/cyb/ - cyberpunk and cybersecurity

>>2028
>they legitimately believe universal Healthcare and income programs actually work
>believe

let me guess you carry a gun in your underwear right now to protect you against communism

>>2030
Nope, but I do have a hypocrisy-meter that I carry in my anal cavity.

I'm serious though. It seems pretty anti-cyberpunk to be all about that government overreach

>>2031
Let's look at the facts instead of the benefits of LARPing, Social Democracy works and has helped countless people for decades. To play the AnCap/Mad Max dude and to try to harm those people just to play a "cyberpunk" role on the Internet should be rewarded with a well-aimed punch on the nose.

Fairly recently you were upset that Google fired some engineer as damage control and claimed that they shouldn't be able to do it and now you are upset that most people don't want to allow ISPs to block sites they don't want you to see.

Do you legitimately believe in anything or are you just serving one group of elites against another?

>>2032
>Social Democracy works
more like capitalism is so great it managed to work despite that

>>2031
>>2028

I don't know if you're doing it on purpose but there is clearly a HUGE difference between a state actor and a corporation. I can decide to boycott for example a certain companies because x y and z. Yet boycotting your government is more complicated and depending on people view doesn't match everyone. I hate labeling myself but for the sake of this arguments i will. I'm a Anarchist, i hate government every form of authority is a fucking blasphemy in my eye. So does that mean since we're are part of a cyberpunk community you share my point of view in terms of government? Maybe? See you cannot put everyone in this community in the same basket it's not because i aim for a decentralizes world that you are too.

Yes, cyberpunk normally dislike control of thoughts, but other people still believe that the political spectrum is and always will be the solution. Some would like to destroy any form of authoritarianism for something more on the right, other for the left. The political Spectrum as always been a tools of division to not let people gather too much under one grand idea, divide et impera in other word divide and rule.

>>2034
I haven't even mentioned the name Google on this site at all, let alone commented on a particular employee. Just because there are multiple comments about government control doesn't mean we're all the same person. I don't even know what story you're talking about - even without the details I would never argue that Google wouldn't have the "right" to fire anyone for any reason.

I'm not lobbying for elites. What I'm against is handing over power to an even more dangerous group of elites just to stifle the less dangerous one. It's wildly counter-productive

>>2036
It wasn't my intention to lump everyone together just because they participate on this site - I'm here, after all. I just noticed an unsettling theme of double-standards as a result of what is most likely valuing comfort and virtual safety over actual freedom, but the reason they're against big corporations is because they think that it will eventually encroach on their freedom.

Again, putting everyone in the same basket was not my intention at all.

>>2037
It's really hard not to categorize yet another one who visibly puts Stalin and healthcare in the same category, and who openly ignore society's state and needs to "fight the Man, all of them". Frankly, you sound like you're larping.

>>2040

Correct me if I'm wrong but are you referencing the fact that some people are aware of the fact that their freedom is at risk because of Big Brother and yet don't do anything about it?

It's simply because there's a certain amount of comfort you are ready to risk to upgrade you're situation. Example on a computer I'm ready to use Gnu/Linux pay for Libreboot computer and use almost 100% free software. Not everybody is ready to do that much, but their probably are going to use more free/open software than normal maybe their going to be more careful on what they share of social media.
In my book it already a good step toward a good direction.

I cannot denied that there is a lot of people LARPing here.

>>2042

So to observe the same phenomenon in the society well i don't pay with any card only cash, i do not own a smartphone etc etc. You cannot fight something that you don't understand this is why people like "us" are considered paranoid.

All of this to say that you sound like someone LARPing, yes there is people that really don't give a soykaf living in an Orwellian nightmare.

>>2042
More accurately I'm referencing the fact that people are willing to risk a far more powerful danger to their freedom to take care of a comparably far lesser risk, and that confounds me.

>>2028
I genuinely think that basic income and universal healthcare are inevitable. Maybe not soon or even in out lifetimes, but still inevitable. Consolidation of all information we produce by the government is also inevitable, and there will be growing pains, but eventually humans will be comfier than ever. Only thing I can do, is not be part of the growing pains.

>do they legitimately believe universal Healthcare and income programs actually work?

You're welcome to come to canada and be proved that youre a fucking moron. Good luck when you're sick, i bet its real nice to have to pay multiple hundred thousand dollars just to get whatever treatments you need

>>2079
Don't bother, cognitive dissonance is a given with those people. Every proof is "fake news", and Europe and Canada are steaming ruins where black people have sex or something. Trudeau is a hologram.

>>2079
Why do people continue to cross the border to the US to get any real surgery done, then? What's the deal with the wait times?

>>2028

People here are obvious leftists, which is directly contrary to the way that the culture has always been. It's always been about liberty, and about the fact that you should have control over yourself more than someone else should control you. That being said, the government is the bigger threat. You can check out from a social network, or a website, or something else like that. An oppressive regime is not something you can just leave whenever you want.

>>2082
>real surgery
>wait times
This is some pretty streching you're doing here pal. The US has bigger research centers and labs, that's all, no need to spread bullsoykaf about marxist hell

>>2083
Yet another "we wuz here firstt" by some newfag. Throwing your pants away before corporations because muh stalin was never freedom. I didn't know Torvalds and Stallman were "rightists". You should go back on /pol/ to discuss how much Moldbug was right.

>>2083
>People here are obvious leftists
"Lurk more"

The only thing you can say about the people here is that they're against whoever they perceive is holding power.

>>2087
>The only thing you can say about the people here is that they're against whoever they perceive is holding power.
This 100%

No one here has questioned OP about what he means by "actually work". While I'm against universal healthcare and income programs, I don't think they wouldn't "work". It's stupid to say that some government out there couldn't implement these programs without society going to soykaf. There is a malthusian argument to be made against this sort of thing in the long term, but those effects would take generations to show up. OP does not seem to be making that argument or an argument based on principals like being anti government or anti tax. They instead seem to think that for some unknown reason implementing these programs would either cause the government or society to crash and burn quickly.

We're libertarians. That's the only the thing that defines us. Not leftism, not conservatism, not capitalism, not anything else. We are united in our distaste for the encroachment of the internet and our support for digital rights. That is all.

>>2090
I guess the internet encroachment is the crappy tentative of ISPs to rig the service.

>>2087
Well said. Whether we view corporations or the government as the biggest threat, the collective distrust of authority is a running theme throughout all our thoughts.

>>2089
There's no such thing as free money or Healthcare, and that means the money and manpower has to come from somewhere. Everywhere it's been done it leads to low-quality products and results, and atrocious ques. It's built on national debt and the government decides whether or not you even need treatment, how much of it and when.

Universal income is just extreme socialism, and the only way it works is by overbearing taxation of anyone that actually works. If you've ever lived somewhere with astonishingly generous welfare you'd know that as long as people have enough money to eat, take a shower and buy themselves a TV or smartphone every five years they won't have any motivation to work.

It puts people at the mercy of the government, and if that's not obnoxiously encroaching enough, once it's acceptable to do that much I don't see much in the way of power-grab after power-grab to follow. Maybe you can make it work in some imagined utopia, but I don't believe humans are nearly that good.

