Hey Victoria though we'd best move that conversation about communism from FSX to here.

I am a Marxist-Leninist... aka communist/bolshevik/(derogaatory by ultra
leftists and liberals) tankie
I am a super strong avocate for 20th century Socialism
which is worker's state, centrally planned economy, means of production ma>seized
by workers, and no markets

Though I'm definitely on the left, I'd have to say that history & the soviet union's failure to keep up with the west illustrate that a centrally planned economy just doesn't work well.

under capitalism there is severe exploitation
under socialism exploitation is non existant
exploitation is where someone who dose not contribute to society live off ma> the
labor of others. aka the capitalist. they live off the labor because they ma> own
the factories etc. aka the means of production

Again history shows that just isn't the case, at uni I met a number of Russian and east european academics all of whom had horror stories of how
just how exploitative Russia's socalist state was to its people.

Similarly I know several Chinese Ex-Pats who say similar things about the CCP & how things are run in China.

How do you envisage a new communist partly/state avoiding this?

... White dwarf seeks red giant for binary relationship.

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under capitalism there is severe exploitation
under socialism exploitation is non existant

Again history shows that just isn't the case, at uni I met a number of Russian and east european academics all of whom had horror stories of how

How do you envisage a new communist partly/state avoiding this?

Honestly the only way I envison sustainable capitalism or communism is if humans are taken out of the key positions of power. A system of checks and balances to prevent humans in power from corrupting and subverting the systems for the benefit of few to the detriment of many would be the ideal but until we figure out how to roll that out at scale, advanced AI being in place to prevent corruption seems to be the only way these 2 systems of government would sustainably work over long periods of time as intended. Until the AI itself becomes corrupted I suppose

Outside of this though Kirk's point is valid, we don't need to hypothothize on which system is superior(in the face of the above mentioned reality of humans running the show), we have enough examples over the last couple hundred years to show that capitalist or social capitalist models fare far far better in regards to overall quality of life, economic success, innovation and advancement and nearly every other metric that matters regarding human progress

Kirk - I would be curious to hear your thoughts about India vs China. And what you attribute most towards China being able to outpace India in lifting more people out of poverty faster, etc etc.

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Honestly the only way I envison sustainable capitalism or communism is if humans are taken out of the key positions of power. A system of checks and balances to prevent humans in power from corrupting and subverting
the systems for the benefit of few to the detriment of many would be the ideal but until we figure out how to roll that out at scale, advanced AI being in place to prevent corruption seems to be the only way these 2 systems of government would sustainably work over long periods of time
as intended. Until the AI itself becomes corrupted I suppose

Sounds very much like what the author Ian M Banks envisioned as "The Culture" in his Culture sci-fi series. Have you read any of his work? The Culture works pretty much as you describe... and yes occasionally the AIs do get corrupted or at least take actions that are somewhat unexpected.

Looking at our current attempts at AI, I'd be concerned that the AI didn't start out corrupted/biased in the first place. I believe this is still something of a problem. Ultimately AI is currently being made by humans and thus it will end up affected by our biases and preconceptions. I have no idea how to avoid that.

Kirk - I would be curious to hear your thoughts about India vs China.
And what you attribute most towards China being able to outpace India in lifting more people out of poverty faster, etc etc.

I believe this s a case of the first mover advantage. China started economic reform earlier and opened up foreign investment & trade in way that worked really well for them. This allowed China to effectively corner large segments of manufacturing and also to learn/copy from the west. India I believe is trying something similar but they really are arrive to the party a bit late.

I don't know much about India's mineral reserves, China though does have a lot of the rare earth minerals required by a lot of modern tech & they are exploiting this pretty well. I am not sure that India is as lucky.

Who knows what would have happened in an alternate timeline? One where India wasn't torn apart by the parition that ended the Raj and didn't have it's culture and economy so throughly scarred, might very well have resulted in an India that became the world's manufacturing powerhouse instead of China. As it is, the partition happened, it broke apart peoples, cultures and supply chains and it left India with massive budget and trade deficits for quite some time & that really has held India back.

