GlutinousRice
Ne travaillez jamais
Someone is going to make a fine wageslave.
Will the U.S fall apart soon?
- Thread starter Sn1p3r187
- Start date
ZigzagPX4
The Swiftness of the Ranger
A lot of people on this forum really, really, really hates corporations, don't they? I'm not defending said corporations - quite neutral about this whole debate, not qualified to talk about it - but I can't go five minutes on General Discussion Forum without finding someone pointing out the drawbacks of capitalism.
Illuminati Confirmed!
Banned
Oh, isn't that adorable, you not knowing what a profession is.
Come to think of it, I don't even give a shit. Enjoy your regulations. I hope your endorphin boosts from pretending to boss around your bosses are worth it.
Because I pay for the service I actually want, not one that is forced on me. If someone came to your front door with a gun, forced you to give him money, would the theft be any less immoral if he went and brought you a bunch of groceries you never asked for and wouldn't have bought if you had the choice?
I don't know where you get the idea that private enterprises have a lower standard of quality than governments. How many people were lining up to buy Trabants or Yugos as opposed to VWs or BMWs?
Why do you presume that they should be run for any people other than the ones owning it? The fact that they make money when they give their customers something they want is not utopian, it's real. How is it ignoring human nature to propose that everyone - from the consumer to the corporation owner - looks after their own self-interest?
Not even once. And why do you think that a private road owner wouldn't maintain order on his roads? He either built it to make money on it directly or in order to allow easier transportation of goods and employees. Them being blocked up harms his profits.
Yes, because corporations totally want incompetent employees and prioritize short-term over long-term gain. Trump University might have failed, so what? Some businesses do. Which of the world's finest universities started out as a government-funded one?
Which one doesn't?
Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
This Illuminati Kid is just a living caricature, I am convinced he has to be trolling at this point.
Illuminati Confirmed!
Banned
How does willingly entering a business relationship make you a slave?
People will always throw shit at corporations and rich people because unless the rich are evil, the only reason they aren't rich is that they're not as smart or competent as they would like to think. But if the rich are evil, not only can they be smart and competent without being rich, but also morally superior.
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Earth
Vault Senior Citizen
Sigh...this is why I don't post often on the General Discussion threads. Enjoy your shit throwing. I'm sure no one's opinions will be changed by any arguments made.
Back to the original topic. People speak about how countries will collapse, especially America, but with the modern countries we have seen collapse, I'm not sure it would be a good thing. Sure, fascist dictators like Gaddaffi and Mubarak have been brought down, but then their successors haven't been much better, and in cases like Iraq and Syria, Islamic State has been an even worse form of fascism.
Caesar's Legion is fascinating to me because not only are the Legion very similar to IS in tactics and ideology, but Caesar himself is someone who was brought up in the "West" like many IS soldiers, who spurned the democracy and flawed economics within and turned to an older form of totalitarianism as the answer.
If America collapsed, I see only the collapse of its democratic system and a fall into feudal chaos, especially considering the amount of guns in the country. If a revolution did occur, but it had no real plan of action other than remove the established power, the most likely result (imo) would be a military dictatorship of some sort.
Back to the original topic. People speak about how countries will collapse, especially America, but with the modern countries we have seen collapse, I'm not sure it would be a good thing. Sure, fascist dictators like Gaddaffi and Mubarak have been brought down, but then their successors haven't been much better, and in cases like Iraq and Syria, Islamic State has been an even worse form of fascism.
Caesar's Legion is fascinating to me because not only are the Legion very similar to IS in tactics and ideology, but Caesar himself is someone who was brought up in the "West" like many IS soldiers, who spurned the democracy and flawed economics within and turned to an older form of totalitarianism as the answer.
If America collapsed, I see only the collapse of its democratic system and a fall into feudal chaos, especially considering the amount of guns in the country. If a revolution did occur, but it had no real plan of action other than remove the established power, the most likely result (imo) would be a military dictatorship of some sort.
