The Middle Ages is the most 'moral' (as in the stressing of morality) time in the last 2000 years. In the Middle ages if you didn't live up to the expected moral rules you'd be tortured. The body was considered vile in the Middle Ages, and torture was seen as a good thing, treating the 'sinful' and 'immoral' body as it deserved. The closest thing to that is Communism (e.g. if you cheated on your wife, you'd be thrown out of the Communist party, lose your job and go to jail). They were pretty big on morality.

And Catholics make up the majority of Christians, both back then and now. The ideea is that Christianity having political power = disaster, which is my point.

You can use terms like 'Atheism China' all you want, but what you should be saying is 'Communist China', as Communism is the ideology which says religion should be eliminated, not Atheism (which holds no ideology). All these examples do is stress the importance of secularism. BTW, Communism and Christianity are quite similar in their principles.

And no laws hold christianity or the Bible as their basis (if they did, they'd eventually lose their legitimity, as they'd have no rational basis).

Additionally, create a good board game that works on a computer as an Iphone app or a Steam game and you totally can make a living off it.

See Greed Corp.  Which not only is a good example, is a hilarious name considering the thread.

It's essentially Probable happieness vs almost uniform but equal unhappiness.  Though in general that's basically the route of all Capitalism vs Commuism type things.

Outside a anarcho-capitalist system the more you tilt towards the Communist (or should i say socialist) side of the scale, the more you hurt future generations and the later life of current generations to improve the lot of people in the present.

Yeah. I always think of it as getting an equal slice of pie as everyone else vs. a piece which is larger in real terms but other people will have an even larger slice than you. I know which one I'd prefer, but it's quite distressing how many people have so much ressentiment towards anyone who does better than themselves that they would destroy their own standard of living to rectify that perceived evil.

I am interested in seeing what the Zeitgeist movement can come up with on this front.  They presume they can have some sort of computer which can manage everything.  Their computer system can't account for innovation.  No computer program can.

Anyhow, the freedom to choose is limited, particularly if you have little or no resources.  At that point you take what life would give you.  

The vast majority of people have the opportunity to make choices that can increase their resources (or increase their earning potential) although the trade-off may be unacceptable to them ...

While it is open to interpretation whether it is "fair" or not, outcomes in a capatilist economy are mostly determined by a series of well known rational factors that people have significant control over based on the decisions they make. What this means is that people generally have an idea of what they can do that would result in a higher standard of living, although most of these choices comes with an immediate lower standard of living and have risks associated with them. The sacrifices that have to be made, and the uncertainty of the outcome, are what prevent people from making the choices to improve their standard of living; it is not the lack of resources or options.

I blame it on "My idea/team is the best on everything" syndrome.

You see it all the time in politcally based studies, for example if you believe every thing said about the democrats they make more money on average, have the support of most of the poor, all the rich 1% are republicans and are smarter on average.

Half that can't be true if the other half is true.

Somewhere along the lines honest discourse disapeared to the point of where i think most people actually believe it.   Both sides think their economic plans are the best for growing the economy for everyone and shrinking income distrubtion.  

When really it's one or the other... and 70% of what either party wants to do doesn't do either, but only pretends to in the short term.

Anything with a time period attached to it of less then 5 years is more or less worthless.

Specifically pertaining to Marxists/communists, though I suppose this applies to extreme partisans as well, there's a real True Believer aspect. For example, every time the manifold failures of communist nations are brought up, the standard line is that, yeah, well, the USSR, China, Cuba, etc. aren't/weren't really communist. The fact that every single communist country turns out to be the exact same sort of authoritarian shithole doesn't seem to cause them a single second of honest introspection to ponder that, hey, maybe communism could never, ever turn out any other way.

I can see that.  I remember the one forum member on here... Sci-Fi Boy, who was essentially championing the government and society of Star Trek.  When pressed on how it would work he talked about vague future technologies and didn't see the stupidity of passing legislation today that requires future technology that will take god knows how long to create to be workable.

I mean, anyone can invent something that works by using future available resources.  Like Leonardo Divinchi's flying machine.

