Leo, do you still see a difference between Liberalism and Progressivism?

[Daniel Balan]

12 minutes ago, BlueOak said:

Do you think it inaccurate to say Capitalism and socialism are on a scale then? We are very far into capitalism, I agree, but I've always framed reality to have these four poles. So I can call a policy either more or less socialist or more or less capitalist. I find it a helpful point of reference to how much I will be paying for something directly or through taxation for example.
 

Capitalism ain't no scale. Capitalism is the way humans have done business since we walked on all four limbs. But there is capitalism without rules and capitalism with rules and regulations. 

[museumoftrees]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

It is not that I hate the word. The word means no private proverty. Socialism is a very specific thing. You can't have Wall Street and call it socialism.

I appreciate your rigor in your explanations but feel like you are more binary in describing socialism (this isn't, this is) than you are with capitalism.

And truly with the intent to learn here : Why can't you have Wall Street and call something socialism but then have a society with a robust welfare system and call capitalism? 

[Leo Gura]

3 hours ago, museumoftrees said:

I appreciate your rigor in your explanations but feel like you are more binary in describing socialism (this isn't, this is) than you are with capitalism.

And truly with the intent to learn here : Why can't you have Wall Street and call something socialism but then have a society with a robust welfare system and call capitalism? 

Because socialism is a system that is supposed to resolve the systemic problems of capitalism with systemic, fundamental solutions that eliminate the evils of market dynamics and private ownership of property.

Socialism is not just a nice, soft version of capitalism, it is a fundamentally different system which expunges the systemic aspects of capitalism which create all the so-called evil. If you don't fundamentally do that then you still have capitalism and its core problems but with some bells and whistles like free healthcare.

Socialism is a revolutionary scheme. This is crucial to understand. Otherwise you end up calling for socialism without realizing how radical what you're calling for is. People call for socialism but don't understand that it requires overturning the entire economic order. So then shit happens inadvertantly.

You need to decide if the radical socialist scheme is really what you want. Or is it a mistake?

Socialism means you cannot have stock markets, you cannot have private sale of businesses, you cannot have private ownership of large corporations, socialism means you can't have a 401k plan, you cannot have speculative trading, etc.

Do you really want to live in such a world?

I'm not telling you what to want, I'm just trying to have you think through the consequences of your ideas.

Edited Saturday at 09:15 AM by Leo Gura

[AerisVahnEphelia]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Because socialism is a system that is supposed to resolve the systemic problems of capitalism with systemic, fundamental solutions that eliminate the evils of market dynamics and private ownership of property.

Socialism is not just a nice, soft version of capitalism, it is a fundamentally different system which expunges the systemic aspects of capitalism which create all the so-called evil. If you don't fundamentally do that then you still have capitalism and its core problems but with some bells and whistles like free healthcare.

Socialism is a revolutionary scheme. This is crucial to understand. Otherwise you end up calling for socialism without realizing how radical what you're calling for is. People call for socialism but don't understand that it requires overturning the entire economic order. So then shit happens inadvertantly.

You need to decide if the radical socialist scheme is really what you want. Or is it a mistake?

Socialism means you cannot have stock markets, you cannot have private sale of businesses, you cannot have private ownership of large corporations, socialism means you can't have a 401k plan, you cannot have speculative trading, etc.

Do you really want to live in such a world?

I'm not telling you what to want, I'm just trying to have you think through the consequences of your ideas.

I want meritocracy based on merit and not ownership.

an IA manage society and give karmic point everytime a member increase the virtue and quality of survival of society long terms based on the collective mapping of what is judged virtuous by the collective through votes.

“That which reveals the Real is good. That which obscures it is evil.”

>>> deeper researsh :
An AI-guided meritocracy replaces money and ownership with karmic points earned by actions that measurably improve the long-term vitality of society. Its single, unchangeable axiom is Truth—the alignment of thought, intention, and effect with reality itself. Citizens collectively define secondary virtues, but the AI audits them through this truth core, rewarding clarity, wisdom, and contribution while letting influence decay when virtue fades. The result is a self-correcting civilization where power flows to those who sustain coherence and life, not those who accumulate property.

Edited Saturday at 02:28 PM by AerisVahnEphelia

[museumoftrees]

On 10/11/2025 at 5:11 AM, Leo Gura said:

Because socialism is a system that is supposed to resolve the systemic problems of capitalism with systemic, fundamental solutions that eliminate the evils of market dynamics and private ownership of property.

Socialism is not just a nice, soft version of capitalism, it is a fundamentally different system which expunges the systemic aspects of capitalism which create all the so-called evil. If you don't fundamentally do that then you still have capitalism and its core problems but with some bells and whistles like free healthcare.

Socialism is a revolutionary scheme. This is crucial to understand. Otherwise you end up calling for socialism without realizing how radical what you're calling for is. People call for socialism but don't understand that it requires overturning the entire economic order. So then shit happens inadvertantly.

You need to decide if the radical socialist scheme is really what you want. Or is it a mistake?

Socialism means you cannot have stock markets, you cannot have private sale of businesses, you cannot have private ownership of large corporations, socialism means you can't have a 401k plan, you cannot have speculative trading, etc.

Do you really want to live in such a world?

I'm not telling you what to want, I'm just trying to have you think through the consequences of your ideas.

I guess I don't. I don't see how that could ever be possible.

[BlueOak]

4 hours ago, museumoftrees said:

I guess I don't. I don't see how that could ever be possible.

