Shinjula

Im sorry but dont you think its immoral to judge one person as more worthy than another, what happened to all men (people) are born equal? And I dont mean in the literal sense but we are all human beings here. Just because someone is more intelligent than me doesnt mean they are a more worthwhile person than i am. Just because someone can work out how to get a bigger slice of the pie than me doesnt mean they deserve it. and AGAIN you are also ignoring the fact that wage is NOT correlated to how much of an asset to society someone is, otherwise nurse would be paid more than call centre managers. Again we're back to incentive which ive answered before in this thread, there are incentives beyond appeasing personal wealth

OK how about "Because other people are in need of that money"!!! Isn't that a good reason he shouldnt get to keep the money? So you suggest just stealing all that money off them? Progressive taxation is a necessary evil but stealing ALL the money is just too far Lol its not stealing, its just a different way of living, does a wife steal from a husband when she uses the money hes earnt to buy herself food? No of course not, its called sharing. And as for life not being fair, its only not fair if we dont make it fair.

I also cant help noticing that we've fixated on two jobs which are partiuclarly skewed towards the Capitalist argument, how well do your arguments work for Call Centre Manager vs Nurse? Now take a look at the spread of jobs versus wages and I think youll find as far as usefulness to society & essentialness there is no coorelation between that and wage. In a free trade economy the highest wage goes to the person with the gift of the gab, not to the guy who does essential and useful work, otherwise teacher, nurse, sewage workers would be much much higher paid and managers would be paid the same as baggers.

OK how about "Because other people are in need of that money"!!! Isn't that a good reason he shouldnt get to keep the money? Seriously many people in the UK particularly pensioners, who have worked hard all their lives yet are now unable to afford to have the heating on in winter, people are out living on the streets, people are having to support families on too little money and their children are borderline malnourished. Sure if this were a happy go lucky world with more than enough resources to go round I wouldnt really have a problem with that sort of idea, but its not, there are people in genuine need, and Capitalism is a deliberately unequal system. every one has the right to a share of the planet, people are born into different circumstances and have different abilities, that shouldnt make them more eligable for better treatment.

Ok but you did start off with OK now maybe I've misinterpreted where youve been coming from, but I was assuming from that second quote that you were implying that it was a sin to waste semen. Or at least extremely undesirable. Re Gays are fine as long as they dont have sex, that just makes no sense to me. I can vaguely undestand the idea the some people might think being gay is an abomination (historically at least) but to say being gay is fine but to express your love is what is forbidden seems ludicrous. If its not a sin to love another man why on earth would it be a sin to express it?

Well I'm referring to the cycle of recessions, and whilst I'm happy agreeing that a lot of it is the way its regulated, its still one more downside to capitalism - as far as I'm aware the boom bust cycle is an inevitable part of capitalism. I would still disagree with you here, so I dont think were going to find consensus. But a lot of the things you mention here are not dependant on a capitalist system, the only two which seem dependant on capitalism would be free trade and control of inflation. I'm not sure about how inflation works in a commune, i would think at least in pure communism it wouldnt exist at all so control of it would be irrelevant, free trade I'm sure is a great help to globalisation and so benefit standards of living as you say, but its certainly not the be all and end all. I will just say again that these are not my best arguments against Capitalism but since whenever I put forward my best arguments they get ignored - and I really do suspect that because there isnt a good answer to them. That being that Capitalism creates a system where some people are rich and some people are poor and many of the reasons which divide them are arbitary and to me thats simply unnacceptable. Sure with the Doctors getting high wages, well done youve managed to find a reason which is at least slightly less arbitrary than most, now account for the more arbitrary ones please. Tell me why a TV Presenter is worth more than a Bagger?

Ok sure, I can accept that its unavoidable on the womans part, now what about god, god designed woman to produce an egg once a month, why would he do that if it were a sin to waste potential life? (After all hes omnipotent and could presumably design us differently - so that this wouldn't be necessary)

Doesnt this imply that every month that a woman doesnt have a baby and the egg is wasted that that is just as much a sin? Isnt this where the dark ages concept that women and their periods are evil, comes from? And have we really not got past this?

Its an interesting time to make that comment. With the market in collapse, I mean. Obviously this doesnt apply to all forms of Capitalism, but it is one of the problems of free market capitalism, that you are at the whims of an unpredictable system. I'd also like to suggest that the majority of the increased standards of living came from a technological boom rather than any force due to capitalism but of course its difficult to show definite cause and effect in something as complex as economics. But it can be seen that communist countries are equally recieving the same boom, and whilst they are not forms of communisms which I would support and thus dont have the distribution of that wealth in the way I'd like to see it, that wealth is still there, just in the hands of very few (to which my response is "And thats supposed to be communism??").

But why shouldnt men have equal clothing right, women get far more interesting clothing options and its completely unfair, as for it being disturbing to children, that only true because its frowned upon, if it wasnt frowned upon kids wouldnt care, thats circular logic. Many male children dress up as girls at some point in thier childhood, its just experimenting so theres nothing inherently disturbing in it.

