Ben No.3

You make one good point, and that is that both parents are consumed by their jobs and lack time for their children. But the conclusion you reach is ridiculous at best. You correctly identify the jobs to steal to much time, yet your solution is to put women out of job and "into the kitchen". What about mothers who wish to work? What about fathers who wish to stay home and care for te children? You build a strict family order that lacks any flexibility for the members to follow their preferences. You talk about freedom, yet you prefer a world in which the role children will play in society is determined at birth by their gender. It appears you really are a fan of freedom, but only for you! You wish to work and have your wife stay at home and now you wish for society to follow all your idea of a family, oppressing three freedoms: -the freedom of a family to choose their lifestyle -the freedom of a mother to work -the freedom of a father to care for his children But again, your point about jobs is correct. The solution that guarantees both freedom for the parents and time for the children is to introduce such measures as significantly shorter working times and compensation for parental care (instead of following your job) within a certain time frame. Indeed, the complete career-centrists lifestyle of our society today is dangerous, and it needs to be fought. But it needs to be fought in a way that grants us freedom, not take it away.

Orwell was a Socialist, Vonnegut is central to many pacifists, Huxley's early writings are humanist and he was a teacher of orwell. So, from socialist scientific work to socialist literature?

India, Portugal, and kinda Bangladesh are doing pretty well... India is even the sixth largest economy in the world. For all of them, you have to consider the circumstances. They don't have quite the same history as Europe or America (except of course for Portugal), and they're all quite young nations. yeah.... did you count GDP per capita for India, and been there? No thank you... Portugal - recall the term PIGS of EU? how's the employment there? how's the growth? Bangladesh - what is it good in? Please elaborate, cause doing well, can mean, "well i am not starving and have a running water, so I'm doing well" You asked how the countries were doing economically, and I answered. Bangladesh has a GDP of around the size of Greece's, which isn't particularly bad for a country like Bangladesh. Yes of course, the people are off far worse. But that isn't different in many capitalist countries.

India, Portugal, and kinda Bangladesh are doing pretty well... India is even the sixth largest economy in the world. For all of them, you have to consider the circumstances. They don't have quite the same history as Europe or America (except of course for Portugal), and they're all quite young nations.

Of course. Since a state can't be communist by definition, I'll refer to socialist states. I will also only imclude states that have socialism in their constitution up until today, and I will site the part of the constitution I'm referring to. I'll also include their form of government. -Bangladesh (multi party democracy) Preamble: "Further pledging that it shall be a fundamental aim of the State to realise through the democratic process, a socialist society free from exploitation, a society in which the rule of law, fundamental human rights and freedoms, equality and justice, political, economic and social, will be secured for all citizens;" -Guyana (presidential representative republic; multi party system) Preamble: "Convinced that the organisation of the State and society on socialist principles is the only means of ensuring social and economic justice for all of the people of Guyana; and, therefore, being motivated and guided by the principles of socialism" -India (multi party democracy) Preamble: "We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic and to secure to all its citizens:" -Nepal (federal, secular parliamentary republic) Section 1, Article 4: "Nepal is an independent, indivisible, sovereign, secular, inclusive democratic, socialism-oriented federal democratic republican state" -Portugal (Multi party democracy) Preamble: "The Constituent Assembly affirms the Portuguese people's decision to (...) open up a path towards a socialist society" -Sri Lanka (multi party democracy; in fact the oldest democracy of Asia) Preamble: "[...] to constitute Sri Lanka into a democratic socialist republic whilst ratifying the immutable republican principles of representative democracy, and assuring to all peoples freedom, equality, justice, fundamental human rights and the independence of the judiciary" -Tanzania (in theory multi party democracy; however, one party holds 2/3 of the seats, right now it is in practice a one party democracy) Section 1, Article 3: "The United Republic is a democratic, secular and socialist state which adheres to multi-party democracy" If you want to include North Korea, even though they follow their own ideology called Juche, then here you have North Korea: -North Korea (dictatorship) Preamble: "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the socialist motherland of Juche, which has applied the idea and leadership of Kim Il-sung." I think the difference, especially when looking at persona cult, is quite evident. But North Korea is the exception, not the rule. Of course, we also have China, Cuba, Lao and Vietnam following Marxism-Leninism.

Actually, North Korea took any reference to communism, Marxism or socialism out of its constitution an der replaced it with basically a persona cult around the dictatorship. http://polisci.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/people/u3873/Zook_NorthKorea_reform_SJIL.pdf But nice try

As long as Breitbart is a thing, so long will I bring up Marx. Deal? It goes without saying I'm being an annoying prick. But there's some fun in it

Do you know the difference between Breitbart and Marx? One is an propaganda outlet, the other an acclaimed, well respected and highly influential sociologist. Na, but seriously... why don't you give me an brief overview over your theory of the world? And back it up with acclaimed studies or maybe social scientists?

The ones who don't agree with you you mean. WOD !!! Stop being cheeky.... I dont expect people to agree with me, I am not right all the time and Im surprised you would think this? I am only right 95-98 % of the time Let's agree on the facts you state are generally right and your general line of thinking goes in the right direction? Doesn't mean your conclusions are

We went to war with the British over far fewer taxes and property rights violations than the US Government is hammering us with today. We do teach the Revolutionary War in 8th grade. It's a big unit. Do you talk about de Beaumarchais? He's a cool guy

Smuggled in from the US, maybe? We need a wall with Canada. Actually I have seen an interview on Sky where a Trump spokesmen mentioned a wall with Canada is a good idea. His overall argument was that the USA has many borders that are a security risk and Mexico is just one of them Of course! Drugs, crime and rapists come from Mexico, and cultural marxists and feminazis from Canada! The US needs to be protected from both.

