Or, you know, someone who doesn’t immediately resort to complaining or accusing new people of ill-intent to employ intimidation… There is a big overlap of the two groups, isn’t there?
Thats “po-tay-to po-taa-to” if you have social anxiety to be fair. A bit like saying smart people instead of scientist.
Also one can have a phobia or struggle with the challenge phones have of being live audio without visual ques, without having any other anxiety for live socializing.
Ah i see what you mean, medically speaking you are indeed very correct but i feel like words like introversion (and even social anxiety) have grown allot in public use where they are understood beyond the stricter scope of a medical diagnosis.
I wont use semantics to argue actual science but i do often consider that scientific definitions can and do evolve just like language. I fit quite a few criteria and have more then one diagnosis, yet i experience nuance beyond the strict definitions. I know many social events that are draining, and some that give energy, Many social settings i have anxiety about, and some where i am confident.
Yeah so if your job involves a lot of social energy you might not have enough energy to make a bunch of phone calls. Like it’s a little hyperbolic, but if I have to do a lot of talking to contractors I’m taking a full half day because after that I am going to want to sleep.
Not to be rude, but I’m struggling to believe half the comments in this thread are legit. Do you really mean to tell me that Lemmy, a platform notoriously populated almost exclusively by anti-corporate tech people that really value FOSS and privacy –hence the reason why all of us are here instead of Reddit– has this many users thinking it is a remotely acceptable idea to pay for a Premium service for one of the most invasive companies online?
I think most of us understand the many underhanded techniques used by Google to achieve an almost monopolistic control of some aspects of the internet, but when talking about YouTube, suddenly all the logic is reduced to “if you use a service, pay for it, or else let them show you ads”?? what??? Also, what’s with comparing adblocking to stealing???
My own answer to the topic of this thread is that no, I won’t be paying for YouTube Premium anytime soon, possibly ever. Google has betrayed my trust many times in the past, and on top of that I don’t consider adverts as a legitimate source of income, so I will block any and all ads everywhere without paying an extra cent.
“But if you keep using their service, so you need to give them some form of revenue! Otherwise you just want free stuff!” I only keep using their service because Google has spent many years dumping on other platforms so that YouTube is –almost– the only platform that still exists where all the good creators are, so I will begrudgingly watch them on YouTube because there aren’t any options. But I will resist Google’s many insidious attempts to monetize me to the best of my ability while doing so.
That said, it’s really dishonest to claim that people who block ads on YouTube just want free stuff and don’t understand that services have a cost. Personally, I pay for Nebula because I do support the project and the creators involved. But YouTube won’t see a cent from me, not with my consent at least.
For me it’s a matter of practicality. I wouldn’t pay if I didn’t feel I had to. It’s easy to block ads on PC, sure. Other devices, less so. I could get a Pihole or similar but then iirc you have to basically be playing cat and mouse with Google ad domains and that just sounds like a headache.
Not everyone is on Lemmy because they’re anti-corporate, FOSS enthusiasts. For example, I came here because Reddit became a dumpster fire of unreasonable policies and very restrictive accessibility to the site. I simply will not install their app. Everything I’ve seen and heard about it is revolting. I’m certain I will hate it and I’m not going to bother trying at this point. Since a nontrivial amount of my time on Reddit was via an app, and that app no longer works, I’m just not going to use the service.
I like FOSS, and I support FOSS whenever I can, but I’m hardly anti corporate. The big G has tried and failed at getting monopoly status for most things. Arguably their most successful services are search, mail and YouTube.
Me, personally, I pay for Google’s services and share those benefits with my family. We have extra Google drive storage, YouTube music/YouTube premium, and all the benefits that come with that (I don’t recall all of them right now). One payment takes care of my entire household. So for less than $20/month we all enjoy all the benefits of those subscriptions. It comes out to less than $5/person/month.
I don’t blame anyone for not wanting those services. I certainly don’t hold that against them. I completely understand the viewpoint. YouTube is very aggressive about everyone having premium. I see ads on YouTube when I’m using it on my work PC for music or to look something up on there; because my personal Google account is not and will never be associated to my work PC. I see what it’s like “on the other side” so to speak. I can see how aggro their efforts are to get people to subscribe to premium. How invasive the ads have become, and how annoying it is to deal with all that. I get it.
I also don’t really hate Google for it. They want people to buy their premium service and they have taken steps to try to encourage that. I understand, but I don’t necessarily agree with their choices.
In my mind they’re not the most egregious offender for being anti consumer in their methodology. Good examples of anti-consumer behaviour is Netflix trying to put an end to account sharing, or Reddit’s API changes that basically kicked out a nontrivial number of its users for seemingly no good reason. There’s plenty more anti consumer actions from other companies that I can point to that are far worse than what YouTube is doing.
In my mind, Google has supported FOSS more than most big tech companies. Android, at it’s core is FOSS, built on Linux. Chrome is based on chromium, which is FOSS as well. There’s numerous other examples of Google supporting FOSS. Sure, they have their own versions of that integrate Google services into the products and provide extra features on top of what the FOSS versions do. But I can’t think of any company that even comes close to the support of FOSS that Google has. In my mind they’re simply not the worst offender. They’re not innocent, but not the worst.
That’s my opinion though and it’s just one of many possible opinions. Far be it for me to impose my opinion on anyone else. If you want to distrust Google and use FOSS things instead, that’s fine. It’s your choice. If you agree but still don’t want to pay them for premium, that’s okay too. Or if you want to drink the Kool-aid and pay for all of their services, that’s also your choice.
I don’t hate you. I’m sure there are plenty more that feel similarly.
I also feel like there is a nontrivial number of people who could not possibly care less; and as always, a silent majority of people who are simply lurking, who express their voice through voting only. (Special shout out to all the lurkers. You’re awesome)
It’s all personal choice and the opinion expressed in the OP is just that, an opinion. Same as me. I can only express my opinion. If that upsets people, then I’m sorry for that. I’m not going to change my opinion to gratify someone else in their opinion or position. If anyone wishes to have a discussion about why they think my position is not properly informed or wrong in their eyes, then that’s fine. I can engage in conversation about it, but at the end of the day, I make my choices, you make yours, and everyone else makes theirs. My decision to pay for YT premium doesn’t really affect anyone but me, and Google.
I started using nebula which costs $30/year (discounted price, easy to get). It has some of the YouTube creators, shares revenue with them, has no ads, and isn’t google.
Sure it has a fraction of the YouTube content, but there’s more new stuff there every day than I could watch. And it isn’t toxic like YouTube.
I’m only here because Reddit pissed me off. I toss money toward my instance and I’d be fine tossing a few bucks per month to YouTube if it meant no ads.
See my other comment. I also noted a lot of the accounts that promote YouTube premium, are less than a week old. So there is suspicion of trolling or astroturfing
I’ve been riding an old “premium” subscription from the introduction of Google Play Music (or whatever it was called) years ago when it was introduced, for like $3/month. Seemed like a reasonable deal to me.
They did just (finally) jack the price up on me, though, so as soon as i get some free time i’m canceling.
Most of the people I know who plan to vote for him think of that as a good thing. It’s the whole “drain the swamp” thing that he’s been rallying people behind for years; they think bad actors in the government are trying to hold Trump down, and him being in jail is just another attempt to do that - from their perspective, electing him even while he’s imprisoned would be a big “fuck you” to those bad actors.
It’s sad that they can’t see that Trump himself is the bad actor, but to most of them, Trump is their last hope to hold on to their beloved world of racism and misogyny, free of any “woke bullshit.” They’ll overlook anything he says or does at this point, since they don’t see any other way forward than through Trump.
I just don’t understand the appeal. Forget all of the gross shit he’s done over the years, the terrible and fraudulent business he’s conducted, he’s just gross period. Like standing there, sounding like a rambling lunatic, not finishing sentences, $10 spray tan, and ill fitting suit. How does that track as “wow what an amazing businessman!”
There is almost no chance they are gonna lock him up. He could openly murder someone with his own hands, on stage, and he would still be able to run in the elections.
Unfortunately, I think you’re probably right. We keep seeing it over and over again. The judicial system continues to move slowly with as many delays and roadblocks as possible. When judgements are made, they are stayed during an appeal so they have no teeth. The farce of the Supreme Court will never let anything bad happen to their dear leader. They will delay, delay, delay until Trump is either reelected - in which case he’ll pardon himself. Or until a new president is elected in 2028. If it’s a Republican, they’ll pardon Trump on day 1. If it’s a Democrat, the Republicans in Congress will find some way to force a presidential pardon in order to keep the government funded or some other bullshit.
