>> ^aurens:

"He's not really promoting that people need to take more responsibility for others, he's promoting the idea that you shouldn't ever be held responsible for anyone but yourself."
This is the main fallacy of your post. Ron Paul does believe that we have a responsibility towards others. He doesn't believe, though, that it's the government's role to enforce that responsibility. Until you understand that distinction, you'll continue to misunderstand his message.
>> ^NetRunner:
Or...it just points out that implementing his policies would lead to a nightmare dystopia, and that he's not really helping push society in a more compassionate, altruistic direction ...


I think NR gets that, but I can only speak for myself:

Let's say RP gets his ideology through to the presidency and would have 76% of all seats filled with people that share the same ideology, supreme court as well, and ditto for the military (just for completeness). Abolish the national health care system and all other governmental social securities. All regulations and all subsidies get canned, plus: No more wars on foreign soil. Small government.

So let's assume that all people who were laid off in the social sector are immediately hired by the free market companies, all the laid off military personnel from foreign bases find some jobs. Plus: Everyone's net pay comes out as it would be without the taxes.

Let's assume patent laws are still in existence: Drug companies holding a patent can charge whatever price they want, other companies would have to field the costly research themselves to come up with a similar patent. --> costly and ineffective.
If there are no more patents, no company would do research for new patents to stay in business.


People can get fired on a whim without regulations. As there will be no more anti-trust laws in the free market, companies will merge until mega-cons rule a specific field of commerce. Wages will be low, as there will be enough replacement workforce. People spend their money on the expensive food (no subsidies), expensive public transport (no subsidies, high prices for gas) and their rents (which would most likely also be high, as their landlords need more money).

Healtcareproviders will be either expensive or underfunded. The underfunded ones only pay out for immediate threats of life. Only few charities with rich backers have enough income to provide for their employees and selectively only grant moneys as dictated yb their rich backer: Most likely to employees of his firm. What happens to people without jobs? Completely dependant on charity. Around the few charitable organisations, slums are built by the people who rely on the distributed food. Many of these people get hired for the day just for a little money and a bit of food.

Soem are kept by rich people as their personal poor they care for (see India).

People start flocking to the remaining rich states, large areas of middle-America are depopulated, as the aging communities cannot sustain themselves. Farmer is the most popular job again.

The poor revolt, the underfunded police force joins them. Private security of the rich fires into the crowds.
Dystopian? Can't happen? Tell me why. Tell me why any of the things would not be as described without regulations and subsidies and social welfare. I await your response.

"He's not really promoting that people need to take more responsibility for others, he's promoting the idea that you shouldn't ever be held responsible for anyone but yourself."

This is the main fallacy of your post. Ron Paul does believe that we have a responsibility towards others. He doesn't believe, though, that it's the government's role to enforce that responsibility. Until you understand that distinction, you'll continue to misunderstand his message.
>> ^NetRunner:
Or...it just points out that implementing his policies would lead to a nightmare dystopia, and that he's not really helping push society in a more compassionate, altruistic direction ...

>> ^aurens:

The problem with tweezing out individual strands of Ron Paul's convictions and considering them out of context, as this fellow did, is that it divorces them from the social and cultural changes that must necessarily accompany them.

Or...it just points out that implementing his policies would lead to a nightmare dystopia, and that he's not really helping push society in a more compassionate, altruistic direction.

>> ^aurens:
It's true (and Ron Paul would concede the point, I think): asking "our neighbors, our friends, our churches" (as he said in the latest debate) to assume responsibility for the health care of individuals without the means to pay for it

That is what I'm for.

It's called national health care. It's a social contract, that specifically lays out everyone's responsibilities and guarantees. To work out the details, we talk to one another, and try to hammer out an agreement that the majority can agree to.

Paul would call me lots of nasty names for wanting to formalize that arrangement into an enforceable contract, though.

He's not really promoting that people need to take more responsibility for others, he's promoting the idea that you shouldn't ever be held responsible for anyone but yourself.

>> ^aurens:
To me, there's nothing more hopeful or more heartening than the world that Ron Paul envisions.

To me it seems pretty naive to think that world is the world we live in, though. It seems even worse to say that it would be the world we lived in if only we went back to our 19th century economic policies.

I too want a world where government is no longer necessary. I just don't see humanity ever getting to the point where we're all perfect moral creatures. I certainly don't see Paul's insistence that "freedom" means freedom from responsibility for anyone but yourself as being a step towards that goal.

>> ^Fusionaut:

Sounds like America is headed to a weird sort of fascist, theocractic dystopia...


A bit like the Islamic theocracies they are warring against...

Sounds like America is headed to a weird sort of fascist, theocractic dystopia...

Not quite Mad Max, but still a chilling post-apocalyptic dystopia.

I don't disagree about anything you just said. But, you did admit that unless we find a way to control the natural instinct for fear and the outright control everyone has over another at sometime during there lives, the cycle will continue. Technology will only make it worse.

BTW, when I speak of "merging with A.I.", with aspects of bio-engineering (breeding "bad" genes
can get out of control, as can the A.I., but this is true for all of advanced science...), is most likely the best choice to solve the worst of issues. At higher I.Q. ratios you begin to see people realizing that it takes humanity as a whole to accomplish great things. But, none of us want to lose our individuality. The A.I. I speak of would be individual A.I.s. Not controlled by a hive. When they merge it's you and them; then if you want you can merge with more to become a larger individual (i.e.- your wife, etc...).

As technology gets more advanced it becomes more likely that a small group or perhaps one person, one day, in the not-so-far-off future could make this decision without either of our consent.

