Diversity and Inclusion = Kill Capitalism

a reply to: Puppylove

It was a joke... agreeing with Marx doesnt make you a Marxist, if you idolize him and his fantasy land utopian world sure it puts you in that light. But Marxism is a derogatory word in the political and economic wolrd like balkanization in the geopolitical world, used as a insult most of the time.

a reply to: strongfp

I don't believe Utopia is possible and honestly know next to nothing about Marx personally. I just think we can do better.

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: strongfp

I don't believe Utopia is possible and honestly know next to nothing about Marx personally. I just think we can do better.

So.......

You basically started a thread on theoretical partical physics, with a basic math education??????


I am not complaining, as anyone is free to bring up any topic they like, but I notice that you, in several threads now, make grandiose statements, then when someone brings up legitimate points of discussion, you refuse to discuss them, and insist that's not what you want the thread to be about.

I don't get it????

a reply to: Puppylove

And that's why a lot of economists and economic professors dont like to openly admit their true views. If it doesnt fit the neo capitalist playbook it's good night.

a reply to: Mach2

What am I ignoring? Is not on purpose. Also we all live society so I think as members we're all part of the discussion, no reading required.

a reply to: Mach2

I don't get it either, honestly. The member you're addressing didn't start this thread, and the topic is not about your estimation of their contribution. That's just not the way this works.

Marx lived and wrote almost 200 years ago. He was a near contemporary of our own Founders. The system he described in the Manifesto was a very shallow reaction to late 18th century political dynamics and the tension between a growing lower/middle class and the moneyed classes for a political party that paid him to write the book. It's a political tract.

When it was popular he wrote a more complete and comprehensive version Capital.

To address a common misstatement here, there has never been a spectacular failure of a Marxist system, because there has never been a real attempt to implement a Marxist system. The Russians realized that and called their version Leninism/Stalinism. The Chinese called it Maoism. See a trend? These are autocratic systems that used Marxism as a cover.

Marx didn't originate the ideas of socialism or of communism. Tom Paine in the US actually wrote one of the founding works called Agrarian Justice. Yeah, that Tom Paine. One of Marx's FUNDAMENTAL ideas was that capitalism would collapse ON ITS OWN. CM is not a commentary on our modern economies which are unlike anything in Marx's experience.

Puppylove's comment is actually SPOT ON. The real problem with these kinds of discussions is that Marxist Communism is idealistic. It is impractical. Just like Adam Smith or Von Mises' treatises on capitalism. These are all IDEAS ... and no idea is bad or good in and of itself ... only in application.

a reply to: Gryphon66

The thread they were mentioning me starting is my brainstorming thread not this one.

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: Gryphon66

The thread they were mentioning me starting is my brainstorming thread not this one.

Oh. Well don't I feel sheepish.

Still in regard to the topic in THIS thread your comments are spot on in my opinion.

a reply to: EnigmaChaser

It's too bad that what we have is only capitalism in name, designed to rev up the same defects as over enthusiastic "patriotism."

Under end-stage craptapitalism, corporations pretend they have values, while chasing profit despite the source or effect on society as a whole. The most obvious examples are the NBA and video game publishers who -- in their yen for access to the Chinese market -- actively promote a social credit system straight out of 1984. Corporations don't have "values." It is an insult to our intelligence and the highest form of doublespeak to pretend they do. They have shareholders and a fiduciary responsibility to those shareholders.

Do Chinese censors, on the set for the Avengers: Endgame or Captain America (the FN irony) sound bad to you? Because it sounds like BS to me. I'm for freedom, freedom of speech, democracy and the right to have and speak to my values at any time without fear of retribution or interference by a hostile foreign power. I'm against Chinese censors in my movies, TV, books or video games. I don't really give a fig what they demand to be honest. If it affects my choices, here in America, corporations need to cut bait and stand with US for freedom. Anything less is active rebellion against our values and should not be tolerated in a U.S. corporation.

Beyond that, I agree with your basic premise and I shop local where possible to support local business, especially family owned, "mom and pop" business. Competition is good. Handicapping our best and brightest is bad. But lets cut the BS about the magic of corporate craptapitalism; it is antithetical to the values of the west and must be reigned in or destroyed.

Here's an experiment.

Put a black bear in with a brown bear (grizzly). Only one bear will survive. They're both bears.

