T.W.A.T.Follow

Ah I see your more of a Darwinist survival of the fitest and all, no worries if some rabbits get eaten, as long as the successful ones live comfortably.

Dont worry I have it your a part of **** the little guy as long as I win. I only hope that when I win the lottery I can be as eloquent as you in supporting why I think the little guy should get *******

Yeah, wouldn't communism be grand.

Two points:

First: I'd like to draw attention to the way you phrased that. You put "living comfortably" on one hand, and "struggle" on the other. Presumably, to imply a 90/10 imbalance. You're comparing two different things. One can struggle while still living at a comfortable living level. I work hard 5 days a week. However, I'd hardly call my living level uncomfortable. Not even close.

Let's be more truthful here. It's more like: 10% live exceptionally comfortably. 70% live quite comfortably. 15% live reasonably comfortably. 4% live just "ok". And there's like 1% that are actually "uncomfortable" in life


Second: You've just highlighted why you and I will always disagree on this issue. To you, the most important thing is how comfortable everyone is. To me, it's what we do as a species that matters. You place the highest values on how people live *today*. I place the highest value on what we accomplish as a speies *tomorrow*.

I happen to think that your view is short sighted and generationally selfish (you're stealing from future generations to gain benefits now). But that's just me...

But you should because it cant.

Show me evidence



Hasnt yet, so thats a point against you. Again, evidence?



Is Canada a socialist country? Last I checked they weren't



Oh my! Norway is a Parlaiment too?



A family is too small to compare to a nation.

Evidence of what? American communism working? There are books of it, here are some links:

http://www.polyamory.org/~howard/Poly/oneida.html

some modern ones:

http://www.planetfriendly.net/community.html#examples

If you want more research do it yourself, it's not my job to prove me right, I am right until proven wrong.



Again prove that it HASN'T worked. Seems to me that they do pretty good:

Cuba Population: 11.3 million
GDP:
purchasing power parity - $25.5 billion (2001 est.)

Cuba
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
0.5% (2001 est.)

United States
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
2.8% (2001)

Now make sure you take into account that the state owns all property, and make sure to figure in that they also cost control it all, so really its not bad. (EX: apartment: $5 a year, food, 10 cents a day, clothing 30 cents a month.) You can't compare cost of living in the states to cost of living in a communist country. So in reality the people don't have to make as much because there's not as many things to pay for. And look at the inflation rate, it shows that Government control over the entire economy makes their Peso more stable than our dollar.

Edit: Also take note of the heavy sanctions that have been on them since Kennedy, we have almost single handedly ruined Cuba.

Lets look at literacy, as its a good thermostat for Education.

Cuba
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
male: 96.2%
female: 95.3% (1995 est.)
total population: 95.7%

United States
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
male: 97%
female: 97% (1979 est.)
total population: 97%

Boy, 1 and 1/2 percentile more.....aren't we the bitter end?



Then you must not pay attention to Canadien Health Care now do you? Hmmmmmmmm I'm guessing not. Because were you educated on the matter (To ANY degree) you would also know all Canadien colleges are state owned and run, thus giving citizens a leg up in education. Sounds pretty socialist to me.....WAIT..duh, thats because it IS!!

Second Edit: Ask a Canadien what he thinks about his Cable TV, or why they can't have DishTV, or any other american sat dish. Or ask a Canadien living near the border if he *Actually* goes to the candien doctor for free or if he comes down to use the *privatized* ones across in the states....



Did you read any of the past posts? I'm beginning to doubt you can read, it's been outlined previously that Norway uses a socialist structure. Scroll up, you'll see.



Uh....no, it's not, thats like saying the single cell of the body is insignificant. Tell that to cancer.

Edited, Sun Jul 4 07:34:00 2004 by AriesGhost

Edited, Sun Jul 4 07:37:03 2004 by AriesGhost

I think a couple people on this thread are playing a bit too lose and free with the definitions of socialism and communism.

It's a bit vague to say that "socialism can't work". After all, ultimately socialism is simply a commitent on the part of the government to attempt to attend to the wellfare of the people.

There are huge degrees to socialism. The US uses socialism. I'd argue that all nations do to some level. Anytime a government interferres in any way with industry or an economy with the goal of "making things beter for the people", they are utilizing a socialist agenda. With the exception maybe of some few true bannana republics in the world, pretty much everyone utilizes some degree of socialism.

