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How am I not well-versed? And have you not already made your mind up?
You are eager to believe that without government spending money on research, we would be living in the dark-ages.
I say that, without government spending money on research. That research would still have been done.
Can you name a single thing that you are sure would not be known if it wasn't for the benevolence of government?
You are not well versed in science, below you state that creationist opinions, as well as the anti-vaccine lunatics have points that contain merit. When discussing science, they don't. Is it possible that there is a side-effect to vaccines, that is at a statistically low frequency? Sure, but that doesn't mean that it's the cause of autism. Just because a compound has a metal ion in it, doesn't make it toxic, which has been a huge component of their argument. Vitamin B12 has a cobalt. You don't hear people railing against *that* heavy metal. Creationism is pretty amusing too, so do I have to spend time disproving Santa as well? Where did these presents come from? There is not one iota of scientific support for any component of creationism.
When you frame your perspective with an assumption, that I think somehow we'd be in the dark ages, you aren't doing much in the way of convincing me that you have any intent besides being argumentative just to argue for the sake of arguing (like a lawyer), or arguing to make yourself feel better about your politically motivated stance on the public funding of science.
Here's a fine historical article that I just found that appears to be from one of I'm sure what you think is the fascist libberul pork-barrel big-government group of socialist buffoons running the government into the ground, The National Science Board:
Since I don't have a parallel world device, I'm not in the habit of answering an unknowable question. I'd imagine that if certain things hadn't been discovered, that previous events could have come to be different now, but since it's an unanswerable question...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redshadowz
The article quoted by the OP, basically advocates for a sort of democratic scientific tyranny. It basically says that, we shouldn't allow "fringe" science to be presented at all. And we should force people to learn more science than they might personally find important. Without specifying who gets to decide what people should be forced to learn.
On top of that, it basically says that creationists, people who don't believe in climate-change, people who won't get a flu vaccine, or people who won't immunize their children, are somehow ruining the world. And destroying our economy. And if the government would just use its might to force us all to think like the majority of scientists, the world would be so much better.
As I state above, and is a central premise to my perspective, and to a number of my posts previously in this thread, creationists are absolutely ruining the world. They destroy children's minds, they destroy creativity, and they, as a whole, support extremely myopic perspectives on just about everything. We get it, you don't understand science, and want to publicly scream about how we need to protect YOUR ignorance. We understand, you've made your point, your ignorance on the topic is beyond clear. You represent the exact evidence that I've been typing, that science needs to be taught at a young age, and that failure to do so, leaves a person not well equipped to understand complex topics later in life.
Sure, as an independent human being, well-versed on potential merit of a given class, should be entirely capable at the age of 11 to decide what courses you should take... Wait, what age should the child decide what courses they should take? Are you making the implication that a minor, under the age of 18, without any real-world experience, should be allowed to decide which courses they are enrolled in? Wait, aren't the laws in this country that kids must be educated, somehow big-government?
I'm sorry, I'm just not going to agree that a child should be deciding what mandatory courses should be in the school system. I'm also not going to agree that a parent, no matter how well intentioned, should have any say in whether creationism is taught in a science course. If they really feel that strongly about it, they should convince their school district to extend courses by an hour, and call the class "Philosophy" because that is all it is.
Anti-vaccine parents are arguably some of the biggest morons on the face of the earth. Just ask anyone who survived polio. Yes, yes, a parent knows best. Much better than the medical community and the CDC. The CDC is clearly the enforcement arm of big-pharma.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redshadowz
It is just another example of pseudo-science paving the way for governmental tyranny. It is making the argument that people aren't independent people who should be allowed to make their own decisions. But rather that, the government owns all people, and can force them to do what it wants them to do "for the benefit of society".
Then you want to add to that position that, the government should continue to support scientific research which seems to have such little economic value that no one would normally support it. On that basis that there might be some accidental discovery which could have some value to society.
Paying for science is government tyranny? Foil hat cleanup, aisle 7.
So you are basically saying it's perfectly fine, in your world where the government represents pure uninhibited incompetence, that corporations and business will solve everything, and that markets should have absolute freedom? So a free market tyranny is better than a government one, correct? If all the corporations merge into one, that's ok too right? Everything can be simplified to government = evil, decisions of people, even if against their own good, and that of others = good, am I right about what you are saying? Are you aware that this type of black and white reasoning is, well, a bit childish?
