What sources are you using for your impression of institutions being clear that the efficacy of the vaccines at reducing transmission was uncertain? — Isaac

Official statements by Pfizer and Moderna at the start of vaccination. I'm not aware of any other communication. And then came the good news that it reduces the rate of transmission of the alpha variant but that came again with the warning that is no guarantee for future variants.

Yes, we're well aware of your ideological stance and the resulting confirmation bias. God forbid fact-based decision making.

When the vaccines were introduced, they made clear the efficacy against the spread of the disease was not certain. Its protection against its effects was. The idea was that if enough people would be vaccinated at least they wouldn't end up in hospitals and cause an overload of the hospital system. When has this aim changed?

In other words, you are complaining about something nobody ever said would be the result of vaccination. Why? Because of your confirmation bias. Thank you for playing.

Thanks.

How sick are they getting from it? Are you less sick when vaccinated? Otherwise we can stop vaccinating altogether and combat the pandemic how they did it in the old days.

If I may interject, I think we are a victim of the slow development of human nature that cannot keep up with the rapid changes resulting from technological inventions and our ability to easily transfer knowledge and cooperate. Our moral intuitions aren't developed to take into account far off risks or other people in the abstract. We pursue impartiality and abstraction by expressing everything in terms of money, which becomes a self perpetuating beast mostly out of our control (the Market) so that we don't have to feel anything about a decision, further divorcing it from morality.

What you're left with is a society that rumbles along with barely a chance to steer it in another direction simply because of its size and complexity and people incapable of making moral decisions most of the time and it's not even their fault.

Smaller failed states are not so significant because as they fail their carbon foot print will fall. — Punshhh

I'd argue failed States are already insignificant where it concerns carbon footprints.

That there is systemic racism still allows for individual experience to deviate from the norm. This is not really the point of the debate. This is a social problem, not an individual one. You're confusing observing those social facts with prejudice and race consciousness and mistakenly believe articulating those observations contribute to said racism.

I'll get back to my original point: not talking about a problem doesn't make it go away.

EDIT: how would you go about resolving the systemic racism that many (most) black us citizens claim they are experiencing?

This man has such-and-such phenotypes, therefor he has this-or-that experience, behavior, beliefs, and so on”, is the logic of racism and other forms of prejudice, and I see no reason to continue using it. — NOS4A2

Black men are telling you about their experiences on an almost daily basis. Describing the world as it is through the eyes of another as a result of listening is not reinforcing racism or prejudice at all, it's learning to understand what the world is like "as a black person" through empathy. If you don't understand what they're going through, you can't help them.

Your ignoring the reality of racism as it exists today does nothing to change it.

This difference in the way of meaning permits the word Brot to mean something other to a German than what the word pain means to a Frenchman, so that these words are not interchangeable for them; in fact, they strive to exclude each other. As to what is meant, however, the two words signify the very same thing". — StreetlightX

This just reads like a contradiction to me. Either it means the same thing because it signifies the same thing or Brot and pain mean different things because Germans and French use them differently because it signifies other things to them.

If this is about the observation that French bread is decidedly different from German bread and that therefore a French person with no knowledge of other types of bread understands pain only to signify French bread then I'm not sure what is new here.

Disclaimer: I don't know shit about the philosophy of language.

There was a white girl and she looked to adults as to what to do with her life. Most adult women were stay at home mums, nurses, librarians and school teachers. Nobody told her she can be anything. Her teacher didn't question why women or mums, nurses, librarians and school teachers. That's just how things were. The teacher thought mathematics, chemistry and physics weren't important to the girl considering where she was going. The girl became a nurse.

There was a black boy and he looked up to adults as to what to do with his life. Adult black men were slaves. The boy became a slave.

