DocWatts

The Conversation is a high quality, relatively neutral Source that does complex news analysis, one that isn't compromised by a Corporate profit motive. It was recommended to me by someone on this forum, and I would also highly recommend it. https://theconversation.com/us AllSides is another useful resource for checking the Biases of various news outlets https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-ratings#ratings

@SamCI realize that this almost certainly wasn't your intention, but genetic determinism is something that has been weaponized against groups as far back as the eugenics movement at the turn of the last century (and even before that), and has been used as a pretense for denying people full participation in Society. Reframing it as a question of socialization and environment largely avoids this problem.

Less a matter of who 'deserves' capital, and more about making sure that the way capital is obtained and used isn't destructive. And also about using societal resources in a more equitable way, including giving more people the ability to become entrepreneurs and start businesses. How many more people would be willing to become entrepreneurs if Health Care wasn't tied to a wage slave job, and if some sort of Universal Basic Income program was implemented which people could fall back on? I know quite a few people who Freelance for a living, and the fact that Health Care is basically unaffordable if its not being subsidized by an employer is a huge hardship for people trying to break away from Wage Slavery. What if we stopped subsidizing mature businesses (such as the fossil fuel industry), and instead used that money on Grants and low interest Loans for entrepreneurs who are just starting out, and don't have access to a ton of capital? Some priority could be given for start ups and businesses which serve a communal need, for example someone willing to open a Grocery Store in a poor neighborhood whose residents are living in a food desert. Or more generally, more support could be given to people who are willing to invest in and bring economic opportunities to poor communities. That's aside from the fact that the excessive accumulation of Capital among a relatively small group of people begins to damage Democracy, and makes it so that Corporations and Wealthy individuals can basically write Laws that give them unfair advantages. For the longest time you couldn't purchase a Tesla in Michigan, because the Car Dealership Lobby passed a Law targeted at Tesla, which made it illegal for direct car sales without conforming the Dealership business model. Obviously all these problems are indicative of Late Stage Capitalism. A better system would still heavily rely on Markets to distribute Goods and Services, but in a more equitable and less destructive manner. The fact that in a Wealthy country that essentials (Health Care, Education, basic Housing) are tied to the Market is indicative of a moral failure on the part of our Society (in addition to it being unsustainable). Social Democracy or Market Socialism are possible responses to this, but a Restructuring of our Current System could be as well, though I see that as less likely due to how thoroughly Late Stage Capitalism has corrupted our Democracy in America. Also I'm sure you know this, but it's possible to be highly critical of Capitalism, while still seeing Markets as a highly necessary and useful structure, one that could still be retained under a more humane socio-economic System.

And in a healthy, well functioning system there's no reason why a society couldn't foster and support entrepreneurship while also putting rules in place to make sure that the accumulation of capital doesn't destabilize society and cause harm to other people.

I'm really not demonizing the wealthy, and I realize that this is a Systemic issue rather than any moral failure on the part of individuals. I also understand that wealthy people create value for society, but so do middle and working class people. Try running a company like Ford without anyone on your assembly lines or answering the phones, and see how far that gets you. The reason why I care about this issue is because there's a basic (and important) fairness principle being violated here. A small handful of people shouldn't own more wealth than the bottom half of the whole society, especially when a significant portion of people aren't able to meet thier basic needs (food, housing, transportation, education, health care). Right now in America, the richest country in the world, around 40 million people are facing eviction during a pandemic. In addition to that, the vast wealth inequalities that exist are distorting and eroding Democracy, since the wealthy are able to buy thier way into getting favorable legislation passed, and furthermore they're able to isolate themselves from the problems of society. None of this is abstract, it effects people in very real ways. It's not hard to imagine a world where millionaires exist, but differences in wealth and opportunity aren't so vast that people aren't able to meet thier basic needs in a supposedly developed country.

Once someone has far more than they need to live a happy and fulfilling life, should the creative aspirations for one individual take precedent over many more people whose basic needs aren't being met, who don't have access to affordable housing, a decent education, or basic healthcare (things funded by taxation)? How many more people aren't meeting thier creative potential because all of thier time and energy is expended just trying to meet thier basic needs? But hey, in some cases maybe it really is the case that a wealthy individual's creative plans bring enough value to society (Elon Musk with SpaceX, or Leo with actualized.org) for that argument to be plausible. But would you say that's the case for most, or even a majority, of people? And also even under a much higher rate of taxation, extremely wealthy individuals are still in a much better position to achieve thier individual ambitions than virtually everyone else in thier society.

