Delta: I was not talking about AI when I said that.  That was a part of the healthcare example.  If you are commanded to turn over a percentage of your income to another person, and in the context of constitutional rights a corporation is "an individual citizen within the law", then you have been enslaved to that person or corporation.  They effectively own whatever percentage of you that you have been commanded to give them for the rest of your life.  I am not against a better healthcare system, I need healthcare on a fairly regular basis, what I am against is enslaving the people being the price for that.

Everyone: Communism is so confusing because there has been a massive effort across the world for about exactly 100 years now to make it confusing.  Communism is a form of government.  It is one of only three basic forms of government known to mankind.  It is the "new, progressive" form of government.  It arose in the wake of the age of kings, as an alternative to having a king or being a republic.  It draws people in with its Utopian vision of perfectly fair and equal society.  In reality, it just creates a new kind of king.  Those in power keep all the money, and the people literally starve to death.  That's the reality of how it works out in the end, every single time so far.

ChaosEngine: This is the exact subject matter of the PDU timeline from the formation of the earth up to 1989.  You'd be surprised at how many revelations about history jump out at you when you put it all into the order that it happened.  And I really do have a unique perspective of the true nature of Soviet intelligence, from someone who actually knew the true nature of Soviet intelligence.  If you really want to know about the true nature of the Soviet Union, and most people don't have any idea what that actually is, then you would find it interesting.  I am not trying to explain that here, because you really have to start with ancient history and work up to it for it to make sense too you.  The history taught in schools about the Soviet Union today is mostly nonsense, and Soviet intelligence is a far more massive thing than most believe it too be.  Soviet/Russian intelligence is the most powerful force on this planet, and this has been the case almost since the inception of the Soviet Union.

20 minutes ago, Kavik Kang said:

 

Everyone: Communism is so confusing because there has been a massive effort across the world for about exactly 100 years now to make it confusing.  Communism is a form of government.  It is one of only three basic forms of government known to mankind.  It is the "new, progressive" form of government.  It arose in the wake of the age of kings, as an alternative to having a king or being a republic.  It draws people in with its Utopian vision of perfectly fair and equal society.  In reality, it just creates a new kind of king.  Those in power keep all the money, and the people literally starve to death.  That's the reality of how it works out in the end, every single time so far.

So anarchist/stateless communism isn't communism? And nothing that I mentioned in my post is communism?

What is it, then?

1 hour ago, mikeman said:

>>That isn't actually relevant.  A republic is a government formed of elected representatives of the people.  Slavery has nothing to do with it.

It is entirely relevant. If a Republic is a government formed of elected repesentatives of the people, then, by definition, African Americans, for the longest time, lived in the United States of America but did not live in a Republic. Their owners lived in a Republic, but not them.

They did live in a republic, they just were not free.  It's a good thing that the republican party formed as the anti-slavery party, and Lincoln freed them, isn't it?  And wasn't it even better that, about 100 years later, Dwight Eisenhower came along and was finally able to overcome and defeat the democrat party of the KKK and even give African Americans equal civil rights within the law?  He couldn't get it past those pesky democrats himself, but he was able to enlarge the problem, and hand Dr. King the football.  We should all thank the republicans for defeating the democrats on that one, shouldn't we?

Oberon: What that is, is the economic system that emerged within the Soviet Union.  It really is far more simple that Soviet intelligence has managed to confuse it into appearing over the last 100 years.  There are only three basic forms of government known to mankind.  If it's not a republic, and it's not a king... then it is communism.  What else could it be?  Socialism... Progressives... the Russians know that communism is a bad word.  They all just mean communism.  They don't want a republic, they don't want a king... there is only one choice remaining.

2 hours ago, ChaosEngine said:

Without reading his reply.... I'm going to bet large amounts of money that it's

"well if you read my 50000 pages of argle bargle kersplunk.... "

/checks

 

Hey, whaddya know.

Looks like there's a history here haha. I should've known

1 hour ago, Kavik Kang said:

Delta: I was not talking about AI when I said that.  That was a part of the healthcare example.  If you are commanded to turn over a percentage of your income to another person, and in the context of constitutional rights a corporation is "an individual citizen within the law", then you have been enslaved to that person or corporation.  They effectively own whatever percentage of you that you have been commanded to give them for the rest of your life.  I am not against a better healthcare system, I need healthcare on a fairly regular basis, what I am against is enslaving the people being the price for that.

By that definition, just about every kind of taxation is basically slavery. Clearly that's not the case.

1 hour ago, Kavik Kang said:

Everyone: Communism is so confusing because there has been a massive effort across the world for about exactly 100 years now to make it confusing.  Communism is a form of government.  It is one of only three basic forms of government known to mankind.  It is the "new, progressive" form of government.  It arose in the wake of the age of kings, as an alternative to having a king or being a republic.  It draws people in with its Utopian vision of perfectly fair and equal society.  In reality, it just creates a new kind of king.  Those in power keep all the money, and the people literally starve to death.  That's the reality of how it works out in the end, every single time so far.

