"that erodes the environment and feeds people microplastics"... yes, the "Tragedy of the commons".

But the issue is, the environment in non-free societies (=> no free press) is in much worse shape.

You don't need to tell me that. I'm just saying it's not an obvious thing to many (thinking) people.

Nothing in politics is ever obvious. That is why we should shun leaders who rely on gut insticts, "common sense" and napkin math. The real world is messy. Answers are hard. Ideology must always remain an ideal, not a howto guidebook.

Dare we forget anytime soon the ~75 million fools who voted for a fool with autocratic tendencies, who's still giving Putin's ego lap dances this week. There's a pile of fools at Fox News being Putin apologists. Out of all the harm done by billionaires, Rupert Murdoch has been a worse menace to America than any of Putin's oligarchs. So yeah, it certainly remains very messy in the U.S. too.

It's not obvious in itself, that's why I have a barrage of supporting arguments. However, it takes time to understand and adopt this viewpoint, especially if many people around you are conditioned to believe in the opposite and consider capitalism as evil or evil-adjacent.

> And what will this fight be for?

For your honour. So that you do not become a citizen of North Korea; so that you do not take part in <this>.

Honour systems developed independently in many chaotic/violent societies - not irrationally, but because they are _good_ systems, perhaps the only way to protect yourself from fates worse than death. Kamil Galeev explains it fairly well here: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1498692916511924232.html

My honour is supposed to compel me to quit software, go back and start a bloody fight with my fellow citizens (on whose side the tanks and the truth, for all they know, are)? For a country I have no pride in, to facilitate the next dictator to trample on our blood up the throne if we succeed, while you watch with popcorn from your office?

Not you, personally; those who choose (or are compelled) to stay .

Some people may be compelled. I will look at them in awe.

I don't see the alternative though, it's not like Putin is a hardcore Leninist. There's no real ideology there, he doesn't care for the people. What's the attraction?

Maybe people don't like what is pejoratively called "globohomo", plenty of people in the West don't either, but having everything dictated by a mafia thug and his oil-rich cronies seems far, far worse. I don't get it.

Aleksandr Dugin's work is the philosophical/ideological cover for whatever Putin's doing. The gist is to create a conservative Eurasian state/alliance to combat Western liberalism.

Attraction to what? Putin? Did you misread my comment?

> "globohomo"

I do not know what that refers to.

It's a derogatory 4chan /pol/ term for supporters of globalization. IMF, World Economic Forum, Soros etc.

What a buncha dead-enders.

global homogeneity. Of course being 4chan they associate it with homosexuality.

Byung-Chul Han seems to share your opinion about capistalism

there's a quote along the lines of "capitalism is not a political question it is a force of nature which must be tamed" [1]

[1] https://apposition.substack.com/p/the-burnout-society

I think that when a cooperative relationship is reduced market-trade (money in exchange for goods by well defined contract laws) it's at its minimum. for example, one may trade with a rival or somebody whom one deeply dislikes, hence you just give them the money and they give you your goods or services and that is it. no pleasantries no nothing, bare minimum.

The point is that this is a degraded form of cooperative relation. If things degrade even more that ceases to be cooperative and becomes enmity.

Capitalism isn't bad, but there must be constant pressure from market competition for it to work for the benefit of the society at large. What we see now with companies like Apple (wrt app store) and Facebook is that the US government protects their monopolistic status and doesn't let people compete with them. You can't build a Facebook app that's better than the official one because Facebook would sue you, and there unfortunately are laws that would protect them. In a saner legal system, Facebook would've been laughed out of the court building with this case.

99% of my friends consider the current Russian government completely dysfunctional and in dire need of replacement. And we would totally accept the Western values. USSR was a mistake and there needs to be a clean break from that ideology, no continuity.

90+% of americans think thier government is disfunctional. Russia is no great outlier there. The better question is what will those people put in its place the day after the revolution. Few have a reasonable answer beyond some other person they think is somehow above reproach.

Russians' patience is maddening really. Soviet generations would accept anything the government throws at them and say thanks. They view the government like the weather: you have to just accept it but don't you dare try to change or even understand anything about it. Many Soviet people have no idea who runs their city district for example. They don't know that they can have the government serve them and be accountable to them, so it naturally evolves away from serving them, instead serving its own interests. Like territorial expansion for its own sake.

Americans, from what I see, are quite different. There's actually fierce competition both on elections and when controversial bills are discussed. There are representatives that do legit represent people's interests (but also some that do not). US government has its own share of problems ("lobbying" aka legalized bribery being one), but it's still better than the dictatorship we have.

This is a nice tech bubble way of framing it but the oil, plastic, logging, chemical, and agricultural industries will be the ones that get us in the end, and heavy market competition would only make it happen faster.