Phew, I was worried that all this freedom we have given up was not paying off, but it seems like it is making a difference. What freedoms have we given up?Privacy for example? There is no more privacy in this world, why are we okay with that? When did we start to believe everyone is suspicious? There was a time when "innocent until proven guilty" and "in dubio pro reo" ("in an unclear case, the accused wins", meaning you had to be proven to be clearly guilty by evidence not indicators and suspicions) meant something in practice not theory. But oh well... No rights lost, right? Right?

We need free and good public schools and universities for everyone. Education is the biggest factor for economic success, and thus it needs to be accessible for everyone, and not dependant on the wealth of your family. As long as only the children of the wealthy can go to Harvard, we as a society are doomed.

Adorno proposes a theory that capitalism and the rationalisation of the world almost certainly will lead to fascism. It's kinda interesting. The basic line of thinking is as follows: all of society's development in history can be seen as the rationalisation of the world, meaning that nature is more and more seen as something that humans can influence. In early history, this happens by portraying Nature as gods you can influence by for example prayer. As technology progresses, we see nature more and more "as it is", and learn how to use it. In a capitalist society, everything is done in order to maximise profit. Adorno now argues that it is only a matter of time until also humans are seen as a part of the nature that needs to be used in a way of profit maximisation. At this point, the capitalist system will exist only in order to sustain itself, not the people. This rationalisation of the people, combined with statecapitalism (which is, According to Adorno, a necessity for capitalism in order to overcome its tendency towards crisis), leads to something like Nazi Germany or soviet Russia, a system where everything is controlled by the government and the role and the VALUE of humans is by no means self evident but can even questioned and taken away if judged not useful for society (as the Nazis viewed the Jews). The people that are part of said system will also never develop a sense that the system is unfair and especially never develop a sense that they can change the system. And they don't do that, because capitalism is so all-consuming, ultimately turning every aspect of life into a profit-oriented aspect, including, eventually, culture. And if the culture is designed not to ask questions or show values but to Maxise profit, there's no insentive (to speak so) to question the system, and no one will grow aware of the unfairness and that it doesn't have to be this way.

For some very few, it indeed was about money. Yet for the thousands peasants and for many knights and nobles actually, it was about religion exclusively. So while yes, maybe some of the minds behind it (though probably not all) did it for the money, the common "soldier" who chopped of Muslim heads did it for his God. I feel a lot of it falls down to ideology in the end. Ideology can come in the shape of religion or else, and it'll still drive people to conflict. Human beings as a species don't handle disagreements very well. Sadly very true But, and I will say this, religion proved to be an exceptionally powerful and thus exceptionally dangerous ideology

I don't know him. He seems like a satiric guy. But good satire is usually build upon fact, and he does mention sources, so.... There's this great sentence about satire... "If you say things better than they are, you're an naive idealist. If you say th worse than they are, you're an pragmatic realist. If you say them just like them are, you're an satirist." I think that's the job of satire... a "mirror of society's bad sides and flaws"

For some very few, it indeed was about money. Yet for the thousands peasants and for many knights and nobles actually, it was about religion exclusively. So while yes, maybe some of the minds behind it (though probably not all) did it for the money, the common "soldier" who chopped of Muslim heads did it for his God.

http://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2017/01/29/exp-gps-0129-take-travel-ban.cnn/video/playlists/donald-trump-muslims/ This is great!! Seems like facts disagree with the rationality of Mr Trumps deciscion

I don't think "america first" is a very good principle... the US is the worlds most powerful nation and biggest economy, and certain responsibilities come with that. Say you apply "America first" to big companies like apple. That means you'll ensure that they, as American companies, can grow as big as posssible, right? But while doing so, they will build ever more awful factories where ever more workers will be exploiter on terrible ways. Either you'll leave them so much freedom that they'll do that in the US, or, since "America first" thinking might avoid that, they'll exploit the workforce of some poor country, paying the workforce as little as humanly possible while having them working as long as humanly possible. There is something very wrong about that strategy, don't you think? If you are te worlds largest economy, you should set an example by caring for the workers of your companies regardless of nationality.

I meant "right wing" as on nationalist/conservative, rather than internationalist. Sorry. Left and right are really awful terms

I agree that calling trump a Nazi is completely out of proportion and completely ridiculous. Though I will say he's a right win populist. Which isn't a type I particularly like... populism in general is awful, but I feel like left winged populism at least has an underlying theory, while right winged populism feeds on fear, anger and hate.

Please try to separate between historical events, philosophical argument and sociological theory. Yes, we consider humanistic values to be superior to religious ones. This is a philosophical argument, and it affects the Muslim terrorists in the Middle East just as much as the christian ones in Africa. The question of why. You say you don't care. I think you should. It is critically important to understand why societies can fall back to sich poor states, since it can happen to anyone and we should learn how to avoid that. To learn why fundamentalism is on the rise is to learn how it can be fixed and avoided in the future.

Now, Volourn, I can lay that out in more detail, and I probably will, but do tell me why you think the Middle East falls back from secular democratic heads of state to religious fundamentalism.

We left of at the Middle East?

Now, Volourn, I can lay that out in more detail, and I probably will, but do tell me why you think the Middle East falls back from secular democratic heads of state to religious fundamentalism.