India’s successful Moon Landing

[Phil Pascoe]

I find it intriguing that India has landed on the moon with a budget of £75 million, and NASA latest mobile launch tower has a budget of $1 billion and it’s latest space suit a mere $3.5 billion whilst Artemis (moon rocket) is way over budget and looking like costing €13.5 billion. Somebody, somewhere has a lot of difficult questions to answer in NASA me thinks!

Shades of the USA spending $millions developing a pen that would write in zero gravity and the Russians using a pencil?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

https://www.politicalcompass.org/
If you've not taken this test before, it's quite interesting. You might get a surprising result - I've done it several times over the years and come out slightly libertarian and slightly left wing - two squares left, two down.

 

[Jacob]

@Jacob, Come on, you must have a list of countries where socialism has improved its citizens life? Surely there must be numerous examples given all the virtues of socialism. Like many others I will be an instant convert to socialism upon seeing evidence that it does create a better, equal opportunity harmonious world.

Modern states are substantially socialist already, like Britain, although we are lagging behind most of Europe.
NHS, state education, welfare provision, etc etc.

 

[whereistheceilidh]

@Jacob, Come on, you must have a list of countries where socialism has improved its citizens life? Surely there must be numerous examples given all the virtues of socialism. Like many others I will be an instant convert to socialism upon seeing evidence that it does create a better, equal opportunity harmonious world.

Well there's the UK....not unadulterated socialism but it did bring NHS, improved education...
Cuba initially did well too....but that's another argument & well away from Indian moon landings....

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Modern states are substantially socialist already, like Britain,

Indeed. I wonder why any socialist wants a change of government.

 

[niall Y]

https://www.politicalcompass.org/
If you've not taken this test before, it's quite interesting. You might get a surprising result - I've done it several times over the years and come out slightly libertarian and slightly left wing - two squares left, two down.

Snap!

 

[Jacob]

Indeed. I wonder why any socialist wants a change of government.

Currently because all public services are being systematically and deliberately run down

 

[RogerS]

https://www.politicalcompass.org/
If you've not taken this test before, it's quite interesting. You might get a surprising result - I've done it several times over the years and come out slightly libertarian and slightly left wing - two squares left, two down.

I'm a past master at sitting on the fence ! Or just a very balanced person ?

 

[Jameshow]

Modern states are substantially socialist already, like Britain, although we are lagging behind most of Europe.
NHS, state education, welfare provision, etc etc.

Really?
NHS rather an insurance healthcare
Very generous benefits...
Majority stare education.

 

[deema]

Interesting test, this is me! Just a smidge right of centre where I thought I was.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I think it was only my loathing of religion and the monarchy that skewed mine to the left.

 

[deema]

The answer, which is overwhelming in its silence is that there are no successful socialist states that anyone can point to. Why anyone would continue to push the ideas behind it are therefore a mystery. To me it strikes me like the belief in a better afterlife (typical of certain religions) if you live a certain way, or do certain things. Nobody has ever met anyone who is reborn, and yet their belief is strong enough to overcome all logic and rationality.

I would say the UK is a smidge right of centre. I definitely would not say that the UK is a socialist state, or anything approaching it. We don’t have any signs of ‘for the people by the people owned by the people’, to summarise in a few words the philosophy. Without exception every single state that has tried the route to socialism has found that it’s population has hated every single step and regretted deeply once it has got ‘there’ almost without exception by draconian methods killing millions in the process and endeavoured to work its way back towards capitalism. The major cities I can think today that are for instance in the news that have Mayors or councils that have or are trying to take bold socialist steps have and are creating cities that nobody wants to live in and company’s are pulling out of.

 

[John Brown]

"It is questionable whether the hedge fund manager or banker (for instance) is the parasite, or those who benefit from the wealth created by their good judgement which they disperse through investment, job creation and day to day spending."
Did you mean to post this in the joke thread?

 

[Jacob]

The answer, which is overwhelming in its silence is that there are no successful socialist states that anyone can point to.

But there is certainly no successful free market neo-liberal state you can point to, nor ever has been in the whole of history.

 

[Jacob]

...

I would say the UK is a smidge right of centre. I definitely would not say that the UK is a socialist state, or anything approaching it. We don’t have any signs of ‘for the people by the people owned by the people’,

Utter nonsense. About 46% of the UK economy is in the public sector and the state substantially controls and regulates the rest. The NHS is the biggest employer in Europe and the world's largest employer of highly skilled professionals...... and so on. The state is the biggest investor in UK industry.

to summarise in a few words the philosophy.

Your interpretation I'm afraid, just a slogan and a very long way from the real issues.
The revolution has been a long time in the making, starting with Magna Carta perhaps, culminating in 1945. You obviously missed it!
Attempts to reverse it since 1979 (Thatcher) have been an abject failure, culminating in the ludicrous farce of Brexit, which will be reversed in time, we all hope.
Did you know that the companies currently seriously polluting UK waters are 70% foreign owned, thanks to crack pot neoliberal economic theories? Revealed: more than 70% of English water industry is in foreign ownership.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

... I would say the UK is a smidge right of centre ...

a nanosmidge.

 

[deema]

Utter nonsense. About 46% of the UK economy is in the public sector and the state substantially controls and regulates the rest. The NHS is the biggest employer in Europe and the world's largest employer of highly skilled professionals...... and so on

You’re absolutely right, and every bit of it is inefficient, doesn’t work properly and ineffective. All classic symptoms of where the socialist belief of large government comes unstuck. Private health versus pubic health, private education versus local schools, which works better? We now have massively more civil servants that when good old Winston took us through the Great War…….using typewriters not computers….and is less effective. It’s now absolutely bureaucratic, archaic and inefficient. In fact the part of the UK that has ‘socialist‘ tendencies is the very bit all of us complain about the most. The Socialist will argue we need to spend more to compensate for the inefficiencies, and in essence use more GDP to prop up a system that simply is unfit for purpose. The argument leads inevitably to bring down the whole economy to the lowest level of inefficiencies and ineffectiveness, the fruit that every socialist state finds itself in.

 

[Thingybob]

Roll on

India’s successful Moon Landing 2​

Where we discuss the moon landing.

You've got no chance

 

[deema]

Does anyone know why going to that bit of the moon is so interesting? I understand the technical challenge, but not the reason for wanting to explore that bit.

 

[Jacob]

You’re absolutely right, and every bit of it is inefficient, doesn’t work properly and ineffective. All classic symptoms of where the socialist belief of large government comes unstuck. Private health versus pubic health, private education versus local schools, which works better?

The public services work far better as we all know and many have experienced. In fact there were no health or education services at all, for the majority of the population, until the state introduced them.
Did you know that between 1945 and 1950 the introduction of the NHS saw child mortality drop by 32%? That's in just 5 years.