The overarching goal of communism is for laborers to own the means of production instead of an owning/capitalist class. Employee owned businesses are the realization of communism within a capitalist society.

It seems to me that most communist organizations in capitalist societies focus on reform through government policies. I have not heard of organizations focusing on making this change by leveraging the capitalist framework. Working to create many employee owned businesses would be a tangible way to achieve this on a small but growing scale. If successful employee owned businesses are formed and accumulate capital they should be able to perpetuate employee ownership through direct acquisition or providing venture capital with employee ownership requirements.

So my main questions are:

1. Are organizations focusing on this and I just don't know about it?
2. If not, what obstacles are there that would hinder this approach to increasing the share labor collective ownership?

How did we get so casual about conspiracy theories?

I was talking with someone today about nutrition. This person has a PhD in material science. They mentioned eating beef daily and I asked about the cholesterol implications. The answer was about a vague 'they' wanted us to think that, but it wasn't true anymore.

I hear the vague 'they' so frequently now it's just a normal conversation. In truth, as soon as I hear the vague they I dismiss the speaker's credibility on the subject, but how did we get here? Vague they wanted us to think X is a valid counter argument by the most highly educated people in our society?

This sounds like more of a rant than a question, but I do truly want to know how this happened? Was it pop culture like the X Files that made conspiracy theories main stream? Was it social media? When will the vague they stop being an accepted explanation? Has it always been this way and I didn't notice?

Thanks, love you!

Energy in physics feels analogous to money in economics. Is a manmade medium of exchange used for convenience. It is the exchange medium between measureable physical states/things.

Is energy is real in the same way money is? An incredibly useful accounting trick that is used so frequently it feels fundamental, but really it's just a mathmatical convenience?

Small aside: From this perspective 'conservatipn of energy' is a redundant statement. Of course energy must be conserved or else the equations are wrong. The definition of energy is it's conservation.

Music is just layered simple patterns and our brains LOVE IT.

Sound is pressure waves, musical notes are a specific pattern of pressure waves. Melodies are repeated musical notes. Songs are repeated melodies following standard structure.

Our brains love trying to decode and parse all these overlapping patterns.

Maybe not really a shower thought and more wild speculation.

This is a hard ask. I'm honestly not sure it's possible.

I just decided to start asking this instead of 'what do you do?' when meeting people. Figured I'd try it out on you folks.

What preparations do you take when moving outdoor plants indoors for the winter? I'm mostly worried about bringing bugs inside. What techniques do you use to ensure you don't get infested over the winter?

The way I see it, the major barrier to countries implementing carbon taxes is the fear their economic competitors won't do the same, therefore hindering their economic growth needlessly. A valid concern.

Why don't some nations build an 'opt in' style Free Trade Agreement that allows any country to join as long as they prove they have implemented and enforced a carbon tax. Those countries then have high financial incentives to only trade within the 'carbon tax block' and any country outside is at a serious trade disadvantage.

I've (quickly) looked and have not found anything like this proposed (which is frankly crazy).

Would you support your country jumping into this FTA?

What are the unforeseen downsides or objections to a plan like this?