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On July 12 2025 00:35 LightSpectra wrote:
My personal place of abode isn't really relevant to the fact that billionaires can easily break the law and get away with it, is it? The victims of the Epstein/Maxwell/Trump crime ring aren't going to be healed depending on whether I live in Texas or Oregon.
According to JJR abandoning everything that matters to you is the road to happiness. I don't know if he walks the walk, probably not. But that's his philosophy in a nutshell.
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Northern Ireland26341 Posts
On July 11 2025 19:27 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 03:12 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 23:18 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 22:02 Gorsameth wrote:give it a few days before they get back in line and start defending it. Happens every time. Trump's going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Half of conservatives will be outraged for a day or two (the length of their attention span), half of conservatives will trip over themselves to praise Trump for being brave enough to finally end this controversy. In case you thought I was joking, this just broke today: Trump Held Talks on Pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell: Biographer I'm starting to lose track of what exactly it is (besides a barely tenable negative peace [that requires disregarding a bunch of violence against vulnerable people domestically and around the world]), we're preserving by pretending the US is a "nation of laws" in the face of constant reminders that it isn't. It's not a uniquely American problem. Centimillionaires and billionaires regularly evade just consequences no matter what country they're in. Obscene wealth inequality is inherently immoral and a risk to security of any state, the faster people realize that the faster we'll be able to fix it. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though There's a very obvious one. There's obscene wealth inequality under every ism, current and historical. Capitalist Finland has a significantly lower Gini coefficient than socialist Cuba, Venezuela or Vietnam. Obscene wealth inequality has little to do with -ism and everything to do with culture. If a country undergoes a cultural shift that makes them pursue a switch to socialism, it's that shift that would be the cause of decreased inequality, rather than socialism. If that switch happens by geopolitical happenstance (as we've seen in Eastern Europe) rather than a cultural shift, then there is no meaningful change in inequality, people just play slightly different games with different rules to get ahead than they did before.
Correct IMO but I don’t think it’s a great argument that wealth inequality isn’t an absolute innate problem with capitalism. At least in a part A consideration, which is recognising a problem. The part B, getting a viable alternative is a good bit trickier, but one lacking a solid proposition doesn’t mean the analysis of part A is off base.
I think you make a great point overall. One that’s frequently overlooked for, some reason. They’re economic systems absolutely, but they’re inextricable from cultural values. If the culture doesn’t shift, you’ll get quite similar outcomes.
Socialism certainly suffers from not being the status quo, plus its history isn’t great. As much as some will deny the latter, I wouldn’t personally.
There’s probably some alternate timeline where idk a nation like Finland went from capitalism with a kinder face, to something approaching socialism in a gradual way, and you don’t have these cautionary tales of authoritarian attempts at socialism and things look rather different.
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On July 11 2025 22:15 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 17:11 GreenHorizons wrote:
I'm saying convincing (particularly through meticulous rational argumentation) the majority of Americans isn't how things get done in the US.
As someone I don't have to convince, I'm saying it's more important for us to organize our efforts with others on "team GH" (this is silly. You're not advocating revolutionary socialism, that's fine, just identify as social democrats, dem socialists, or whatever, but it really isn't about me or my "team")
If you don't have a compelling argument/vision that most Americans can get behind and you break down the current system, say via the revolution you advocate for, then how would you ensure that you end up with people taking up socialism rather than some other ism instead? As far as I understand it, you're just hoping that the socialist block would be the biggest block after the revolution so you can impose your will on the others; but why would that be any more successful than your current oligarchs organising something that benefits them instead?
Another reason idealist socialism doesn't happen by or after revolution is even among "labor" the interests are competing. For example, people wanting to overturn the system are not interested in what police unions want, but they are interested in what teacher's unions want even though teacher's unions don't help education, and they want to eradicate the industry of health insurance, which those workers don't want. Once you're post-scarcity the argument of urgency/necessity of revolution isn't convincing. The reasons one nation's single payer is great and another's universal healthcare is dog shit tend to be more about the nation at the time, the reasons are less ideological and far more mundane.