I'm sorry that I haven't made it clear that basic science is necessary to all other branches of science, and that direct economics doesn't necessarily realize subtle value, and that business health increases from this funding as well, indirectly. I'm sorry that big corporations with many businessmen who employ scientists, aren't in the business of doing basic research. I know that you think that some benevolent corporation will fill the void. But that's not in the charter of the normal business. And how exactly do you train new scientists without government funding of academia? Do you think that business don't have a vested interest in a skilled workforce? What, you think businesses should own basic science as well? Should businesses operate their own universities that create a pool of skilled workers permanently indentured to that company? That will be handy, lets have countless business labs quietly re-invent the wheel, and not share the information. That should work great, and innovation should be coming soon.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redshadowz
In my mind, people like you are what is poisoning the world. You are the worst kind of bigot. Convinced of your own superiority, or the superiority of your way of thinking. You have no tolerance for anyone else, and want to treat everyone else like they are a child. It is the worst kind of condescending hatred, masked as science.
If I had to choose between saving you and an Amish. I would choose the Amish.
So in other words, if I don't present a case for something in a way such that I make you sound brilliant, or at the very least, supports your political position I'm at fault. Not only at fault, but not worthy of being alive, if the situation arose. How very "Christian" of you. Sounds more than a little child-like to me, perhaps framing your argument with a less emotion will create better understanding to those who read your comments. Then they might not "talk down to you" which evidently I have, and was not my intent.
Do you not find it ironic that the very tool you are using to communicate was at least in some way provided to you by government subsidies? I think you'd be doing us all a favor if you started to boycott everything made through big-government spending. I hear smoke-signals are an effective way at communicating ideas across vast distances.
You are not well versed in science, below you state that creationist opinions, as well as the anti-vaccine lunatics have points that contain merit. When discussing science, they don't. Is it possible that there is a side-effect to vaccines, that is at a statistically low frequency? Sure, but that doesn't mean that it's the cause of autism. Just because a compound has a metal ion in it, doesn't make it toxic, which has been a huge component of their argument. Vitamin B12 has a cobalt. You don't hear people railing against *that* heavy metal. Creationism is pretty amusing too, so do I have to spend time disproving Santa as well? Where did these presents come from? There is not one iota of scientific support for any component of creationism.
First, Santa and god are not comparable. Santa is easy to disprove, in much the same way that Zeus is easy to disprove. Both "stories" attempt to prove themselves in the physical world. And the physical world is easily disproved. The problem with god, is that it doesn't deal in any way with a physical world. And thus, it is difficult to actually prove or disprove.
A good example of this is "ghosts". Are ghosts real? About half of Americans believe in Ghosts. And about a quarter say that they have personally felt the presence of a ghost.
My nephew always cracks me up, because he claims that god doesn't exist. But then he says he believes in ghosts.
The point is, you cannot disprove creationism. Trust me. Go read some Descartes and you'll realize you can't prove or disprove basically anything at all. The best you can do is to "cast doubt". And that is the job of science, to cast doubt, not to prove with certainty. I personally take the position on religion that many many people who have come before me have taken. I don't believe any of the religions can possibly be right. But, there is just something too magical about life to disregard it as just pure luck. Things don't need to be aware of their own existence to exist. Do you think ants are conscious? Which animals are conscious? Why? And how do you know for sure? Can you even prove that I'm conscious?
The answer is "NO".
Secondly, in regards to vaccines, I think the burden of proof for their safety isn't on individuals who don't want to vaccinate their children. The burden of proof is on science to prove their safety. Calling people stupid who question the safety of questionable substances being injected into their children isn't the best way to handle the situation?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Isotope-C14
Here's a fine historical article that I just found that appears to be from one of I'm sure what you think is the fascist libberul pork-barrel big-government group of socialist buffoons running the government into the ground, The National Science Board:
Are you really going to use an article written by the National Board of Science to justify its own existence, as proof of why government investments in science are necessary? Can I get some confirmation bias please?
Look, one of the things it notes in its own write-up is this.... "Some Asian nations, most prominently Japan, have succeeded in building excellent high-tech industries in the absence of a publicly-accessible academic research base. At the same time, U. S. industry appeared to be faltering in areas such as consumer electronics and in fundamental research in manufacturing engineering."
