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On July 12 2025 10:27 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 10:20 BlackJack wrote:On July 12 2025 09:07 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 08:33 BlackJack wrote:On July 12 2025 02:48 KwarK wrote:On July 11 2025 10:44 BlackJack wrote: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. I read a few lines of it but not much. It was kind of long. It also appeared to consist just of public comments where anyone and everyone can get up and say whatever they want. I've seen a lot of whackos in those types of meetings. I was looking more for a source that says something like the city council rejected free funds, not that there exists some unhinged residents that wanted to reject the money but ultimately had no authority on the matter. According to this its a combination of factors, like messing up the application but then also wanting to reject the Federal money and then using some of it but on other stuff. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/10/texas-kerr-county-commissioners-flooding-warning/In 2021, Kerr County was awarded a $10.2 million windfall from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, which Congress passed that same year to support local governments impacted by the pandemic. Cities and counties were given flexibility to use the money on a variety of expenses, including those related to storm-related infrastructure. Corpus Christi, for example, allocated $15 million of its ARPA funding to “rehabilitate and/or replace aging storm water infrastructure.” Waco’s McLennan County spent $868,000 on low water crossings.
Kerr County did not opt for ARPA to fund flood warning systems despite commissioners discussing such projects nearly two dozen times since 2016. In fact, a survey sent to residents about ARPA spending showed that 42% of the 180 responses wanted to reject the $10 million bonus altogether, largely on political grounds.
“I’m here to ask this court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House,” one resident told commissioners in April 2022, fearing strings were attached to the money.
“We don't want to be bought by the federal government, thank you very much,” another resident told commissioners. “We'd like the federal government to stay out of Kerr County and their money.” So they petitioned the federal government for funding, but didn't receive it. Then they eventually got some federal pandemic relief money and they spent it, just not on a flood warning system. Quite a bit different than how Serm's post reads, which made it sound like they turned down federal money for a flood warning system because let's go brandon. I'm really not sure how you can be critical of anyone else's version of events accuracy and write that in the same paragraph. That is pretty funny if done on purpose or....
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On July 12 2025 08:08 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 07:55 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 12 2025 07:45 misirlou wrote:On July 12 2025 04:34 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 12 2025 04:21 oBlade wrote:On July 12 2025 04:03 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: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:
[quote]
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. No, I'm not, for the same reason saying a plane is broken doesn't contain the claim that the tires are broken. You should seek out a union member to help you with categorical logic. Otherwise you would have discovered one rhetorical bullshit fallacy that makes every union on Earth unassailable because you can't attack the union without attacking the innocent good faith hardworking contributing members of it. I know you're being sarcastic here, but plenty of people have no problem demonizing teachers (with or without mentioning unions). Also, comparing the teachers in a union to tires on a plane is not an apt analogy when considering that the tires are not almost all of the plane, nor are the tires responsible for almost all of the plane's features, but let's bring it back to your original claim: why do you think "teacher's unions don't help education"? I wonder if he also believes "police unions don't help policing" I know GH is curious to find out! Let's make the most out of this 62094793409th try  I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon Did you happen to look for more data since 2022 of public opinion on "socialism" specifically? I am curious what has turned up for you or others?
I personally haven't had a chance to do additional research on it, but I also got the impression that it wasn't a priority. You had written "It's more practical to focus on organizing those that don't need to be convinced" so I'm interested in hearing more about that!
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On July 12 2025 10:28 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 10:27 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 10:20 BlackJack wrote:On July 12 2025 09:07 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 08:33 BlackJack wrote:On July 12 2025 02:48 KwarK wrote:On July 11 2025 10:44 BlackJack wrote: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. I read a few lines of it but not much. It was kind of long. It also appeared to consist just of public comments where anyone and everyone can get up and say whatever they want. I've seen a lot of whackos in those types of meetings. I was looking more for a source that says something like the city council rejected free funds, not that there exists some unhinged residents that wanted to reject the money but ultimately had no authority on the matter. According to this its a combination of factors, like messing up the application but then also wanting to reject the Federal money and then using some of it but on other stuff. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/10/texas-kerr-county-commissioners-flooding-warning/In 2021, Kerr County was awarded a $10.2 million windfall from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, which Congress passed that same year to support local governments impacted by the pandemic. Cities and counties were given flexibility to use the money on a variety of expenses, including those related to storm-related infrastructure. Corpus Christi, for example, allocated $15 million of its ARPA funding to “rehabilitate and/or replace aging storm water infrastructure.” Waco’s McLennan County spent $868,000 on low water crossings.
