That's well and good but what if a child was being murdered in front of you. Someone was dumping toxic waste in the towns water supple in your back yard. There is an expression that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Now I do think one shouldn't be seeking out and easily labeling things as "evil" and that positive methods can be more effective than negative methods. But there is limits to this.

And what if I tried to help out and accidentally ended up making things worse somehow in those scenarios? Or what if I didn't have all the info and context and made the wrong judgement call?

Imo most humans should focus more on doing good, and let others trained and paid to do such handle any actual evils.

You missed the opportunity to point out that his vague definition was more vague than your own, and that he also went as far as to define socialism and capitalism in terms that do not represent them, that flies in direct face of historic evidence, and also defines socialism as something never been tried while also declaring in previous posts that socialism exists in X, Y, and Z countries. I was going to address it, myself, but i waited 'cause i figured you deserved the honor.

Some more light (ontopic) entertainment to pass the time: (Note: Clip is sfw, but the rest of the show is somewhat weird and possibly semi-nsfw)

Not acting is an action too.

To quote mario from mario 64, "Here we gooooooooooo!" So it's an ideal? Oh really? You get to keep what you make? You don't have things stolen from you in the form of taxation? Then how is it funded? How is harm defined, here? Who gets to define what harm is? So, post scarcity? How do we accomplish such a noble goal? How do we escape from the empirical boundries of our universe? I thought this was a definition.... Weird, you describe a method, but also in the vaguest of terms. The reason these countries are held as examples is because that's precisely what these countries promised their people, but when the rubber hit the road, well, turns out things in reality don't always turn out as they do on paper, especially when they're as vague as this and make so many improbably promises. This is the age old "real communism hasn't been tried," but calling it "socialism" instead. Where'd the "ideal" go? Taxation is theft, but this is not taxation. Under pure capitalism there is no obligation of any kind. Oh, and now "Libertarian/liberlism" is an economic system, not a system of governance (or lack of therein). And how is this so? In what terms, when non-violence incentives are provided by capitalism, is capitalism slavery? Except through incentivization via goods and/or currency. For some reason, greedy people like money and will do just about anything for money. You'd almost think capitalism was a system through which we accepted greed as an inevitability and a means through which to harness that greed and turn it into a motivational force through which we can get the worst of our society to become the best of our society. Are we still defining it? Is this a circular definition? What exploitation? Where you get something from someone because both parties agree to the value of that something and something else?

Despite your complaints about vagueness, i find your definitions lacking in substance, and fairly vague. I'm sure i could do the same thing, give you a similar writeup from "most of the right" and see how that lands, but i'd have trouble deciding if i wanted to make a parody or if i wanted to take it seriously.

no it is not

It might be if one were to live in a place like, say, bizarro world(where everything is the opposite of our reality).

(Nitpick: Technically not doing anything is both inaction and an action...the action of inaction. Though most just call it inaction)

You're conflating action with choice, as is myconv.

FCK getting hammered I prefer enjoying my video games dry.

I just said that. Look to the quote.

How is WHAT funded, keeping the value of your work? That doesn't make any sense. If you cook some brownies and then sell them, who is funding you keeping the profit of you selling the brownies if not taxes? This is how your dumb question looks in any specific scenario.

How does a society decide what laws to pass to protect citizens from harm, you ask. Geez. Um, are you saying you live in a completely lawless area? Sorry, I can't educate you on this very complicated deep subject that is rather off topic too.

I was asked for my definition, and I gave it. Remember earlier when you asked if it was an ideal while quoting me saying it was an ideal? Well it's an ideal. So don't talk about means, as you inanely pick apart my definition, as that's a separate topic.

Also when trying to figure out how to accomplish anything, you must never let perfection become the enemy of the good. This means just because you can't get everything you could ever dream of, doesn't mean nothings better than something. And yeah, we live in a world post scarcity, if resources were distributed evenly there would be more than enough space and material to house everyone on Earth, more than enough food to feed everyone etc. But even not everyone can get enough basic food and housing etc to survive even though the resources are there, doesn't mean that we shouldn't provide more people with the basics of living, rather than less.

