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OT: The News Thread

Re: OT - The News Thread

1) please do a survey of living conditions enjoyed by people around the world and tell me under which system they are at their highest?

2) please identify for me the countries that have the most political, religious, and economic freedom

3) please tell me under which system all of the new technologies that are going to "save" us from this "environmental catastrophe" are all going to come from?
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

theREALkoreaboy said:
1) please do a survey of living conditions enjoyed by people around the world and tell me under which system they are at their highest?

2) please identify for me the countries that have the most political, religious, and economic freedom

3) please tell me under which system all of the new technologies that are going to "save" us from this "environmental catastrophe" are all going to come from?
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That's not what the argument was about. Try and stay on topic.

As for 3 above, it's not Canada....maybe Kazakhstan? See, we pulled our funding out of the ITER project and in turn, they may be recruiting Kazakhstan in our place....oh the shame.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

johnunit said:
Koreaboy, you have ZERO higher-ground as far as accusing people of being hypocritical in their choice of job and lifestyle considering you're an extreme right-winger who is an ELECTED REPRESENTATIVE FOR A GOVERNMENT UNION.


Think about that for a second. You live in Ottawa and are a union rep and a civil servant, yet you still have the ****ing gall to insult someone else for having a job not in line with their political views?
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simply being a member of a teachers' federation does NOT make me a hypocrite for having right wing views. and calling me an "extreme" right winger is laughable. i don't call hopeychange a communist, so you have no business calling me an "extreme" right winger.

second, you have NO IDEA of how i participate within my federation or of the personal lumps i have taken for being right-of-centre within that federation. i could easily sit back, throw up my hands and say "all the union types are socialist/commie ba$tards and i want nothing to do with them", or i could do what i have chosen to do- step in and engage with them to try to influence how things are done within my federation.

by your logic, every NDP or liberal MP is a hypocrite for holding down a job in a system that is run by conservatives right now and they should just drop out and leave the field to the enemy.

i see teaching as a profession that SHOULD be one of the most conservative out there- our very mission is to teach future generations about our ways and our norms, and to try to serve our society by allowing it to replicate itself and improve itself incrementally. i am in no way a hypocrite for being a teacher while being a right winger. in fact, our profession is crying out for more people who think like me.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

SundinsTooth said:
that's not what the argument was about. try and stay on topic.
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thats exactly what the argument was about. you people are trying to suggest that free market capitalism and by extension, the societies and institutions that grow out of that system, is more responsible for human misery and suffering and damage than any other system, and i have rightly pointed out that our system has produced more good for more people than any other system yet devised by man. that is precisely what the argument was about.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

You would definitely qualify as an extreme right winger, kb. A lot of people I know consider me to be pretty far right and I'm Sven Robinson compared to you.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

theREALkoreaboy said:
thats exactly what the argument was about. you people are trying to suggest that free market capitalism and by extension, the societies and institutions that grow out of that system, is more responsible for human misery and suffering and damage than any other system, and i have rightly pointed out that our system has produced more good for more people than any other system yet devised by man. that is precisely what the argument was about.
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Nope. A re-read of the thread is in order. You blamed environmental disaster on communism. ME showed you that capitalism does not have the high ground in that regard. That is it.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

JaysCyYoung said:
You would definitely qualify as an extreme right winger, kb. A lot of people I know consider me to be pretty far right and I'm Sven Robinson compared to you.
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other peoples' labels don't interest me. coming from a political science and economics background, i can tell you definitively that i am not an "extreme" right winger.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

SundinsTooth said:
Nope. A re-read of the thread is in order. You blamed environmental disaster on communism. ME showed you that capitalism does not have the high ground in that regard. That is it.
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are you going to try and tell me that the soviet union had a good environmental record? or communist china today?
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

Okay. I want you to take the Washington Post political compass test. It's one of the most reputable and well-known examinations of where a person stands on political issues. Be honest and post your results on here. I want to see where you rank.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

And for what it's worth, kb is correct in the sense that communist countries do have a historically far worse record with respect to environmental degradation. This does not mean that capitalist societies are infallible or that they do not harm the Earth, but the Soviet Union was the worst producer of pollution in human history.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

JaysCyYoung said:
And for what it's worth, kb is correct in the sense that communist countries do have a historically far worse record with respect to environmental degradation. This does not mean that capitalist societies are infallible or that they do not harm the Earth, but the Soviet Union was the worst producer of pollution in human history.
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No one made any type of comment to the contrary....