The problem you and I have when we discuss the necessity of government intervention. Is that you want to hold up the things which government has accomplished, as proof of the need for government. I ask the opposite question, what do I know for sure would not exist without government investment in science?
Lets take for instance energy. Energy is probably the largest market in the entire world. To believe that there are no resources available for developing new energy technologies, is kind of silly. The truth is, the government could spend all the money in the world on alternative-energy, it wouldn't really matter. Because the problem with energy is an economic problem, not a technology problem. If gasoline was $10 a gallon, I promise you, far more than the entire budget of the department of energy would be dumped into things like biomass research, battery technology, more aerodynamic trucks, an expansion of railroads, etc. Because the resources are there, it just isn't profitable.
I mean, we could actually drive on wood right now. Buy why would we?
Right now, the amount of energy produced from ethanol isn't much more than the energy it takes to produce ethanol. At one time, it actually took more energy to produce ethanol than the energy we got out of it. We currently only get something like 1.5 times as much energy from burning ethanol than what it takes to produce it. That means, it basically takes 2 gallons of ethanol to produce three gallons of ethanol.
The price of a bushel of corn in 2000 was about $1.78. By 2012 it had shot up as high as $7.13 per bushel.
The United States currently spends about $55 billion a year on non-military research. That means a family of four pays about $700 a year on government research.
Those costs are actually buried in the budgets of many different administrations. For instance, the budget of NASA is $18 billion, but only $6.5 billion is considered research. The budget of the department of energy is $30 billion a year, but only $9.2 billion is considered to be research-oriented. The budget of the National science foundation is $7 billion a year, but only $4 billion is considered to be in research(yes, nearly half of the NSF budget doesn't go to research). These are just the more obvious cases. Things like the environmental protection agency, the department of transportation, department of agriculture, mineral management services, and tons of other bureaucracies probably spend tons of money supposed in support of research, but not directly on research and so it isn't count. So the effective cost of research is probably much higher.
If I was to guess, I would say that government department expenditures supposedly in the name of helping the US economy through government investments of some sort, would total in the hundreds of billions. Amounting to probably a few thousand a year for the average family of four.
If you were to look at just the department of energy alone. Its budget is $30.6 billion a year. The United States consumed 133 billion gallons of fuel last year. That means, the cost of the department of energy in a sense, would be the equivalent of about 23 cents per gallon of gasoline sold in the United States. Throw on top of that the $79 billion department of transportation, of which only about 1/3rd of the budget was raised by gas taxes. That means, the department of transportation and the department of energy costs about 60 cents per gallon of gasoline sold in the United States.
The average adult drives about 15,000 miles a year. At 20 mpg, that means I should be liable for about $450 a year for the combined cost of the department of energy and department of transportation. And a family of four with a teenager that drives, would be more like $1200 a year.
The point is, the government is spending massive amounts of money. And what are we getting out of it? It is my contention that, there is no proof that the government has produced anything that the market wouldn't have on its own. Especially considering literally 90% of all research in this country right now, is not even done by the government. There is no evidence that without the government spending tens or hundreds of billions on research, that the United States would be any worse off.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Isotope-C14
As I state above, and is a central premise to my perspective, and to a number of my posts previously in this thread, creationists are absolutely ruining the world. They destroy children's minds, they destroy creativity, and they, as a whole, support extremely myopic perspectives on just about everything.
The problem with you, is that your values are different than mine. I value happiness and freedom. You value exploration and novelty.
Take for instance "philosophy" or other areas of "liberal arts". In truth, philosophy is probably the most economically useless field of study on the planet. But I consider philosophy to probably be the most important study for the soul of a human-being. Another example, history. Knowledge of history is not a skill. It is extremely unlikely that it will get you employed. But I find knowledge of history to be infinitely more important than knowledge in basically any scientific field.
You seem to be the kind of person who wants to force all children to spend all of their time in school. Learning math and science, relativity and quantum physics. So you can use them as resources for your dream of technological advancement. You probably love genetic-engineering. And you would love nothing less than re-engineering humans to basically be "perfect". While ignoring the fact that perfection would necessarily be something totally not human.
The problem is that, you don't recognize that people are actually people. To you, people are just resources. You don't care about how they feel, you don't care about what they believe, you don't care about what they value. You want to tell them what they should believe, you want to tell them what they should value.
