Sounds reasonable.

And of course, that we as a society decide to 'value' the rarity of some guy who can juggle his balls well is an entirely political deicison - — StreetlightX

People value entertainment. Sports are just one example of that. There are other highly profitable entertainers. You can say all you want that they shouldn't get paid more than a school teacher or janitor, but people are still going to go sell out concerts and watch celebrities perform.

Considering that the NBA was among the first industries shut down as being entirely superfluous in the wake of COVID, — StreetlightX

The current situation is temporary. Sports will resume being played within a few months. One would hope a socialist revolution is aiming for a longer term solution.

we can well afford not to waste gargantuan sums of money on, effectively, an entirely useless activity — StreetlightX

That's your value judgement. Millions of sports fans disagree. I wonder if you feel the same way about music.

one that operates at the expense of others. — StreetlightX

You mean provides employment. One wonders how some of those wage slaves feel about not being able to go to work during C-19.

But they get to make that decision; someone else doesn't get to make it for them all. — Pfhorrest

Back to the factory example. Say I decide to start a business. I purchase the land, have the building constructed, and buy the equipment. So now I offer you $25 an hour to operate the machinery. You say that you don't want to be a wage slave. I say, well that's what people get paid to work in other factories of this kind in this part of the world. You reply that you should share in the profits. Okay, so then I ask if you're willing to pay your share of the investment needed to get the business started, and take on that risk. If so, you can be part owner.

Is there something fundamentally wrong with that? What's the alternative? That the would-be employees all chip in to make the investment? Or that they take ownership as soon as I make my money back?

What's my incentive to start a business?

I'd be fine with that for sports leagues, given how the owners try to get the community to pay for their stadiums, and then move the team when the vote doesn't pass.

Except, this entire analysis is bullshit, as without janitors and warehouse employees and so on, the entire economy collapses, as has been the case with COVID. You may be at the game to watch Lebron James, but the possibility of seeing that game, at that scale, with those seats, is enabled by an entire underclass that undergrids your 'enjoyment'. — StreetlightX

You seem to miss the part where the skill of an NBA player or top engineer is rare, and people are willing to pay more for that. If everyone gets the same cut, then you've distorted the value of the market, and that's where shortages and starvation enter the picture.

In any case, the point is not to do away with work, but to work, if necessary, so that the benefits accrue to the workers, and not their employers. Hence the strategic goal of socialism: that workers own the means of production. — StreetlightX

Fine, so say Lebron James leads a socialist revolution in the NBA. The slave owners are pushed out and now the teams are owned by all the various employees. So they show up the next day to figure out how to divvy up the billions of profit. But the players want most of it because fans come to watch them play, not the janitor sweeping the floors or the trainer wrapping an ankle.

So are things that much different for most of the employees? The problem is there is a huge asymmetry in what work is valued. Fans and media value the players. They don't care about any of the supporting staff. Yeah, someone needs to be scanning tickets at the door, but who cares what they make? I'm here to watch Lebron and the Lakers.

That's more of an extreme example, but you can imagine that Amazon programmers would think they deserve a higher share than the warehouse workers, since they're writing the code the business runs on, and there's no shortage of people you can hire to work in a warehouse, unlike skilled engineers.

You could argue that the majority of the employees can just outvote the players and programmers, but because of the asymmetry of value and the shortage of skill, the programmers and players can shut the business down if they don't get what they want. They can start their own business. You can always hire more ticket scanners and forklift operators.

I thing people who are competent should be allowed to choose death (I'm a traditional Stoic, in this an other ways). That doesn't mean they have a right to do so. — Ciceronianus the White

What is the difference?

Or perhaps you would build a universe in your mind, develop language, and eventually end up reading posts on a philosophy forum? — JoeyB

Then you could refute Witty's private language argument, except nobody else would know.

I don't think a brain cut off from the senses would amount to anything coherent in thought or experience.