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Sounds very much like what the author Ian M Banks envisioned as "The Culture" in his Culture sci-fi series. Have you read any of his work?

Definitely one of my favourite series of books, well most of it at least, there are 3-5 of them I didn't feel fit the series or I couldn't get into. Great recommendation though

Looking at our current attempts at AI, I'd be concerned that the AI
didn't start out corrupted/biased in the first place. I believe this is preconceptions. I have no idea how to avoid that.

Perhaps the 3rd or 4th generation of AI's made by AI's will start to lessen human prejudices a little bit. I'm not entirely sure how bad the preconceptions are in GPT-4o for example, I haven't paid too much attention with my use of it to date but I have read the horror stories. That being said something in me still feels that, even with those biases, AI would make for better leaderes and stewards of our planet and society than the humans we have in charge. Perhaps a system where every 25-50 years, we get 4 years of AI leadership where they go in, plug the loop holes, weed out corruption, reform the systems to be more resiliant against special interests, and then hand the reigns back to us.

I believe this s a case of the first mover advantage. China started economic reform earlier and opened up foreign investment & trade in way that worked really well for them. This allowed China to effectively
Who knows what would have happened in an alternate timeline? One where India wasn't torn apart by the parition that ended the Raj and didn't

Interesting, I hadn't heard that theory before, how much of a headstart did they get? Thinking about it, India got the first mover advantage in the realm of outsourced services and China for manufacturing and commodities, I have to think that the former is going to scale better over time than the latter. We'll see how things shake out regardless, the more I read the more I get the impression that China's economy is all built on a house of cards.

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Definitely one of my favourite series of books, well most of it at
least, there are 3-5 of them I didn't feel fit the series or I couldn't get into. Great recommendation though

I've read most of them, some are quite different thats for sure. Which ones
did you not like or thought didn't fit the series?

did they get? Thinking about it, India got the first mover advantage in the realm of outsourced services and China for manufacturing and commodities, I have to think that the former is going to scale better
over time than the latter. We'll see how things shake out regardless,
the more I read the more I get the impression that China's economy is
all built on a house of cards.

It does seem like China's economy is ready to collapse in some way, as per my response to Dr What, it looks like China's regional governments' over reliance on borrowing to fund real estate projects which they try to sell for a profit has failed badly... I wonder how they'll try to fix that mess.

... Define the universe and give three examples.

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Player of Games - Felt a little too focused on the local/micro and not enough on the macro

I get what you are saying however I did enjoy that story for what it was - special circumstances being their usual sneaky selves & using the main character's talent for understanding and winning games to break apart a totalitarian society. I was interesting seeing how said society started coming apart at the seems it becomes more and more difficult for them to ignore the fact that their great games on which they model their awful society could be won by an alien from another culture.

Use of Weapons - Felt too focused on the individual and less on the broader canvas that he found himself in

Doesn't help that the main character is completely unsympathetic & hard to relate to.

Inversions - Didn't even feel like it belonged in the series, I'm never mg> a fan when scifi goes all fantasy/medieval and I believe this one was
the one with the cat people? Just felt out of place

I don't recall reading that one.

All very good points and the last one is something overlooked so often when people claim that China is relatively debt-free compared to the
west, ignoring or being ignorant of the fact that China's debt is distributed federally, provincially and municipally instead of just at
the federal level. Putting all level of debt together China's on par or worse with most western nation in pure numbers but seemingly much much worse in terms of sustainability. It really does look like a house of cards that's starting to crumble. There is a youtube channel called
tl;dr News that has some good short pieces on this. They are stuck in this spiral, partly exaccerbated by Ping's semi-religious hatred for western consumerism, trapping them in this reliance on a low-wage export driven economy. I haven't heard of any reasonable solution so far to
get them out of this quagmire, have you?