Kerr County did not opt for ARPA to fund flood warning systems despite commissioners discussing such projects nearly two dozen times since 2016. In fact, a survey sent to residents about ARPA spending showed that 42% of the 180 responses wanted to reject the $10 million bonus altogether, largely on political grounds.
“I’m here to ask this court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House,” one resident told commissioners in April 2022, fearing strings were attached to the money.
“We don't want to be bought by the federal government, thank you very much,” another resident told commissioners. “We'd like the federal government to stay out of Kerr County and their money.” So they petitioned the federal government for funding, but didn't receive it. Then they eventually got some federal pandemic relief money and they spent it, just not on a flood warning system. Quite a bit different than how Serm's post reads, which made it sound like they turned down federal money for a flood warning system because let's go brandon. I'm really not sure how you can be critical of anyone else's version of events accuracy and write that in the same paragraph. That is pretty funny if done on purpose or.... ?
You don't even have to click the button to read the part that was quoted. Do you need me to point out where to click on a picture to find the quote?
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On July 12 2025 10:20 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 09:07 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 08:33 BlackJack wrote:On July 12 2025 02:48 KwarK wrote:On July 11 2025 10:44 BlackJack wrote: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. I read a few lines of it but not much. It was kind of long. It also appeared to consist just of public comments where anyone and everyone can get up and say whatever they want. I've seen a lot of whackos in those types of meetings. I was looking more for a source that says something like the city council rejected free funds, not that there exists some unhinged residents that wanted to reject the money but ultimately had no authority on the matter. According to this its a combination of factors, like messing up the application but then also wanting to reject the Federal money and then using some of it but on other stuff. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/10/texas-kerr-county-commissioners-flooding-warning/In 2021, Kerr County was awarded a $10.2 million windfall from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, which Congress passed that same year to support local governments impacted by the pandemic. Cities and counties were given flexibility to use the money on a variety of expenses, including those related to storm-related infrastructure. Corpus Christi, for example, allocated $15 million of its ARPA funding to “rehabilitate and/or replace aging storm water infrastructure.” Waco’s McLennan County spent $868,000 on low water crossings.
Kerr County did not opt for ARPA to fund flood warning systems despite commissioners discussing such projects nearly two dozen times since 2016. In fact, a survey sent to residents about ARPA spending showed that 42% of the 180 responses wanted to reject the $10 million bonus altogether, largely on political grounds.
“I’m here to ask this court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House,” one resident told commissioners in April 2022, fearing strings were attached to the money.
“We don't want to be bought by the federal government, thank you very much,” another resident told commissioners. “We'd like the federal government to stay out of Kerr County and their money.” So they petitioned the federal government for funding, but didn't receive it. Then they eventually got some federal pandemic relief money and they spent it, just not on a flood warning system. Quite a bit different than how Serm's post reads, which made it sound like they turned down federal money for a flood warning system because let's go brandon.
This seems accurate to me. They got knocked back, then later they got money, but they decided to spend it on other stuff.
However, this is completely consistent with Serm's post, so I'm not sure what the argument is.
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.
This also seems correct. Biden gave them 10x the money to do this. They knew they needed it and could have built it, but they built something else instead. Now they've paid the price.
Whether they literally mailed the money back to Biden is irrelevant.
