Get Rid of Capitalism?

[StCapps]

Monopolies are bad m'kay, fuck them and the horse the rode in on. If a monopoly is enforced by government regulations, then they are even worse. Some government intervention in the economy is a good thing, but an attitude that any government intervention in the economy is simply doubling down on the problems ailing that economy, is obviously bullshit.

Everything in moderation, neither 0% government intervention or 100% government intervention in the economy is the ideal economic set up, the answer very clearly lies somewhere in between those extremes, and I'm pretty sure we can all agree that the extremists on either side of that argument don't know what they are talking about.

[SuburbanFarmer]

If those products and ideas are truly better, why do you need anti trust?

Because the entire point of a monopoly is to raise the barriers to entry. We've already seen a car engine that can run on water, and countless technologies to replace the current energy infrastructure. These technologies are routinely suppressed by the entrenched interests that control the current systems.

This goes back to Westinghouse and Edison's crusade against Tesla's attempt to wirelessly power the world. Or, EA and Ubisoft sending forth the lawyers against modding communities 'tampering' with their games. Or Verizon/ATT locking cellphones into one of their cell-tower networks.

Innovation is strangled by monopolistic practices, similar to The Church holding back science for a millenium. Once you have control over "The Truth", all competing truths must be suppressed, lest you lose your parasitic grip on power.

[StCapps]

The Catholic Church held back science? What about all the science that they promoted, during this era they were supposedly holding back science, especially compared to other religions? Islam was okay about not holding back science, comparatively speaking, for a like a couple hundred years, but that was kind of short lived. As far as I'm concerned, the Catholic Church did less to hold back science than any other major religion over the time period you refer to, so attack another religion on this, not the Catholics.
/shrugs

[tue4t]

A domestic dog is not a wolf, unless i guess you've been molly coddled by weak ideologies like socialism into playing fast and loose with definitions and always thinking your emotional intuitions represent truth.

Savage.

Who is this? Were you on DCF?

I lurked on DCF and then found out about this board when DCF shut down. I actually enjoy reading the insights of the people on this board every now and then. Smitty in particular is really something else (in the good way), that guy must have an iq in the 150's with a breadth of knowledge to boot.

Only reason i replied to this thread in the manner that i did was because I have no patience for economic interventionism. It's my trigger since I majored in this stuff. Especially when it's being advocated for from really weak ideological positions. People just don't think about second, third, fourth order effects. Nor do they seem to understand that their ideas affects the allocation of billions if not trillions in assets, or that there are very smart people out there who will find a way to turn the game back at you like using anti trust to destroy their competitors. You can't play fast and loose with economic interventionism.

For example, I think history is going to look back at this time period and recognise the government's role in setting up the housing bubble and subsequently bailing out the banks as one of the most criminal (in spirit) acts of the century.

[SuburbanFarmer]

The Catholic Church held back science? What all about all the science that they promoted, especially compared to other religions?

I concede that they forged new boundaries in medical science, such as the boiling temp of human organs, elasticity of various orifices, and all sorts of creative Mengele-type experiments in pain. Truly, leaders in the field.

[Martin Hash]

Pushback by tue4t just makes this a stronger thread.

[StCapps]

I concede that they forged new boundaries in medical science, such as the boiling temp of human organs, elasticity of various orifices, and all sorts of creative Mengele-type experiments in pain. Truly, leaders in the field.

If you can only think of the negatives, it's because you are knee-jerk anti-catholic. Comparatively speaking the Catholic Church suppressed science the least of the all major world religions during the timeframe you are talking about, you just want to paint them as the bad guys because they weren't perfect, but everyone else was worse, the Catholics were the best of the bunch.
/shrugs

Quit holding people of the past to today's standards, and evaluate them based on the standards of their time, the Catholics should not be singled out for holding back science, just the opposite, they were the best at promoting science among the major religions of the world, at that time.

[Zlaxer]

...We've already seen a car engine that can run on water...

Wait, what?


The first law has been overcome?

Why you gotta hold out like that?

[Heraclius]

The Catholic Church held back science? What all about all the science that they promoted, especially compared to other religions?

I concede that they forged new boundaries in medical science, such as the boiling temp of human organs, elasticity of various orifices, and all sorts of creative Mengele-type experiments in pain. Truly, leaders in the field.

Are you talking about the Catholic Church before the Counter Reformation or after? Do you consider Galileo to have been suppressed by the Church?

I can’t really expect the Catholic Church to be a creator of scientific knowledge during the Early Middle Ages when people considered the Romans to have been a race of giants. They did the best they could in an era focused on survival and just focused on maintaining the knowledge of Antiquity. The High Middle Ages saw the foundation and support of higher learning by the Church. The Renaissance and early modern period is where most of the criticism of the Church comes from (hardly a milennia) but most of it is a bastardization of political conflicts in an attempt to create an evil caricature of the Catholic Church. Religion and knowledge aren’t mutually exclusive.

Also funny thing about torture, you’d count your lucky stars to find yourself in an Inquisition court over a “civil” court for most of the Middle Ages. They used torture, but that was standard for secular courts of the time as well. Though the Church was superior in some ways for court. For one, they had an actual trial structure. They had educated judges. They had actual rules around the use of torture. There were even cases of people commiting blasphemy in a feudal lord’s court in order to fall under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition in Spain.

[K@th]

I think the church gets the bad rep on science by the way they take their time on things (that they really don't need to have an opinion on, anyway.)

It was the 90's when the Church started recognizing evolution. They also "apologized" to Galileo around that same time.

This kind of stuff makes them appear late to the table.