Why do Communists tend to to be Atheist?

smacl

realitykeeper wrote: »

When paid for by the taxpayer (as opposed to the consumer) I would consider the items on your list a shameful waste of money. I think you are unwise if you don`t mind my saying.

What ever happened to looking after those less fortunate than yourself, I'd always thought that was a pretty fundamental Christian ideal, no? Personally, I want to live, raise my family and grow old in a caring society and am of the opinion that high taxation used to fund strong social services is the best way of achieving this. Making all forms of well-being a personal rather than collective responsibility is fine and dandy until you contract something like cancer, which has happened to a few of my friends in recent years. Same goes for old age, homelessness, and various other dire straits that most of us will encounter at least once at some stage in our lives. The right wing "I'm all right Jack, keep your hands of my stash" is fine until you're not all right and you're the one who needs help. Where this help is not forthcoming, we end up with a polarised society where the "have-nots" quickly start outnumbering the "haves" leading to undue hardship, civil unrest, and violence.

It is also a mistake to think that capitalism in anyway corresponds to a meritocracy. For example, how important are nurses, teachers, farmers and carers to our society and how important are bankers, estate agents and insurance brokers. Who is likely to become the wealthiest among these? The situation here is clearly inequitable and high taxation is the mechanism by which we can restore some balance. I want to live in a society where people still want to be nurses, carers, teachers, farmers etc... because these are people who's services I value and will likely need. Financiers, not so much...

So if you don't mind me saying, I find your stance on this naive as it is greedy.

smacl

realitykeeper wrote: »

The parable of the workers in the vineyard is applicable in today`s Ireland. The unions typically negotiate a deals for existing employees which exclude any future employees, teachers being one example Then when new recruits are employed and get paid less than everyone else, they and the unions bleat on about the unfairness of it all. Leaving aside the hypocrisy of the unions and the foolishness of the new recruits for paying dues to these unions, the parable of the workers in the vineyard basically says a deal is a deal. Honorable people would know this.

Also, the parable of the servants and the talents tells us that those who have plenty will receive more and those who have little will have the little taken from them. This is basically saying laziness does not pay and that is something socialists should learn.

I do however believe that where capitalism is alive and thriving, the wealthy should be generous to the poor. If they are not generous, socialism will take root and the wealthy then have to up sticks and move.

Methinks you're reading the wrong ancient tome here. Some six hundred odd years before your mate Jesus was wandering around the Middle East another wise old fella slightly further East penned the following

Fame or integrity: which is more important?
Money or happiness: which is more valuable?
Success or failure: which is more destructive?

If you look to others for fulfillment,
you will never truly be fulfilled.
If your happiness depends on money,
you will never be happy with yourself.

Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.

Thing is, I reckon most of those who consider themselves Christian in this country would have more in common with Laozi than your take on a Christianity that aligns with capitalism.

realitykeeper

smacl wrote: »

What ever happened to looking after those less fortunate than yourself, I'd always thought that was a pretty fundamental Christian ideal, no?

That is precisely my point but it should be done intelligently. Giving money to politicians to delegate is about as thrifty as using fifty euro notes as toilet paper. They don`t use the money wisely and why would they, they didn`t earn it. And of course they take their cut. Besides, the expenditure on future promises and present care is heavily topped up with our ever growing debt. Until such time as the 200 billion + is repaid, people have not received what they think they have received.

realitykeeper

smacl wrote: »

Thing is, I reckon most of those who consider themselves Christian in this country would have more in common with Laozi than your take on a Christianity that aligns with capitalism.

To me it is not a numbers game. I am not a politician and if I were I would be blunt with the electorate and then tell them I told them so every time they suffer the consequences of their decisions.

smacl

realitykeeper wrote: »

That is precisely my point but it should be done intelligently. Giving money to politicians to delegate is about as thrifty as using fifty euro notes as toilet paper. They don`t use the money wisely and why would they, they didn`t earn it. And of course they take their cut. Besides, the expenditure on future promises and present care is heavily topped up with our ever growing debt. Until such time as the 200 billion + is repaid, people have not received what they think they have received.

How precisely do you provide essential services on an equitable basis for all members of society intelligently and how should it be paid for? The high tax model seems to work well in other countries such as Finland and Sweden for example, who are currently listed as enjoying the best health care systems on the planet.

