Skeptic Project

@Monst3rmind
Capitalism existed in ancient times. People settled 10,000 years ago, they produced surpluses and traded that surplus with others often using money. Property existed forever. Despite popular belief, the people who built the pyramids were paid very well and were not slaves.

But you do realize you have not offered a single argument as to why anyone should switch to an RBE or how that would solve any problem or improve anyone's life or improve upon what we are already doing.

This dude ain't interested in debate. He's interested in hearing people agree with him because he's found The Answer.

He's fundamentally wrong about nomadic societies. He makes it sound like nomadic societies were prancing around the lands spreading happiness, rainbows and animal husbandry in pursuit of a Resource Based Economy.

Problems of Marxism

1) Problematic conception of human interest (humans are productive creatures
2) Presumes that material conditions trump human sentimentality and cultural ties
3) Fails to consider the symbology inherent in artefact and object
4) Does not account for abuses of power
5) Does not set up a rational or reliable framework for implementation of the system
6) Does not set up or account for a systemic political system, instead assumes a "state of the proletarian"

Suggesting Direct Democracy does not make it viable. People could easily turn the system away from RBE- what happens then? How would a direct democracy even enforce the creation of RBE? There is still the problem of authority. How is this authority going to be adequately checked? See, this is exactly why RBE is a joke- its adherents can't even be bothered to see that the general critiques of the Gestalt of their program has already been around and been criticized.

What happens if the majority of people in a direct democracy decide RBE sucks and they vote against it? Do the robots come and spray the angry crowds with pacification gas?

@muertos
Don’t buy it. I am not selling it anyway. Done debating with you. Thanks for your time.

@CyborgJesus
I am no genius, I just enjoy research. Stay longer with problems (if it rings any bell). While searching for an answer to one thing, sometimes you find answers to other.

Adam Smith in his “wealth of nations” had stated that “specialization can make a human as stupid as he can be”. We don’t need that much things as we need living and thinking people.It’s better for all people to know how to use a computer than having one just for furniture.

Your further comments are very accurate.

It could be like all the citizens of a city could be shareholders of every production facility in that city. There would be no need for competition to make goods better, while money is still in the game to serve as motive. Information could be accessed via open source ERP CMS ect, and administration would be as professional as it is today. There is no need to create false demand and goods are being sold in a price that keeps the business up and running and paying some money to its shareholders, some of who are the very buyers and workers.

Again this is also not a huge change, it is happening. The model where corporation limit the percentage of shares per holder exists and expands.

Now lets say that all money get into one account, you get what you want free and work free, and at the end of every year the account is balanced and whatever remains is yours to cash it out. Digital money. A bit imaginary but you get the point. Lets say points instead of money. Points rise with efficiency, and drop with consumption. Everybody has all necessities for a living, and the more efficient ones get the big prize, like the Olympics: respect. If you are billow zero, you are a punk! Still able to live though. No need to steal.
At this point we have no money, no need for extended ownership, no storing, no advertising, no tax, no banks, no insurance, less packagin, more efficient and reliable products, less waste, bla bla bla...

problem solved, more problems on the table. what about the scarce resources? and city trading. it gets off from there and it gets bit of topic. i beleive there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

it is an RBE as it balances human efford and knowledge and physical resources instead of money. But it is not TVP style. get it?

@Falkner
Ok thanx

1)Is that that Marxism is lucking a motivation mechanism such as money? If that is the question then that is not a problem. There is no evidence that people if not paid will all day sit in a chair and do nothing, there is no way to prove or deny, its an axiom. As I said the money as motive was also an axiom proven to be wrong, or not accurate if you prefer.
2) rephrase…
3) rephrase…
4) direct democracy does
5) oh god… rephrase
6) direct democracy.

What do you mean if direct democracy fails then the people could… it sounds contradictory. The fall of direct democracy means that the people have no power to do anything. What would be the motive for someone to give away his authority over himself? a leader? and do what? why should that concern us? i said that direct democracy is an option. put a leader, change the system. do whatever you want its you freaking city.

Please, again, plain English.

I don't really give a damn whether you're "done" debating me or not. You came to our board to peddle your crap, so you signed up to deal with us.

You're going to keep flapping around, shrieking about how great an RBE is, and every time someone comes up with a good reason why it's utter bullshit you will claim it's some form of illegitimate debate. You will keep doing this until you get the answer you like, which is "RBE is awesome and achievable right now! Let's do it!"

So, like Matt, I'm going to continue posting, and continue telling you how and why you're wrong, because it's exceedingly clear that you are.

//Don’t buy it. I am not selling it anyway. Done debating with you. Thanks for your time.//

He just proved this:
//This dude ain't interested in debate. He's interested in hearing people agree with him because he's found The Answer.//

Sometimes it's best that these debates are done online and not in person.

