Just an observation I've had. Where possible, I've had teammates willingly sacrifice a potentially free escape with both teammates down just for a shot at recovering a body.
Its incredibly altruistic in a game you'd expect toxicity from (given the history of coop zombie shooters) and should honestly be taken as a sign of humanist goodwill. By saving a random's favourite operator, you could be saving them precious time to recover that character.
Title says it all but:
- The mRna vaccines were developed using public funding. They should be public.
- Vaccines arent controlling the virus, so even if we get to 100% vaccination, will we get back to normal? Is israel "back to normal"? Other high-vax countries?
- If big pharm is truly an ally in world health, why are they keeping the vaccines patented instead of distributing them world wide (releasing the hold on the patent)?
Why does it seem like most of the anarchist disdain for the neoliberals in charge of the NYT or Vox or Slate or CNNSNBCOX News originates from either right-anarchists or anti-communist anarchists?
Michael Malice, Kmele Foster, Katherine Mangu-Ward come to mind. It seems like most of the energy attacking the mouthpieces of the state is coming from either an-caps, or from the fence riding anti-corporate-but-pro-market anarchists.
Am I missing any good voices on the anarchist left that share this disdain for the costal-elitism that has infected the corporate media?
In all of my 44 years on earth, I’ve never been so caught off guard. I’m so upset that I didn’t even go upstairs when my mom said the pancakes were ready. I had just finished my 32 page thesis on why HHH was gonna buy impact! when I found this out. I sent 133 messages to all my favorite wrestling journalists and YouTubers but from what I heard, they are in on too. They apparently make money off of our precious wrestling. There is no way this could be true, could it???
I've seen many media outlets and people refer to silicon valley oligarchs (among others) as 'Technocrats'.
While it is debatable if it's correct in the literal sense of the word. It is incorrect in a political context as it implies the most competent leaders are selected through a market mechanism.
Markets can be amazing if regulated correctly to maximize development of the citizens but it is not a good way to select leaders or allocate capital as the mechanism tends to select for highly competitive, manipulative and exploitative individuals and strategies.
Even the most competent workers are lead by questionably competent leaders in an autocratic fashion which leads to MBA Syndrome.
We should also consider the profit driven nature of corporations which doesn't lend itself to exploring research unprofitable in the short term. This also tends to create predatory buisness models especially in critical sectors like energy, healthcare,education etc.
Why install solar or cure diabetes for once when you can keep selling insulin and oil forever?
There is considerable debate around how leaders should be chosen in a technocracy. IMO everyone should be able to vote for leaders in their field (eg doctors and nurses vote for a health minister etc). There should also be a system of checks and balances (Judiciary) along with bureaucrats who are not elected but get promoted from bottom up.
Key sectors should be nationalised like those based on limited natural resources or those meant for citizen welfare and long term development like healthcare, insurance, research and education.
Norway and China are a good example of how to use nationalised oil / rare earth reserves. While Australia and Africa are examples of being plundered by foreign for profit companies.
While there is still resource scarcity (pre-space communism) some industries should be left to market forces but with strong workers protection, environmental protection, consumer protection and appropriate taxation. Exploitative and destructive corporations like Facebook and Oil giants should be discouraged and even abolished if necessary.
Though it's probably beyond my comprehension, AI based command economy with socialized means of production might replace private MOP and market structures in space communism.
And who's brilliant idea was it to make it so?
Prisons shouldn't be made to make profits. Simple as that.
Bonus Question: Why does our Bill of Rights not apply to felons?
Every time I go on Socialist Reddit, I see tons of people saying that profit motives don't actually motivate people to work; rather, people are more motivated by other factors. I don't know how the average person feels but I personally wouldn't do anything of value to society without compensation. And I'm tired of people completely discounting my selfish nature because I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. I don't really care about status or anything like that, all I care about is surviving and maximizing my amount of leisure.
If all jobs stopped compensating people, I'd instantly quit and probably just play video games and hang out with my dog. My hierarchy of needs is truly that simple.
The profit motive is a central characteristic of capitalism, as its the driving force behind the allocation of capital. Marxists like me commonly refer to it as "commodity production" or "production for exchange", and we see it as the objevtive of socialism to get rid of commodity production in the long term and replace it with "production for use", whereby the profit motive no longer drives the allocation of capital, and where allocation of resources instead is done through planning, which allows for democratic control of allocation by the populace, whereby investments happen not to produce profit but to (better) serve social needs.
