We can’t know how medicine would be practiced under socialism, but we do know that our bodies would be the same. Cancer wouldn’t be any different. Maybe there would be less cases of lung cancer, and maybe treatments would be less expensive or would be found earlier. Maybe we’d find the cure for all types of cancer simultaneously. But the limitations imposed by the nature of disease itself wouldn’t change.
Capitalism always favors non-curative treatments over curative ones, and makes newer curative treatments extremely expensive (e.g. CAR-T cell therapies or genetic treatments).
But, as other users rightly point out, there are millions of ways our bodies can misbehave. Even something like “cancer” is just an array of several hundred diseases, wherein even each of them is not homogeneous across all cases. Cancer survival slowly goes up over the years as specific variants of it are tackled, but that wouldn’t be different under socialism, at most just faster (Cuba has made some great contributions to cancer research) or more accessible.
Dancing in occupied territory.
Rare FT “China good” moment /s
Or so it would be if people wouldn’t personally relate to billionaires for some reason.
deleted by creator
Late-Permian extinction. Not very imaginative, but I find it cool that there are so many hypotheses even about the largest mass extinction ever.
Marxkell
Western companies outsource much of their production to countries with cheaper labor, so the really important things here are cheap raw materials and state subsidies. Since the Chinese state owns many of the large companies there, they can reduce profits throughout the supply chain or move them to other companies in the form of these subsidies. As well as use that money to build transport and green energy infrastructure, further lowering manufacturing costs.
Investors always seek short-term profit, so playing the long game is something you need aggressive policies for.
You’re right. At the end of the day, there are many factors pushing people to act, not just greed and rationality. Thank you for your reasoning and the interesting thought experiment.
I’d say it’s too soon to see if China will take an imperialist approach. The US and Europe seem to be decoupling from them, so they are in desperate need of well-developed markets that will buy their products. It’s in their own best interest that African nations develop quickly (which also hurts the US and Europe, making it harder to get cheap raw materials, thus doubly good for China).
It would be a win definitely, but unfortunately resolutions made by the General Assembly are not binding.
It is indeed true that if you instantly ended capitalism, there would be no way to bribe cops or other groups against the working class. But if you simply give all workers class consciousness, you are not instantly ending capitalism. Workers would not be able to refuse to work because they have no capital and cops would prevent them from breaking the cycle, then capitalists would keep those cops working for them.
I actually made a post in !mathematics@lemmygrad.ml looking at this specific hypothetical scenario from a mathematical perspective. The comments are especially interesting.
I used to be afraid of looking at mirrors at night. Idk what it’s called, spectrophobia maybe? Well, anyway, one night I took acid and happened to look at a mirror while blasted off my mind. Staring at it felt so disappointingly mundane that I laughed at myself for expecting anything to go wrong. Lost my fear permanently.
When returning from kernel code, one should issue Drop Execution Ring Privileges, of course.
No, because that wouldn’t be true. The bourgeoisie could trivially pay any sufficiently small group of people so that it’s in their best interest to follow along. This is true of cops but also of lawmakers (small groups of people that exert great control), so the current system would be rigged in favor of the ruling class even under perfect cooperation of the proletariat.
That’s not to say I’m 100% sure a revolution needs to happen. Most likely, it does, but the reasoning above does not rule out specific cases (e.g., conditions where the threat of a revolution could provide sufficient leverage, or “loopholes” in a legal system that might allow an additional advantage for a cooperating majority).
Even if everyone was class conscious, people could still act in self-interest. For example, cops could keep protecting capitalists if they were paid enough.
Very interesting. I’d say China will only increase and cheapen its production even more, which will allow them to push their influence. They have been focusing on doing exactly that, by building efficient transportation networks, putting increasingly more companies’ equities in the hands of the state (and therefore sidestepping investors), and, recently, setting up abundant facilities for cheap, green energy production. All three of those policies rely for their swift and massive realization on what US policymakers nowadays seem to refer to as “non-market” dynamics, which are basically out of the question for them.
Chemical damage to our bodies mostly consists of both oxidation and Maillard-like reactions. So we’re both slowly burning and getting cooked!
It’s been my 11th week in a row working out for 1 hour or more at least 4 days a week, as well as my 10th week doing at least half an hour of French and German lessons every day. 3rd week in a row studying medical literature at least 2 hours a day Monday to Saturday.
My plan for October is to engage in party activities for an ongoing campaign, as well as try to consolidate my studying routine. In November, I will reduce workout time to 3 days per week, and not go much over an hour each day (currently I spend about 1.5 - 2 hours), so I can focus more on medical literature and improve fast on that front.
So far off drugs (except caffeine and some alcohol) for 3 months, psychologically stable (I think?). Will quit coffee starting in February, or sooner if I become unstable again before that.