> I happen to believe that capitalism is fundamentally the best form of peaceful cooperation and abuses of it can be regulated

I would not be so confident of that claim. I believe you're assessing that based on capitalism from the perspective of the predator states that exploit victim states. If there were no victim states, then capitalism would not work as well as it has for the predator states. Is everyone in the world better off with the current version of capitalism and the 'global order'? Steven Pinker may say yes but I'm not that convinced. The more I read about his research and some of the flaws like bias in the Yanomami analysis, the less I am convinced that things are better overall for everyone.

Are you talking about sweat shops in third world countries, some of which (not all) people choose to work at because they are such an economic improvement over any other jobs available to them?

Sorry to make an assumption about your argument, but you honestly didn't supply much.

I noticed I got downvoted for sharing a genuine viewpoint. Since that's the case there's no benefit continuing the discussion.

I'm not sure what got downvoted, but your attitude in this comment makes me skeptical that you are approaching this with an open mind. Sharing a viewpoint is great. Ignoring people responding to it thoughtfully, not so much.

> your attitude in this comment makes me skeptical that you are approaching this with an open mind.

It makes me uncomfortable when a genuine viewpoint is downvoted. That plus your own snarky response above tells me the community here isn't able to have an open mind to respectfully discuss viewpoints and data that may contradict their mainstream narrative. In other words I'm skeptical of the intellectual maturity of yourself (not saying that as an insult, but to clarify my opinion) and this community in facilitating a discussion on this topic. I'd urge you to apply your skepticism and same intellectual rigor that you demand of my comment to your own. Thank you for your understanding.

I probably shouldn't, but ok.

I used a few trigger words like attitude, open mind, and ignoring. This was in response to a post which I truly didn't understand because it came off as directed at me and was shutting down the conversation based on a downvote I did not give. If you have a better explanation for it, I would love to hear it and apologize.

I get downvoted all the time, but it doesn't bother me if I get a cogent response because it usually leads to a good conversation.

I was going to respond to your comment, but every time I read it, it honestly upsets me a little more. I think you've read snark and ill intent where there was none, and you've insulted me and the community. I know you said it wasn't an insult, but calling me intellectual immature is quite uncalled for. You know nothing about me, and I frankly have every right to be offended by it.

I do want you to know I'm flagging your last comment because I don't think it belongs on HN. And at least know that I'm providing an explanation to you. I bear you no ill will, but I do hope you reconsider the way you are posting. I would posit that we both probably have quite a bit of growing to do.

People also choose to sell organs and prostitute themselves in desperate economic circumstances.

Are Johns and organ harvesters providing economic improvement or are they exploiting economic suffering?

> People also choose to sell organs...

I haven't heard of any systemic selling of organs; my understanding was the go-to for organs was illegally harvested ones out of certain authoritarian states. Where is this semi-voluntary sale of organs happening?

India, SEA countries mostly, but i've heard of cases in SA AND in europe too. It is not systemic however, opportunistic at best?

Literally answering your question... Both.

Exploiting each other in a directed way is kind of what capitalism is all about. If you ask me, organ harvesting should be illegal, and sex work should be regulated.

Anyway, I think you have an implied point. Care to state it?

When you say capitalism would not work as well for predator states, how are you defining capitalism? Free market? Is the alternative a centralized planned economy and price controls? Limitations, regulations and protections for developing nations?

I noticed I got downvoted for sharing a genuine viewpoint. Since that's the case there's no benefit continuing the discussion.

> abuses of it can be regulated

That's the whole problem, isn't it. Coming up with and installing regulations every time the system is abused is no easier than inventing and installing a new system of governance.

When the system is sufficiently complex, you can't patch it.

The regulations are only necessary while there are rogue actors who are motivated to abuse the environment and others, exploring the limits of the law, following the letter but not the spirit, in order to secure themselves.

These people often grew up in adverse conditions (mentally or physically) and are coping with the resulting mental issues. Elon Musk with his South African upbringing and history of extreme bullying is one example; there are many more less obvious ones.

Once we improve the mental well-being of the population as a whole, there would be no incentive for one to ruin things for others for personal gain, and free market would be able to work as intended.

Even if it's one in ten thousand, the system still needs to be resilient to being exploited to malicious actors. Many cases of mental issues are caused by genetic factors and chance, not environment, to address your argument specifically.

And of course there's plenty of incentive to ruin things for others: having a monopoly on something is the best way to profit, and destroying competition helps a lot.

I'm guessing you're aware of this, but it's not so simple. There's no indication that after a baseline level of prosperity, greed and malice will simply disappear. While I agree that capitalism is the best system altogether which we have seen in action, I don't believe it is the best one.

My hope is that in the long run, technological progress will eliminate scarcicity, and we will see some combination of capitalism and communism to realize utopia.

I am aware it's not so simple, but I strongly believe that fundamentally greed and malice arise from mental issues and insecurities.

There is no incentive for a healthy mind that is calm, confident, and knows that others are the same, to maximise own security at the expense of the society.

I disagree. Greed and malice are just consequences of an unfair society.

The more the people know that rules don't apply to the powerful, then the more the people try to climb the social ladder to become the powerful.