Put a tiger in with a lion and shut the door. One will kill the other one. They're both cats.

Put a big shark in with a small one. The big shark will eat the little one. They're both sharks.

Put a strange male and female pitbull in a cage together. The male will either breed with the female, or kill it...or both. Not only are they both dogs, they're both the same breed of dogs.

Put a crippled animal in with a healthy one. Even if the healthy animal doesn't eat the crippled animal it will still kill it eventually, just to eliminate the competition.

See the trend here?

You can tell all those animals to be kind to each other all you want, but eventually nature will prevail.

People could learn a lot about diversity and inclusion from...Darwin.

Seems everyone on the left has forgotten about ol' Darwin. I'm just waiting for the left to declare Darwin racist and burn his start burning his books.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Interesting. That's a decent description of Social Darwinism ... I'm not sure how it relates to this topic.

Everyone "on the left" has forgotten Darwin? LOL, tell that to the Creationists.

a reply to: Gryphon66

Well, it just goes to show you that D&I doesn't work in the animal kingdom. Even members of the same species will compete with each other and prevail over one another, much the same as in a capitalistic society.

You don't see a whole lot, if any, socialistic behavior in the animal kingdom. Lions don't provide food for Tigers. Black bears don't help out brown bears. Sharks aren't kind to other sharks. And animals in general are unkind to the weak and unable, even their own young. The weak hatchling gets pushed out of the nest.

Yet, society expects humans to be different?

We can paint all sorts of faces on it, but at the end of the day, only the fittest survive, and eventually nature takes over. Trying to make excuses for that and pretend it isn't that way is just attempting a charade.

ETA - Oh, and BTW, yes the creationists are the first ones to jump up and scream equality, but in retrospect, doesn't that seem a little contradictory?? But then the left is pretty good at contradicting itself.

And further...but we humans are supposed to be more evolved and therefore more empathetic. Okay, I have no issue with this. But, let's not pretend it isn't that way, because no matter how you spin it, it's always that way. Always has been, and always will be. You can take the man out of the cave, but you can't take the cave out of the man.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Really? You think evolution doesn't require cooperative behavior and genetic diversity?

I notice that primates are suprisingly absent from your little scenario ... care to tell us how they don't work together?

Of course, they do eat one another at times, but no system is perfect, eh?

You'd have done better to compare capitalism to a chimpanzee troupe's hunting range and group behavior rather than putting two canines or felines in a cage.

The point is that your metaphor is woefully inadequate to describe a modern economic system in my opinion. However, it was very common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among eugenicists.

a reply to: Gryphon66

Primates are not exempt from this at all.

Primates will not protect the weak and incapable. What's your point?

They might defend the wounded, but not the weak and incapable.

ETA - this has nothing at all to do with cooperative behavior, and everything to do with different genus and the weak or incapable within a species.

ETA 2 - Oops, I may have reversed species and genus. My error.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: Gryphon66

Primates are not exempt from this at all.

Primates will not protect the weak and incapable. What's your point?

They might defend the wounded, but not the weak and incapable.

Are you kidding?

... sociality in and of itself appears to carry benefits for individuals. As noted above, one of the costs of group living is the potentially high level of conflict and aggression that occurs among group members, which involves greater energy expenditure, risk of injury, and chronic stress. In baboons, this socially-induced stress appears to be alleviated by the receipt of affiliative vocalizations, as well as the maintenance of grooming relationships with a small network of close associates (Crockford et al. 2008). Ultimately, female baboons with strong social bonds (i.e., social relationships characterized by frequent proximity and grooming; Figure 3) experience greater offspring survival and even longer lifespans than females with weaker bonds (Silk et al. 2003, 2009, 2010). These studies demonstrate that strong social relationships within groups, beyond group living alone, can carry important fitness benefits for individuals.

Low Hanging Fruit at Nature

Emphasis mine.

“This is the first time scientists have shown systematically that primates other than humans pay special attention to the voices of their elders, and it suggests that respect for elders is part of our primate heritage,” says Klaus Zuberbühler of the School of Psychology at the University of St Andrews, UK, who was not involved in the study.

New Scientist

In a stark reminder of just how similar chimpanzees and humans are, Japanese researchers have observed a chimp mother taking care of her “severely disabled” infant in the wild. With the help of one of her other daughters, she was able to help the baby survive for almost two years, despite the fact that it couldn’t walk on its own.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

That's like the first three of millions of citations. You are mistaken.