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On July 12 2025 01:29 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 19:27 Dan HH wrote:On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 03:12 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 23:18 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 22:02 Gorsameth wrote:give it a few days before they get back in line and start defending it. Happens every time. Trump's going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Half of conservatives will be outraged for a day or two (the length of their attention span), half of conservatives will trip over themselves to praise Trump for being brave enough to finally end this controversy. In case you thought I was joking, this just broke today: Trump Held Talks on Pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell: Biographer I'm starting to lose track of what exactly it is (besides a barely tenable negative peace [that requires disregarding a bunch of violence against vulnerable people domestically and around the world]), we're preserving by pretending the US is a "nation of laws" in the face of constant reminders that it isn't. It's not a uniquely American problem. Centimillionaires and billionaires regularly evade just consequences no matter what country they're in. Obscene wealth inequality is inherently immoral and a risk to security of any state, the faster people realize that the faster we'll be able to fix it. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though There's a very obvious one. There's obscene wealth inequality under every ism, current and historical. Capitalist Finland has a significantly lower Gini coefficient than socialist Cuba, Venezuela or Vietnam. Obscene wealth inequality has little to do with -ism and everything to do with culture. If a country undergoes a cultural shift that makes them pursue a switch to socialism, it's that shift that would be the cause of decreased inequality, rather than socialism. If that switch happens by geopolitical happenstance (as we've seen in Eastern Europe) rather than a cultural shift, then there is no meaningful change in inequality, people just play slightly different games with different rules to get ahead than they did before. Correct IMO but I don’t think it’s a great argument that wealth inequality isn’t an absolute innate problem with capitalism. + Show Spoiler +At least in a part A consideration, which is recognising a problem. The part B, getting a viable alternative is a good bit trickier, but one lacking a solid proposition doesn’t mean the analysis of part A is off base.
I think you make a great point overall. One that’s frequently overlooked for, some reason. They’re economic systems absolutely, but they’re inextricable from cultural values. If the culture doesn’t shift, you’ll get quite similar outcomes.
Socialism certainly suffers from not being the status quo, plus its history isn’t great. As much as some will deny the latter, I wouldn’t personally.
There’s probably some alternate timeline where idk a nation like Finland went from capitalism with a kinder face, to something approaching socialism in a gradual way, and you don’t have these cautionary tales of authoritarian attempts at socialism and things look rather different.
It isn't one. That not even oBlade or JJR attempted one (intro won't either) + Show Spoiler +(this isn't encouragement to let them bait any of you for the 2142195039th time)
One irony is that the "human nature" argument, which is basically where the thread is at currently, is actually a much stronger argument against capitalism than it is socialism (which again, most people have jumped the gun on).
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People when polled love socialism, just when you ask them about the real policies and initiatives that make their lives better. Put universal lunch and breakfast in front of them or free technical and community College and you can win elections to genuinely improve peoples material conditions. Removing the disparity of school funding by changing the formula to a balanced state level scheme instead of relying on local property values leads to better school outcomes and lowers wealth inequality.
When you tell them you are organizing a vanguard party to violently overthrow the government and your only policy is "burn everything to the ground" suddenly its a much harder sell. Have you ever seen GH support a policy that would improve people's lives?
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On July 12 2025 01:29 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 19:27 Dan HH wrote:On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 03:12 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 23:18 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 22:02 Gorsameth wrote:give it a few days before they get back in line and start defending it. Happens every time. Trump's going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Half of conservatives will be outraged for a day or two (the length of their attention span), half of conservatives will trip over themselves to praise Trump for being brave enough to finally end this controversy. In case you thought I was joking, this just broke today: Trump Held Talks on Pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell: Biographer I'm starting to lose track of what exactly it is (besides a barely tenable negative peace [that requires disregarding a bunch of violence against vulnerable people domestically and around the world]), we're preserving by pretending the US is a "nation of laws" in the face of constant reminders that it isn't. It's not a uniquely American problem. Centimillionaires and billionaires regularly evade just consequences no matter what country they're in. Obscene wealth inequality is inherently immoral and a risk to security of any state, the faster people realize that the faster we'll be able to fix it. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though There's a very obvious one. There's obscene wealth inequality under every ism, current and historical. Capitalist Finland has a significantly lower Gini coefficient than socialist Cuba, Venezuela or Vietnam. Obscene wealth inequality has little to do with -ism and everything to do with culture. If a country undergoes a cultural shift that makes them pursue a switch to socialism, it's that shift that would be the cause of decreased inequality, rather than socialism. If that switch happens by geopolitical happenstance (as we've seen in Eastern Europe) rather than a cultural shift, then there is no meaningful change in inequality, people just play slightly different games with different rules to get ahead than they did before. Correct IMO but I don’t think it’s a great argument that wealth inequality isn’t an absolute innate problem with capitalism. At least in a part A consideration, which is recognising a problem. The part B, getting a viable alternative is a good bit trickier, but one lacking a solid proposition doesn’t mean the analysis of part A is off base. I think you make a great point overall. One that’s frequently overlooked for, some reason. They’re economic systems absolutely, but they’re inextricable from cultural values. If the culture doesn’t shift, you’ll get quite similar outcomes. Socialism certainly suffers from not being the status quo, plus its history isn’t great. As much as some will deny the latter, I wouldn’t personally. There’s probably some alternate timeline where idk a nation like Finland went from capitalism with a kinder face, to something approaching socialism in a gradual way, and you don’t have these cautionary tales of authoritarian attempts at socialism and things look rather different.
My point is that the importance of the ism is heavily overstated and sort of misses the forest for the trees. The flavor of local capitalism or socialism and how much inequality they allow is dictated by local values rather than the other way around.