Historically, its been very common for planned economies to be based on state-ownership, whereby the state is the central entity that owns all MoP and which state is in control of the populace, and that this is how we democratically arrive at an economic plan for all of society. Any surplus value that the state acrues through its state ownership then gets used to be reinvested in industries of interest by the populace.
Why state-ownership? Apart from centralising the MoP into a collective entity, its in my belief to be the only way to remove the profit incentive. This is because the state can charge taxes, and thus does not need to have profitable state firms to sustain itself. Thats not to say that the state is its own sentient being with its own interests, but rather that the people who work for the state wont lose their jobs or income if the state firms arent profitable. That is different with worker coops, whereby the livelihoods of its members are at stake if the goods they produce dont sell. That is why they are incentivized to maximize revenue and thereby maximize profit, thereby having the profit incentive / commodity production / production for exchange still baked into it.
However, I believe that most of you agree that worker coops or market socialism doesnt aim to get rid of the profit motive. My problem is instead with socialists who believe that you can have a planned economy without state ownership. Because the thing is: any form of production or firm requires funding. Because its members need to be able to sustain themselves too. And this funding either has to come through the sales of commodities or through taxation. Therefor, any form of ownership of firms that cannot rely on taxation has to rely on the revenue from the selling of commodities, which means the revenue must be kept high at all costs. T
... keep reading on reddit ➡
full disclosures: I was vaccinated in April
I don't know why more people aren't talking about the fact that pfizer and Moderna profit off of every vaccine. IMO if the gov wants to even consider vaccine mandates, they have to remove the profit motive. Profit motives in medicine have a very long and bad history of causing real problems (exhibit A: opiates, there are many others). Before the gov takes away people's right to autonomy, they should take away the corporations right to profit off of a pandemic. (edit: I was not clear here, I meant the gov should pay a flat rate for the patent to the vaccine, so the companies would still make a healthy profit for having developed the vaccine, but not make a profit off of every vaccine sold. If they make money off every dose, they have incentive to sell more even if a better or cheaper alternative is discovered)
Whatever research costs the pharma companies have incurred have already been more than made up for, and the fact that there is now ongoing suppression of discussion about the vaccines effectiveness and side effects should be raising alarm bells in any reasonable person.
Most of the major news outlets are full of stories of anti-vax nut jobs and how harmful they are, yet very few stories about the actual statistics of the vaccine effectiveness, the fact that there could be long term side effects that we haven't yet encountered, or what other non-patented (ie not as profitable) treatments are being studied or found effective.
If the health and well being of the people is the biggest issue at hand, then the shareholders of moderna and pfizer can take a hit and the exes can take a little less bonus in the interest of transparency and trust.
TL;DR: pandemic profiteering has got to be eliminated if we want to get through this.
Edit #1: so I didn't have a chance to reply in time and I've been moderated, I'm going to try to respond now and hopefully appeal.
Edit #2: I see I was not clear in my post, I had intended to say th
... keep reading on reddit ➡I’m pretty sure that the majority of us joined the cryptocurrency market mainly for the profits, and that’s exactly what’s attracting new adopters.
I mean it’s pretty logical that individuals would rather use platforms like RAMP DeFi where they’re able to maximize capital efficiency on their assets, instead of trusting banks or shady financial institutions that offer mediocre interest rates.
And now it’s even safer for people to invest their money in crypto projects thanks to the Cryptalk app, that joins crypto professionals and auditors that screen and examine crypto projects to make sure that they’re safe to invest in.
For instance:
Doctors often prescribe drugs and treatments based on what they can profit most off of.
Politicians will tell you what you want to hear, but sell out to big donors.
Food companies will sell you cheap garbage and trick you into thinking it’s healthy.
Mechanics will say you need a bunch of repairs and services you don’t need.
You’ll encounter hidden fees from internet and cellphone companies, gyms, airlines, rental property/vehicle companies, etc.
I could name countless more examples, but you get the idea. Don’t you get annoyed knowing that people are constantly trying to screw you over to make a profit?
