Political Theory

Re: "Ants, they made communism work."

Anenome — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 01:54:33 GMT

shackleford:

They're essentially programmed biological machines that behave a certain way. Using ant social dynamics to lend credence to communism is desperate and feeble-minded at best. It's painfully obvious from the annals of history that communism, with actual people, is dangerous, immoral, and foolish.

It's excellent propaganda tho.

Good propaganda makes your point immediately understood and placed in a positive light, and makes seeing through the propaganda to how the comparison is not apt at all difficult and laborious.

Most people also are not systematic thinkers. This is a big problem libertarians face trying to implement the education-means of moving society towards libertarianism. Most libertarians probably became libertarian at least in some part because of systematically applying the principle of liberty to all aspects of political life and following the conclusion where it irrevocably led.

The trick of the leftist liberal mindset is to discount any sort of deep thinking at all. Liberals create policy and consensus based on the first impulse. It's all about the first impulse. Murder on the news? Need to ban guns. Wages down? Raise the minimum wage.

We'll never overcome those thought habits by education. And what's worse, even negative results of policies does not cause them to question the original policy. Test scores down? Need to raise taxes and give more money to schools!

We may have solved the great political question of what political theory is best suited for man, but we have a long way to go on the sociological question of how to produce change. The socialists are actually way ahead of us on this one, having thought about how to produce change for a long time. Some of their findings are interesting at least.

Re: "Ants, they made communism work."

Jack Roberts — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:14:13 GMT

Don't see ants lining up for iphones do you?

Re: "Ants, they made communism work."

shackleford — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:05:34 GMT

They're essentially programmed biological machines that behave a certain way. Using ant social dynamics to lend credence to communism is desperate and feeble-minded at best. It's painfully obvious from the annals of history that communism, with actual people, is dangerous, immoral, and foolish.

Re: "Ants, they made communism work."

Neodoxy — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 20:25:17 GMT

Ants could certainly be defined as socialists of a type, although necessarily in a decentralized manner. No one thinks that socialism, if people are willing to listen to their leaders, is impossible, merely that it cannot create prosperity... So if you want men to live like ants, then go straight ahead.

Re: "Ants, they made communism work."

SkepticalMetal — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 19:31:10 GMT

Are ants killed when they refuse to work?

This doesn't happen because every ant has the exact same "mindset." It's in their nature to keep a highly structured labor colony. It's not in ours.

Re: "Ants, they made communism work."

eliotn — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 19:23:04 GMT

yes

Re: "Ants, they made communism work."

Luminar — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 19:10:51 GMT

"Anyways, welcome to the forums. One longtime member posts a link to a list of links that are useful for anyone who wants to study here for new forum posters. If I find it I will show you."

That would be John James?

Re: "Ants, they made communism work."

Smiling Dave — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 10:58:19 GMT

Ants do not have to solve the calculation problem. If they find cookie crumbs at a picnic, they know exactly one thing to do with them

Re: "Ants, they made communism work."

excel — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 07:58:03 GMT

The ants may not be communist yet, since they 'work for' a queen, however they will soon evolve into a new socialist ant where any ant may be worker in the morning, drone in the midday, and queen in the evening!

Re: "Ants, they made communism work."

Marko — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 07:35:07 GMT

If ants jumped off a cliff, would you?

Re: "Ants, they made communism work."

vive la insurrection — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 04:46:25 GMT

Human Action

Re: "Ants, they made communism work."

Wheylous — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 20:02:39 GMT

Also, who the heck is to say that ants do well?

Re: "Ants, they made communism work."

Wheylous — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 20:02:14 GMT

Autolykos - that is why I added the bit about changing jobs and new capital.

Re: "Ants, they made communism work."

TronCat — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 19:59:38 GMT

"It's like, In all that Western Civilization thinks that it has figured it all out, it still has so much less to show for it than even the humble ant."

I love this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDEzzFtrCTs

Re: "Ants, they made communism work."

Willy Truth — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 19:47:58 GMT

I can already hear the pseudo-wisdom of an aging hippie, possibly in the form of a lazily strummed folk song: "It's like, In all that Western Civilization thinks that it has figured it all out, it still has so much less to show for it than even the humble ant."

Seriously though, ants are pretty awesome. http://www.cracked.com/article_19651_7-reasons-ants-will-inherit-earth.html