No thats why I said But its silly to argue that theres no connection between paedophilia and homosexuality because they are both forms of sexuality so there will be bound to be questions which are worth asking (at least from his perspective - since he hasnt really considered it properly) the point is, those question have definate logical answers which point to homosexuality being fine and paedophilia being not fine. If you argue that you can't compare the two when he obviously can, you arent going to convince him. So compare them, oooh look, homosexuality is fine, paedophilia is not, and its because of the lack of consent and the evidence of the destructive nature of the paedophilic relationship, now can we have our gay marriage please?

There are so many reasons beyond wage to take up a profession, the kudos, the mental challenge, the desire to help people, the desire to do something with ones life, the desire to put ones skills and talents to use. Do you really think that someone who had the drive and intelligence to become a Doctor in a capitalist society would be satisfied with a job as a bagger in a communist one? What I find really saddening is how low people have been taught to conceptualise things in the capitalist societies, as though the only possible gain in life is serving oneself, the only meaning one can find is the most base and any higher drive to succeed for reasons beyond yourself is suspect?. Is this really how you want your society to work?

I'm a mathematician and simple numbers mean lots here. I m aware of this question having heard it before and most people would refuse to act simply on the basis that its taking that responsibility for the loss of that one life but to me I'm willing to should that burden if it saves two lives. However I would also consider the message of my answer to the question below - there may be more options than you think. There are more than just the two options, first off, put my hand over the babies nose and mouth stifling the sound then funny faces would be number one attempt to distract the child, a favourite toy would also be a good alternative. Once the distraction is achieved then slowly remove my hand from the babies mouth. Other possibilities a sweet or even just a finger stuck in a babies mouth will often quiet them. Lastly, dont forget CPR, if all else fails the baby can be given mouth to mouth carefully with a hand held over the nose and mouth inbetween. Basically put, dont be blind to your options, being creative can widen the scope of any situation *IF* you can think fast enough. See above

Absolutely, which is why we need to start educating people to strive for higher ideals than we are currently, the motivating factor would be to improve life for the whole of society, not just for yourself.

Hi guys, if I may join in your very interesting conversation... I'm very much into the communist ideal myself, its just seems a fairer system overall, theres a few obvious points (which dont seem to have appeared so far) I'd like to see if people are willing to look at... Almost always when the subject of communism comes up the first thing out of peoples mouths is "Good idea in practice but it just doesnt work", and I can quite understand why that a conclusion which is easy to jump to. But lets suppose for a moment that what we are talking about in communism is creating a free and equal society (OK thats debatable, but I'm taking it as read for the purposes of answering those thinking its a great idea which doesnt work, rather than those who dont think its a good idea at all). Creating a free and equal society has been one of the goals of humanity since we first started to conceptualise about societies, but no one ever said it was going to be easy. All we know so far is that we havent managed to do it so far on a large scale. It should however be noted that communisms have worked many times in the past on the small scale, in tribal situations and also in lower level organisations (consider, for example, that a lot of modern marriages are communistic in how they work). There have even been times when medium sized communisms have worked. Large scale communism tends to fail for an obvious reason, communication, the ability to get consensus from a large population has until very recently been completely impossible, and only now are we approaching the point where not only technology but also software is catching up - think voting machines - you not only have to get the tech up and running but have the ability to distinguish between one individual and another reliably (a complex problem in information tech). Without the ability to get consensus its completely impossible to even start to shift toward a society without a state governing body, and without that we cant have a proper pure stateless communism. But that tech is coming and with it it can become possible to work a proper communism into society. One other point I'd like to put forward to discussion in my first post is the phrase "Communism doesnt work" and its nonsensicality, it gets repeated so often people seem not to notice its incomprehensibility. It obviously works in the sense that there are communist countries who continue their day to day business without exploding randomly in the night, so I'll assume thats not really what people mean, but instead I'm guessing they mean it doesnt produce a result they are happy with. Yet Capitalism (which I am assuming is the preferred alternate to communisim which most of the people opposing it are suggesting - for once I'd love to have a debate between socialists and communists) is designed to be unfair. Capitalism must by defacto have a poor majority of the populace, most of which, it should be pointed out will not have the money or the education to come on sites like this and may lack the tools to describe fully to you what its like to be part of that unfair portion of the populace. I'm in an unusual position myself, since whilst I have a high level of education have found myself unavoidably positioned within that part of the populace. I'm poor and not for anything other than one bad thing happening to me and one decision of mine which I chose wrongly (I followed everyones advice, including my parents - I shouldnt have). I have noticed a lot of discussion about the wages of Doctors versus Baggers, it seems obvious to me that a Doctor did not get to choose his/her high IQ which gave him the potential to become a Doctor. Capitalism (in its best case scenario) rewards people based on ability. Yet none of us choose what abilities we get, I did not sit in line for my own high IQ and neither did any bagger ever chose a low IQ, yet the rewards given by capitalism are based on this random variable. And thats in a best case scenario. In the real world a bagger will probably work far harder than higher paying jobs, Doctor is an exception to this, I would tend not to use Doctor as an argument as they do work very hard, however in comparison to the work a bagger puts in in a week, how much work do you think a Lawyer does? or a Manager? Or an Architect? Do they deserve it because they went to university and studied hard? Given that while they were at University studying hard the bagger was out working hard, I dont see that argument standing up. Dont forget for every lazy bagger there is an equally lazy Architect (reduced by the proportions of Baggers to Architects). Hope that I've engaged some interest, look forward to any replies.