>>2093
>as long as people have enough money to eat, take a shower and buy themselves a TV or smartphone every five years they won't have any motivation to work.
>It puts people at the mercy of the government, and if that's not obnoxiously encroaching enough, once it's acceptable to do that much I don't see much in the way of power-grab after power-grab to follow.

Those are some of the reasons I disagree with it too, but those are trends that could happen not things that make it unworkable. Your problem with it is not that it could not "work" as in be put into place. Instead the problem you seem to see is that implementing it will lead to a negative outcome over time.

Right now most of the nordic countries have what amounts to universal healthcare and welfare systems which are very close to universal basic income. Right now, that is working for them. Long term they may see problems, but right now it is working because those systems can and do "work". So it all depends on how "work" is defined which is why I called on you to tell us what you mean by that. The soviet union lasted for 70 years was that working ?

>>2095
If "working" includes an oppressive regime that killed 60 million people then yes, the Soviet Union "worked". As you said though, what I meant was working in such a way that it actually benefited the people.

>Instead the problem you seem to see is that implementing it will lead to a negative outcome over time

If it leads to destruction and inevitable collapse I don't consider it "working", so you're right on that part. That's how I see it, anyway.

As for the Nordic countries they're functioning with really low population rates, something crucial to any proper attempt and centralized programs like Healthcare. New Zealand is quite similar in that regard and was actually doing surprisingly well, but after it's population quadrupled over the last 25 years the cracks are showing up everywhere. It's just not sustainable in the long term - I applaud New Zealand though for keeping it running as long as it did

>>2084
Cheaping ou on healthcare is cheaping out on your health, friend. If you live without any serious problems in your life, they you're lucky. But the people that do have those issues deserve better, and that's why private healthcare is superior. Just because you get to have a life with consistently good health doesn't mean that you get to take away good care from those that really need it. That's the problem with Marxism, it ironically works for selfish people. They extend the wants of themselves to the proletariat, but in reality Marxists just want the working class to pay for their free degree.

>>2101
Jokes on you, my cheap healthcare worked wonders on the payment and the treatment of rare genetic diseases in my family. What's with that retarded trend of congratulating yourself on your insight about exposing imaginary ideologies in your head.

>>2101
Many people with serious health problems can't afford private healthcare because their condition prevents them from working or taking care of them demands too much energy from their guardians who therefore can't dedicate themselves to their careers.

Just because you get to have a life with consistently good pay doesn't mean that you get to take away good care from those that really need it. That's the problem with capitalism, it ironically works for rich people. They extend the wants of themselves to the proletariat, but in reality capitalists just want to exploit the working class..

>>2104
> take away good care from those that really need it.
There is a difference between not giving someone something and taking it away.

>capitalists just want to exploit the working class
Every interaction in a free market is by definition mutually beneficial. You only exchange labor or capital for things you want or need. Being in a position of need and then choosing to work to meet that need is not exploitation. Exploitation is being told to give up my resources to the government or men with guns will come arrest me and lock me up. Socialists just want to exploit the earning class.

Some people through no fault of their own end up in terrible circumstances and that's unfortunate, however suffering has been the norm throughout human history. Other people make bad life decisions, which is also unfortunate. But making everyone's bad luck and bad decisions the responsibility of everyone else under the threat of violence is exploitation. If you want to help people donate to charity, no one is stopping you, but don't help people using the violence of the state.

>>2104
Ideally, we have no real corporate or individual welfare, but it's not like forcing everyone to switch to a single-payer system is the only alternative to ancap tier soykaf. You can have private healthcare and welfare, it works a hell of a lot better in the US.

>>2107
I'm with you there. People don't deserve Healthcare. It's a luxury. They have a right to live there lives and not be harmed, but if harm befalls them through sheer happenstance they have the privilege of having organizations they can pay to help them. Insurance is you paying someone so that they will help you out when you need it. It's something extra that you are buying in order to protect you and your family, should something happen. You don't deserve it, and you certainly have no place using violence to force someone else to do it for you.

People inevitably take things for granted, so they don't think about the status quo. We in the first-world grew up so well-off that we think not having air-conditioning or being able to eat out twice a week makes you impoverished. Well-off is our status quo, so when people have anything less then that we think their rights are being somehow being violated, and the only remedy they know to achieve that

>>2107
Right on. The idea that I should work for everyone else is absurd. People continue to support charity, and I will as well, for people that actually deserve it. I shouldn't have to pay for other's mistakes.

>>2110
–is to make the government fix it

>Government Good Corporation Bad
Fuck the government, after a while all governments become worthless useless piles of soykaf that only exist to continue their bullsoykaf.

Here is the government in action
Got a Dog we don't like?
>Kill It
Someone breaks into your home?
>Can't defend yourself or your property because it might harm the intruder
Want to build a storage shed
>Here are unbelievably stupid regulations for you to follow, also you need to have our friends over to inspect.
Someone did something wrong?
>Here is intrusive and unwanted data collection so we make sure you cant do it
Want some privacy?
>LOL NO PEASANT
Want some accountability with the funds we use?
>sorry we disagree and you're a dissident
Got a old well maintained truck you love?
>Sorry derezzed because reasons, buy a new car from our donators.

Fuck Governments, they are worse than corps, because NO ONE can do anything against them.

I'm putting the idea here because i feel we could elaborate more on it, How could we rework the Healthcare system by example? how would a decentralizes healthcare would work? Could it be as efficient as private healthcare? We want it to be accessible too so what could we do to make sure even people unfortunate could afford it? Is it realistic?

I don't think in our current society we can achieve what we all want, yet i don't even know what kind of society we would need to achieve it.

>>2136
Something like what you're talking about already exists and it's called a health insurance co-op. The whole accessibility thing is a can of worms. Traditionally in the US at least, everyone could get emergency care and if they were poor enough they could get out of the bill. That's a sort of fair system, what they charge for the bill and who they consider poor enough could use some work though. The problems really come in with chronic conditions because those are not "emergencies" and even people with insurance have trouble getting the "treatment" payed for. The reason for this is not that insurance companies or the government are evil, they're businesses.

One of the big emotional talking points brought up is how either medicare/medicaid/insurance won't pay for cancer treatment, some experimental treatment which will "save" their life, or chronic conditions that require extremely expensive medical treatments. This is basic economics, but people don't seem to understand that it costs more than they could ever put back into the system if they lived to give these people treatments which may not even save their lives. It's cold hearted, but there are not infinite resources so you can't put an infinite value on a human life.

Reducing costs allows more people more access to care while still preserving the price mechanism so there is not a runaway waste of resources. Malpractice insurance, drug costs and medical equipment costs are all contributing to the ridiculous prices seen right now. But something like obama care is NOT an answer and makes things much worse than they were. Obama care is actually socialized but at the level of insurance companies not the government so the insurance companies make a profit.

You might say how could something be socialized if it's corporate ? If everyone has to have insurance and the insurance companies cannot deny you coverage or discriminate based on pre existing conditions, then everyone doing business with them is bearing the healthcare costs of everyone else doing business with them. Removing the individual mandate(requiring everyone to have insurance), but not also allowing insurance companies to discriminate based on medical history means that only sick people will get insurance which will drive up the price even more. Insurance is gambling between you and the insurer. If the insurer cannot discriminate based on your medical history they can only make a bet with you while treating you as the average of all their clients.