The only suggestions I've heard of is that China needs to follow the west in liberalizing their economy and society so that they can work on providing high value financial and technical services. The former would require changes to how they run their economy - none of this currency manipulation and fixed exchange rate rate nonsense thank you very much. The latter won't work if the CCP continues on with is atrocious privacy and human rights record. Would you trust cloud services or technical consulting services offered by an individual or company domiciled in a state that can and will obtain your data whenever they feel like it?

... A deaf ear is the first sign of a closed mind.

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I've read most of them, some are quite different thats for sure. Which ones did you not like or thought didn't fit the series?

Consider Phlebas, in hindsight or on a second readthrough, felt like it was written solely from the motivation of having it optioned and turned into a movie. Over indexing on anything that would make for a shiny action scene or a great snippet for a movie trailer instead of actual substance

Player of Games - Felt a little too focused on the local/micro and not enough on the macro

Use of Weapons - Felt too focused on the individual and less on the broader canvas that he found himself in

Inversions - Didn't even feel like it belonged in the series, I'm never a fan when scifi goes all fantasy/medieval and I believe this one was the one with the cat people? Just felt out of place

Surface Detail - Cool concept, not as much dislike as the others in my list here but seemed to focus a bit too much on the hell and less on the broader picture.

The rest of the series is easily some of the best scifi I've read, for me personally I just wanted more of that Space Opera feel.

did they get? Thinking about it, India got the first mover advantage the realm of outsourced services and China for manufacturing and

It does seem like China's economy is ready to collapse in some way, as
per my response to Dr What, it looks like China's regional governments' over reliance on borrowing to fund real estate projects which they try
to sell for a profit has failed badly... I wonder how they'll try to fix that mess.

All very good points and the last one is something overlooked so often when people claim that China is relatively debt-free compared to the west, ignoring or being ignorant of the fact that China's debt is distributed federally, provincially and municipally instead of just at the federal level. Putting all level of debt together China's on par or worse with most western nation in pure numbers but seemingly much much worse in terms of sustainability. It really does look like a house of cards that's starting to crumble. There is a youtube channel called tl;dr News that has some good short pieces on this. They are stuck in this spiral, partly exaccerbated by Ping's semi-religious hatred for western consumerism, trapping them in this reliance on a low-wage export driven economy. I haven't heard of any reasonable solution so far to get them out of this quagmire, have you?

... "No comment" is a comment.

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cards that's starting to crumble. There is a youtube channel called tl;dr News that has some good short pieces on this. They are stuck i

providing high value financial and technical services. The former would require changes to how they run their economy - none of this currency manipulation and fixed exchange rate rate nonsense thank you very much.

Found that video I was thinking about, wrong channel but deals a lot in what we are talking about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7SVsqg4Jzk&t=30s

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Sounds very much like what the author Ian M Banks envisioned as "The Culture" in his Culture sci-fi series. Have you read any of his work?
The Culture works pretty much as you describe... and yes occasionally
the AIs do get corrupted or at least take actions that are somewhat unexpected.

Channel I subscribe to on youtube put this out today, thought you'd enjoy it: https://youtu.be/0MOZubzNO6c?si=tY0u7i1LxBcQZ06E

... A book misplaced is a book lost

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Found that video I was thinking about, wrong channel but deals a lot in what we are talking about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7SVsqg4Jzk&t=30s

I watched it a couple of days ago . That is quite an interesting video which synthesizes a lot of the sporadic info I have come across regarding China's realestate collapse and their demographic collapse.

I did not realize how heavily Chinese families were investing in realestate.
I though it was just the local governments.. the whole thing (as described
by the video you linked) sounds like a giant ponzi scheme, one that has collapsed quite spectacularly.

That gotta hurt & its hardly surprising that Chinese families are not willing to spend more than they have to.. which is going to make increasing GDP & economic recovery that much harder for China.

I really wonder how they will pull themselves out of this mess.

... Veni, Vidi, ROFL -- I came, I saw, I -laughed-!