There is a white girl and she looks to adults as to what to do with her life. Most adult women still are stay at home mums, nurses, librarians and school teachers. Meanwhile, media portrayal of girls has changed; they are protagonists in stories, heroines, smart and beat boys regularly. Her parents tell her that what she sees isn't the way the world has to be; "you can be whatever you like honey". Her teacher knows what girls usually become but he/she too believes she can be whatever she can be. assume where she'll end up and discovers she happens to be really good at mathematics, chemistry and physics. The teacher also discovers girls learn differently then boys. The teacher changes how she teaches and the girl blossoms. She becomes a mum, with a Ph.D. in linear algebra teaching at university.

If the parents or the teacher didn't realise what the world looked like to the girl, precisely because she is a girl, and actively engaged her to allow her to have a different view from what is, she never would've gotten there (we're not all Marie Curie!).

Now what to do about that black boy? Society and media still tell him he's "less" than white boys. Black men overwhelmingly have lower paying jobs. The only way out seems to be rap or athleticism. Stories with black heroes are rare, criminals are predominantly played by non-whites, in fact, representation of black people is often about race because non-whites apparently are incapable of having universal experiences (notable exceptions exist of course!).

People suggesting to ignore this boy's view of the world by ignoring that he's in fact black are not helping him. If you want to improve his chances, you need to realise what the world looks like to him, as a black boy, and actively engage him (e.g. going the extra mile to undo all the socio-economic damage he grows up in) to allow him to have a different view from what is. And while you're doing that you also need to teach him how to deal with the racist fucks still out there and those that think ignoring that he's clearly black is in any way, shape or form helping to change society for the better.

Not talking about the problem does not make it go away. Slavery didn't disappear because people stopped pretending there were slaves.

And if you are wondering how I understood that you don't have any idea about the subject, it is because none of these references say that you have to give all your money and property to charity or something similar! This is your idea. — Alkis Piskas

Admittedly, if he's such a miserable human being that the only way everyone is better off is for him to fully retreat from society then his idea would be accurate.

Whataboutism. The subject of the thread is clear, you can either contribute or waste everybody's time with comments like that.

I sincerely doubt it can work in several jurisdictions now that some corporations can claim human rights protections. I do think this can be incentived though. If a corporation is set up in such a way profits are more equitably distributed to stakeholders then wealth transfer tax mechanism can be waived, leading to lower taxes which should make the after tax profit much higher.

Limiting liability seems necessary to incentivise any type of investment in larger companies. Typically the amount of money any one person has is insignificant in relation to the amounts of money circulating in the books of any decent sized company. If you wouldn't limit liability, a company of any decent size failing, would typically mean the investors would be in debt for the rest of their lives. So even if there were only a small chance of failing, nobody would want to take that chance because very few things are worth the risk of being financially crippled for the rest of your life. — ChatteringMonkey

Limiting liability was indeed necessary to incentivize investment in undertakings that wouldn't yield profit. Adding the possibility to corporations to make profit could've been incentive enough (partnerships don't have limited liability either) but politics resulted in profit and limited liability. I think that was a mistake. Limited liability externalises the costs of damages caused by the corporation to wider society, which is a reasonable exchange if the corporate activity is performed for a goal benefiting wider society but not if it's only for private gain. In that case, if you have all the profits, you should also bear all the responsibility.

In my ideal world, we would see non-profit pharmaceutical companies developing the "riskiest" treatments with limited liability and for-profit pharmaceutical companies but with normal liability that would automatically go for simpler products.

An alternative effect could also be that much of the useless day trading resulting in value extraction from the real economy and rent seeking could be entirely avoided if limited liability would be repealed for every corporation. You can also get rid of IFRS and GAAP accounting principles at the same time as no investor is going to touch a stock without having the necessary information to ensure they're duly informed about the risks of their investments if they would be liable for losses.

Isn't the issue just ownership, property here? A share is a piece of ownership right? Suppose there were no shares, everything would stay with the founder/owner of the company and you'd have essentially the same problem of a person getting a return on his initial investment in perpetuity. — ChatteringMonkey

That's how it was defined. It could also have been structured as a piece of a loan and related interest, pretty much like a variable interest rate bond, possibly collateralised but not necessarily involving ownership in property of the corporation directly. I do think that now that it is considered "property" there's a lot more resistance to making changes to how corporations are set up.