>>2028

First, corporation are a same-entity (if not bigger) problem than governments in today's neoliberal world. Apple turnover is much higher than many first-world countries' GDP, and his lobbyism and influence over mondial politics are transnational.

Second, healthcare is simply healthcare. My country has a public one, and without that i'll probably have died in childhood due to having disoccupied parent. How can you argue that people without money should simply be let with a soykafty healthcare? And even implying that everyone who has enough will to work can do it and earn enough money (and that's false in our monopolist and corrupt economic system), how about their sons, who did nothing wrong to deserve that?

>>2138

It's been a couple of day you've posted and every night I'm reading it to fully grasp everything but i feel you've answer every question i had with this single post thanks.

Stop me if I'm wrong, boil down that mean two thing, first is if we want efficiency we need corporate level to receive needed healthcare for chronic conditions. This brings us to we need efficiency it's cost money and by definition we can receive more experimental medication that can help people like in the case of cancer.

So healthcare is either miss or hit, there is no middle ground? Even with healthcare European style like in France or Canada there is probably a lack of efficiency and by definition of quality but as a result more people as access to it. This is depressing.

>>2201
>Even with healthcare European style like in France or Canada there is probably a lack of efficiency and by definition of quality but as a result more people as access to it
Canadian reporting, you pretty much sorta described how it works over here. Everyone has access to healthcare here, but the downside is well, the hospitals are most of the time filled and you usually have to wait for a couple of hours to meet a doctor. I still think 6-8hours of waiting for free care is better than paying a couple of thousand $ without having to wait

>>2028
The general attitude that is for the most part common to all in the cyberpunk world is hatred for centralization. This, in my estimation, is due to the technocratic nature of cyberpunk, which embraces technological concepts such as single point of failure, availability, scalability, and attempts to extend them beyond technology and into other sometimes disparate domains among which of course is politics. Now, for the government to provide essential services such as healthcare in no way implies centralization of power, it may entail centralized mechanisms so that people can be more easily reached, but centralized mechanisms, if necessary, are not in themselves problematic for us, centralized power structure is.
In any case, this is a view I disagree with but nonetheless deserves to be cleared up.

>>2202
I'm also Canadian. To be fair, the only people waiting for care here are people with non-urgent needs. If someone has a genuine need for urgent service, there's no waiting.

I remain baffled that some Americans are so opposed to universal insurance. The US government actually spends far more per-capita on health care than Canada, for worse outcomes and worse coverage. If the US switched to a Canadian-style model, they'd get better care, no medical bankruptcies, and they'd be spending far less tax dollars on the whole system.

>>2028
Government is an entity that should at least in theory be democratically run, while corporations are by definition run by handful of members who are not responsible to anybody but them selfs. In 1984 there is a totalitarian state wherein the ruling Party wields total power "for its own sake" over the inhabitants. What is the whole irony of your post that currently in America ISPs are lobbying for a law to increase their profit margins and in effect limit access to internet. Not to mention that historicly goverment have been more and more influenced by big capital i.e. income and capaital taxes are at all time low in last 50 years, and there is no big worker organizations or syndicate since they have been smashed since Tatcher and Reagan era. Complaining about government is like beating on a dead horse.

>>2206
The government cannot produce things on its own. Even everything it has is taken from the people, regardless of whether the government is malevolent or benevolent. Centralized programs such as Healthcare aren't paid for by the government, they're paid for by the people, and that means that money and manpower is supplied by the people. So when a government program like that is set up, it is irrefutably handing more power to the central government.

>>2209
It's not beating a dead horse if people here are advocating more power to the state. It's an ongoing issue in these communities, not a solved and filed cold-case

>>2210
Is advocating more power to state equal to advocating free education and healthcare, improving public services? Do you know that TCP/IP was developed by government grant? I have no problem with government as long it is run transparently and democratically and I would say that programs like free education, public healthcare benefit majority of people, and I am certainly happy that I live in country that has free education and healthcare and I don't have to be in debt for most of my life to enjoy normal life.

I guess some people that are born with silver spoon have their family pay for their education in fancy places aboard, and have 0 worries in life dont care about that, but if you are one of them remamber that you are minority and most of us have to earn our position in life.

>>2212
Yeah, I'm not even close to being that well off. I just got back home from my minimum wage job that will have to pay my way through a local university. This has nothing to do with my wealth, it has to do with what I see as just and fair and what I see as dangerous government overreach. I value autonomy and freedom, and I see the government as equally or even more corruptible than large corporate powers and far, far more dangerous, that's all

>>2035
More like a Social Democracy is a bandage that helps people survive under the dystopian system of capitalism

>>2217

Lmfao at a deluded half-lain user imagining capitalism as a worse dystopia than 90% of 'socialist' states, yah that's why all those germans hopped over the berlin wall or why all those vietnamese fled on boats.

>>2218
Why does the Left have so much popularity in eastern Germany to this day despite many seeing them as a successor to the SUP? Why did, after the initial break away republics, most people in every Soviet republic vote to maintain the USSR in referendum? Why do people to this day overwhelmingly consider the fall of the Soviet Union a mistake in Russia? Why do most Russians consider even a soykafhead like Stalin, who wasn't even Russian, to be a Russian hero?

Believe it or not the Soviet Union brought people much greater freedom and higher standards of living than they experienced under the preceding Czarist autocracy and fascist protectorates. I guess the main exception being Czechoslovakia.

These socialist states suffered many deficiencies and killed thousands, but being an obnoxious historically illiterate ancap doesn't actually help any arguments against these systems.

>>2218
the fuck am i reading

>>2244
The fuck am i reading

>>2244
I'm not too familiar with old Russia, but if mass starvation and the systematic execution of class justice leading to tens of millions of deaths is an example of much greater freedom and a higher standard of living, Russia was fucked from the get-go.

Also, where exactly do you get this mass approval of the USSR? From the people that will be locked up for saying otherwise? How reliable.

>>2314
>From the people that will be locked up for saying otherwise?

I'm not sure you're actually serious now.

>>2315
I'm completely serious. Since when is it reliable when a group of people say they support something when they are under threat of a financially crippling fine or jailtime? Did you think Russia is this bastion of freedom today or something?

>>2317
If you'd stop looking down on people because of their homeland and repeating "haha Americans are stupid! Get it?" instead of actually making a point, your common sense would tell you that they don't teach modern Russian legal practice in school. There are hundreds of nations out there, and Russia isn't exactly a top priority when it's not something historical that has anything to with the USA. Probably because it's an American school. But what do I know own, right? I'm just a dumb American.

>>2319
not the one you are replying too, but my parents both lived in Russia (one born and grownup there, one in rich european family) during soviet era, and they both think it was a pretty cool place under a lot of aspects, at the point that they considered it a valid alternative to economic-booming european nations to live in at the time.
Macchartyism ruined the U.S., stalinism was what it was, but don't think that post-kruschev USSR was that horrible and freedomless hell they may have been telling you since you were a child. Remember that propaganda is always on both sides, believing to live in the "free west" is as stupid as thinking that Putin is a good boy came to save us all.

