The fallacies and failure of social Darwinism.

[FBM]

Social darwinism falls to Hume's Guillotine.


According to social darwinism, if the people in the gummit have the power to take your tax money, they have the right to.

[Tero]

'Fitness' is ability to have kids and ensure they survive, have them at 16-18 and women have zero to low fitness by the time they are 35-40 so we might as well just shoot them. Unless you are going to go down that path social Darwinism is a very silly concept.

You're forgetting the importance of grandparenthood. It's a very good way of ensuring your genes continue.

And non-breeding males work to pass along their parents genes in pack animals.

Dawkins was not all that convinced of kin selection

Most modern evolutionary biologists accept that the idea is consistent with many processes in evolution. However, the view that selection on other levels, such as organisms and populations, seldom opposes selection on genes is more controversial. While naïve versions of group selectionism have been disproved, more sophisticated formulations make accurate predictions in some cases while positing selection at higher levels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selectionism

[Seth]

leaving aside morality, which is always a matter of opinion, the massivein inequalities in wealth in the USA seem to have survived the depredations of inheritance taxes pretty well.

Unless you're the one who has to write a check for 54% of your deceased parent's estate to the federal government, as I am. So fuck you very much. The government is not entitled to one thin dime of her estate, upon which she paid taxes again and again and again. The Death Tax is just that, a tax on dying. It's not a tax on the inheritors, it's a tax on the estate BEFORE it can be distributed to the heirs, who, upon receiving it, owe no taxes at all. If it were merely counted as income the tax would be less than half that imposed by the estate tax.

But it's not. Yes, Congress tried to do away with the Death Tax, but the fucking ass-wipe liberal Progressives in Congress, the same ilk that promised that the Death Tax would go away after WWI was paid for, won't just drive a stake through the bill and do the simple thing and call inheritances "ordinary income" and tax it that way. That's because the Death Tax is not about being fair, it's wholly and entirely about socialist/liberal/progressive greed and envy. It was put in place as a punitive measure against some of the Barons of the country during the golden age right before the Great Depression. It was set to punish people like J.P. Morgan and other extremely wealthy businessmen, all of whom earned their money the old fashioned way, by working.

Now it just punishes small businesses and owner-operated agriculture, and the chances for a family-owned business to survive to a second generation is still quite small, and will stay that way until the rapacious and greedy fuckwits in Congress are given the boot.

[En_Route]

Pity about you. Whethr or not you get to enjoy wealth is just a matter of chance. If an open, democratic society decides it wants to smooth out some of the grosser inequalitiess ( and the US is one of the most reticent in this regard) in the intetests of fairness and economic growth, that is entirely just and reasonable.All modern developed societies apply a variety of progressive tax measures to achieve suche nds. Inheritance Tax is just one, commonly adopted,means of achieving this. You do,really have to look at the total lifetime tax burden to see just how progressive the fiscal system is as a whole. Here in the UK,my top rate of income tax is 47% but there is also Inheritance Tax after exemptions of 40%, and that is not considered astronomical by European standards . In comparing the USA, the vast and expanding gulf between the rich and poor gives you the answer.

[FBM]

Survival of the fittest applied to society. If teh gummit people have the power, they have the right.

[Tero]

It's not really beneficial, in the long run, for the successful to hoard everything. Eventually the majority of the population is reduced to the level of slaves. standards of living will fall. The health of the population will collapse. eventually the rich will be sitting in their castles, surrounded by the fields they own and the slaves they have raising their food and making the crude consumer products by hand. Feudalism!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's not really beneficial, in the long run, for the successful to hoard everything. Eventually the majority of the population is reduced to the level of slaves. standards of living will fall. The health of the population will collapse. eventually the rich will be sitting in their castles, surrounded by the fields they own and the slaves they have raising their food and making the crude consumer products by hand. Feudalism!

Exactly my thoughts. That or ancient Egypt.

[Seth]

Pity about you. Whethr or not you get to enjoy wealth is just a matter of chance. If an open, democratic society decides it wants to smooth out some of the grosser inequalitiess ( and the US is one of the most reticent in this regard) in the intetests of fairness and economic growth, that is entirely just and reasonable.All modern developed societies apply a variety of progressive tax measures to achieve suche nds. Inheritance Tax is just one, commonly adopted,means of achieving this. You do,really have to look at the total lifetime tax burden to see just how progressive the fiscal system is as a whole. Here in the UK,my top rate of income tax is 47% but there is also Inheritance Tax after exemptions of 40%, and that is not considered astronomical by European standards . In comparing the USA, the vast and expanding gulf between the rich and poor gives you the answer.

That's why "democratic" socialist societies are completely fucked beyond belief. You justify theft by the tyrannous majority with an entirely circular argument. "It's ok to steal what someone else worked their whole life for because the government has the power to steal it."

