Soviet-Born Chess Legend Brilliantly Educates Millennials Who Approve of Communism

[Beetlegeuse]

Soviet-Born Chess Legend Brilliantly Educates Millennials Who Approve of Communism

[NCC1968]

I've spoken to many people who grew up under such circumstances and most recently is was a woman who came from Bulgaria.
She told me that Marx and Lenin would laugh that people still buy into such BS.

[Quester]

Jordan Peterson has one of the most brilliant points of view on this subject. He masterfully uses it in a lecture about personality. In the talk his aim is to show the value of existentialism-the value of individual growth.
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BTW, I have many progressive beliefs but find that I have more in common with libertarians.

[Beetlegeuse]

Wow, I almost didn't recognize Solzhenitsyn without a beard.

...BTW, I have many progressive beliefs but find that I have more in common with libertarians.

My personal belief system is extremely Libertarian, according to Penn Gillette's definition. He says Libertarians turn right on finances but left on sex, which is me to a "T."

But I can't vote Libertarian because Billy Mitchell and Robert Goddard made their non-interventionist platform suicidally stupid. There is no country on earth that cannot be annihilated from thousands of miles outside of its borders. All prominent and wealthy 21st Century nations are more liable to be attacked if they don't make efforts to affect policy in foreign nations than if they do. In this day and age, you don't have to have done anything to somebody, all you have to be to become a target to somebody ... is successful. It's not that they want what you want, they just don't want you to have what you've got. They see themselves as a surrogate of their god(s) and intend putting feet under his wishes and you do absolutely nothing to promote your survival by pretending to ignore that they wish you ill.

I don't side with the Republicans in a lot of areas but I tend to vote with them because their propensities on the whole are less detrimental to the nation than anyone else who stands a chinaman's chance of winning at the national level.


EDIT:
One part I forgot.

Without foreign interventionism, we can't support Israel. As I've mentioned before on Steroids.com, it's wrong-headed to think or Israel as a country or nation. Because what it is is a lifeboat for the Hebrew people. The last place on earth they could have retreated to. For almost two millennia they have been kicked from pillar to post and targeted with pogroms and genocide. Slaughtered in their millions. And now once again for the first time in almost 2000 years there is a Jewish-led nation in control of the homeland of King Solomon. This is their last best chance for survival. Their lifeboat. And to not do whatever is necessary to insure their survival would be a crime against humanity. And American non-interventionism would spell their ruin.

[Beetlegeuse]

Funny story.

When I was in college I had a running buddy whose father owned a chain of appliance stores. He was the world's largest distributor of a certain brand of wood stove and he was negotiating with the USSR for the sale of thousands of these wood stoves to them for the settlements in Siberia.

In part of this sales campaign he sent his son -- my running buddy -- to the most expensive liberal arts college in the state. My buddy majored in Russian studies and at the same time he took up flying. When he got his commercial pilot's license his father hired him as the company's "corporate pilot" and official Russian interpreter and translator. So he made Junior's college free to him and a tax deduction to the corporation.

Then he bought a Cessna 206 in the corporation's name, put the company's logo on the side. And depreciation on aircraft is YUGE, so that was another tax scheme. Plus there are currency requirements attached to exercising the privileges of a commercial pilot so my buddy had to go flying from time to time just to remain current. And sometimes we'd just jump in the airplane and go fly a couple hundred miles to some airport or other he knew that had a nice restaurant on the field or nearby. For instance Arnold Palmer's airport in Latrobe Pa has a very nice restaurant on the field.

And of course my buddy had to accompany Dad whenever he had to go to Russia to try to grease the skids on the deal, because why else do you pay him to be your interpreter? This went on five or six years involving (IIRC) 11 trips to the USSR.

Finally the Rooskies very abruptly shut down all negotiations. When my buddy asked them why they told him ... "En Siberia ees no trees. No need wood stove."

[Beetlegeuse]

Jordan Peterson has one of the most brilliant points of view on this subject. He masterfully uses it in a lecture about personality. In the talk his aim is to show the value of existentialism-the value of individual growth....

Classic Milton Friedman: The world runs on people pursuing their personal interest. He's not nearly so eloquent as Peterson but he's dead-on point.



Is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed?

You think Russia doesn't run on greed?

You think China doesn't run on greed?

What is greed? Of course none of us is greedy, it's only the other fellow that's greedy.

The world runs on people pursuing their self interest.

The greatest achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory on an order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases when the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it's exactly from the kinds of societies that depart from that. So the record of history is absolutely crystal-clear. That there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.





Or as I like to say, greed is the only human emotion that causes people to behave in a consistent and predictable fashion. Altruism has a very short shelf life and a very low return on investment. People only ever give their best effort when they're working in their own best interest.