuously ignoring because they'd rather give up autonomy than ever agree with anything the right wing stands behind.
Again, intentionally or not you're peddling pro-EU propaganda and it's a shame they're trying to use human rights as an excuse to cut us "stubborn peasants" down to size.

"Too jaded to vote, no. Too jaded to argue with the swiss extreme-right when it's still so timid compared to the greek "new democracy". Blocher is almost a decent, civilized politician, in comparison with greek standards (you'd love Georgiadis)".

Since you're mentioning Blocher, I can conclude that you are (wrongly) equating the SVP with the Swiss extreme right. Even if the SVP is more right-wing than similar right-wing parties of other European countries, the SVP doesn't qualify as extreme right-wing. There is a huge gap between the SVP and the PNOS or Golden Dawn, only the latter two deserving to be called extreme right-wing. The SVP has no racist philosophy, the PNOS on the other hand does. The PNOS also has views such as "service guarantees citizenship", just like in the Starship Trooper movie. To be fair to the system in Starship Troopers, they don't have any racist ideology in the movie.

It's an illogical conclusion to say that I would love (or even like) Georgiadis. To explain in less subtle terms, the right wing isn't synonymous with Jew-burning Nazis and the left wing isn't synonymous with mass-rapist Soviet soldiers or the lovely stuff I saw at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
Also, I've seen you complain about how right wing the SVP is but I've never seen you complain about how left wing the SP is (the predominant left wing party). The SVP is not an inch more away from the center than the SP. Polarization needs two sides, the gap is wider here in Switzerland than in many other European countries and that's regrettable because any votes cast in the middle won't do as much to make course changes to the left or right as a vote cast for the SP/SVP, hence moderate attitudes are becoming less influential. You know this full well but only complain about the right wing. I used to make fun of both sides but leftists are in more need of their own medicine so nowadays I predominantly pick on the left wing. That's just for the verbal picking, when it comes to voting on issues I deal with it objectively as already mentioned multiple times.
It's interesting that you lament the situation in Greece but nicely contribute to widening the left-wight gap here in Switzerland by being pretty much in line with SP doctrine (even if you aren't a member, what you listed above correlates with SP policy)

I take it back, we need mods. :P

Your one-liner is more off-topic than my post above, bah!

PS: this is a discussion thread precisely for politics and that kinda stuff. You're welcome to join the convo, you're however not welcome to drown out anyone's decision to share their opinion. Now go and make more funnies, don't break character for crying out loud!

Not just sad, I'm appalled by that unfortunate fact and keep in mind that Pat Condell does get his fair share of death threats for those videos, problem for his haters is that he simply doesn't care.

I pretty much agree with everything he says except that I think he should replace the word Muslims with Islamists - that way he could easily bullet-proof his statements. Saying "Muslims" does unfortunately include those who might sincerely support separation of religion and State and are decent people some of whom are probably just as pissed off at zealots as we are. Pat Condell has clearly stated in more than one of his videos that he has nothing against all Muslims, his beef is with Islamists. Anyone with half a brain does of course realize that but due to plenty of people with less than half a brain who jump on semantic pedantry whenever possible in their never-ending quest of feeling offended, many people are bound to look at his videos as hate speech.


Funny thing with Richard Dawkins is that atheists all applaud him as long as he bashes Christianity but whenever he bashes Islam, some of those atheists suddenly go and hide behind a rock...

Not as wild as it ought to be, sadly.

Same here but a little digging usually brings the facts to the table.

I can't believe Dieter Nuhr is getting flak, that guy is quite subtle and mellow and never goes over the top but apparently even that is too much for oversensitive people to handle.

I guess when sense of humor is at 0%, it doesn't matter who says it. But even Somuncu?? I've never heard him saying anything overly offensive, this is getting out of hand.

That kinda censorship is pure fascism, the very thing that Germans have vowed never to allow again in their country :(

One must point out that it's not just pressure from the Muslim community but pressure from the politically correct left which has decided that they are going to feel offended for Muslims regardless of whether Muslims themselves are offended or not. The concept of "Fremdschämen" taken to the extreme.

You know, I think you might be right! :O

Interestingly, when I initially wrote that post, I didn't have time to address your entire previous post, but was intending to the next day. Unfortunately, I got busy, but then when I remembered it again days later, I saw you had intentionally ignored it, and that was really funny. Even funnier when you referenced my lack of an answer later in another thread (not talking about your own), and when I brought it up, you replied with essentially something like "Nyah nyah, you first!"
How am I supposed engage in discussion with someone who thinks they're absolutely trouncing me in some debate, but doesn't know (or doesn't wish to talk about) who or what or why they are debating, and what their own position in the debate is?

huh?
Dieter Nuhr still has his very own tv show and google will tell you that he has like 20 public performances in the next two month. There are many comedians who would glady "kiss their carreer goodbye" like that :p

1.) Who am I debating?