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On July 12 2025 10:27 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 10:20 BlackJack wrote:On July 12 2025 09:07 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 08:33 BlackJack wrote:On July 12 2025 02:48 KwarK wrote:On July 11 2025 10:44 BlackJack wrote: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. I read a few lines of it but not much. It was kind of long. It also appeared to consist just of public comments where anyone and everyone can get up and say whatever they want. I've seen a lot of whackos in those types of meetings. I was looking more for a source that says something like the city council rejected free funds, not that there exists some unhinged residents that wanted to reject the money but ultimately had no authority on the matter. According to this its a combination of factors, like messing up the application but then also wanting to reject the Federal money and then using some of it but on other stuff. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/10/texas-kerr-county-commissioners-flooding-warning/In 2021, Kerr County was awarded a $10.2 million windfall from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, which Congress passed that same year to support local governments impacted by the pandemic. Cities and counties were given flexibility to use the money on a variety of expenses, including those related to storm-related infrastructure. Corpus Christi, for example, allocated $15 million of its ARPA funding to “rehabilitate and/or replace aging storm water infrastructure.” Waco’s McLennan County spent $868,000 on low water crossings.
Kerr County did not opt for ARPA to fund flood warning systems despite commissioners discussing such projects nearly two dozen times since 2016. In fact, a survey sent to residents about ARPA spending showed that 42% of the 180 responses wanted to reject the $10 million bonus altogether, largely on political grounds.
“I’m here to ask this court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House,” one resident told commissioners in April 2022, fearing strings were attached to the money.
“We don't want to be bought by the federal government, thank you very much,” another resident told commissioners. “We'd like the federal government to stay out of Kerr County and their money.” So they petitioned the federal government for funding, but didn't receive it. Then they eventually got some federal pandemic relief money and they spent it, just not on a flood warning system. Quite a bit different than how Serm's post reads, which made it sound like they turned down federal money for a flood warning system because let's go brandon. I'm really not sure how you can be critical of anyone else's version of events accuracy and write that in the same paragraph. That is pretty funny if done on purpose or....
ARPA was not a generational flood prevention/warning law. It took federal money to fund pandemic relief and emergency infrastructure upgrades at lower levels of government. At the discretion of the jurisdiction getting the money, but also limited by what the law allowed. You couldn't blow the money on a new stadium for the city baseball team, for example.
So to be specific, Corpus Christi got $67.2 million in ARPA funding. They spent $15 million on storm infrastructure but were still unable to stop rivers flooding 32 feet in minutes! For shame.
Whereas Kerr County got $10.2 million. They simply chose, like Corpus Christi did, to spend most of the money on other priorities.
When it was all said and done, the county approved $7 million in ARPA dollars on a public safety radio communications system for the sheriff’s department and county fire services to meet the community’s needs for the next 10 years
$10.2 million can let you install a $1 million siren system if you find it necessary, it cannot create a magic way to "combat" a river flooding 32 feet in a matter of minutes, or indeed to let your county fix every single thing you want, because it's $10.2 million not an infinite money glitch. Remember municipal governments have many more functions than simply being generational flood prevention/warning agencies (meaning a $1 million siren warning system is not the only thing Kerr County has ever proposed).
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On July 12 2025 13:01 Belisarius wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 10:20 BlackJack wrote:On July 12 2025 09:07 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 08:33 BlackJack wrote:On July 12 2025 02:48 KwarK wrote:On July 11 2025 10:44 BlackJack wrote: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. I read a few lines of it but not much. It was kind of long. It also appeared to consist just of public comments where anyone and everyone can get up and say whatever they want. I've seen a lot of whackos in those types of meetings. I was looking more for a source that says something like the city council rejected free funds, not that there exists some unhinged residents that wanted to reject the money but ultimately had no authority on the matter. According to this its a combination of factors, like messing up the application but then also wanting to reject the Federal money and then using some of it but on other stuff. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/10/texas-kerr-county-commissioners-flooding-warning/In 2021, Kerr County was awarded a $10.2 million windfall from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, which Congress passed that same year to support local governments impacted by the pandemic. Cities and counties were given flexibility to use the money on a variety of expenses, including those related to storm-related infrastructure. Corpus Christi, for example, allocated $15 million of its ARPA funding to “rehabilitate and/or replace aging storm water infrastructure.” Waco’s McLennan County spent $868,000 on low water crossings.
Kerr County did not opt for ARPA to fund flood warning systems despite commissioners discussing such projects nearly two dozen times since 2016. In fact, a survey sent to residents about ARPA spending showed that 42% of the 180 responses wanted to reject the $10 million bonus altogether, largely on political grounds.
“I’m here to ask this court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House,” one resident told commissioners in April 2022, fearing strings were attached to the money.
