Comments by "John Roberts" (@view1st) on "Big Think" channel.

  1.  @tabinekoman  If capitalism is so great, why did Britain and France fall so quickly to German fascism?
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  2. Raquel Ortega Lopez: There is a saying, "what goes around comes around". Hopefully, by the time the Chinese/Indians get to the point of unquestioned dominance the world will have advanced to the point where their economic systems do not need to be as destructive as the West's, that a different form of (political) economy will have evolved, less predatory than the present.
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  3. And it's all by design. But say that and you're a 'conspiracy theorist'.
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  4.  @jamesmedina2062  And I'd say to most Russians and even many non-Russians too.
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  5. That's the time it takes for light to reach us, not the actual age of the light particles (photons) which, of course, are timeless/ageless (they do not experience the passage of time, for them there is only the present).
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  6. Decline of the West? Russia seems to be doing okay.
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  7. @ForrestSCS Greed is not wanting what is needed, like water or food, but wanting more than what is needed. To wit, wanting as much as can be got. With greed enough is never enough, it wants its slice of the pie and everyone else's too. So a system built solely on greed - capitalism/corporatism - will try to arrogate everything to itself to the point where there is nothing left for anyone else. It is insatiable and voraciously devours everything in its path without caring about the consequences. An example of this is the underlying premise of capitalism/corporatism that you can have infinite economic growth using finite resources. By analogy, it's like a banker printing an infinite amount of money even though you only have a finite amount of things to buy with it, the result being hyperinflation.
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  8. Qualified free will.
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  9. Nah, once the USA has gotten the EU under its thumb energy wise and has turned it into a collection of second world satraps the way the USA itself is being second-worldized it will continue its trade with China using the EU to pay for those goods by a central bank digital currency tied to the US dollar.
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  10. Relatively (i.e. time does not exist).
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  11. Aren't the two opposites? It's like communist-fascist except where capitalism is a watered down version of fascism and socialism is a watered down version of communism. I'm not saying that a hybrid of the two isn't possible (indeed is likely, syncretism is universal in the world of ideas, thinkers are always borrowing from each other) but I think an entirely different approach or system needs to come into being. Apropos was there ever such a thing as capitalist-feudalism in the early modern period, say the 16th-17th centuries? Some say feudalism (neo-feudalism) is an idea that's becoming very fashionable with the elites these days.
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  12. And what are traditional Christian values? Persecution of heretics, blasphemers and non‐Christians, systemic misogyny, suppression of women's rights, support of patriarchy, holy wars and inquisitions, support of racism, classism, casteism, royalty, aristocracy, the status quo and justification of slavery, imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, fascism, as well as opposition to innovation, learning and science.... That's what I think of when I hear people speak of traditional Christian values.
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  13.  @evolutionx777  UBI is just another way the capitalist/corporatist class bribe the other classes into supporting the system. It works in the same way as the minimum wage, paid holidays, welfare, etc. in pacifying the working poor and unemployed and coopting any organisations that represent them like unions into supporting the status quo.
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  14. From there point of view, not ours. It's all relative,you see.
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  15. As I understand it, it is space that is expanding and not what's contained within it. It is perfectly possible for two objects to move toward each other given that they are moving independently of the expansion of space.
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  16. Is that just of the Catholic and Protestant kind or does it also include Orthodoxy of eastern Europe, Russia and Byzantium?
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  17. It is space itself that is expanding. The objects within that space are free to move around and not fixed.
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  18. Justin Mcdaniel, that, in my opinion, is unproven. The evidence for humans being directly behind these extinction events is at best tenuous. Competition for resources with Homo Sapiens may have been a contributory factor in pushing these other hominid groups into more marginal territory over time but, with the possible exception of Homo Neaderthalensis, it is more likely that changes in climate and ecology causing a scarcity of food and an increase in susceptibility to disease and inbreeding were probably more at fault.
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