(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Posted: **Thu 26 Nov 2015, 17:50**

We're here because we like Puppy and Linux in general. A huge part of it is that we don't like Windows. We don't like Windows mostly because Bill Gates achieved overwhelming market dominance through capitalism played extremely well. We like Linus Torvalds and others for devising a way for computers to work without corporate ownership. In this alternative approach, sharing is mandated, progress is participatory, and market dominance is almost impossible, although Android will probably manage it. For most of us, Linux is a labor of love, and the funds to continue development literally have to be begged for. Wealthy concerns, like Google, do make a fortune due to Linux, despite its novel economic platform. I submit that capitalism isn't the real problem, but the "winner-takes-all" notion is a very bad one that allows the development of huge hoards of "all the marbles," which then win every game of marbles through the probability advantage of large numbers. Instead of controlling capitalism through complicated government oversight, we should simply prohibit the accumulation of great wealth. Reach the limit as a person or corporation, and all further acquisition is taxed at 100%, or it can be voluntarily given away to preferred causes. No exceptions. Now this probably won't yield a good version of Windows, but it might help. What do you think?

Posted: **Thu 26 Nov 2015, 18:44**

- Corporate "personhood"
- Intellectual property law
- Bad capitalists
- Bad governments
- Bad courts
- Bad media
- Fashion
- Gullible consumers

I'm tempted to think we'd be better off without concept like limited liability companies and shares.

Posted: **Fri 27 Nov 2015, 00:32**

Gee, disciple, you've got all that crap too? I thought you folks were supposed to be different. Maybe that was ecological, not economical.

Posted: **Fri 27 Nov 2015, 18:40**

Well, a lot of it's just spillover e.g. Microsoft might not need to engage in criminal activity here if they've managed to destroy everyone else in the larger markets.
But NZ can't really complain - our governments have been committed to the extreme "free market" since Labour got elected in 1981 by adopting right-wing economics but still getting the support of all their traditional voters too...

Posted: **Fri 27 Nov 2015, 19:13**

You've got a right-wing Labor Party in charge? This I've got to check out. We don't get much NZ news in the States. We don't get much real news, actually.

Posted: **Fri 27 Nov 2015, 22:28**

Oh, I see. Labour is currently opposition, but right-wing economics is still in practice, characterized by strong free market emphasis. And apparently, this position was necessary to bail the country out, so to speak, and maintain a stable currency. So at the moment things aren't desperate and business has free reign. Sounds like the same hostage situation bankers have the US in. Here the national prosperity (money in circulation) equals the national debt (through the Federal Reserve Bank), and the government taxes the citizens to pay the yearly interest. It's a debt-based currency, and we don't even bother to print much any more. Do you folks have something like that?

Posted: **Sat 28 Nov 2015, 02:19**

and without the evil capitalists, we would not have such an assortment of outdated computers to use with Puppy.

Posted: **Sat 28 Nov 2015, 03:34**

we should simply prohibit the accumulation of great wealth. Reach the limit as a person or corporation, and all further acquisition is taxed at 100%, or it can be voluntarily given away to preferred causes. No exceptions.

What do you think people do with money?
Simple.
They use it to buy, make, develop, grow a companies size, etc....
That money does not just stay in a can in the back yard.

If we followed your idea, there would only be one of anything.

Microsoft only got to where it is, because Apple did not offer there operating system to other companies.

IBM had OS2, but for whatever reason, decided to stop trying to out do Microsoft. OS2 was a better operating system at the time.

The only problem with capitalism is, the government has too much of it's hands, in the process of running and starting a new company.
Some basic regulation is needed, but not to the point it is now.

Example:
Why does the government have to pay farmers not to grow something?
The idea is to help keep the price of it steady.
So, if you do not grow it, we will pay you $$$$$$.
If the farmer grows too much of something and does not make money.
Guess what. Next year he will cut back or not grow it.
He did not need the government, paying him, to make that decision.

Supply and demand and how many people offering a specific product, should set prices, not the government.

Wonder what the price of going to collage would be, if the government was not backing student loans?
If you went to a collage and said "I can not give you that much money to go here and I can not get a loan for the money".
If people told them that. I wonder how quick the price would go down?

