Bernie Sanders' 404 page • Hacker News Board

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#271

Post by MrJagil » Thu, Aug 27, 2015, 8:05 AM UTC

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #263

hyperbovine wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He favors European style social democracy. His whole point is that there actually exist functioning countries where health care is universal and free, college is accessible to all, gay people have rights, etc etc., and that America could be one of those countries if we wanted to. Btw I learned this by spending five minutes last night reading about him and watching a short interview, so I think your comment gives him…

As the Washington Post pointed out (and common sense concurs), the only way a Scandanavian-style democratic socialist economy can exist is because there is a United States to drive the economy enough so that there's enough productivity that those countries can afford their socialism. Unfortunately, I can't find the article now, but it surprising to see in the Washington Post. If the USA adopted these policies, the bi…

I believe it's this one. It's tone really throws me off though: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/10/...

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#272

Post by javert » Thu, Aug 27, 2015, 10:02 AM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #257

javert wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is different between the ideology underpinning Democrats, and socialism? I'm genuinely asking what you think the difference is. The Democrats obviously support socialized medicine, socialized education, wealth redistribution via high taxes, and significant regulation of private enterprise. To me, that is the same as socialism, except perhaps in minor technicalities of implementation, which are relatively…

For purposes of this comment, I will be attempting to clarify differences between social democracy, democratic socialism, and socialism-in-general. >What exactly is different between the ideology underpinning Democrats, and socialism? It comes as news to me that the Democrats have an ideology. Ever since Reagan, and then Clinton, their standard strategy has been every bit neoliberal, even if not sadistically neoliber…

> A true socialist favors workers owning enterprises.

> To repeat and sum-up the core point: socialism does not really care about taxation or regulation except as tools, it cares about workers owning their own tools, work-sites, materials, and enterprises, and thus controlling their own lives rather than being controlled by an owner.

Clearly you are talking about collectivism (as opposed to individualism), and the Democrats are collectivist. You just have this technical implementation difference.

Which is to have workers control enterprises by some sort of voting scheme. As opposed to the natural course of evolution from freedom to collectivism, where you would have "private" ownership of enterprises, but with the state controlling the owner through regulation and taxation.

That really is an implementation detail. There is a whole lot more that goes into a political system than just deciding how enterprises are managed. (And, by the way, it's not any different to have your 99 fellow workers decide by voting how things are run, vs. a bureaucrat from a central government. So it's also an unimportant implementation detail.)

I think that makes it pretty disingenious for Democrats to scream "we are not socialists" and socialists to say "Democrats are not socialists." Because the people complaining about socialism don't care about that technical implementation difference; that's not actually the issue being raised. Rather, they are arguing against collectivism.

People in general use "socialism" to mean "collectivism," and I think that's perfectly fine, because people in general don't (and shouldn't) care about some obscure implementation detail that is being argued over by true believers.

If you have an argument against what I've said here, I'd be interested to see it, but I'd rather get something really specific and targeted vs. more of a soapbox.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#273

Post by javert » Thu, Aug 27, 2015, 10:16 AM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #257

javert wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is different between the ideology underpinning Democrats, and socialism? I'm genuinely asking what you think the difference is. The Democrats obviously support socialized medicine, socialized education, wealth redistribution via high taxes, and significant regulation of private enterprise. To me, that is the same as socialism, except perhaps in minor technicalities of implementation, which are relatively…

For purposes of this comment, I will be attempting to clarify differences between social democracy, democratic socialism, and socialism-in-general. >What exactly is different between the ideology underpinning Democrats, and socialism? It comes as news to me that the Democrats have an ideology. Ever since Reagan, and then Clinton, their standard strategy has been every bit neoliberal, even if not sadistically neoliber…

By the way, to clarify the other comment I just made, the Democrats really are collectivist, because they favor socialized medicine, education, high redistribution of wealth, and arbitrary amounts of regulation. Yes, it's true that they haven't helped the homeless and that some benefits accrue to elites (e.g. you mention the finance sector).

That is what normally happens when one tries to implement collectivism. People think that places like Sweden and Germany are not corrupt like this, and that may be true, but the U.S. is really a third-world country (like Latin America), not like Germany or Sweden---just with a minority Anglo-Saxon-style pro-liberty subculture layered on top. So of course collectivism gets implemented in a much more corrupt way than what might "theoretically" be possible.

Also, I recognize that the mainstream Democrats want to go towards even more collectivism more slowly than Warren or Sanders or a "true socialist." And may not want as pure of a form. So there is a difference, but it's just a difference of degree. Also, it's true that the Democrats don't have a coherent ideology, but nonetheless, they still clearly represent collectivism and move in a collectivist direction. And I agree that they are not that different from most Republicans. Most Republicans concede having a welfare state and just want to do it more slowly and to a lesser degree, which, again, is just a difference in degree, not quality. The Republicans are not defenders of individualism; they do not really oppose collectivism; they just create temporary setbacks for Democrats.

edit: This is just to clarify where I am so you can answer the other comment (if you want), not to argue.