This isn't a chicken-and-egg situation, we know empirically that merely having a coup/revolution and changing the economic system without an underlying cultural shift doesn't fix this.
If we want a better future for everyone we need more people on 'team empathy' and make more people derive self-worth from something other than comparing possessions and holiday destinations.
The countries that would be good at socialism are the ones that need it the least, the ones with a culture that's already less individualistic and materialistic, and with a high level of trust in institutions and each other. The US is at the opposite end at the moment, thinking that the solution to its problems is a socialist revolution right now is sort of like thinking that the solution to 'how to build a bridge' is having an engineering degree mailed to you.
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On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 03:12 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 23:18 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 22:02 Gorsameth wrote:give it a few days before they get back in line and start defending it. Happens every time. Trump's going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Half of conservatives will be outraged for a day or two (the length of their attention span), half of conservatives will trip over themselves to praise Trump for being brave enough to finally end this controversy. In case you thought I was joking, this just broke today: Trump Held Talks on Pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell: Biographer I'm starting to lose track of what exactly it is (besides a barely tenable negative peace [that requires disregarding a bunch of violence against vulnerable people domestically and around the world]), we're preserving by pretending the US is a "nation of laws" in the face of constant reminders that it isn't. It's not a uniquely American problem. Centimillionaires and billionaires regularly evade just consequences no matter what country they're in. Obscene wealth inequality is inherently immoral and a risk to security of any state, the faster people realize that the faster we'll be able to fix it. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though
Once you add the in actual practice part communism has failed likely harder than then the evil capitalist western liberal democracies.
On July 11 2025 16:47 EnDeR_ wrote:
I'm fairly pessimistic, I think at this point in time, Americans are more likely to end up with an official oligarchy than with socialism.
Ending up with an official oligarchy is why most Americans fear socialism. This is how all of the ones that went all in ended up, usually right from the start.
On July 11 2025 19:27 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 03:12 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 23:18 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 22:02 Gorsameth wrote:give it a few days before they get back in line and start defending it. Happens every time. Trump's going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Half of conservatives will be outraged for a day or two (the length of their attention span), half of conservatives will trip over themselves to praise Trump for being brave enough to finally end this controversy. In case you thought I was joking, this just broke today: Trump Held Talks on Pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell: Biographer I'm starting to lose track of what exactly it is (besides a barely tenable negative peace [that requires disregarding a bunch of violence against vulnerable people domestically and around the world]), we're preserving by pretending the US is a "nation of laws" in the face of constant reminders that it isn't. It's not a uniquely American problem. Centimillionaires and billionaires regularly evade just consequences no matter what country they're in. Obscene wealth inequality is inherently immoral and a risk to security of any state, the faster people realize that the faster we'll be able to fix it. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though There's a very obvious one. There's obscene wealth inequality under every ism, current and historical. Capitalist Finland has a significantly lower Gini coefficient than socialist Cuba, Venezuela or Vietnam. Obscene wealth inequality has little to do with -ism and everything to do with culture. If a country undergoes a cultural shift that makes them pursue a switch to socialism, it's that shift that would be the cause of decreased inequality, rather than socialism. If that switch happens by geopolitical happenstance (as we've seen in Eastern Europe) rather than a cultural shift, then there is no meaningful change in inequality, people just play slightly different games with different rules to get ahead than they did before.
Very true, and to me this is the interesting conversation, how do you make the cultural shift, or what checks and balances are needed to make it actually work as intended.
On July 11 2025 21:00 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 19:27 Dan HH wrote:On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 03:12 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 23:18 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 22:02 Gorsameth wrote:give it a few days before they get back in line and start defending it. Happens every time. Trump's going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Half of conservatives will be outraged for a day or two (the length of their attention span), half of conservatives will trip over themselves to praise Trump for being brave enough to finally end this controversy. In case you thought I was joking, this just broke today: Trump Held Talks on Pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell: Biographer I'm starting to lose track of what exactly it is (besides a barely tenable negative peace [that requires disregarding a bunch of violence against vulnerable people domestically and around the world]), we're preserving by pretending the US is a "nation of laws" in the face of constant reminders that it isn't. It's not a uniquely American problem. Centimillionaires and billionaires regularly evade just consequences no matter what country they're in. Obscene wealth inequality is inherently immoral and a risk to security of any state, the faster people realize that the faster we'll be able to fix it. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though There's a very obvious one. There's obscene wealth inequality under every ism, current and historical. Capitalist Finland has a significantly lower Gini coefficient than socialist Cuba, Venezuela or Vietnam. Obscene wealth inequality has little to do with -ism and everything to do with culture. If a country undergoes a cultural shift that makes them pursue a switch to socialism, it's that shift that would be the cause of decreased inequality, rather than socialism. If that switch happens by geopolitical happenstance (as we've seen in Eastern Europe) rather than a cultural shift, then there is no meaningful change in inequality, people just play slightly different games with different rules to get ahead than they did before. I think this is key thing people who only ever lived in capitalism dont understand. Socialism in theory is vastly different than in practice.