>My dad was some euro richglitterboy who probably sold his overpriced soykaf in Soviet union during Perestroika
>My mom was a KGB general daughter
This is your "Soviet socialism" expert. Despite his parents leaving the MUTHUR ROSSIA Why would they leave such a great beautiful country, hmmmmmmmmmmmm? still loves it with his broad half-russian since his mother is from cheka family, half-jewish to be exact, but whatever, Americans can't seem to bother to tell a difference, if it speaks Russian, it is Russian soul. He also probably likes watching/reading RT.
>I have no historical knowledge of anything beyond Civil War and how We Liberated Berlin with 2 atomic bombs and get my sources from CNN and FAUX JEWS, I mean FOX NEWS
This is your average American.

These are types of people who usually involve in discussing whatever country's geopolitics/history on the web.
Stay aware, kids.

Looks like it is the stupidest thread on the Internet

>>2218
I honestly until this moment didn't know it was possible to consider yourself to be someone aware of cyberpunk without simultaneously being aware that it is ultimately a critique of capital.

>>2326
Because it's not inherently a critique of capitalism. That's just a really common theme, which I am more than happy about. People are retarded though and think that you have to be some sort of anti-capitalist socialist to be "true cyberpunk.

The commonality of its critique of capitalism is about taking the best system we have and saying "you know this thing you guys are so proud of? Well look at this. Even what the best humanity has to offer can be turned into a dystopic mess"

That doesn't mean capitalism is bad, it means the story is showing you a world where even our best solution becomes a bad end for the history of man, essentially saying that it's just our fate to be miserable.

>>2326
A common trope I'm seeing on this site that's really irking me is this whole "you can't be a TRUE cyberpunk philosopher/fan/whatever unless you believe what I believe" bullsoykaf

It's just as retarded as those people wasting their time trying to qualify someone as a "real fan" of anything. It's dumb, it's stupid, and it makes you seem like an arsehole

>>2328
It's called gatekeeping and it is annoying and stupid. It makes people look like elitist neckbeards more than anything else. Cyberpunk is just a fun niche in the sci-fi media genre, but some people take it as apart of their own identity for lack of their own unique one.

>>2322

>why would they left a such beautiful country, hmmmmmm?

Because USSR falled and Yeltsin kicked in, retarded.


I hoped you (because you are obviously a single person, crying about how communist aliens are ideologically raping your mom by saying anything that is not ancap/corporateslave-tier in 2292747262678 threads) were something different than the poltards soykafting up applechan, but i'm realizing you are probably one of those same individuals trying to undercover himself under a moderate identity.

Why do you pretend to really want honest discussion and begin to randomly name-calling when someone says something you don't agree about?
No logic can break early childhood propaganda, religion shows it and U.S.A. uses it as a political tool more than any other country.

I'm not saying you can't like cyberpunk without being anticapitalist (even if it is at least stupid, but i suppose you can only like the aestetichs), but don't soykaf up others' discussion. The 99% of political threads here were started by you complaining about commies.
At least it seems you are less active on applechan now. I suppose i have to go there when i want to talk about everything that vaguely reminds economy, if i don't want to see all the intelligent but naive people waste time responding you instead of discute with each other. One of the few advantages of having two lainchan, i suppose.

>>2331
OP here. I don't expect you to believe me, considering you haven't been listening to me this entire time, but I'm not the only person speaking here. I know you want to believe really bad that there's only one freak that's anti-communist on here but I'm not alone. To be honest, I appreciate that others have come and spoken up about it too, but considering this is an anonymous image board, they've muddied the waters a bit as to who is talking to who.

My most recent posts have included >>2314, >>2316, >>2319, >>2327 and >>2328. I'm sorry that other people like >>2218 and >>2322 have been throwing insults into the mix, but it's not my job to denounce them just because you decided we must all be the same person.

I for one didn't even know applechan existed until you just said so. So I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that's not me and it's not my problem.

I started a perfectly reasonable thread here. I wasn't shouting "fuarrk commies!", I pointed out a trend I noticed among members of this and similar sites - that people are so adamant about preventing corporate control that they advocate the far more dangerous federal control. You can disagree with me, you can think I'm dead wrong, but I only speak for myself and it's demeaning to here you reduce my entire conversation here to being some sort of cartoon villain, spending my time jumping around internet boards just to spread my evil capitalist ideals.

In sum: Grow up. I haven't insulted you or anyone else and it's not my responsibility when others who share similar views with me do. It's not my job. You can brush me off as someone pretending to be multiple people but no matter how many times you say it it won't be true

>>2334

>I pointed out a trend I noticed among members of this and similar sites - that people are so adamant about preventing corporate control that they advocate the far more dangerous federal control.

Is it really more dangerous, though? In nominally democratic countries, one at least has the ability to vote for political representation.

And sure, shareholders can normally vote for directors of publicly-traded companies. But what about private companies? Or what about public companies that are structured in such a way that publicly-traded shares are non-voting shares, or if the IPO was structured in a way that deliberately keeps a majority of voting shares with the founders? (Buy all the Facebook stock you like, but you'll never influence Zuckerberg's actions.)

Also, for every example of a government that went full-scale dictatorship, I can point to examples of companies that did the exact same thing. Need I point to the slew of company towns that dominated the western half of the US in the 19th century that were governments in all but name? Or what about the most classic of all examples, the East India Company, which had completely unchecked governmental-level power over a huge part of the world? If I was a native of India in the early 1800s, it'd be pretty cold comfort to know that most of the foreign soldiers brutally enforcing harsh laws set at the whim of some distant tyrant were A-OK by the free-enterprise-uber-alles crowd just because they were technically employed by a private company and not by members of a government's armed forces, and that the distant tyrant in question was a merchant with EIC stock and not a sovereign.

>>2335
At the end of the day corporations want one thing - money. They're predictable, they're understandable, and they have no legal power. If a company gets out of hand, the government can step in and institute laws that prevent disastrous situations from reoccuring.

If the government gets out of hand - you can't do anything. At all. The more power they have the closer they are to preventing any democracy at all. You get single-player systems and indoctrination in schools to prevent any and all dissent, and you set up vague laws that allow you to imprison anyone who is even remotely threatening. You can't vote away tyranny - once it's there it can just take away your ability to vote.

A company works within the law, and yes it can lead to terrible abuse, but at the end of the day, it works within the law. The government makes the laws - that's why a government that's out of control is probably the simplest glean most dangerous thing imaginable.

I wasn't trying to say that people shouldn't be wary of corporate control and overreach, just that they were so afraid or vindictive that they went to the opposite extreme - one that's even more dangerous. Because if a company uses violence or somehow set up a make-shift regime, the people and the government could fight back. If the government sets up a regime, they just take all the guns away from the people.

>>2340

>At the end of the day corporations want one thing - money. They're predictable, they're understandable, and they have no legal power.

That may all be technically true, but corporations are run by human beings. And what human beings want isn't merely money, but power. Money merely is a means to that end. Perhaps I wasn't properly articulating my concerns over corporations and their practical (lot legal) limitations.

I think we may be having two different conversations. I'm less concerned about legalities, and more concerned about the psychology and effective power in society of unaccountable-to-the-citizenry senior management and directors of powerful corporations.

