Complaint the second: All men are created equal is a pernicious lie. Human beings are created unequal, both as individuals and as breeding populations. Innate individual and group differences matter a lot. Denying this is one of the Cathedrals largest and most damaging lies. The bad policies that proceed from it are corrosive of civilization and the cause of vast and needless misery.
BULLSHIT! Social Darwinism isnt only morally wrong; it doesnt even perform the function it claims to perform: fostering real competition!
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Although such moral objections are clearly relevant, the most devastating counterargument to the Cachet of the Cutthroat is that it is simply wrong. Both the social and natural sciences have conclusively demonstrated that ostensibly softer and fuzzier qualities in people and the communities they engendercompassion, goodwill, and above all empathyare integral to sustainable success, particularly in complex organizations, but even in nature at its rawest and bloodiest. By fostering social cohesion and solidarity against adversity, such attributes paradoxically make us more, not less, competitive as individuals and as a society.
Please don't attribute a quote to me that was a quote of Eric S. Raymond.
If you know Eric at all, you would know it is impossible that he would argue against the values of cooperation, helpful reputation, and the gift culture of sharing in an Inverse Commons:
http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/magic-cauldron/magic-cauldron-2.htmlhttp://www.catb.org/esr/writings/magic-cauldron/magic-cauldron-5.htmlRather Eric's point is the Dark Enlightenment is against government claiming to be able to enforce equality, which is of course unnatural, impossible, and entirely corrupt.
One day I will need to take the time to real all of Marx to understand how he ostensibly transitioned from a correct statement of reality in the Preface to such a horrific killing field of Communism.
He did not, by and large. At least not in the way that Communism is understood today. Communism, for him, was just a philosophical concept, some kind of evolutionary (end?-) point of humanity in the future that would happen naturally (tribes -> feudalism -> capitalism -> communism) (see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism). The utopian kind communism is not an authoritarian system, it's rather that people would voluntary follow the lifestyle of *from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs*, as they would finally realize they can be freed from the coercion of capital, money, and property. Essentially a world where the provision of all basic needs (and beyond) is automated by robots/computers anyway, and workers have to contribute very little, if at all.
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Ah so then Marx (and Godwin's concept of technological change solving the problem over time) is nearly congruent with my concept of where we are headed in a Knowledge Age in the sense that capital will naturally be held by those who are able to actively create knowledge. And near zero margin tangible resource costs relative in value to the knowledge production of the economy.
If your taxi driver happens to need a wheel bearing for his car...
What is need? Aspiration to possession...
Communists eliminate needs by removing demand, i.e. killing fields. Mao exterminated some 50+ million.
Knowledge Age capitalists eliminate needs by producing more technology which empowers individuals to produce individually and satiate their needs.