This is the exact statement that needs to be directly tackled and would actually be interesting to talk about and discuss. The discussions barely ever get started because the tankie opinion is that either communism is working amazing we are just not at the end game of defeating capitalism. Or it is working and was in the USSR you are just falling for capitalist propaganda. Or we just need to get rid of all the capitalist's and we will be fine. Which when you find out who are all the capitalists you realize that this is a pretty disturbing take.
On top of that the real communist states of the world have also done a real shitty job of the wests left leaning sensibilities when it comes to racism, sexism, LGBTQ2+ rights and so on.
Only hearing how capitalism is bad in great detail does not automatically make people likes socialism because they are not actually complete opposites as gets presented here. An good example from this thread is the over well of a 100 times people were accused of being complicit in genocide and it convinced absolutely no one, likely pushed people away. Reason being is you could just point to China currently committing genocide or historical USSR committing multiple ones. I mean there is legitimate debates on which was a more evil country Germany under hitter or the USSR under stalin.
If you have actual talks with people about socialism you can get pretty far and have some great discussion if you are talking Norway, Finland, Sweden or whatever. But once you use the word communism and or try to claim that the issues in these horrible dictatorships was still capitalism or propaganda you lose all credibility and the audience because everyone with half a brain and knowledge of the world knows the current and past actual existing communist countries were a hell of a lot worse for people.
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United States43672 Posts
On July 11 2025 10:44 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 10:14 Sermokala wrote:
A lot of the lives lost in Texas could have easily been saved if the people wernt brain rotted against the government being able to do anything to better the lives of people. The very simple infrastructure to combat and monitor flash flooding could have been built at any time, and the funding for it was given to them by Bidens infrastructure bill.
Do you have a source for this? When I googled it I could only find that the county had made several requests for funding for a warning system but they were unable to procure the funds. Hard to believe they would turn down free money just because it came from Biden's bill.
Did you see the minutes of the meeting I posted? They didn’t believe it was free money, they believed it was part of the 15 minute city secret plan.
They weren’t specifically rejecting flood sirens in that meeting, just infrastructure money generally, but they were very insistent that it should returned. Though the money wasn’t even on the agenda in that meeting, it was just a group of “patriots” that had gotten themselves extremely worked up role playing Facebook Red Dawn and organized to mob a random unrelated meeting to save America.
It’s like how the lunatics kept showing up at elementary school board meetings demanding an end to CRT without checking whether CRT was taught. Those social media circles get extremely incestuous and unhinged as they work each other into a frenzy with escalating stories they heard about furries.
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To be fair, furries are pretty unhinged.
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On July 12 2025 02:34 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 01:29 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 19:27 Dan HH wrote:On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 03:12 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 23:18 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 22:02 Gorsameth wrote:
[quote]give it a few days before they get back in line and start defending it. Happens every time.
Trump's going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Half of conservatives will be outraged for a day or two (the length of their attention span), half of conservatives will trip over themselves to praise Trump for being brave enough to finally end this controversy. In case you thought I was joking, this just broke today: Trump Held Talks on Pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell: Biographer I'm starting to lose track of what exactly it is (besides a barely tenable negative peace [that requires disregarding a bunch of violence against vulnerable people domestically and around the world]), we're preserving by pretending the US is a "nation of laws" in the face of constant reminders that it isn't. It's not a uniquely American problem. Centimillionaires and billionaires regularly evade just consequences no matter what country they're in. Obscene wealth inequality is inherently immoral and a risk to security of any state, the faster people realize that the faster we'll be able to fix it. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though There's a very obvious one. There's obscene wealth inequality under every ism, current and historical. Capitalist Finland has a significantly lower Gini coefficient than socialist Cuba, Venezuela or Vietnam. Obscene wealth inequality has little to do with -ism and everything to do with culture. If a country undergoes a cultural shift that makes them pursue a switch to socialism, it's that shift that would be the cause of decreased inequality, rather than socialism. If that switch happens by geopolitical happenstance (as we've seen in Eastern Europe) rather than a cultural shift, then there is no meaningful change in inequality, people just play slightly different games with different rules to get ahead than they did before. Correct IMO but I don’t think it’s a great argument that wealth inequality isn’t an absolute innate problem with capitalism. At least in a part A consideration, which is recognising a problem. The part B, getting a viable alternative is a good bit trickier, but one lacking a solid proposition doesn’t mean the analysis of part A is off base. I think you make a great point overall. One that’s frequently overlooked for, some reason. They’re economic systems absolutely, but they’re inextricable from cultural values. If the culture doesn’t shift, you’ll get quite similar outcomes. Socialism certainly suffers from not being the status quo, plus its history isn’t great. As much as some will deny the latter, I wouldn’t personally. There’s probably some alternate timeline where idk a nation like Finland went from capitalism with a kinder face, to something approaching socialism in a gradual way, and you don’t have these cautionary tales of authoritarian attempts at socialism and things look rather different. My point is that the importance of the ism is heavily overstated + Show Spoiler + and sort of misses the forest for the trees. The flavor of local capitalism or socialism and how much inequality they allow is dictated by local values rather than the other way around.