I don't think Monst3r has read or "researched" anything. I think he's watched YouTube videos that agree with his point of view and that's the extent of it.

City states came to a halt, especially in Italy, after it became abundantly clear that their system of governance and capacity for resource accumulation was insufficient to either meet the needs of large populations nor to develop an adequate base from which to harness military power. These city states also thrived not only in trading, but in banking as well. Indeed, Italian city states were microcosms of financial power, not of resource needs. City states, as a form of political ordering, were abandoned once it became abundantly clear that unity across larger geographic areas would loan its to stronger security. This is precisely why Germany and Italy, in the 19th century, began to unify the smaller polities that comprised them. It should also be made clear that city states are not forms of governments, but rather geographic organizations. Such a system in anachronistic to our own considering the engrained method of though referring to national identity and broader issues of necessary collective security. Indeed, today's remaining "city states" are all dependent upon outside powers for security and are, in themselves, still heavily engrained within the use of international finance. It is also rather erroneous to claim that city states ordered the European landscape in the 1500s as, at that time, large kingdoms were in fact the great powers of europe. It is further ironic that you point to this date since it is also the time when Portugese explorer Vasco de Gama's voyage from the Iberian peninsula to India would remove the great advantage the Italian city states actually had- control over land based trade. I highly recommend that you abandon these misconceptions regarding history as they are simply cutting away at your argument. Even the Greek city states did not have an "RBE" as they founded their wealth not only in conquest, but in trade as well. They all had monetary systems, and many of them were not even really city states but rather small geographic polities. It was also relatively quickly, in the 7th century, that coinage emerged among the Greek polities, but rather than cause inequality, it was shown that the introduction of coinage destabilized the aristocratic hold over the poor as the rising merchant class began to gain in power.

BUT STAR TREK ENTERPRISE IS LIKE A CITY STATE DERP

Also, I'm sick and tired of moonbats screeching about overpopulation. There is no overpopulation problem. The 1970s called and they want their misanthropy back.

@Falkner
There is no clear argument on the table at the moment. You listed a Marxism theory problems and I said that I will study them. That’s why I didn’t reply to you but to cyborjesus with whom I am not having a debate rather than a talk.
Since you bothered entering it I will reply.

For me there is no such thing as “abundantly clear”. It was abundantly clear that the earth is flat, that Jesus is the son of the one holy god, that subatomic particles move either as natural scale particles or waves, that genes change slowly over time and many other like capitalism being equivalent to freedom. Now it is abundantly clear that that’s not the case. What we believe to be true makes it perceived true. Just like you believing that I am an RBE follower and PJ’s slave and keep rephrasing my words to other, dare I say stupid meanings. I never said that we should return to primitive lifestyle I just said that the argument that there was never in history such a system is a false argument. I never said that city states ordered the 15th century landscape. I said that the civilization that influenced that change was organized in city-states, how does one bring the other? Also I never said that Ancient Greeks had an RBE system.

There is no need to misinterpret my words in order then to baptize them as misconceptions and then give freely recommendations like you are some kind of genius or teacher or guru. I will state it again: I am not here to sell ideas neither to persuade you to be an RBE fan. I am just investigating. I am not a risk to your status.

Beyond that your historical analysis is majorly true (with some quotations needed like “all citystates used money” which is not accurate, Sparta for example never used coins). Your conclusions though are debatable. And some, dare I say, are completely false.

There are reasons of course that made humanity drive away from the citystate system, but that was no experiment, it wasn’t the outcome of a linear equation, it was a chaotic one influenced by many things that people believed to be true at the time. So you cannot know the reasons. Nobody does. We can only speculate.

You presume that it was the need for economic expansion and military security, in an era when people believed that the world was endlessly big and many of them were even making human sacrifices. I agree, but I strongly believe that we are beyond that. Nations and people no more benefit from wars, just some wealthy individuals. Earth is not endless and as technology advance and population grows, its getting smaller and smaller. Nations have no room to expand and the firepower we hold makes the change of a world war equivalent to the ending of humanity. The forming of a global scale cooperation regardless of its form is the only path for humanity, and if that happens there is no reason to have an earth army. Who will oppose it? The moon? So the reasons that made humanity drive away from citystates are no more relevant. This is not anachronism. Democracy died during the medieval age, shouldn’t humanity take the return to democracy as anachronistic? That is not the case because we are not taking about replacing systems rather than examining if and how a past system can influence a new one.

I also don’t get the meaning of geographic organizations. Governments are not geographic organizations? Isn’t a state by definition a piece of land? And state government isnt an organization for that piece of land? what is the difference.

