I had an interesting conversation with my aunt yesterday.. shes from the UK but decided to live in teh USSR in 1989 for about 2 years...

@Deleted User Regardless, the american government wont nationalize anything, it would set a dangerous precedent

she said most of the shops were basically empty shelves, so she would stock up for winter on things like rice etc...

CreativeRealms I believe they would probably do what the Commander in Chief tells them to. 😃

@Blackhawk342 Having goverment run media isn't a bad thing it just depends on who is in the goverment.

but although she knew in the back of her mind it was sort of a worry that she might starve to death or might not be able to escape and get back to england... mainly in her day to day it would be trivial things that she would worry about

Exactly, id rather put my faith in individuals than the government

The mass media isn't a individual it's a organization.

Wacka im sure youve heard the story about Yestlin's visit to the US

It's made up of individuals but it's still a organization.

How he wanted to visit a supermarket but insisted on picking one at random because he thought the US would intentionally stock it to give the apperance of prosperity

I think she said it was gorbachov in charge when she was there... could be wrong on that

https://blog.chron.com/thetexican/2014/04/when-boris-yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-clear-lake/

but it was just interesting that she was more worried about trivial things like... watering plants and things than the likely possibility of starving to death

The Soviet Union only did well when they started to libarlize the economy from a planned economy to a mixed economy.

yeah she came back towards the end of the USSR so she sort of got to see a little change.. I guess it was probably even worse before she went

Yes you are right, gorb was in charge but yelstin was still in government

capitalism isn't the answer to everything

but its' the best thing we have

where a human's natural selfishness can benefit others

because not everyone can do it alone

so capitalism is the purist form of tit-for-tat

With regards to the history of the Soviet economy at frist it was mostly between free enterprise in the country and full on planned economy. The free enterprise period lasted untill 1926 when the Soviet Union reached pre-war levels of output so then they went full on planned economy which did help industrialize the place but after that the economy grow so quickly that it couldn't be managed any more so it fell apart.

Capitalism isn't the answer to everything?

No wonder Jeopardy didn't call me back

you know what I mean assjack 😛

😂

In a world where human labor is still required to meet basic needs and unpredictable acts of nature can cause unplanned rearrangement of vast ammounts of resources, some form of capitalism is the best we have

@LotheronPrime I think mixed economics are the best system because it still allows free enterprise while still preventing full on mass consumerism.

whats wrong with consumerism though?

I mean, what horror exists in people using money they earned to buy things they want?

and don't say the environment

because public demand has already shifted in favor of not fucking the environment

and corporations responded with their "green initatives"

I think mass consumerism falls apart with mass automation.

mass automation will never be a thing in a way people thing doom and gloom will be

public demand is anything you staple as "a good cause"

think of all the things that weren't automated 100s of years ago and have been for a while and haven't really had an affect

cuz last i checked, LA, the corner stone of "we must do good at all costs" in the west is still full of smog, and combustable engine cars

there will always be soemthing new

@Dr.Wol having just consumerism provides no meaning in life and it leads to people thinking that only profit matters.

I don't see it as a zero sum game

I think when we get better with AI we will start seeing jobs like Pilots, and burger flippers, and grocery store cashiers, etc. going away.