Also, I just want to say, since I started writing these two comments, I lost 12 karma all at once, so apparently somebody just went through and downvoted all my recent comments (all of which were in positive territory before, and none of them are inflammatory). If an admin sees this, it would be nice if you could ban whoever is doing that.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#274

Post by 3pt14159 » Thu, Aug 27, 2015, 12:06 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #239

3pt14159 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey man if I'm following your robots.txt it's all good right? You have the power to only allow the people that give you benefit: User-agent: * Disallow: / User-agent: Googlebot Allow: / User-agent: Slurp Allow: / User-Agent: bingbot Allow: /

robots.txt is widely ignored. User-agent fields are faked out to make robots look like Firefox on Windows. Anyone can make a crawler and then have it report as Googlebot. That doesn't even violate the robots.txt; it says, if your name is Googlebot, you're allowed. Blocking crap requires cunning: code that looks for suspicious access patterns and responds. A genuine Googlebot should be operating from a Google domain.…

I'm just saying: don't guilt me if I'm following robots.txt.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#275

Post by eli_gottlieb » Thu, Aug 27, 2015, 12:47 PM UTC

javert wrote: post #272

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For purposes of this comment, I will be attempting to clarify differences between social democracy, democratic socialism, and socialism-in-general. >What exactly is different between the ideology underpinning Democrats, and socialism? It comes as news to me that the Democrats have an ideology. Ever since Reagan, and then Clinton, their standard strategy has been every bit neoliberal, even if not sadistically neoliber…

> A true socialist favors workers owning enterprises. > To repeat and sum-up the core point: socialism does not really care about taxation or regulation except as tools, it cares about workers owning their own tools, work-sites, materials, and enterprises, and thus controlling their own lives rather than being controlled by an owner. Clearly you are talking about collectivism (as opposed to individualism), and the De…

>If you have an argument against what I've said here, I'd be interested to see it, but I'd rather get something really specific and targeted vs. more of a soapbox.

I don't really have to argue against anything here, because you haven't taken a coherent position. "Freedom" and "collectivism" are not supernatural forces. Reversed right-proprietarianism is not leftism.

When you are willing to acknowledge the differences between and specific points among left-wing ideologies, leftists will be willing to talk to you. When you try to boil everything down to categories like "individualism" or "collectivism" that only make sense within your own ideology - as if your ideology was built into reality rather than something you impose upon your perceptions - rather than attempting to honestly engage others on matters of fact, you are wasting everyone's time.

All you've managed to say is, "Look at all those Democrats and socialists: they're not right-proprietarians! How horrid!"

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#276

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, Aug 27, 2015, 12:55 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #82

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ITs not cut-and-dried. E.g. its vs it's is unsolvable - both should have the apostrophe but ambiguity.

Mmh, not really. "Its" is consistent with other possessive pronouns like "his" and "hers". "It's" is consistent with other contractions, where letters are removed ("it is" or "it has").

Can argue they should have the apostrophe too. Like Tom's or Roosevelt's. "Her's" Those just don't happen to be (very) ambiguous.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#277

Post by unfamiliar » Thu, Aug 27, 2015, 3:52 PM UTC

grecy wrote: post #149

slg wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all comes down to our "freedom" fetish. Why should the government force me to take 4 weeks of vacation when I can make due with 2? Why would I want to build my day around a train schedule when I could just get in my car and drive? And so on.

You missed the point entirely. Just because those things are available, you are not forced to use them. You would have the best of both worlds, because you would have more choices, not less like you have now.

To play devils advocate: allowing 4 weeks of paid vacation, no questions asked, will eventually be reflected in the salary as a result of economic forces. Then someone who can make do with 2 days vacation will not be able to get paid for those extra 4 weeks, even if they are willing to work them.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#278

Post by javert » Thu, Aug 27, 2015, 4:37 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #275

javert wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A true socialist favors workers owning enterprises. > To repeat and sum-up the core point: socialism does not really care about taxation or regulation except as tools, it cares about workers owning their own tools, work-sites, materials, and enterprises, and thus controlling their own lives rather than being controlled by an owner. Clearly you are talking about collectivism (as opposed to individualism), and the De…

>If you have an argument against what I've said here, I'd be interested to see it, but I'd rather get something really specific and targeted vs. more of a soapbox. I don't really have to argue against anything here, because you haven't taken a coherent position. "Freedom" and "collectivism" are not supernatural forces. Reversed right-proprietarianism is not leftism . When you are willing to acknowledge the difference…

> boil everything down to categories like "individualism" or "collectivism" that only make sense within your own ideology - as if your ideology was built into reality rather than something you impose upon your perceptions

My classifications (e.g. individualism and collectivism) are derived from reality, not imposed on top of them, and are quite reasonable.

edit: I've removed the rest of my original comment that was here, because I can't say anything nice, and so I don't want to say anything at all. In short, I think your last comment is totally unreasonable and off base.