Because Leo frames it as radical, rather than progressive socialism, or democratic socialism, or insert the descriptor here socialism.

He tells you capitalism is demonized by socialists while doing the same. 

Socialism can be revolutionary, status quo, progressive or even regressive. He's adding words here to suit his framing of it, rather than just treating it as is.

You can absolutely have stockmarkets and taxpayer-funded healthcare side by side. We do in England, and that is a socialist policy.
You can have free education and a capitalist market side by side. They do in france and germany all the way to university.

The question isn't whether this can exist, its where people's money is going to go and what you want your country to be.

*But no political party benefits from putting "socialist," "capitalist," "authoritarian," or "libertarian" in the title. (I would say few benefit from liberal or conservative either if pressed.)
 

Edited yesterday at 11:16 AM by BlueOak

[Basman]

7 hours ago, BlueOak said:

You can absolutely have stockmarkets and taxpayer-funded healthcare side by side. We do in England, and that is a socialist policy.
You can have free education and a capitalist market side by side. They do in france and germany all the way to university

Such a system is fundamentally capitalist and not the other way around, which is the point.

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

It's not even possible to set accurate prices for goods and services in a socialist system. The only way to do so is through free economic choices via a free market; otherwise, you'll always have some group of people arise (which is inevitable, because hierarchies are a necessary feature of our societies and even most living organisms) and artificially decide who deserves to get how much and how resources should be allocated. This obviously doesn't work. And on some level, it's an impossible question to answer anyway, l mean who is to tell who deserves how much? I guess capitalism comes the closest to answering that question but lacks empathy, so ideally there should also be a state strong enough to provide welfare policies for those who fuck up in life, at least to a reasonable degree. I used to entertain socialism as a viable system for some time, but I was a fool for doing so.

[BlueOak]

The end state of capitalism—corporatism—is not too far removed from socialism. Its just a different group running the show, where they get the benefit of socialism and you don't. 

@NewKidOnTheBlock
@Basman

It was these kinds of obvious comments that got my posts shadow-banned on youtube, when I was politically active because nobody can effectively argue against that statement. Corporations really don't like me pointing it out.

The end state of capitalism is actually worse than that; it's kleptocracy, which is where America is entering now and Russia has been for decades, or a kind of techno feudalism for the masses as traditional jobs continue to close.

Corporatism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism
Kleptocracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptocracy
Techno Feudalism: 
Technofeudalism is a modern economic system where large technology companies exert power similar to feudal lords, controlling digital platforms and data that people and businesses rely on. This concept suggests that instead of traditional capitalism, society is becoming dependent on a few tech giants for access to resources and services, mirroring the hierarchical structures of medieval feudalism.

Edited 22 hours ago by BlueOak

[Leo Gura]

@BlueOak You don't understand what socialism is and how it unfolds.

You have a fantasy of it so you think it can just be whichever way you want.

This is the problem with socialists, they just imagine it however suits their childish understanding of mankind. In the socialist's mind socialism always works. Of course it always works in your mind.

Edited 20 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Daniel Balan]

40 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@BlueOak You don't understand what socialism is and how it unfolds.

You have a fantasy of it so you think it can just be whichever way you want.

This is the problem with socialists, they just imagine it however suits their childish understanding of mankind. In the socialist's mind socialism always works. Of course it always works in your mind.

Corruption is the one variable that can turn any governmental framework into shit. Regardless of how good the system is on paper.

Socialism works only if the majority of the citizenry has low degrees of corruption.

A moderately corrupt capitalist system is much better than a very corrupt socialist system. Corruption enables people to abuse and sway the system in whichever egoic ways that maximise their survival. 

If you would change the entire governmental framework of America to Socialism, the inequality would be basically the same. Why? Because corrupt people always find cracks to exploit the system in ways they can still abuse and leech off of the backs of the proletariat the same way they are doing right now under capitalism. 

Just look at the USSR and it's satellite states. The corrupt actors that lived in obscene luxury under communism have died by old age during the transition towards capitalism after USSR collapsed, but their offsprings and all their friends are living right now in the same obscene luxury their parents lived under communism. While the plebs were worked to death during communism, and the plebs are worked to death now as well. 

If you want a true change in society focus on how to elevate the consciousness of the majority of society. Focus on educating people to be less corrupt.

Unless you do this any system that you will design will generate the same problems and the exploitation of the plebs will be just as worse.

[BlueOak]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@BlueOak You don't understand what socialism is and how it unfolds.

You have a fantasy of it so you think it can just be whichever way you want.

This is the problem with socialists, they just imagine it however suits their childish understanding of mankind. In the socialist's mind socialism always works. Of course it always works in your mind.

Whether something works is down to the competence of the person executing it and the circumstances it's executed in, not ideology.
It is a natural and necessary balance to capitalism that is demonised and suppressed to the point that society is unhealthy as a result.

If we were the opposite way, i'd be advocating for more capitalism. 

I understand exactly how it unfolds. I do not have lived experience of it, but then I am not advocating for an overthrow of the free market either. I am advocating for a balance of all four corners of humanity expressed in society. I have yet to see or be convinced that an imbalance creates anything but increased suffering. And yes that balance differs depending on the geographic region, country, history, institutions, education, corporations and population etc, but these are things that can slowly be nudged toward a closer harmony.

Edited 11 hours ago by BlueOak