I think there’s a 0% chance Trump ever sees a single day in prison. Even if none of what I said above happens, he’d get a slap on the wrist at worst. I would LOVE to be proven wrong. But I’m not holding my breath.
At this point the only things between Trump and a jail cell are:
The courts must rule in the coming days (probably this month, Jan 2024) that Presidents are subject to criminal prosecution. We know Presidents are not subject to civil prosecution, but the courts are deciding about criminal prosecution now. (Trump argues it would be “bedlam” if Presidents were subject to the law).
A jury decision in mid 2024. If that jury says “guilty”, it’s over, Trump is a convicted felon.
Trump may or may not eventually end up in prison, but it’s naïve after the past 8 years to assume that there are only two ways this could all shake out, and that you can predict them.
A possibility that will almost certainly be less absurd than whatever actually happens:
Trump wins a second term, manages to get the FedSoc 6 to rule that a sitting president can’t be imprisoned because it would violate separation of powers. So multiple states are just waiting for his term to end so they can actually arrest him. (Feds can’t arrest him because he has pardoned himself for all past, present, and future crimes)
Then in the last month of his presidency he takes a diplomatic trip to Russia and just never comes back.
I don’t mean there are 2 ways this can shake out. I mean there are 2 legal barriers in the way. Once the courts rule that Trump can be prosecuted, then the trial date is set for spring. The judge is motivated to hold to that trial date. The prosecutors have their evidence and arguments ready for the jury.
On the possibility of Trump pardoning himself, it’s not clear that a President can pardon himself and the supreme court would probably end up having to rule on that.
If Trump is a convicted felon, then he probably can’t get enough votes to win, but I don’t know, the cult is strong with this one.
They don’t need a ruling to set a trial date. He isn’t the president anymore. He can be tried. The fact that they’re not is a symptom of a greater evil in our system.
Oh, you mean the court that trump himself stacked in favor of the GOP? The same court that has voted along party lines in like 98% of their rulings? Impartial my ass!
The case I’m referring to in #2 has a judge that was not appointed by Trump. (Tanya Chutkan)
Case #1 might eventually be considered by the Supreme Court though, and your criticism would apply there.
Also, Trump’s trial over mishandling classified documents is overseen by Judge Cannon, who Trump appointed, which is a sham. Cannon should have recused herself.
Trying to prosecute him for his real crimes is honestly damaging the election chances of Biden, lots of voters with a vicarious persecution complex through Trump.
Yeah right. If he wins, he’s free. Shame on the justice department for not completing a single trial in FOUR FUCKING YEARS. Have they even started any of them? No way any of them are wrapped up before the election. The wheels of justice turn slowly. Yeah, yadda yadda yadda. They’re barely turning at all against this fat fucking loser.
His lawyers have run out pretty much every option to delay trials, although several judges have seemed pretty damn complicit as well. I get wanting to make sure the case is as airtight as possible, but…the people they’re worried about pissing off with a case that isn’t entirely formed, were just going to be pissed off anyway.
On one hand, the belief in a god doesn’t just end there. There are beliefs in what that god does and what he has control over. So it’s completely logical to believe that there’s no god (although, as someone else pointed out, it’s also not random arrangements of atoms).
On the other hand, simulation theory is a logical theory to rationalize the “purpose” of why we exist. It’s not a belief. The simulation doesn’t respond to prayers or requests. It’s simply conjecture or hypothesis to explain the “why” of the universe. No one who talks about simulation theory (much less who “believes” in it) pretends that the creator of the simulation is uniquely interested in them and responds to their requests and tells them how to live their life. In fact, that would go against the entire concept of simulation theory.
Religion and religious belief have specific definitions. This feels just as dishonest as people claiming that LGBTQ ideology is a religion or that evolution is a “belief”.
Check out Ancestral simulationIn a nutshell, it says that humans are living in far future and we are just a simulation from scratch so that they can study their origin, how they come to be etc
The purpose is to observe our behavior and how we react to stimuli. And it’s not that it’s “correct”, it’s just that it requires no intervention. If it’s “real”, then it was started by an outside force and is being observed like a Petri dish amongst other simulations.
If it’s truly meant as a simulation, then intervening in any way would go against the purpose of the simulation.
Just think about how we run our simulations. We give the computer parameters about the “real” world because we’re interested in the results. If our entire world is a simulation, amongst other simulations, then intervening would ruin the simulation.
You don’t rerun everything from scratch. Especially weather simulations can be checkpointed at places you have high certainty, and keep running forks after that point with different parameters. This is extremely common with for example trying to predict wind patterns during forest fires, you simulate multiple branches of possible developments in wind direction, humidity, temperature, etc. If the parameters you test don’t cover every scenario that is plausible you might sometimes engineer it into the simulation just to see the worst case scenario, for example.
And in medicine, especially computational biochemistry you modify damn near everything
You’re confusing simulations of specific events with a simulation environment. If our universe is simulated, then it’s unlikely that the creators of the simulation would be interested in the individual occurrences you’re describing. The universe is what’s being studied, not the happenings inside of it.
Simulations of boats in water don’t care about what’s happening to the water much of the time yet it needs to be there, you seem to be way too confident in your conclusions
You’re still confusing a simulation of a specific event with a simulation of a universe. If you’re simulating a boat in the water, you need the water but you don’t need to build an entire ocean with fish and land near the water and buildings on the land. You just build what you need to simulate. We are clearly in a much larger simulation than one that would simulate an event.
If you don’t know what they’re testing that could certainly seem excessive. But failure of imagination doesn’t prove it’s impossible, although you can argue it’s unlikely
You’re assuming belief in the Abrahamic God to make your argument easier. But not all theists subscribe to such a position. And belief in a disinterested god who created the universe seems just as plausible as believing in a disinterested programmer who wrote a simulation.
I think their point is belief versus theory. One requires faith, the other thought.
It’s why it’s simulation theory and not Simulationism. People acknowledge it, but don’t follow it, nor believe it, since belief requires clearing unknown gaps with leaps of faith to reach an unknown destination. Theory seeks answers of the unknown with “could be this, could not be this” whereas belief is “it be this”.
This always points back to the paradox which all divinity falls into. The moment we know of a god to be real, it is old news and no longer divine. The next scientific step is “What made it so?” and moves right along to bigger things whether theists are on board or not.
Of the few words ending with -ism and -ist in science or theory, none have belief or faith.
Even the most apparent, such as the Big Bang Theory, are still marked a theory, after all. Believing in them—convinction without 100% knowledge—is foolish and closes doors of what may actually be truth.
I’m not assuming anything. The image shown in the OP is an image of the god of Abraham and the initial premise is wrong. If there was a sizeable population of theists who believed in a disinterested god, we’d have somewhere to start a discussion.
I don’t know what you’d consider “sizable” but a lot of people these days are spiritual without being religious. Which is unsurprising. Atheism/agnosticism are on the rise, so it makes sense that people who believe in a god but don’t subscribe to a particular religion are also on the rise.
People who believe in a god but aren’t part of a religion would have to dictate the parameters for their god in order for it to be meaningful in any way. As stated before, the OP didn’t make the initial idea that nebulous. They were pretty specific.
God got bored lol. Yeah nah I’m spiritual, but I’m not much a of a theist.
I just trust that many that don’t believe in a higher power also often believe that they’re very important and therefore “above”. Essentially most old school religion is like a dam that withholds personal narcissism from overtaking society.
Personally I sometimes wonder if the truth is hybrid. We’re a simulation and “god” is someone on the outside interacting with our simulation. Might also explain why god seems to be missing nowadays. Maybe he grew up, maybe he got bored, maybe he’s doing exams, maybe our simulation is owned by a company that went out of business and is only running because the electricity is still on and the backup generators still have fuel. Maybe we live in a forgotten universe.
I also sometimes wonder if we live in an educational simulation. Maybe we’re college students learning about the horrors of the 21st century in a fully immersive VR program.
It’s possible but the interaction part is what makes it unlikely. There’s neither evidence nor logic that would explain a god that was able to interact with the world they created with any kind of consistency.
I completely agree that’s what this basically boils down too. ST was an interesting concept I read about once and only briefly recalled twice since. Nothing more. This could be a valid criticism of individuals putting more stock into the idea but for anyone else it’s a reach.