In all honesty. Your way of looking about the world, is no different than a Hitler or a Stalin. Who believed in crushing individuality for "the greater good". They believed that no one owned their own mind or their own labor. They believed that the "State" effectively owned everyone. And could tell everyone what they should know, and what they should believe.
I am terrified of people like you, because you don't realize that your way of thinking is evil and destructive. Because you don't see people, you see goals. And to you, people are just a means to an end. In truth, people like yourself are really everything I complain about all day and night.
Regardless of what you believe, democracy can be tyrannical. You seem to be the kind of person who fancies himself a dictator.
So you are basically saying it's perfectly fine, in your world where the government represents pure uninhibited incompetence, that corporations and business will solve everything, and that markets should have absolute freedom? So a free market tyranny is better than a government one, correct? If all the corporations merge into one, that's ok too right? Everything can be simplified to government = evil, decisions of people, even if against their own good, and that of others = good, am I right about what you are saying? Are you aware that this type of black and white reasoning is, well, a bit childish?
I never said that government was incompetent. I merely said that government is inherently corrupt. And the difference between government and corporations. Is that, if the government is wasteful and corrupt, rarely does anything actually happen. If a business is wasteful and corrupt, it becomes obvious pretty quickly. Because businesses will not stay in business if they are wasteful.
As for this idea that monopolies would take over in the absence of regulation. I don't actually believe it would happen. And I have never heard a single example of a "harmful monopoly" which wasn't created and protected by government. In the history of the United States, people believed for instance that "Standard Oil" was a monopoly. But by the time it was broken up it only held 64% of the oil refining market. While reducing the cost of kerosene from something like 56 cents a gallon, down to 7 cents a gallon.
The truth about monopolies. Is that the fear of monopolies is based on the idea that people are stupid. The truth is, I'm never concerned about corporations. Because a corporation cannot force me to do anything. A corporation can only entice me to do something by offering me low prices. The only way a corporation could force me to do something, is if a corporation was able to buy up every piece of real-estate in the entire country.
The likelihood of that happening is simply ZERO. Not just because of competition. But also because the people simply wouldn't allow it, regardless of government. At any time, I could effectively live completely independently, as long as I owned a few acres.
I could grow my own food, I could grow trees for lumber/firewood. And there are plenty of people who live "off the grid".
Who do you think those "off-the-grid" types are afraid of? Corporations? Hell no. They are afraid of the government. The way they are living, corporations can't touch them. But the government has the power to take their land away, and then sell it to a corporation.
If I was Amish, I would shun corporations, but I would be terrified of government.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Isotope-C14
Do you not find it ironic that the very tool you are using to communicate was at least in some way provided to you by government subsidies? I think you'd be doing us all a favor if you started to boycott everything made through big-government spending. I hear smoke-signals are an effective way at communicating ideas across vast distances.
You are looking at it wrong. Just because the government did something, doesn't mean it wouldn't have been done regardless. And it most certainly doesn't mean society is forever indebted to government for it.
There is a road in front of my house. What you are arguing is that, I shouldn't drive on that road because the evil government built it. Ignoring the fact that I already paid for that road. And, especially ignoring the fact that even if the government didn't build a road in front of my house. There would still be a road in front of my house. In fact, many local roads are built by individuals, families, or neighborhood associations.
In fact, I really despise your line of thinking. It reminds me of the general basis for the "social contract". In that, because the government paid for my education, then I am obligated to pay for the education of others. Ignoring the fact that I never agreed to be educated. It was forced upon me. I have no doubt that had there never been a public school, my mother would have educated me perfectly well. And most of my knowledge did not come from a public school anyway. And had I not gone to a public school, I probably would have been far more psychologically stable in my youth. So this idea that I owe anything to anyone is ridiculous.
I owe nothing to anyone else, and you owe nothing to me. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't want to help others. But I despise the idea that because someone did something for me, that I did not ask for, that I am obligated to them or anyone else. A righteous man will help others. A righteous man does not demand others help him.
The internet would exist without government. To believe otherwise is idiotic.
So just stop already. Leave people alone.
Last edited by Redshadowz; 01-12-2014 at 10:21 AM..
Can you give any more supporting evidence to my posts in a way more efficiently than that?
It's such a strange phenomena that some Americans vocally celebrate their own ignorance, and wish to proudly tell people that their ignorance needs to be protected, from the evils of things like education, knowledge, government, and science.
