Large web-front companies make money of the creative labours of the masses, but what drives us to do it? — kudos

I love how one-sided your post is. It is always the 'big evil corporate' exploiting the small helpless proletariat.' You could easily turn this around and state that labour is exploiting/making money of big tech companies.

The objective view would be that big companies have opened new markets for creative people to do what they love, while simultaneously make money.

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Now to go deeper into the topic you addressed. One could argue that the internet promotes creativity, by sharing ideas (and remixing it) on a massive scale beyond human comprehension.

But I could also see the opposite case be made, namely that the internet, especially social media platforms, kills creativity by creating internet bubbles, echo chambers, where people just seek confirmation instead of challenges to their world view. It is psychologically more comforting to be around people who already agree with you, especially regarding political and moral views.

I am personally leaning more towards the latter.

Laissez faire promotes social strength by rewarding the strong and punishing the weak

Lol this post. At best, like all Ayn Rand's work, that statement is merely a tautology.

As for the

so far from what I have seen here, pretty much correct on Marx's work. — ritikew

...part, feel free to make the case. I'm certainly not here claiming to be any kind of expert on Marxist theory myself.

I just don't find it persuasive when someone's entire argument is "Hey, I've read the book, so I know." Especially when it's a long and complex book, and it seems that there are plenty of other folks who've also read the book and "know" differently. — Theologian

Maw has gone down the path of revisionism. So he was quite sensitive to dismiss your deterministic interpretation of Marx, hence his autistic and insecure response. It is not a popular view that is being held among Marxists, so I would not sweat too much over his comments.

Marx's teleological view of history is a more common interpretation and so your 'deterministic' remark is not as ignorant as Maw insinuates here, albeit perhaps not very accurate. Marx held the view that capitalism is fundamentally unstable that would collapse due to its internal contradictions.

By the way, a tip, if you decide to read on Marx, note that he uses very specific and situated definitions that highly depend on their context for their meaning and purpose. It makes his work confusing and tough to read directly. A typical continental philosopher.

is a specific tax policy sufficient for doing a socialism now? — Maw

wut? Can't even make any sense of that sentence.

I didn't say that Norway was a socialist country. — Maw

The article doesn't hide the percentage of national wealth owned by the state when homeownership is factored in, which is nearly 60%. What's the problem? — Maw

What you attempt to insinuate is that the Norwegian government owns/controls 60% (or the majority) of the means of production in the country. Let's accept your flawed logic to that number of 60% for sake of argument. It includes Oil fund that is literally twice their entire economy and the vast majority of it is in foreign assets. Like I stated above, as you can see, the representative number is more around 38%, Norway is mostly privatised.

Lmao, trying hard to make Marx appear to be a legendary philosopher whose mere name should make the earth tremble under our feet in awe of the almighty.

edit: In fact, when I studied philosophy, Marx was portrayed as a minor young Hegelian, with little to no original contributions to either philosophy or economics. He has done great for the field of sociology though.

edit(2): f*ck, I make so many typo's it's embarrassing. It's late and I am tired..

Sure, Norway is mostly privatised. With Tax-to-gdp ratio of around 38% and one of the highest (private) home ownerships in the world and most of the 'state wealth' is Sovereign wealth fund, also known as "oil fund".

Norway's tax structure is quite close to OECD average:



Not quite the "socialist" country that people like to portray...

Maw is referring to this article: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/03/14/the-state-owns-76-of-norways-non-home-wealth/

Leaving aside that the phrase "entire wealth" is blatantly wrong, even provided the incredibly misleading article, which is a politically motivated piece of junk. The statistic "non-home wealth" is ad hoc defined to serve a political agenda.

Norway's government owns over 70% of the nation's entire wealth — Maw

This is such a Chomsky move lol. But it is also the reason why he lost my respect that I had for him. Like Chomsky, you are an intelligent bloke Maw. And like Chomsky, you cherry pick some misleading facts and must deliberately dance around facts that would demolish the notion you try to put forward.

I've only been seriously studying philosophy for a little over a year. There are some hard choices I need to make as to which of the many dense tomes that are ahead of me I invest my time and energy in - and in what order. I always try to be upfront as to the limits of my own knowledge, and one of the reasons why I engage here is that I figure I might actually learn a thing or two from people who are a bit ahead of me. Or at least know more about certain things than I do. If you want to be contemptuously dismissive of that, then fine. But I think that says more about you than it does about me. — Theologian

haha don't take it personally son, Maw is a veteran on these forums and on the previous one. He is an outspoken leftist (not Marxist though, as he leans more towards anarchism/left wing libertarianism), a bit insecure, hence his 'contemptuously dismissive' comments and a bit autistic when it comes to social interaction. Nevertheless, he is incredibly well read and is, so far from what I have seen here, pretty much correct on Marx's work.

Upon deeper reflection regarding the discussion I have been following, another thing I noticed is the zero-sum fallacy regarding concern of the problems men and women face nowadays. Being concerned with women's issues does not go at the cost of being concerned with the problems men face.

It is obvious that, looking at it globally, women face greater problems than men, so it is reasonable that women's issues require greater attention and resources. For example, the Muslim-world doesn't really treat women that well and could call our attention, more than it does now.

Huh? Do you lot have any self-awareness? Don't you realise this only gives Trump more ammunition to blame "fake news"? It has been formally stated that there is no evidence for a Russian-Trump collusion in the elections, and therefore ending the conspiracy. This is Alex Jones level stuff. There is tons of material to shit on Trump without making yourself look dumber than he is, lmao.

Interesting discussion. I think both sides have brought up interesting points. However, both men's right movement en feminism make the same mistake, namely the moral arrogance to decide what's in the other's interest, a paternalistic authoritarian moral-strawman so-to-say, a trap intellectuals often fall for.

Fortunately enough, most people (both men and women) reject feminism and have never heard of 'men's right movement'. It is a niche debate, only held by a group with little to no power.