The belief system built around God affects me every single day of my life. I have family that are hardcore Christians that pester me about it regularly. Approximately half of the political ideologies being pushed in my country center around Christian dogma.
Honorable mentions: Foreign and domestic terrorism threat and future wars being incited.
Even more importantly: God is omnipotent, which means they don’t make mistakes. A simulation doesn’t imply a higher power that is perfect in every way.
God is omnipotent, which means they don’t make mistakes.
Actually, no - the dictionary definition of omnipotent is literally being able to do anything. God being faultless is a different thing entirely and depending on how you interpret scripture, that is a false statement. He regrets making humans, so you could argue he sees humans as his own mistake - which is an entirely different kind of fucked-up for another day’s topic.
So whomever is running the simulation would be omnipotent, because they are literally making whatever happens in our universe happen by running a simulation of a universe.
EDIT: meant “everything” instead of “anything” but fuck it
I mean, the creator of a simulated universe isn’t omnipotent though, for two reasons: first, there are plenty of things that they cannot do in their own universe, being just some regular person there, but more importantly, there must be limits on what they can do in the simulation, because that simulation has to exist on a computer which presumably has finite hardware limitations. “Framerate” or equivalent won’t matter as much because time doesn’t have to pass at the same rate, but the computer still is only going to have so much storage and memory space, or whatever equivalent the technology involved uses, and so nothing that would exceed those limitations can be done in the sim.
Actually, yes. If they’re able to do anything then they’re also able to correct their mistakes. That’s not something that can be assumed about the creator of a simulation. Just look at the current state of our simulations.
What is religion, if not conjecture about the origin of mankind (and by extension the universe) that people believe without evidence?
I don’t think that religion is predicated on the answering of prayers, or in a Creator who takes a special interest in some particular human.
Also, I don’t think that either of those go against simulation theory; what if you’re a sim in some alien version of The Sims, and they’re going around fuckin with your life, removing ladders from your pools, etc.
What is religion, if not conjecture about the origin of mankind (and by extension the universe) that people believe without evidence?
Religion identifies the simulator and insists that its intermediaries can offer a liaison between you and them, and also that if you don’t believe in their particular simulator, you will be punished. It has been used for centuries to control the populace and to take their money.
A proponent of simulation theory isn’t likely to tell you that it solves any philosophical problems, or that they now understand the universe wholly. I’ve never heard anyone talking about it claim that they know who/what is behind the simulation.
So IMO the distinction between the two couldn’t be more clear.
I imagine there’s at least a couple wacko groups out of there trying to twist simulation theory into a purely religious endeavor, but that wouldn’t represent the mainstream conversation about it.
That’s an exceptionally narrow view of religion. There are plenty of religions that don’t threaten damnation for disbelief. They do what ST does and explain why humans exist (in this case because a simulation was set up such that they’d be created, intentionally or not).
And why can’t ST be used to scam people from money, like religion is?
That’s exactly where religion falls apart, though. If the Creator can interfere with their creation or directly influence it, then the idea becomes inconsistent based on what we directly observe as happening. The answering of prayers was just an example since the image in the OP is an image of the god of the Bible that people do believe answers their individual prayers (and that some people believe they can speak to and through).
Simulation theory doesn’t really allow for that kind of intervention so your Sims example isn’t relevant. Ladders in pools and whatnot don’t disappear before your eyes.
In this instance it doesn’t. But in this universe almost every industry using simulations run many different ones with different parameters. It doesn’t make sense to assume simulation theory with only a single simulation without interventions, because that assumes the simulator already knew that what the simulation would produce would fit what they wanted and that’s not a guarantee (just for information theory reasons alone!)
But how you’re describing ST isn’t incompatible with religion, only some religions. Nothing about religion itself says that the creators or some higher power need to be an active participant in the human experience.
And how doesn’t simulation theory allow for the simulation creator/admin to interfere with the simulation? You don’t have scientific equipment recording data on everything, everywhere, for everyone, and people claim to see wild shit all the time. But even ignoring the wild shit, it could be as simple as tripping someone, moving their keys, giving them some disease or disorder, or any of a million things that we can’t accurately predict even when explicitly looking for it.
On the other hand, simulation theory is a logical theory to rationalize the “purpose” of why we exist.
Now see. I think simulation theory is one of the possible explanations for our existence. But, I would disagree that it gives any credence to a purpose to our existence.
It also doesn't really answer the core question of how things began, it just defers them upwards to another civilisation. Unless you want to say it's simulations all the way down, there needs to be be a root real existence somewhere and there the origins pose the same questions.
I've not yet heard any explanation as to how our universe came to be that I truly believe. All explanations are problematic. But even if simulation theory were true, I'd still be bugged by the fact that we still don't get any closer to the answer of how it all began. It just explains how the universe as we know it exists.
It does bring up the interesting conundrum: is there one “base” universe? Then how did that start? Makes no sense. Is it turtles all the way down? That also doesn’t make any sense. And yet those are the only 2 possibilities (assuming a few intuitive things about logic and reality, which is a whole 'nother thing…).
Hypothetically, isn’t there also a third option that one eventually gets to a base universe, but that base universe has existed for an infinite amount of time and has no beginning?
But at that point, isn’t that no different than just saying the universe isn’t a simulation? If there is a base universe than that is the “actual” universe, and who cares about all the simulations beyond what we would care about a simulation we created? For this to be the case, I feel like there would need to be some additional features or complexities about this base universe that can’t be simulated and thus that allows those in it to prove that they are not a simulation. The issue the simulation universes have is that if they could create a simulation of their own universe they are immediately confronted with the conundrum that they themselves are probably not the first one to do this. But this theoretical base universe would have some characteristic about it that precluded them from this issue. Or maybe they don’t, maybe they think they’re simulation too but they’re not and have no way to prove otherwise, they just happen to be the base. However, if that is the case, then you can make that same argument for this universe can’t you?
I don’t personally suspect that anyone could truly create a simulation of their own universe at all. You could absolutely simulate a universe, but simulating your own universe (presumably your own universe at a point in the past since that’s what context the simulation argument generally gets made in) would have to have some kind of deviation from the real universe, be it that not all of the universe is simulated, or it’s only simulated to a certain level of detail or “resolution” and any physics on a smaller scale is simplified, or time runs slower or something. Because if you can simulate a perfect copy of your universe, or a universe of equivalent complexity and speed, then you can build a computer in that simulation equivalent to the one running it, and since that simulated computer doesn’t use all the resources of it’s simulated universe presumably, you can build several of them and get more processing power than you started with, which makes no sense. And if every “layer” of simulation inheritly has dramatically less possible complexity to it than the layer above, you should eventually (and I suspect rather rapidly) reach a level where further nested simulations are not possible
I know it's a few days later now. But I'm agnostic and not explicitly atheist and the reason is that, one of the few scenarios that made sense to me, I never thought of as simulation theory.
It was that the big bang doesn't remove the possibility of a God. That God could just be an alien that exists outside our concept of time and created this universe with the concept of time as an experiment.
I suppose this could be a simulation too. That is, that alien outside our concept of time creates a simulation of a universe with a linear time.
Im an atheist myself, though I’ll agree, the universe having a beginning does not preclude the possibility that it was created by an intelligent entity of some kind, a simulation is one way this can occur, but not the only one. I dont think such a creator likely, but I cant rule the option out. However, I dont think that an entity like this is really deserving of the title of god, because a simulator (or someone who has some kind of weird tech to mess with spacetime such as to create a new physical universe artificially) is still just as fallible as any other limited entity inside their own universe. Conceivably, if someone discovered a way to cure aging or something within the next few decades, its not impossible tho probably very unlikely that you or I might someday see the technology to create such a simulated universe developed, but if I were to create one, that would not really change what I am at all, or give me limitless knowledge or make me deserving of worship. This might be because I was raised in a family mostly full of Christians and therefore interpret the word the way Abrahamic religions do, but I dont think I could really consider anything less than an actually Omnipotent, Omniscient and therefore limitless and infallible being to be a god, and as I also believe that omnipotence is a logically impossible and self-disproving concept, and therefore, that it cannot exist in any reality no matter what rules may govern it, I feel as certain as I can be of anything that no such thing exists.
It doesn’t need to answer the question of how things began any more than our own understanding of our world answers that. The “Big Bang” is just the start of the simulation.
