Kapitalism
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Let me get this straight. To you, a famine produced unintentionally through policy that spiked class war and originated primarily from rich farmers sabotaging the crops and livestock as a response to their lands being collectivized in the first successful collectivization of a country in the history of the Earth, is to you as morally depraved as the English colonists literally starving Irish to death because of colonial and racist beliefs?
I won't dignify this slop with a response. Fucking tankies, man.
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Are you a little bit slow?
did pay inmates a wage while they worked
In a form of a piece of lead in their heads, no doubt.
Really? The Gulags were all in Siberia?
Where did I say ALL gulags were in Siberia, sweetie?
The diet of the Soviet citizen was by the 60s
Stalin was alive in 60s? News to me.
Another tankie.
In a form of a piece of lead
You could literally open up a book someday and check your info, gulag inmates were paid. Wages were lower than those of a free worker, but nothing like the modern slavery that the USA uses in its prison system for example.
Where did I say ALL gulags were in Siberia
By using the cliche of "forced labor to the cold Siberia", you're propagating misinformation about the system, willingly or not. The fact that the majority of Gulags were in fact not in Siberia is kind of a strong statement in that it shows that the intent of gulags was not that of mass-murder of dissidents (which is the claim anticommunists like you normally do). The vast majority of gulag inmates were actually not political dissidents, but normal criminals. The gulag system was the prison system of the USSR for all crimes. Why would you send your average criminal who stole from another person to a death camp instead of trying to reform them? Why did most of the deaths in gulags coincide with a famine that affected the entire Soviet Union during a war and not before or after that? Why did the Gulag system, at its peak during the mass hysteria against nazism, have a number of prisoners similar to that of the modern USA? Maybe if you weren't a propagandized misinformation spreader you could answer any of those questions. But no, you can't, because you haven't lifted the cover of one book in your entire life.
Stalin was alive in 60s?
I brought up the 60s because the Soviet Union was essentially industrialised by then. In 1917, when the Bolsheviks get to power, the former Russian Empire was a predominantly agrarian country where 80+% of people worked the land and the life expectancy was <30 years, there was no industry to speak of. The civil war which the fascists started, and in which England, France and the USA invaded Soviet Russia for the sin of being communist and gave material aid and troops to the pro-tsarist fascists, and which came right after WW1, left the country in a state of utter destruction, and the economy didn't recover to pre-WW1 levels until 1929, the year when the first 5-year-plan was adopted. Industrialization of the Soviet Union was FAST as lightning, with GDP growths above 10% per year, the fastest industrialization process in history up to that point (and only surpassed by China to this day). But in 1941, as you may know, the Nazis invaded the country, and murdered about 27 million Soviet Citizens and essentially leveled the entire country west of Stalingrad. After 1945, the industrialization progress continued to its previous speed together with the reconstruction of the country, but it isn't until at least the 60s when you can say the country was properly industrialized. This is why I said the 60s, because comparing a predominantly feudal country in terms of food security to our modern standards is an exercise of either ignorance of bad faith. So tell me, are you arguing from ignorance or from bad faith?
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I won't dignify this slop with a response. Fucking tankies, man.
You won't dignify me with a response because you're simply replicating propaganda that you've heard on Reddit, and you can't argue from knowledge but from vibes.
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This meme shows a complete misunderstanding of patent law. A patent is a social contract that allows for a limited amount of protection for an invention being copied (usually 20 years) in exchange for it becoming public domain after that. This enables people to make a living inventing things. Are games played with the system, sure, does it work perfectly- no, but it’s better than the alternatives. (Source, am inventor)
All other things aside, 20 years is a long fucking time. 20 years ago we barely had cell phones. The iPhone was 2007 I think.
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The major premise of Capitalism is risk vs reward. We hit a tipping point though, where 99% of people do not have any capital to risk, and the people who do have the capital have enough to nullify any risk.
Tax the rich.
Sometimes I get mad about how we in practice have basic income for the rich. If you have a few million dollars, you can park it in zero or low risk investments (eg: high yield savings, bonds) and get free money. Then you can just fuck off and pursue your dreams. No risk. Lots of reward.
But if you're poor? Well you better take any job for any salary or you're just a parasite blah blah blah. All pain, some risk, little reward.