Where exactly do you live? Cause I don't know of many communities that pay for their own roads...
Last edited by Isotope-C14; 01-12-2014 at 06:21 PM..
Can you give any more supporting evidence to my posts in any more efficient way than that?
It's such a strange phenomena that some Americans vocally celebrate their own ignorance, and wish to proudly tell people that their ignorance needs to be protected, from the evils of things like education, knowledge, government, and science.
Where exactly do you live? Cause I don't know of many communities that pay for their own roads...
Well, I don't personally believe in ghosts. But, I still think you are looking at the world far too rigidly. I've been in your shoes before. The problem I have is that I'm always looking for an absolute unifying principle which cannot be challenged. The thing is, such a principle cannot be formulated, because there is too much that can't be known.
When I held views like yours, I was pretty miserable. I mean, miserable to the point of attempting suicide kind of miserable. The world was always disappointing to me, because it was never going to be the way I wanted it to be. And in my mind, I felt that if you directed resources, within a couple generations at best, most of the problems we have today could be solved. I felt this would be especially true for the most important problem of all, dying.
I mean, the idea of curing cancer, "printing" organs for transplants, and eradication of all diseases. Sounds great right? How about genetic-engineering to prevent DNA from breaking down, thus preventing you from aging. Or just genetic-engineering to make everyone smart, or strong, or well-behaved, or whatever. Sounds great right? Then you could create a world where there was no crime, and people basically lived forever. What is better than that? Right?
From a purely scientific perspective. It actually sounds wonderful. But when you think about it from a purely human perspective, it actually sounds pretty horrible.
Take for instance "living forever". Would you actually want to live forever? What would be some of the psychological and social effects of people even living twice as long as they do today? What about human populations? For instance, humans are hard-wired to want children. And their mortality causes them to think more about the future. In a world where people lived forever, people would basically have to be prevented from having children. And if you wanted to genetically modify people to behave better and be smarter, you would end up fundamentally changing humanity into something which would basically no longer be human. It would be the equivalence of breeding cattle.
At that point, what is the point of making people live forever, or desiring to make people happy. When you could just engineer them to basically always be happy anyway. You could make them where they are happy to work as literal slaves. You could even remove gender from them entirely.
The question then is, which world would you rather live in? And more importantly, if you have to use "government force" to get from here to there. Wouldn't you make a lot of people miserable in this time, supposedly for some benefit in the future?
As I've said a million times. The point of life isn't some arbitrary construct of progress or technology or whatever. The point of life is basically to be happy, and especially to make others happy. When I think of the kind of world you are advocating for. That just sounds miserable.
I would rather live like the Amish than live in that world. I would rather die young, than live forever miserable. Or possibly, to live forever without a soul, in a world without meaning or purpose.
The point is, you are going to die, someday, of something. Whether it is cancer of a heart attack or whatever. You are going to die. You need to understand that. And there is no reason to be afraid of it.
And for that matter, I'm also going to die. Maybe it will be tomorrow, maybe it will be 40 years from now. Maybe I'll live to be 100. But regardless, I'm going to die. And the best I can hope for is to just be as happy as I can be until the day I hopefully die abruptly of a heart-attack or simply quit breathing in my sleep.
If the point of life is to be happy. Then here we run into an ethical problem. If you argue that you should only look for things to make you happy. Then you must acknowledge that everyone else would be doing the same. The problem is that, if every person is only seeking to make themselves happy. Then it doesn't mean that anyone would be happy. Because each person might only be happy at the expense of someone else. Thus, happiness can never come at the expense of someone else. Or at least, not the forced expense of someone else.
Thus it is my position that happiness can never be brought by force. Only by voluntary cooperation. The only force which is ever good, is for the purpose of preventing another force.
So when I find people like yourself who believes that hundreds of billions of dollars should be taken from some, and spent every year supposedly in the name of "the greater good". It makes me incredibly annoyed. Because you have no right to the life of anyone else. Regardless of your insane desire to recreate humanity in a way that might make you happy, but in total disregard to the feelings of the people around you. And your motivation is ultimately founded on the idea that you believe that your values are superior to everyone else's values. And so you can ignore everyone else, because you have convinced yourself that they are wrong, so they don't matter.