And I think you’re wrong to disagree about the purpose of our existence because the entire point of a simulation is to get information and data about the “real” world by running the options in a simulation. If we are indeed in a simulation, then the purpose is to give the creators of the simulation more information about their own world.
Ironically enough, it would also infer that these beings created us in their own image. Otherwise, it wouldn’t really be useful to them.
Your comment added nothing to the discussion and provided no counters to what was said. What was the point of writing it?
It’s not a belief because there’s not an absence of evidence. There’s quite a bit of evidence for it. Whether you agree that it’s compelling is another story. Also, no one “believes” in simulation theory. It’s simply a theory to explain our current understanding of the world. In the same way that no one “believes” in the theory of gravity. It’s just a possible explanation of what we observe.
No. That’s why it’s not called “simulation hypothesis”. It’s called “simulation theory”. The hypothesis is the original, untested idea. The theory is the idea after it has been tested that fits as a valid explanation. It has been tested.
To be fair, though, the actual idea is called “simulation hypothesis” in the real world for that reason but it’s not a hypothesis because it can’t come to a falsifiable conclusion. There’s literally no way of knowing whether we are or aren’t in a simulation.
It’s the same idea as a god that controls everything but doesn’t intervene at all, is invisible, and unknowable. It could be true but it’s a moot point since we could never know.
I’m not being dishonest. You are, however, being dismissive and rude.
If you find dismissal of your inability to coherently explain the concept you brought up rude, that’s your prerogative.
You’ve said enough to demonstrate you don’t understand basic empiricism, have not done sufficient reading on the topic that - again - you brought up, and have contradicted yourself in your own comment.
You are dishonest, and we’re pretty much done here.
I’m not dishonest and I haven’t said anything that suggests I’m not arguing in good faith. I’ve sufficiently explained the concept and the idea that our observations can only extend to what we’re capable of. I also don’t see where I’ve contradicted myself but I’m sure you’ll point that out instead of being nebulous and ignoring the points actually demonstrated…
The simulation doesn’t respond to prayers or requests.
How do you know? What if the guy running the simulation actually monitors what we think and reacts to it? What if the personally decides to give people cancer or cure it? What if he copies our minds to simulation of hell after we die? What if 2000 years ago he copied himself into the simulation to get crucified?
I know because that’s not part of the theory. Simulation theory doesn’t offer any kind of mechanism for that and it would go against the entire idea of simulation.
On top of that, even if that was the case, then the person running the simulation would be acting inconsistently in a way that prevents us from understanding their intent. That would mean that it’s illogical and that there’s no way for us to actually infer anything about the world we’re in yet we are able to do exactly that.
Why does testing numerous different circumstances and consequences violate the idea is simulation? A sufficiently capable simulation engine could literally be used for social experiments
I think you misunderstood. Testing numerous circumstances doesn’t violate it. The simulation is likely only one amongst an entire series. Interfering with the simulation and changing parameters while it’s going is what violates the point. For one, we’d notice things changing without cause. For another, simulations test conditions based on parameters. There would be no reason to change parameters midway when another simulation with those changes can just be spun up.
To the simulated object there’s no difference between a fork of a simulation with different parameters vs directly changing parameters in a running simulation.
For one, we’d notice things changing without cause.
Maybe those reactions are part of the test? Or doesn’t affect it. Or they abandon instances where it was noticed and the test derailed.
There’s no “maybe”. We don’t observe things changing in our world without cause. Therefore, it can’t be part of the test. Our perception is unbroken. And if you want to make the argument that those simulations where we did are ended, which is what I think you’re implying, then, as before, it’s meaningless to discuss since there’s no way we could know that.
How are they not logically justified? You and I live in the world that is claimed to be a simulation. It’s entirely logically justified simply by virtue of the fact that we can verify these things. Again, to borrow your example, if parameters and material items are being changed and modified while the simulation is running then we’d have to observe those things happening in at least some instances. We don’t have any evidence of anything changing without cause. If those changes can be done without us knowing about them in every case, then it’s just as pointless as debating the idea that every person alive is only 1 day old.
I’m not arguing any specific purpose of controlling a simulation in these ways, just that the arguments saying it wouldn’t happen are too weak. A multipurpose simulation (imagine one shared by many different teams of simulation researchers) could plausibly be used like this where they mess with just about anything and then reset. Doesn’t mean it’s likely, just that it’s unreasonable to exclude the possibility
It’s not unreasonable to exclude that possibility if there’s no way for us to ever know that. The same logic applies to scenarios like the one I mentioned before where everyone is only 1 day old.
You can’t prove that everyone alive isn’t one day old and simply born with memories of previous events. It’s a silly example but it’s the same argument as what you’re suggesting. If it gets reset in way that no one can possibly know, then, logically, the only option is to exclude it because you could never prove or falsify it either way.
You’re conflating things. We have no reason to argue those are true with any certainty, but we still can’t exclude the possibility. It’s the difference of “justified belief” vs coherent theory. Physics have had a ton of theories postulated without evidence where decades later one option was proven true and many others proven false. Under your assumption you shouldn’t have made that theory before it could be tested.
We can exclude that possibility because it’s a possibility that we can’t observe by any means. If what you’re suggesting is true, that a higher being is interfering and modifying our reality, then we should be able to test that assumption. Anything that can have a physical effect in our world is testable in our world. Since we don’t observe that happening, and according to you can’t observe it since doing so would end the simulation, it’s a possibility we don’t have to consider because it’s impossible to prove it or test it or, most importantly, to falsify it.
Again, it’s the exact same argument as the one day old suggestion. It’s ultimately meaningless.
By this same logic we can exclude the possibility of simulation theory, no? By your own logic it’s not a stretch to “exclude the possibility” of something “because it’s a possibility that we can’t observe by any means”. I believe goes back to the point of the meme: self proclaimed logical actors believing in something unprovable and thus proving themselves to be hypocrites…
It’s not unprovable, though. That’s where you’re wrong. A simulation can be provable so long as functions in line with its own internally consistent rules and what we observe about it.
For the sake of argument (this is an oversimplification but the point is the same), imagine that this simulation was running on a computer with 8MB of memory. Within the simulation (as in inside of it), we would be able to observe situations where things are not internally consistent as a result of, for example, running out of memory. Other observations we could make that would support the theory and be internally inconsistent would be things disappearing, as mentioned before, or moving without cause. Details could be internally inconsistent.
The only reason to exclude simulation theory completely would be if we have to assume that the simulation is perfect and, therefore, not distinguishably different from reality. This was the premise of the movie “The Matrix” in its initial concept when humans were used as computer brains to run the simulation rather than giant batteries (which makes no sense as our bodies are terrible energy storage mediums).
So, yes, there are situations where simulation theory could be excluded by the same premise but nothing that has been presented so far that would allow for the changes described to our current reality that would go unnoticed. The difference is that there is evidence (although not admittedly strong) that makes simulation theory more probable than any religion. It’s not hypocritical to accept the possibility of something based on some objective evidence rather than something meant to be accepted without any evidence at all.
But by this same logic anything can be “proven”. If I see evidence of an abrhamic god, then I can prove its existence. This is not a novel or sufficient observation to meet the criteria that imperical based science is held to. The claim must also be falsifiable, just how a metaphysical God can always escape attempts to disprove it by relying on the imperical nature of science i.e. we can’t really prove or disprove anything objectively, the counter effect is that it can’t be proven under the scientific imperical framework either. I will admit I’m not well versed in the evidence for ST which you have referenced, but how would it be falsifiable? It seems any attempt can always be handwaved away as it’s simply too complex a simulation… God works in mysterious ways right. To me this puts it squarely in the metaphysical realm, which isn’t a bad thing per say, but again speaks to the intent of the meme.
How do you draw the conclusion that anything can be proven by that logic? The entire issue with religious gods is that there is no evidence nor logic which can be used to prove or falsify the hypothesis of their existence. You can’t see evidence of an abrahamic god because it doesn’t exist. If it did, he wouldn’t be a religious god, he would be empirically proven to be god because there would be evidence that he exists that people could see or otherwise observe with their senses.
