I told you I was trouble
Suspended animation.
Awwwww, are you so ashamed of your previous interactions that you need to hide your old identity here in case we recognise you?I was afraid that "ITYIWT" would return. Now she's here.
Sad.
Awwwww, are you so ashamed of your previous interactions that you need to hide your old identity here in case we recognise you?I was afraid that "ITYIWT" would return. Now she's here.
In all the definitions, government owns the means of production. If the means of production (factories, mines, etc) are not owned by the government, then it's not socialism.Which one of them is actual, in your view?
Definition of SOCIALISM
any of various egalitarian economic and political theories or movements advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods; a system of society or group living in which there is no private property… See the full definitionwww.merriam-webster.com
I think Hubbard plagiarized ideas, and didn't conduct the research he claimed, certainly not in the way he claimed. Psychologists and linguists have long claimed we operate on assumptions, many unexamined. We also operate on values and use guiding associations to frame and define our perception of the world.When we get new information, we accept some bits, and reject other bits. Why?
I think Hubbard might have actually had a nugget of useful observation when he talked about "stable data".
Each of us has a bunch of "stable data", which we accept as true, and which we use to evaluate incoming information. Information which aligns with the stable data is accepted, and may even be added to the body of stable data if it is seen as a refinement of the existing stable data. Information which violates the stable data is rejected.
Hence, when you have somebody who is a true-believer Scientologist, who has as a stable datum that LRH is always right, it's very hard to talk to them about the shortcomings of Scientology.
From time to time, we get into situations where we cannot avoid seeing that something we accepted as a stable datum is obviously false. This results in cognitive dissonance.
But here's the thing. My opinion of what is important and what is actually important can be completely different. I might not even know about subjects I need to know. Looking at my failure in understanding the threat of Scientology I was not even aware of the subjects of psychology ( in depth) or behavioral economics, or logical fallacies, or cognitive biases or rhetoric or hypnosis or propaganda analysis or critical thinking or the true scientific method.@Mockingbird
It seems like you are trying to reform the pieces of your worldview after leaving your involvement in Scientology (i.e. "the tech").
Just pick a few items that are important to you in your everyday life then make a short list of those items on this thread.
I agree that Hubbard appears to have plagiarized most of what seemed useful in Scientology. Still, the idea of stable data seems useful.I think Hubbard plagiarized ideas, and didn't conduct the research he claimed, certainly not in the way he claimed. Psychologists and linguists have long claimed we operate on assumptions, many unexamined. We also operate on values and use guiding associations to frame and define our perception of the world.
George Lakoff has extensively researched language and written many books. He believes we operate with metaphors, stories largely on an automatic and subconscious level, and his book Moral Politics takes on this topic.
Leon Festinger wrote A Theory Of Cognitive Dissonance and described how we have associations of ideas, behaviors and emotions that are linked in our minds on an unconscious basis. These associations in psychology have even been described by Aristotle and many, many philosophers and psychologists.
I believe Hubbard wanted to get followers to accept his ideas as stable data and to devalue and reject their old stable data from other sources.
One of the original purposes of a "liberal arts" education was to produce someone thoroughly grounded in the areas of logic and rhetoric. Such a person is hard to con.But I didn't know what was important that I was missing out and so I blindly fell for Scientology. Now, I really hope I won't fall for Scientology again, but cannot rule out falling for something else, because I could again not even know what subjects I need to know to protect myself.
I never went to college, so any gains from any college education were unavailable to me.One of the original purposes of a "liberal arts" education was to produce someone thoroughly grounded in the areas of logic and rhetoric. Such a person is hard to con.
The very phrase "liberal arts" means those things which a free person needs to know, partly in order to stay free.
Sadly, the area of liberal arts seems mostly lost these days, with college turning into indoctrination into political correctness, the complete opposite of the original purpose.
My point is that you probably didn't miss much, as true classical liberal arts started going away around the 1960's.I never went to college, so any gains from any college education were unavailable to me.
Another thing found by the authors of The Knowledge Illusion and Jonathon Haidt is guiding principles as Haidt calls it in his book The Righteous Mind and in The Knowledge Illusion it is called sacred values and values. The authors found that people are resistant to evidence and arguments regarding their sacred values.I agree that Hubbard appears to have plagiarized most of what seemed useful in Scientology. Still, the idea of stable data seems useful.