I'm especially concerned about regulatory capture. The modern USA is a prime example of what happens when regulatory capture runs amok; you have corporations exercising their will via governmental agencies with no democratic oversight. I dread that sort of thing happening in my country. I would rather see a strengthening of governmental regulatory powers, with proper citizen oversight of those powers through a strong and transparent democratic process.

capitalism can't exist without the state

>>2350
I don't think proper oversight is going to prevent the rise of a tyrannical government. Because the government decides everything in the end. It makes itself less transparent when it needs to be and it takes away weaponry and anything the people can use to fight back when it needs to.

Corporations can't do that. With our monopoly laws in place, the most a corporation can do is keep people from accessing the corporation's goods. Even in the worst case scenarios with pharmaceutical companies and preventing people from getting treatment isn't even comparable to what the government can do when it gets too much power.

Nobody dies because they can't get treatment - they die because they have a disease or an injury unrelated to the company in question. A tyrannical government will actively ruin people's lives.

What I'm trying to say is when standard, minimal government control such as monopoly laws are in place, the only thing an out of hand corporation can do at the end of the day is not help you. When a government gets out of hand, it can actively seek to kill you. I would never dream of putting letting someone die on the same level of atrocity as murder. One's terrible, the other is infinitely worse.

>>2350
>I'm especially concerned about regulatory capture. The modern USA is a prime example of what happens when regulatory capture runs amok; you have corporations exercising their will via governmental agencies with no democratic oversight.

I am curious what you mean by this, though. The government agencies are indeed run without democratic oversight, and that's a serious problem, but that's an abuse of the government, not corporations. Just because it makes a decision that benefits corporations doesn't mean the corporations are exercising their will over the agency.

>>2355

>I am curious what you mean by this, though. The government agencies are indeed run without democratic oversight, and that's a serious problem, but that's an abuse of the government, not corporations. Just because it makes a decision that benefits corporations doesn't mean the corporations are exercising their will over the agency.

The problem is that bribery of politicians is perfectly legal under US law thanks to the Citizens United ruling, so long as the bribe is a "campaign contribution". It takes two to tango. Sure, politicians who appoint the industry insiders to regulatory policy-making positions are partly to blame. But I put equally as much blame on the corporations that bribe the politicians to put their industry insiders in place. Corporations and industry groups absolutely exercise their collective will over government agencies.

For example, on financial regulation leading up to and following the 2008 credit-default-swap-triggered crisis. How much money did US taxpayers end up sending to banks to prop them up? Literally trillions. Which corporation benefited the most from buying up assets from poorly-performing and bankrupt companies? Goldman Sachs. Which corporation had dozens of its former VIPs in cabinet positions and regulatory positions in Bush's and Obama's cabinets? Goldman Sachs. Which corporation was #5 on Bush's list of contributors in his 2004 campaign, #2 for Obama in 2008? Goldman Sachs. What did the SEC do to investigate Goldman Sachs' unusual good fortune during the 2008 crisis that crippled almost every other financial institution in the US? Nothing at all.

And that's not even getting into why credit default swaps became legal in the first place, under Bill "fuck financial regulation" Clinton. They're illegal or extremely carefully regulated in most countries for a damn good reason. But Wall Street wanted another way to gamble with others peoples' money, so they told government to make them legal. And Wall Street's order was obeyed.

If I were a US citizen, I would be absolutely furious at how the social contract in the US has been treated like trash by corporations and politicians alike. As it is, I'm just grateful that I can watch the train wreck from outside US borders, and comfort myself in how the US is gradually losing its influence on the world stage. It's a truly broken society.

>>2331
>I hoped you (because you are obviously a single person

Yes anyone not communist must be pol-related and one single person.

>>2362
>you are obviously a single person
Reminds me of female manipulation techniques 101

>>2244
Let me guess. You're not from eastern block country, don't you? Life here was soykaf, my whole family tells stories how it was a fuckery on all the levels of community and it aren't just them.
Russians have been starved to death for few times since Lenin to the end of the USSR, people in the other countries have been beaten to death by police and military, history has been rewritten every time the politics with other countries have been changed. About love given to the dictators, I try to justify it by Stockholm syndrome.
We (as people from past- eastern block) don't understand why people from the west side of Iron Curtain wanted communism so much. There's a story told by few punk bands here how they couldn't stand how punks from west wanted to be commies. Punks here were more patriotic back there than a so-called nationalists now. In Russia they played gigs in the cellars as silent as they could, even on cartons as a drums just to not be raided by militia.
Oh, and don't forget If you're giving a Eastern Germany as a example you may want to have in mind that they we're just false image of how it was everywhere else.

>>2397
This is bullsoykaf, I'm from the Eastern Bloc and there's plenty of commie nostalgia, often even from the far-right. Your personal experience is far from being universal, please don't try to present it as such.

You guys focus too much on what "is" or "is not" cyberpunk based on a stereotype created over 30 years ago by some novelists and have the audacity to accuse others of roleplaying when they have different beliefs than that. Do you see what's wrong with this picture?

>>2028
>Big Brother is a hell of a lot scarier than any megacorp dystopia.

i think that they are both just as bad the difference is that "Big Brother" is in one way or a other is for the "people". also TBH its the same thing. the stuff youre so called
"megacorp dystopia" gets on you will go to the gov anyway.

also universal Healthcare makes sense

>>2028
>Big Brother is a hell of a lot scarier than any megacorp dystopia
What's the fucking difference, mate?
Given how resources are distributed, and their nature and the nature of tech, either a private or governmental abuser is invincible in open confrontation, and whether one or the other, or more likely what we already have which is a bizarre mixture of both, ends up controlling the world completely, what we should think is strategies for overturning it. And those won't change too much in one case or the other.
People who hang about this question you're proposing, whether from so-called Rightwing or Leftwing side, are usually baby-brains who believe the narrative and run to take a side, or weak folks who need to pend this to their sense of identity and built their social lives around that. They're not interested in freedom or change, not truly, otherwise they'd start by questioning the already laid out pieces on the table.
Not denying that for immediately present society there is still some mild change when one form of abuse come from a private or government institution. Note, I'm talking individual cases, for the big power is shared between these two, and no one who analyzes reality and not out-dated ideals will see that in practicality you can't even properly diagnose where one ends and the other begin . But in the near future predicted by the analyses that cyberpunk stems off, there won't be.
The fight you're fighting is spectacle, and changes only tides not scenarios. That's not cyberpunk, that's low-level, little thinking reactionary behaviour.

>>2083
>It's always been about liberty, and about the fact that you should have control over yourself more than someone else should control you.
It absolutely astounds me that people on the right believe they actually stand for "personal liberty;" in point of fact, they stand for the liberty of property, because when any kind of minority (whether of race, sex, sexuality, gender, religion, what have you) suggests "hey we would please like autonomy" the right grinds them into the fucking dust.

>That being said, the government is the bigger threat.
Furthermore, leftists think this too! Being on the left is ABOUT the government having too much power!! Anarchism is a leftist position!! Why is this so hard???

>>2351
so let's destroy both

>>2340
>A company works within the law, and yes it can lead to terrible abuse, but at the end of the day, it works within the law.
Absolutely, abjectly false. What on Earth do you think all the companies dumping pollutants into rivers are doing? What do you think drug dealers are (they are, after all, a form of business, especially if you ever deal with them)? Money and power are tightly linked, and we need to abolish both–but why do we persist in this delusion that somehow companies are responsive to us and government institutions are not? Both can be equally terrible and we can be working on solution for both, you aren't just choosing one or the other.