Ideally, on a fair system, you are respected because of your skills or your contributions to society. On an unfair one, you are respected because you have a higher hierarchy than them and nothing more.

My concern with western people criticizing non-western and non-democratic countries is that, aside from some exceptions like South Korea, Costa Rica or Japan, unfair societies that adopted the western-style model of democratic government didn't become more fair in average. On the contrary, western societies got more unfair over time.

Then feel free to disagree.

> then the more the people try to climb the social ladder to become the powerful.

This happens with people who are deeply insecure. They need to climb the ladder to secure themselves. Greed, power greed, malice comes from insecurity.

If you grow up in a world where everyone is respected and everyone feels secure, your parents didn't hurt you, you were not bullied at school, etc., then the only reason for you to strive to secure yourself at the expense of others is if you have grounds to believe others have such issues and will take advantage of you.

> Ideally, on a fair system, you are respected because of your skills or your contributions to society

No. You are respected. Period. Everyone is.

As an aside, capitalism does not make a statement what you should or should not be respected for. We are arguing about something else.

> This happens with people who are deeply insecure. They need to climb the ladder to secure themselves. Greed, power greed, malice comes from insecurity.

> If you grow up in a world where everyone is respected and everyone feels secure, your parents didn't hurt you, you were not bullied at school, etc., then the only reason for you to strive to secure yourself at the expense of others is if you have grounds to believe others have such issues and will take advantage of you.

The world is insecure by itself. Security is ensured through working institutions and organizations. And that, sadly, happens way more rarely than people in developed nations think.

In most countries in the world, the institutions are not strong, and the rule of law is relative. Specially to the rich and powerful.

In a society where institutions can't give you security, where there are no ladders to become respected in a legit and ethical way, then malice will be rampant. Because, in that context, that's the only way.

The world is not insecure by default. I can't even understand the semantics of that statement. We are talking about actors in human society.

Humans are insecure, not the world. Humans are insecure, because humans are hurt. (By other humans, who are trying to secure themselves because they were hurt once, and so on the cycle goes.)

The whole concept of the state (and the government as the current people representing it) is to give people a sense of belonging and heavily influences how society works in their territory.

What you label as unethical, insecure or malicious, may be normal life for a person living in, say, Middle East or Subsaharan Africa.

Not everyone is born into a context where they can thrive by themselves without hurting anyone else.

And we shouldn't assume that everyone has a legit path laid out for them so they can be succesful without being malicious.

In corrupt countries, either you become corrupt or you resign any possibility to achieve anything.

Thanks. You basically are restating my point. The world is full of circumstances in which people hurt other people, in a vicious circle where people grow up with insecurities and try to secure themselves at the expense of others.

In a free market that expresses itself as abusing the law, meaning regulations are necessary.

Subtract our issues that cause us to abuse our fellow humans and our environment, and capitalism is the way to peacefully coexist while keeping making progress.

Free market will work in a post-scarcity society, sure.

> This happens with people who are deeply insecure.

I hugely disagree here. You can feel insecure and try to better yourself. Alternatively, i've seen very secure people (financially at least) being at the apex of self-justifying greed. The number of people who try to buy a conscience or justify "their" spot in this world by whichever myth they suscribe to is way too high. Way too high.

You are looking at the topmost layer and missing most of my point. Extreme financial security, especially self-made, is often compensating for insecurity.

> As an aside, capitalism does not make a statement what you should or should not be respected for. We are arguing about something else.

Yeah, but some people think that socialist countries are unfair only because they are socialist. They believe that turning those countries into liberal democracies will make those countries more fair.

And Russia is the perfect example of why that doesn't happen.

I believe there is no example of a socialist country that is not also a de-facto dictatorship, and I believe if there is a rule by a minority with no democratic election process then it is indeed unfair.

The nordic countries are though? I'd say i would consider any country were the state expenditure account for more than 50% of GDP socialist. And any company where the workers own more than 50% of the share communist (those exist). Unless we have different definition?

Edit: I'm not opposing socialism to capitalism though. For me capitalism is that the capital own the means of production, aka: more than 50% of the shares belong to investors, not workers.

Yes, we have different definitions. I meant capitalism in the most layperson's definition: a system where you sell something and I buy something from you, then you take that money and go to the milkman and buy yourself cheese. As opposed to a system where people work for some fixed minority, and then that fixed minority distributes the outcome across everybody. (Of course, keeping the bigger chunk to itself.)

Of course. Thing is, considering all socialist countries that transitioned to democracy, how many of them became fairer and with less corruption?

idk… the entirety of ex-USSR except one or two countries?

Interesting. I hope you are right. I'm afraid I am a bit more cynical.

Absolutely. "best so far" != "best there can ever be". Western liberal capitalism is heavily flawed, it's just marginally better than the alternatives currently in existance and therefore the best starting point to build an even better one.

Applying abstract thinking from first principles, what kind of approach could theoretically be better?