This isn't a chicken-and-egg situation, we know empirically that merely having a coup/revolution and changing the economic system without an underlying cultural shift doesn't fix this.
If we want a better future for everyone we need more people on 'team empathy' and make more people derive self-worth from something other than comparing possessions and holiday destinations.
The countries that would be good at socialism are the ones that need it the least, the ones with a culture that's already less individualistic and materialistic, and with a high level of trust in institutions and each other. The US is at the opposite end at the moment, thinking that the solution to its problems is a socialist revolution right now is sort of like thinking that the solution to 'how to build a bridge' is having an engineering degree mailed to you.
It really isn't. Doing capitalism correctly specifically requires obscene wealth inequality and exploitation.
I'm trying to focus on describing what many of us specifically and actually agree on, while you all keep jumping the gun and rushing to the socialist revolution you disagree with (or being weird and talking about furries).
So far it seems we're mostly in agreement on the these three points thus far:
1. Obscene wealth inequality is inherently immoral and a risk to security of any state, the faster people realize that the faster we'll be able to fix it.
2. Obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism.
3. Capitalism/Capitalists must be overcome to overcome obscene wealth inequality
I believe we should craft a 4th starting with
4. We need to overcome capitalism with a different system that does put checks on human greed (as suggested by Acro)
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United States43672 Posts
On July 12 2025 03:03 Uldridge wrote:
To be fair, furries are pretty unhinged.
The furry panic was triggered by a suggestion that a classroom use cat litter to soak up the urine children trapped in a classroom when the school shooter went on their spree.
Right wing social media decided that teachers were forcing children to use cat litter boxes because all children have to be furries now. They demanded an end to the litter boxes. Once they learned that the cat litter wasn’t caused by furries, it was caused by school shootings, they realized that everything was fine and there wasn’t really a problem.
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On July 12 2025 01:33 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2025 22:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 11 2025 17:11 GreenHorizons wrote:
I'm saying convincing (particularly through meticulous rational argumentation) the majority of Americans isn't how things get done in the US.
As someone I don't have to convince, I'm saying it's more important for us to organize our efforts with others on "team GH" (this is silly. You're not advocating revolutionary socialism, that's fine, just identify as social democrats, dem socialists, or whatever, but it really isn't about me or my "team")
If you don't have a compelling argument/vision that most Americans can get behind and you break down the current system, say via the revolution you advocate for, then how would you ensure that you end up with people taking up socialism rather than some other ism instead? As far as I understand it, you're just hoping that the socialist block would be the biggest block after the revolution so you can impose your will on the others; but why would that be any more successful than your current oligarchs organising something that benefits them instead? Another reason idealist socialism doesn't happen by or after revolution is even among "labor" the interests are competing. For example, people wanting to overturn the system are not interested in what police unions want, but they are interested in what teacher's unions want even though teacher's unions don't help education, and they want to eradicate the industry of health insurance, which those workers don't want. Once you're post-scarcity the argument of urgency/necessity of revolution isn't convincing. The reasons one nation's single payer is great and another's universal healthcare is dog shit tend to be more about the nation at the time, the reasons are less ideological and far more mundane.
Teachers' unions are the teachers.
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Northern Ireland26341 Posts
On July 12 2025 02:34 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 01:29 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 19:27 Dan HH wrote:On July 11 2025 09:38 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 09:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 04:01 LightSpectra wrote:On July 11 2025 03:41 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 11 2025 03:12 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 23:18 LightSpectra wrote:On July 09 2025 22:02 Gorsameth wrote:
[quote]give it a few days before they get back in line and start defending it. Happens every time.