That doesn't morally justify redistributive taxation, it just makes you all thieves and pawns.

You don't present a moral or ethical argument because there is none that supports taking one person's wealth and giving it to someone else by force.

[FBM]

Social darwinism is about survival of the fittest. Morality is defined by ability. They have the power; they have the right. Or are you abandoning social darwinism?

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

This is one of those 'thinking' threads, isn't it?

[FBM]

Sorry. I started it.

[Seth]

It's not really beneficial, in the long run, for the successful to hoard everything. Eventually the majority of the population is reduced to the level of slaves. standards of living will fall. The health of the population will collapse. eventually the rich will be sitting in their castles, surrounded by the fields they own and the slaves they have raising their food and making the crude consumer products by hand. Feudalism!

The mistake you make, which is the one that all socialists and communists make is assuming that conspicuous consumption equals "hoarding." Who the fuck do you think shines Donald Trump's shoes, or runs the front desk at Trump Tower, or flies his helicopter or does any of a million tasks that he pays them to do because through entrepreneurial excellence and hard work he can afford to do so.

What happens to all those employees, and the employees of the companies that serve those employees ad infinitum, when the government comes along and confiscates The Donald's assets for redistribution to "the poor" just because the tyrannous majority thinks it's not "fair" for him to have so much and others to have nothing? Do you infuckingsane socialists ever actually think about how economies actually function, or are you all laboring under the delusion that there's a Money Fairy out there creating wealth that just falls from the heavens like manna?

No, I don't think you do. I think you're all useful idiots of the Marxist elite (who seem to live pretty well off the fat of the land) who believe with religious fervor that "fairness" is or should be the guiding principle of an economy. Worse, you define "fairness" as "what the dependent-class proletarian majority want" and you completely ignore any semblance of "fairness" to the cash-cows you're slaughtering and handing out.

What happens, you incredible dunces, is that sooner or later the Productive Class, people like Donald Trump and others, who have the wit and the skill to actually create wealth by discovering what it is that society wants and then providing it to them at a profit, get tired of being whipped around the millrace and they stop turning the grinding wheel of the economy and decide to just quit and take what wealth they have, if any, and produce nothing and employ no one, and eventually become members of the dependent class who are nothing but an economic drain on society.

Eventually, as the "Iron Lady" said, the fucking greedy Marxist proletarian seething masses run out of Other People's Money because they've bound the mouths of the kine that tread the grain and killed the golden goose in order to give a pittance of what was driving the economy to each member of the dependent class because that's fair. So everybody gets just one hamburger and one goose feather, and then they fucking starve in the dark because they are too unbelievably stupid and ignorant to comprehend how a market economy actually works.

That is exactly and precisely what happened to the USSR. And it's happened to many other Marxist regimes in the past, and it's happening right now to Marxist regimes like Venezuela, where you can't by soap for fuck's sake, all over the planet, including the UK.

Now I expect some dunce to say "But look at Sweden!" Yes, lets. Sweden is an economic success for TWO and only two reasons: First, it has abundant natural resources which it can extract and sell to obtain OPM. Second, it absolutely DEPENDS for its existence and survival on the fact that Marxism really doesn't work and every attempt at it has failed miserably. This is because without Capitalist fucking CUSTOMERS to buy their oil at a profit for Sweden, all they have is a bunch of useless and valueless goop stuck in the ground.

Before the invention of the automobile and heavy industry, there were many places in Oklahoma and Texas and other states where crude oil bubbled to the surface and pooled or ran downhill on the surface. It was considered a nuisance and a contaminant until Standard Oil invested huge amounts of money on research to create oil-based products and a market for them. Simply, no market, no value.

How does this apply to Marxism you ask? Well, let's consider the fundamental principles of Marxism: First, the individual owns nothing, not even his own life, it all belongs to the State (the collective) and the allocation and use of every asset of a Marxist country is supposed to be distributed "according to need," and the labor of the proletariat is supposed to be commanded and enforced "according to its ability."

Why, do you wonder, is Cuba, for fuck's sake, abandoning Communism one tiny bite at a time? Because it doesn't fucking work, and Castro knows it, and Cuba has run out of OPM long ago.

So, if the whole of Europe were Communist, the end-state goal of Marxism, then the leaders of the EU would be doing to Sweden what Stalin did to Ukraine in 1932...it would be fucking taking all of Sweden's oil for "equitable and fair" distribution to every other Communist society based on the principle of "from each according to his ability." Sweden has oil, and it has the capacity to extract it, so being good Communists they may not keep it, nor may they SELL IT to Capitalists, because their oil is "needed" by other Communist nations more than Sweden "needs" to have an opulent and well-financed social welfare system.