I'm telling you, you need to stop man. Take a deep breath. And try to formulate a strategy for changing the world for the better, which doesn't require government force, or the belittling of other people.
Trust me, take a break from science and engineering for a minute. Instead read history, economics, philosophy, psychology, and literature.
A number of the discussions here lately have made me think of this topic. Where a sizable share of our population openly mocks science, and seem to have adopted political ideology as a prism of reality. I think this is a very dangerous trend. Science is not perfect, but it is far closer to objective reality than religion or politics. How do we find common ground in objective reality when literally every single topic has become a "he said, she said" argument?
I totally agree. It is unfortunate that science is now driven by politics. And science is being used to promote global wealth redistribution and other political goals. Many people do not understand what drives science today. They don't understand that science is a multi billion dollar business employing thousands. As usual, follow the money.
And then we have those that equate forecasting to science. It's pathetic.
I think it boils down to confirmation bias. Anti-science people believe what they feel in their gut or that they "just know." Evidence to the contrary, scientific or not, is dismissed. Essentially, they believe what they want to believe.
On the other hand, intellectually curious people are able to look at an issue more objectively, and to gather evidence and make a judgment, even when that evidence contradicts a previously-held belief.
Correct. And the thing people don't realize is that scientists are more subject to confirmation bias than anyone else.
So you have everyone jumping on the bandwagon. If Joe says AGW is real, then I must agree. Next thing you know we have a huge number of scientists trying to confirm something that has never been proven because they have confirmation bias.
BTW, I don't know any "anti-science" people. I know of people who abuse science like Al Gore. Does he qualify as "anti-science" since he told so many lies?
Well, I don't personally believe in ghosts. But, I still think you are looking at the world far too rigidly. I've been in your shoes before. The problem I have is that I'm always looking for an absolute unifying principle which cannot be challenged. The thing is, such a principle cannot be formulated, because there is too much that can't be known.
Science is the ultimate in flexibility. If evidence for something turns out to be an artifact, or contradictory, it does not result in a catastrophic perspective defeat. Instead of beliefs, you just have ideas (Yay Dogma inspiration). I'd argue that due to the text of your comprehensive posts, that you've never been in my shoes.
For some reason, the simplicity of a basic underlying principle, an equation if you will, is very attractive to our simple minds. Humans, however you like to see it, are not terribly brilliant and love to reduce things down from complex to least complex. It makes complicated concepts much easier to deal with, but doesn't make this type of reasoning valid.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redshadowz
I'm telling you, you need to stop man. Take a deep breath. And try to formulate a strategy for changing the world for the better, which doesn't require government force, or the belittling of other people.
Trust me, take a break from science and engineering for a minute. Instead read history, economics, philosophy, psychology, and literature.
I think you'll be happier if you do.
In other words, your precious worldview, no matter how misguided, misinformed, and potentially destructive to future generations, needs to be preserved regardless of new cures, agricultural advances and general scientific advances. How very selfish and ignorant. I'm so glad that we had this chat. Basically no matter what my response is, you have some kind of ego defense shield that keeps your ignorance safe from logic and reason. This is the fundamental reason that children need to be taught science at a young age, and regularly.
This is why socialism and socialist policies become attractive to the masses. How else are we to prevent selfishness and greed from running our society. And with all that precious, precious money that you love so much, you know you can't take it with you right?
Do you understand how completely befuddling it is to an objective observer, that you believe in jesus or god, the one that says not to be greedy and to give your excesses to the poor, and at the same time believe in hoarding money for personal trash? It must be remarkably convenient to be able to compartmentalize two illogical world-views within one brain. That is something I'm simply not capable of.
How do you know if I'm happy or not? Why would you care, that's not even relevant to this thread. I know you claim to be happy now that you've washed your hands of logic and reasoning. Though I've heard though from I think TDS that "is not ignorance bliss, and Americans becoming dumber simply a manifestation of that pursuit?" (or something along these lines).
This is why socialism and socialist policies become attractive to the masses. How else are we to prevent selfishness and greed from running our society. And with all that precious, precious money that you love so much, you know you can't take it with you right? .
Do you really think socialist societies don't have greed and selfishness? That's absurd. I feel quite certain that the Soviet bosses were just as greedy and selfish as any other people in the world.
Socialism does not in any way diminish selfishness and greed.
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Foil hat cleanup, aisle 7.
