Russia is being recycled from the Mcarthy era as a propaganda bat to hit at the knees of progressives again.

Grow some corn and you can make tortillas. That's progress for sure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization

1) no, trading is not capitalism.
2) kids in China did not - that is borderline silly. Creating and marketing the iphone created a DEMAND, the MARKET had been in place already (the US constitution, the fed, the dollar, cellular infrastructure, people free to buy things of their own will, the internet et cetera et cetera et cetera ad nauseam - takes a lot of preconceptions to be able to sell such a product)
3) basically yes.
4) I am sure we agree on a lot of things, this is one.
5) I understand government=socialism. The government of the US of A funds a lot of things that would be hard to justify as socialism. Maybe an argument can be made that basic research is a social investment IDK.

Basic research does not equal fast progress though. You can be as clever as Archimedes or Leonardo but steam trains require capitalism to make sense. Iphones required masses of rich crazy americans to take off - a market and demand. Without a market and demand (or a war) progress is slow as f***.

1) I question your sources, because some of the earliest writings ever found were business ledgers dealing with selling grains as I understand it. Capitalism has been a thing since before writing was a thing.

2) um...I think those kids in China would dispute that....THEY made the Iphones, which created a smart phone market by being useful and fun (for most people).

3) do you believe capitalism and the industrial revolution started at the same time, or that capitalism has something to do with surfs, civil rights, or secularism? Capitalism applied to people is indentured servitude, what we lazily call slavery. Unfettered capitalism created a situation where civil rights needed to be delineated and codified, it didn't create them any more than wildfires created firemen imo.

Some people do educate themselves before acting or making purchases, but it's not the norm.

Capitalism says your poor neighbors should die, because capitalism says there is no value to human life...I did a term paper on that. Value is derived from a supply/demand equation, and there's such a glut of humanity that human life has a negative value.

The government paid for around 75% of the technology development. "...it paid for some of the technology...." is incredibly misleading, if technically correct (the best kind of correct). Without a healthy dose of socialism, progress slows to a crawl and only the privileged few can afford it.

1 word....flip-phones. ;-) (I don't even have one of those)

1) Definitely - but without a market improvements fall flat and dont stick. Ancient people had a lot of good ideas but overall progress was really slow and retrograded often until.. well until capitalism became a thing. Abolishing serfdom, general civil rights, separation of church from state and the fall of absolutism made the Iphone possible.

2) No, that is my point. People "discover" things all the time, some of these things are deemed useful by the general public and capitalism provides the tools to finance production and distribution (the profit part is optional - it is entirely legal to sell your invention for any price or indeed give it away for free).

So to get to the original point capitalism did not discover or design the Iphone but it certainly MADE the Iphone.

3) Not impossible but incredibly slow. Generations lived out their entire lives without perceptible changes in their environments prior to the onslaught of capitalism and the industrial revolution. The advent of science from the renaissance onwards was OK, but only once factories and transport infrastructure became a thing did living conditions start to change for everyone.

A big problem with free markets is that they are never really "free". A theoretical free market implies too many things that dont ever happen in real life, like everyone having all relevant information and being able to make a good decision. People just dont do that IRL.

Also not everything can be solved by free markets because you cant just let your neighbors die poor because the market says they deserve it. However the Iphone is really not something the state should subsidize. I understand that it paid for some of the technology that went into designing it. But true socialism would have to make sure everyone could afford one, and would design a cheap bad phone to fit the need.

@newtboy But.....Bcglorf said: Capitalism (or many unrelated civic freedoms) made science and progress possible. The implication is that without capitalism, science and progress are impossible.

I never said that. Don't go putting up quotes like I said something when I didn't.

Clearly you don't need me here. If you just want to invent arguments for both sides while ignoring everything I've actually said you can do it on your own.

But.....Bcglorf said: Capitalism (or many unrelated civic freedoms) made science and progress possible. The implication is that without capitalism, science and progress are impossible.
Edit: my mistake, vil said that, not bcglorf.