You want to distribute added value to everybody that has contributed to it, and not only to the owners. I can get behind that goal certainly. And the idea of giving out shares which dilute over time seems like a clever way to do that. No sure how it would work out in practice, but at least it's a concrete idea to try to solve the issue, got to give you props for that! — ChatteringMonkey

Thanks. Glad it's not served off as evil communism from the get-go!

Family businesses have actually been quite persistent in history, even if sometimes there comes the generation that ruins the business (or spends the wealth away). — ssu

Family businesses worked in their businesses too.

With stocks that ownership can just be divided and easily bought and sold. I'm not so sure what is so wrong with that. — ssu

I'm not against stock. Additional stock is issued and given to employees but can still be traded.

I think an important way for societies to minimise the consequences is to move from shareholding to stakeholding. In my view that starts at reacquainting ourselves with the role of corporations and stock as it was understood originally. Original corporations received a charter and were gifted limited liability for activities that required a large upfront capital investment. This was considered fair in order to protect investors from liability since they did not receive a direct benefit from this investment (no interest could be calculated, no profit could be made). The goal of the corporation was limited in scope and upon reaching it the corporation would be dissolved. Why would people invest? Because the indirect benefits outweighed the capital investment. Roads, bridges, important buildings etc. were typically the subject of a corporation's charter.

The system of stock market has been about bringing borrowers and lenders together and easing the transfer of rights related to such loans.

Where the combination went off kilter is mostly the possibility for a corporation to exist in perpetuity.

A typical bond has a maturity (there are exceptions, perpetual bonds but these were still intended to be paid off put the moment of repayment wasn't enforceable). A loan has a maturity. A mortgage has a maturity. But stock doesn't. But it doesn't fulfill an essential different role than other loan instruments but it does give a right to profit in perpetuity. And this is weird, why should a shareholder who invested 100 guilders in 1910 in Shell stock still receive dividends for Shell's activities today?

The other point is that goodwill and market value increases due to the added value of labour and nothing else (ignoring financial industry for a moment which can passively generate profit). If I put 1 million into a company it's not going to magically increase in worth, if I buy capital goods (buildings, machinery, tools) it's not going to increase in worth. If I hire people to utilise capital goods for a specific purpose, there's a likelihood something will happen with the market value of the company.

And it's clear that companies like Shell, Google, Amazon etc. are worth a multitude of the paid up capital but we insist only those that originally provided capital and any persons subsequently buying the rights related to that initial capital investment (e.g. stock) are owners of the total worth of the company and the only ones with a right to profit. Whereas if I had funded this with a loan, after say, 5 years the loan was paid off, the interest received, everything else would be owned by other people.

My point is, that at some point capital investment is not responsible for the value of a company and the relationship between profit and initial capital investment is negligible. If this is the case, I don't see an ethical reason why a shareholder should continue to receive benefits from that initial investment.

My proposed solution would involve a dynamic equity system where the initial capital investor starts out with a 100% right to the profit but as the company grows in value and this added value is the result of labour activity, additional shares are issued diluting the share value of the company. These shares will go to employees and as long as they continue to work there, they receive more shares. If they move to another company, they too will see their shares dilute over time but will build up capital in another company.

What would have to be worked out is at what rate initial capital investments should dilute. We do have a lot of bond pricing that we can use as a benchmark.

I'd also get rid of all intellectual property rights except the obligation of attribution. But different story.

I actually raised this issue when I was working at the Ministry of Finance. How to get to a circular, zero-growth, fair and just society.

No real answer but my gut feeling: I think mostly it will be about doing more with less and technologies that will support that will continue to be implemented. I see a high risk that capital distributions will be locked in for a very long time with very little change as a result of less economic activity and mobility, which will likely lead to inescapable socio-economic classes.

I haven't bullied you either. I'm calling out your feigned victimhood. You started out disrespectful, I ignored it, you stayed disrespectful by misrepresenting my criticism as communist despite repeated clarification and plenty of indication you're ignorant of what capitalism and communism are. You don't get to play the victim card when you act like an asshole.