That many of our politicians are self serving and of questionable competence isn't an argument against left wing policy as this greed and incompetence is as visible if not more so among those on the right.

Hotblack Desiato

realitykeeper wrote: »

That is precisely my point but it should be done intelligently. Giving money to politicians to delegate is about as thrifty as using fifty euro notes as toilet paper. They don`t use the money wisely and why would they, they didn`t earn it. And of course they take their cut.

LOL. As if charities use money wisely? They didn't earn it either. And oh boy do they take their cut.

smacl wrote: »

That many of our politicians are self serving and of questionable competence isn't an argument against left wing policy as this greed and incompetence is as visible if not more so among those on the right.

We get useless, incompetent gombeens as politicians because the Irish electorate repeatedly votes for useless, incompetent gombeens. Being seen as 'intellectual' is a near absolute barrier to becoming a TD.

smacl

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

We get useless, incompetent gombeens as politicians because the Irish electorate repeatedly votes for useless, incompetent gombeens. Being seen as 'intellectual' is a near absolute barrier to becoming a TD.

The pickings on polling day to vote otherwise tend to be rather lean though, and the opportunity to get into politics without towing the line within a major party are also slim. People seem to vote FG/FF/SF out of a misguided sense of tradition much like they send their kids for communion. Parish pump politics are alive and well in this country and it is easy to understand why.

Hotblack Desiato

smacl wrote: »

towing the line

Cabaal

smacl wrote: »

The pickings on polling day to vote otherwise tend to be rather lean though, and the opportunity to get into politics without towing the line within a major party are also slim. People seem to vote FG/FF/SF out of a misguided sense of tradition much like they send their kids for communion. Parish pump politics are alive and well in this country and it is easy to understand why.

Of course this is nothing unique to Ireland by any stretch,
How many people in the USA vote republican because their parents did?

It's evident that a vast majority simply do not read election manifesto's prior to voting for a party/candidates.

The 2011 Ireland election is a prime example of this, back then the FG election manifesto made it 100% clear they intended to bring in water charges. There was no doubt.

But what did people do? They voted for FG purely as a completely uninformed protest vote. Then they bitched when FG tried to do exactly what they said they'd do.

It's like it was a shock that bringing in water charges would actually result in people paying the charges!
:rolleyes:

realitykeeper

smacl wrote: »

How precisely do you provide essential services on an equitable basis for all members of society intelligently and how should it be paid for? The high tax model seems to work well in other countries such as Finland and Sweden for example, who are currently listed as enjoying the best health care systems on the planet.

That many of our politicians are self serving and of questionable competence isn't an argument against left wing policy as this greed and incompetence is as visible if not more so among those on the right.

I think in Denmark there is an income cap. Essentially what this means is a punitive tax on salaries above a certain level but the real purpose of this tax is not because the government want the money, it`s more to do with directing the use of money away from self indulgence. Right wingers are more into competition than jealousy so at least from a right wing perspective the tax is not about equality either (although placating the Bolshevics is a spin off benefit). Punitive taxes on high salaries is no object to state entities because they are clueless about money and foolish enough to pay 100% tax on salaries above a particular threshold. That is just the state handing money with one hand and taking it back with the other.

Private companies however are another matter. To them, a high tax above a particular threshold means it is better to reinvest the money than to pay high salaries. Even if they did pay high salaries, their employees wouldn`t know it with the high tax above the threshold. Another benefit of an effective pay cap to the economy (other than reinvestment in businesses) is inflationary pressures can be kept under control as there would be less consumer cash sloshing about for foreign imports, foreign holidays, domestic housing etc. In other words, less money is lost to the economy and of course the economy can complete globally by keeping costs down.

realitykeeper

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

LOL. As if charities use money wisely? They didn't earn it either. And oh boy do they take their cut.

I take your point but you are missing mine. One can be ones own charity by giving directly to the individual or by giving of oneself in helping ones fellow men and women. One can also be discerning about the type of help is most appropriate.

smacl

realitykeeper wrote: »

I think in Denmark there is an income cap. Essentially what this means is a punitive tax on salaries above a certain level but the real purpose of this tax is not because the government want the money, it`s more to do with directing the use of money away from self indulgence.

Do you have a source for that, because a quick check would suggest otherwise. From Wikipedia

Maximum income tax level
The sum of municipal and national tax percentages cannot exceed 52.05% (2019) - the so-called "tax ceiling" (Danish: skatteloft).[15] Including the labour market contribution of 8%, the maximal effective marginal tax rate on labour income in 2019 is 55.9% (=0.08 + 0.92*0.5205). For capital income, there is a separate, lower maximum tax rate of 42%.