ZigzagPX4
The Swiftness of the Ranger
The arguments here are longer and make a bit more sense, but it did remind me of Reddit.
I don't post much on General Discussion threads either but with the recent elections, politics are slowly trickling into General Gaming regardless.
I doubt a military dictatorship in the US could hold for long. Civilian militias can potentially form very swiftly there from what I assume (I don't actually live in the US, so what do I know), and the longtime culture there seems to lean toward the idea that even a feigned or a flawed democracy is better than an efficient autocracy. The "for the people" attitude there seems to be strong, even if sometimes misguided. Again, could be very wrong because I don't live there, but I have visited and do have relatives who live there, so this is all based on what I could gather.
Personally? They won't fall apart permanently. Maybe temporary setbacks and a couple of civil disputes, might even descend into outright violence, but it's never going to break down completely like you see in fiction. No offense, but from the books. movies, and TV documentaries everyone has mentioned to be enjoying so far, I think dystopian fiction has been subconsciously increasing pessimism on the future of society a fair bit.
Sorry, I shouldn't have made that joke about taxes 
ZigzagPX4
The Swiftness of the Ranger
Then please don't bait by being vague while using specific terms. It's stuff like this that's going to descend this argument into The Vats.
Sorry, I shouldn't have made that joke about taxes
Quite an impressive fire you set off there.
It is these kind of threads that keep the non-gaming parts of NMA interesting to me. That, and The Order, but I don't dare do anything there but lurk.
Earth
Vault Senior Citizen
Of course, as I said in a previous post, I don't think America will fall anytime soon. But in the hypothesis that it does, while the democratic institutions of America are popular, I don't know how much they'll hold against a collapsed government and a powerful dictator with an army at their back. All it takes is for someone with enough megalomania and enough weapons and morons behind them to control the majority. The best result would be constant battles between whatever the new dictatorial "government" is and freedom fighters.
I know what you mean about dystopian fiction. I do worry sometimes that people think, "well... we don't have children forced to kill each other in reality-TV-show-style deathmatches, so our crummy society is a-ok".
ZigzagPX4
The Swiftness of the Ranger
I may have misunderstood your point, but I was actually concerned about the opposite: people thinking that we might actually descend into reality-TV-show style deathmatches, what with there being so much negativity about governments, corruption, profiteers, etc.
Our society does appear crummy, but it's a lot better of then everyone keeps thinking. Everyone has already started to assume that companies are about to drag us into a cyberpunk-like future of "dystopian corporation-owned cities". I mean, it is possible, but we're not heading straight for it like a plane towards a cliff face just yet.
People thinking "at least it's not a dystopian future, this world we're in" is mostly fine by me. Not always, but most of the time.
The US won't collapse any time "soon" because it's too fucking strong, and has no reason to. It's like pointing at the Chrystler building, and asking when it'll collapse. Idunno, maybe in 800 years or so? 
ZigzagPX4
The Swiftness of the Ranger
The US won't collapse any time "soon" because it's too fucking strong, and has no reason to. It's like pointing at the Chrystler building, and asking when it'll collapse. Idunno, maybe in 800 years or so?
Again, the age of information bringing about bigger waves of news about the US fucking up in politics and in the Middle East. It looks bad but in truth it's just like the same dozen messes that countries have had in the past. If anything's going to collapse, it's the EU's economy. There's solid evidence of an incoming collapse.
Earth
Vault Senior Citizen
I actually think it's a good thing if people think they're living in a worse society than they actually are. It means they'll always be pushing for improvement. It's when people are living in a dystopian society and are complacent about it that I would grow concerned.
ZigzagPX4
The Swiftness of the Ranger
I guess when you put it that way, it does make a bit of sense?
Still personally on the other side of the fence, though - I just think no one is looking at how far we've come, but only at how far we still have to go, which is fairly depressing because when it comes to societal progression, there are no limits. It's like staring to the front of a train moving towards an endless void and contemplating whether the train will ever get to the destination. Considering progress is a subjective concept anyways, it seems pointless.