There's no perfect system, because humans are involved. And some humans will seek to be more equal than the others. It might be rich capitalists, but it could also be higher up communist party members with all the right connections. Under any system, there's always going to be scarcity of some kind that's desired. It could be land, social status, precious jewels, whatever. And there will always be people better able for whatever reason (moral or otherwise) to acquire those things.

But it cannot be realised under capitalism, because most people spend most of their day under somebody else's supervision and control - namely at work. Every day, they sell not only their labour power but also their autonomy for a certain number of hours. Thus, they lose freedom, which in turn means a loss of self-determination. — StreetlightX

Workers are free to start their own businesses, become contractors, seek other employment, or work their way up the ladder. According to Google there are 30.2 million small businesses. One would think that if capitalism was the great evil of the modern world that the North Korean people would be flourishing. But guess what? The communist party there has had to allow a black market to spring up because it can't quite provide for the needs of the people.

Meanwhile, the evil capitalism has raised the standard of living over the past couple centuries for many, while the number of overalll poor are decreasing as they're finally able to take advantage of global markets.

It's not a perfect system and needs various protections and corrections, but it sure beats the alternatives humans have come up with so far. But maybe the next Marxist revolution will work out and deliver on its promises.

At any rate, as schopenhaur1 posted while I was typing this, people are still going to have to do work under any economic system, and some of that work is undesireable. At least until the robots are ready to do all the work for us.

but all of a sudden, when it comes to strategies for increasing the sum-total of human liberation in the world, — StreetlightX

What does liberation mean in context of the first page discussion on freedom where you concluded:

Need to hit the sack but a quick comment: the exercise of force and coordination of power are the conditions of, and not constraints upon, the exercise of freedom. — StreetlightX

Organizing people to push for reforms and better deals sounds good. But the Marxist rhetoric tends to carry a certain baggage when it comes to past revolutions, some of it involving the "exercise of force and coordination of power".

I think its fields all the way down. But on our level, the ordinary stuff seems material enough to call it that. But certainly old fashioned materialism was lacking. Does modern materialism survive the revision from the breakthroughs in physics to retain the name, "materialism"? I don't know. I guess that's why people tend to prefer physicaliism.

The infinite set? If infinity is the set of all numbers, then infinity is a member, unless it's not a number.

Only to stop the goons from committing assault. — Pfhorrest

That has happened as well, like with union busting. But in this case the property now belongs to the workers, so the state needs to back that when some of the capitalists are unwilling to hand their former property over.

Who is "coming to take" anything from anyone in this scenario? — Pfhorrest

That scenario works. Other scenarios might require force, like collectivizing family farms. It has in the past. But going back to the factory. What if the factory owner hires a bunch of goons to guard the factory before the workers come in the next day to take ownership? Now the state has to step in and apply force.

Not everyone is gong to just hand their property over. Not everyone wants to join the revolution. They're fine being wage slaves at the factory. They don't even want to be in a union. So what to do with them? Force them to be good comrades?

Money facilitates trade, fundamentally, and says nothing of wants. Beyond the basics, our culture largly trains our wants. We don't have to want what we're trained to want. — praxis

But people have been trading for wants, like silk and spices, as long as groups lived near enough each other to exchange goods, or travel to other lands was possible. It's true we don't have to want what we're being advertised, but we do still want more than just the minimum to survive.

It's not difficult to believe in a country that already has a constitution protecting rights. Are we arguing over lower case socialism which reasonable compromises to soften the excesses and abuses of capitalism, or the full-on upper case socialism that sees capitalism as inherently bad and wishes to demolish it?

Freedom is freedom for those who think differently, to quote a socialist. Unless 100% of the community is in agreement, some sort of injustice or coercion has to occur in order to meet the wants and desires of socialist power. This internal contradiction seems to me why socialist plans always collapse. — NOS4A2

I hope socialists don't believe anything like that, but I worry that is the outcome, at least for the sort of Marxist revolutions we've seen. Theres is no such thing as 100% agreement, even among socialists. There are always people in the community who disagree. Either we respect their rights or we coerce them. Problem is that some communities don't value the right to disagree. Religious groups have certainly had this issue in the past.