I sounded like such a douche there. Sorry, but my patience for anything RBE is remarkably thin. These debates have been had for years, and RBE proponents never seem to accept the reality of the situation.

I know you are educated, one can easily tell that from the way you express in words and “plain” English (Thank god (or should I say capitalism) we have GoogleTranslate!). That’s the reason I especially “picked” you to debate with, in the first place. I understand your frustration with RBE proponents too as it happens to know the way TZM and TVP proponents think: “PJ said it, so it is true”. I know. I have been there. I recently also got banned because I didn’t want to aid their translations. “You are not helping, so you are not a member, so get the fuck out of here”.

Anyway, Still I can only assume the meaning in your words. What is exactly the meaning of government? Is it bided with states only? A father governs the family, a mayor governs the city, parliament governs a state, the white house governs the United States, there is the EU, the UN, the IMF, global organizations that interfere with governments thus they co-govern. Govern stands for taking decisions. Of course there are differences in all of these that should be taken under consideration and it is also necessary to keep in mind the similarities before believing that citystates is not a solution to some problems.

I also oppose to the meaning of your statement that people believed that the world was smaller. We don’t live on a map. The concept of space and distance is relevant to time more than meters.

Regarding the way I approach the arguments, I can also claim the very same thing for you because you seem to mess evidence with conclusions based on evidence. You debunked some points and then returned to generalities. But I am more concerned in understanding the arguments than trying to find what is wrong with you. You have a different perspective and also you seem to have an opinion on the subject. I don’t. I have only thoughts. You are doing me a favor and since it is tiresome we have to stop. I haven’t read Das Capital though it is in my library, its too F.. big and I am more into poetry mood lately. I am waiting for a friend who is an expertise in marxism to talk about your points and research if needed.

Firstly, the EU and UN are not governments. The EU is a monetary union incapable of setting into place laws that extend beyond trade issues. The UN, likewise, is devoid of the power necessary to enforce that which it claims to pass as resolutions. Now, this is not to say that these organizations do not have some sway considering that many states will act in accordance with their institutional norms, but they are not governments. Even the US has repeatedly ignored UN resolutions, including those against the invasion of Iraq, and the IMF has been refused by several countries who view it as a form of Western Imperialism. They do not govern because they have not and will not be able to influence domestic laws. They simply do not have the necessary enforcement mechanisms to do so. Rather, governments cooperate within these institutions and act in accordance to them only when it is beneficial to them, or if there is too much pressure from other member states to go it alone. The power of these groups is dependent upon voluntary action.

Definitions of government are tied up with questions of power and centrality. That is, a government is not only a way to organize the laws and standards of a geographic unit (city state, state, kingdom, etc) but it also possess the ability to enforce that which it sets into place. This holds true for direct democracies, although direct democracy becomes horribly inefficient once populations grow too large or when expediency of decision is needed. Your statements regarding how a father governs his family are points that were early made by social contract theorists in the 17th and 18th centuries, and this appears to be part of the Western tradition of government.

Your point regarding size is slightly confusing, and I'm in no way sure how to approach it except to say the following: my point was that city states were abandoned due to their inability to defend themselves against larger political units. The wikipedia source on this is actually one we used in my first history class here. It is Sri Aurobindo, "Ideal of Human Unity" included in Social and Political Thought, 1970. When you look at the history of city states, you find that they only existed briefly once they encountered larger political bodies and eventually even the city states in Italy formed into German-like principalities and microstates until their amalgamation in the late 19th and early 20th century. And this is precisely the issue with city states, if they were ever to be reestablished. The only existing city states today are indefensible and would easily fall prey to the power of larger entities in the world. They cannot control and distribute resources to the necessary industries, they are very poorly adapted for mass production, and they are too asily swallowed up by more powerful neighbors. Also, try to think about how heavily people would oppose such a scheme when they have attachments to their national identities. And now revisit the italian wars to see just how precarious a massive city-state system really is. I'm not saying that there aren't other ways to organize ourselves geo-politically, what I am saying is that history shows just how precarious the city state is.

As for Das Kapital, you are doing yourself no favors by depending upon someone else to help you understand it. You should, at the very least, read sections of Das Kapital for yourself. The only way you'll come to really understand it is if you actually grapple with the concepts and issues at hand in the original source. You need to understand materialist history, dialectics, and Marx's fundamental critiques of capitalism as it relates to his notion of human being. If you dont grab a mastery of that, you will continue to fall into making statements he already made and which have already been critiqued. I really urge you to do the reading for yourself.

"Dont mess with USA, that a completely different system, because USA was from its very beggining consisted by multicoultural and multinational groups that migrated there and formed the states."

What?

Seriously man, you know dick about history. If Kaiser wastes any more time debating you, he's foolish.