Trump's going to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Half of conservatives will be outraged for a day or two (the length of their attention span), half of conservatives will trip over themselves to praise Trump for being brave enough to finally end this controversy. In case you thought I was joking, this just broke today: Trump Held Talks on Pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell: Biographer I'm starting to lose track of what exactly it is (besides a barely tenable negative peace [that requires disregarding a bunch of violence against vulnerable people domestically and around the world]), we're preserving by pretending the US is a "nation of laws" in the face of constant reminders that it isn't. It's not a uniquely American problem. Centimillionaires and billionaires regularly evade just consequences no matter what country they're in. Obscene wealth inequality is inherently immoral and a risk to security of any state, the faster people realize that the faster we'll be able to fix it. I agree (it's fun doing this). I'd argue that the obscene wealth inequality is inextricable from capitalism. I’d love to hear a good argument that it isn’t, in actual practice. I’m yet to hear one though There's a very obvious one. There's obscene wealth inequality under every ism, current and historical. Capitalist Finland has a significantly lower Gini coefficient than socialist Cuba, Venezuela or Vietnam. Obscene wealth inequality has little to do with -ism and everything to do with culture. If a country undergoes a cultural shift that makes them pursue a switch to socialism, it's that shift that would be the cause of decreased inequality, rather than socialism. If that switch happens by geopolitical happenstance (as we've seen in Eastern Europe) rather than a cultural shift, then there is no meaningful change in inequality, people just play slightly different games with different rules to get ahead than they did before. Correct IMO but I don’t think it’s a great argument that wealth inequality isn’t an absolute innate problem with capitalism. At least in a part A consideration, which is recognising a problem. The part B, getting a viable alternative is a good bit trickier, but one lacking a solid proposition doesn’t mean the analysis of part A is off base. I think you make a great point overall. One that’s frequently overlooked for, some reason. They’re economic systems absolutely, but they’re inextricable from cultural values. If the culture doesn’t shift, you’ll get quite similar outcomes. Socialism certainly suffers from not being the status quo, plus its history isn’t great. As much as some will deny the latter, I wouldn’t personally. There’s probably some alternate timeline where idk a nation like Finland went from capitalism with a kinder face, to something approaching socialism in a gradual way, and you don’t have these cautionary tales of authoritarian attempts at socialism and things look rather different. My point is that the importance of the ism is heavily overstated and sort of misses the forest for the trees. The flavor of local capitalism or socialism and how much inequality they allow is dictated by local values rather than the other way around. This isn't a chicken-and-egg situation, we know empirically that merely having a coup/revolution and changing the economic system without an underlying cultural shift doesn't fix this. If we want a better future for everyone we need more people on 'team empathy' and make more people derive self-worth from something other than comparing possessions and holiday destinations. The countries that would be good at socialism are the ones that need it the least, the ones with a culture that's already less individualistic and materialistic, and with a high level of trust in institutions and each other. The US is at the opposite end at the moment, thinking that the solution to its problems is a socialist revolution right now is sort of like thinking that the solution to 'how to build a bridge' is having an engineering degree mailed to you.
I disagree with essentially 0% of that, I thought I’d sorta made that clear, but I agree again with your expanded point.
We’re already pretty socialistic as a society when it comes to intimate family members, or intimate friends. Or even relative strangers like our elderly neighbour who might need a hand with some things every so often.
I guess the challenge is to extend that outwards to well, everyone. I don’t know how you do that, perhaps the modern nation state is simply too big and abstracted from day-to-day things that it’s not possible
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On July 12 2025 03:09 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 03:03 Uldridge wrote:
To be fair, furries are pretty unhinged. The furry panic was triggered by a suggestion that a classroom use cat litter to soak up the urine children trapped in a classroom when the school shooter went on their spree. Right wing social media decided that teachers were forcing children to use cat litter boxes because all children have to be furries now. They demanded an end to the litter boxes. Once they learned that the cat litter wasn’t caused by furries, it was caused by school shootings, they realized that everything was fine and there wasn’t really a problem.
I actually don't know if I should take this anecdote at face value, because it's so unhinged.
You know what, Republicans are actually closeted post modernists, they're just not ready to come out yet. The shit they'll invent to spin their narrative is borderline insanity. Luckily many still live tethered to the ground.
Trump, Vance and the like have basically embraced it and shine the brightest at the moment. Jordan Peterson wants to admit so badly he's been post modernist all along, but his deep seeded trauma prevents him from doing so. He'd be the absolute most flamboyestest of them all. For sure.
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Northern Ireland26341 Posts
On July 12 2025 03:26 Uldridge wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 03:09 KwarK wrote:On July 12 2025 03:03 Uldridge wrote:
To be fair, furries are pretty unhinged. The furry panic was triggered by a suggestion that a classroom use cat litter to soak up the urine children trapped in a classroom when the school shooter went on their spree. Right wing social media decided that teachers were forcing children to use cat litter boxes because all children have to be furries now. They demanded an end to the litter boxes. Once they learned that the cat litter wasn’t caused by furries, it was caused by school shootings, they realized that everything was fine and there wasn’t really a problem. I actually don't know if I should take this anecdote at face value, because it's so unhinged. You know what, Republicans are actually closeted post modernists, they're just not ready to come out yet. The shit they'll invent to spin their narrative is borderline insanity. Luckily many still live tethered to the ground. Trump, Vance and the like have basically embraced it and shine the brightest at the moment. Jordan Peterson wants to admit so badly he's been post modernist all along, but his deep seated trauma prevents him from doing so. He'd be the absolute most flamboyestest of them all. For sure.