I take it StreetlightX is not found of such options and is not in favor of utilizing the power of the state if it can be avoided. The question I'm raising though is how does freedom fall out of community arrangement when there are going to be people who disagree with those arrangements? The communist party answer has been to use the power of the state to force them. That's not a good choice for anarchists.

But still, the problem remains concerning what to do with those who don't agree? If the capitalist system is to be dismantled, then how do you get people to give up their capital in favor of a better arrangement? Not everyone is going to be willing to go along.

And if you want to shoot workers for striking or whatever, and you think that the problem with this scenario are workers, then so be it, I've nothing to say to you. — StreetlightX

I didn't say anything about shooting striking workers. I said defending my property in the hypothetical scenario if the community organizes to come take it for the common good, like has happened during certain Marxist revolutions in the past.

Point being what to do about those who don't agree with the way a community wishes to reorganize for the common good? Force them to go a long?

Good response. I can get behind that. I don't think natural rights exist on their own, but they're a desirable ideal to aim for based on, "the most fundamental drives and values that nearly all humans hold", to quote you.

I am hoping they China lead the world to understand that an amalgam between the benefits capitalism has to offer and the benefits socialism has to offer...is the best way to go. — Frank Apisa

Seems like the worst of both worlds. No thanks. China is authoritarian and highly conformist. If you're a Chinese minority, expect forced reeducation. If you criticize the government, expect jail time and a forced apology.

Northern Europe presents a much better balance.

But this comes back to what we mean by 'exist' in relation to numbers in a Platonic sense. What does 'exist' mean? — EnPassant

I don't know, but it's difficult to say that math is entirely made-up when it's so useful in scientific theories. Quantities of things exist, so does topography and function.

Not in the slightest - perhaps the central tenant of anarchist politics is mutual aid and communal organization, and perhaps the central cry of all leftist politics is: 'organize!' — StreetlightX

The problem here is what to do with the people who don't agree. Say I'm a farmer or business owner and you want to organize the community such that my capital is now the community's so I stop exploiting my workers. But I don't want that. So I get together with my other farmer or business friends and arm ourselves.

Now what are you going to do? Organize a larger armed force to overcome mine and take my capital away? Maybe you can convince my workers to strike long enough for me to give in, but what if I don't? Eventually that capital needs to be put to use, particularly if it's something like a farm.

Someone mentioned church. Let's say the community is rather zealous about their faith. But I'm not. Am I now compelled to observe the faith? Or is it just a happy coincidence that anarchists will not be zealots? Because there have certainly been communities in the past who were, and forced their members to comply.

And we can do that for anything a community organizes around. It seems to depend on the community being willing to respect the rights of its members. What if the community is racist or sexist? What if they don't like worshiping Allah or reading libertarian texts?

That's just disgusting. I wonder how many British tax payers were aware of this prior to 2015?

The question here is What does 'real' mean when we are talking about (what seem to be) abstractions? What does 'exist' mean in the context of numbers existing? — EnPassant

Setting side those never ending debates, what does it mean for a constructionist to be able to offer a proof for any conjecture involving an infinite sequence, such as any number greater than two is the sum of two primes?

In mathematics infinity is a set, such as Aleph Null, not a process. Infinity is not 'the biggest number' it is all numbers, together. — EnPassant

So how does a constructionist handle such a number? Do they deny that the set of all numbers is properly mathematical?

You're kidding, right? — TheMadFool

We are talking about alien invasions and Tom Cruise movies, so ...

Same goes with the Trump comment.

Yes, but doesn't it strike you as odd to sing praises about a, well, disease - something we were presumably trying to eradicate before the aliens showed up. Imagine what would've transpired after the aliens died. — TheMadFool

We'd come to appreciate the little buggers, and would be happy for Covid-19 getting us ready for the next round of invasion.