Right wingers are more into competition than jealousy so at least from a right wing perspective the tax is not about equality either (although placating the Bolshevics is a spin off benefit). Punitive taxes on high salaries is no object to state entities because they are clueless about money and foolish enough to pay 100% tax on salaries above a particular threshold. That is just the state handing money with one hand and taking it back with the other.

Private companies however are another matter. To them, a high tax above a particular threshold means it is better to reinvest the money than to pay high salaries. Even if they did pay high salaries, their employees wouldn`t know it with the high tax above the threshold. Another benefit of an effective pay cap to the economy (other than reinvestment in businesses) is inflationary pressures can be kept under control as there would be less consumer cash sloshing about for foreign imports, foreign holidays, domestic housing etc. In other words, less money is lost to the economy and of course the economy can complete globally by keeping costs down.

I would suggest right-wingers are as or more jealous than the population at large. Worth remembering that being right-wing does not make one wealthy, but impoverished right-wingers seem to be particularly frustrated by this fact. This can manifest as resentment against those other people in receipt of help from the state that they consider spongers or blow-ins. What differentiates them from left-wingers is that they focus more on relative personal wealth than the broader well-being of society.

As the owner of a small privately held company myself for the last three decades, I take your point about private companies. What you've missed about re-investment is that the company itself is an asset owned by the shareholders and reinvestment increases the value of that asset. If you consider that profit will be subject to corporation tax and dividends to shareholders will also be subject to tax, re-investment often makes better long term sense. As for salaries, they tend to be determined by the market in a competitive environment. Where high taxes are important here is that we need to apply a similar value to important public workers who are not operating in a market environment. Having a society where one can make excellent money in the fintech sector for example, but would be on the breadline as a nurse, carer, member of the police or teacher, leads to a deeply dysfunctional society. High taxation is the mechanism whereby we, as a society, can encourage future generations to take on these all important roles.

Put more simply, the worth we accord an individual in society should be determined by what they contribute, to the best of their ability, rather than what they earn. When you talk about punitive, the right wing would have us punish many of those who are key to the well-being of our society on the basis that their roles are not part of the competitive market economy.

smacl

realitykeeper wrote: »

I take your point but you are missing mine. One can be ones own charity by giving directly to the individual or by giving of oneself in helping ones fellow men and women. One can also be discerning about the type of help is most appropriate.

Discernment in this context could also entail discrimination. If you place any value on having an egalitarian society, as most in Ireland demonstrably do, there is not place for discrimination.

Bannasidhe

smacl wrote: »

Put more simply, the worth we accord an individual in society should be determined by what they contribute, to the best of their ability, rather than what they earn. When you talk about punitive, the right wing would have us punish many of those who are key to the well-being of our society on the basis that their roles are not part of the competitive market economy.

Or punish them when times are hard.

While channel hopping last night I was skipping past some UK True Life Crime show and heard the comment from a PC that he was the only police officer available in an area with 170,000 people and I thought how it's such a 'norm' that those same parties to the right of centre who like to bang the law and order drum also tend to savagely cut police and essential services when it is deemed money needs to be saved.

realitykeeper

smacl wrote: »

I would suggest right-wingers are as or more jealous than the population at large. Worth remembering that being right-wing does not make one wealthy, but impoverished right-wingers seem to be particularly frustrated by this fact.

This mistake is common mistake. People often confuse the red neck brigade with the true right. Right wing-ism has nothing to do with begrudging immigrants. You will often find people in business are in favour of immigration because they want cheap labour when at the same time your typical football hooligan (often misclassified as the extreme right) is opposed to immigration. In fact, neither of these groups are the true right. People who are truly right wing see migration as a bad thing a) because migrants who would prefer if things were better back home and b) because migrants will be better off in their own countries when the true state was western economies becomes evident. c) it makes no economic sense paying low wages to migrants while a lot of Irish people are on the dole.

It is often claimed Irish people don`t want to do certain types of jobs anymore but I think it is a fair bet they don`t want to starve either. The true right would abolish the dole and tell those people to work for whatever the market deems their labour to be worth.

The true right want the abolition of the minimum wage and a 99% reduction in state spending.

