Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
Steve3007
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Re: Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Post by Steve3007 »

When I asked if you were serious, I wasn't making a statement. I was simply asking a question. I don't often get to talk to people who genuinely want there to be a revolution overthrowing capitalism. It's interesting to know that I have talked to one.

But, of course, I still don't know because I can never be 100% sure if your sarcasm is really sarcasm. I guess I'll never know.

Hey ho.
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ZoneOfNonBeing
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Re: Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Post by ZoneOfNonBeing »

Yes, Steve, I am serious. I helped start a socialist organization in my state. So I am not just talking. I hate capitalism with every fiber of my being and am making concrete actions in real life.
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Steve3007
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Re: Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Post by Steve3007 »

OK. Thanks. I'm going to hazard a guess that you're serious there.

For myself: I'm afraid I'm not as exciting as that. I'm boringly centre-left in my political views. I believe that the "free" market is sometimes a useful tool but is not genuinely free (hence the quotes) and is not a universal solution. I believe in elements of socialism (if we define socialism as public services funded by taxation). I believe it taxpayer funded healthcare and education, for example.

But obviously (as you'd probably guess) I think your idea of violently overthrowing the government in a blood bath in which probably tens of millions of people would be killed and the fabric of society would be destroyed is stark raving mad. The railing against "specialists" (which seems to be alarmingly common these days at both extremes of the political spectrum) reminds me of the Khmer Rouge marching people with professions out into the fields to starve.
Maxcady10001
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Re: Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Post by Maxcady10001 »

The idea of any kind of violent rebellion happening in America is completely ludicrous. If you were serious, you would learn how to code.
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ZoneOfNonBeing
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Re: Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Post by ZoneOfNonBeing »

"If you were serious, you'd learn how to code".

Hahahahahaha. Thanks for the inspiration to write another post debunking that idea
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Maxcady10001
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Re: Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Post by Maxcady10001 »

Debunking what?
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ZoneOfNonBeing
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Re: Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Post by ZoneOfNonBeing »

Everyone throws out the coding line, as if its a universal prescription for the world's woes. Its a mindless cliche at this point. I plan to do a write up trashing it soon
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Maxcady10001
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Re: Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Post by Maxcady10001 »

Is hacking not the biggest threat to modern governments besides nuclear war?
Chili
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Re: Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Post by Chili »

ZoneOfNonBeing wrote:does government require specialization? Why or why not? I will not entertain responses that circumvent an answer to this.
Nothing is necessary. Government doesn't require excellence, but it's nice. People prefer it. Specialization is embedded in every society where anything is done with excellence. All sane people will laugh off the requirement that there be no specialization. Societies who don't encourage and exploit the principle of specialization will fall behind societies that do. You must be very satisfied with the presence of Rick Perry in the EPA. He barely knows anything about anything.

Perhaps in the future, we'll all have our IQs boosted and then anyone can do any job in the government. For now, the only hope is to have people with specializations who know at least something about what they're doing.
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ZoneOfNonBeing
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Re: Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Post by ZoneOfNonBeing »

Hacking isnt even on the radar. The biggest threat to governments is, was, and always will be the likelihood of masses of people raising up an

-- Updated November 10th, 2017, 6:13 pm to add the following --

Raising up and raising hell**

-- Updated November 10th, 2017, 6:14 pm to add the following --

Chili : ask Africa what the "specialization" of government has gotten it.

Ask the indigeneous people how specialization is working out for it.

-- Updated November 10th, 2017, 6:16 pm to add the following --

I am willing to bet everyone on this thread is either a white male, or well-to-do.

Two cheers for the status quo with this thread

-- Updated November 10th, 2017, 6:25 pm to add the following --

Chili -

In short, the problem is not that individuals lack marketable skills (i.e. not knowing how to code). But rather, the problem is that the working class is being exploited.

Your view is individual. My view is structural. You are interested in preserving the present order. I say it needs to be brought down.
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Chili
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Re: Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Post by Chili »

ZoneOfNonBeing wrote: Chili -

In short, the problem is not that individuals lack marketable skills (i.e. not knowing how to code). But rather, the problem is that the working class is being exploited.

Your view is individual. My view is structural. You are interested in preserving the present order. I say it needs to be brought down.
I'm all for increases in the social safety net - guaranteed income, training programs, the whole bit.
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ZoneOfNonBeing
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Re: Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Post by ZoneOfNonBeing »

Chili - but why have social safety nets when that can be the norm? Social safety should not be the backup plan, it should be THE plan.