Do they though? For every Bill Gates or Warren Buffet who follows through on that by pledging to give away almost all of thier wealth, there are a lot more who actively lobby to defund the government (and pull the rug out from under ordinary people through reduced assistance and poorly functioning services), so they can get away with not paying taxes. If the person claiming this dies a billionaire, it should be evident that this is a Bad Faith argument.

I suppose I would counter that I prefer to use that 'bonus money' to support charitable causes that are doing good work (rather than having a portion of that money diverted to the Military or Corporate Subsidies), but fair point. I wasn't enthusiastic when Michigan started charging Sales Tax for online purchases, but I understood the reasons for it, so I don't begrudge the few extra dollars that I end up spending when I buy something on Amazon. Ditto for things like tipping at restaurants; yeah it's an extra cost on my end, but it's justified. Not something I would go out of my way to avoid either.

That's fair, but I think it's a mistake to assume that people only support higher taxation for completely self serving reasons (ie because they're poor, and will change thier tune if they ever become wealthy). Having myself experienced working class poverty for much of my adult life, I'm much more empathetic towards the struggles of people who depend on social services to get by, and see the higher taxes that I now pay as my social responsibility to people who haven't had the same opportunities I've had. Once you have more than enough to live a happy and fulfilling life, bitching and moaning about having to give something back seems really petty imho.

As an aside, I do find it interesting that the vast majority of millionaires in the United States consider themselves to be 'middle class'. Just being honest about the fact that you're Rich is something that's difficult for most wealthy people to admit, since our perceptions are so heavily shaped by comparisons against our peers. Of course this argument can be extended more broadly to people who happen to be living in developed countries (when compared to the rest of the world), but even a wealthy country like the US contains millions who are unable to meet thier basic needs (something we should feel shameful about).

For anyone who's interested, here's a spending breakdown of the previous Stimulus Package (the CARES act, couldn't find a similar infographic for the most recent Stimulus bill). Obviously targeted aid to people who needed it the most would be preferable, but fact is our legislative system is so dysfunctional that it's basically impossible to pass any sort of large spending Bill without a significant portion of its funds being diverted to Special Interests. Stimulus Checks only made up about %15 of the last Stimulus Package.

@Leo GuraIf your impressions of Detroit came from Robocop, I'll parallel that with my impressions of Vegas coming from Fear and Loathing

'If you don't like it in America, why don't you just leave?' is perhaps the most idiotic response imaginable as a reply to social criticism, and the fact that its used so repetitively by Conservatives is indicative of low consciousness and lazy thinking of people who subscribe to right wing ideologies. What it's implying is that we shouldn't put the time and effort in to identify ways that our country isn't living up to its potential, and that instead of working to fix things that instead we should just give up. That instead of confronting difficulties we should flee from them. So not only is that line of thinking lazy and dishonest, but it's also cowardly.

David Foster Wallace comes to mind when I try and come up with an example of a Yellow literary author, whos novels and essays delve into topics such as the limits of post-modernism, the corrupting influence of consumerism, and substance abuse and addiction. He was also highly influential in the development of post-postmodernism, or the literary and artistic movement known as 'the new sincerity'.

While people like Aristotle and Plato were very advanced for thier time, it helps to place them in a historical context. The dominant SD-stage during thier era was Red, with Athenian Democracy representing very early Blue. Aristotle and Plato would probably be better classified as incredibly high functioning Blue. Remember that the emergence of Blue was a sign of moral progress at that time. The Systems Thinking approach of Yellow would have been highly unlikely to develop in such an early era, before there was a cultural, philosophical, and scientific framework available to help facilitate it. As to Jesus and Buddha, that's a bit trickier, since it's hard to separate the historical person and thier teaching from the thousands of years of mythology that developed around them; someone else might have more insights here.

Star Trek is a great example of using Spiral Dynamics to inform its setting and factions, without it necessarily being about Spiral Dynamics.

Incredibly well said. Great example of 'transcend and include' as well, which also demonstrates a core difference between the statistical approaches of Orange and Yellow. I might also emphasize to Green that adopting a Vegan or a highly Eco-conscious lifestyle in a developed country like the United States is something of a privilege, and that there's a number of constraints that make this an unrealistic option for ordinary people who may be living in food-deserts, lacking in education, or facing survival challenges that make your values inimical to their way of life.