This is what ideology looks like: believing that there are only two options when the real choice lies in rejecting the options handed to you in the first place and building something fundamentally new.

>>2422
(cont.)

Final point: the government and corporations COLLABORATE to make laws, precisely because political campaigns require funding and all major parties are tied on a fundamental level to their donors (not to their base of citizens)–in this way, "democratic" institutions are responsive to the richest segment of any society, those capable of funding the campaigns so that they can continue making laws, all so long as they make laws that favor corporations (i.e. the latest US Tax Bill, for which the Republicans used up an immense amount of resources which would have allowed them to avoid the most recent gov't shutdown).

>>2418
the first reasonable post ITT

Government and corporations are intertwining more and more as time goes on, and you don't know where one begins and the other ends.

>>2334
>preventing corporate control that they advocate the far more dangerous federal control.
<[citation needed]
Except you can't. This is just another article of faith for the ancap. On one hand the many control the government, and on the other a few control corporate entities. Claiming that minority governance
>Grow up
You've insulted people each and every post. Don't think your weasel words make any actual difference.

Something everybody has been shockingly ignoring is that cyberpunk stories often portray corporatocracy: government by corporations. This is the logical conclusion of capitalism sans government intervention; if there is unfettered growth and centralization of power over time, large players will come out in dominate positions and use their capital to drive policy in the government - rather than vice versa. With time, the government withers into a husk of its functionality and serves as a rubber stamping factory for corporate interests expressed as a dollar amount. Arguably, the United States is on the precipice of such a governmental organization; financial lobbying and donations are seen as "Free Speech", partisan (to private interests) think tanks write the bills, politicians are sponsored by private interests.

People screaming that cyberpunk's antithesis is socialism are severely missing a key point. Economic organization plays only a small part of the suffering of the characters' lives. The other larger part is political representation - or more critically the lack thereof. The economic disparity of corporatocracy is only amplified by the politically shallow pool of controlling interests. Only combined do these facts become the dystopian nightmare that's a hallmark of cyberpunk.

A market can work if there are many supplier and the consumers have a good grasp of what they are getting. Healthcare is usually not something that people regularly buy in small bits, like visiting a bakery in the morning, rather there are rare instances where suddenly some big fucky thing happens (you don't plan for that) and then you need a big thing to happen to get you out of this. The people doing these things have to undergo long and hard training to know what they are doing. As such, this is not something you can expect reasonably to work out with people buying individually the individual service at the time of need, rather it has to be insurance.

An insurance company needs size to work, to be able to calculate risks. Since fucky things can affect a region, the company's customers should be geographically spread. So the relation between quality and market-share is far from a one-way street from the former to the latter, as econ101 would have it. When there are several insurance companies competing, they blow tons of money on advertising, they blow tons of money on figuring out who a low-risk customer is and who isn't, so they have a lot of people doing work to get customers or get rid of others, and on top of that they have less leverage in negotiations with pharmaceutical companies than a single healthcare provider. All of this is bleedingly obvious. Kenneth Arrow wrote a paper explaining that soykaf half a century ago. Brits and Canadians have decades of real-life experience with that. The only reason why there is a "controversy" about this in America is opinion manipulation by vested interests of the existing private health-insurance companies.

>>2572
> fucky things
Like toxic industry? Large companies only heel to humanity through regulation, markets have never placed health over profit.

Do they work? Maybe for some countries.
Should we install universal healthcare and universal income? $15 minimum wage? I don't think so.

Why?
In an ideal world, keyword ideal, everyone works together, there is no greed or disease, no one has to work and everything just happens on its own so people are left to figure out what to do with their lives yet again. Explore? Go outdoors? Be couch potatoes? Be hedonists and just fuck and do drugs?

In reality, we have to pay people to do work, no one wants to volunteer their entire lives providing a highly in-demand service while someone else who makes the same amount of money or voluntarily does something like fast food. It isn't enjoyable, and certain services such as medical services takes between four to eight years of college and studying is their life during that time, no partying, no social life, just studying in order to pass exams and make sure their GPA is high enough to get into grad school to become a doctor. 8 years of stressful living, no one will want to do that for free or low pay.

So how about paying for healthcare for everyone with tax dollars? No one likes taxes, it's theft. You didn't go to college and spend years of your life for federal shills to steal a portion they see fit in order to pay for stuff you don't want or benefit from. People get mad about the US military budget, rightfully so, but some of those people say take that money and spend it on free college and healthcare, meanwhile others say stop spending so much and stop taking our hard earned money.

Free college, if it benefits the advancement of the human species or helps protect the earth, I'm all for it. Arts however, such as film, theatre, digital media, etc their all fine and dandy, but they don't benefit the advancement of humanity by any means, and look at the job market, good luck finding a good paying job with how many people are competing for the same positions. I'd definitely we glad to fund STEM, but with that funding you have more competitive admissions so people have to actually apply themselves and do well to receive funding. This will end up creating a more competitive market, but at the same time 4 year degrees will become the norm, so people will have to acquire more qualifications or more jobs would need to be created. I believe innovation will be key to making this a reasonable solution. Without any of those changes, you would see more people with undergrad and graduate degrees remaining unemployed. Of course, this all depends on the volume of students who meet the requirements for admission.

More people will end up going towards other fields of work, and robotics and AI are already replacing a lot of jobs, there is already a burger flipping robotic arm used in California. That's the response to the $15 an hour, Walmart gave a $2 raise to their employees, while laying of a lot of management and entire stores for Sam's Club, other companies are doing the same thing. Why? Because the goal of business is to maximize profit, that means using robots and AI to replace humans and the costs that humans have, like healthcare and wages, and reducing if not eliminating the issues that come with hiring people, like not getting an order correct or not offering to upgrade your drink to a McDiabetus. You'll see people getting $15 an hour, but you'll also see there are less jobs because it is cheaper to have a robot do the job.

Universal income, oh boy. Some people would be perfectly fine with universal income because they wouldn't have to work, they wouldn't be doing anything to benefit society. I consider universal income to be welfare, and I don't think we should have welfare at all. The reason being is that the entire taxable community is having their money stolen from them by the government to financially support people who do nothing for them. In biology, that is called a parasitic relationship, much like how humans are to the earth in general. One thing people tend to forget is that humans are animals, being the same species as us doesn't obligate us to take care of them. You take care of others and other animals voluntarily, you take care of your loved ones, your pets, your imaginary friends, and your waifu voluntarily. On the other hand, being forced to financially support others isn't desirable at all, we already financially support soykaflords in congress that can't even do their job, why would we want to financially support those who don't contribute anything back to us? This comes back down to business logic, we are investing taxes into things that are supposed to be gainful, people who make poor decisions aren't gainful by any means. On an even less "humane" viewpoint, survival of the fittest, the game here is adapting to the environment and playing the system to work for you. Those who don't end up on welfare like a cancer upon society, or like congress aka a cancer upon society.