They’re full of shit and pivot on a dime whenever suits, that doesn’t remotely make them post-Modernist in and of itself
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On July 12 2025 03:11 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 01:33 oBlade wrote:On July 11 2025 22:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 11 2025 17:11 GreenHorizons wrote:
I'm saying convincing (particularly through meticulous rational argumentation) the majority of Americans isn't how things get done in the US.
As someone I don't have to convince, I'm saying it's more important for us to organize our efforts with others on "team GH" (this is silly. You're not advocating revolutionary socialism, that's fine, just identify as social democrats, dem socialists, or whatever, but it really isn't about me or my "team")
If you don't have a compelling argument/vision that most Americans can get behind and you break down the current system, say via the revolution you advocate for, then how would you ensure that you end up with people taking up socialism rather than some other ism instead? As far as I understand it, you're just hoping that the socialist block would be the biggest block after the revolution so you can impose your will on the others; but why would that be any more successful than your current oligarchs organising something that benefits them instead? Another reason idealist socialism doesn't happen by or after revolution is even among "labor" the interests are competing. For example, people wanting to overturn the system are not interested in what police unions want, but they are interested in what teacher's unions want even though teacher's unions don't help education, and they want to eradicate the industry of health insurance, which those workers don't want. Once you're post-scarcity the argument of urgency/necessity of revolution isn't convincing. The reasons one nation's single payer is great and another's universal healthcare is dog shit tend to be more about the nation at the time, the reasons are less ideological and far more mundane. Teachers' unions are the teachers.
This is somewhere between making no sense and wrong.
Teachers' unions are not teachers for the same reason pumpkin pies aren't pumpkins. One is a component in the other. You're volunteering a basic category error here. Teachers' unions are organizations that have members (certain teachers), pressures, issues, interests, leadership, and so on.
Trust me when I say: you don't want it to be true that "unions" are the "people," because such an equivalence would make the whole existence and concept of the union superfluous/redundant so we could just get rid of them.
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The crazy thing about this one is spread all over. Up here in Canada the same story (minus the school shooting) was going on with the school my wife teaches at being the one where people said it happened. And it gets brought up often. When I explain to people my wife teaches there, it never happened, multiple times (almost every year or second year) parents come and explore and investigate and find nothing, the people still do not believe me and trust the meme. Some of the parents even come back for surprise visits to catch the teachers and principals hiding it. It is wacky.
The other one in the school where my kid went there was a huge uproar about unisex bathrooms, basically a mob of "concerned citizens" eventually formed and went to the school to take pictures and blow this thing wide open. Sadly for them well they were unisex bathrooms, they were also all single person with the doors going right to the floor. And that also still gets brought up, but in that case at least the mob was convinced.
Save the children from the lefty perverts is a pretty common refrain, no matter how many church leaders, scouts leaders, conservative politicians get busted, people on the right are convinced the left is really into sexualizing children.
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On July 12 2025 03:32 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 03:11 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 12 2025 01:33 oBlade wrote:On July 11 2025 22:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 11 2025 17:11 GreenHorizons wrote:
I'm saying convincing (particularly through meticulous rational argumentation) the majority of Americans isn't how things get done in the US.
As someone I don't have to convince, I'm saying it's more important for us to organize our efforts with others on "team GH" (this is silly. You're not advocating revolutionary socialism, that's fine, just identify as social democrats, dem socialists, or whatever, but it really isn't about me or my "team")
If you don't have a compelling argument/vision that most Americans can get behind and you break down the current system, say via the revolution you advocate for, then how would you ensure that you end up with people taking up socialism rather than some other ism instead? As far as I understand it, you're just hoping that the socialist block would be the biggest block after the revolution so you can impose your will on the others; but why would that be any more successful than your current oligarchs organising something that benefits them instead? Another reason idealist socialism doesn't happen by or after revolution is even among "labor" the interests are competing. For example, people wanting to overturn the system are not interested in what police unions want, but they are interested in what teacher's unions want even though teacher's unions don't help education, and they want to eradicate the industry of health insurance, which those workers don't want. Once you're post-scarcity the argument of urgency/necessity of revolution isn't convincing. The reasons one nation's single payer is great and another's universal healthcare is dog shit tend to be more about the nation at the time, the reasons are less ideological and far more mundane. Teachers' unions are the teachers. This is somewhere between making no sense and wrong. Teachers' unions are not teachers for the same reason pumpkin pies aren't pumpkins. One is a component in the other. You're volunteering a basic category error here. Teachers' unions are organizations that have members (certain teachers), pressures, issues, interests, leadership, and so on. Trust me when I say: you don't want it to be true that "unions" are the "people," because such an equivalence would make the whole existence and concept of the union superfluous/redundant so we could just get rid of them.