I've actually not once insulted you, while your first post to me you called me an idiot. See And after repeated corrections insist on misrepresenting my position.

So, fuck you snowflake.

but for the US, — tim wood

Ahaha, you forgot about the British empire? But for the Brits, you'd be speaking comanche or something.

What might we learn from such experiments? — jorndoe

People suck?

...you always assume some sort of deficit on my part rather than assume I have reasons to say what I'm saying! — counterpunch

The deficit is apparent when you keep imputing "communism" on the criticisms I leveled at the current way capitalism is pursued but my comments are still entirely within keeping with capitalism as understood by Smith.

it very much is, then I'm outa here for while! — counterpunch

One can hope.

I see what the problem is. You don't know what communism is.

The PA is obviously shitty, but Hamas is even worse on human rights. But yes, everyone oppresses the Palestinian people. — BitconnectCarlos

You keep saying that but Israel is worst on human rights from the three entities now named. Both in numbers and types of abuses. So you keep defending Israel despite it being worse than Hamas, the latter which you apparently find horrendously evil and bad since it's your go-to scapegoat.

And the framing by Israel is telling as usual: “a surrender to ongoing and aggressive pressure from extreme anti-Israel groups”

Being against oppression is an extreme position and anti-Israeli. So being pro-Israeli means being for oppression then? Ok. Glad we cleared that up.

I didn't raise economics to discuss whether my economic position is correct, merely to point out your representation of my position was false. One point though : It's funny to see how you consider aspects, such as shareholders and capital rates of return, as inherent to capitalism. They're not. They're fictions introduced by law. Earliest corporations only got limited liability for capital providers because they invested in something worthwhile to the public that they would benefit from themselves (for instance merchants building a bridge increasing commerce). Profit was expressly forbidden and when the goal was completed the corporation was dissolved. Laws allowing corporations to be for-profit and exist in perpetuity are distortions to market structures and not inherent to a capitalist system. So, one again too many assumptions about what I mean, what capitalism is and in general another demonstration of a lack of knowledge and context. It makes me wonder what you do for a living if you have such little historic and economic knowledge.

Aldo zero point energy is real just as real as geothermal. NASA had been working on a quantum vacuum fluctuation engine and published their results. It works. Breaks some fundamental physical laws but quantum effects have been known to screw with that before.

I think that's called "the old bait and switch!" — counterpunch

I see you like to read extra things into what I say. Let me clarify. I'm against the current type of capitalism, I think it's implementation, especially when the corporation was introduced, has and will lead to untold misery. I'm not against "free" markets as we understand them in mixed economies but against the idiotic laissez-faire nonsense. I am against societies that are diminishing people, resources and everything else into their monetary value. I'm against the concentration of power that comes along with it, I'm against the asymmetry that arises from all these effects resulting in a split between "capitalists" and "labourers" and rich vs. poor.

The "goodwill" of a company is generated by its labourers so I believe one solution could be (if we must have corporations) is to introduce a dynamic equity system where labourers, over time, become majority shareholders as opposed to those providing capital. And that's logical because if labourers wouldn't add more value than capital, shareholders would be losing money.

But hey, yeah, I totally played into your unnecessary juxtaposition!

The aim isn't sustaining capitalism per se. The aim is to secure a sustainable future with minimal disruption; and that's because, disruption causes people to suffer. — counterpunch

So the French revolution was a bad thing? Your posts involve way too many absolutes, too many assumptions and too little examination.

Capitalism is the prevailing economic system the world over, and if you cared about people and sustainability - more than you do about promoting communism, you'd accept that - and seek minimally disruptive solutions to climate change. — counterpunch

That capitalism is the prevailing economic system is no argument for it to remain so. Where have I promoted communism? I have always maintained Marx' Kapital is one of the better critiques of capitalism. Thanks to Piketty, we have an additional one.