Posted: **Sat 28 Nov 2015, 04:43**

Hey bigpup. It's obvious you've put a lot of thought into your position, and I agree with most of your points. I think you may have missed one of mine. What I tried to suggest was no government oversight at all, except to ensure that winners could not take the whole pot - a cap on short-term income to keep the game going and a cap on wealth to preclude an unfair advantage in the play of the game. Millions could still be made and billions held, let's say, but billions could not be made and trillions held. (There actually is a trillion-dollar family.) This should result in many more smaller winners and far greater competition. The economic excess would be redistributed. Although I'm a life-long liberal socialist, I would favor the promising over the poor in such redistribution. It is wrong to have beggars dying in gutters, but a society should look after its own best interests. I guess what I'm proposing is free-for-all capitalism with a high ceiling and a low floor, but no heaven for a few and no hell for the many and some help for those with brains, talent, or determination.

Posted: **Sat 28 Nov 2015, 15:12**

bigpup wrote:Supply and demand and how many people offering a specific product, should set prices, not the government.

That is based on the mistake of assuming that all actors (both supply side and the demand side) are in equal force to impose its conditions. Something that in practice is not verified.
Producers can be monopolistic or oligopolistic, they act cartelized.
That's where the state must balance the forces in defense of the weaker to avoid being eaten by the strongest, otherwise what we have is the law of the jungle.
Free, perfect, balanced, market never existed and will never exist.

For me, after a lot of reading, what´s wrong with capitalism, it's that, in order to run, it needs to be constantly in the phase of exponential growth.
And debt with interest has a central role here.

That, it's obvious that worked in the past, but what happens now that we are reaching the limits of the system?

Change the chip for a moment and instead of thinking in terms of money (which is human invention), think in terms of energy and resources. You'll see things very differently.
Then put back the money chip, if you can.

Saludos.

Posted: **Sat 28 Nov 2015, 15:59**

What's Wrong With Capitalism?

One can watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QILNSgou5BY

To get a general idea where things are heading. Also. Some members here fail to take in how race, color, sexual orientation, and creed play into making certain humans permanent members of poor society for generations. Also. Humans can be just plain mean animals naturally.

Like Uganda passing strict homophobic laws persecuting gays like other countries that run capitalism.Capitalism allows persecution of minorities.

Ism in today's technical society needs to change with the growth of the planets population.
Let's see how well ism works out when drinking water runs out for everyone but the wealthy.

Not your typical redneck posting this (more like Jessie Ventura ). I am more like one of these mindsets.

Mission Statement

Founded in 2008, The Zeitgeist Movement is a sustainability advocacy organization, which conducts community based activism and awareness actions through a network of global/regional chapters, project teams, annual events, media and charity work.

The movement's principle focus includes the recognition that the majority of the social problems that plague the human species at this time are not the sole result of some institutional corruption, absolute scarcity, a political policy, a flaw of "human nature" or other commonly held assumptions of causality. Rather, the movement recognizes that issues such as poverty, corruption, pollution, homelessness, war, starvation and the like appear to be "symptoms" born out of an outdated social structure.

While intermediate reform steps and temporal community support are of interest to the movement, the defining goal is the installation of a new socioeconomic model based upon technically responsible resource management, allocation and design through what would be considered the scientific method of reasoning problems and finding optimized solutions.

This “Natural Law/Resource-Based Economy" (NLRBE) is about taking a direct technical approach to social management as opposed to a monetary or even political one. It is about updating the workings of society to the most advanced and proven methods known, leaving behind the damaging consequences and limiting inhibitions which are generated by our current system of monetary exchange, profit, business and other structural and motivational issues.

The movement is loyal to a train of thought, not figures or institutions. The view held is that through the use of socially targeted research and tested understandings in science and technology, we are now able to logically arrive at societal applications that could be profoundly more effective in meeting the needs of the human population, increasing public health. There is little reason to assume war, poverty, most crime and many other monetarily-based scarcity effects common in our current model cannot be resolved over time. The range of the movement's activism and awareness campaigns extend from short to long term, with methods based explicitly on non-violent methods of communication.

The Zeitgeist Movement has no allegiance to any country or traditional political platforms. It views the world as a single system and the human species as a single family and recognizes that all countries must disarm and learn to share resources and ideas if we expect to survive in the long run. Hence, the solutions arrived at and promoted are in the interest to help everyone on Earth, not a select group.

Most rednecks think my train of thought is crazy. But I was of this mind set since a child.
Good thing I grew up big enough to defend my mind set.
People better start taking care of everyone they meet as the population of earth
doubles as time goes by. Or back to the stone age we go.

Already. Even Medical Care and Air Flights are class warfare sites.
Only the well to do get primo medical care while the poor die off in the USA.
You know this is true if you are honest with yourself.
Only the well to do fly in business class. Only the well to do defend capitalism.
"OMG, I see rich people!"

There is so much wrong with Capitalism. This post could just go on forever.
So I am done. You can put a fork in me.