You thought what was a definition? No, I didn't. Well North Korea promised democracy, but when the rubber hit the road, things in reality didn't turn out as they do on paper. See, they even hold elections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_North_Korea But reality just doesn't hold up. I guess this means democracy is a failure and not that there wasn't any real attempt at democracy in the first place, yep that can't be it.[/sarcasm] What ideal? There is no difference between your landlord charging you $100 more in rent verses the government charging you $100 more in taxes, except that with a democratic government maybe you might get a tiny bit of say in how that money is spent. There is no difference between a government taxing you 25% of your wages and you getting 25% less wages because the business knows you got no other choice to survive. Oh, sorry. I thought you knew what capitalism was. Since you aren't familiar with capitalism or alternatives to it, I guess you're new to earth. Welcome. FFS, you misquote me while partially quoting me. Can you live in capitalism without a job or welfare from state or friends/family? Are you free to disobey your boss at work, even when your instructed to do something unethical? If your boss tells you to work extra hours for free so they don't have to pay you overtime, I'm sure you're free to just walk away, go home and starve, any family that's depending on you too. And if you don't pay your rent, your free to sleep on a bench, wait no the police will kick you off or the city will design benches that can't be slept on (called hostile design) They might even put cement spikes under bridges so the homeless can't find shelter there, because homeless people are the scum of the earth.[/sarcasm] Because if the alternative to obedience is death or near death, I'm sure that's the definition of freedom. [/sarcasm] That's not how reality in capitalism works. Plenty of times the greed incentive is that to discourage innovation and quality. I guess you've never heard of planned obsolescence. Oh right, I forgot you're new to Earth. Again, Welcome. I am adding to a part of the definition that some hold, yes. And no, it is not a "circular definition", that is a dumb question. I said they were vague words from the beginning, my definitions included. Still, my vague definitions are still much more specific then Scientiaes "socialism is society being valued at the cost of individuals" and "libertarian is individuals being valued at the cost of society" or whatever half assed definition I had to drag out of them. Remember, I asked Scientiae for their definition, and it was Scientiae who countered with a request of my definitions while still not giving me theirs.

I say this to you too Kolrak. Give me your definitions. I have responded in length as you pick apart my definitions, give me your own then. Or are you just a troll?

Also as I said before, we don't need to use either word as they are both extremely flawed and ill defined words where the vague definitions absolutely split along ideological lines.

Sounds like you hate free speech and freedom of expression.

Good, so we're on the same page. It's a utopian fantasy. See, the problem is, you define that you get to keep the value your labor, but to keep the system of government around, there needs to be some degree of value transfer, which is theft, which means you don't get to keep the value of your labor. Taxation is a method of funding, however taxation also means you don't get to keep the value of your labor. Unless, of course, you wish to redefine that as well. Oh, so it's constantly arbitrary, and thus no rights are guaranteed protected from government corruption. Good to know. The means are inevitably a part of a definition of that which is actually defining means, but, then again, we left the territory of means and went into ideal for some reason. We're already using conflicting definitions, but we can continue on this route. As for post scarcity, that's not true. Until scarcity is removed without human effort, we do not live in post-scarcity. Moreover, that requires that certain resourcs (such as time) become non-scarce, which requires the ability to extend one's life indefinitely, which is, of course, not even remotely tenable at the current time. If you want to get more technical, that also requires infinites of resources (such as human beings themselves) which is even more untenable. We could pretend that "there's enough in the world for everyone," but that's not post-scarcity. Post-scarcity implies that all resourcs are indefinitely (time) infinite (amount). What you posted. Examples do not make a definition, especially in the negative. But you certainly did: you said that people can keep the fruits of their labor: that is a method. You also implied some protection of harm. This is a method to your ideal world, not a description. A description would be something like "everyone's got what they earned" and so forth. By saying that they are freedoms, you are suggesting that there is some method of guarantee. Also, you say it's an ideal for society and government, which mentions said enforcer. Ok, maybe this one thing is a little stretchy. They weren't promised things you state, that you get to keep your labor and be protected from undue harm? And i can give the landlord the proverbial middle finger and move out. See, i can refuse to work for someone or exchange goods with someone. Government doesn't exactly give me an "opt out," let alone an "opt in" like non-governmental business. GOG didn't take my money and give me a game. I have the power to choose not to give my labor to a company that asks more than i'm willing to give. There's a huge difference in terms of obligation. Also, that doesn't actually address what i said. Pardon, it seems your examples of capitalism imposing obligation have been lost in the transfer of your typed text to the server. Could you try resending them? Yes. There's multiple ways, but the amish would love to have a word with you. They've discovered this thing called "farming" where they can grow their own food without having and employer. They actually manage to sell their excess in exchange for currency to be used in paying the "protection fee" of government. Absolutely. You can loose your job, but, well, that's part of how it works. Meanwhile, you can actuall expose what your boss had instructed you to do to the customer base which could result in fewer people doing business with your boss. Well, you see, you could also find other ways of generating value. You could start your own business, gamble, etc. I've had the plesure of meeting such mythical people. Oh, i thought we were talking about capitalism. I mean, if you want to add government (like police) to the mix, there's actually alot of other options for your questions above. Because money never motivated people to invent the computer or other device that you're using to communicate this to me. I'm sure we could come up with plenty of other examples, as well. You should probably separate that, so we know where the definition ends and the non-definitional part begins. If that were to be added to the definition itself, the definition would thus be circular. That actually turned out to be pretty close to the official and standard definition. It's actually not vague, because it's descriptive and specific to a fundamental level. The problem was, your example of why it was a problem was simply wrong, because it implied that individualism had no interest in incarceration policies for one's own protection. Individualism does not exclude society or government, but merely implies priority of the individual over those institutions. The conservative definition for socialism would be "The theft of one's labor to provide another with said labor." The conservative definition of capitalism would be "The freedom for individuals to do business with one another unhindered by anything short of agreement." Of course, I could expand on these quite a bit, but GOG post size limits prohibit me.