Bannasidhe

realitykeeper wrote: »

This mistake is common mistake. People often confuse the red neck brigade with the true right. Right wing-ism has nothing to do with begrudging immigrants. You will often find people in business are in favour of immigration because they want cheap labour when at the same time your typical football hooligan (often misclassified as the extreme right) is opposed to immigration. In fact, neither of these groups are the true right. People who are truly right wing see migration as a bad thing a) because migrants who would prefer if things were better back home and b) because migrants will be better off in their own countries when the true state was western economies becomes evident. c) it makes no economic sense paying low wages to migrants while a lot of Irish people are on the dole.

It is often claimed Irish people don`t want to do certain types of jobs anymore but I think it is a fair bet they don`t want to starve either. The true right would abolish the dole and tell those people to work for whatever the market deems their labour to be worth.

The true right want the abolition of the minimum wage and a 99% reduction in state spending.

So, the 'true right' are people so ignorant of history that they are not aware that when there was no minimum wage, no social welfare, and the market 'decided' a great many people did, in fact, starve?
Not to mention the creation of a malnourished, undervalued, unprotected, underclass leads to an enormous amount of social problems.

pauldla

Bannasidhe wrote: »

So, the 'true right' are people so ignorant of history that they are not aware that when there was no minimum wage, no social welfare, and the market 'decided' a great many people did, in fact, starve?
Not to mention the creation of a malnourished, undervalued, unprotected, underclass leads to an enormous amount of social problems.

Ah but we was happier then, Bann, life was so much simpler...a woman with phossy jaw and a family to feed didn't have time to be worrying herself with nonsense about 'rights' and other such notions.

lufties

smacl wrote: »

What ever happened to looking after those less fortunate than yourself, I'd always thought that was a pretty fundamental Christian ideal, no? Personally, I want to live, raise my family and grow old in a caring society and am of the opinion that high taxation used to fund strong social services is the best way of achieving this. Making all forms of well-being a personal rather than collective responsibility is fine and dandy until you contract something like cancer, which has happened to a few of my friends in recent years. Same goes for old age, homelessness, and various other dire straits that most of us will encounter at least once at some stage in our lives. The right wing "I'm all right Jack, keep your hands of my stash" is fine until you're not all right and you're the one who needs help. Where this help is not forthcoming, we end up with a polarised society where the "have-nots" quickly start outnumbering the "haves" leading to undue hardship, civil unrest, and violence.

It is also a mistake to think that capitalism in anyway corresponds to a meritocracy. For example, how important are nurses, teachers, farmers and carers to our society and how important are bankers, estate agents and insurance brokers. Who is likely to become the wealthiest among these? The situation here is clearly inequitable and high taxation is the mechanism by which we can restore some balance. I want to live in a society where people still want to be nurses, carers, teachers, farmers etc... because these are people who's services I value and will likely need. Financiers, not so much...

So if you don't mind me saying, I find your stance on this naive as it is greedy.

Well I think most western countries are fiscally conservative and socially left nowadays. Probably adapting the worst of both ideologies. I lived in Germany and paid high tax of near 50% and it is no fun. Working permanent nightshift and seeing half your salary taken from you every month.

smacl

lufties wrote: »

Well I think most western countries are fiscally conservative and socially left nowadays. Probably adapting the worst of both ideologies. I lived in Germany and paid high tax of near 50% and it is no fun. Working permanent nightshift and seeing half your salary taken from you every month.

Rather than looking at your gross salary, it is perhaps more important to look at how much you've left in your pocket after paying for accommodation, transport, services, food, kid's education and childcare, medical expenses, care for your ageing parents and pension for your own dotage. While many people will not be paying all of the above at any one time most will pay all of them in some combination over their life time. High taxes* help spread that cost over a lifetime across a population. These are essentials that everyone in a civilised society should have affordable access to.

A recent malaise of modern Western society is unchecked access to large amounts of credit, so rather than people spending based on their available funds they're spending based on the limits of their ability to borrow from unscrupulous lenders. As a result most people are carrying debt throughout their lives and a substantial part of their income goes to financial institutions as interest. This also causes over inflated house prices and more financial burden. Victims of sophisticated marketing getting into debt (and stress) purchasing luxury goods they can neither afford nor need. I'd think of this as fiscal liberalism rather than conservatism.