Um, how old are you? This isn't meant to be remotely insult btw, its just as you get older perspectives start to change, when you hit thirty you start getting these little twinges in your body, things don't work as well as they did in your twenties. I'm now 36 and it takes me maybe twice as long to get out of a chair as it used to. It's nothing really but the constant feelings of resistance from your body do impact how you view the world and it brings a lot of realisation that you will actually eventually someday stop. I remember being young quite clearly, I remember how long it took for a day to pass and these days the days just fly past, if I stop paying attention and then turn around too quickly a year will have passed. Then add to all those feelings the things left undone, I work as an artist, as a sculptor and I'm nowhere near as good as I want to be and eternity would allow me to perfect my abilities, as it is there is a limit to my abilities, my death. I also want to see my family continue, see my nieces grow up into the young women they will be see them conitune through their lives and have children of their own and see them grow up too. And thats just the good stuff, theres also fear of the unknown, the fear of the pain of death and the fear of the pain of old age, theres being unable to contribute, unable to look after yourself and fear of being a burden. Really theres some good reasons to want immortality.

I'm sorry Zierro but I think you are arguing in entirely the wrong directions, your arguments dont support what you are saying. There is nothing inherently wrong with and older person falling in love with a younger person at all, the love aspects are exactly the same as in homosexuality, his argument falls down because theres large bodies of psychological evidence showing relatioships formed out of that cause immeasurable amounts of harm to the child, and ethically the child is not developed enough to be able to consent to them Whereas (whilst there is less information) theres a reasonable mount of information showing stable homosexual relationships cause no harm to either participant and both participants are able to consent. Its not a straw man argument its quite reasonable to look at paedophilia and homosexuality togther and ask the questions, PROVIDING HE REALISES THERE ARE ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC ANSWERS TO WHY THEY ARENT THE SAME, paedophilia and homosexuality are both about sexuality and so questions to one do pertain to the other. As for thieving, in our society there are very good reasons why thieving is unacceptable, and so someone with kleptomania will have a very tough time, which is indeed a parallel, but there again is a large difference, theres no evidence and certainly no obvious cause to outlawing homosexuality since it doesnt affect other members of society (there have been suggestions in various Christian circles that it damages society, but those have been shown to be wrong so please dont repeat them here without clear evidence of proof) As for our the possibility of us lying about whether it is a choice to be gay, as has been repeated many times in this thread and still not answered by sly "When did you choose to be straight?". Theoretically we could be lying to you, but you can simply find the truth within yourself. If you never chose to be straight then sexuality isnt a choice.

Show me proof that homosexuality isn't a choice. Easy, animals exhibit homosexuality and they dont have free will.

Happy Christmas/Midwinter Festival to both Athiests and Theists alike

I also use 'gay' to mean either gender, the same as 'homosexual', lesbian is specifically for women, in a pinch ill quite happily use 'puff' to refer to male homosexuals, but to me gay is both sexes, i think i infer that cos whenever i go to gay pride there are lesbians there, hence gay is inclusive of lesbians. but really its just semantics and as long as we are all on the same page it doesnt matter, just be aware that those around you may not be using the same word to mean the same thing and that it doesnt matter if you misunderstand someone because they are using a word differently to you, and if it turns out you actually agree when the semantic difference is revealed, then so much the better.

Aaaargh for gods sake we are not a biological aberation, did you really not consider how insulting that would sound? There is no evidence at all that it is any form of abberation, there are no biological prices to pay for being gay with the possible exception of slightly greater increased risk of passing infection during sez, but that risk is present in hetero behaviour, thats just the nature of sex. There is far more evidence that it is an evolved trait to increase the number of care givers without dependants in a social group (Much like male frogs changing sex when there arent enough females in a group). Its a functional behaviour pattern.

Um, this is nearly entirely wrong, everything is moving away from each other at the same speed but this doesnt tell us we are at the centre of the Universe So no matter where you are in the universe you always see things moving away from you, there no special place you can stand so that you can see. One good visualisation to do is imagine a barely inflated balloon, now draw little pictures of galaxies on its surface. Now blow the balloon up. As you are blowing the balloon up the little pictures of galaxies get further and further away from each other as the space in between expands. The interesting thing about this example is that it shows that the centre of the expansion is not actually on the balloons surface, flatlanders living on the surface of the balloon would have difficulty understanding where the centre of the expansion was, they'd see the pictures of the galaxies moving away from them no matter where on the balloons surface they were, but to them the centre of the expansion occurs in a dimension they are unfamiliar with. Which brings the idea that the centre of the universe might not actually be located within the Universe.

I doubt it, i reckon he meant that homosexuality is not a choice.

Um, except people still do

Well wicca for one, the north american spiritual paths, the australian aborignal spiritual paths, a lot of tribal religeons