this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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Medical surgery is new, but it is also a reflection of human nature, and humans desire to learn about and control their environment and to survive. In the same way, capitalism is both new and a reflection of human nature. People are just getting better at manifesting their selfish desires. If you gave a chimpanzee the option to have herself and her offspring have absurd abundance at the expense of strangers, she'd absolutely go for it. It's just an issue of selfish gene survival. The same is true of us, and every generation since our common ancestors with chimpanzees, and way before that. It is just our increasing intelligence(individual and collective from our ancestors) that has made it so common now.
Capitalism will eventually evolve into techno-socialism. Premature, pipe-dream socialism would just cause societal decay. Capitalism is the long, hard walk to a better place.
Human Nature itself is a fallacy, what is considered Human Nature changes based on environment.
Why would Socialism cause decay? Why is Capitalism a road to a better place when it results in deliberate over-exploitation of the Global South, preventing development?
Changing based on the environment doesn't make human nature a fallacy. Humans want their DNA to survive like any other animal, different environments just require different strategies.
Capitalism is leading to more and more efficient methods of creation. Eventually, the methods of creation will be so efficient that everything will be free. Historically, socialism has never led to any such thing because it crushes motivation. Pretty much nobody works extremely hard their whole life just to give everything away and never enjoy the fruits of their labor. These people exist, but they are a tiny percent of the population.
The Global South is way more developed than 20 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, etc. They are just not as developed as the Global North, but the gap is decreasing in recent decades.
Defending a system by saying it is Human Nature is the fallacy, not saying that people want to survive.
Capitalism is making goods cheaper, and is increasing exploitation. Wealth disparity is skyrocketing.
Socialism absolutely resulted in rapid development, and retains motivation. This is entirely ahistorical.
The Global South is not developing as quickly unless they throw off the Global North, like Burkina Faso is doing. The Global North exploits the Global South to retain cheap cost of labor and make more profits.
Capitalism is the result of individuals doing whatever they can to selfishly ensure the survival of their genes. Even if it is to absurdly selfish proportions.
Maybe I am wrong about socialism. Which socialist societies have resulted in rapid development? In your opinion, are socialist societies currently leading the way in innovation and growth?
Capitalism is resulting in cheap robot labor. It is also resulting in access to equal education in the form of global internet access.
One of the major things helping the Global South and equalling the playing field is a way to escape predatory fiat currencies, Bitcoin, and as it grows, the gap decreases. Anyone who wants equality should be encouraging the expansion of Bitcoin.
No, Capitalism is the result of the Industrial Revolution. Trade itself is not Capitalism.
The USSR and PRC, despite all of their flaws, rapidly developed. The USSR even beat the US into space, despite being a feudal backwater 50 years prior. Both countries saw an end to famines, which were common, and thus a doubling of life expectancy and a tripling in literacy rates.
Did the USSR have flaws? Absolutely, as did and does the PRC, but they face different issues than Capitalist states.
Bitcoin is a sham and does not help the Global South.
So if the USSR was advancing so rapidly, then why did capitalism end up taking over?
It's so funny, when you talk to people in the 2nd and 3rd world that have used Bitcoin to escape the predation of corrupt fiat currencies, and you ask them why they think there are 1st world people that say it is a scam. They almost always say, "Of course they do. They are losing their power." The crazy thing is, that's not why people like you call it a scam. At least, I genuinely don't think that of you. I think that to you, like many, it's just that it's complicated, you dont need it yet, and you don't have the time to understand it, so naturally you are suspicious of it. On top of that, you probably have no idea how much it's being my used to escape oppressive regimes. It's literally like telling drowning people that life rafts are a scam. People are able to feed their children thanks to the value they are saving. To them, the scam claim is hilarious.
Capitalism didn't "take over" the USSR. The USSR was destoyed from within the party, and then after dissolving the state was chopped up and sold to what we now refer to as oligarchs.
The third world does need to escape the thumb of predatory Imperialists like the IMF, but it needs to do so at a state level, not by individuals buying bitcoin.
But what you are saying is that individual drowning people don't need life rafts, they need the people who are drowning them to decide to rescue them. It's like telling people fighting in self defense that the only weapon they have is a bad choice of a weapon. It's not even a take that causes pause for thought for people that are in the middle of it, it's just like an awkwardly timed bad joke.
I understand the weird situation you are in, you've been repeatedly told that Bitcoin is a vague evil ponzi scheme, so much so that you've believed it and started repeating it. When it turns out that in the real world, it is actively helping many people, it conflicts with the narrative that you've found yourself following along with, so you feel the need to brush it aside without a concrete reason as to why.
No, I am saying that the people need to lose their chains to run free, not just pad their chains.
Hopefully it won't be too long until the robots can do everything we don't want to do and give us everything we can imagine. Until then, it is very nice to have a currency that is not controlled by chain manufacturers.
It's better to actually break the chains, or else this near-feudalism will continue.
The problem isn't that people have a convenient method of facilitating trade. The issue is that people obsessed with power have a stranglehold on it. Sure, in a distant tech-utopia where robots can do everything we don't want to do, we will need no currency, but trying to get rid of currency now would just retard the process.
I didn't say we should get rid of currency right now. I want Socialism now.