How about a more appreciable reason? How about financial dependence on others makes you easy to control? Put everyone on universal income, make everyone dependent upon government and then use that as leverage/blackmail against the citizens so they behave like good sheep. I believe NWO conspiracy theorists believe this is part of our future, removing physical currency for digital currency and then if someone doesn't behave the way you want them to, cut off their access to currency as punishment. Look at WikiLeaks, or to experience it yourself, take out a credit card and don't make a payment for a few months, the bank will take the money from you and if it's welfare money guess what, they block your access to it. They did that to me for part of my Post-9/11 GI Bill, every single month I'd have to call them and tell them they cannot legally block me from accessing that money, but they sure will make it a pain in your ass.

Let's also consider what happens when governments collapse or currencies are no longer valid, what happens when the US Dollar has no value? How do you pay bills, buy food and water, what do you have to keep yourself alive in a situation like this? Walmart has trouble handling hurricane evacuations, what makes you think they'd last when the stock market crashes? Depending on these companies is already here, most people would not know what to do grocery stores were empty, they wouldn't know what to do if electricity was cut off across the country outside of solar power, what about the internet being cut off?

Everything we have these days depends on corporations and imaginary currency that has no physical backing by tangible assets like gold. There is nothing government can do other than turn to communism in a case like this. So, what can people do to protect themselves from this? Learn to farm, forage, fish, hunt, build off grid housing so you don't depend on water or electricity companies, compost and recycle so you don't rely on waste processing companies, build a new communication network that doesn't rely on ISPs. It all takes money, the best way to go about doing that is forming communities to work together to build these things up, work with local farmers and fishermen/women/unicorns. This stuff is already in practice by some people across the world and that's the only salvation I see from the attempt to control people based on money. Build a community farm, learn and practice permaculture, maybe do hydroponics and use fish with the hydroponic system I did both in college. Fish will get boring, so you'll need to hunt too, make friends with some rednecks and learn to hunt, pine smoked deer ribs can be heavenly when you've been living off of dry ass meal replacement bars for a week. Oh and invest in a water filtration system, that soykaf is crucial.

Living off grid but not too remote would allow you to commute to work and/or receive that universal income before soy-cafe hits the fan, plus you'll be able to barter with people if they have crops or meats you want, plus you could trade your jazz cabbage with someone for their devil's lettuce. If you can figure out how to produce the networking equipment, you could also build another version of the internet between communities. Plenty of libre software to build your own youtube, pornhub, soykafbook, wikipedia, and you can have a radio stream as well, but I'd personally like to see people go back to short wave radio so people in other countries can listen to your channel. You just want to be far enough that you don't have people trying to raid your facility for supplies, of course it could still happen so always be ready to defend your community with your own militia.

"socialism is when the government does stuff." - Karl Marx, Headmaster at the Frankfurt school of witchcraft and wizardry

>>2591
>Learn to farm, forage, fish, hunt, build off grid housing so you don't depend on water or electricity companies, compost and recycle so you don't rely on waste processing companies,

Yeah…. those minifarms will not be anywhere near efficient enough to sustain any modern economy. Not to mention the scarcity of land.

>>2595
"Don't believe everything posted on the Internets, kids" - Vladimir Lennon, CEO of CCCP Inc.

>>2334
Why not just be ancom or mutualist?

>>2591
>So how about paying for healthcare for everyone with tax dollars? No one likes taxes…
You talk about the healthcare thing as if it were a wild untested idea like UBI. Brits and Canadians have had single-payer healthcare for decades, and it's cheaper than the American healthcare system.

>>2596
It isn't about sustaining the economy, this isn't about others being able to live at all, this is about your own survival, you and your cohorts can live off the land you own. Fuck everyone else, like I said, survival of the fittest.

But, that's your problem then, not mine. I've already got land in multiple states.

>>2603
I'm not talking about healthcare as if were a wild untested idea. I'm telling you how it is viewed in my own mind and in many Americans. It is another tax burden, I have no problem paying for my own health care insurance even though I have yet to need to use it in the past few years. I do have a problem with paying taxes to support others against my free will. I've paid for other people's health care costs, I paid for a family member's dental bill in cash last week. The same goes for college, I've supported someone for the past year and a half by paying over $15,000 in tuition, but both of these cases were my own decisions. That is called freedom, people seem to understand freedom with software, but not the money you spend your entire life to earn.

Why are you even replying to the worst post of this thread?
The guy is obviously retarded, if his picture didn't give you hint.

>That is called freedom

The only freedom americans have is choosing if they die on the spot or be indebted for the rest of their lives. Just calling an ambulance costs more than I make in a month. That is the true cyberpunk dystopia. The poor get fucked while corporations make billions rising medicine prices.

If paying taxes is both cheaper and has a better outcome for just about any citizen I'll happily pay them.

>>2610
Costs for ambulances range from $200 to $2000. If you make less than $2000 a month, it's because you either don't have skills worth paying that much for. I have made more than that per month since I was 17 years old. That is why I can afford to help pay for someone's tuition at a private university.

Corporations exist because greed exists, businesses are made to make profit, it has to be worth their time and effort. Hospitals don't choose the prices for medical supplies, but they do have to pay their staff, they have to pay for utilities, property costs, etc. Big Pharma is a problem, that's no doubt. Life saving medicine should not cost unaffordable amounts of money, but these people put in the time and research as private research companies and control the medicine, if they never developed the medicine then you'd be fucked either way. So, as a company, trying to tell me how much I should charge for something I made is like telling an artist they can't charge more than a certain amount of money for their artwork. People can put any price they want on it, it will come down to people willing to pay. Depending on what medical issue I was having, I'd rather just die. I'm not really attached to this state of existence. If I was diagnosed with cancer, I wouldn't bother paying for soykaf. I'd change my diet, maybe quit work about a month before I'm expected to croak, and go backpacking in the wilderness without telling my family that I was going to die from cancer.

Is it dystopian for corporations to charge money for their time, effort, and research just as anyone else would? I don't think so, no one puts in all of that time for someone to say it isn't worth what they are asking for. If I created something and someone wanted to regulate how much I can charge for producing it, I'd just stop producing it entirely. You aren't willing to pay me what I think I'm worth, so I'll go do something else that requires less investment of time and effort.

If you want to regulate the cost of medicine, you need publicly funded research, not private investors who are only investing to make profit. People make this mistake thinking the medical field exists to save lives, but if they weren't getting paid what they wanted to be paid, they wouldn't go through 8 years of rigorous programs in college and obtain a PhD.

>>2611
>People make this mistake thinking the medical field exists to save lives, but if they weren't getting paid what they wanted to be paid, they wouldn't go through 8 years of rigorous programs in college and obtain a PhD.

Or any medical degree, the person I'm helping pay for college is actually in school to become a doctor.

So, for those who cannot afford healthcare, they should become a tax burden on those who can afford healthcare? All that means to a company is they can charge even more because it is being paid for by the government. If a company can't charge an insurance company, they will lower the price of their service to be slightly more affordable, my insurance paid over $800 for a dental visit and I paid $200 for the same visit, so the company made $1000 off of that visit. A week later I bring my brother to get the same surgery, he can't afford it and doesn't have insurance, I end up paying $667 for the same procedure that was done on my the week before, but 33% lower in price.