It's always good to be pushing for improvements, I agree. But it feels upsetting to never look at the improvements that have already been made. Sometimes, it feels like the appreciation for progress has faded away and self-criticism has become the new norm for this generation. But for the people who can't improve without the knowledge that they still have to improve, the mindset you mentioned would be necessary. I guess it just depends on the person.
Earth
Vault Senior Citizen
We do look back at the improvements though. We celebrate historic achievements, mourn the tragedies that came and went. As long as we have knowledge of our history, we can learn from it. Yes, progression does seem like an endless goal, but I would rather us forever look forward than nostalgically look back. It's hard not to be cynical in a world like this, with all the problems humans cause upon one another, but that's why we always need to push for a better tomorrow, even if it does seem like we'll never get there.
ZigzagPX4
The Swiftness of the Ranger
Can't we do both?
I agree with most of your points. Still, I find it hard to tell myself that we're currently living in anything even closely resembling dystopia - I've just never seen in that way. But if there are certain people who needs to be told that if they're ever going to want to push for progress, then I'm fine with that. Just as long we balance it with being proud and optimistic.
As the quote goes, "we've come along way, but we've got a long way to go".
Earth
Vault Senior Citizen
Can't be that dystopian if we're still able to change things 
.
Looking back is fine. Looking back nostalgically?
Nostalgia is a double-edged sword. It is both a beautiful and dangerous quality in human nature (but then, so many elements of human nature are double-edged anyway).
. Looking back is fine. Looking back nostalgically?
Nostalgia is a double-edged sword. It is both a beautiful and dangerous quality in human nature (but then, so many elements of human nature are double-edged anyway).
Spacemunkey
Vault Senior Citizen
And which of the services that your government currently provides you with, would you not want to pay for? Firefighters? Police? Roads? Please, enlighten us.
Hey! You know, I even agree that we could probably do without SOME of the public services, lowering bureaucracy can be a good thing. But this ulta-corporate dream of yours? That's simply not doable. I mean all of the services in the hands of corporations, particularly the larger ones? You must be really naive, crazy or both to believe that this could somehow work.
There is no reason to assume that corporations, which are also run by people, just like governments, would be less prone to corruption, exploitation and telling lies to their consumers and spreading missinformation. Not to mention all the situations where even large corporations became famous due to incredible missmanagment, just ask the people of Detroit. Infact, as reality shows, large corporations are even more prone to such behaviour. Do you really want to trust them with some of the most sensible areas of our society? And we havn't even talked about the real serious stuff, nuclear waste and weapon arsenal, military installations, intelligence agencies and more. If you trust Companies like
Nestle
The problem of illegal and forced child labor is rampant in the chocolate industry, because more than 40% of the world's cocoa supply comes from the Ivory Coast, a country that the US State Department estimates had approximately 109,000 child laborers working in hazardous conditions on cocoa farms. In 2001, Save the Children Canada reported that 15,000 children between 9 and 12 years old, many from impoverished Mali, had been tricked or sold into slavery on West African cocoa farms, many for just $30 each.
Nestle, the third largest buyer of cocoa from the Ivory Coast, is well aware of the tragically unjust labor practices taking place on the farms with which it continues to do business. Nestle and other chocolate manufacturers agreed to end the use of abusive and forced child labor on cocoa farms by July 1, 2005, but they failed to do so.
Nestle is also notorious for its aggressive marketing of infant formula in poor countries in the 1980s. Because of this practice, Nestle is still one of the most boycotted corporations in the world, and its infant formula is still controversial. In Italy in 2005, police seized more than two million liters of Nestle infant formula that was contaminated with the chemical isopropylthioxanthone (ITX).
Nestle, the third largest buyer of cocoa from the Ivory Coast, is well aware of the tragically unjust labor practices taking place on the farms with which it continues to do business. Nestle and other chocolate manufacturers agreed to end the use of abusive and forced child labor on cocoa farms by July 1, 2005, but they failed to do so.
