![Super-Secret Randomly Scheduled Thing ... But it's During the Day [Live Stream]](https://img5.samukata.com/storage/11/xp/in/4e9b88-019e8eeb-8a5e-7862-b824-966b982dc5cf.jpg)
Super-Secret Randomly Scheduled Thing ... But it's During the Day [Live Stream]
Added 2018-11-21 20:48:23 +0000 UTCLast night I did a secret live stream, there was a bit of confusion about it this morning. So let's have a chat.
Comments
@5:08, were you a public school teacher? If so, the restrictions you mentioined. Is it because you have to follow the source material from the text book the school provides? Thus limiting you from teaching in more detail, or even the truth?!
TimofGlazz
2018-12-22 12:27:19 +0000 UTCYou got turnt on to that super chat $$$ didn’t you Will?
Matthew Wholters
2018-12-01 22:20:30 +0000 UTCSimilarly, your division of economic life into capitalism, socialism and communism is misleading because tautological names can be either true or false depending on the context. For example, the Marxist theory of communism presupposes that perfect capitalism produces so many goods that workers need not spend much time making them and more time enjoying a diverse, fulfilling life. Because, in Marx's view, only the successful struggle of the working class against the owners of the means of production could create the conditions for communism, government is irrelevant (because it's only another tool for the owners of production to control workers' minds and behaviors. Over the last hundred years, American political theory has been consumed by anti-communism, by which it doesn't mean being anti-utopia but rather anti-Soviet, which seized upon the Marxist theory to pretend the Soviets were the vanguard of the proletariat and thus that a Soviet government was always right and misguidedly self-interested workers always wrong. Over the last couple hundred years, we've also known that a pure capitalism doesn't exist, because the state exercises functions, such as the protection of private property (police, courts, and military) and the provision of resources arguably best held in common (in the U.S., public education, originally seen as the protector of national values). Socialism is a default description for anything not purely capitalist or purely communist and thus a vacuous term that has been used by the Nazis ("National Socialists") and by labor-oriented political parties (Social Democrats). What I gather you're saying is that government regulation of the economy, possible government ownership of means of production, and an orientation to the working classes is preferable. An alternative theory is that the government should do what is necessary to ensure that capitalism is actually as competitive as its Adam Smith model (and its contemporary derivatives) describes. That means that the government has a role in anti-trust (preventing monopolies), consumer protection (health and safety), and disrupting the capitalist urge to concentration of power and assets. It is the last role that I gather you to be ascribing to socialism as your preferred alternative, but making capitalism more competitive is intuitively less socialist than capitalist. Companies like the high tech giants of social media and computer technology have phenomenal power as a result of market share, market stock valuation, and ability to shift the political discourse to their benefit. Acting against such concentration (with concentration necessarily tending to the rent-seeking I talked about in my last posting) seems to be more what you're in favor of, so I think it's better to phrase your concern along that spectrum rather than with the use of loaded, but ultimately vacuous names.
Grant Barnes
2018-11-27 20:15:18 +0000 UTCYou commented that the board game Monopoly is an exemplar of capitalism. I think this is misleading. In Monopoly, a bank (read a "king") controls the cash and distributes a specific amount to each of the players at the outset. By shear luck of the roll of the dice, a player lands on a property owned by the bank and can either buy it or pass. If it's bought, the player's only option is to build on it, i.e., to spend cash to raise rents the player can charge to anyone else whose luck is to land on that square. In economics, this is deemed a rent-seeking activity. This was the essence of a feudal system, whereby the king granted right of possession and accordingly the right to collect rents for others using the property. The theory of capitalism developed in opposition to this system, because it was clear that in cities the production of goods and services could be monetized separately from the ownership or control of land. Whereas land is generally limited to only that which is in existence, trading goods and services can create more value for everyone, in part because of the economies of scale. Whereas landowners want to keep trespassers out by building walls, traders want to build bridges and trains and ships to increase trade. The traditional theory of capitalism creates two classes -- the owners of the means of production (e.g. industrial) and the workers, who sell their labor power to the highest bidder. The board game doesn't incorporate industrialization, only the ownership of land. The theory of capitalism also presupposes that competition will develop because anyone can develop an industry that serves a need that either long existed or is created by the new economy. That competition, which doesn't exist in the board game either, results in every lower prices for commodities and thus lower wages, and attempts by capitalists to achieve monopoly status and thus depress competition. Where monopolies exist, they create an imbalance, because consumers have to buy the goods a single capitalist produces, and the capitalist's interest is to increase the prices until people can't pay it any more. That is what economists call "rent-seeking" behavior, in other words, it mirrors the situation of land-owning, where the owner's interest is similarly to increase rents until the breaking point for those who have to rent to live on land they can't hope to own. Thus, the board game is consistent with capitalism only in the extreme case of rent-seeking. I don't believe it advances your argument about capitalism/socialism/communism to use the board game Monopoly to exemplify capitalism in general.
Grant Barnes
2018-11-27 19:20:56 +0000 UTCDang it, missed another one🙄. Wondered if you had come across the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory? Given the coverage the recent report on climate change is getting, I’ve noticed a lot of references amongst deniers to “agenda 21”, which as far as I know was a fairly innocuous sustainability agreement from 1992, but which has become a conspiracy theory in which notorious socialist George HW Bush blah, blah, blah. Forget it, I’m boring myself!
Patrick Collins
2018-11-25 06:24:39 +0000 UTCBest math channel?
Susan Buckingham
2018-11-21 22:26:36 +0000 UTCSounds great!
Susan Buckingham
2018-11-21 21:28:13 +0000 UTCLove your videos!!!!
Susan Buckingham
2018-11-21 21:25:48 +0000 UTC