Posted: **Sat 28 Nov 2015, 16:09**

Thanks, Galbi. Certainly Argentina's two recent depressions would authorize your expertise in economic matters. I don't, however, think capitalism needs exponential growth - geometric maybe and arithmetic definitely. That's why why Nixon removed the metal basis of currency in the 70's. This allowed the free generation of fiat money, and capitalism became explosive. Boom and bust isn't the greatest idea for the general population, although the very wealthy can profit by it and further increase their unfair share of the pie. I think we need to find our way back to something far less volatile, but sustainable growth must be the goal of benign capitalism (if there is such a thing). I think an ever-increasing body of band-aide laws to oversee and remedy matters is a poor instrument of control. I want something simple that everyone can understand and hopefully endorse.

Posted: **Sat 28 Nov 2015, 16:12**

Wow, roky, give me a few hours to digest that and I'll get back to you.

Posted: **Sat 28 Nov 2015, 17:24**

Just for BigPup who I would like to think. Is just like this southern boy posting now. I admire and respect BigPup by the way.

[quote]The nationwide starving of resources for infrastructure is justified by endless claims that there is “no money

Posted: **Sat 28 Nov 2015, 17:40**

Posted: **Sat 28 Nov 2015, 20:16**

Galbi, that's a great graphic. Roky that looks like a movie I've got to see (on Kodi). I would suggest that we are already there, except for the tech, drama, and excitement. Close enough to worry about. While the US isn't quite Elysium, we do suffer from Omphalos Syndrome ($64,000 trivia question appropriate to the name of the movie). I don't think capitalism allows the persecution of minorities, exactly, it fosters the exploitation of the unfortunate. Democracy is the tyranny of the majority. As to Zeitgeist, it's a great idea. Plato had a great idea in the Republic - a meritocracy. Kings invited Plato to implement until they realized it meant giving up their privileged power positions. Radically new ideas can rise from the ashes of old ideas, but there has never been a gradual transition that I know of. You can degrade wealth and power (British aristocracy) by replacing it with other wealth and power, or you can wrest it (French aristocracy) only to have other wealth and power develop. Total catastrophe might be more productive, but only in the long run. I'm looking for a few-decade procrastination of looming inevitabilities that all look very scary. I'm thinking it needs to be a simple non-system solution to work.

Posted: **Sat 28 Nov 2015, 20:39**

OK - on to bigpup's state. Yeah, SC is the latest place to prove we can't take care of our own. I wonder who winter will hit. These demos of inadequacy have become almost habitual. Again, we're looking at an allocation issue. A society can withstand elite and disadvantaged populations, but there's a limit. The elite is too small to call a population, and the entire population is about to become disadvantaged. This is not the way the US should join the rest of the world. Still, I can't think of a driving force of sufficient magnitude to effect change other than greed. Altruism has never worked. Philanthropy is hopeless. Those with only share with those without to the extent they are forced to. Mandating equitable distribution and maintaining adequate defense are the main reasons to have a government. At this very late stage of abandoned responsibility, we need a HOW-TO mechanism, and it needs to be fast, strong, and effective. Granted, the system sucks, but throwing it away is a very poor option.

Posted: **Wed 02 Dec 2015, 06:02**

eric52 wrote:Oh, I see. Labour is currently opposition, but right-wing economics is still in practice

Yes, before both parties were protectionist and now both parties are the opposite.

characterized by strong free market emphasis. And apparently, this position was necessary to bail the country out, so to speak, and maintain a stable currency. So at the moment things aren't desperate and business has free reign. Sounds like the same hostage situation bankers have the US in. Here the national prosperity (money in circulation) equals the national debt (through the Federal Reserve Bank), and the government taxes the citizens to pay the yearly interest. It's a debt-based currency, and we don't even bother to print much any more. Do you folks have something like that?

Something along those lines.

Posted: **Wed 02 Dec 2015, 06:05**

rokytnji wrote:Only the well to do fly in business class. Only the well to do defend capitalism.

I thought you had plenty of poorer, gun loving redneck republicans? Surely they're not all socialists?

Posted: **Wed 02 Dec 2015, 06:08**

bigpup wrote:
we should simply prohibit the accumulation of great wealth. Reach the limit as a person or corporation, and all further acquisition is taxed at 100%, or it can be voluntarily given away to preferred causes. No exceptions.
What do you think people do with money?
Simple.
They use it to buy, make, develop, grow a companies size, etc....
That money does not just stay in a can in the back yard.

Over here one could be forgiven for thinking they usually use it simply to buy more back yards.