Plus, if we could, in a way, make friends with diseases, what does that tell you about human-human friendship? — TheMadFool

Depends on whether you voted for Trump or not, bro.

It was just ordinary bacteria and viruses that did the aliens in. Humans had already gained immunity from all the past deaths.

From the moment the invaders arrived, breathed our air, ate and drank, they were doomed. They were undone, destroyed, after all of man's weapons and devices had failed, by the tiniest creatures that God in his wisdom put upon this earth. By the toll of a billion deaths, man had earned his immunity, his right to survive among this planet's infinite organisms. And that right is ours against all challenges. For neither do men live nor die in vain. — IMDB

Of course Morgan Freemen does the narration at the beginning and end of the Tom Cruise movie.

Anther way to approach it that the rule "For every number, you can add one. to make a bigger number" is not generating all the numbers, but only the integers. We can find infinity by calculating 1 divided by 3 — Banno

Sure, but then you have the problem of how the .333 repeats forever. It can't already exist on the pain of Platonism, nor can it be generated by a rule.

It seems like you're having to step outside the rule to add something. And what is that? The idea of the rule repeating forever.

So then "infinity" means a rule that never ends, but can't be generated.

So the rule is that for every number, one can add one. The rule only generates one new number. One has to see the rule in a different way in order to understand infinity: imagine a number bigger than any number the rule could generate.. — Banno

We can do that, but does that work for construction? You're saying imagine a number bigger than any number the rule can construct.

But there's no such thing as a constructed sequence that doesn't end.

Aliens we could potentially unite against in a military fight. A disease is a different matter.

Interesting though that in the War of the Worlds it was disease that stopped the invading Martians.

But can be thought of as correlating with linear time, each step separated from the next by a short period of time. — jgill

Wouldn't that require time to be discrete?

Where do you think our sense of infinity comes from? It comes from us, i.e., finite beings, we create the concepts using finite signs. We extrapolate based on the continuation of 1,2,3.. that it goes on ad infinitum. There's no mystery here. — Sam26

However, since nobody is constructing the sequence ad infinitum, it can't be said to go on forever. So the question becomes how a constructionist can justify a concept of infinity if it's never constructed. Otherwise, one is granting the Platoniist's argument that the sequence already exists.

So in what sense does it mean to say that 1,2,3... goes on ad infinitum?

The speaker then goes on to say that diseases that can become pandemic would be very similar to an alien invasion since the entire globe is under siege if such events occur. The current coronavirus pandemic then should, if the video had a grain of truth in it, serve as uniting force for the world. — TheMadFool

If that were true, it would have happened already, since this isn't the first pandemic.

And the slave revolts making it a ludicrously costly investment. — fdrake

That too. Did you know France demanded that Haiti pay them 150 million francs for Haiti's successful revolution as compensation? How is a small country with a new government supposed to thrive with such massive debt? I wish someone strong enough at the time could have told France to fuck off.

how would you instead persuade a slaver or slave-owner that they violating natural rights? — VagabondSpectre

It would be difficult without force to do so, as history shows. But you would need to convince them that the slaves were human just as much as the slave owners. Maybe force isn't always necessary, since the British slave trade was eventually abolished by those who opposed it in Parliament.

The Gospel of Judas portrays Judas as the only one understanding the teachings of Jesus, and by betraying him, Judas was freeing Jesus from the flesh so he could return to the true Father.

A really interesting possibility that the biblical scholar Margaret Barker raises is that Gnosticism has it's roots in the pre-Jewish religion of Israel, and that it wasn't just importing the ideas of other religions into early Christianity.

The Gnostics and Paul have been misunderstood as incorporating pagan beliefs, instead of further evolving ideas already available in Jewish beliefs. It's the monotheists who deviated (reformed) the older religion.