: Perhaps you remember a little social experiment a few years back. I seemed like a good idea at the time, yet in the end, it blew up in the faces of those who said it would work. What was that called? Hmmm, I can't seem to remember. Oh, let's see, could it have been the Soviet Union? That's right, now I remember.Funny, I could have sworn it was called "Reaganomics". Maybe you're right, on the other hand - you couldn't call Mad Ron "social" by any yardstick.
Hmm. "Soviet Union"... The only thing I can think of was a totalitarian state set up in Eastern Europe at the end of WWI that fell prey to the heirarchical nature of the power base in it (i.e. the bosses creamed off the profits for themselves, as usually happens in capitalist systems).
: Communism, Socialism, Marxism, what ever you want to call it, just doesn't work. It has been proven.
That's an impressively sweeping statement, of a size inversely proportional to the number of neurons that fired to produce it.
Firstly, each of the terms defines a separate ideology. Ask Ashley.
(go ahead, make his day...)
Secondly, not even the most incompetent of scientists would say that the results of a single flawed experiment "proved" or "disproved" a theory.
Thirdly, your tone would suggest that it does not work not because of any failing on its own part, but merely because you disagree with it. Sorry, you're no more important than any of us.
: Humans are selfish and greedy by nature, it can't be changed.
Again, spoken with all the force and conviction of a deity. I bow to your superior wisdom; your immense brain has obviously examined in depth every possible future for the entire human race.
: An econimic system must be designed that can accomodate the needs of the human race.
An economic system must be designed that can accommodate the needs of the entire planet. Not one that accommodates the whims of the richest 10% for about 250 years before destroying the planet's life-bearing weave. Oh, for your information, the 250-year glut started about 220 years ago.
: Capitalism is the best system that we have tried. On paper communism looks good.
Actually, on paper, Das Kapital is one of the most forbiddingly large books you're ever likely to find. It's also very difficult to read.
On the surface, capitalism looks and feels good in the same way cocaine does - and look at the long term physical effects of cocaine.
: But when it is acctually applyed to the real world using real people, it back fires.
Oh bollocks, another simpleton who thinks that "the real world" is the attitudes and intolerances they got fed from birth, and uses that poisonous little phrase to attack any new idea they don't agree with.
Define "The Real World".
The "real" world, as I understand it, is a rocky satellite of a middle-of-the-road star and is host to various carbon-based life forms. These life forms exist in a balance, such that harmful materials are processed out of the system. If one species becomes dominant and produces enough in the way of toxins, the balance may well change.
We don't know what it will do. It may change the balance to cope with the pollutants the species (humanity) is producing. Which will make life difficult, in that human-produced pollutants are, on the whole, harmful to humans. Alternatively, the balance could shift to eradicate the polluting species entirely, producing a species extinction, if you subscribe to Lovelock's theories.
Human nature is not "real" in any conventional sense. Human pollution is. Guns are a more immediate threat to me than divine retribution.
Gideon.