Nestle is also notorious for its aggressive marketing of infant formula in poor countries in the 1980s. Because of this practice, Nestle is still one of the most boycotted corporations in the world, and its infant formula is still controversial. In Italy in 2005, police seized more than two million liters of Nestle infant formula that was contaminated with the chemical isopropylthioxanthone (ITX).
The petrochemical company Chevron is guilty of some of the worst environmental and human rights abuses in the world. From 1964 to 1992, Texaco (which transferred operations to Chevron after being bought out in 2001) unleashed a toxic "Rainforest Chernobyl" in Ecuador by leaving over 600 unlined oil pits in pristine northern Amazon rainforest and dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic production water into rivers used for bathing water. Llocal communities have suffered severe health effects, including cancer, skin lesions, birth defects, and spontaneous abortions.
Chevron is also responsible for the violent repression of peaceful opposition to oil extraction. In Nigeria, Chevron has hired private military personnel to open fire on peaceful protestors who oppose oil extraction in the Niger Delta.
Chevron is also responsible for the violent repression of peaceful opposition to oil extraction. In Nigeria, Chevron has hired private military personnel to open fire on peaceful protestors who oppose oil extraction in the Niger Delta.
Coca-Cola Company is perhaps the most widely recognized corporate symbol on the planet. The company also leads in the abuse of workers' rights, assassinations, water privatization, and worker discrimination. Between 1989 and 2002, eight union leaders from Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia were killed after protesting the company's labor practices. Hundreds of other Coca-Cola workers who have joined or considered joining the Colombian union SINALTRAINAL have been kidnapped, tortured, and detained by paramilitaries who are hired to intimidate workers to prevent them from unionizing.
In India, Coca-Cola destroys local agriculture by privatizing the country's water resources. In Plachimada, Kerala, Coca-Cola extracted 1.5 million liters of deep well water, which they bottled and sold under the names Dasani and BonAqua. The groundwater was severely depleted, affecting thousands of communities with water shortages and destroying agricultural activity. As a result, the remaining water became contaminated with high chloride and bacteria levels, leading to scabs, eye problems, and stomach aches in the local population.
In India, Coca-Cola destroys local agriculture by privatizing the country's water resources. In Plachimada, Kerala, Coca-Cola extracted 1.5 million liters of deep well water, which they bottled and sold under the names Dasani and BonAqua. The groundwater was severely depleted, affecting thousands of communities with water shortages and destroying agricultural activity. As a result, the remaining water became contaminated with high chloride and bacteria levels, leading to scabs, eye problems, and stomach aches in the local population.
For years, the Caterpillar Company has provided Israel with the bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes. Despite worldwide condemnation, Caterpillar has refused to end its corporate participation house demolition by cutting off sales of specially modified D9 and D10 bulldozers to the Israeli military.
You might think that you're going to save on money if everything, or most of the services are regulated and provided by corporations. But the reality is that you will end up with paying more for less quality. And there is still the question why a profit oriented corporation would provide a service in more rural areas, like a post office, fire fighting station or police office for example.
Che? Seriously now, maybe I am wrong on this one, but when you read so many stories where those corpirations seriously fucked up the environment and people, tell me, how can you not hate some of them at least? Monsato? Nestle? Coke? But hey! If some serious large Oil-spill happend right next to your door or if you developed some skin cancer from a shitty petrochemical plant dumping it's waste for decades in your water supply, and you're still not seeing the issue, then I will take off my hat and be with you, that there is no reason to really, really, really hate them.
- You also missed all of those thousands of topics we had where some of us discussed US american foreign policy and how it killed several millions of people over the last 10 years in the midle east, pretty much for no reason.
Seriously, we do not ONLY hate corporations. The truth? We long time NMAers are for equallity. We simply hate everyone equally. Maybe you should still leave this place as long you can, it is said if you lurk long enough around, NMA changes you too
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