Wow, a conversation between Rhrosty and Bigmouth, oh what joy and excitement.

Surely, we will soon witness new heights of intellectual excellence and creative thought not achieved since the Golden Age of Greece ended and all of it couched in language that would rival Shakespeare himself.

Gather around, folks, watch the fireworks as these two boring, deeply-in-love-with-themselves pedestrian hacks try to outdo each other.

Yawn, zzzzzzzzz.

Hi David,

You can join in, if you ever have anything to say :)

I suppose some of us who have been through the process, have hopes that young people like you can, while you're a completely blank slate, avoid wasting your time on beliefs that have more in common with religion than reality.

Maybe the lesson has been: always work with realities, no matter how awkward they may be, rather than pig-ignorant beliefs, no matter how comfortable they may be. Reality always wins out, it's always there, it always has to be dealt with.

Or, of course, you can retreat into religion, although it may take you many years - many wasted years - to realise that that's what it is.

Good luck, David.

Joe

Bigmouth enters the arena inviting me to embrace religion. I rejected religion many decades ago, in my teenage years in fact, which even a cursory examination of my blog (which I have run successfully for more than a decade) would reveal.

Regarding his 'young people' jibe, I am 75 years of age and find his silly attempts to discredit me about what one would expect from a man who is clearly brain-dead and infantile and is a man who has to rely upon lies, make-believe, insults and put-downs, to hide his own intellectual and moral vacuum.

P.S. Let me point out at this point in time that I have no wish to waste the time of anyone on OLO with arguing with bottom-feeders like Rhrosty or BigMouth or Jardine, but I've had enough of their concerted attempt to defame me and ridicule everything I say.

I have high quality University qualifications and have had a successful career as a journalist and author and will back myself against the likes of them anytime.

Age shall not weary them!

Byork

It sounds totally confused to me, but I would appreciate it if you could show me that it's not.

What would be an example of "things privately produced but not the kind of private ownership of things produced socially that occurs under capitalism"?

Great article. Just a few thoughts very much in line with what you are saying.

Rebels need to be strong supporters of democracy and human progress. In Australia this means among other things:

- opposing the anti-terrorism laws
- demanding increased Australian military involvement in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and supporting democratic revolution generally.
- opposing the mistreatment of asylum seekers in the name of deterrence.
- supporting greatly increased government funding of scientific research and development
- supporting the modern technologies that the greens oppose and that promise future prosperity.
- supporting genuine economic development in poor countries rather than the "sustainable" green stuff. In Africa this means, among other things, lots of sealed roads with trucks driving up and down delivering fertilizer. Bill Gates' spending on development projects seems to be pointing in the right direction.

Hi David,

No, you didn't. You'll learn that, you've still got time :)

Perhaps we could both do without the insults. I'm sure we both have much experience and held out high hopes for many 'gods'. My point is that all socialist systems to date have degenerated into state-Mafia systems - Russia, China, you name it. not one supposedly-Socialist system has survived reality. The crap has invariably come to the top - Stalin (who I was named after), Mao, Pol Pot, the Kims, perhaps even in Vietnam although I would hate to admit it.

One problem with Utopias is precisely that they prescribe the Good lie, which on the one hand has no room for anybody sho wants a 'Better Life', and on the other hand, allows 'leaders' to totally dominate.

We're roughly the same age, it seems, so we've interpreted all that rich experience differently. I made the mistake of reading Isaiah Berlin and Karl Popper, and that did it for me. I'm convinced now that there never will be a Utopia, people have too much sense and also too much variability to go along with the notion of the One Good Society - even in its horrifically-warped versions such as Islamism, but they all seem to merge with Fascism. They inevitably end up as brutal dictatorships.

Certainly they winkle out people with authoritarian personalities- maybe that's why so many on the pseudo-Left have gravitated to supporting Assad's dictatorship (and maybe Saddam's earlier, and probably Mugabe's too) and ISIS - somehow both at once. Amazing.

Public ownership of the means of production hasn't worked. I wish it had, but no. It always hands power to the Party officials, while the workers are as ground down as they would be in the worst capitalist environment. Perhaps you've never been a worker, so that wouldn't mean much to you.

Best wishes for your awakening,

Joe