(*and a competent government, which admittedly seems to be a rare thing)

realitykeeper

Bannasidhe wrote: »

So, the 'true right' are people so ignorant of history that they are not aware that when there was no minimum wage, no social welfare, and the market 'decided' a great many people did, in fact, starve?
Not to mention the creation of a malnourished, undervalued, unprotected, underclass leads to an enormous amount of social problems.

You are confused if you don`t mind me saying. Certainly there were poor people in the past in the workhouses, dingy stone cottages in the countryside often working long hours in tough conditions but such is the stuff prosperity is made of.

By contrast, today the vast majority of people who cannot afford a house are housed by the state or they are renting. Their living conditions are opulent compared with those stone hovels consisting of a single room shared by whole families and their pigs. Dole is dished out and collectible at the post office or even by direct debit to avoid the shame of queuing at the unemployment office. Nowadays there are all kinds of benefits for the poor that would have been unimaginable in bygone days. This is the stuff poverty is made of. The time will come to pay the piper his 200,000,000,000.00 + euro and that is when the fun will begin.

oldrnwisr

realitykeeper wrote: »

You are confused if you don`t mind me saying. Certainly there were poor people in the past in the workhouses, dingy stone cottages in the countryside often working long hours in tough conditions but such is the stuff prosperity is made of.

By contrast, today the vast majority of people who cannot afford a house are housed by the state or they are renting. Their living conditions are opulent compared with those stone hovels consisting of a single room shared by whole families and their pigs. Dole is dished out and collectible at the post office or even by direct debit to avoid the shame of queuing at the unemployment office. Nowadays there are all kinds of benefits for the poor that would have been unimaginable in bygone days. This is the stuff poverty is made of. The time will come to pay the piper his 200,000,000,000.00 + euro and that is when the fun will begin.

Even by the standard of your other posts in this thread, this is some fairly specious reasoning. It is a meaningless comparison. Yes, the living conditions of people who are at or below the poverty line today could be considered opulent compared with poor people 200 years ago. But the living conditions of poor people today would still be considered opulent even if you compared them with people who were considered well-off 200 years ago. There's no point in saying poor people don't have it so bad because look at 200 years ago. We've had two centuries of technological developments so that even poor people can access things like medicines that were unimaginable to someone 200 years ago.
If you want to have a meaningful comparison then what you should do is look at the gulf between rich and poor now and the one between rich and poor 200 years ago. That would be relevant. But then any such comparison wouldn't bode well for your argument.

realitykeeper

oldrnwisr wrote: »

Even by the standard of your other posts in this thread, this is some fairly specious reasoning. It is a meaningless comparison. Yes, the living conditions of people who are at or below the poverty line today could be considered opulent compared with poor people 200 years ago. But the living conditions of poor people today would still be considered opulent even if you compared them with people who were considered well-off 200 years ago. There's no point in saying poor people don't have it so bad because look at 200 years ago. We've had two centuries of technological developments so that even poor people can access things like medicines that were unimaginable to someone 200 years ago.
If you want to have a meaningful comparison then what you should do is look at the gulf between rich and poor now and the one between rich and poor 200 years ago. That would be relevant. But then any such comparison wouldn't bode well for your argument.

You have just made my point for me. The technical advances we enjoy today are the product of front loaded financing of research and development and the capitalist conditions which made such advances economically worthwhile. In other words, profits from the toil of the masses were often invested in R&D. Today`s R&D is financed by trickle down central bank funny money which is fiat currency backed by nothing. Placing a premium on the cost of labour is complete and utter insanity.

Work must happen for good things to come about. Fixing the cost of labour with a minimum wage can only result in avoidance of that particular commodity.

oldrnwisr

realitykeeper wrote: »

You have just made my point for me.

No, I really didn't. I pointed out that your comparison supporting your argument does no such thing. What's more, you really shouldn't follow up one logically fallacious argument (red herring) with two more (hasty generalisation and faulty cause and effect) as you have done below.
If you want to have a meaningful discussion you should try to avoid constructing fallacious arguments.

realitykeeper wrote: »

The technical advances we enjoy today are the product of front loaded financing of research and development and the capitalist conditions which made such advances economically worthwhile.

This is the fallacy of hasty generalisation, the idea that if some technical advances come about by deliberate effort then that is true for all such advances. But this is demonstrably untrue.