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The whole IP debate is just pure nonsense. It still relies on the cartesian mind/body dichotomy and an idealism of some sort where "the ideas" exist in their own immaterial cognitive realm. And they think that I can steal these imaginary immaterial entities and they will be gone for good. Yeah...
It's about incentivising people to share their ideas by ensuring they'll be rewarded for it. Without IP laws it's beneficial to keep new ideas a secret so you can profit off of them. It's a social contract that promises creators compensation for creating. Everyone benefits from the system the problem has been its exploitation due to weakening public institutions.
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But wait, I arranged atoms in this order before you did! Now you're not allowed to arrange atoms in this order unless you pay me!!
wrote last edited by [email protected]I feel like so many people don't understand the purpose of IP law.
So someone arranges some atoms for the first time, let's say they make a vaccine. Now the creator of that vaccine might be financially motivated to sell it for profit. If no IP law existed then the only way to ensure that they'd be able to profit from their arrangement of atoms is by keeping the way they managed to create it a secret. IP law is a social contract that says "hey, if you share this massively beneficial idea with the rest of society we'll make sure that you can make a profit off of it." In this way IP law incentivises creators to share their creations with society in a way that everyone benefits from.
The problem is with public institutions being eroded away by corporate interests not with the concept of IP law.
Also for anyone coming out with the "creators aren't profit motivated" bs. Yes they absolutely are. No it is not because of greed. Material success for people who have made contributions is the most valuable encouragement.
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This comment shows a complete misunderstanding of patent practice. Patents exist not for inventors, but for companies. Destin, from Smarter Every Day, has a recent video trying to make a grill scrubber in which he talks with many people about how Amazon for example constantly avoids patent claims from small inventors.
Humanity progressed from hunter-gatherers to the industrial revolution without the need for a judge to determine whether I can arrange atoms in a given way or not without giving a canon to someone else who decided to arrange atoms like that before me.
The problem is with corporations pushing up against weak public institutions and finding no resistance not those public institutions dummy.
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If it were a misunderstanding, why do we always see a spike in innovation once a patent expires? According to capitalist ideology, isn't competition the best that could happen, instead of having an unlimited monopoly for 20 years?
wrote last edited by [email protected]Patents are a good idea in every form of society. People are motivated by material rewards. By ensuring a creator is entitled to their labour and that some scum fuck corporation isn't going to steal it, society incentivises innovation. The problem isn't patents, it's corporations abusing the system to serve their own interests because public institutions (such as the patent office) aren't strong enough to push back.
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Someone gets it.
Lets instead do this:
Every citizen, irrespective of their nationality, skincolor, gender has the right to:
- living quarters
- work
- maximum of 7 hours of work
- free healthcare
- paid vacation
- equal pay and treatment for women
- freedom of religion and speech
This is directly taken from a 1936 constitution. Today one could improve on it but we're so much worse, everywhere.
Now guess which one.
The maximum hours you can work did not apply to everyone as my former boss has stories of working 12+ hours in the gulag he was sent to for reasons he does not know.
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I understand what you are saying but i hope you never invent something that can solve a current day crisis.
We are already behind schedule to solve things like climate change. If someone invents breakthrough tech then we need that today and open so other minds can quickly iterate and improve. Not after 20 years of stalling on a bureaucratic advantage.
If it wasn’t for capitalism chaining survival to productivity there would be no reason for this system to exist and we can move on to teach that “all good ideas should be copied”
And “the same ideas can emerge in multiple different minds”wrote last edited by [email protected]People work for material gain. By not entitling creators to the product of their labour you will discourage them from creating (and also be stealing from them). Patent law is exactly the kind of thing that protects the interests of working people but our current system is too weak to stand up to corporations.
What happens if the person who can solve climate change decides instead to trade stocks because saving the world doesn't put food on the table?
IP laws are not your enemy, corporations are.
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Again, not any worse than any other country of the time.
Actually it is worse because they were better and then actively decided to make things worse.
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Holidays for "enemies of the people" were unpaid
Not true. The GULAG system, which is simply the prison system of the Soviet Union at the time, did pay inmates a wage while they worked there, this is common knowledge and you can check it up if you want to.
and in a quite cold climate of Siberia
Really? The Gulags were all in Siberia? How about you actually check what you're talking about instead of spreading misinformation? From the Gulag museum:
www.gulag.online/articles/mapa-taborovych-sprav-gulagu-a-pribehu-ze-stredni-evropy?locale=en
Wow, a ton of Gulags were actually to the west of the Urals, not in Siberia, who would have thought. If only this information was widely available and public...