I don’t understand your line of reasoning when you’ve just confirmed how metaphysical gods can escape any attempt to falsify them. If we live in a simulation, then that wouldn’t be the case. We’d be able to prove we are in a simulation by exploiting the limits of the simulation. If it doesn’t have any limits, then it’s a moot point since it’s perfect and we wouldn’t have the capacity to distinguish that from any other layer of abstraction of simulation. What if we’re living in a simulation that’s being run inside of another simulation? What if this reality is a simulation running in a VM running on a host machine? At some point, if we can’t objectively tell a difference then it’s a moot point as I would compare it, yet again, to the one day old world hypothesis. If we can’t tell the difference (meaning we are unable to or incapable of distinguishing), then it doesn’t matter how many layers of abstraction there are. If we have the ability to know that and just haven’t observed it yet, that still makes the other options impossible since our very existence predicates a simulation that is still ongoing and that we are a part of.
You’re conflating “possible” with “probable”, and refusing to address possibilities you don’t have proof of.
When higgs bosons were predicted they were untestable. When gravity waves were predicted they were untestable. When black hole rings were predicted they were untestable.
Then we discovered how to build the sensors and instruments to test them.
You’re saying those scientists should’ve dropped their ideas because at that point it was still impossible to test or falsify.
What scientists do instead is to develop many different alternative theories, then design tests and experiments, and then once data is in then they decide what do believe about the theories based on what the could prove or not.
Edit: why are people like this so aggressively wrong in the dumbest ways… Not only did they pick only one of 3 examples of mine to attack and ignoring the rest, they also did so maximally incorrectly all while failing to understand the consequences of their own policy of rejecting anything you don’t know how to test.
The core of my argument is really just “sometimes scientists works on stuff nobody knows how to test, because maybe they’ll find out how in the future”, and this dude’s argument is essentially “if you don’t know how to test something it’s literally impossible for it to be true and therefore it shall be rejected, but also scientists always knows the path forward and therefore I don’t have to reevaluate my understanding of science”
No, I’m not. I’m really not understanding what this straw man is that you’re arguing.
When bosons were predicted, the method by which they would be measured was also predicted. Just because it took 40 years to do that doesn’t mean that they were untestable. “Unobserved” is not the same as “untestable” which is exactly the distinction that you’re missing with the simulation idea.
I’m not saying anything of the sort. You suggested that it is possible for our reality to be a simulation where the creator of said simulation is actively making changes. Those changes would have to be observable by the people inside the simulation. You then retreated to the idea that the creators are perfect and simply stop the simulations where those changes are detected. Epistemologically, that idea is both untestable and unobservable because, according to you, any simulation where either of those things were true would have been stopped. That makes it impossible for our current reality to be one of those because it has not stopped and, again, any simulation that is indistinguishable from physical reality is pointless to discuss because it’s non-falsifiable. It’s just like the one day old example I’ve given several times now that you keep ignoring and never addressing.
Besides the fact that it wasn’t actually known if those tests would work, there’s also hypothetical tests for simulation theory (eg. testing for pixelated resolution of spacetime, plus endless “consistency tests”) so doesn’t that make it all the same thing anyway? You’re making much too strong assumptions.
What do you mean? They knew, at the time that the particle was predicted, that if it did exist it would have to be within a certain range of mass and would have to be the result of particle collisions where decay or exchange cause the particle to be emitted. Saying that it wasn’t known if those tests would work just isn’t true. The tests would only work if their theories were correct. It wasn’t the testing that was the issue. It was the very rare, specific conditions under which the particle could be observed that was the issue. If they were right, the tests would allow them to observe the particle and they knew this when they theorized its existence.
Doesn’t what make it all the same thing? You’re the one that said these beings could be changing things mid-simulation. If the boiling point of water was suddenly changed, we’d be able to tell. If the structure of carbon changed, we’d know. Then you walked that back and said that they’d just stop the simulation if we noticed these things. But they haven’t because you and I are still here discussing that. So the only options left over, if we assume they can make changes, is that either they haven’t done that or the simulation is perfect and so the distinction between a simulation and a real, physical world is a moot point.
We should perhaps finish our paper with an apology and a caution. We apologize to experimentalists for having no idea what is the mass of the Higgs boson, …, and for not being sure of its couplings to other particles, except that they are probably all very small. For these reasons, we do not want to encourage big experimental searches for the Higgs boson, but we do feel that people doing experiments vulnerable to the Higgs boson should know how it may turn up.
— John R. Ellis, Mary K. Gaillard, and Dimitri V. Nanopoulos,
One of the problems was that at the time there was almost no clue to the mass of the Higgs boson. Theoretical considerations left open a very wide range somewhere between 10 GeV/c2[13] and 1000 GeV/c2[14] with no real indication where to look.[1]
So you’re literally as wrong as you could be. It wasn’t until what once was a wild hypothesis had been explored more that they could start to make better predictions around where it might be, decades later, and after tests narrowing down where it wasn’t.
I didn’t “walk back” either. Exploring multiple possibilities is called hedging, not walking back (since that means you retracted something which I didn’t do), and scientists does it too. I didn’t say either one option is more likely, I told you there are many possibilities and then you insisted on calling several of them impossible not because any mechanics exclude it’s possibility but because you can’t see it. That’s plainly wrong. You can definitely argue it’s improbable, but you don’t get to call it impossible without proving it impossible.
LOL. Are you seriously trying to claim that you disproved my point by providing a citation that literally proves what I said? You just provided a range of masses within which they knew the Highs Boson particle would be. They predicted that range and they were right. How is that an example of “no idea”?
Direct quote from CERN, where they both predicted and discovered the boson (emphasis mine):
Since every particle can be represented as a wave in a quantum field, introducing a new field into the theory means that a particle associated with this field should also exist.
Most properties of this particle are predicted by the theory, so if a particle matching the description would be found, it provides strong evidence for the BEH mechanism – otherwise we have no means of probing for the existence of the Higgs field.
The properties they were looking for were predicted by Higgs’ initial theory. The only unknown property was the specific mass but, as I’ve mentioned and you confirmed, they knew a range. Every other property of it was already known. If he was wrong, they wouldn’t have found anything. They knew what tests they needed to do because they knew what properties they were looking for. In this case, a boson with a large mass, within a large range, that quickly decays. The only reason it took so long to observe using these tests was because the lifetime of the particle is so short which means it cannot be found in nature.
You did walk it back. You’ve walked back your original statement and are misrepresenting what I said. I never said that it’s impossible because you can’t see it. I said that your suggestion that they’re changing parameters mid-simulation is impossible because we’d be able to observe those changes. That doesn’t mean we can’t see them. It means we can’t measure them or detect them using any of our senses. Then you moved the goalposts to them removing or ending any simulations where we did observe these things which makes that a meaningless scenario that is unfalsifiable.
I’ve only been making one point. You’re the one that keeps moving the goalposts and changing the argument.
Physicists tends to work with precision in decimals, not multiple orders of magnitude. They didn’t know it would be there either, all they knew is the theory they had would be simpler if it was there than not.
Your quote from the website is a bad attempt at backdating current knowledge from very recent research and experiments to the original discoverers
They had thousands of different predictions and couldn’t know which were right until the data was in.
If, due to its mass, they could only observe the interplay between the Higgs boson on one hand and the W and Z bosons on the other, the puzzle of the fermion masses would remain unsolved. Discovering the particle at a convenient mass was an unexpected kindness from nature. If it were slightly more massive, above 180 GeV or so, the options to study it at the time of its discovery would have been more limited.
The variety of available transformation products means that data from the individual channels can be combined together through sophisticated techniques to build up a greater understanding of the particle. “Doing so is not trivial,” says Giovanni Petrucciani, co-convener of the Higgs analysis group in CMS. “You have to treat the uncertainties similarly across all the individual analyses and interpret the results carefully, once you have applied complicated statistical machinery.” Combining data from the transformation of the Higgs boson to pairs of Z bosons and pairs of photons allowed ATLAS and CMS to discover the Higgs boson in 2012.
It was legitimately not known if we could find it. It could have been big enough that LHC would’ve failed, and then it could have taken us 50 more years to build a collider large enough (mostly due to cost, but still)
In fact they’re only mostly sure still
Yet, the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism remains among the least-understood phenomena in the Standard Model. Indeed, while scientists have dropped the “-like” suffix and have understood the Higgs boson remarkably since its discovery, they still do not know if what was observed is the Higgs boson predicted by the Standard Model.
You don’t even understand what I’m saying, how can you accuse me of walking back?
You keep making unjustified claims even now. What if a simulator knows what you’re looking at and simply don’t mess with that? Clearly not impossible. Implausible? Absolutely, AND I KEEP SAYING SO, there’s no reason to believe it’s happening, and yet it’s possible. Your inability to comprehend doesn’t change the meaning of my statements.