Ok, look over the ways that are laid out as the norm for trying to get ahead in society, these choices you describe, and feel free to list any others:

* Go to college, get a degree, advance that way.  Well, considering the size of student loan debt incurred to borrow, combined with uncertainty of getting a job, means that isn't a golden path.  Well, what got bantied about on here is, "Stupid students picked majors in areas that don't have jobs!".  Well what DO provide suficient jobs for college graduates today?  Back in the day, I went and got a Masters in Information Systems, off my B.S degree in Management, with the idea that the computer science degree would be worth something.  Well, things changed, and that went out.  I face circumstances even going to a private college in upstate New York for my B.S degree (after researching schools) to a school not near anything.  I tried to make smart decisions.  Heck, I almost even landed an interview back in the day, due to my posting about Madden football on a basketball forum, but I was in NY state at the time.  Yes, I tried to make the best decisions possible, did eventually land a job with IBM, then the plug got pulled.  

* Start your own business.  Ok, this can work, but you need to be into a market early somewhere, and do something that can get you ahead in a meaningful way.  As has been writing, a lot of businesses don't stick it out long term, and good luck getting money to start.  There is a lot of get lucky on the breaks here and keep getting them.  I know this from personal experience as I keep trying to plug away here.  And it is a matter of getting the right idea, being able to sell it, and so on.  

* Save money, live below your means.  Now this is one thing that is justified in trying to ding people for.  This is not done.  BUT, this is only part of the equation.  It isn't the HOW to get ahead, but merely one of the traits one needs to have.

* Get into a career in sales.  This can work, but most sales, if straight up commission, require months of savings set aside to survive starving until you get going.  Without this, it doesn't work.  I speak of real estate agent and insurance sales.  In these you actually are self-employed.

* Invest in Wall Street.  One can try to navigate this towards retirement.  But beyond that, the amount of money needed to make a difference takes years to acquire and isn't open to an average joe.

* Invest in Real Estate.  In this economy, nope.  One would need to be gifted as an entrepreneur and use know how to get anything going properly, outworking others.  Apparently those who hustle real estate generally don't know how to do this.  Maybe being a real estate broker can make a difference, but not the investing, flipping and so on.

The reality of today is this: We are in a time of transition, where what will pan out and be the next big thing, is not known.  Society is going through reevaluating thinsg making it hard to predict. Thus, the risks are higher.  Risks being higher means that the impact of factors out of control, and not even known yet, increase greatly.

With the unemployment rate of 4.2% people with college degrees are doing substantially better than those without college degrees, and (from the few recent statistics I have seen and from personal experience) people with degrees in Computer Science, Information Systems and Engineering are doing substantially better than average for college graduates. Why this didn't work out for you is a mystery, and likely is related to something very specific to you, but not knowing enough I can’t say what it is for you.

With that said this doesn’t refute my point. Right now I’m fairly certain there are decisions you’re aware of which have the potential to increase your income level that you could make. It could be picking up an additional (probably low paying part-time) job, moving to a region where there is higher demand for your field, gaining skills that are in demand in your area (I’m told plumbers are doing pretty well in most places), starting your own business, or countless other activities. There are no guarantees, but those people who continually make these hard choices tend to find themselves eventually in a comfortable position while those people who refuse to make these choices tend to find themselves in an unsatisfactory position for extended periods of time.

It isn't luck, it is persistence ... Many of the most successful businessmen throughout history became successful after they had a string of massive failures that often resulted in bankruptcy. This is not accidental, and the truth that is as valid in business as it is in life is that success comes from learning not to fear failure and to see each failure as a learning opportunity.

Saving money is not a means to become wealthy, but building large consumer debts is certainly a way to become poor

People rarely become wealthy investing their own money ... Often the best approach is to use leverage to increase your buying potential

Realestate's only real advantage (as far as an investment goes) is that it is one of the few markets where an average investor can be leveraged 20 to 1 (or more) ... Besides that, I would stay away from realestate primarily because it is a market that is driven by sentiment.