You mean like this? The biggest problem with this utopian fantasy is that it's been proven wrong time and time and time again actively now and in the past. There mountains of evidence that your "utopian fantasy" of capitalism is false. That you remain blind to such is astounding. I see you conveniently ignoring all the taxation by another name that goes on under capitalism. But more importantly, capitalism need government and taxes. Anarcho-capitalism is ideological BS because business needs government to enforce it's will, till it becomes government.. Theoretically socialism does not need either aside from the basic protections against violence, it's called anarchism. (and no, anarchism does not involve anarchy) How is the ideal of people keeping the value of their labor a "method"? This fails basic English. Irrelevant. The point was there is enough resources to give everyone in the world the basic necessities for life. And then what? Move to another apartment, that is likely run by a different asshole who doesn't care about fixing things? Perhaps another apartment owned by the same company because they own most apartments in the city.
And the base topic was rent going up by $100 verses getting $100 more in taxes. (and let's be real, rent is typically way more than taxes in a city) You can't typically move away to lower rent. You can't opt out of capitalism. That isn't capitalism. And if there are no other jobs that will take you? What if the boss then blackballs you, you'll need references to get a new job, the old boss won't give you any good ones. What if the new jobs crappy too, you going to leave that one as well? Oh yeah, that's going to look good on your resume. Also what are you going to do for money while you seek jobs? Job hunting is expensive and requires money to sustain you while you search.

Many times capitalism stands in the way of innovation. For example car companies for the longest time suppressed electric cars because it was bad for their bottom line. Yet cars run by electricity have been around since cars.

You know Linux was developed purely with volunteer services? A whole complex OS, completely free. Nonsense. It is vague and not at all specific. In order words you think libertarian is against capitalism. You changing your tune so much is giving me whiplash. In other words, capitalism. This is not a very good definition of capitalism. But we weren't even talking about the definition of capitalism, we were talking about the definition of Liberalism You defined the wrong word.

But based on that shoddy definition of capitalism, I take it you are a neoliberal. So if a business wants to make a deal to dump toxic waste in the cities water supply, as long as they agree and "own" the water and land, it's fine. Assassination of children agreement, it's fine. Nothing should stop these things short of not agreeing, according to you?

So in place of defining liberalism, you defined capitalism, does this mean you agree with my definition that liberalism simply means pro-capitalism?

Capitalism is the system of owning other peoples shit, their work, their homes, the system where those with money can gain rulership of others to gain more money.

Let's further defined two words. Not talking about dictionary definitions here.

Personal property is your stuff. The places where you live. The product of your work. The stuff that you own and use.

Private property is owning everything else that is not your stuff, AKA owning other peoples stuff.

For example, the house that you live in and own outright is personal property. But if you rent an apartment that apartment is the private property of the landlord, you know, the lord of your home (it's in the term "landlord" even) Even though it is your home, they can enter it as they wish, because it is their private property. So personal property and private property are two very different things. And that distinction is where you find capitalism. Private property is capitalism. Personal property is not.

This also apples to labor. If your labor, whether it be physical or mental, is for your own profit, your personal labor, that is not capitalism. Just like the amish farming their own land for their own profit or crafting stuff and selling it is not capitalism. But if farmland was owned by a conglomerate that the amish had to pay rent to, that would be capitalism. If you own the product of someone elses work, then that is capitalism, as in, most employees are victims of capitalism. Ones boss owns your work as "private property". And you know the thing about other people owning your work is? It doesn't exactly encourage workers to work hard or well, they need masters to look over their shoulder to get all the labor they can out of them, and thus the worker does as little work as they think they can get away with doing, most of the time.

The net result is, the more money you have, the more of other peoples stuff you can own which results in getting more money which can be invested in owning more of other peoples stuff and so on till you have people with hundreds of billions of dollars ruling the world from the shadows. And this theft by private ownership inevitably leads to other people suffering. Socialism says there has to be better ways. Maybe the average socialist understands they can't know all the answers, but capitalism has been tried alot more than socialism, like many times more. And capitalism failings have been shown over and over again, history is packed full of the failings of capitalism.

One "word": tldr

*pics related*