Your persistence in calling it meaningless because it’s unfalsifiable with no further context is equivalent to you calling most theoretical physics meaningless. A ton of theories like string theory is by your standard equally unfalsifiable and therefore we shall declare it impossible and stop investigating.
Instead we develop endless hypothetical scenarios specifically so we can look for evidence when new tools for investigating fundamental physics become available.
How could it be backdating current knowledge when those properties are literally in his paper where he posited the theory to begin with! You’re either being disingenuous or intentionally misleading. The reason he didn’t expect to find it in his lifetime was because the chances of observing the particle were infinitesimally small because of its short lifetime and the fact that it decays into other common bosons. It is not found in nature and can only be produced in a lab.
I really don’t know how much clearer you can be about their ability to predict what they were looking for other than repeating the quote and linking the paper:
Most properties of this particle are predicted by the theory
Are you saying CERN is lying on their Highs Boson page?
And you’re also wrong about the idea of “variants” that you’re claiming. The variants they’re referring to are the byproducts of the decay. Since the Higgs Boson decays into the same products as normal Z and W bosons and photons.
Every type of particle is characterized by a set of properties: mass, electrical charge, lifetime etc. For the Higgs boson, mass was the only unknown. For a known mass, all the other properties can be calculated from theory. Measuring them experimentally and comparing them with the result of these calculations allows scientists to verify that they have really found the Higgs boson.
You’re mischaracterizing what they’re saying and arguing that what they are saying, and what I’ve quoted directly from their website where it says that all the properties except the mass were known, is not true. You’re also confusing us having the capabilities, using technology available at the time, with the ideas underpinning how it would be observed and what would have been observed based on the theory associated with it. They knew what they were looking for but being able to observe a particle that decays immediately isn’t easy. Your chart and quote are talking about the variations of interactions with other bosons and photons. How am I supposed to take any of your replies seriously?
I’m not making unjustified claims. You keep moving the goalposts away from the initial statement and are now arguing probability instead of the actual argument. The fact is that it is impossible for us to be in a simulation where the creators can change conditions if they end any simulations where we’d notice them. It’s not improbable. It’s impossible. You can keep making more straw men all you want. It doesn’t change the initial argument.
Jeff Dunham even did a joke with Achmed the dead terrorist.
“I like to throw a penny between two Jews and watch them fight to the death. I also do the same with Catholic priests but instead I throw a small boy! The winner has to fight Michael Jackson!”
Well you’ll be pleased to know that more and more young Latinos actually like LatinX every year. Especially when it comes to college populations where Latino people are an ever growing population.
However, a majority of those surveyed in a Gallup poll – 57% – said it didn’t matter how they labeled.
A new priest has to replace another priest who recently retired. As he’s taking confession, the woman on the other side says she sinned because she performed a blowjob. The priest had no idea of the correct penance for this. Just then a young acolyte passes so he leans out of his chair and asks the boy: “how much do they give around here for a blowjob?” The boy promptly answers: “One snicker bar, sir.”
Yeah, that’s the kinda stuff going around in the 80s.
Long before the '70s. The British arms manufacturing companies Vickers and Armstrong Whitworth merged in the late 1920s to become Vickers-Armstrongs Limited. Employees of the former Armstrong Whitworth were not happy about the merger and joked about being like choirboys - because they were being buggered by Vickers (i.e. “buggered by vicars”).
Somewhere in Rousseau’s “Confessions” there’s a bunch about him becoming disillusioned by the church as a child because of sexual abuse, and the head priest tells him “that’s how it’s always been”. That was written in 1769!
I wanna quibble with this just a little bit. People work. Left to their own devices, with their needs met, people will dedicate their energy toward generating value.
What no one wants to do is a job, which is an arrangement by which several of us have to do more in exchange for less so one of us can do nothing all day and then complain that “nobody wants to work anymore”.
When people say “nobody wants to work”, what they mean is nobody wants to work for them. People will work for themselves, for people they care about, or even humanity in general, but I think it’s fair to say nobody ever wanted to work just to make money for someone else.
Thanks! I’ve never let it bother me. I make funky stuff for my own amusement. I go by the horseshoe theory that priceless is the same as worthless on the ‘value’ scale. Maybe it’s more like an ouroboros than a horseshoe? Anyway, I’m not afraid of making things for the “art bin”, I make it to exercise the idea.
I always like to say that I love my job, but I hate my boss and my stupid colleagues because they always seem to be getting in the way OF DOING MY FUCKING JOB. In 2023 it seems like work is more like a highschool popularity contest rather than about giving value to the company.
So in practice, I hate working. But it was never about the job. The narcissists are the ones ruining it.
backed up by the threat of violence against anyone who doesn’t play along.
Every political ideology includes that. What good are rules without enforcement? Just because the enforcers are supposed to be random individuals in some ideologies doesn’t mean the threat of violence for not playing along is gone.
I’m an anarchist, and my take is that anarchism isn’t pacifism, and “no coercion” is a bad summary. It’s more about the absence of hierarchical coercion and instead distribution of power to all people and communities.
If you’re going around burning down houses, your anarchist neighbors are going to use force to take away your matches and gasoline if you don’t stop.
Yup, that is my understanding as well. Likewise, if you’re going around stealing, and someone happens to think that’s bad, they can use force to stop you because there’s no state telling them otherwise.
The idea that if there’s no state we’d automatically be living in communist utopia where everything is shared and nobody owns anything is flawed on its face. It’s certainly possible that there would be groups or tribes of people that choose to live that way, but other tribes would form around the idea that property rights should be protected and build a community around that.
You’re very much misrepresenting how anarchism is supposed to work with that “automatically” statement. No one thinks if will happen by itself, there’s a whole library on thought on how to go about making it the societal norm, with quite a lot of good points that humanity already largely acted like this for most of its two to three hundred thousand years of existence.
Supposedly, anyways. I suppose paleolithic man might well have been selling mammoth futures and executing debtors in the street.
But I also don’t really buy it in a urban society unless that society is largely run by the Culture’s Minds.
I only put that there because the thread starter seems to be an anarcho-communist who thinks that in absence of a state enforcing property rights, property rights simply won’t be enforced. That is not the case. They may or may not be enforced, either by the property owner themselves or their tribe/community.
Capitalism is primarily an economic system, not a political philosophy. And while it requires property rights in order to function, it is primarily concerned with solving problems in the absence of coercion, so it is absolutely compatible with anarchy.
You’re making a fundamental error when you think that property rights would not or do not exist in anarchy. What doesn’t exist in anarchy is the enforcement of such rights by a STATE. A property owner (or in this case, really anyone who lays claim to a property, since a state that could issue official deeds does not exist) still has the right to defend their property using violent means if necessary.
So yes, capitalism and anarchy are absolutely compatible.
Anarchy requires the absence of a state… And private property… Anarchy is to the left of “workers siezing the means of production”.
But anarcho-capitalists are, as you’ve said, only focusing on the economic system of their politics. If you ask them about the politics and government of their fantasy? Well, they all reveal a desire for a deeply coercive state. Anarchy, and also Libertarian, are words being co-opted.
Nope, anarchy is only the absence of a state. Like I said, it is still possible to enforce property rights in such a scenario… as long as you do it yourself.
This likely WOULD lead to less hoarding and more wealth distribution, because you cannot keep what you cannot defend. But it’s definitely wrong to assume all property would automatically become public and “free use” and everyone would share freely as in a communist utopia, because that requires agreement between people. And in the absence of a state, there is no authority that could enforce such an agreement.
I’ve always wanted someone to explain how you eliminate capitalism or the symbolic exchange of value to achieve a socialist/ anarchist state without violence.
The nice part about anarchism is both systems are free to coexist in the absense of the state. That cannot be said under communism and socialism.
If you think about it, such communities probably already exist: most families, even in capitalism, are communist internally: the parents contribute far more to the household than the children do, who tend to consume far more than they produce. From each according to their ability to each according to their need.
This likely also explains the continued popularity of communism as a political philosophy, especially among young people. Going out into the world, where there is competition and conflict is jarring, and the wish for society to be organized more like a family unit is understandable, although it is far more difficult to organize a large country in this way than a household of no more than, say, a dozen people.
Communism is a classless stateless society, parents within our society literally own their children as property.