For example, the discovery of penicillin wasn't the result of some deliberately funded effort. Nobody hired Alexander Fleming to go and discover antibiotics. By all accounts it was a lucky accident which Fleming then researched further, by himself, funded by no-one. This is a technical advance which ha saved countless lives and improved the quality of living for everyone but it cannot be attributed to R&D funding or capitalism. Even the developments that have occurred in penicillin weren't borne out of some capitalist desire but rather a medical need to increase the range of diseases which penicillin could treat.
Or take pethidine as another example. Pethidine is a fairly strong painkiller and is most often used as an epidural. Pethidine traces its origins to a chemist, Otto Schaumann working in Germany in the 1930s. Since the turn of the 20th century numerous scientists had been looking to develop a synthetic replacement for morphine because the volatile region where the opium poppies are grown can make supplies unreliable, especially in wartime. In the 1930s Schaumann developed pethidine, which while not as effective for deep pain like morphine made a very effective epidural. Again, this advance was not developed out of an economic desire for a new and better product but rather as a medical need.

You seem to think that technical advances occur solely because someone paid for them or because someone thinks it might make them some money. You're wrong. I guess the old saying is true, if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

realitykeeper wrote: »

In other words, profits from the toil of the masses were often invested in R&D. Today`s R&D is financed by trickle down central bank funny money which is fiat currency backed by nothing. Placing a premium on the cost of labour is complete and utter insanity.

Work must happen for good things to come about. Fixing the cost of labour with a minimum wage can only result in avoidance of that particular commodity.

It doesn't seem like you have any idea how R&D works in the real world. Private companies (as opposed to government bodies) who engage in significant R&D activities usually spend money in this area in line with their overall performance. If they do better and make more money, then if they're doing everything else right they should make more profit. More profit means they can put money into developing better products which they can sell for more money. For example, Mercedes which spends a considerable sum on R&D made €106.5 billion in revenue in 2011 from which they spent €5.6 billion on R&D. By 2018, their revenue had grown to €167 billion with an increase in R&D spending to €9 billion.


In academia by contrast most R&D activity is funded by grants, either from bodies like SFI or Entreprise Ireland or directly by industry. Not all of these grants are driven by wider economic concerns like Enterprise Ireland trying to attract new multinationals. A lot of grants come from companies who are either looking to develop a new or better product or trying to solve a problem with an existing process or product and wish/need to access technical knowledge and equipment that they don't have and can't justify spending money on.


On a side note placing a premium on labour is actually rather a good idea. It means that every worker has a certain minimum amount of money which they can spend and more than likely they will spend that money locally, helping to stimulate the economy. Setting a minimum wage is also protective against losses to migration making the overall contribution of employmed labour to the economy less volatile.

Hotblack Desiato

realitykeeper wrote: »

You are confused if you don`t mind me saying. Certainly there were poor people in the past in the workhouses, dingy stone cottages in the countryside often working long hours in tough conditions but such is the stuff prosperity is made of.

LOL. Heard it all now.

The time will come to pay the piper his 200,000,000,000.00 + euro and that is when the fun will begin.

You don't understand how national debt works. UK still has (or did, until a few years ago) debt going back to the Napoleonic wars, because it was cheaper to just roll it over rather than pay it off.
NTMA is busy refinancing our national debt at historically low, or even negative, interest rates. Why would we pay off the capital?

The 200 billion doesn't matter a damn. The only thing that matters is what it costs each year to service it. Yes, it's maddening to think what we could be doing with a few billion extra each year (NOT building workhouses btw, as you'd seem to prefer) but "we are where we are" and we need to remember the parties and the policies that got us into that mess and vote accordingly. Welching on our debts would have had far more serious consequences for us as a nation than what we went through in the last dozen years.

Sadly the electorate have short memories and FF are back as if nothing ever happened, and the Greens are flavour of the month. People are even calling for 100% mortgages to come back...

realitykeeper

oldrnwisr wrote: »

This is the fallacy of hasty generalisation, the idea that if some technical advances come about by deliberate effort then that is true for all such advances. But this is demonstrably untrue.

For example, the discovery of penicillin wasn't the result of some deliberately funded effort.