They also cared about fitness of citizens by ensuring no one has too much of food
Huh? Life expectancy in the Soviet Union rose exponentially, it was below 30 years of age before the Russian Revolution and 60 by the time Stalin died. The diet of the Soviet citizen was by the 60s healthier than that of a US citizen. The CIA itself says this BTW, check out on google "CIA USSR nutrition", you'll find a 1983 document claiming, and I quote, "American and Soviet citizens eat about the same amount of rood each day but the Soviet diet may be more nutritious". Almost as if centering food production around the needs of the population instead of around the profit of food producers, gives a better result...
Just admit it: you don't have any fucking idea what you're talking about. You're repeating talking points you've heard on Reddit or TV without actually checking anything.
My former boss was in a gulag for most of his teens. He was not paid and to this day he has no idea what crime he was convicted of. He just knows he served time and was targeted by guards because he was Jewish and the Soviets were very bigoted.
Maybe take a second to ask yourself what your real life experience is with the USSR.
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Are you a little bit slow?
did pay inmates a wage while they worked
In a form of a piece of lead in their heads, no doubt.
Really? The Gulags were all in Siberia?
Where did I say ALL gulags were in Siberia, sweetie?
The diet of the Soviet citizen was by the 60s
Stalin was alive in 60s? News to me.
Another tankie.
The diet bit is correct because Soviets typically have less meat and more veggies in their diet as well as less sugar.
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All other things aside, 20 years is a long fucking time. 20 years ago we barely had cell phones. The iPhone was 2007 I think.
We barely had mobile phones 20 years ago? You sure about that?
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People work for material gain. By not entitling creators to the product of their labour you will discourage them from creating (and also be stealing from them). Patent law is exactly the kind of thing that protects the interests of working people but our current system is too weak to stand up to corporations.
What happens if the person who can solve climate change decides instead to trade stocks because saving the world doesn't put food on the table?
IP laws are not your enemy, corporations are.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I am aware that there are people like that that exists and that its quite a big number of people
But I will never understand how people like that exist. And to be very controversially honest I don’t trust the sincerity and thus ideas of people that think like this. Though i still respect such people like anyone else all the same.
Granted i am a certified autist but personal gain has almost no value to me, to the point that being paid actually demotivates me because:
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I believe i deserve to have a good quality life regardless of economic value and know that statistically humanity has enough resources/food to guarantee such for everyone. It being conditional makes me feel exploited.
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I always want to be the best possible version of myself and accomplish whatever i, with my human limitations, am able to, which has the most general positive effect on the total universe. Regardless of anything. I consider it personality offensive others assume i would want anything else.
I feel devaluated because society appears convinced that i would not do work if they were not threatening my survival, and because corporate hierarchy is what it is i actually have to underachieve all the time because fighting to make actual improvements would quickly threaten the control of higher ups and thus become a risk for my own means of survival.
Sure, if i could solve climate change and no one would even thank me for it leaving starving poor then i would be very sad. But self worth and identity would be Intact because i would be doing what i know is right.
While changing that in favour of stock trading maybe my life standards would be better but with the lack of any real value and living of a system designed around exploitation of existing value will make me feel worse to the point i may actually end up an existential crisis and kill myself.
To die sooner for the right reasons is a better life than to survive longer for the wrong reasons.
While i know my stance is rare i know there are plenty of people who think exactly like i do about this.
Anyway i also got a bit side tracked because this wasn't about ip laws anymore, but my belief remains that if people can work on what they want without it affecting their personal access to luxury then there is no reason why they would not work on things that benefit all of society and thus themselves.
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I feel like so many people don't understand the purpose of IP law.
So someone arranges some atoms for the first time, let's say they make a vaccine. Now the creator of that vaccine might be financially motivated to sell it for profit. If no IP law existed then the only way to ensure that they'd be able to profit from their arrangement of atoms is by keeping the way they managed to create it a secret. IP law is a social contract that says "hey, if you share this massively beneficial idea with the rest of society we'll make sure that you can make a profit off of it." In this way IP law incentivises creators to share their creations with society in a way that everyone benefits from.
