Myth.

And that's just how I am.

I've read plenty on that bullshit. I supported capitalism once upon a time, until I woke up. Seriously, reading articles like that is not the way to get a true understanding of this kind of shit. You have to have a wholistic understanding to conclude what economy is best (or at least be aware of the wholistic understanding). Capitalism was not designed by intellectual people with a plan in mind. Their was nobody planning out capitalism with the health of the planet in mind, or society, or animals, or education. NO ONE blueprinted this shit. No one took a mind full of wholistic understandings and planned this shit out. Capitalism was born out of power, greed and desperation to stay alive. It is a brute economy, as brutal as it gets. No different than the desperation in the wild and just as chaotic. People try to sit around and write articles pretending that the system is sophisticated. All it is is people sitting around trying to make excuses for the useful beast that no one gave birth to. They sit around and try to justify its faults, only because the system currently benefits them in particular ways, so they issue word in its favor. But its all being done after it has been unleashed. They try to give it definitions and terms to make it seem well defined and well rounded. They're simply making shit up after the fact. It is no strategized philosophy of any intellectual premeditation. That is why it is so fucked up. It might as well be a creation of nature, not of man, because it's as brutish as nature. Survival of the most fortunate is all it is.

Provide evidence for your rebuttal. My mother is from a 3rd world country and my father was raised by the streets. But through hard work they were able to provide me with a comfortable home in the suburbs.

You obviously don't understand the golden rule "Treat others how you wish to be treated."

I can and have provided evidence showing that capitalism can benefit the environment, provide better education to the people, get people out of poverty. Yet instead of actually considering the evidence you completely ignore it and assume that it's evil bullshit.

According to you we only live for our selves.

And Erik has refuted every argument you've made. What do you think, Menace, Erik, and I are just fools that haven't thought hard and long, read thorough and deep on this shit (especially Menace on these issues)? You think we just don't get it?

Exactly, I like to be treated with respect so I treat others with respect.

Stuff like countries with the lowest poverty rates are actually capitalist countries, and countries with lots of government intervention have high poverty rates.

I hope you're not an objectivist, because if you are you just contradicted yourself.

You have to understand that that shit doesn't really appeal to me. I see money as unnecessary in the first place, so when you begin talking about poverty rates and shit, it means nothing because a monetary system is the problem here, not just capitalism. Like I said, I go for capitalism the most because it's the most associated with money.

But to address your point, the capitalism in other countries has a ripple effect on the countries with less capitalism. Capitalism creates the poverty in those nations by the wealth it builds in other nations.

No you don't understand what I'm trying to say. I treat you with a certain amount of respect because I want to be treated with the same amount of respect. If I show you respect then I'm pretty much letting you know the respect I want out of you.

I hope you're not an objectivist, because if you are you just contradicted yourself.

But you are assuming that everyone lives by the golden rule. That is not a tenet of objectivism.

First, I never claimed to be an objectivist (I don't read about philosophy that much), I just said there was truth to the philosophy. Second, I don't care about the people who don't live by the golden rule, I usually don't associate myself with people like that. I associate myself with people who treat me with respect.

How is respect earned and at what level does it begin?

Just curious, what if I don't care if I'm shown respect?

It's good to maintain respect on a business or humanistic level, but respect when it comes to discussions of ethical issues is in limbo. Though there is a limit to that too.

If you wish to be taken seriously by the majority of people it's best to show respect.

Indeed, but it is not absolute across the board.

Besides we got on this by you saying that "I know sometimes I act like a prick but that just the way I am." And I said, well that's just the way I am. Then you bring up the golden rule as if it applies, and as if you didn't completely contradict yourself.