It's nice to realise we're not the only ones who accept this truth, right? I was kinda scared of bringing it up in case we didn't see eye-to-eye (of course, you and I know that with a powerful enough pair of binoculars and no buildings or hills in the way, we'd be able to see eye-to eye even if we were stood on opposite corners of the globe earth but not everyone is ready for that).
'Twas a joke. I couldn't be a flat-earther; I wouldn't know what to call the global north/south. Maybe square A1/C2/C3 and squares A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, C1 but its easier just to accept the world is a round-ish kind of egg-shape.
Obviously once you build a tall tower you just take more brick from the bottom and put them on the top. Checkmate tankies.
They literally tried that already. [Edit: to clarify, I mean that although you joke, the liberals actually thought it would be a good idea.] Have you seen The Big Short? It's ultimately a bit liberal, but it's good enough nonetheless.
Oh I am very aware of the fucked state of the US stock market. Moreso than I'd say the vast majority of the US population. There's so many layers of the how fucked that thing is. On of the things I really hate are when people say "the stock market is corrupt." No, no it's not. The stock market is working the EXACT way it was always intended. As a scheme for the rich to steal from the working class. That's it. That's ALL it is.
According to the cow example, feudalism is the most profitable to a citizen - I am not convinced 😁
Lmao, have you seen the "Anarcho-Capitalism" snippet. You already know who wrote that idiocy just by reading that xD
But the link suggested that this is some university, I supposed acaps are to stupid to finish higher degree or, worse, to teach. But maybe in U$ this is possible. BTW, recently, our brave Polish Anarchists on szmer.info have new communities: "liberalism" and "christian democracy". Very active. No joke, sadly
Is anyone actually convinced by the practical impossibility of infinite growth? I'm not saying the argument is wrong, but you all know how pig-headed liberals are when confronted with materialism. I had nominally intelligent, well-educated people bring up "who'll pay insurance and pension funds?" when I was trying to explain the concept of surplus value.
I struggle to fathom what impact insurance and pension payments are supposed to have on this argument. Will there be extra matter emerging from a wormhole in spacetime if Earth's physical resources are insufficient to respect human contracts? Should we start from their 1099 forms and then deduce the mass and volume of our planet?
I don't recall how exactly it started, if I had to guess I'd say I made a remark impying all employers are exploiters. I tried to explain the concept of the surplus value in the simplest terms. I explained the simplest model, they said the worker doesn't actually sell the product and that there's other factors involved. I explained that logistics, selling etc are also labour and that I'm only talking on a simplistic model, that it can be expanded. They brought up an individual, a friend who happens to be a bourgeois leech, said he works hard (he does). I explained that his managership and ownership are essentially different hats, and that he could employ people to do the job, not work a second, and still go home with money. They mentioned insurances and shit.
I got flustered. I had faith in the intelligence of these people, and they just said that. I don't remember how it went later, but it got into the subject of risk. I said proles risk far more, life and limb, while capitalists risk comfort and ranking. One of them claimed he had many friends who lost everything they had, presumably he meant start-ups, he knew a lot of those. I guess I made a flippant remark because it got heates and we had to just arguing to cool off.
At what point does this barrage of minutiae stop being honest questions and become sealioning? I can't tell. It's a cringy memory for me all around but if nothing else it was an experience.
One of them claimed he had many friends who lost everything they had, presumably he meant start-ups, he knew a lot of those.
You've got to wonder how people can still believe in capitalism when they give direct or semi-direct experience of so many new businesses going under. At this point, I like to get them in my side by pointing out how big capitalists have market advantages, which makes it so difficult for ordinary people to become rich by working hard.
As you say, you've got to question the intellectual honesty because they'll often agree but then go off on one about minimum wage being the real barrier or something equally asinine.
I was thinking about this while peeing (sitting down). The ball sack produces an infinite amount of jizz, we just have to figure out how to use it. Karl Marx didnt think about this.
Here is an infinite sequence, always growing, but never reaching the value 1:
0, 1/2, 3/4, 7/8, 15/16, 31/32,...
So infinite growth is possible.
The matter and energy on Earth never disappears, it's just converted from one type to another. So yes, if you look at it from a cosmic perspective, we do have unlimited resources.
At least, until the Sun dies, which gives us a few billion years.
You are stunningly correct. The matter and energy on Earth never disappears, and we're converting them into greenhouse gases as fast as we can. I am quite enjoying an abundance of heat. Who said that capitalists don't share?
Our ability to utilize the available matter and energy is a different issue. It's just a matter of technological advancement to utilize the extra heat to convert it to something useful to us and capitalism is very good at technological advancement.
Hey, I'll sell you a pile of dirt for 100 grand, you must want it right? Because cosmically, there isn't any real difference between the carbon in the dirt and carbon in a huge pile of diamonds.
Our ability to utilize the available matter and energy is a different issue. It's just a matter of technological advancement to convert the pile of dirt into something useful to us and capitalism is very good at technological advancement.
That point does not take away from the metaphor. The fact that matter is not created or destroyed, only transformed means there is always an exact amount of finite matter and energy in the universe. Just as that matter can be in unlimited formations the legos can also be arranged in limitless different ways. Capitalism is doomed because it needs to keep deriving increased profits from the exploitation of earth and people while the profit margin has the tendancy to fall and there are very limited new markets with a world nearly all capitalist. The last resort in bringing back up profit margins to to destroy things in war so that they can start from the beginning with high rates of profit. This could be analogous to breaking apart legos and building something new.
Shouldn’t a finite amount of matter have a finite amount of formations?
Probably, I guess that just makes the point about resources being finite even more true.
The sun's heating will render the earth unlivable even without climate change billions of years before that.
I read that according to more recent estimates, the Sun's expansion and growing luminosity could render Earth uninhabitable for humans and life in general in as "little" as 100 million years from now, though it depends on various factors.