Also, the video is about contradicting that exact contention.

No they aren't, because America isn't just "an economy based on capitalism", which you yourself pointed out. They all come from innovations in systems and inventions created through American socialism.

Again, pre '68, before America went the socialist route to advance computer sciences, not after. Yes, after we used a combination of socialism and capitalism, we were more successful. That's my point.

China is working on 6g, and nearly ready with 5g. America isn't. That cannot be simply because China stole our advancements since they're ahead of us. They also, as you've admitted, developed better (cheaper/faster) manufacturing methods both because of technological advancements and few or no regulations (which have caused them horrendous issues). Funny enough, removing the regulations for more profit at the expense of the workers/environment is capitalistic, not socialist.

Their 5G is better because it's 1)almost ready to deploy and 2) cheaper. Ours isn't ready for prime time yet, and has used billions in public funds to get where it is. The FCC also proposed a $20 billion fund to expand broadband (5g)....that's not capitalism.

Ahhh, switching topics, eh? I thought the topic is capitalism vs socialism as it relates to invention, not fascism. I'm not going to bite.

Ok, personal enrichment is one of many incentives that drive invention, but invention happens without that incentive daily.

Once again, necessity is the mother of invention, not capitalism or profit.

You miss the point if you claim he contradicts that conclusion, because the systems invented that the examples require were ALL publicly funded. Without the socialist inventions, there would be no capitalistic innovations. No internet=no world wide web. No WiFi means no WiFi. No displays=no mobile computers/phones. No access to phone lines=no data transfers, so no internet, www, etc.

If his numbers are correct, 72% of research spending is public funding, not private. Nuff said.

Capitalism (or the slow demise of feudalism, serfdom, slavery, bigotry and the middle ages in general) made science and progress possible.

It is a common misconception that rights and freedoms are useful in their own right. Its really up to individual people what they do with what they get.

Socialism is a step back because it tries to tell you what you should and should not do, thus limiting your freedoms and possible progress. There should always only be as much socialism as is morally acceptable.

So, take a short cherry picked list of American inventions created largely with public funding, then claim only American capitalism could have produced them? Uhhhhh......

The inventors of the internet were NOT able to profit directly from their own ideas, they were military and publicly funded schools working in conjunction to create a publicly owned private data sharing network. Later, when this publicly funded network was opened to the public, private companies used it for private profit, and (often) slowed progress and stymied advancements in the process.
It's simply wrong to claim government funded advancements are due to capitalism simply because the taxes came from a capitalist country. Wow.

What about 5G...China is ahead of any capitalist country on that, and many other computing advancements. Those technicians don't see a scintilla of profit from their inventions, ideas, and often businesses (granted, some are allowed to make billions, but only a certain few that are government affiliated oligarchs, and it can be stripped from them the instant they don't tow the party line).

*quality
California is on fire...I mean fine....but it's apparently only because we don't rake the leaves out of our forests, not from desertification in progress.

It'll be useful eventually, but I wouldn't bank on soon. My final project in college was related to quantum computing, which at the time (18 years ago) was effectively entirely theoretical. I've enjoyed seeing the steady, albeit slow, progress.

The areas where quantum computing will really shine are problems which involve a huge number of possible answers, but only one best or correct one. The traveling salesman problem is a classic of computer science, as you can scale it up in complexity to the point where any traditional computer will eventually choke on the sheer number of permutations to test. Great way to demonstrate the need for clever solutions and well-written algorithms vs brute force approaches. An adequately sophisticated quantum computer, however, will theoretically be able to solve the traveling salesman problem nearly instantly, regardless of the level of complexity / number of nodes to navigate. Because it just tests all possible answers simultaneously.

Thanks. Some progress has been made. It seems they went with West Texas instead. Cool stuff.