Communism is when the government takes control of *all* aspects of public wellfare. All industry and all distribution of wealth is controlled by the government. One the one hand, you can simply argue that communism is socialism taken to it's logical extreme. But it's really not. Socialism has the goal of fairness for the people. It's usually limited to things that we collectively think that people need. That's why socialists will argue about medical care and housing and education, but not so much about what jobs people perform in the first place. Communism proceeds from the assumption that the sum of the total is greater then it's parts, and that the most efficient way to utilize a population (and presumably provide for it's needs) is to have the governent dole out not only what jobs will be done, but in what amounts.

They're similar ideas, but not identical. I think communism is totally doomed to failure simply because a government is never the most efficient mechanism to use to provide for people's needs. It is even worse at deciding what things *should* be done, and in what amounts. In a free market economy, you let the market decide. If there is demand for what you are doing, you profit from it and can continue doing it. If there isn't, you don't profit and must switch to doing something else. In a communism (comand economy), you've got a group of people, arbitrarily deciding what people need and in what amounts. There's no real mechanism for the consumer to communicate his needs to the government. In small groups, this can work becuase if you need something, you walk right up to the planners and tell them. On a large scale, it's a bit more difficult.


Socialism is only a bit better. It still retains some degree of market forces, so we don't totally go off in the weeds. But by its very nature, every socialist program is about doing something that would not occur naturally if the market were left alone. Thus, it "costs" the economy in a way that normal goods alloted via the free market process do not. Presumably, if you recieve something in a totally free market it's because you generated something of equal or greater value first. Thus, there's a net "gain" over time. Socialist programs, almost by definition, provide things of value specifically without recieving an equivalent value first. It's a net "loss" to the whole system.

Small amounts of socialism can be absorbed by the gains from the whole economy. Large amounts will eventually overwhelm it. The trick is that pretty much no one can agree on how much is "too much". This is why I say that socialism would work if we had a virtually limitless ability to generate goods (as I defined earlier). Anything less then that, and we take pot luck with socialism. Since it's a compounded problem, a seemingly tiny "cost" for socialism in the short term can add up to a huge difference over a long period of time. It's also almost impossible to measure ahead of time since you can't know what you lost (or didn't lose) as a result of your decisions. We can't say, for example, what interesting technologies and discoveries the Norwegians might have made if they hadn't spent so much of their "wealth" on programs designed to make everyone cofortable. We also can't say what things we've developed or done in the US that we *wouldn't* have done if we'd made the same choice say 40 years ago. For all we know, we might not be having this debate because there would never have been a commercialization of the internet, let alone a reduction in costs for microprocessors that would allow so many people to own computers in their own homes.

I don't remember the year exacly, (1950s I think) but a top thinker with IBM once stated that the total world need for computers would probably never exceed maybe a dozen. I can't help but think that if it wasn't for US style commercialization and a willingness to allow free enterprize to decide what people want instead of a government body, he might have ended up being right.

It is every goverment's stated goal, whether it's a banana republic or legitimate democracy to "attend to the wellfare of the people." The question is, and the differing political theorys are, about how to go about that. Starting your argument with that little double speak convinced me you are either an idiot or truely Orwelian. It also stoped me from reading the rest of your post. I have better things to do then delve into the mind of a maniac.

hmm so we are back to iraq, or "Vietnam 2", he has rid the world of tyranny, or at least reduced the number of tyrants so he can be a bigger badder one, he hasn't got the military victory he hoped he would and he never will, they couldnt beat the viet cong in the jungles and he won't beat the rebels in the streets of the cities of Iraq. There was never and WoMD there, the whole war was a PR move, with oil as a bonus, and the 51st state; Iraq as we know it today.

For someone who chastises people for reading comprehension, gbaji...


He said it was every government's STATED goal, not every government's ACTUAL goal.


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Lol. The OP made the somewhat obvious connection to the fact that there are multiple game sites at Alla's. Depending on how you access the forums, the look and style is different. Also, depending on how you access the site, you get different links in the "Forums..." section to the left (see! Look to the left).

Those of us who access the site from the EQ POV see Main EQ forum, Quest Forum, OOT, and Asylum. Presumably, all but the last two are different if you access it from a different game path.

I think it just suddenly dawned on the OP that the OOT and Asylum links in the FFXI form were not "special" ones just for FFXI players, but were in commmon across all games.

Should have been obvious. Certainly didn't need a thread about it. Then again, if he didn't know, maybe others never caught on either, and maybe they'll read this and realize that they really shouldn't post stuff bout their particular game here.

Probably wont make any different though.