Technology
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
view the rest of the comments
This is always the goal of capitalism, no need to give it some alternative name on order to white wash the brand.
The answer is Democratic socialism. It's our stuff they're stealing, we can take it back.
Capitalism isn’t a form of government the way democratic socialism is? But to your point, even Adam Smith realized the problems with a legal and governmental system that is controlled by corporations to be a terrible idea. He was well aware that profit motives without limit leads to mistreatment of individuals.
Yes, I'm not implying capitalism is a form of government. I'm saying the form of government best suited to containing the excesses of capitalism is Democratic socialism.
I’d like to think most democracies would enact some socialist policies if there was less money involved in politics… but I’m not sure what the best way to prevent that is.
You can craft laws but the legal system is also profit driven. And you’d need some way to either prevent corruption or get the motivations to line up correctly. But I can’t think of any practical solutions that also align with freedoms.
My perspective is that the larger the organization is, the more likely it'll get a carve-out in the law. The more complex the law, the more carve-outs special interests get.
So making more laws isn't the solution here, we should be striving to make simpler laws. For example, instead of a complex system of carbon emissions standards for vehicles based on type, just charge a carbon tax that approximates the cost of removing that carbon. The former gave us massive SUVs because they're regulated as light trucks instead of passenger cars (so they have lighter regulations), the latter would encourage higher efficiency without a slew of regulations.
That's the preferred solution imo.
A lot of leftists look at government as the hammer to solve problems. Sometimes that's the right approach, but often it's not.
What seems to work consistently is to make bad things expensive/criminal. If people die due to negligence (e.g. irresponsible cost cutting), put anyone involved in jail. If the payoff is higher than the penalty for bad behavior, increase the penalty.
Yeah it would be nice if we could simplify instead of add a bunch of special cases.
However it’s easier said than done. In your example for carbon tax, how do you determine the cost of removing carbon? Does creating a new solar/wind power plant count? Does increasing efficiency in an existing home count? What’s the difference between that and just paying for carbon capture? This is what the carbon offset economy was supposed to be about but it’s ultimately difficult to implement correctly and inherently full of complexities. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try, but it’s really hard to simplify some things.
I think there’s evidence to show that even though punishments may be heavy, if the chance of getting caught is low people will still do it. So that means you’d need to increase surveillance and enforcement which comes with it’s own issues.
Estimate. Start with a low estimate for the social cost of carbon and see how the market reacts. At the same time, we can provide grants for carbon sequestration projects, but no subsidies for categories of solutions.
No, solar/wind would also pay a carbon tax based on their manufacturing processes, though that would be a lot less than fossil fuel generation.
I'm not a fan of subsidies since those encourage "creative accounting," and instead prefer simple, quantitative penalties.
No, the carbon offset economy was supposed to be a way to allow creative accounting to limit responsibility.
If an org wants to install renewables to offset some of their energy use, then they need to actually use the energy to offset their energy use, not just tally it up. I don't care about generation numbers, I care about tons of CO2 and other emissions.
Right, so increase the chance that cheaters will get caught. Set default emissions numbers to a high (but reasonable) number based on worst case estimates, and require orgs to prove they're emitting less. Do it for all imports and domestic industries alike so it's fair.
Then randomly audit after approval. If companies get caught, fine and revert to the high estimate until they prove they've fixed their accounting (perhaps after some number of years of correct reports). This should be highly automatable, and I'm guessing most domestic orgs already have high quality numbers.
That's a really simple solution since there's no complex adjustments based on local offsets, just number of tons emitted. The only tricky business is sequestration, and orgs would need to prove it's actually sequestered.
Yeah sure… it worked great for Chile. Unless there is a wave of democratic socialism all over the western world, specially the US, all at the same time, it’ll just be squashed by fascism backed by the US and friends.
The only real solution that has worked before is a communist revolution. Like it or not.
Democratic socialism is run by capitalism. Sweden is actually more capitalist than America.
Social democracy is a system that is completely different from democratic socialism. SocDems are capitalists, DemSocs are absolutely not.
Also the Netherlands is still very much capitalistic while having much more protections for their citizens.
This isn’t a blanket “capitalism bad”, it’s the fact we allowed our country to be bought out by capitalism.
