Bing AI is only creating these cartoon-y people now instead of more realistic looking images

submitted by Musky from midi.moe

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[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

and how much is post-capitalism

The only thing that is post capitalism is totalitarian dictatorship, mass poverty for most and total opulence for the few. There is nothing about Star Trek that is post capitalism.

Certainly the Federation was post-capitalism and stopped using money before they invented matter replicators.

Not using money is not "post capitalism". As long as you own the product of the replicator and can do with it as you want then it is a capitalist society. Owning things is capitalism. It means you can barter, save, and gain access to resources without an authorities permission.

You have been brainwashed into believing that capitalism is what creates scarcity. That is just wrong.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

The only thing that is post capitalism is totalitarian dictatorship, mass poverty for most and total opulence for the few.

All those things have occurred before the invention of capitalism, and they continue to exist under capitalism too. You just need to look at the United States to see extreme poverty and opulence side by side.

Owning things is capitalism.

Are you smoking crack? High on fentanyl? Owning personal property is not "capitalism".

Owning things goes back to Ugg the cave man, who had his own rawhide shirt that he and he alone wore.

Capitalism is an economic system where individuals, the capitalists, own the means of production rather than the people who actually use it to create things. A blacksmith who owns his forge is not a capitalist. A man who owns a forge and hires a blacksmith for wages is.

Capitalism does not exist without capital, and developed as an economic system from mercantilism, during the 16th to 18th centuries.

Post-capitalist systems could include things as basic as worker cooperatives, where the factory is owned by the workers, or something as hypothetical and pie-in-the-sky as Star Trek's post-scarcity, money-less imaginary world. There is a good argument that we're already living in a post-capital world, at least in the west, where so-called "financial capitalism" has taken over from industrial capitalism. Since financial capitalism has little to do with actual capital, the name is a misnomer and is best considered a particularly toxic form of post-capitalism where the power has moved from governments and capitalists to bankers and financial traders who get rich, not from making things, but from financial speculation.

We've been taken over by the financial speculators who get rich from closing down factories, not from making things. And this is why the entire western world, some 35 countries or more, cannot make as many artillery shells in a year as Russia can make in a month. But I digress.

There is nothing about Star Trek that is post capitalism.

Have you even watched Star Trek?

Especially Next Generation, where Gene Roddenberry was explicit about the Federation moving past such petty concerns as money and capitalism, and contrasted them with the hyper-capitalist Ferengi, who were intended to be the Big Bad but were drawn too comically for audiences to take them seriously as a threat.

You have been brainwashed into believing that capitalism is what creates scarcity.

I don't believe capitalism creates scarcity.

[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

Capitalism is an economic system where individuals, the capitalists, own the means of production

Because they built or bought them. Their right to own the things they build and by extention barter with their property IS capitalism.

The twisted, perverted Marxist take on that which you have been brainwashed with to facilitate the destruction of western countries is not "the real capitalism". The core concept is private property and freedom. Everything else flows from that.

[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Post-capitalist systems could include things as basic as worker cooperatives,

Wrong. You can have a cooperative under capitalism.

You CAN'T have a cooperative under socialism or communism because the workers are not allowed to own their own buisness. The "society" owns it collectively which in effect means that the few people who control that society own all of it.

Under socialism the government can seize any buisness no matter how small or big, from farms to monopolies. They do it "for the greater good" which is nothing more than propaganda.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Because they built or bought them.

Or inherited it, or stole it, or won it in a bet, or bribed the government to seize it and sell it for 1% of its actual value, or leased it from a bank that actually owns it, or from a king or the state.

Their right to own the things they build and by extention barter with their property IS capitalism.

No it isn't. That is property rights which existed for thousands of years before capitalism was invented, or Adam Smith was a gleam in his daddy's eye.

Not only aren't property rights the same as capitalism, but capitalism doesn't even require universal property rights. You could have a neo-capitalist system almost identical to today's system where everything is owned by the State, or a king, and given a long-term lease to the capitalists who run the factories.

Why do you think the WEF's dream is to move to a system where ordinary people like you and I will no longer own anything? Even Marx and Lenin allowed individuals to keep their personal property (things like a tradesman's tools, or your own clothes, or your toothbrush). The ultimate aim of 21st century capitalism is to move everything to a subscription model where we own nothing but rent it from the companies who own everything.

Why sell a toothbrush for $3 when you can charge 99 cents a month for access to iTooth brushing service? As soon as they figure out a way to offer toothbrushing as a service over the internet, you better believe they will try to convince people its better to pay a monthly subscription than a one-off cost to own your own toothbrush.

The core concept is private property and freedom.

Capitalism doesn't require "freedom" for everyone, in fact it thrives on slavery and near-slavery. German capitalists were happy to use slave labour provided by the Wehrmacht during WW2, by 1945 a full 25% of the German workforce were literal slaves working for capitalist corporations like Bayer and Volkswagon.

Or the US and prison labour. The US uses the prison system as a source of cheap unfree labour. They don't even try to hide it, they're proud of it.

Capitalists love to take away freedom from others. Their ideal world would be one where their workforce are slaves, or near slaves, and they have a monopoly on a product which all consumers must have and would be willing to pay any price to get.

you have been brainwashed

😂

You have no idea what capitalism is, you think it is the sanitised cartoon version is "capitalism", your attitude towards the realities of capitalism is 🙈 🙉 🙊 even when the capitalists tell you explicitly that you will own nothing and be happy and you think it is me that has been brainwashed.

[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Or inherited it, or stole it, or won it in a bet

Inherited is the same as built because if your father built it and handed it down to you that is functionally the same. No one stole their business, that is some contrived leftist bullshit. If someone won it in a bet, that is equally inconsequentially rare. So if you have to resort to this kind of "hur dur this exception disproves the rule" bullshit you already lost the argument. You are no longer trying to have a good faith argument. You lost and are desperately trying to save face with any nonsense you can pretend is an argument.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

if your father built it and handed it down to you that is functionally the same.

"I worked hard for my business empire!"

"No you didn't son, you spent all your time screwing hookers and losing money at the casino while getting rich off investments you could only afford because of the business empire I built."

The bottom line here is that you have no idea what capitalism actually is, or how it developed after the 16th century, but you fetishise it as "Capitalism Good". Capitalism isn't trade, it has nothing to do with the free market (you should read what Adam Smith has to say), and it is especially nothing to do with ownership of personal property.