What the FUCK do you morons think the USSR did to the 'stans down south? They raided them for oil and gas and built pipelines to pump it north and told the inhabitants to go fuck themselves because their "abundant natural resources" were being requisitioned for the use of the seething proletarian masses up north. And when a 'stan objected to their mineral wealth being stolen and given to others without the 'stan getting fair value for it, the USSR didn't fuck around, it just sent in the army and killed anyone who objected. Millions upon millions of them. They used the excuse that such objections were "counterrevolutionary" and therefor a danger to Marxist dogma, and they proceeded, along with other Communist nations, in exterminating 100 million people.

And the EU is in grave danger of becoming a tyrannical Marxist regime today. So much so that some nations, who see the handwriting on the wall, are preparing to bail out of the EU before it goes bankrupt, because when it DOES go bankrupt, and it will, Marxist tyranny and death wholesale will quickly follow as the leaders of the EU struggle to quell protest and pacify a starving, jobless, money-less society by promising to redistribute more and more OPM (like Sweden's oil) to cushion the blow of destroying the economy in the name of "fairness."

Its as inevitable as entropy, and it's going to be ugly beyond imagining as all of Europe descends into chaos and anarchy as the starving, jobless, moneyless masses go insane and burn down their own communities out of frustration and rage. It's already happened in Greece, and Portugal, and it's going to fuck every single one of you demented fuckwits right up the ass with a prickly-pear one day soon.

And I will be sitting in my bunker, with my guns, ammo, food and bevy of 18 year old virgins with which I'll help repopulate the US when IT follows Europe into utter destruction, and I'll be laughing my ass off at you sorry sons of bitches who thought they knew anything about anything.

Jesus you people are stupid. You don't deserve to live you're so stupid. The planet will be much better off after the Socialists and Communists have all killed each other off, leaving the world to the Libertarians, who actually understand how economies operate. Billions of people are going to die horrific deaths because you people are so incredibly selfish and stupid.

You won't be missed even a little.

[FBM]

Any red herring to avoid the obvious fail:

Social darwinism is about survival of the fittest. Morality is defined by ability. They have the power; they have the right. Or are you abandoning social darwinism?

[En_Route]

It's not really beneficial, in the long run, for the successful to hoard everything. Eventually the majority of the population is reduced to the level of slaves. standards of living will fall. The health of the population will collapse. eventually the rich will be sitting in their castles, surrounded by the fields they own and the slaves they have raising their food and making the crude consumer products by hand. Feudalism!

The mistake you make, which is the one that all socialists and communists make is assuming that conspicuous consumption equals "hoarding." Who the fuck do you think shines Donald Trump's shoes, or runs the front desk at Trump Tower, or flies his helicopter or does any of a million tasks that he pays them to do because through entrepreneurial excellence and hard work he can afford to do so.

What happens to all those employees, and the employees of the companies that serve those employees ad infinitum, when the government comes along and confiscates The Donald's assets for redistribution to "the poor" just because the tyrannous majority thinks it's not "fair" for him to have so much and others to have nothing? Do you infuckingsane socialists ever actually think about how economies actually function, or are you all laboring under the delusion that there's a Money Fairy out there creating wealth that just falls from the heavens like manna?

No, I don't think you do. I think you're all useful idiots of the Marxist elite (who seem to live pretty well off the fat of the land) who believe with religious fervor that "fairness" is or should be the guiding principle of an economy. Worse, you define "fairness" as "what the dependent-class proletarian majority want" and you completely ignore any semblance of "fairness" to the cash-cows you're slaughtering and handing out.

What happens, you incredible dunces, is that sooner or later the Productive Class, people like Donald Trump and others, who have the wit and the skill to actually create wealth by discovering what it is that society wants and then providing it to them at a profit, get tired of being whipped around the millrace and they stop turning the grinding wheel of the economy and decide to just quit and take what wealth they have, if any, and produce nothing and employ no one, and eventually become members of the dependent class who are nothing but an economic drain on society.

Eventually, as the "Iron Lady" said, the fucking greedy Marxist proletarian seething masses run out of Other People's Money because they've bound the mouths of the kine that tread the grain and killed the golden goose in order to give a pittance of what was driving the economy to each member of the dependent class because that's fair. So everybody gets just one hamburger and one goose feather, and then they fucking starve in the dark because they are too unbelievably stupid and ignorant to comprehend how a market economy actually works.

That is exactly and precisely what happened to the USSR. And it's happened to many other Marxist regimes in the past, and it's happening right now to Marxist regimes like Venezuela, where you can't by soap for fuck's sake, all over the planet, including the UK.