The tech singularity that I linked to above is what I mention and has been bouncing around in sci-fi and science for a good one hundred years. I'm hoping it's possible to get rid of the issues that can create victims, but nothing else. Having arguments are healthy and it allows us to better ourselves. Getting rid of all the arguments would be a fatal flaw and basically nullify evolution.

/Just in case you understood wrong, I at no time meant life to become the "Borg" or for us to resolve to using Eugenics in the classical sense. Hope this gets across better as I think we're mostly on the same side.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^kceaton1:
Sorry, that's not what I meant it to sound like. I meant that the "no war" dichotomy would fail in the modern world as humanity has failed on every level to ever follow a specific ideology. What they said may be very correct and it is something we should teach and spread, that will cause what I said above "a lull".
I suppose your point then is that the hippies don't have foolproof ways of creating their desired utopia for humanity? Who does?
>> ^kceaton1:
But, as a species until you can "breed" out arguments that spill out of the brain we will always have the same issues, though they may be mitigated. What they did was not in vain, it's still being fought for and argued for.
I don't really think trying to engineer people to fit into some utopian ideal is much of a solution to anything. That sounds like a really, really scary dystopia to me.
Letting people have the ability to engineer themselves, on the other hand, sounds like it might enable us to fix some long-term societal problems by letting us have more conscious control over who we are. Or it might just make us even more factionalized and give us an even better excuse to dehumanize those we disagree with...


Sorry, ye ol' trollin conservative guys you're on ignored for comments in the past that were most likely very childish and distasteful. Just like this sentence probably is to you. So put me on ignore.

Also, the hippies certainly never had any idea of how to fix the issues in this world. Neither do I, neither does anyone posting. If crucifying my statement helps you, have at it. I only tried to post one idea out of many that "could" happen. Is it going to work? Ask the people after they try it.

/The song is right, but it, like our posts are 20/20 hindsight.

>> ^kceaton1:

Sorry, that's not what I meant it to sound like. I meant that the "no war" dichotomy would fail in the modern world as humanity has failed on every level to ever follow a specific ideology. What they said may be very correct and it is something we should teach and spread, that will cause what I said above "a lull".

I suppose your point then is that the hippies don't have foolproof ways of creating their desired utopia for humanity? Who does?

>> ^kceaton1:
But, as a species until you can "breed" out arguments that spill out of the brain we will always have the same issues, though they may be mitigated. What they did was not in vain, it's still being fought for and argued for.

I don't really think trying to engineer people to fit into some utopian ideal is much of a solution to anything. That sounds like a really, really scary dystopia to me.

Letting people have the ability to engineer themselves, on the other hand, sounds like it might enable us to fix some long-term societal problems by letting us have more conscious control over who we are. Or it might just make us even more factionalized and give us an even better excuse to dehumanize those we disagree with...

How ironic is it to hear him criticize Obama for being out of touch then proceeding to suggest we let Apple have a crack at reinventing America, talk about dystopia.

That's actually right on the money. The Anime/Manga and Film/TV industries of Japan saw a huge boom in terms of artists/directors in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the years following the bombings. The children who were very young when it happened grew up in a post-nuke society and in the late 60's and 70's began to express themselves and the dystopia-oriented themes that were happening following the recovery. A lot of the visionaries involved in the field who would be considered as creating that "strange Japanese sense of entertainment" had direct involvement in some form or another in the bombings. It's what happens when you grow up in a post-apocalyptic minded society. So in other words, the nukes are actually a large reason why these forms of entertainment evolved into what they are today.

>> ^gwiz665:

If you look at japanese tv shows, it's fairly obvious that the two nukes already screwed them up pretty bad...

Possibly one of the first ever uses of cute and dark tags in the same video?

Great movie, I particularly like depressathons, dystopias and Hobbesian critiques on society so it was the right cup of tea for me. Children of Men was still far superior though, both in scope and presentation but it was still one of the best movies of the year.

Movie was great, I need to check out the book. It's a crime that it took 2 months more to come out in Australia than it did in the US, I caved and ended up grabbing a copy of the screener.

Probably the best dystopia film since Children of Men. Not quite as good as that though because it was much more limited in scope, but still very involving and bleakly evocative and great for what it tries to be.

Oh and also the soundtrack is excellent, it's memorable enough than you can pretty much pinpoint every song to the scene.

I tend to subscribe more to the Hobbesian mindset. I mean it goes without saying that countries with a functioning government, civil institutions and municipalities are far more peaceful and stable that those that are lacking. If a disaster were to come along that wiped out all plant life, and presumably a good chunk of the population, then that would throw this a spanner in the works and all into disarray. Without a unifying element, with crippled communications, we would likely divulge back into small tribes for survival.

Without plant life, the majority of livestock would only last so long, especially in suburbia. I think it's only inevitable that some would turn to cannibalism and would begin to dominate others. After all, social norms have changed drastically over human civilization. I think it's only inevitable that if people were to become desperate enough for food their carnal desires would regress their norms and human nature.

Despite the title, nothing as high-brow as the word "collectivism" is ever spoken in this clip.

They fail to even mention that under the evil Stalinist collectivist Kennedy and LBJ, the Cold War was really just a struggle between the world's two largest communist dystopias!

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Brazil, gilliam, rare, cinema, distopia' to 'Brazil, gilliam, rare, cinema, distopia, dystopia' - edited by dystopianfuturetoday

I just don't see how the idea of giving people a fair share of the pie is some kind of Orwellian dystopia.

I don't see how it's okay for a handful of people to have more wealth and economic control than hundreds of millions of other people combined.

I think it's cowardice to pretend that this is the natural order of things.