It's a matter of fact that the earth is a big ball of molten rock, containing a truly massive amount of energy - more than adequate to meet and exceed current global energy demand, into the indefinite future. — counterpunch

So would zero-point energy. This doesn't mean it's a viable option. For someone banging on about science, you sure like to spend very little time on the actual science of the problem. Those questions you need to answer are still unanswered. Until then we'll go with the science that actually is clear, proven to work and feasible, such as wind, water and photo-voltaic renewable energy.

Well to continue along this tangent.

I think pride in the task itself and in each other, if it was a team effort, is great and normal in moderation. By moderation I mean it should be done graciously without expressing pride at the expense of others, for instance, the enemy or, in sports, the other team. I think there's a tendency to warp pride into it just being about being a member of a group ("USA the greatest", "if you ain't Dutch, you ain't much!"). There's nothing prideful about that. It's not the membership, it's what has been accomplished. And if you had a meaningful role in that, you deserve :wink: to feel proud.

I have more problems with feeling proud about characteristics and have more problem placing them. Is it ok to be proud because you're brave? Seems a bit narcissistic.

Taking pride in someone else work is clearly wrong, it's not your accomplishment.

Admiring someone else's work is fine too, please pay them a compliment. And we should show more admiration for those who naturally had a harder time reaching a goal than others. A rich person getting richer is a statistical likelihood and deserves a yawn, someone bootstrapping himself is an entirely different story.

Showing gratitude for the accomplishments of our forebears is appropriate.

So you can be grateful being American, admire some of your fellow Marines past and present and take pride in your accomplishments - hopefully something that didn't involve killing people.

Here's Blumenbach, a contemporary of Kant, who came up with the five races but was decidedly anti-racist at the same time :

Moreover, he concluded that Africans were not inferior to the rest of mankind 'concerning healthy faculties of understanding, excellent natural talents and mental capacities',[17] and wrote the following:

Finally, I am of opinion that after all these numerous instances I have brought together of negroes of capacity, it would not be difficult to mention entire well-known provinces of Europe, from out of which you would not easily expect to obtain off-hand such good authors, poets, philosophers, and correspondents of the Paris Academy; and on the other hand, there is no so-called savage nation known under the sun which has so much distinguished itself by such examples of perfectibility and original capacity for scientific culture, and thereby attached itself so closely to the most civilized nations of the earth, as the Negro.[18]

He did not consider his "degenerative hypothesis" as racist and sharply criticized Christoph Meiners, an early practitioner of scientific racialism, as well as Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring, who concluded from autopsies that Africans were an inferior race.[19] Blumenbach wrote three other essays stating non-white peoples were capable of excelling in arts and sciences in reaction against racialists of his time.[20] — Wiki

I don't see it. A left wing approach to sustainability, based on Malthusian pessimism and limits to resources, dates back to an era when communism was still a thing. Communism is no longer a thing; yet a left wing approach to sustainability remains violently anti-capitalist.

Ostensibly concerned with sustainability, the left haven't even considered whether capitalism might be sustained, because of their political interest in promoting communism. In the 1960's and 70's maybe, that was a justifiable political position, but it's not anymore.

Perhaps I'm being slightly bullish in drawing a direct parallel between communism and slavery, but communism does not allow for the kind of personal and political freedom capitalism allows for. And it would clearly be less disruptive to sustain capitalism, than force a failed economic ideology on capitalist societies under the guise of sustainability.

Scientifically and technologically, I believe it's possible to sustain capitalism. There's limitless amounts of clean energy available in the molten interior of the earth, we could use to meet all our energy needs plus capture carbon, desalinate and irrigate, produce hydrogen fuel, and recycle. This would internalise the externalities of capitalism without internalising them to the economy. — counterpunch

It's not either capitalism or communism and there's a lot of different "types" of capitalism too. One of the worse developments was that of limited liability, for profit corporations and that has exactly zero to do with capitalism. So corporate capitalism is something you can be opposed to, without being a communist for instance.