-- Updated November 10th, 2017, 7:36 pm to add the following --

Can you agree that housing, food, and health insurance are human rights? Do you agree that every person deserves a living wage?
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Sy Borg
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Re: Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Post by Sy Borg »

ZoneOfNonBeing wrote:
Greta wrote: Humans have aimed for this goal for thousands of years. If non-corrupt, egalitarian societies were possible we would have achieved them.
It amazes me how people in the West suffer from historical amnesia. We have achieved egalitarianism. It is not a question of if - it is a statement of when. The West has not achieved it, but human beings have. If you read the work of Henry Louis Morgan - an anthropologist - he captures the egalitarian structure of the Iroquois in North America in the 1800s. If you read "The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State" by Friedrich Engels, he elaborates on the fact that human beings were communal and egalitarian until the development of class society (the exploitation of slavery).
If you are amazed at anything people believe, including that pixies lie at the bottom of your garden, then you have not spent too much of your life on philosophy forums - well done :)

You are not respecting scale and logistics. Seven billion people. Gigantic societies. A tribal society can achieve what modern societies cannot in the same way as families can achieve what companies cannot. It's a matter of connection and coordination. Societies always bifurcate when they become large enough - with a schism between not only rich and poor, but various subcultures.

The fact is that indigenous people around the world were out-competed by those with a stronger military. They rationalised, speaking about "civilising the savages", but ultimately they just wanted their land and resources - otherwise they would have left them be.

ZoneOfNonBeing wrote:
Watching the infrastructure paralysis in the west due to governments focused on winning the next election rather than nation-building has many westerners looking wistfully at the harsh efficiency of the Chinese, knowing that unless something changes they are going to be out-competed.
The "infrastructural paralysis" of the West is not due to "focusing on winning the next election" - it is due to a crude focus on competition instead of cooperation.
If you think short termism has nothing to do with lack of infrastructure investment, you are not paying attention.

To blame competition ignores the fact that the kind of society you envisage has no precedent, even though people have dreamed of fairness and egalitarianism for thousands of years, with many great geniuses devoting their minds to the issue to no avail. Do you think that they have not considered all that you say?

No matter how much mediation, regulation, protest and pleas to their better nature, the strong cannot resist exploiting their advantages and it's always been so, aside from small anomalous societies that perhaps give us a hint as to how future, more advanced societies may operate. It's not today's reality, with civilisation only centuries old.
ZoneOfNonBeing wrote:
Desperately the US reaches out to a political neophyte, one of the more exploitative and less philanthropic billionaires out there, hoping to break the chain. Instead of finding a politician not beholden to corruption they elect one of the corrupters, one whose first action was to free up his own company's pipeline project, previously held up by environmental concerns.
I understand what is being argued here, but this argument employs a very thin definition of corruption. Capitalism, in and of itself, is corrupt.
Not all corruption is equal. There is no sense in breaking up a system for being too corrupt and then removing checks and balances to greatly increase corruption.
Steve3007
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Re: Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Post by Steve3007 »

Given that ZoneOfNonBeing has assured us that he/she is serious, I think the most interesting post is this one (#27):
We would need a mass movement of people who are armed, as the capitalists are not going to surrender without a fight. It would be ideal to infiltrate the military and have hold of some of those heavy duty weapons, so as to suppress rebellion.

There will be bloodshed. There is no avoiding it. There is already bloodshed. The only difference is: we need to start dying FOR something, as opposed to just being killed and not striking back.
You can't make an omlette without breaking an egg, eh?

It's interesting to see the label "the capitalists" being used in this case. These kinds of ideas always need a bogeyman to be a focus for the anger, with a label that can be used to strike terror into people once the full horror beings. And they usually need to force the world into a binary choice: you're either 100% in favour of the revolution (Here's a gun. Kill a capitalist to prove it.) or you're in favour of the status quo, and probably in league with those capitalists, and due for a lynching.

I can just see the show-trials, the settling of old scores and the mass executions of counter-revolutionaries ("the capitalists") now. We have plenty of lessons from history to show us how it's done. Some cartoons caricaturing these capitalists would be a good start. Along with lots of talk of them being "rats" and "vermin". You've made a good start on that already, ZoneOfNonBeing. At least with words.

Once the revolution is underway it's important to make sure as many people as possible have blood on their hands. The best way to "suppress rebellion" would be to force people to denounce their neighbours as "capitalists" (in the case of this particular revolution) and hang them publicly in the town square. The wider you spread the guilt for the crimes against humanity that will be committed in this revolution, the more people will have a strong vested interest in seeing the revolution continued and counter-revolutionary rebellions crushed (Mao understood this very well). The tyrannies that rise from these revolutions seem to be very effective at constructing these pyramids of blood - of people who have done such horrors that they have no choice but to keep it up.

Anyway, to get back to the title of the topic, in a country with more guns than people which already has an itchy trigger finger, it seems likely that if the bloody revolution and subsequent tyranny being hoped for here ever did take place there wouldn't be any cooks left and there'd be very little left to govern by the end of it.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Democracy: Every Cook Can Govern

Post by Sy Borg »

I've felt for a while that many Americans seem keen to engage in another civil war. While Americans fight amongst themselves the Chinese focus on creating new "silk roads". Which will be better prepared for the difficult times ahead?
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