This is why I said R&D was also the consequence of a favorable environment i.e. free market capitalism. It paid for innovators to innovate. The example I had in mind was that of AG Bell who is mostly credited with the invention of the telephone. The fact you would assume falsely that I was excluding individual effort is proof positive that these fallacies and hasty generalizations are yours and not mine.

oldrnwisr

realitykeeper wrote: »

This is why I said R&D was also the consequence of a favorable environment i.e. free market capitalism. It paid for innovators to innovate. The example I had in mind was that of AG Bell who is mostly credited with the invention of the telephone. The fact you would assume falsely that I was excluding individual effort is proof positive that these fallacies and hasty generalizations are yours and not mine.

What you said was:

realitykeeper wrote: »

The technical advances we enjoy today are the product of front loaded financing of research and development and the capitalist conditions which made such advances economically worthwhile.

Now, you didn't say "some of the technical advances" or "many of the technical advances" or "most of the technical advances", what you said was that the technical advances we enjoy today are the product of deliberately funded R&D efforts in a capitalist environment. The lack of any qualifiers on the term technical advances does indeed imply that you were excluding individual effort.
Second, you also implied that the technical advances we have were the product of just two factors, deliberate funding of R&D efforts and a capitalist environment which made the advances desirable. As far as the examples I cited in my last post are concerned, your point about front loaded financing of research is false. Alexander Fleming wasn't paid to develop penicillin, nor was he paid to be an innovator, his discovery was a lucky accident. Your other point about a capitalist environment is also false. The proliferation of penicillin was not because it was lucrative but because it saved lives (and continues to do so).


Further, you make the argument that R&D is a consequence of a favourable environment, namely free market capitalism. However, even this is false. Technical advances can and do happen in the absence of free market capitalism. Just look at the development in satellite technology. The Russians managed to be the first ones to launch a satellite despite not having a free market. Soviet Russia also gave the world the Kalashnikov rifle family, a series of rifles which now account for 20% of all firearms worldwide. And let's not forget that the chemical elements Rutherfordium, Nobelium and Dubnium were all discovered in the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna during the Soviet era. And of course, though not strictly a technical advance, one of the greatest videogames of all time, Tetris, was developed in Russia in the 1980s. And finally, returning to the field of medicine, anybody who has been unlucky enough to need orthopaedic surgery on one or more of their limbs will have woken up to find said limb immobilised in a metal cage with rods and screws keeping everything where its supposed to be. This is known as an Ilizarov apparatus and is named after Gavriil Ilizarov who developed the device in Russia in the 1950s.

Technical advances don't necessarily come about because of deliberately financed efforts, neither do they proliferate because of economics. Sometimes its because they're useful or helpful or necessary.


Your argument fails because you fail to take into account confounding factors and because the reality is far more complex than the very narrow perspective you have outlined in your posts.

lufties

smacl wrote: »

Rather than looking at your gross salary, it is perhaps more important to look at how much you've left in your pocket after paying for accommodation, transport, services, food, kid's education and childcare, medical expenses, care for your ageing parents and pension for your own dotage. While many people will not be paying all of the above at any one time most will pay all of them in some combination over their life time. High taxes* help spread that cost over a lifetime across a population. These are essentials that everyone in a civilised society should have affordable access to.

A recent malaise of modern Western society is unchecked access to large amounts of credit, so rather than people spending based on their available funds they're spending based on the limits of their ability to borrow from unscrupulous lenders. As a result most people are carrying debt throughout their lives and a substantial part of their income goes to financial institutions as interest. This also causes over inflated house prices and more financial burden. Victims of sophisticated marketing getting into debt (and stress) purchasing luxury goods they can neither afford nor need. I'd think of this as fiscal liberalism rather than conservatism.

(*and a competent government, which admittedly seems to be a rare thing)

I've no financial debt thankfully, but then again I've no kids of wife. Having paid taxes in Germany there honestly isn't a huge difference in take home pay in comparison to the uk.
The super rich dont want to pay any tax, even RTE lefty liberal presenters like Tubridy have Ltd companies, and pay 12% corporation tax. Do as I say, not as I do. It takes a very virtuous person to be happy paying high taxes.
I'd prob be happy doing so if politicians didn't pay themselves outrageous perks and pensions, which sort of makes a joke of the whole system.

Hotblack Desiato

Since when was Tubridy a lefty or a liberal?

Bannasidhe

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Since when was Tubridy a lefty or a liberal?

Since forever if one is a tighty righty.

lufties

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Since when was Tubridy a lefty or a liberal?

Democrat supporter, anti Trump, pro EU. Pro mass unfiltered migration. Pro Alphabet people, pro abortion and so on..