meowgenau

I'm commenting because there are many misconceptions about socialism and planned economies, and the two are often conflated.

Socialism can take on many forms. Just like there are many forms of democracy, autocracy, capitalism, etc. By itself, socialism does not imply centralized control. At all. In fact, the often stated goal of communist ideologies is the complete abolition of the state and self governance by the people in small communes, hence the name.

generally the means of production being owned by the workers means it is taken by the state on behalf of the workers

Yeah this has been the case in the past but it doesn't have to be. The Soviet Union was, in my opinion, a terrible example of a democratic and socialist state.

To illustrate my point, a socialist company structure can simply distribute voting shares to the workers and thereby democratize it. If you don't work there, you can't have a say of what investments are made and how profits are distributed. No state or government involvement needed. No revolution needed.

Btw I'm not a hardcore socialist, I just think that there are many misconceptions about what socialism is and what it is not, which limits our understanding of what we can actually achieve when we want to get rid of the current, toxic system.

I'm not sure if you're getting my point. Socialism is NOT about free markets vs planned economies. One of the main tennets in socialism is about the ownership of the means of production being in the worker's hands. Basically, democratic ownership of the company you work for. This does NOT mean that companies among themselves can not compete in an open market. It's about bringing democratic values to the economic, not just the political realm.

On the contrary, you have many capitalistic examples today of companies in private hands that can maintain a (near) monopoly on specific industries while heavily relying on government contracts, i.e. planned budgets distributed by the government.

Don't conflate the ownership of the means of production with the idea of a free market.

Capitalism allows efficient use of resources

No. Free markets do. Socialist societies don't have to run on planned economies, they can just as well utilize free markets just like capitalism does. It's a misunderstanding that I often encounter in these discussions, the media over the past decades has pushed to associate planned economic structures with socialism and it's hard to disassociate these two now.

The founder of Nordwolle is famous for his rant about the German bureaucracy. Great guy.

I think I understand your position.

In a previous post, you seem to give value to functioning as opposed to being dead. Why is that? Why does functioning even matter if your position seems to be that death is the absolute worst thing that can happen to someone?

because I believe that death is the least functional state a person can have and anything above that implies at least some functioning even if that state is still highly undesirable).

A person can lose all brain functions and remain alive, implying that there is no chance of making new experiences of any kind. Does that count for you as functional?

I do not really believe that there is such a thing as a "fate worse than death"

What about unimaginable suffering before one's certain death? Would this not qualify as a worse fate than death?

I don't really have a strong opinion on this topic, but one example comes to mind that shows that many people don't act according to your maxime. Have you ever seen those battlefield suicides that are filmed by the drones in Ukraine? I'm not going to link them here, but they are plentyful. So, so many soldiers, many of them wounded, decide to take their own life to avoid going through an experience that they probably view as worse than death. I just think it's interesting and worth considering.

Expect it to happen and explain the risks, but that doesn't mean you should make it easy.

Why?

This is facilitating that situation.

Facilitate what situation of exactly?

The sex is going to happen around that age, but as a parent it is still not your job to make it easy, yeah?

Why?

consequences of mistakes are still VERY HIGH

Not as high as letting your kid drive a car, for example, but you're still gonna let them, I suppose. Weird double standards.

Hey man, I was born in Russia. Take your time and check out what they are showing on TV over there. The evening program. Anything really. They have been preparing their population for war with Europe for years. Discussing how to drop bombs on London, which way to invade first, how awful the west is treating Russian citizens In Europe, etc etc. Especially shit involving Simonyan or Solovyov. It's absolutely insane. Scary, even, that they can publicly say the things they say.

Look, I am not happy that people are profiting from building weapons, but in the current reality, it's the only way to avoid us getting steamrolled by a Russia on full war economy.

You are legally obligated to do everything for shareholder

Also, you don't understand feduciary duty.

I sell fire extinguishers. I don't WANT your house to burn down.

Nobody wants to go to war with Putin. It's a sad reality that Russia won't stop with Ukraine.