The problem is with public institutions being eroded away by corporate interests not with the concept of IP law.
Also for anyone coming out with the "creators aren't profit motivated" bs. Yes they absolutely are. No it is not because of greed. Material success for people who have made contributions is the most valuable encouragement.
If you can only understand monetary motivation that's your fault. Most people who spend 10 years in med school + residency don't do it because of monetary incentives, they do it because of social and personal incentives.
Most research actually comes from the public sector (universities, research institutes...), where people work not because they hope to get rich one day through patenting something, but because they get paid to do research. 99 scientists in the public sector will do 99% of the work towards a technology, then a private company will take the final 1% of progress, patent it, and prevent everyone else from accessing the mostly publicly-funded development. For fuck's sake, we saw this literally 5 years ago with the development of the COVID vaccines, it was predominantly based on university and institutional research that hadn't been commercialized, and then some companies took all this research for free, got a ton of public grants on the side, and then made the vaccines at an absurd profit. For a counter-example to that, tell me, if the profit motive from private companies is what drives research fastest, why was Cuba the first country to vaccinate all of its population from COVID using state-funded research and production?
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My former boss was in a gulag for most of his teens. He was not paid and to this day he has no idea what crime he was convicted of. He just knows he served time and was targeted by guards because he was Jewish and the Soviets were very bigoted.
Maybe take a second to ask yourself what your real life experience is with the USSR.
Surely people going to jail for the wrong reason is something exclusive to the Soviet Union and not to all countries with a legal system? Like, damn, I feel sorry for your boss, but in dire circumstances such as those of the late 30s / early 40s in the USSR, excesses and abuses were sadly made because of the overwhelming conditions.
Your boss may have spent his teens in a gulag, but the fact that he lived to tell you that is because the Soviets managed to miraculously defeat the Nazis and prevent them from genociding the Slavic peoples they categorised as "Untermenschen" according to the infamous "Generalplan Ost", which implied genocide of almost all people between Germany and the Urals. If it wasn't for the Soviets, your former boss would have been murdered in a concentration camp by the nazis.
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I am aware that there are people like that that exists and that its quite a big number of people
But I will never understand how people like that exist. And to be very controversially honest I don’t trust the sincerity and thus ideas of people that think like this. Though i still respect such people like anyone else all the same.
Granted i am a certified autist but personal gain has almost no value to me, to the point that being paid actually demotivates me because:
-
I believe i deserve to have a good quality life regardless of economic value and know that statistically humanity has enough resources/food to guarantee such for everyone. It being conditional makes me feel exploited.
-
I always want to be the best possible version of myself and accomplish whatever i, with my human limitations, am able to, which has the most general positive effect on the total universe. Regardless of anything. I consider it personality offensive others assume i would want anything else.
I feel devaluated because society appears convinced that i would not do work if they were not threatening my survival, and because corporate hierarchy is what it is i actually have to underachieve all the time because fighting to make actual improvements would quickly threaten the control of higher ups and thus become a risk for my own means of survival.
Sure, if i could solve climate change and no one would even thank me for it leaving starving poor then i would be very sad. But self worth and identity would be Intact because i would be doing what i know is right.
While changing that in favour of stock trading maybe my life standards would be better but with the lack of any real value and living of a system designed around exploitation of existing value will make me feel worse to the point i may actually end up an existential crisis and kill myself.
To die sooner for the right reasons is a better life than to survive longer for the wrong reasons.
While i know my stance is rare i know there are plenty of people who think exactly like i do about this.
Anyway i also got a bit side tracked because this wasn't about ip laws anymore, but my belief remains that if people can work on what they want without it affecting their personal access to luxury then there is no reason why they would not work on things that benefit all of society and thus themselves.
You don't understand why people deserve the fruits of their labour? What are you on about bruh we're talking about the patent office. People need to be incentivised to work because all of the work needed to create the society of excess you so want to enjoy isn't all of the work people would do if left to their own devices.
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The problem is with corporations pushing up against weak public institutions and finding no resistance not those public institutions dummy.
Without corporations there isn't a need for intellectual property. Public research, i.e. most research, is conducted without intellectual property, and most scientists dedicate their live to science not because they think they can get rich by selling one product, but because they get a decent wage and position for doing so, intellectual stimulus, and social recognition. Research and invention don't necessitate intellectual property, only private companies do.