This likely also explains the continued popularity of communism as a political philosophy, especially among young people. Going out into the world, where there is competition and conflict is jarring, and the wish for society to be organized more like a family unit is understandable, although it is far more difficult to organize a large country in this way than a household of no more than, say, a dozen people.
Remind me again, what is the political ideology of the new world superpower? The one with 1.4 billion people? You know, now that the capitalist US empire is in obvious terminal decline.
Are you talking about China? If so, I’m afraid they’re communist in name only. They realized many years ago that Marxist economic theory doesn’t work and began to integrate capitalist principles into their economy. There are banks, there is a stock market, and there is private ownership of the means of production, although all of these are tightly regulated by the state and can be rescinded at any time or for any reason (such as not paying enough bribes).
De facto, China is a capitalist-fascist state more comparable to WW2 Germany than anything Marx ever came up with.
Are you talking about China? If so, I’m afraid they’re communist in name only. They realized many years ago that Marxist economic theory doesn’t work and began to integrate capitalist principles into their economy.
You’re kind of incredibly ignorant on China. They’re a mostly publicly controlled economy.
The reasoning for a private sector is to prevent economic and technological siege.
Also marxist economic theory is literally just a structured critique of capitalism. It doesn’t have anything to say about socialism or communism, that is marx’s other works.
De facto, China is a capitalist-fascist state more comparable to WW2 Germany than anything Marx ever came up with.
I would really suggest reading “Economy and class structure of german fascism” and comparing it to the political and economic situation of China. (And actually understand those situations, not just passively absorb ideas from anglophone media) This isn’t meant to be a dig, but this level of political illiteracy is embarrassing.
than anything Marx ever came up with.
Have you literally read any book that Marx wrote? (The manifesto is a manifesto, it doesn’t count, but I’d also be interested in knowing if you’ve read that)
I’m not convinced about the second paragraph. How do you think we ended up where we are? In the stone age there was no government either, and yet some people became royalty and he and his friends became wealthy
Private Property cannot exist without a state. That which gives private property legitimacy is a monopoly of violence, otherwise you have a winner-takes-all might makes right system.
Collective ownership of property can be enforced via the collective itself, without a need for a governing body.
Anarchism is certainly idealistic, but Anarcho-Capitalism is pure fantasy.
I dont know, let’s ask Chinese feudal lords how their ability to enforce private property went after the CPC stopped enforcing their private property rights for them like the old government did.
I mean, first of all, have you taken a look at our current society, and second of all, this is just a thought experiment to prove that anarcho-communism is pure fantasy, or at the very least not inevitable.
Anarcho-Capitalism cannot exist, it would cease to exist the very second it did.
Anarcho-Communism is a lofty goal, but is fully capable of existing.
That’s the fundamental difference, what you consider to be Private Property simply wouldn’t be, it would either be personal property or you wouldn’t have it. It is only through threat of violence that one can own the products of tools despite not doing the labor.
Okay, as frustrating as it is to have you simply repeat your initial statements despite any arguments made to the contrary, it seems as though your point hinges on the distinction between personal and private property.
However, I don’t see how private property couldn’t be maintained as long as you have the ability to defend it. Hiring guards for instance does not constitute a monopoly on violence, since others can do so as well. In an anarcho-communist scenario, for instance, if the workers want to maintain control of the means of production after ousting the owner, they would potentially have to post guards as well, or the property owner could hire a bunch of mercenaries to take the property back.
The long and short if this is, I don’t see how anarchy would favor either the creation of capitalist or communist structures of organization. Most likely, there would be both, and survival would be a matter of who is better at organizing.
There are numerous critical flaws of what you just said.
Why would Guards support you? If you become a robber-baron, hiring muscle to protect your factories from the Workers, you have to deal with the fact that either you don’t actually control and own your factories, the mercenaries do, or accept that you have become a micro-state.
What is preventing any of these micro-states from absorbing others and becoming a full state? Nothing.
Why would anyone willingly work for you, unless it already reached the point where you are essentially a state? They could make more money simply by working cooperatively.
Private Property cannot maintain itself unless you have a monopoly on violence and thus a state.
Cooperatively owned property, on the other hand, supports itself and is maintained cooperatively. There are no avenues to realistically overturn it.
I don’t think you’re wrong about the idea of micro-states forming, but I don’t see how a communist cooperative isn’t a micro-state by the same definition as well.
As far as cooperatives being naturally more efficient, I highly doubt that. Centralized structures are far more conducive to decision making. While your commune is still debating about whether both Marx’ and Engels’ birthdays should be a day off, the capitalists are already working.
Also, the idea that property somehow magically supports itself by virtue of being communally owned is complete fantasy. You clearly have no actual experience and are just spouting off a bunch of dogma you’ve read somewhere.
If everyone has equal power, there’s no statist component.
Cooperative structures are not inherently more efficient, but Cooperative work structures would result in higher paid workers. The strawman about a lack of decision making in the Cooperative could easily be flipped, while the Workers are already producing, the Capitalists are figuring out how to extort their customers and workers better.
Communally owned property supports itself by virtue of being communally owned. If nobody has an individual claim to it, someone who tries would be contested by the community, hence its communal ownership.
You only have strawmen and vibes, no actual points.
I really hope you get to fulfill your dream of living in a commune one day so you’ll have some actual first hand experience of what you are talking about.
I’d pay good money to see your face the first time you get outvoted on something you think you are absolutely right about.
A property owner (or in this case, really anyone who lays claim to a property, since a state that could issue official deeds does not exist) still has the right to defend their property using violent means if necessary.
Okay, but if there isn’t a state, who is to say the workers don’t have the right to protect their surplus labor value from theft by seizing the means of production, through violence if necessary?
This is one of the reasons why anarcho capitalism is an incoherent ideology. People who believe in it think that the right of private property is just something everyone agrees should be held sacred, when it only exists because of state violence.
Okay, but if there isn’t a state, who is to say the workers don’t have the right to protect their surplus labor value from theft by seizing the means of production, through violence if necessary?
Nobody. But conversely, if there isn’t a state, what’s to prevent property owners from banding together and protecting their property with violence?
Before you say “but there’s more workers than property owners”, keep in mind that given enough money or gold or whatever, they could also hire mercenaries to prevent workers from rebelling.
It really all comes down to who is better at organizing. So it’s possible that in one scenario, workers would seize the means of production successfully, and if they are good enough at keeping it running, they’d operate as a commune, while in another scenario, there’d be a more hierarchical, capitalist structure of organization.
You’re simply arguing from a standpoint of “but I like THIS approach better” when it’s a question of “but can you make it WORK?”
But conversely, if there isn’t a state, what’s to prevent property owners from banding together and protecting their property with violence?
That would literally be a capitalist state in every meaningful sense.
keep in mind that given enough money or gold or whatever, they could also hire mercenaries to prevent workers from rebelling.
Sorta like a police force of some kind?
It really all comes down to who is better at organizing. So it’s possible that in one scenario, workers would seize the means of production successfully, and if they are good enough at keeping it running, they’d operate as a commune, while in another scenario, there’d be a more hierarchical, capitalist structure of organization.
You know what is really fucking organized? A state. It is almost like at the beginning of the country all the large landowners and capitalists got together and made one of those to protect their interests.
You’re simply arguing from a standpoint of “but I like THIS approach better” when it’s a question of “but can you make it WORK?”
Lol. I am literally asking how your hypothetical system would handle class antagonisms, the primary concern of politics. I am very directly asking “but can you make it work”
I’m certainly overly reductive of politics. When we’re talking ideology, though, yeah I’m going back to my ethics. A government can’t act on our behalf with more rights than us - we just end up creating our master. Pragmatic actions, in the real world, are different from ideological conversations, though.
I’m somewhat confused by your separation of ideology from practical actions. That sounds internally inconsistent.
I am willing to accept a state if it is necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and their toadies, so long as that continues to be necessary. I would prefer we lived in a communist society but we can’t get there overnight and socialism is how you transition to it.
It’s similar to your position. I just have a different path to a stateless, voluntary society. I also don’t really care what the economic system looks like, so long as human rights are recognized.
I consider freedom of the press to just be freedom of speech, which we all have.
As for the homeless chap, it depends on their situation. I’d live in a community that would try to help them. I think we’re ethically obligated to help people in need as best we can, but I’m not comfortable using violence to force you to help them.
I consider freedom of the press to just be freedom of speech, which we all have.