As to Gorbachev, Green seems like a fair characterization for him because of his sincere attempts to bring democratization and progressive reform to an outdated authoritarian system (I believe he saw the Scandinavian Social Democracies, with Finland in particular, as an aspirational model for what a democratized Soviet Union might look like). I do know that he's not popular in Russia, due to the unintended side effects of his policies, and the economic chaos and lawlessness that followed in the aftermath of the unintended collapse of the Soviet Union. It's not like Green ideas are immune to failure or unintended consequences. Also the guy is still alive today, and his political advocacy includes support for social democracy, international cooperation on issues such as climate change, and nuclear disarmament. As for Karl Marx, I think it can be helpful to draw a distinction between the man himself, and the numerous interpretations of his philosophy over the past two centuries. Reason for this is that the actual practice of his ideas can range from all the way from Red (Lenin, Stalin) to Green (which is more representative of how Marxism is pursued within a democratic context in our current day) . As for the man himself, I see aspects of both Blue and Orange in his representation of dialectic materialism, with perhaps even a tiny tinge of Yellow due to the influence of Hegel on his work (the Hegelian Dialectic has some overlap with Systems Thinking). I'll definitely agree that there's some ambiguity as far as mapping him onto the SD model, so I won't belabor the point.

After sinking 10 or 15 hours into Disco Elysium, I'd highly recommend it as an alternative for any looking for an RPG that has superb writing and characters, an incredibly well realized world, with highly novel and unique role playing mechanics derived from pen and paper role playing systems. Only caveat is if you're put off by a lot of reading, as the game is in some ways almost akin to an interactive novel.

From Cinema Therapy, a Youtube channel that looks at films from the perspective of a licensed therapist. Aragorn from Lord of the Rings is a great example of the sort of Healthy and Compassionate Masculinity that emerges at Green.

Trump advocating for something that might actually help people? Let's go ahead and add +10 to his evaluation card, for a cumulative total of -999,990 for his entire Presidency. Considering the criminally negligent way he handled the Covid epidemic, this is basically the equivalent of burning down your house and then tossing you a quarter to call a Cab on a payphone. I have to wonder whether the primary motivation here is to spite Mitch McConnel for not supporting his coup attempt (not that I'm not all for making Mitch McConnel's life difficult).

As a small aside, I read an interesting article a while back about how disruptive of a technology 3D Printing has the potential to turn out to be in regards to public safety. Once the technology matures, the potential arises for any individual to use it to print and assemble firearms that are basically untraceable. Even with lax gun control laws in the US, at least there's still some level of oversight and restrictions on who's able to obtain a firearm. The sense I got is that while this is not practical right now (since there are easier ways of obtaining a weapon than buying a 3D Printer and assembling a printed gun), that could change in the future as the technology matures. Could be that these concerns are alarmist and won't pan out, but the idea doesn't seem implausible on the face of it.

Here are some well known worldwide historical figures: Red : Julius Ceaser. Ghengis Khan. Hernan Cortez. Moctezuma II. Augusto Pinochet. Joseph Stalin. Saddam Hussein. Donald Trump. Blue : Marcus Aurelius. Thomas Aquanus. Karl Marx. Fidel Castro. Nikita Khrushchev. Fyodor Dostoevsky. Ho Chi Minh. Orange : Adam Smith. Immanuel Kant. Winston Churchill. The American Founding Fathers. Green : Martin Luther King Jr. Mahatma Gandhi. Nelson Mandella. Mikhail Gorbachev. Pope Francis. George Orwell. Yellow : Albert Einstein. Niels Bohr. Noam Chomsky. Bertrand Russel.

As a fan of the cyberpunk sub-genre of science fiction, the irony of Corpos defanging and commodifying something that started off as a cautionary tale about the alienation and destruction that results from unrestrained Capitalism, isn't lost on me.

I really hope the push for Unionization in the games Industry continues to gain momentum. Working for these companies needs to be redefined as a reciprocal relationship, rather than a privilege, and that's going to be hard to do if there's twenty people fresh out of school ready to take your place if you cause too much of a ruckus. Maybe the loss of talented people to other industries due to burnout and poor working conditions will be a catalyst for change. Working conditions are of course much better on the Indie Studio side of the business, but that's generally going to be true of any business that operates with more of a Green mentality. One hopeful aspect of the way the games Industry is structured, is that smaller places have a much more realistic chance of competing against these monolithic companies, or at least carving out a market space and surviving, than in most other Industries.