Now I expect some dunce to say "But look at Sweden!" Yes, lets. Sweden is an economic success for TWO and only two reasons: First, it has abundant natural resources which it can extract and sell to obtain OPM. Second, it absolutely DEPENDS for its existence and survival on the fact that Marxism really doesn't work and every attempt at it has failed miserably. This is because without Capitalist fucking CUSTOMERS to buy their oil at a profit for Sweden, all they have is a bunch of useless and valueless goop stuck in the ground.

Before the invention of the automobile and heavy industry, there were many places in Oklahoma and Texas and other states where crude oil bubbled to the surface and pooled or ran downhill on the surface. It was considered a nuisance and a contaminant until Standard Oil invested huge amounts of money on research to create oil-based products and a market for them. Simply, no market, no value.

How does this apply to Marxism you ask? Well, let's consider the fundamental principles of Marxism: First, the individual owns nothing, not even his own life, it all belongs to the State (the collective) and the allocation and use of every asset of a Marxist country is supposed to be distributed "according to need," and the labor of the proletariat is supposed to be commanded and enforced "according to its ability."

Why, do you wonder, is Cuba, for fuck's sake, abandoning Communism one tiny bite at a time? Because it doesn't fucking work, and Castro knows it, and Cuba has run out of OPM long ago.

So, if the whole of Europe were Communist, the end-state goal of Marxism, then the leaders of the EU would be doing to Sweden what Stalin did to Ukraine in 1932...it would be fucking taking all of Sweden's oil for "equitable and fair" distribution to every other Communist society based on the principle of "from each according to his ability." Sweden has oil, and it has the capacity to extract it, so being good Communists they may not keep it, nor may they SELL IT to Capitalists, because their oil is "needed" by other Communist nations more than Sweden "needs" to have an opulent and well-financed social welfare system.

What the FUCK do you morons think the USSR did to the 'stans down south? They raided them for oil and gas and built pipelines to pump it north and told the inhabitants to go fuck themselves because their "abundant natural resources" were being requisitioned for the use of the seething proletarian masses up north. And when a 'stan objected to their mineral wealth being stolen and given to others without the 'stan getting fair value for it, the USSR didn't fuck around, it just sent in the army and killed anyone who objected. Millions upon millions of them. They used the excuse that such objections were "counterrevolutionary" and therefor a danger to Marxist dogma, and they proceeded, along with other Communist nations, in exterminating 100 million people.

And the EU is in grave danger of becoming a tyrannical Marxist regime today. So much so that some nations, who see the handwriting on the wall, are preparing to bail out of the EU before it goes bankrupt, because when it DOES go bankrupt, and it will, Marxist tyranny and death wholesale will quickly follow as the leaders of the EU struggle to quell protest and pacify a starving, jobless, money-less society by promising to redistribute more and more OPM (like Sweden's oil) to cushion the blow of destroying the economy in the name of "fairness."

Its as inevitable as entropy, and it's going to be ugly beyond imagining as all of Europe descends into chaos and anarchy as the starving, jobless, moneyless masses go insane and burn down their own communities out of frustration and rage. It's already happened in Greece, and Portugal, and it's going to fuck every single one of you demented fuckwits right up the ass with a prickly-pear one day soon.

And I will be sitting in my bunker, with my guns, ammo, food and bevy of 18 year old virgins with which I'll help repopulate the US when IT follows Europe into utter destruction, and I'll be laughing my ass off at you sorry sons of bitches who thought they knew anything about anythi
Jesus you people are stupid. You don't deserve to live you're so stupid. The planet will be much better off after the Socialists and Communists have all killed each other off, leaving the world to the Libertarians, who actually understand how economies operate. Billions of people are going to die horrific deaths because you people are so incredibly selfish and stupid.

You won't be missed even a little.

There is a certain frenzied grandeur to your tirades. i imagine your blogs being rapturously received in certain quarters. . That option would seem to be more appealing than posting here where you know that nobody will take you seriously. But maybe you derive a profound inner satisfaction at gloating over our boneheadness, and contemplating the bitter harvest we must reap when your comicbook conspiracy theories come home to roost.

[Seth]

There is a certain frenzied grandeur to your tirades.

Why thank you!

i imagine your blogs being rapturously received in certain quarters.

But of course.

That option would seem to be more appealing than posting here where you know that nobody will take you seriously. But maybe you derive a profound inner satisfaction at gloating over our boneheadness, and contemplating the bitter harvest we must reap when your comicbook conspiracy theories come home to roost.

Nah, mostly it's light entertainment watching you all run around saying incredibly stupid things that I get to point out for the delectation and amusement of the lurkers on this forum, who deserve something more than circle-jerk conformity of opinion like one gets at Ratskep these days, now that they've purged the counterrevolutionaries.

But if the occasion arises, I'll be happy to gloat and say "I told you so."