The thing is we don’t. There is no such thing as free speech, any speech that meaningfully threatens the government will be cracked down on. See Fred Hampton. Free speech is a legal fiction in our country.
But my point is that the limited bourgeois privileges you get don’t matter if you’re starving on the street. You can’t meaningfully have those privileges without economic security.
As for the homeless chap, it depends on their situation. I’d live in a community that would try to help them. I think we’re ethically obligated to help people in need as best we can, but I’m not comfortable using violence to force you to help them.
So it is more violent to take food from a grocery store because that hurts the owners bottom line than it is to prevent a starving man from taking bread from a grocery store by kicking his ass and throwing him in a box? Is that your perspective on this issue?
I meant that freedom of the press shouldn’t be limited to just people that work for CNN or whatever. I don’t think they’re separate rights. I didn’t mean to say they’re appropriately implemented.
Theft of small amounts of food isn’t really something I care about. I’m not a fan of police or jails/prisons. We can handle these sorts of crimes more ethically. Robberies are a bit different. If you’re someone that visits San Francisco to bip cars then goes back home, you could prolly use a good kick or two if you’re caught by your intended victim.
Regardless, I think we, as a society, should be there with the bread. It shouldn’t be an issue we have to face.
Regardless, I think we, as a society, should be there with the bread. It shouldn’t be an issue we have to face.
But you don’t think we should use violence to enforce the idea, so how do you enforce the idea in the transition when former small business tyrants chafe at the idea of sharing? What if they don’t submit to nonviolent methods of control?
They don’t have to submit? We do things the right way and don’t deal with those cunts. As a gradualist, though, I think we can build up our communities while removing the regulations that enable corporations to operate the way they do while staying profitable.
They don’t have to submit? We do things the right way and don’t deal with those cunts
Okay but they have the means of survival right now. Not seizing them means people will die while you develop your own.
Also, while developing your own, the movement is vulnerable to getting crushed by them. They historically haven’t had any compunctions with killing millions to protect themselves from communism.
As a gradualist, though, I think we can build up our communities while removing the regulations that enable corporations to operate the way they do while staying profitable.
How though? Do you think the capitalist state is going to just let you mess with its bosses?
Okay but they have the means of survival right now. Not seizing them means people will die while you develop your own.
When I help my sister pay her rent a small business owner isn’t being evicted. Economics aren’t zero sum.
Also, while developing your own, the movement is vulnerable to getting crushed by them. They historically haven’t had any compunctions with killing millions to protect themselves from communism.
I think ideas like collective ownership and mutual aid have power without challenging the ruling class. Instead we beg daddy to give us more rations.
How though? Do you think the capitalist state is going to just let you mess with its bosses?
I don’t really have all the answers. I know what I consider ethical and try to work within that, but I’m no genius. I know it’s easy to say your answer is violence and we’ll sort it out later, but there’re a lot of missing steps there. I don’t think there’s a lot of difference between the class consciousness necessary to achieve a gradualist result vs revolution. Gradualism has time to show people the benefit without lining them up against the wall, tho.
We also live in a world that has a habit of fucking up collectivism. Trade is technology and in a free society we can test the tech and find what works instead of fucking shit up with bullets and famine.
When I help my sister pay her rent a small business owner isn’t being evicted. Economics aren’t zero sum.
Can you prevent a landlord from evicting a single mom, when that landlord is willing to use violence to do it, without using violence? Is the idea just "we will pay them all off, using money we definitely have in order to do it?
I think ideas like collective ownership and mutual aid have power without challenging the ruling class.
Then, bluntly, you are ignorant of history. I’m not calling you stupid, I’m just saying you need to actually learn about this stuff before trying to come up with a belief system about it.
Instead we beg daddy to give us more rations.
I dont know what you mean here
I don’t really have all the answers. I know what I consider ethical and try to work within that, but I’m no genius.
You need to consider the impact of your actions in morality, which means understanding what the outcomes of actions have been historically.
know it’s easy to say your answer is violence and we’ll sort it out later, but there’re a lot of missing steps there
That would be an easy and incorrect way of describing my beliefs, yes.
I don’t think there’s a lot of difference between the class consciousness necessary to achieve a gradualist result vs revolution. Gradualism has time to show people the benefit without lining them up against the wall, tho.
I think you haven’t thought about the material implications of this. Giving white supremacists and landlords and capitalists time to come around isnt nonviolent, it is permitting violence to continue for a while because you don’t want to commit violence on the people doing the violence. It is a statement that you dont want to help the oppressed if it is at the expense of the oppressor.
We also live in a world that has a habit of fucking up collectivism. Trade is technology and in a free society we can test the tech and find what works instead of fucking shit up with bullets and famine
Honestly, I think you’ve bought into a capitalist framing on the history of transitional states. The USSR had famines during: a bloody Civil War, collectivization, and right after ww2. It notably did not have any periodic famines that the Russian empire previously had. Communist China had a famine after the Civil War before relations were normalized. They notably ended the periodic famines, especially along the yellow river.
Ok I should preface by saying I think ancap is dumb and having a slight disagreement with what you’ve said does not mean I’m not defending them. They’re asshats.
But: imo, anarchist thought escapes definition. There’s no such thing as anarchism (in the sense of an agreed-upon political philosophy), only anarchists.
Readers of Rene Girard might describe coersion (insofar as it’s a natural result of hegemony), as a sort of force of nature, like violence, that, if society doesn’t find a healthy way to express, will come out sideways, in ways that are anti-social.
Anarchism can only exist when there’s a single individual not interacting with any other person, period. Every human interaction immediately breaks any sort of anarchism, there will always be some agreed upon behavior, whether implicit or explicit, violently enforced or not.
I suppose most ancaps are actually minarchists, or “minimal state” proponents, because capitalism fails terribly without laws and some way to enforce them. Without a state (even as small as a group’s leadership), “ownership” doesn’t exist, whoever’s stronger owns the thing. You blink, you lose. You die, it’s first dibs. Fell for a scam? Too bad, you should’ve been smarter. Got captured and sold into slave labor? Too bad, you should’ve seen that coming. Someone stole your stuff? Too bad, you should’ve secured it better.
I can’t wait to find out how much YouTube is going to sue me for in 2025 for 20 years of blocked ad revenue. They’re going to use 2005 Napster math. You didn’t watch 3 ads per video x 6,000,000 played videos = $2 million lost revenue, pay up citizen, your Google services have been disabled, all location and behavior data is in possession of Alphabet Debt Collection, you cannot run, you cannot hide.
Might wanna look up fees their going to charge you when you withdraw that money… Even after your past retirement age. You’re just making the rich richer but I’ll probably eat my words when we’re both 65. Atleast for humanity I hope I eat my words.
The smartest thing any person can do is make their best informed decision with the information they have now. Not with speculative catastrophizing of a future that will keep marching on with or without you.
Because it will, despite all the doomerism in the world lol. And take this from someone who thinks the stock market is just a money generation machine for the rich that plays with made up magic in order to subsidize workers retirements only possible through unsustainable growth based gdp. It’s what makes compound interest even work lol.
The peons don’t like the idea of being paid so little they can’t save up for retirement without magically generating money from hoarding scraps. Heads would be literally rolling daily and worker rights and pay would be enshrined in every first world.
The difference is that they usualy plan for a longer time, sometimes for generations, while the usual CEOs plan very short term, because they don’t care what happens with the company after them. Family owned business don’t have to give out part of their earnings every year, so it’s not that big of a problem if they have little earnings in a year, while the market share of a normal Company will immediately fall. So there actually is a huge difference.
That aside I don’t know why they market it like that. I think it just sounds more trustworthy.
A company can be family owned and being public at the same time. I work in one, just happen that the family who owns it have a controlled majority of the shares.
Im using Jerboa, and one of the functionalities that RiF had that I would love they implement is that everytime you clicked a link a pop-up come up with the address of the link and options to copy, open in default app, share to app or cancel. Saved me a lot of redirects that I didn’t wanted.
I don’t like pop ups, I want as few clicks/taps as possible. If I tap the text it should take me to the comments, if I tap the picture it should take me to the picture/link, and then from either one I should be able to go directly to the other without pressing back first.
The functionality you describe should be found under a long press, imo.
Part of that, the “do you want to continue to this url?” part, is enabled by default in Connect. Ever since switching from Jerboa I’ve only been rickrolled when I wanted to! 😁
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