ChaosEngine: This is the exact subject matter of the PDU timeline from the formation of the earth up to 1989.  You'd be surprised at how many revelations about history jump out at you when you put it all into the order that it happened.  And I really do have a unique perspective of the true nature of Soviet intelligence, from someone who actually knew the true nature of Soviet intelligence.  If you really want to know about the true nature of the Soviet Union, and most people don't have any idea what that actually is, then you would find it interesting.  I am not trying to explain that here, because you really have to start with ancient history and work up to it for it to make sense too you.  The history taught in schools about the Soviet Union today is mostly nonsense, and Soviet intelligence is a far more massive thing than most believe it too be.  Soviet/Russian intelligence is the most powerful force on this planet, and this has been the case almost since the inception of the Soviet Union.

Dude, I think I speak for most people here when I say this: no one is going to read a 300 page novel pertaining to video game lore (however you define it, it's still 300 pages, and it still has to do with a game) for an Internet forum discussion on the effects of automation on economics and the future. And, frankly speaking, if you have to go back to the Stone Age to define Communism, an ideology that wasn't properly defined until a guy called Karl Marx came along in the 1800s, I'm not really sure I want to know your answer then.

And your continued repetition of only 3 forms of government existing is demonstrably incorrect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_forms_of_government

In any event, others can continue as they wish to debate Kavik Kang, I'm not interested in doing so.

What I would be very interested in hearing is if anyone feels there are alternative scenarios with automation not already mentioned. I've basically in depth argued about what I see as a very viable future. Do others feel there are other types of automation integration that could potentially work as well?

41 minutes ago, Kavik Kang said:

There are only three basic forms of government known to mankind. 

You keep making this claim. Please cite a source to support it.

Oberon: Much like a pure democracy, "anarchist communism" is merely a potential stepping stone to communism.  It would most often mean that Soviet intelligence had nearly succeeded in bringing that country into their sphere of influence.  As John F Kennedy said, and he was thinking of the global activities of Soviet intelligence when he said it... "Things don't happen, things are made to happen."

Delta: Taxation is money collect by the government, for use by the government, through the procurement procedures of congress.  That is an entirely different thing than government ordering one citizen to give another citizen their property.  It is a completely different thing.

As for reading the Armageddon Chess and Territories timelines, if this history doesn't interest you than don't read it.  If you'd like a perspective of the Soviet Union that originates with one of the founding fathers of the American intelligence community, then you might find it interesting.  The political landscape of this planet is not what it appears too be.

"History is a set of lies agreed upon." - Napoleon Bonaparte

As for there only being three basic forms of government, this is very obviously true if you follow the evolution of people governing themselves from the dawn of history until now.  That takes quite a bit of writing to do, and is a primary subject of the early PDU timeline.  It is available for you to read, but if you don't want to read it then don't read it.

Ok, so if there are only 3 basic forms of government, which one Russia follows today? Do you think Russia still has communism?

3 hours ago, Oberon_Command said:

So anarchist/stateless communism isn't communism? And nothing that I mentioned in my post is communism?

What is it, then?

I don't think Kavik is able to make any distinction between "communist" and "Russian". Communist means being in the sphere of influence of Russia, nothing more. As he already said, nothing has changed since the fall of the Soviet Union, except that Russia has lost its "colonies"(meaning non-russian members of the USSR like Ukraine and satellite nations like Chezchoslovakia and East Germany). In other words, "communism" is fancy word for "Russian spydom".

For children of the Cold War like him, it's always been the Russians and it will always be the Russians.

16 minutes ago, mikeman said:

I don't think Kavik is able to make any distinction between "communist" and "Russian". Communist means being in the sphere of influence of Russia, nothing more.

For children of the Cold War like him, it's always been the Russians and it will always be the Russians.

Never mind that there are communists that broke from the Soviet sphere of influence and became rivals or at least non-aligned, like Communist Yugoslavia (which started the non-aligned movement!) and Maoist China.

Yeah, I'm getting a distinct early-mid '60s Cold War worldview vibe off some of these posts. Geopolitics is (and was always) more complicated than "Domino theory" and "containment." Those of us who were born/grew up after the Berlin Wall fell haven't had that kind of worldview ingrained in them - we have a post-Cold War viewpoint, where we have the benefit of hindsight and everything is a lot less black and white as a result.

I wonder how many people would be willing to join a major company as an equal shareholder for the purpose of mining, fabrication, land management, scientific research, and the deployment of advanced robotics to minimize costs.

Now imagine that sale of shares are banned, all shareholders have a single equal share, but all children are grandfathered in with a new share created for them, and any share is closed upon death of its holder.

As a member you would be entitled to part of the over all production of the company based on a points system, (and a vote for various management and core decisions) and production itself is focused based on shareholder requests. If you change your mind on something, like not wanting the boat you bought with your share of points, or rather trade your old computer in for a newer model, you can take stuff to a company resale outlet in exchange for a few points to reuse. If you take on duties within the company you also get some extra points to spend.

But I'm personally rather confused... where exactly does the bit where the CEO starts murdering people naturally begin?