People who say stuff I disagree with on matters where I find it necessary to voice disagreement.

2.) What am I debating?

Already made clear from my posts but mainly separation of religion and state

3.) Why am I debating?

a) to procrastinate / willfully waste time
b) to exercise my mind
c) to exercise my freedom of speech aka because I don't want to keep my mouth shut and shouldn't have to
d) to improve the world (there's a very slim chance I can bring someone to reason, too slim a chance to be a main reason hence the last one)

4.) What is my position?

Again, already made clear as crystal but here the abridged version: I support full separation of religion and state which means no special rights based on religion and I'm especially against any legislation to exempt any religion from ridicule and/or criticism, including Islam. This includes the right to draw cartoons of Muhammad whenever anyone feels like it.


Your questions 1, 2 and 4 were entirely redundant because all my answers are already in this thread and questions 3 is superfluous in a debate, the arguments suffice and make the motivation irrelevant.

Meaning you're just trying to stall which almost worked until I answered all your questions, as I've done now.
Now that I've answered 4 of your questions, show me the courtesy of finally answering my two questions:

1.) Do you think that there should be a law that prohibits people from drawing Muhammad, e.g. in a cartoon where he's naked and gets sodomized by an elephant god or whoever?

2.) Do you think the two brothers who shot up the Charlie Hebdo office and its staff acted in any way, shape or form justifiably?


PS: Your sentiment that my sentiment is that I'm trouncing you is irrelevant, I mean all you need to do to un-trounce yourself is have good arguments (or have any arguments, to start with)

I'd say it is pretty relevant. You've not really answered my question. I wasn't talking about in general. I was talking about your actions and reactions in relation to ME. You almost gleefully worded your posts about how my this point is irrelevant and that point is invalid and my this counter-argument is lame, as if you're racking up points in some internet battle. But it doesn't seem that you even have a clear idea about what my position is, and what exactly you're counter-pointing of mine so "trouncingly". It's like you're dancing around on your toes, grinning how you're so awesome at fencing and duelling, and telling me how horrible my form is and how badly I'm going to lose, when I'm there flying a kite.
Nowhere in my posts in this thread or anywhere on gog or even anywhere else have I ever advocated the combining of state and religion.

Oh, that's nice to hear, I don't have a TV for years and the time after this statement he wasn't seen very much aside from getting flak for not taking back his statements, nice to hear he is so much around again now. :)
Then there's at least hope.
Did he have to take back what he said or did he just have to let the topic fall under the rug completely?

See? He still doesn't have the courage to answer even one question, because then he would have to stand by his answer.
This is going on for months now throughout this thread, he is stirring up everything here without making even one clear statement or answering one question while questioning the same stuff over and over again in spite of clear answers already given.

I was going to get involved in this discussion, but seeing as it's basically turned into one big racist flamewar, I think I'll abstain, save to say this:

I recently left my Facebook account inactive (I need it to log into a couple of sites, so I can't close it completely), I barely touch Twitter anymore, and I don't read the news anymore. I'm fucking sick of the far-right political extremism that has flared up here in Europe, with UKIP in the UK, Front National in France and PEGIDA here in Germany, and the far-left isn't much better when it comes to losing all sight of reality. As a centrist, I feel increasingly isolated. I feel like if I hear another person parroting Third Reich-esque bullshit like "Gutmenschen", "Lügenpresse" and "Multikultiwahn" again, I'm just going to kick the living shit out of them.

I'm not blind to the flare-up of religious extremism of late either (not just Islamic extremism, but also Christian extremism in the US as well as atheist fundamentalism, although the latter is largely limited to the online realm). But I refuse to yield to the unending torrents of hate that seem to define the net right now.

I've already broken ties with two former RL acquaintances for being active PEGIDA supporters. I mostly don't give a fuck what political or religious views people hold - I have friends on the far-left, centre-left and right-wing, Christians, Jews, Atheists and Muslims - but I draw the line when it comes to actively advocating discrimination or violence against people of any or no religion or race. You can be proud of your country (I am) without resorting to the denigration of other creeds and races to big yourself up.

The general and the specific are congruent. If you ask general questions, expect general answers. That's why my two questions are very specific.

Sounds very poetic but how you subjectively project is your thing, not my concern in regards to the discussion.

In that case it should be easy to answer my super simple questions.

I've shown you the courtesy of answering your questions, now it's your turn to answer mine.