So yes, false dichotomies all over the place I'm afraid. And capitalism creates its own oppression, which has been so often in the news you must've been living under a rock if you think you can maintain "capitalism = freedom". Sooner the inverse.

I also don't share your optimism where it concerns science. There have been plenty of technologies that were superior to others and failed due to political or sociological circumstances or because of a bad advertisement campaign. Lots of ideas don't see the light of day because they don't attract investors, or fail because poor, unconnected people have to pay a premium to get a loan in the first place because of worse credit ratings. The system doesn't favour smart solutions, it favours the status quo, which is why unexpected circumstances cause market shocks, recessions and depressions.

Finally, "sustaining capitalism" is an utter shit goal. It is and always has been about people, not some system or ideology. People first, system second. Whatever system creates the best world for people is the one we should implement. It isn't capitalism despite the many good things it has brought when the excesses it's been causing since the 90s wasn't a problem yet.

. It is a minimally disruptive approach to do this in support of capitalism; as capitalism is the prevailing economic paradigm, and so much nicer than slavery - to have some degree of personal and political freedom. — counterpunch

False dichotomy.

A solution overlooked by the thousands of actually qualified people working on this important issue. — Xtrix

This happens. I've been in this situation and it ended up stranding on investment negotiations and it being a very complex market where most players were banking on lobbying for another solution.

It could be a solution but he doesn't have one yet and appears to be not interested in actually doing the leg work to prove it. In the time he's been talking about it here and the years he claims he's spend on it I had attracted two partners, wrote a patent, and spoken with five different potential investors and 7 potential clients in three different countries. I think he actually knows what he has is a shit idea, good ideas generate money.

Scientifically and technologically speaking, that's not only untrue, but fatal. — counterpunch

Wild, unfounded assumption that's just necessary to prop up your capitalist ideology. I don't share it nor the idea capitalism is a good system.

Anyhoo, back to your idea. If you're convinced, stop trying to convince people here and do the leg work to answer those questions and start a company or something. I did once and even though it failed, it was a fun ride and I learned a lot.

It's not a vague solution; technical detail is lacking, but it's a specific idea, likely adequate to the problem, and if so, the least disruptive solution, with maximum benefit at least cost. — counterpunch

It's vague idea. You have no clue about its technical or economic viability. You don't even have a proof of concept at this point.

The problem is that at this stage you have an idea but no plan. So if you're serious about it, you need to take it much further than these vague ideas. There's plenty of energy in currents and waves of the sea as well. Harnessing is another matter.

Point is, you can't expect others to take this seriously until you manage to conclusively answer at least some of my previous questions in detail.

Every market is constrained by laws and regulation. Contract law, environmental laws, labour laws, health and safety standards, taxation, levies, tariffs, sanctions, etc. etc.

There has never been a free market, it's a theoretical construct.

I'm just saying I don't see a necessary juxtaposition between conservative values and anti-racism. There are plenty of principled conservatives in favour of equality and anti-racist. So it's more typically GOP I guess.

And let's not forget all the micro aggressions we (accidentally) perpetuate having grown up white in a Western, white society. Tends to not matter much what your political inclination is in that case.

Never stop burning. Liberals = #1; conservatives = #2. — James Riley

At the risk of arguing for a "true Scotsman", equality is a conservative value.

That's pretty much the climate debate since decades. — boethius

Sad but true. 36 years ago, when I was 7, my father worked for Shell. When he was again working late and my mom complained I said "he's inventing things for a better environment". There was awareness then and even a kid understood it.

Is this really a puzzle? In my view the following is happening, where p is "republican wins" and q "if it's not Reagan who wins, it will be Anderson." Then you find that Reagan doesn't win:

If p then q,
not q, (because neither Reagan nor Anderson won)
therefore not p

That's modus tollens though.

If you want to stay in the MP, it should be:

If p then q,
not p, (because no Republican won)
therefore not q.

The MP is perfectly valid.

It seems more like slight of hand to play with the implied meaning of Reagan being a Republican and leaving out part of q because that's "either Reagan or Anderson wins" and not only "Reagan wins".