The teachers unions are not some teachers, they are all of them. They do have staff who are made up of teachers. One of my dads constant complaints was that well the board had professional negotiators the teachers union had teachers and he thought they constantly got schooled. The teachers unions are not the teamsters.
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On July 12 2025 03:35 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 03:32 oBlade wrote:On July 12 2025 03:11 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 12 2025 01:33 oBlade wrote:On July 11 2025 22:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 11 2025 17:11 GreenHorizons wrote:
I'm saying convincing (particularly through meticulous rational argumentation) the majority of Americans isn't how things get done in the US.
As someone I don't have to convince, I'm saying it's more important for us to organize our efforts with others on "team GH" (this is silly. You're not advocating revolutionary socialism, that's fine, just identify as social democrats, dem socialists, or whatever, but it really isn't about me or my "team")
If you don't have a compelling argument/vision that most Americans can get behind and you break down the current system, say via the revolution you advocate for, then how would you ensure that you end up with people taking up socialism rather than some other ism instead? As far as I understand it, you're just hoping that the socialist block would be the biggest block after the revolution so you can impose your will on the others; but why would that be any more successful than your current oligarchs organising something that benefits them instead? Another reason idealist socialism doesn't happen by or after revolution is even among "labor" the interests are competing. For example, people wanting to overturn the system are not interested in what police unions want, but they are interested in what teacher's unions want even though teacher's unions don't help education, and they want to eradicate the industry of health insurance, which those workers don't want. Once you're post-scarcity the argument of urgency/necessity of revolution isn't convincing. The reasons one nation's single payer is great and another's universal healthcare is dog shit tend to be more about the nation at the time, the reasons are less ideological and far more mundane. Teachers' unions are the teachers. This is somewhere between making no sense and wrong. Teachers' unions are not teachers for the same reason pumpkin pies aren't pumpkins. One is a component in the other. You're volunteering a basic category error here. Teachers' unions are organizations that have members (certain teachers), pressures, issues, interests, leadership, and so on. Trust me when I say: you don't want it to be true that "unions" are the "people," because such an equivalence would make the whole existence and concept of the union superfluous/redundant so we could just get rid of them. The teachers unions are not some teachers, they are all of them. They do have staff who are made up of teachers. One of my dads constant complaints was that well the board had professional negotiators the teachers union had teachers and he thought they constantly got schooled. The teachers unions are not the teamsters.
They don't technically need to include all teachers, per se, but yes you're right. I think he's trying to make a semantics argument here, to make unions sound bad while not directly attacking the members of the union, even though in most cases it's a distinction without a difference.
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On July 12 2025 03:32 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 03:11 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 12 2025 01:33 oBlade wrote:On July 11 2025 22:15 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 11 2025 17:11 GreenHorizons wrote:
I'm saying convincing (particularly through meticulous rational argumentation) the majority of Americans isn't how things get done in the US.
As someone I don't have to convince, I'm saying it's more important for us to organize our efforts with others on "team GH" (this is silly. You're not advocating revolutionary socialism, that's fine, just identify as social democrats, dem socialists, or whatever, but it really isn't about me or my "team")
If you don't have a compelling argument/vision that most Americans can get behind and you break down the current system, say via the revolution you advocate for, then how would you ensure that you end up with people taking up socialism rather than some other ism instead? As far as I understand it, you're just hoping that the socialist block would be the biggest block after the revolution so you can impose your will on the others; but why would that be any more successful than your current oligarchs organising something that benefits them instead? Another reason idealist socialism doesn't happen by or after revolution is even among "labor" the interests are competing. For example, people wanting to overturn the system are not interested in what police unions want, but they are interested in what teacher's unions want even though teacher's unions don't help education, and they want to eradicate the industry of health insurance, which those workers don't want. Once you're post-scarcity the argument of urgency/necessity of revolution isn't convincing. The reasons one nation's single payer is great and another's universal healthcare is dog shit tend to be more about the nation at the time, the reasons are less ideological and far more mundane. Teachers' unions are the teachers. This is somewhere between making no sense and wrong. Teachers' unions are not teachers for the same reason pumpkin pies aren't pumpkins. One is a component in the other. You're volunteering a basic category error here. Teachers' unions are organizations that have members (certain teachers), pressures, issues, interests, leadership, and so on. Trust me when I say: you don't want it to be true that "unions" are the "people," because such an equivalence would make the whole existence and concept of the union superfluous/redundant so we could just get rid of them.
Teachers' unions are indeed organizations that have members, and those members help decide what the unions focus on. If you're saying that a teachers' union isn't helping education, then you're also saying that its members aren't helping.
And maybe that's your position, but the educational benefits of a teachers' union certainly includes collective bargaining on behalf of teachers and other school faculty, which in turn helps those professionals educate/help schoolchildren. So yes, while a teacher's union is probably far from perfect, it generally helps education because it generally helps educators.
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EPT