As Orwell pointed out words can be used to mean such broad concepts that they lose their original meaning.In all the definitions, government owns the means of production. If the means of production (factories, mines, etc) are not owned by the government, then it's not socialism.
This is obviously not the way modern education works.The classical early stages of learning was called the Trivium. As the name implies, there were three stages:
The first stage: "grammar": the young kid learns facts. Young kids can memorize data very well, so this is a good stage to toss data at them. The end-product of the grammar stage is that they know things.
The second stage: "logic": As the child matures a bit, he is ready to use logical reasoning against the data he's been given. The end-product of the logic stage is he's able to form rational opinions.
The third stage: "rhetoric": the kid knows some things, and is able to form sound, well-reasoned opinions. Now is the time to teach the kid how to communicate those opinions and evaluations in a way which will be well-received by recipients. The end-product of the rhetoric stage is to be able to communicate your viewpoints in a convincing manner.
The "Valuable Final Product" of this education is a human being who is capable of applying logic and reasoning in order to evaluate what he should be doing with his life, and be able to affect society in a positive manner.
Friends of Education :: Classical Trivium
www.improvek-12education.org
This is why I'm going to work at having a role in my grandkids' education.This is obviously not the way modern education works.
So according to that there are only a very few actual Socialist states, North Korea for one, and the British Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn are not Socialist, he does want some services to be returned to public ownership, the privatisation of the Railways and the sell off of the post office and NHS have proven to be a catastrophe, but he is not against the existence of private companies. Like most people in Britain he does think that companies should be paying their due taxes, that's hardly socialist.In all the definitions, government owns the means of production. If the means of production (factories, mines, etc) are not owned by the government, then it's not socialism.
You can be a socialist without living in socialism.So according to that there are only a very few actual Socialist states, North Korea for one, and the British Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn are not Socialist, he does want some services to be returned to public ownership, the privatisation of the Railways and the sell off of the post office and NHS have proven to be a catastrophe, but he is not against the existence of private companies. Like most people in Britain he does think that companies should be paying their due taxes, that's hardly socialist.
It also means that a publicly owned national health service in the USA would not be socialism, and that Barack Obama was not a socialist either.
So you would just let market forces take over and let the elderly and the bottom rungs of society die off with no homes, education or roads or bridges unless Christian Aid decides to fix roads bridges and to teach? I sometimes think America is a different planet. Makes no sense to me.You can be a socialist without living in socialism.
Being a socialist means you believe in a direction.
You believe that society would be best off if government controlled the economy, and are in favor of whichever measure might currently come up to expand government control over business.
I'm the opposite. I would support laying off about half the US government, and de-funding lots of programs, and letting the private sector, including private charities, pick up the functions.
And then next year coming back and cutting more.
Publicly ownership (meaning government ownership) - or, more importantly, government control - of the means of production is the definition and the goal of socialism. If the government comes to control the health industry in the USA, that is, who can deliver what services, at what price, to whom, when --- that is socialism of the health care industry. That is not socialism of the steel industry or any other industry (yet).So according to that there are only a very few actual Socialist states, North Korea for one, and the British Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn are not Socialist, he does want some services to be returned to public ownership, the privatisation of the Railways and the sell off of the post office and NHS have proven to be a catastrophe, but he is not against the existence of private companies. Like most people in Britain he does think that companies should be paying their due taxes, that's hardly socialist.
It also means that a publicly owned national health service in the USA would not be socialism, and that Barack Obama was not a socialist either.
The problem with socialism is that it self destructs after a while.So you would just let market forces take over and let the elderly and the bottom rungs of society die off with no homes, education or roads or bridges unless Christian Aid decides to fix roads bridges and to teach? I sometimes think America is a different planet. Makes no sense to me.
I am very happy to live in a semi-socialist universe where there is social housing and private if you can afford it, where we pay into a pot and get our health insured by the state, where roads and bridges get repaired and where I feel safe. I want the government to fund programs that greed orientated commercial organisations would never do.
You stay over that side of the pond and I'll stay on this side hoping that the Tory party never get back in and that no deal happens with President Trump.
You assume that old pensioners would be the people whose benefits I would cut, because that is the scare tactic the Left uses.So you would just let market forces take over and let the elderly and the bottom rungs of society die off with no homes, education or roads or bridges unless Christian Aid decides to fix roads bridges and to teach? I sometimes think America is a different planet. Makes no sense to me.