Do you have some kind of source on your comment that the SU was the worst producer of pollution in human history?
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

I'm not sure if I can directly back that statement up due to the incongruity of available environmental data, but given the sheer scope of operations I have heard it echoed in several quarters. This is actually a bit of an interesting take on how socialist policies in the former USSR actually caused quite a bit of pollution. I'm not sure how accurate it is but it's a fascinating take:

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/why-socialism-causes-pollution/
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

JaysCyYoung said:
I'm not sure if I can directly back that statement up due to the incongruity of available environmental data, but given the sheer scope of operations I have heard it echoed in several quarters. This is actually a bit of an interesting take on how socialist policies in the former USSR actually caused quite a bit of pollution. I'm not sure how accurate it is but it's a fascinating take:

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/why-socialism-causes-pollution/
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Cool link Jays,

PS I wasn't challenging you just genuinely curious.

(Earth Science major here)
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

Ahhh you see, you'd probably be far more of an authority on this than I would. I haven't done nearly enough environmental research to really have a legitimate voice in the discussion.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

i am in no way a hypocrite for being a teacher while being a right winger.
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This statement in itself is correct.

However, if we use the same absolutist standards you apply to others you are a massive hypocrite for being a unionized teacher, and not working in the private education field.

But as we both know, there is typically more money, and definitely more job security in the public education system

Hypocrite
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

theREALkoreaboy said:
are you going to try and tell me that the soviet union had a good environmental record? or communist china today?
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China's environmental issues are almost solely due to their incredible increase in productivity since their massive capitalist reforms in 1979. They operate as a centralized capitalist system in many many ways.

Calling them communist is a misnomer
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

theREALkoreaboy said:
1) please do a survey of living conditions enjoyed by people around the world and tell me under which system they are at their highest?
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Capitalism

2) please identify for me the countries that have the most political, religious, and economic freedom
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Western Capitalist Democracies

3) please tell me under which system all of the new technologies that are going to "save" us from this "environmental catastrophe" are all going to come from?
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Capitalism



When are you going to learn that people can rationally critique the system, without wanting to go join a hippie co operative? Until "best we have" becomes "best there possibly could be" criticism and the desire for improvement is necessary.

What we as a society can do without is this asshurt reflex garbage that you throw out there whenever someone says something bad about capitalism, especially the brand we practice these days (which departs in some significant ways from the brand you learned from Wealth of Nations...being an economics grad, you've definitely read it)

Capitalism was never meant to externalize the true costs of it's productivity. Those costs, inherent in the life cycle of products, should be built into the consumer price of the goods and services we use.
 
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Re: OT - The News Thread

JaysCyYoung said:
And for what it's worth, kb is correct in the sense that communist countries do have a historically far worse record with respect to environmental degradation. This does not mean that capitalist societies are infallible or that they do not harm the Earth, but the Soviet Union was the worst producer of pollution in human history.
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after reading the article you posted, the thing that struck me as the most important divide between Soviets & The West was Totalitarian Vs Democracy....not their arrangement of capital.

Basically, the central government could do, or approve, any economic activity it liked with no opposition. In the West, we have at least some direct access to decision making and fairly strong environmental agencies have sprung up around that public concern and available access. This paves the way to environmental standards & regulations that if they existed in the Soviet Union, could be ignored whenever necessary, with no repercussion, by the central government.

This is why we're seeing similar environmental catastrophes in China...where they're using the powers of free market capitalism is a way the Soviet Union never did, but control their economy in a fairly similar fashion.
 
Re: OT - The News Thread

JaysCyYoung said:
Okay. I want you to take the Washington Post political compass test. It's one of the most reputable and well-known examinations of where a person stands on political issues. Be honest and post your results on here. I want to see where you rank.
Click to expand...

link?

i'm pretty sure i already took that one. i really wasnt very far right if its the one i'm thinking it is.
 
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