"et" IS a word in latin. The "C" is the abbreviation. Et c.

...And wiped out in the great depression, and rebuilt in World War 2. That IS capitalism.

For the record, the North had quite the booming economy even without slave labor, even before slavery was abolished.

Communism relies on a breed of human that doesnt exist: One that is perfectly rational, selfless, and lacking any sort of vice.

When you find one of those, maybe we can start talking about communism.

How many times do you have to hear someone say "hey I have a great idea", and listen to him, and then watch a million people starve to death, before you're just being an idiot for listening to them?

Appealing to some mythological communism that apparently hasnt been gotten right after some dozen attempts and some 100 million dead in the process doesnt engender a whole lot of trust that you'll pull it off the next time.

And for the record, int he past 150 years (or even the past 50 years) the average salary, standard of living, level of education, and level of technology have all drastically risen. We havent hit a problem yet despite 150 years of luddites decrying the end of the world as we know it.

I dont think you have the knack of how technological progress interacts with standards of living. You seem to think that increased efficiency necessitates an increase in poverty, when historically the opposite has been true.

Alternatively: Panama canal engineers deign to use heavy machinery rather than workers equipped with spoons! How will ditch diggers make a living?!?!?!

Lets see...

  * Everyone gets an equal share. The only semblence of an economy is the fact that everyone gets 1000 credits.
  * Everyone controls the means of production
  * No one is required to do a specific amount of work: its all "whatever you can chip in"

That sounds a lot like communism to me.

Saying "dont call it communism, cause that conjures up all the horrific attempts at it in the real world" is a bit too idealistic for me. Looking at the track record for an idea and its implementation seems like a pretty good indicator of how healthy it is.

That anyone can hear / say something like that without shudders running up their spine is amazing to me. I would be doubly dumbfounded if you told me you had read 1984.

Reeducation is one of those things that sounds great in theory, until you get down to what it would actually entail.

If you're using the word "good" (in the moral sense) to mean "things that benefit me", you have made it meaningless. People talk of the holocaust being "bad", even if it did not personally affect them; but by your meaning you simply wouldnt attach any moral judgement to it unless you happened to be a Jew or Romani.

Its a strange thing that Communism tends to be espoused by folks who seem to be well informed and intelligent, but who invariably miss the fact that it attracts the sort of people who make it not work (authoritarians).

Also, Communist China came close. It failed for MANY reasons, and authoritarianism wasnt it. Farmland was redistributed so that farmers could do their farming for all, but farmers tended to sell the farmland for a quick payout. Communal kitchens were set up, but they tended to lower the quality of life for people involved. Systems for generating vast quantities of steel were implemented, but because there was no output--earning link, the steel tended to be worthless pig iron.

People keep saying "it just hasnt been done right" but communism was happening in a very pure form in China for several years after the revolution and it simply doesnt work; people starve to death, well before the Big Bad Authoritarians come in. The fact that they come in eventually is a symptom of the underlying illness. And the worst of the atrocities are due to the fact that Communism requires EVERYONE to buy into the system, which results in things like the killing fields or the Cultural Revolution, necessary to purge those nasty subversive capitalist tendencies.

Theres no way you can cut it where Communism isnt a plague on humanity. People are not fluffy bunnies who have lost their way; they are self-interested, and generally not good folk, and appealing to an economic system that requires selfless devotion to the greater good is a delusional pipe dream.

That shouldnt be a problem. I mean, who would have their laptop run out of batteries on a 14 hour flight? Thats absurd.

Its from the story he linked. It posits a future where AI runs the American economy, leading to decidedly mediocre standards for everyone. The alternative posited is "the Australia project' which is basically continent-wide communism due to robot labor, renewable energy, and no pollution.

Its all great sounding stuff, but its also complete nonsense.

Its kind of hard to take seriously a story that basically talks about how communism will fix everything. We tried it; before it was called "the Australia Project", it went by "the China project" and "the Soviet project".

I wont spoil the endings; you can read about it on wikipedia.

You're criticizing the name of an appropriately named cryptographic technique with no knowledge of what it does, why it was named, or who named it. I would say that that deserves criticism; slashdot does not need more armchair experts weighing in on things they dont understand-- theres way too much BS as it is now.

Right up until personal responsibility is required, at which point the difference between gov employees and contractors becomes clear.

Hint: Govvies arent the ones who take responsibility.

Epic AC fight here, tickets $5.

Dude are you gonna take that from him?