Hell I am a Republican and I think we have given corporations too much power. I am not opposed to wealthy people or billionaires or whatever. What I am against is the companies running the show and having undue influence over the government. People like Zuckerberg have way to much power over the government and that isn't good.
I used to be against heavy regulations but we have gone to the other extreme of too little regulations. Things like outsourcing jobs to other countries, building all our crap in China, union smashing, etc all should be stopped. A strong middle class is important to the success of the country. Most of these companies are built on a house of cards and need more regulation to keep the economy safe. I hate the term too big to fail because we shouldn't let any company get that large. I am tired of all the mergers that lead to layoffs, higher prices, and less choice.
I am tired of my insurance being tied to my employer. I am tired of forced arbitration agreements. While I have never been laid off, I am tired of the mass layoffs. Companies should be forced to pay 1 year of severance to anyone laid off. I am tired of executives of companies milking the company for their benefit. Boards are not held accountable.
The problem isn't capitalism but human nature. We see it in every type of government or economic system. People get greedy and jack crap up. I want companies to make a profit, that is how to fund our retirement systems but I don't want it done in a way that destroys the company long term or causes thousands to lose their jobs.
While I have many benefits from my job, as a nation, we don't even have mandatory vacation, sick days, etc.
It's the same picture.
If you're against people like Zuckerberg. You're against billionaires etc. If you're not against billionaires you're not against people like Zuckerberg. You just want one you agree with. Musk maybe?
If only we knew who pushed for, and funded this. I mean it absolutely was not the wealthy or chad billionaires. They're just good honest bros. They wouldn't use that vast wealth to manipulate and lie to us.
Guess who. Guess who. Those things are in the vested interest of the wealthy and especially billionaires. Though they would never leave themselves subject to them.
Oof, cognitive dissonance wins again. Capitalism that isn't so tightly regulated that it struggles to exist. Only reinforces and encourages the worst of human behavior. They're both a problem. Together they're a perfect storm. Literally every one of your complaints can be directly attributed to your voting habits. (If you are truly Republican) You've enabled it all. (So have Democrats to a much lesser extent) And still stick with identifying as the problem. Note, I'm not saying Democrats are the solution. Slightly better problem perhaps. But certainly not a solution as they currently exist. But friend, you really need to work through the cognitive dissonance and indoctrination issues. In the end you will thank yourself if you do. And that's what matters right?
Not at all. Have you ever been to a communist country? You see the same thing but on a worse scale. Lots of poverty and the small wealthy group. Capitalism isn’t the issue. Had you left your moms basement you’d know that.
No. Communist countries don't exist. There are ML countries. And yes, they're as problematic as the unregulated capitalism countries.
Capitalism is an issue. Has been for over 100 years. As has Lenin's malformed ideologies for almost the last 100.
You should stop digging for antiques in your mom's basement. Before projecting on to others.
I was sincere in advising you to address your cognitive dissonance.
I bet you say all this unironically in your head while wearing a Che shirt.
I don't have any cognitive dissonance. Thank you very much.
Lenin, look how great that turned out.
Ever heard of libertarian socialism? It's the OG kind of libertarianism and is great for those who aren't all that into cognitive dissonance.
Careful, that's another antique. And no. I don't wear my politics in any way. And would definitely not wear anything with Guevara as I have rather strong ideological differences with him.
At this point I'm inclined to agree. You seem insincere and more concerned with poor attempts at unsuccessful trolling.
I agree. You can even check my post history as I've effectively said the exact same thing elsewhere. Today even. I just have actually valid, non hypothetical criticism to offer regarding it.
I am very sincere and you ignored what I stated to focus on talking about me rather than the topic. Not only is that trollish but it ignores the topic.
Maybe you should learn to play the ball instead of trying to play the person. Do you disagree with anything I said above?
You claimed Democrats banned books in another post. I asked you which ones. You replied to many other posts since then. But not that one. It's almost like your hypocritically projecting again.
Why does matter which ones? How strange.
https://www.newsweek.com/when-it-comes-banning-books-both-right-left-are-guilty-opinion-1696045
https://abcnews.go.com/US/conservative-liberal-book-bans-differ-amid-rise-literary/story?id=96267846
Anyone who self-identifies as a Republican at this point in time is either delusional or psychotic. Full stop.