Communism and capitalism (formerly Re: Gulags vs Mass Incarceration) - Page 9 - Politics and Society -- Two Plus Two Poker Forums

ok
You did say

which should possibly say "hint: it hasn't"

but fair enough. My bugbear is how much weight people attach to data that covers such a minute area of the possible space.

You're attaching too much weight to a tongue in cheek aside. Obviously that parenthetical wasn't intended as an exhaustive argument.

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02-21-2021 , 02:14 PM

#203

Cuepee

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Gcm1998

I agree that it's not socialism. But it is a social-democracy feature. I wouldn't mind free healthcare provided by government as long as I can opt out of it. Afterall if it's such a good thing, why does it need to be forced upon us? Ofc I would also pay less taxes. In my country if you use a private hospital you are paying twice for healthcare. And if you want to just use public hospitals you might have to wait 3 years for a surgery. Meanwhile if you are a government worker you only work 35 hours/week and have a better healthcare system for free. And before you ask, I'm from one of those social-democratic countries in Europe.

Curious as to what you would define as a 'socialist' then?

Give an example of a product or service that gov't could mandate you must have, take your money to pay for it voluntary or not, and then provide that good or service to you, that you would consider socialist?

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02-21-2021 , 02:19 PM

#204

chezlaw

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Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 46,891

Quote:

Originally Posted by d2_e4

You're attaching too much weight to a tongue in cheek aside. Obviously that parenthetical wasn't intended as an exhaustive argument.

ok so we agree that communism might work.

I feel like something has been achieved but I've no idea what. Next trickle down.

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02-21-2021 , 02:21 PM

#205

d2_e4

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Quote:

Originally Posted by chezlaw

ok so we agree that communism might work.

I feel like something has been achieved but I've no idea what. Next trickle down.

If by "might" you mean the probability of communism "working" is nonzero, sure, I guess we agree. There is also a nonzero probability of my winning the lottery back to back fifteen times. Nonzero covers a pretty wide range of probabilities - all those that are not zero, in fact.

Actually, that was a bad example. The probability of my winning the lottery is in fact zero, as I don't buy tickets.

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02-21-2021 , 02:37 PM

#206

chezlaw

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Quote:

Originally Posted by d2_e4

I also mean that we cannot conclude from the data that it is a low probability. That's the trouble with ~no data, it doesn't tell you much at all.

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02-21-2021 , 02:38 PM

#207

King Spew

Just average

Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 15,224

Wondering if this would be a thread to dump the recent CvC discussion?

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02-21-2021 , 02:38 PM

#208

d2_e4

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Quote:

Originally Posted by chezlaw

I also mean that we cannot conclude from the data that it is a low probability. That's the trouble with ~no data, it doesn't tell you much at all.

Ah, but we do have data. The fact that 100% of attempts have been failures is statistically significant, even if the absolute number of attempts is small.

If I flip a random coin without examining it and it lands heads ~7 times in a row, the probability that the coin is weighted or double-headed shoots up massively.

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02-21-2021 , 02:40 PM

#209

Victor

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Quote:

Originally Posted by d2_e4

Have you considered learning how to code better?

naw. no point really. I make more than just about anyone else and it only took a couple years. Google aint hiring my old ass.

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02-21-2021 , 02:41 PM

#210

d2_e4

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Victor

naw. no point really. I make more than just about anyone else and it only took a couple years. Google aint hiring my old ass.

Without wishing to sound dismissive or condescending, I very much doubt that, and if your 1970s comparison is not a massive exaggeration for effect, the bolded is objectively untrue.

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02-21-2021 , 02:43 PM

#211

Victor

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Quote:

Originally Posted by chezlaw

ok
You did say

which should possibly say "hint: it hasn't"

but fair enough. My bugbear is how much weight people attach to data that covers such a minute area of the possible space.

except actually "it has". it took 100s of millions of people out of poverty in just a couple generations despite the forces of the world doing everything possible to stop them.

look at China and USSR and Eastern Europe and SE Asia and Cuba. They went from literally dirt poor to an advanced industrialized society. look at the change in life span in just a couple decades.

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02-21-2021 , 02:43 PM

#212

chezlaw

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Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 46,891

Quote:

Originally Posted by d2_e4

Ah, but we do have data. The fact that 100% of attempts have been failures is statistically significant, even if the absolute number of attempts is small.

Yes have data but it's ~no data. What do you mean by it's statistically significant?

