I believe in Tip’s ability to infiltrate any organization to any level in the organization in practically no time flat as long as there is at least one romantically feasible encounter to be had. Beyond that, he will get caught.
I’d comment on the problem with that philosophy, but, at the moment, I can’t remember the philosophic or religious terms. Suffice it to say that some believe people are inherently good, while others accept people for what they are.
People are inherently selfish, greedy, foolish, violent and venal. But mostly just lazy.
Which makes masking those traits the path of least resistance. And given our enviable capacity for self-delusion we’ve come to both expect and accept the masks as reality.
Call it “Enlightened Self Interest”.
And of course cooperation within and conflict between groups are the linchpins of civilization, which makes Progress desirable.
Which, of course, is the reply to those who declare “True Socialism has never been tried.”
And the proper rejoinder is, “And never will be.”
Humans are simply incapable of making it work just for the traits you cite.
The Soviet Union did not die in flames and glory for the Proletariat. It died after uncounted millions were murdered trying to make socialism work while decaying of an internal rot of a corruption brought on by people gaming the system to death.
The only reason Capitalism proved to be superior is because the process of corruption is self limiting if confined to small disposable units.
Sheik: I haven’t heard this theory about corruption being self-limiting, but I don’t think anyone’s ever managed to confine corruption to small units. There’s always someone at the top who has more than just the national interest to think about.
I believe Sheik is saying that Capitalism is predicated on competition in the marketplace rewarding service to the common good with proportional market share, which inherently limits the scope of damage from failure due to any cause. Which was tossed into a cocked hat by economies of scale enabled by mass production.
To be clear, I personally do believe that people are basically decent, kind, hardworking, altruistic souls who will gladly help their neighbor. The problem today is that society has been hijacked away from loyalty to community to loyalty to Brands thanks to ham-handed, short-sighted social engineering focused on short-term profit over long-term viability.
Sheik, oddly enough socialism is not the same as communism, and other countries (like Australia, although our current government looks at the worst excesses of the USA and says Yes Please) that have managed some degree of socialism to moderate the lethal extremes of unbridled capitalism.
Socialism is an economic model. Despotism is a governmental model. Communism is an economic model defined by the state owning all property and is thus combined with a governmental model. All of those can be combined with other models in a infinite variety of ways. Sheik is overlooking Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland, etc that all have a largely socialist economic model combined with a democratic governmental model.
No, the Nordic countries are not socialist. They are capitalist countries. For examples of actual socialist countries you want to look at hellholes like Zimbabwe or Venezuela.
Well.. A-Sig owns any of St. Charlie’s mad tech which was still there (though as recently shown they might well have no idea how to use it) — which, as we’ve seen with Helen, might not be much, since a lot of it has a mind of its own or at least the ability to get up and walk away, or be stolen, or stashed away by paranoid mad scientists (i.e. not anyone in St Charlie, admittedly), etc etc.
There are a lot of mad technologists who are not, ah, St Charlists.
“Now A-Sig owns all the mad tech,” said Sweetheart, who feels like a wreck. But Tip wants to infiltrate, and thinks good people wilt-straight. But to Sweetheart it looks like it’s dreck.
(That was meant to be a reply to the thread about Marigold above. I suspect that my Noscript settings caused something in the comment thread to not work properly, my bad.)
Sweetheart repeatedly shitting on humans is getting really annoying. “After all they’ve been through”? Like what? What on earth have they been through that would justify her bigotry? Anasigma inflicted the reality blindness on everyone specifically because most people would not let them get away with wiping out the nonhumans if they could see them doing it.
I think today’s and yesterday’s strips have been uploaded in inverse order?
Yeah, that would make yesterday’s feel less of a non sequitur with “Tip’s right.”
I don’t think there’s enough time left to infiltrate, Tip.
I believe in Tip’s ability to infiltrate any organization to any level in the organization in practically no time flat as long as there is at least one romantically feasible encounter to be had. Beyond that, he will get caught.
Well, for those encounters that aren’t romantically feasible, Tip could break out the finger puppets…
I hear Tip say “Psychologist!” in exactly the same way that Marigold Heavenly Nostrils says, “Unicorn!”
