Even if the human decency argument makes absolutely no headway, you'd think the bottom line of one tenth of the expenditure would resonate which such a staunchly capitalist nation.

"Oh, it's far more cost effective? Fuck yeah!"

How dafuq do you get to a point where it makes sense to treat people far worse for 10 times the cost?

Abrams IS a hack. he never even liked star trek but repeated all the old images with added lens flares and fake looking shiny CGI bullshit.
Expect the same.
There is no love or inspiration here, just the product of a billion dollar business deal between fat cynical capitalists and later their mercenary artisitically bankrupt stooge for hire.
Doing anything interesting is the only way to get fired for him (see Antman).
Also, that doesn't look like han solo, anymore than the crystal skull oldie looked like indiana jones.

Allerto's off of Brookhurst. That's the shiiiiiit. Best American Mexican food made by American Mexicans, which unless you're dumb and white, is all Mexicans with citizenship. Yer American now make us think you're making us Mexican food. We. Don't. Care. We are a grey race of capitalist alphas. Even the women. We'll fucking kill you, man. For a stick of dorittos flavoured gum.

Um... Thanks for killing some random brown people for the benefit of capitalists everywhere?

And proving Godwin right again:
"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." --Adolf Hitler
(Speech of May 1, 1927. Quoted by Toland, 1976, p. 306)

@Chairman_woo

Well, I wouldn't link minimum pay to highest earners. I would perhaps add a tax penalty based on the income differential. Nor would I go to the extreme of outlawing all but co-operatives/shared ownership. Perhaps a very small tax break for them to encourage that form of business.

I have thought about tying politician pay to the poverty line. Want to be a Representative or Senator, congratulations, you get 2x to 3x the poverty line, and you can have up to 3 staff members at 1.5x the poverty line. No lifetime benefits and of course strict term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court (the President still gets lifetime protection, but no other lifetime benefits and perhaps 5x the poverty line while in office). Nor do they use the Capital building itself but once a year where a lottery decides who gets to go for the State of the Union. The primary idea is to make the number of Representatives we have based on the actual population, rather than shift the 435 that we've had since 1911 around based on state populations. With modern technology, they can stay in their home (computer drawn) districts. I wouldn't make them fully dependent on the state, this is just something somebody does to serve their community for a short time.

So yeah, basically the middle ground.

I was a Libertarian Anrcho-Capitalist after I left the Republican party because I couldn't stand how the Republicans want to legislate morality. Because at the time I was still convinced that sort of economics worked best... over time I realized, after actual vetting sources and looking things over, that the problem was more at the high end than I was led to believe... that and I got a heart just as my evangelical Christianity was about to collapse, mostly due to Republicans and eventually kept off by logic.

Some system where the wealth of the lowest paid worker was linked to the companies net profit would be nice. If their going to argue that whole "trickle down" thing they can only complain so much when we legally manacle them to their staff!

Or perhaps a national minimum wage based on a fraction of the highest earners.

Or going really crazy perhaps outlaw anything but co-operatives/shared ownership with staff. (that one is probably too complicated and problematic to be practical I fear)

I might suggest a similar system for politicians too i.e. they get paid as much as their poorest citizens, or some sensible fraction of that number. (including private assets to discourage corruption)

Maybe even go the whole hog and make politicians and high ranking civil servants utterly dependant on the state i.e. no significant private property and a state issued lifestyle which matches that of the poorest.

Too Extreme perhaps but if we meet them somewhere in the middle...

The Libertarians and Anarcho-Capitalists would probably go mental, but then how would we tell?

I've heard people say he's a fucking idiot-moron with a big mouth, but at least he's speaking out intelligently while most 'intelligent' people are feeling safe in their holding patterns of conformative self-preservation.
I feel like the next step here is for someone in his line of lifestyle to actively fund like-minded politicians (though maybe he already does given that's the traditional avenue for money that wants change), developers and community personalities.
Maybe it's just because I see ways through my field of expertise to enact change, but lack the backing. The only thing that holds me back from doing so is the capitalist requirement that I pay for my right to exist, or I am under threat of violence or imprisonment. If a dude like Brand gave me $1k a month to live off of, I'd happily trim back my lifestyle to help him in the areas I'm skilled at, for shared, common goals.
Bah! Self-indulgent ranting.

Completely irrelevant to the topic, but I had to laugh when I heard "if I didn't have to be in prison tonight, I'd be arrested".

On topic... unchecked capitalism is a terrible system, so is unchecked socialism.

There's nothing wrong with private enterprise and innovation, but they should be used for what they're good at, i.e. anything where the primary motivator is profit.

Capitalism by definition is terrible at anything where the primary motive is something other than profit (or at the very least, where profit shouldn't be the primary motivator) such as healthcare, prisons, etc.

Ultimately the question is what do we want out of life as a society? I'd argue that's quality of life. We should the levers of capitialism and socialism to achieve that. Right now, we're way too capitalist.

So Monarchies are oppressive? Hmmm. Interesting. Got it.

But doesn't Norway also have a Monarchy? And in this comment, didn't you extoll the values of their nationalized and socialized industries? Would you not then also give a pass to Norway's people who might reject that form of government and feel the need to secede? Same for Denmark, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, the UK, and most of the civilized Western world for that matter?