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02-21-2021 , 02:47 PM

#213

Victor

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Quote:

Originally Posted by d2_e4

Without wishing to sound dismissive or condescending, I very much doubt that, and if your 1970s comparison is not a massive exaggeration for effect, the bolded is objectively untrue.

minimum wage from 1970s would be like 25-30 an hour. so thats like 60k a year. I guess I undersold my salary a bit. regardless, point is that a lot of programmers in my area make 60-80k and 100-120 is about the ceiling. and thats considered an amazing salary and really it is.

middle class aint what it used to be.

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02-21-2021 , 02:47 PM

#214

d2_e4

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Quote:

Originally Posted by chezlaw

Yes have data but it's ~no data. What do you mean by it's statistically significant?

If we assumed that the a priori chance of the proposition, say "communism working" is 50-50, and it hasn't worked in 5 trials, there is a 1 in 32 chance of that having had happened if our priors were correct. So, our priors were probably wrong, and it wasn't 50-50. I'm sure some statisticians can help out here and quantify what I'm trying to say using the proper equations.

Last edited by d2_e4; 02-21-2021 at 02:54 PM.

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02-21-2021 , 02:50 PM

#215

d2_e4

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Victor

This probably has more to do with location than with industry. Also, you can't really compare hourly/daily rates to salaries like that. But regardless, 60k+ in the US today will get you a much better lifestyle than you would have had in the USSR in 1970 or 1980 doing a comparable job, I assure you.

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02-21-2021 , 02:53 PM

#216

d2_e4

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Quote:

Originally Posted by King Spew

Wondering if this would be a thread to dump the recent CvC discussion?

Seems like the right place.

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02-21-2021 , 02:57 PM

#217

Gcm1998

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuepee

Yes, those are socialist programs. My point was that having a few government services doens't equal having socialism. Don't get me wrong I'm against socialism aswell as democratic-socialism but they aren't the same thing.
I guess socialism (like libertarianism) exists on a spectrum and people define the threshold for socialism a bit too easily.

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02-21-2021 , 03:02 PM

#218

ecriture d'adulte

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Join Date: Jan 2017 Posts: 5,920

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tien

As we go further and futher into the future, white privileged kids will romanticize communism more and more.

Here's a book about how much better it is compared to USA!

I dont think it’ll ever get as bad as it used to be.

Quote:

The Soviet Union will witness in the next few years an immigration flood comparable to the influx into the United States in the decade before the World War...It is only the beginning as yet of this movement, and the first swallows of the coming migration are scarce—but it has begun and will have to be reckoned with in the future....When the day comes that foreign workers here may write home and say, 'Things are pretty good here, why don't you come along? There are jobs for everybody and plenty to eat. Russia is not so bad a place in which to live and there are no lay-of s or short time and you get all that is coming to you' . . . Then immigration to the Soviet Union will begin to rival the flood that poured into America. At the present rate of progress that day is not far distant.

That was in The NY Times in 1931. A few thousand emigrants did leave the US for the USSR. They were of course immediately sent to the gulags/killed by Stalin.

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02-21-2021 , 03:04 PM

#219

chezlaw

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Quote:

Originally Posted by d2_e4

Ok you mean it can shift the bayseian line a tiny bit. Maybe but we have to be careful because the conclusion is about communisn in the particular conditions of 20th century, not about communism in general. It also fails to recognise that the data points are highly correlated rather than independent trials.

I'm inclined to the view that we have been living throught the capitalist era. In that era communism fails but that era might be quite short as eras go. Could communism then come into it's own - who knows?

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02-21-2021 , 03:05 PM

#220

King Spew

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Quote:

Originally Posted by d2_e4

Seems like the right place.

or just continue soldiering on in the current thread (with a rename away from Let's get rid of the SJW mods)

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02-21-2021 , 03:05 PM

#221

d2_e4

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Join Date: Sep 2014 Posts: 12,118

ECD, could you help out (or correct me) with the stats point I'm trying to make in the leftist mods thread? Pretty sure you know this stuff better than I do.

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02-21-2021 , 03:08 PM

#222

d2_e4

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Quote:

Originally Posted by chezlaw

That isn't correct because the conclusion is about communisn in the particular conditions of 20th century, not about communism in general. It also fails to recognise that the data points are highly correlated rather than independent trials.

I'm inclined to the view that we have been living throught the capitalist era. In that era communism fails but that era might be quite short as eras go.

You're introducing a lot of other variables which may affect the outcomes, but I am sure they can be quantified. Intuitively, I feel that a 100% failure rate after even a handful of attempts has to be statistically significant, but I could be wrong.

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02-21-2021 , 03:13 PM

#223

chezlaw

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Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 46,891

I edfited my post a little bit but the key reason we have ~no data is that there are so many variables that haven't been explored.

It's an ~infinite space that we're tempted into drawing concusions about from a few highly correlated contingent data points