[ExI] don't let your guard down, not for a minute...

[giovanni santostasi]

The books are the classics of Marx and Engels but also the entire literature that inspired them, from Plato to Vico.
Why empty assertions?
Common....  how many examples I have to give? 
How can you explain what a CEO makes in a company and how that is proportional to what exactly he does? Do we really want to have a discussion on that?
I think it is self-explanatory. And CEO are just the top of the Iceberg. Without talking about celebrities in every field that are supported with lavish rewards by the capitalistic system simply because they are useful to distract and entertain so people don't have to think seriously about their alienation.
Should I continue?
The ideal system has been obtained up to a certain point at smaller scales. This is why I used the term mass-scale experiments. The mass-scale experiments have been hijacked but some of the smaller scale attempts have shown some level of success, there have been many communes that have been peaceful and creative places where to live and grow.
I cannot believe that you are putting down my assertion about an ideal society based on the possibility of better human beings, I thought this is what the essence of what transhumanism is. 
All what I'm saying is that Marxism could work when people are more evolved. What is wrong with that statement? Many utopias are exactly that, ideals to aspire to that don't exist yet (this what utopia means literally).
And the poorly defined beings are not so poorly defined. There are many transhumanist documents that describe exactly how humans will be at the next level, in a way they will be more "human" (what we call be human is more an ideal than something we have really achieved). I see transhumans as very close to the ideal of buddhahood: altruistic, compassionate, generous, selfless, open to nature and the environment and so on.
Ben Cosmist Manifesto has a lot of these ideals charted down.
Samantha explain your ideal vision of the world because I don't get it...
A world full of Bill Gates?
Giovanni


   


--- On Fri, 9/10/10, samantha <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:

From: samantha <sjatkins at mac.com>
Subject: Re: [ExI] don't let your guard down, not for a minute...
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Date: Friday, September 10, 2010, 8:59 PM



  

    
  On 9/10/10 4:13 PM, giovanni santostasi wrote:
    
      
        
          
            I agree that on the
              book communism is a far superior social organization than
              capitalism. 
          
        
      
    
    Based on what exactly?  On what "book"?

    

    
      
        
          
            Capitalism has
              exploitation as a key element by design. 
          
        
      
    
    False.  Only freely entered trades and other contracts are allowed. 
    No initiation of force including fraud is allowed.

    

    
      
        
          
            In a way the fact
              that many people enjoy a modest level of benefits from
              capitalistic society is 1) the result of non capitalistic
              forces achieving rights for the individual 2) a clever
              form of exploitation similar to the roman emperors slogan
              "give them bread and entertainment and the people would be
              submissive". It simply makes us better consumers to be
              given crumbles of the big pie so we happily exploited and
              manipulated.

            
          
        
      
    
    

    Empty assertions with neither argument or evidence.

    

    
      
        
          
            Of course, so far
              any  real mass-scale communism experiment has failed
              mostly because has been hijacked by tyrannical figures
              that used communism as a cover up.

            
          
        
      
    
    

    Or it is broken by design as I and many others contend including
    many who are former communists.

    

    
      
        
          
            Communism is a very
              idealistic approach to society, that if maybe unpractical
              (at least given the level of development of humans at this
              point) shares a lot with the transhumanist ideal of life.

            
          
        
      
    
    If the "ideal" is not at all based in reality then how can it be
    ideal for producing the best living systems of real human beings?  A
    system that would work only for some poorly defined quite different
    beings than what humans are deserves scathing contempt - not
    admiration.

    

    - s

    

  

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