Does the goverment support the troops?

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Does the goverment support the troops?

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exton
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Joined: 13 Dec 2006
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Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 11:45 pm Post subject:

Lester wrote:

By themselves?? There would be basic fare that everyone would get, and then on top of that, there would be an allowance of a sort, which could be used either with the basic fare to upgrade it, or to buy useless but desireable objects.

Also known as: paying people money for doing work.

Lester
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Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 4650

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 3:08 am Post subject:

exton wrote:

Lester wrote:

Also known as: paying people money for doing work.

Except that most of the time our money goes to things like electricity and food, in communism you would get paid less every year, but all those things would be free, even bandwidth would be supplied for all.

exton
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 4:47 am Post subject:

Lester wrote:

That's pointless. That's giving to goverment beurocracy something that can easily be done by people themselves.

Lester
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 5:51 am Post subject:

exton wrote:

Lester wrote:

That's pointless. That's giving to goverment beurocracy something that can easily be done by people themselves.

Yes, it's easy to get a place to stay and food to eat, tell that to the next guy *you* see on a street corner, say that to the people who sleep in shelters because their house has been taken by the debt-collectors. Also, don't pretend that the governments always do things less efficiently, medicare in america spends 2% of it's money on administration, health insurance companies spend 25% of their money of administration, beauracracy is not always bad.

exton
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Joined: 13 Dec 2006
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 6:24 am Post subject:

Lester wrote:

Yes, it's easy to get a place to stay and food to eat, tell that to the next guy *you* see on a street corner,

A: i didn't say it was easy.

B: solving homelessness by having the government redistribute everyone's property is overkill, and it's not a good idea - too much power for the government.

Quote:

say that to the people who sleep in shelters because their house has been taken by the debt-collectors. Also, don't pretend that the governments always do things less efficiently, medicare in america spends 2% of it's money on administration, health insurance companies spend 25% of their money of administration, beauracracy is not always bad.

That's not my issue.

My issue is, i don't trust concentrated power.

Lester
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Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 4650

Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 11:09 am Post subject:

You said these things can easily be doneby people themselves.

It wouldn't be concentrated power, communism involves the eventuall dissolution of the state, because everyone *is* the state, and so, in effect, no-one is.

exton
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Joined: 13 Dec 2006
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Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:11 am Post subject:

Lester wrote:

It wouldn't be concentrated power, communism involves the eventuall dissolution of the state, because everyone *is* the state, and so, in effect, no-one is.

You cannot have a non-state *and* have a high technology civilization at the same time.

Lester
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Posts: 4650

Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:38 am Post subject:

Yes, because programmers and engineers are so big on hierachy....

exton
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Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 4:20 am Post subject:

...no, it's because the economy is hierarchal. And it's extremely complex.

To illustrate, imagine how you get your computer.

Sure, engineers design and program it.

But who puts it together?

Minimum wage employees and robots in taiwan.

The individual parts come from all corners of the world.

The materials for those parts come from even more diverse locations.

And the technology that makes some of its parts possible is more complicated than anything in human history - the tools you need to make computers are a story ni and of themselves.

Lester
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Posts: 4650

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 8:59 am Post subject:

Why does it need to be hierachal though? Just because it is at the moment, I mean your right, it takes *so* many people to make a computer that not one single in the world knows how to do it, so if the community can work together on a single goal, i.e. my computer, surely it can work together on everything?

exton
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Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 3:27 am Post subject:

It's a matter of specialization.

Most people can't make computers - they don't know how.

In most cases, they can't know how. They're too busy doing other things.

Modern civilization is far too complex for everyone to be able to do everything. Everything requires specialization and trade.

Lester
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Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 7:10 am Post subject:

But specialization doesn't neccesarily mean hierachal.

exton
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Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 8:33 am Post subject:

If you're thinking hierarchal in terms of, say, the feudal system, that's not really what i mean.

I mean, suppliers of raw resources supply to a number of different sorts of industries, who in turn use it and supply to more different industries, etc.