Now I find myself imagining the two having a fabulousness-off.
Same here. They have a lot in common.
The world may not survive such an encounter.
Confused. Marigold from QC?
No, Marigold from “Phoebe and Her Unicorn”. Follow the link under “Other good comics”.
Ah. Thank ya, Eddurd.
I’d comment on the problem with that philosophy, but, at the moment, I can’t remember the philosophic or religious terms. Suffice it to say that some believe people are inherently good, while others accept people for what they are.
People are inherently selfish, greedy, foolish, violent and venal. But mostly just lazy.
Which makes masking those traits the path of least resistance. And given our enviable capacity for self-delusion we’ve come to both expect and accept the masks as reality.
Call it “Enlightened Self Interest”.
And of course cooperation within and conflict between groups are the linchpins of civilization, which makes Progress desirable.
Which, of course, is the reply to those who declare “True Socialism has never been tried.”
And the proper rejoinder is, “And never will be.”
Humans are simply incapable of making it work just for the traits you cite.
The Soviet Union did not die in flames and glory for the Proletariat. It died after uncounted millions were murdered trying to make socialism work while decaying of an internal rot of a corruption brought on by people gaming the system to death.
The only reason Capitalism proved to be superior is because the process of corruption is self limiting if confined to small disposable units.
Unless those small, disposable units aggregate into “too large to fail” units. Then the “absolute power” aphorism comes into play.
Sheik: I haven’t heard this theory about corruption being self-limiting, but I don’t think anyone’s ever managed to confine corruption to small units. There’s always someone at the top who has more than just the national interest to think about.
I believe Sheik is saying that Capitalism is predicated on competition in the marketplace rewarding service to the common good with proportional market share, which inherently limits the scope of damage from failure due to any cause. Which was tossed into a cocked hat by economies of scale enabled by mass production.
To be clear, I personally do believe that people are basically decent, kind, hardworking, altruistic souls who will gladly help their neighbor. The problem today is that society has been hijacked away from loyalty to community to loyalty to Brands thanks to ham-handed, short-sighted social engineering focused on short-term profit over long-term viability.
Sheik, oddly enough socialism is not the same as communism, and other countries (like Australia, although our current government looks at the worst excesses of the USA and says Yes Please) that have managed some degree of socialism to moderate the lethal extremes of unbridled capitalism.
Socialism is an economic model. Despotism is a governmental model. Communism is an economic model defined by the state owning all property and is thus combined with a governmental model. All of those can be combined with other models in a infinite variety of ways. Sheik is overlooking Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland, etc that all have a largely socialist economic model combined with a democratic governmental model.
No, the Nordic countries are not socialist. They are capitalist countries. For examples of actual socialist countries you want to look at hellholes like Zimbabwe or Venezuela.
Quality nose boop, Tip. You know your stuff!
Well.. A-Sig owns any of St. Charlie’s mad tech which was still there (though as recently shown they might well have no idea how to use it) — which, as we’ve seen with Helen, might not be much, since a lot of it has a mind of its own or at least the ability to get up and walk away, or be stolen, or stashed away by paranoid mad scientists (i.e. not anyone in St Charlie, admittedly), etc etc.
There are a lot of mad technologists who are not, ah, St Charlists.
“Now A-Sig owns all the mad tech,” said Sweetheart, who feels like a wreck. But Tip wants to infiltrate, and thinks good people wilt-straight. But to Sweetheart it looks like it’s dreck.
No no- Marigold from the comic that used to be called “Marigold Heavenly Nostrils” and is now called “Phoebe and Her Unicorn”. Highly recommended!
(That was meant to be a reply to the thread about Marigold above. I suspect that my Noscript settings caused something in the comment thread to not work properly, my bad.)
Yes, WordPress sites tend to develop a bad attitude if you disallow java script and/or cookies.
Sweetheart repeatedly shitting on humans is getting really annoying. “After all they’ve been through”? Like what? What on earth have they been through that would justify her bigotry? Anasigma inflicted the reality blindness on everyone specifically because most people would not let them get away with wiping out the nonhumans if they could see them doing it.