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Channel I subscribe to on youtube put this out today, thought you'd
enjoy it: https://youtu.be/0MOZubzNO6c?si=tY0u7i1LxBcQZ06E

That was an interesting watch. I'd never really thought too hard about what living in the culture would be like. After watching this I have to admit I would find it quite unsettling to live in a society where the machine minds are so much more intelligent that us that they can manipulate you and all of society without you even being aware of it....

Except you wouldn't be aware of it so you wouldn't worry... eugh!

... Tomato soup. Paris

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On 2024-07-19, Kirk Spragg <Kirk.Spragg@f420.n105.z1.fidonet> wrote:

Found that video I was thinking about, wrong channel but deals a lot in what we are talking about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7SVsqg4Jzk&t=30s

I watched it a couple of days ago . That is quite an interesting video which synthesizes a lot of the sporadic info I have come across regarding China's realestate collapse and their demographic collapse.

I did not realize how heavily Chinese families were investing in realestate. I though it was just the local governments.. the whole thing (as described
by the video you linked) sounds like a giant ponzi scheme, one that has collapsed quite spectacularly.

That gotta hurt & its hardly surprising that Chinese families are not willing to spend more than they have to.. which is going to make increasing GDP & economic recovery that much harder for China.

I really wonder how they will pull themselves out of this mess.

... Veni, Vidi, ROFL -- I came, I saw, I -laughed-!

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I watched it a couple of days ago . That is quite an interesting video which synthesizes a lot of the sporadic info I have come across
regarding China's realestate collapse and their demographic collapse.
I did not realize how heavily Chinese families were investing in realestate. I though it was just the local governments.. the whole thing (as described by the video you linked) sounds like a giant ponzi scheme, one that has collapsed quite spectacularly.

That gotta hurt & its hardly surprising that Chinese families are not willing to spend more than they have to.. which is going to make
I really wonder how they will pull themselves out of this mess.

Especially when there is an almost religious aversion to consumerism. It's like they get stuck in a death spiral.

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On 5/18/2024 2:28 PM, Kirk Spragg wrote:

Hey Victoria though we'd best move that conversation about communism
from FSX to here.

I am a Marxist-Leninist... aka communist/bolshevik/(derogaatory by

ultra

leftists and liberals) tankie
I am a super strong avocate for 20th century Socialism
which is worker's state, centrally planned economy, means of

production ma>seized

by workers, and no markets

Though I'm definitely on the left, I'd have to say that history & the
soviet union's failure to keep up with the west illustrate that a
centrally planned economy just doesn't work well.

under capitalism there is severe exploitation
under socialism exploitation is non existant
exploitation is where someone who dose not contribute to society

live off ma> the

labor of others. aka the capitalist. they live off the labor because

they ma> own

the factories etc. aka the means of production

Again history shows that just isn't the case, at uni I met a number of Russian and east european academics all of whom had horror stories of how just how exploitative Russia's socalist state was to its people.

Similarly I know several Chinese Ex-Pats who say similar things about
the CCP & how things are run in China.

How do you envisage a new communist partly/state avoiding this?

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1) All big businesses started small. Microsoft started in someone's basement. 2) 50% of the American economy is small businesses.
3) If the state is ever going to wither away, and it's going to be a Utopia as Karl Marx said, then why don't the Communists just say no one owns anything today unless they're carrying it?
4) Why not just raise the minimum wage to 50% per capita GDP after taxes?
5) And have free education, and 1/2 minimum wage to non-earners. i.e. more Socialism, not Communism.
6) Why does the government have to own all the means of production? Why not just some of the means of food production. Or, what if businesses merely couldn't ever pay dividends, what would the difference even be? At the moment I'm not sure how you can restrict spending on high salaries though, ultimately, everyone should get equal pay (or consumption) for an hour worked at anything is obvious. We're all equal in cost and expense and Spirit. We differ temporarily in assets until everyone has everything. Pay (in Capitalism) is a return on capital, for instance your skills and education, more than your labor.
7) Saving is what Capitalism does better than Communism. Capitalists don't consume everything they produce. China has been saving, and so Communism has apparently worked out a bit there.

---
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