Something was wrong. It seemed I had angered the techno libertarians.

Re:Something was wrong. It seemed I had angered the techno l... by unalone on Thursday August 20, 2009 @01:13PM (#775505)

I didn't really think Squashed was suggesting he ought to get funding, I think he was stating that the system as it stands now, where hard work leads to nothing, is flawed. You can see the implied solution as "I need money," but from his older writings, I'd be more inclined to think it's "There's a problem with a system wherein happiness is so based on the economy, and where we're told we need a good job to be happy, so that our happiness is based on a fluctuating system." The problem isn't the lack of a job, in other words, so much as it's the emphasis on having certain jobs.

ALSO: Can we please stop downvoting based on who we agree and disagree with? I'm enjoying this conversation quite a lot and I hate seeing Tom and myself dipping into 0 and -1 while productive debate's going on.

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Re:Something was wrong. It seemed I had angered the techno l... by gojomo on Thursday August 20, 2009 @01:33PM (#775575)

I agree downvote-as-disagreement is bad.

However, at the moment, your only comment downvoted below 1 in this thread makes the claim "I was thinking Communism more in the idea of 'let's not let the market be entirely free'".

That's such an aggressive redefinition of Communism it borders on falsehood, so I understand the downvotes. There are many, many critiques of the free market and proposals for moderating market activity for the greater good. Very few of these deserve to be lumped under the heading 'Communism'.

The Communist critique of markets and capital/ownership is larger, and their program, in both theory and practice, different. 'Communism' means something, and that something is much more than the innocuous "let's not let the market be entirely free".

(For example, you could wholeheartededly agree "let's not let the market be entirely free" and still be shot as a counterrevolutionary by a dedicated Communist.)

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Re:Something was wrong. It seemed I had angered the techno l... by unalone on Thursday August 20, 2009 @01:46PM (#775619)

I was referring much more to Tom's being downvoted. He was at a universal -1 for a bit, which frustrated me.

I kind of misuse terms a lot. I say Communism when I mean socialism, and vice versa. In reality, I'm just anti-extremism. (I once discussed with some friends forming a political party on the concept of "extremist moderatism", or the idea that the only thing bad is extremist worldviews.) So in my view, neither capitalism nor communism is a be-all end-all, and the real solution is murkier and in the middle.

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