Boring the installation hole.
https://youtu.be/V2oWTk4khvg

Installing the clock begins
https://youtu.be/KzWNHTZqdOs

Ok, but don't discount the factual arguments because they are presented with passion. Ignore the emotion and focus on verifying or debunking the facts presented. Because someone on Fox presents their denial argument flatly and dispassionately doesn't make it more correct.

Yes, I agree, but the point was getting people to listen, read, and fully examine the facts rather than accept the, also emotional, arguments without fact or with incorrect, cherry picked, or misrepresented facts that dominate the discussion on both sides, but mostly on the denier side since facts and data do not support them.

That line isn't blurred, it's been pressure washed away. The emotional arguments are nearly all that's out there, the facts are so misrepresented by both sides...oddly both sides minimizing the problem, the right to ignore it for profit, the left to not overwhelm those wanting to make progress by admitting it's too late.
Note, she mentions the thoroughly reported study that said we must stop emissions in 12 (now 10?) years to stay below 1.5c rise actually said we must make that sacrifice to have a 50% chance at that (and goes on to explain why even that is outrageously optimistic since it doesn't take feedbacks and other factors into account and relies on future generations to make not only the sacrifices we aren't willing to make, but also to clean up/sequester the emissions we continue to emit at faster rates daily).
I have zero problem with the emotion of the delivery if the facts are presented clearly and in totality, which she does better than most if not all professional scientific lecturers....sadly.

Wait, a search in progress from 1954???

@newtboy,

If North America is to adopt the Amish lifestyle, how many acres of land can the entire continent support? The typical Amish family farm is something like 80 acres is it not? I believe adopting this nationwide as a 'solution' requires massive population downsizing...

If you want to look at the poorest conditions of people in the world and advocate that the poverty stricken regions with no access to fossil fuel industry are the path forward, I would ask how you anticipate selling that to the people of California as being in their best interests to adopt as their new standard of living...

You mention overpopulation as a problem, then invent the argument that I think we should just ignore that and make it worse. Instead I only pointed out that immediately abandoning fossil fuels overnight would impact that overpopulation problem as well. It's like you do agree on one level, then don't like the implications or something?

The massive productivity of modern agriculture is dependent on fossil fuel usage. Similarly, our global population is also dependent upon that agricultural output. I find it hard to believe those are not clearly both fact. Please do tell me if you disagree. One inescapable conclusion to those facts is that reducing fossil fuel usage needs to at least be done with sufficient caution that we don't break the global food supply chain, because hungry people do very, very bad things.

Then you least catastrophic events that ARE NOT supported by the science and un-ironically claim that it's me who is ignoring the science.

You even have the audacity to ask if I appreciate the impacts of massive global food shortages, after having earlier belittled my concern about exactly that!

The IPCC shows that even in an absolute worst case scenario of accelerating emissions for the next century an estimated maximum sea level rise of 3ft, yet you talk about loss of 'most' farmland to the oceans...

Here's where I stand. If we can move off gas powered cars to electric, and onto a power grid that is either nuclear, hydro or renewable based in the next 50 years, our emissions before 2100 will drop significantly from today's levels. I firmly believe we are already on a very good course to expect that to occur very organically, with superior electric cars, and cheaper nuclear power and battery storage enabling renewables as economical alternatives to fossil fuels.

That future places us onto the IPCC's better scenarios where emissions peak and then actually decrease steadily through the rest of the century.

I'm hardly advocating lets sit back and do nothing, I'm advocating let's build the technology to make the population we have move into a reduced emissions future. We are getting close on major points for it and think that's great.

What I think is very damaging to that idea, is panicky advice demanding that we must all make massive economic sacrifices as fast as possible, because I firmly believe trying to enact reductions that way, fast enough to make a difference over natural progress, guarantees catastrophic wars now. Thankfully, that is also why nobody in sane leadership will give an ounce of consideration to such stupidity either. You need a Stalin or Mao type in charge to drive that kind change.