Yes, automation is inevitable.
But I have no idea what shape an automated economy would take.

Let's assume this comes to pass and in 100 years only the very best and brightest humans (i.e. 0.001%) are employable. If there's no point in employing humans and they don't get paid.... who will drive demand? No point being able to super efficiently produce cars, smartphones, hell even coffee if no-one can afford it.

Essentially in an economy like this, the capitalist model completely collapses.

The bots will probably eventually realise the futility of this, wipe us all out and head off to explore space.

Neils thoughts on the viral video

*** August 3, 2014 -- Anatomy of a GMO Commentary ****
Ten days ago, this brief clip of me was posted by somebody.

It contains my brief [2min 20sec] response to a question posed by a French journalist, after a talk I gave on the Universe. He found me at the post-talk book signing table. (Notice the half-dozen ready & willing pens.) The clip went mildly viral (rising through a half million right now) with people weighing in on whether they agree with me or not.

Some comments...

1) The journalist posted the question in French. I don't speak French, so I have no memory of how I figured out that was asking me about GMOs. Actually I do know some French words like Bordeaux, and Bourgogne, and Champagne, etc.

2) Everything I said is factual. So there's nothing to disagree with other than whether you should actually "chill out" as I requested of the viewer in my last two words of the clip.

3) Had I given a full talk on this subject, or if GMOs were the subject of a sit-down interview, then I would have raised many nuanced points, regarding labeling, patenting, agribusiness, monopolies, etc. I've noticed that almost all objections to my comments center on these other issues.

4) I offer my views on these nuanced issues here, if anybody is interested:
a- Patented Food Strains: In a free market capitalist society, which we have all "bought" into here in America, if somebody invents something that has market value, they ought to be able to make as much money as they can selling it, provided they do not infringe the rights of others. I see no reason why food should not be included in this concept.
b- Labeling: Since practically all food has been genetically altered from nature, if you wanted labeling I suppose you could demand it, but then it should be for all such foods. Perhaps there could be two different designations: GMO-Agriculture GMO-Laboratory.
c- Non-perennial Seed Strains: It's surely legal to sell someone seeds that cannot reproduce themselves, requiring that the farmer buy seed stocks every year from the supplier. But when sold to developing country -- one struggling to become self-sufficient -- the practice is surely immoral. Corporations, even when they work within the law, should not be held immune from moral judgement on these matters.
d- Monopolies are generally bad things in a free market. To the extent that the production of GMOs are a monopoly, the government should do all it can to spread the baseline of this industry. (My favorite monopoly joke ever, told by Stephen Wright: "I think it's wrong that the game Monopoly is sold by only one company")
e- Safety: Of course new foods should be tested for health risks, regardless of their origin. That's the job of the Food and Drug Administration (in the USA). Actually, humans have been testing food, even without the FDA ,since the dawn of agriculture. Whenever a berry or other ingested plant killed you, you knew not to serve it to you family.
f- Silk Worms: I partly mangled my comments on this. Put simply, commercial Silk Worms have been genetically modified by centuries of silk trade, such that they cannot survive in the wild. Silk Worms currently exist only to serve the textile industry. Just as Milk Cows are bred with the sole purpose of providing milk to humans. There are no herds of wild Milk Cows terrorizing the countryside.

5) If your objection to GMOs is the morality of selling non-prerennial seed stocks, then focus on that. If your objection to GMOs is the monopolistic conduct of agribusiness, then focus on that. But to paint the entire concept of GMO with these particular issues is to blind yourself to the underlying truth of what humans have been doing -- and will continue to do -- to nature so that it best serves our survival. That's what all organisms do when they can, or would do, if they could. Those that didn't, have gone extinct extinct.

In life, be cautious of how broad is the brush with which you paint the views of those you don't agree with.

Respectfully Submitted
-NDTyson

Yet another example of capitalist raking in hoards of money and not sharing it. Stiffing bill collectors. Just plane evil.

Why cant we just stop this nonsense and dive right into socialist and let the government take care of everyone?

Not for nothing, but Rick serves as yet another "poster boy" for how there will never be income "equality." Mr. Rubin would not be "equal" in salary to most people, whether there's a free market, a crony capitalist market, a socialist non-market, or a communist non-market.

Eminem, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Beastie Boys, Sir Mix-a-Lot, Lana Del Rey, Krishna Das, Johnny Cash, Adele, Rage Against the Machine, Run DMC, Danzig, Slayer, the (extremely versatile) list of course goes on and on (and on). That's why Mr. Rubin is in the 1%.. Because you (and tens or hundreds of millions of others) listen and like the albums that he produces and not the ones produced by most of the other wanna-be (or actual) "music producers."

But, of course, the envy-fiends have their "reasons" as to why they think they should be paid that kind of money and/or deserve (like mobsters do) to have a a piece of his pie.

Or that if you could only get others to vote in a certain way, you'd be Rick Rubin, or in his shoes. Such a conceit reinforces the obvious: you can only control your self. Little-to-no benefit comes from worrying about or trying to influence what other people do or don't do (especially when it has nothing to do with you and you can't do anything about it anyway). The conceit that anything else is the case leads to profound suffering on both the personal as well as on the social and political levels.