Of course this has to do with group and social behavior ... you're not talking about capitalism, you're talking about armed robbery.

a reply to: Gryphon66

Well, to be honest, I didn't cite primates because it complicates the argument. It complicates the argument because there is a definite confirmation bias in the study of primates to find this behavior, to connect the dots in human evolution, and a lack of serious documentation to the contrary because it doesn't connect the desired dots.

I won't debate the point further, I'll just defer to you on primates. So, you win on primates. I am not an expert on anthropology and behavior.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: Gryphon66

Well, to be honest, I didn't cite primates because it complicates the argument. It complicates the argument because there is a definite confirmation bias in the study of primates to find this behavior, to connect the dots in human evolution and a lack of serious documentation to the contrary.

I won't debate the point further, I'll just defer to you on primates. So, you win on primates.

Confirmation bias? Lordy lordy. Tell me about it. The ultimate limitation on all fields of knowledge: ourselves.

First of all, I'm really not trying "to win" ... I'm just sharing known facts. Also, many animals have social structures that involve cooperation: wolves, elephants, dolphins.

originally posted by: EnigmaChaser

All of this artificial BS about D&I is just a way to spread wealth to those who otherwise couldn’t do it on their own, hold back those who are capable, force business to spend money on something that is pure defense/has zero ROI and shift power to “those who are oppressed”.

That’s all BS. If you’re capable, you’re always employable. If you’re really capable, you’ll always be paid well. Talent is always in demand. Always - don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

I guess we'd have to get a better working definition of what you specifically intended by "diversity" and "inclusion."

I will admit, I haven't been arguing from the extremist point of view that views their personal versions of these terms as the greatest good.

In Flyingclaydisk's example of predation and in mine of cooperation, these extremist nutjobs would have been killed and eaten long before.

The extremist ideal of diversity for example. I have a small office of ten employees. Seven women, three men. We're all Anglo between the ages of 40 and 70. Yet, we are Protestant, non-Christian, Catholic, straight, gay, etc, Republican and Democrat. Very diverse and productive team.

However, I've never even thought of them that way. I had to stop and think of all the different categories because none of us even consider those. We've had Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans as well.

However, from the extremist point of view, if I hired a Black accountant from Venuzuela who is a gender-neutral disabled veteran, I would have increased our "diversity" ten fold.

BS, I just hired another person.

originally posted by: Gryphon66

originally posted by: EnigmaChaser

All of this artificial BS about D&I is just a way to spread wealth to those who otherwise couldn’t do it on their own, hold back those who are capable, force business to spend money on something that is pure defense/has zero ROI and shift power to “those who are oppressed”.

That’s all BS. If you’re capable, you’re always employable. If you’re really capable, you’ll always be paid well. Talent is always in demand. Always - don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

I guess we'd have to get a better working definition of what you specifically intended by "diversity" and "inclusion."

I will admit, I haven't been arguing from the extremist point of view that views their personal versions of these terms as the greatest good.

In Flyingclaydisk's example of predation and in mine of cooperation, these extremist nutjobs would have been killed and eaten long before.

The extremist ideal of diversity for example. I have a small office of ten employees. Seven women, three men. We're all Anglo between the ages of 40 and 70. Yet, we are Protestant, non-Christian, Catholic, straight, gay, etc, Republican and Democrat. Very diverse and productive team.

However, I've never even thought of them that way. I had to stop and think of all the different categories because none of us even consider those. We've had Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans as well.

However, from the extremist point of view, if I hired a Black accountant from Venuzuela who is a gender-neutral disabled veteran, I would have increased our "diversity" ten fold.

BS, I just hired another person.

Then you’re the shining example of what I mean by a smart business owner!

By D&I I mean promoting or forwarding someone on the basis of gender/race/orientation - even if they’re not the most qualified or best person for a given job - largely on the basis of said gender/race/orientation.

Or, in another way, promoting via news/media that business should forward one gender/race/orientation over another. Or, lastly, propagating that business - at large - doesn’t give qualified talent a fair opportunity to advance on the basis of gender/race/orientation.

So I suppose the two parts are both what business does and what the MSM narrative says business does.