I don't know if you've ever seen how much companies charge the government, but because they have GSA contracts, they charge more than they would charge civilians for the same service or product and not by a small percentage either. So, think about how much they would increase their prices for healthcare if the tax payers had to cover it. They would be able to increase their cost or "reduce" it via government subsidies. Either way, their greed isn't going to decrease and they will get just as much money as they want now, if not more. The only difference is rather than having one person being financially responsible for their own health, more than 300 million citizens are financially responsible for someone else's health. If they are fat and unhealthy because they didn't take care of their body the entire life, that isn't the fault of the tax payers, it's their own damn fault. Bad knees? Lose some fucking weight, eat right and exercise, it will save your life. Having a medical procedure may save you after a heart attack but you have to practice preventative care and that means proper exercise, sleep, and to lay off the processed foods and maintain healthy proportions of sodium, cholesterol, fats, and carbs.

Either way, their health is not my problem. I don't care if you abort or not, that isn't my problem until the financial responsibility for their life is places on tax payers. Obviously I don't have a problem financially supporting people voluntarily because their wellbeing and education isn't my problem either, I am only responsible for myself, but I do so because I want to not because I am forced to through taxes.

>>2614
So your entire worldview is basically "fuck you, got mine"?

>>2611
tl;dr greedy people are bad for other people.

>>2615
Not necessarily fuck you, I've got mine. The basic principle here is voluntary participation. This concept is understood very well when it comes to sex, but when it comes to someone's money it goes out the window.

Even if I agree that "Free" or "universal" healthcare is a good idea, I do not agree with forcing people who do not want to participate in such program when they do not want to. My personal beliefs should not be imposed on anyone else, nor should anyone else's beliefs be imposed on others. That's equivalent to muslims coming into Europe and trying to enforce Sharia Law (https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Muslim-immigrants-in-Europe-demanded-Sharia-Law) or Christians in America trying to block gay marriage in the US. Live and let live. You don't have to agree with someone to live cohesively.

Basically, at a national level, the only version of universal healthcare I would support is one where participants pay with their own taxes as a group, while the people who don't want any part of it don't have to and they can pay for their own health insurance if they want health insurance at all. Don't place that financial burden on anyone who doesn't want to benefit from it, the same can be said about the taxes used to pay the president, congress, the military, etc.

>>2616
Greed in itself is self serving, you don't go through college thinking "I can't wait for 33% of my salary to be stolen from me to pay for soykaf that I don't benefit from or even want to begin with." You think, I'm going to bust my ass to land myself a good job so I don't have to start out making only $50k a year at best. You want to make the most money you can to spend or invest it however you want, you earn it. Nothing handed out for free is earned. You aren't entitled to anything simply because you exist.

>>2617
That's some top-notch rationalization.

>>2617
>taxation is rape
>>2618
>$50k a year is bad

There are some really privileged fucks on this forum.

>>2618
in all sincerity, I've never understood why people need money after a certain point, for personal uses. I have intermittently held paid jobs, (never making nearly 20k yearly, let alone 50k) and have seriously more money than I know what to do with.

Does 'greed' drive other people? If its a main motivator among people in general I fear I may seriously misunderstand humanity, but somehow I think there are more people like me.

>>2620
No kidding. It's straight-up manchild (or womanchild) behaviour. They're acting like toddlers pitching a fit because they don't want to share their toys.

>>2621
Hate to break it to you bro, but yeah you seriously misunderstand humanity. If you have more money than you know what to do with, then you're just unimaginative.

>>2614
>So, think about how much they would increase their prices for healthcare if the tax payers had to cover it.
Again, such healthcare arrangement exists in the real world. I have no idea why you refuse to look at it.

>>2617
I would like to add this entirely removed from the topic of the thread, or even your post; just grab this idea and chew on it a bit:
>My personal beliefs should not be imposed on anyone else, nor should anyone else's beliefs be imposed on others. […] Live and let live. You don't have to agree with someone to live cohesively.
This is itself a belief that some people are trying to force on others. What I say might seem like sophistry, but realize that some people do not want part of a peaceful, cooperative world where everyone is respected and nobody gets forced to do anything.
That would be a world desired by people who have been forced into stuff a lot; but also a boring one for those who are not yet scarred by this phenomenon. Eventually, people would rather want to fight for themselves and get hurt than live in a world where fighting for anything at the cost of other, opposing goals isn't really allowed by state and society.

It sucks to lose or be a minority. It's boring when everything is equal. People need to win things, and that can only happen if some people are losing somewhere. No, you can't always make it a win-win; people need loss too. They can take some loss, they can take some change, and make some effort to become the winner. If anything, the idea that there should be a system which fucking annihilates anyone who tries to force anything anywhere, is the kind of force nobody wants.

Sometimes, personal beliefs should be imposed. Sometimes, you shouldn't live or let live.
Okay so that's it. Come on thread, impose some stuff on me ;)

>>2634
What you think is "boring" or not has little to do with a functioning economic system.

>>2641
false, boredom is a more integral part of humans and humanity than functioning economic systems; the latter which doesn't really exist without humans, or some other equivalent theoretical race, which probably also require boredom to reach levels of culture and sophistication where functioning economic systems can happen.

but if you're too down-to-earth smartass to comprehend that, just think about how much business boredom generates which in turn creates degenerates like you ~

>>2646
>false
how about:
>i disagree
?
let's be civil
丁寧になりましょう！

>>2647
Okay, but effort is a requirement of civility. I'm mostly insulting the lack of effort.

>>2646
> dat rage fit

Perhaps I should have specified, what you PERSONALLY find boring. You, out of billions of people on the planet. Your emotions alone are not a basis for an economic system.

>>2620
>mentions '""""'privilege"""""
>brings nothing of value to discussion
Ask me how I know you're leftist trash.
The best part about all this is that the concept of privilege is entirely irrelevant to >>2618 's desire to make more money and set high standards for themselves. This recurring theme of bashing people who do better, or merely even want to do better, is very clearly indicative of a potent strain of jealousy rooted in insecurity- and it seems to be shared across most everyone who thinks this way.
>TL;DR
leftists are emotional children who can't bring logic to an argument, and their opinions should be discarded as such.
It's like arguing with a woman.

>>2648
>Okay, but effort is a requirement of civility. I'm mostly insulting the lack of effort.
If you're not willing to put in the effort, and they're not either, everyone will just end up yelling insults at eachother.
It's good to be the bigger person in this case.


>>2667
>Ask me how I know you're leftist trash.
>leftists are emotional children who can't bring logic to an argument, and their opinions should be discarded as such.

Can we please be a bit less vitriolic?
you make good points between the insults.
the more insulting you are, the harder it is to take you seriously.

>>2605
If one day a financial tragedy happens to you and those around you that could help you I guarantee that you wouldn't have that "It's all about me, fuck everyone else" attitude. I hope that doesn't happen though. Wouldn't wish it on anyone. But it probably wouldn't be all that bad for the sake of increasing your humanity (or beginning to build it?)

>>2618
actually you are entitled to some things simply due to existing.. lots of them are described in detail on the humans right treaty and surpisingly the right to life is one of them

>>2668
Okay!

>>2618
I disagree, among some of the things we are guaranteed inherently by existing are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Like what >>2671 said.

read stalin

>>2674
Read Bookchin.

just gonna chime in to say that ubi isnt, and never will be "socialism." socialism is workers owning the means of production. equal distribution of wealth is a side effect.