Taxes are rising around the globe in developed countries. Also red tape and regulations which are a different type of "tax" with the same result: demotivating value creators.

You can't maximise happiness by definition. Happiness is fleeting, a peak, it exists only through comparison to our regular state. Evolution made sure of that, or we'd've stopped evolving. The only way to cheat it is with drugs.

I want to maximise humankind's potential instead. Gain infinite knowledge, spread through the stars. I think that is a much more worthwhile goal than happily dying out on a small planet at the edge of the galaxy.

I don't mean happiness like the temporary pleasure state. I mean the minimisation of undesired suffering and maximisation of freedom for all people to pursue their preferences.

I don't think "potential" is worth anything if it isn't used to benefit people and make their lives better. The imperium from 40k has much greater technology and planet span than us but it's deeply dystopic - I'd rather live here than there.

I also think minimising suffering and maximising freedom are worthwhile goals. I just don't think using the State power is the way to do it.

But I believe becoming multi-planetary is imperative and urgent for mankind. The dangers while all of us are on the same planet are simply too great to sit and enjoy the view.

I'm an anarchist so I'm inclined to agree with you about state power - but in terms of relative goodness, a social democracy is demonstrably better than a neoliberal state. I can say that from experience of Conservative rule in the UK - essential public services just get worse and the savings are collected in the pockets of the already-wealthy.

I do agree about becoming multiplanetary too, but if we're talking about existential risk then climate change is the most urgent one and we need state power and institutional change to avert that one.

Don't judge governing systems using a small number of countries, try to look at more. For example, with their work ethic maybe Nordics can arguably make Social Democracy work, but would it work in say Bulgaria?

The only way to solve climate change is through technological evolution. I see almost zero progress with policy changes. BTW, we wouldn't even be in this mess if would've completed the previous energy tech transition from hydrocarbons to nuclear as planned. What stopped us? Politics.

You need a taxable base to implement social democracy - so yeah you'd need a functioning economy in order to fund social services, and Bulgaria is, AFAIK, pretty corrupt. But solving corruption is a political issue.

We'd also need to move off of ICE cars, and it was the car industry that tried to suppress that. Also the fossil fuel industry that puts out propaganda against new forms of energy - capital and the state are in alliance. Some parties can be better (left wing ones) but there's a ton of propaganda against them by corporations too.

I lived under communism so please don't tell me about left-wing parties. Not that I find other-wing parties that much better, but leftists have destroyed countries.

Politicians are by definition corruptible - that is why they are there. They failed to succeed through merit in the free market so politics is their last resort. That is why power to the State and politicians means yielding to corruption.

The biggest opponents to nuclear were not corporations but parties: greens and ecologists. Ideologists and luddites. We are living the world the anti-nukes protests of the 60's built.

Yeah I don't consider Marxist-Leninists to be part of the left wing - I know they declare themselves to be, but in reality they're just petty tyrants who want to dominate others. By left wing parties I mean labour, green and democratic socialist parties.

Politicians are corruptible, but the free market actively promotes corruption - when the only motive is profit, morality goes out the window in favour of the dollar.

As I said I'd rather we had neither, but between the two only politics has the possibility of significant change in any direction that isn't inherently profitable.

> when the only motive is profit

Profit is the only motive for everyone, all the time, no matter what. The only difference is that in a free market that motivation is aligned with societal goals and it is in the open, a game with rules and laws. Free markets allow you to make a profit and keep it, legally.

Without free markets, the deals are made in power and influence, in fiefs and networks. Leftist politics are not only ipocrit (no left politician cares for "the poor") but also feudalistic and corrupt by default, from definition, because that is the only way to make a profit in such a sistem.

That's quite the negative view of humanity. People only care about profit? I care about the wellbeing of all people, and I think most people do, they just have little ability to help others because they are atomised as individuals with little power under capitalism. A society where everybody only cares about personal gain is a society of sociopaths - granted, that's the sociological influence of neoliberalism, so you can see in more neoliberal communities that people are more greedy and materialistic, but that's not an essential trait of human beings; just experience more communal cultures or groups, or check out historical social structures. The only reason many people are profit-oriented now is because they're pushed to be so under capitalism.

You remind me of the communists of 30 years ago. They also kept talking about the "new man" which altruistically worked to the max of his powers for the betterment of mankind and everyone else, while keeping for him only what the state deemed he needed.

They were also very frustrated that the regular people were… simply not like that.

Yeah no I'm not making some "new soviet man" argument. It doesn't help that in the USSR everyone was suffering deprivation, but it's well known that there's a hedonic drop off point once people have enough money to not have to worry about bills any more and have some disposable income. Most people have a degree of empathy (not self-sacrificial altruism, which genuinely is rare) and when their needs are reliably taken care of most would want to reduce the suffering of others.

If you don't care whether your friends, neighbours or kids in Africa live or die, that's a you problem. For the rest of us, we'd rather reduce the suffering of others.

Again, I lived this experiment. I have never seen people so dehumanized and so insensitive to other's suffering like when their basic needs were "taken care of" by the state. I am talking orphanages full of children with deformed bones because they never saw the light of day. Prisons where abject torture was wide-spread and routine. Gulags.

Today's Western people, in comparison, are angels.

You know why communes failed? Because everyone was stealing - from workers to guardians, even those in charge were stealing. You know why they stole? Because they were starving. You know why they were starving? Because they couldn't buy the food they needed. Why? Because there was no profit motive for others to provide that food.

People don't work the way you think they do. Until you understand that, you'll spread suffering instead of reducing it.

I already said this but I guess I have to repeat it: MLs create dictatorships and dictatorships based on wishful thinking, and lying to themselves as well. I don't support them, in fact such systems are basically equivalent to fascism. They're a step backwards into monarchy, but worse because they're ideological rather than pragmatically oriented.

That doesn't invalidate the point that capitalism has some significant flaws that we should be trying to address. As an anarchist I believe that these flaws cannot be fundamentally addressed by just changing our masters. In the short term (as in, my lifetime) all I can hope for is an increase in the prevalence of worker cooperatives and unions, nationalisation of naturally monopolistic necessities like healthcare and public transit, improved welfare systems (UBI would be good) and improved community bonds. In the long run I think the ideal human system would be without coercion, oriented around cooperation and coordinated from the bottom up - but as ideals should be, this is something to guide efforts towards to the degree practical, not to throw human bodies at in the pursuit of power and a fever dream (plus little power over others is to be begin with in anarchism, that's the point).