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Except that I built my first PC in the 90s without Windows. In fact, you had a choice, for a while, from Windows or OS2, which was IBM's Graphical operating system. And of course you could simply install Microsoft's DOS or PCDOS or... one of many DOSes available at the time.

I built mine from scratch, which at the time meant buying a serial card, sound card, video card, hard drive/floppy controller card, CPU, CPU Cache if desired, optionally an FPU and of course the RAM and whatever drives you wanted. The motherboards didn't have nearly as much built in, just a lot of slots and the BIOS. All the cards were available for purchase separately, and a larger variety than is available now.

And of course in the '80s, you had a large number of REALLY different computers available. TRS80s, Timex Sinclair, C64, C128, Amiga in 1985, VIC20, Texas Instruments had one, the TI99... the list is quite lengthy.

There has always been a choice, you didn't have a choice of OS in those early computers, but you could choose the computer. The PCs in the 90s had a huge variety of options available thanks to the clones, of which there were many.

I don't know where you get your information from, but you need to research it better, I grew up with computers and was using them from around 1980 when I started on a TRS-80 model 1 and 2 and later on a PC-Jr etc... so I know the start of computers quite intimately. I was heavily involved in it.

Windows didn't actually catch on very rapidly, people were slow to switch from DOS. But the Internet really helped it grow. Actually, Windows 3.1 wasn't a stand alone operating system, but you installed it in your DOS which was already installed. Your computer booted up in DOS, then if you wanted Windows, you booted it separately. I eventually installed it for the Internet, but still mainly stuck with DOS 6.2.

As for Socialism, back after WW2 ended there were many that were communist and preferred that system (socialist). But there were stories about many die hard "pinkos" as they were called who after seeing what REAL socialism/communism was like after visiting Russia following WW2 immediately changed their mind about it.

I don't see how you can see socialism as "moral" when you steal from the rich and give to the poor. Socialism is a Robinhood syndrome, with some sort of screwed up idea that it is okay to steal money from those who work for it in order to give it to those who have not with some sort of idea that it is fair.

If you like it so much, how about we start with YOU! YOU give a large percentage of YOUR paycheck to the poor! You see, people who like socialism want other people's money, but they don't want it taken away from THEM. You think it is okay, so long as it is someone else's money that is being stolen and given to you, but I bet your mind would be changed if a government official came along and emptied half your bank account to give to the poor.

Something to think about. I am not against properly run welfare programs, I am totally against socialism which thinks it's fair to steal from the rich and somehow equalize pay, when the work done is not equal. What I am for is helping the poor and provide minimum food and shelter to help them get on their feet until they can get work. And I will defend that program and actually get quite angry at anyone who suggests that not helping them at all so they can line their pockets more is okay.

I thought you were done with this discussion, Aaron.

Regardless of the correct word, I like my stuff. I like owning stuff, I like making money, and I like private ownership. This share stuff with everyone and everyone's contributions can be beneficial mentality is a laughable fantasy and nothing more. What do you do when you run out of other people's money?

If the world lacked equivalent exchange, if I didn't have to work, and if everything I needed/wanted was already provided for me, I wouldn't contribute to society. I'd sit at home playing video games, consuming junk food, and generally just lazing around. Would I have some side projects? Sure. But without any real incentive (money or competition) to finish anything, I probably wouldn't produce anything of real benefit to society. I'd suck it dry. And when I inevitably get bored? I'd likely wreck havoc by damaging property just to entertain myself. And so would ~80% of people, I imagine. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, after all.

And that's a funny GIF, bambams.

There is still private property under socialism and communism.

Your car and your toothbrush and everything in between would be yours.

However, a company's resources would be owned by all the workers.

edit: Also under socialism you'd still have to work if you're able (e.g., not disabled, not a child, not a student, not a dependent...). In a post scarcity communist society, you wouldn't have to, but right now we don't live in a post-scarcity world ...

La bourgeoisie tombera, le prolétariat s'élèvera

Vive la revolucion!

Go form a Co-op hippie. Or buy some stocks. Then the worker will own the means of production.

The whole idea of communism is mass ownership of production, right? So in capitalism, if I own a factory (which obviously produces things), that's mine. That's my private property. Only I have a say in how it's used and who is allowed in. In communism, everyone would "own" the factory. It wouldn't be mine at that point, thus private property ownership in this instance wouldn't exist under communism.

I agree with Edgar Ravioli. You can have communism today if you and other communists band together and form your own co-op. What's stopping you?

So you're not even saying it's something you would do? You just assume that socialism would do that to you because your biased education about false examples of "socialism" in the past have resulted in dictatorship regimes that mistreated the people? You sound infinitely naive.

Corruption exists in our "capitalist" society right now, and it's blatant, and it's widespread (within government, corporations, journalists, the medical community, and to some extent also probably unreliable parts of the scientific community; and I'm probably leaving important groups out by mistake), and apparently nobody cares (or perhaps by design, nobody has time to!). I don't know why you are so keen to point out the corruption of Eastern Europe's past communism failures as if corruption doesn't exist in the very systems we inhabit now.

The point we're trying to make (I think) is that no pure socialist system has ever been achieved. There are no examples of it failing or succeeding because it has never been done properly before. The examples that you were taught to be socialism or communism were corrupted and therefore not accurate measures of its success. And also, considering the most prominent examples were virtually enemies of our nations at the time I cannot imagine our history books to even do a reasonable job describing them to us, let alone being unbiased. You can be like any old redneck chanting, "fuck communism scum", or you can actually try to look into why seemingly intelligent people seem to think socialism shows promise.

Now I'm not sure that capitalism has been achieved purely either so arguably we could just fight for a "true" capitalist society instead. And I'm not opposed to that entirely. Except that I know that some aspects of "socialism" are quite nice. My health care system in Canada is pretty poor, but it's also free with exceptions, and prices are regulated unlike in the USA, so I don't end up with a second (or even first!) mortgage when I end up getting injured or sick by mistake. I think that a pure capitalist system where we don't give special treatment to the rich and powerful corporations might actually be worth a shot too. But I also think that expecting to regulate a competitive-by-design system where wealth is freely exchanged is entirely fool hardy. As soon as anybody gains the upper hand in wealth they're going to exploit its power to overtake the system. And that's exactly what we see happening. Big corporations (and extremely rich individuals) are in complete control of government, even when the experts in the field and the majority of the [vocal] population are against their actions.

How do workers owning the means of production have anything to do with spending other peoples money?

What are you even arguing? I don't think we're talking about the same thing.

Oh but it's okay for a company to pay you 1/10th of what your labor is worth and profit off the other 9/10th because...?

The options are I either work or either starve so it's not like there's much choice for me in that oh-so-fair agreement I made. That's why unions are/were a thing, but you probably hate those too huh

And I'm the brainwashed one

For the record, I think unions are good. They help put workers in a better negotiating advantage, and make it harder for employers to cheat them.

I am against unions. Respecting workers rights and safety is one thing, demanding more pay or they shut down a company that isn't theirs I am dead against. Don't like the pay? QUIT.

It's completely irrational to expect I should be able to run MY COMPANY the way I WANT IT?! Since when? You're braindead!!!

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In other news... ARTICLES OF IMPEACHEMENT HAVE BEEN FILED!!! :O

It's about time they done something about this man!