Spending Too Much Money on a Coding Agent

Communism is an ideal but never a reality. What you see in reality is at best an attempt at communism which is quickly derailed by corruption and greed. I mean, it's great to have ideals, but you should also recognize when those ideals are completely impractical given the human condition.

By the way, this also applies to the "Free market" ideal...

Importantly, problems with the ideal shouldn't preclude good actions that take us in a direction.

There being problems with absolute libertarian free markets doesn't mean all policies that evoke the free market ideal must be disregarded, nor does the problems with communism mean that all communist actions must be ignored.

We can see a problem with an ideal, but still wish to replicate the good parts.

Sure. The issue for me is when people intentionally mislabel something to make it look worse.

For example, mislabelling socialism as communism. The police department, fire department, and roads are all socialist programs. Only a moron would call this communism and yet for some reason universal healthcare...

There's also this nonsense when someone says "That's the free market at work", and I'm like, if we really lived in a free market then you'd be drinking DuPont's poison right now.

Using the words "Communism" and "Free market" just show a (often intentional) misunderstanding of the nuance of how things actually work in our society.

The communism label must be the most cited straw man in all of history at this point.

for all the lip service capitalists give to the free market, they hate it. their revealed preference is for a monopoly.

> Communism is an ideal but never a reality

There is nothing ideal about communism. I'd rather own my production tools and be as productive as I want to be. I'd rather build wealth over trading opportunities, I'd rather hire people and reinvest earnings. That is ideal.

I think you're missing the point. Communism doesn't actually exist in the real world. In fact you are right now using it as a straw man (my entire point).

Who in the actual real world with any authority at all is telling you you can't be as productive as you want to be, build wealth, hire people, and reinvest your earnings?

I responded to the main points in the communist manifesto. It is clearly against putting a price on labor and declares hiring as exploitative practice. Clearly against individual capital. Clearly against individual products since capital is a "social power". That manipulative weasel. I can't even own a frickin laptop because it is a means of production and thus "state-owned".

Just because it hasn't been "successfully implemented" according to your personal opinion doesn't mean it cannot be scrutinized.

That's like if there is a sign that says "do not cross 3km/h" when someone says "that's too slow" you go "a-hah! straw man! How do you know you can't go 300kmph with that in place? nobody implemented that sign before!". Socrates would be proud.

Problem is, you may own the means of production, but most people don't.

If you don't address that, you'll end up with a "dictatorship of the proletariat".

That's not a problem anymore. I live in a 2nd world country. Every farmer has a phone, anyone who wants can get their child a laptop. Just because I don't have access to machines which build plane engines doesn't mean I have the right to complain about proletariat. People who invented, invested, earned and built the damn things own them. If that's "dictatorship" that's fine.

> I responded to the main points in the communist manifesto.

OK but that's irrelevant to my post. There's lots of books and manifestos that say lots of stupid things. You're arguing as if this manifesto is a real threat, and I'm saying "show me this threat". This isn't a real person with any impact on your day to day, like say a politician. It's a fantasy opposition.

> Just because it hasn't been "successfully implemented" according to your personal opinion doesn't mean it cannot be scrutinized.

OK sure, where? Where is this real world communism that meets the manifesto you are railing against?

> That's like if there is a sign that says "do not cross 3km/h" when someone says "that's too slow" you go "a-hah! straw man! How do you know you can't go 300kmph with that in place? nobody implemented that sign before!". Socrates would be proud.

OK that's an awkward analogy. It's more like someone wrote a manifesto that said cars shouldn't go over 3km/h and you want to use this "slow manifesto" to argue that any laws that would slow you down are some sort of slippery slope in to "slowmunism".

No one with any authority in the real world is trying to implement the communist manifesto on to you. Not even the terrifying Bernie Sanders wants anything to do with communism. For the love of god, there is no communist threat. You can relax.

The communist manifesto is what basically communism is. It is a real document billions swear by.

But I get it. You are basically arguing that nothing and nobody exists or ever existed or do or does anything to anything or anyone or had any ideas and arguing ideas or what people do or could do or would do is pointless.

Well, have fun with that. Sorry all this thread space was a waste.

> But I get it. You are basically arguing that nothing and nobody exists or ever existed or do or does anything to anything or anyone or had any ideas and arguing ideas or what people do or could do or would do is pointless.

And so now you are just putting words in my mouth I assume because you have no argument. I can’t even parse this.

You started an argument with a stance I never took by railing against a bogeyman I never advanced. And now you’re doing it again.

If communism was anything more than an impractical ideal then you should have been able to point out where it actually exists. But of course it doesn’t exist. It’s just a fantasy. Maybe you want it to exist so you can point a finger and say “see what happens when you don’t do what I want?”?