I just don't understand how it is society allows invasions of privacy such as telemarketing.  It must be a matter of commercial interests being put above the interests of the public.  I have a similar view of billboards -- no matter where they are they are an unavoidable and ugly intrusion, and sometimes they are outrageous in spoiling the view.  If we had choice in whether to see them or not it would be acceptable (such as a mute on the TV) but when they impose themselves they should not be allowed.

I just finished a book on the beginnings of WWI where the Austrians accused the Serbian government of being directly behind and plotting the assassination of Ferdinand and the Serbians accuse the Austrians of doing it themselves in order to have an excuse to invade Serbia.  Neither assertion was remotely likely, if even sane.

Then the French and Russians accuse the Austrians of plotting to conquer and absorb Serbia, using the assassination as an excuse to invade Serbia whereas the Austrians feel they have to do something and have every right to take actions to protect their southern border, but they just want to send a strong message to Serbia and have no intention of trying to occupy the country, but can't let them off scott free since Serbian behavior shows them delighted at the brutal murder.  They don't know what to do but then the Russians mobilize and Austria decides Russia is using Austria's actions as an excuse to invade and occupy Austria.

I could go on and on about how the British, French, Germans, Italians and of course the ever-suspicious Turks all decide they have to get in the first blow because obviously all their enemies are determined to have a war, so best have the war now rather than latter, even when historical study shows none of the wanted it and a few, including Kaiser Wilhelm, were terrified in private.

Conspiracy theories, in short, are mentally lazy and harmful and almost always, if not always, wrong.

It sometimes hits me that so many prefer ancient superstitions and religions to modern science, considering the track records of the two.

Capitalism might work reasonably well if everyone had the same income, since in such a world output would be distributed based on willingness to pay -- and those wanting and needing the most would have a priority.  As it is though the wealthy get most of everything and the poor often do completely without.

Therefore capitalist societies need income leveling mechanisms -- charities, graduated taxation, income redistribution schemes, and so on.  The problem is in democratic societies the vote is too often bought in various ways so that the wealthy over time dominate more and more.

In the "old days" (nineteenth century) Marxist thinkers thought this process must inevitably lead to a collapse and revolution.  I think what has saved capitalism has been that it can suffer mini-collapses with a partial reorganization, mitigated by technological progress, to stave off any day of reckoning.

I'm not unhappy, and in fact am quite happy, with the "Communist" (actually socialist -- Communism is seen as a remote goal -- perhaps in the indefinite future not unlike Christ's Second Coming) system in Vietnam.  At first things went badly because the authorities took their Mao too seriously, but when instead they tried a more Leninist, less Stalinist and certainly freer approach, readily allowing if not encouraging foreign investment and private small enterprises, the economy and everyone's standard of living have done wonderfully.  That does not mean socialism as the underlying foundation of the economy has been abandoned.

I think Vietnam thereby avoids a lot of the problems of capitalism and yet gains the incentives and competitive pressure (even the state enterprises almost always are set up either to compete with each other as well as with private and semi-private ventures).  The system isn't perfect (in particular the corruption that state enterprise seems to sometimes encourage) but these are specific offenses that jails are built for, and the legal and monopolistic practices of free enterprises can be dealt with quickly on a case by case basis without all the lawyers -- private enterprise is by sufferance rather than a legal right.

The key in my opinion is flexibility and avoidance of rigid ideological notions -- whatever works on a case by case basis, but not allowed to happen as it happens (unrestricted market forces) but through constant study by planners and academics.