“We don't want to be bought by the federal government, thank you very much,” another resident told commissioners. “We'd like the federal government to stay out of Kerr County and their money.” So they petitioned the federal government for funding, but didn't receive it. Then they eventually got some federal pandemic relief money and they spent it, just not on a flood warning system. Quite a bit different than how Serm's post reads, which made it sound like they turned down federal money for a flood warning system because let's go brandon. This seems accurate to me. They got knocked back, then later they got money, but they decided to spend it on other stuff. However, this is completely consistent with Serm's post, so I'm not sure what the argument is. 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. This also seems correct. Biden gave them 10x the money to do this. They knew they needed it and could have built it, but they built something else instead. Now they've paid the price. Whether they literally mailed the money back to Biden is irrelevant.
Eh... I take more issue with the part of the post that you didn't bold. The "This could have easily been prevented if the people weren't brain rotted against the government being able to do anything to better the lives of people."
The county requested funds from the federal government. It didn't get the funds it requested but they did get some funds from the federal government and then they spent those funds on their local government. It's a lot of funding and fund-seeking for government on behalf of people brain-rotted against the government.
Apparently the lion's share of the $10 million went to upgrading their emergency services communications system. The neighboring city was modernizing their system and unless the county followed suit the firefighters/paramedics/police would not be able to communicate with each other. That also seems kind of important...
In hindsight we can say they should have budgeted differently to be able to pay for the flood warning system. But I don't see how spending the money on their emergency services communications instead of on an emergency warning system means they are brain rotted against the government helping people.
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On July 12 2025 08:04 ETisME wrote:
Every nation is a mixed market and difference is the scale and the subsequent effect.
Socialism leaning country need to have a strong gov, the most successful ones are Singapore and China.
It's not without a reason why many socialism heavy countries eventually get to dictatorship and totalitarian.
Because effectiveness of a socialism heavy nation requires not just the planning done well, but act together as one to make it effective.
I don't agree with this reasoning. The US military is much bigger and the law enforcement is much more authoritarian than in various less capitalistic countries that have equal amounts (sometimes more) freedom.
On July 12 2025 08:34 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 08:04 ETisME wrote:
Every nation is a mixed market and difference is the scale and the subsequent effect.
Socialism leaning country need to have a strong gov, the most successful ones are Singapore and China.
It's not without a reason why many socialism heavy countries eventually get to dictatorship and totalitarian.
Because effectiveness of a socialism heavy nation requires not just the planning done well, but act together as one to make it effective. There are just as many capitalist dictatorships. The most successful ones are the Scandinavian countries and there are quite a few.
This I also don't understand. Scandinavian dictatorships?
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On July 12 2025 10:04 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 09:22 Acrofales wrote:On July 12 2025 08:04 ETisME wrote:
Every nation is a mixed market and difference is the scale and the subsequent effect.
Socialism leaning country need to have a strong gov, the most successful ones are Singapore and China.
It's not without a reason why many socialism heavy countries eventually get to dictatorship and totalitarian.
Because effectiveness of a socialism heavy nation requires not just the planning done well, but act together as one to make it effective. Why are you so sure socialism requires greater state control? Why can't we have grassroots socialism? I'd even argue that that is the only socialism that has any real hope of long-term success: power of decision-making needs to be just as distributed as power over the means of production. bolded - Because someone has to manage everything, and you cant hold referendum on every single issue.
If you don't manage literally anything, then mega corps will destroy literally everything.
This is a false dichotomy. You don't have to choose between allowing wide-spread capitalist destruction and micromanaging a country to a socialist death. You can choose to manage smartly and prevent overreach of every kind. That goal is attainable. Balls to the wall capitalism is the opposite of smart managing.
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On July 12 2025 04:12 Liquid`Drone 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. Allende was ousted largely because the Nixon administration (especially Kissinger, obviously) was afraid that he would represent a successful example of structural change that other countries might choose to emulate - not because there was a real fear of the Soviet Union getting a stronger foothold in South America. The public rationale at the time was cold war-era fear of communism, but declassified documents paint a pretty clear picture that they were more afraid that Chile might prove that socialism could be achieved democratically and successfully. Basically; the cold war was really destructive also for this reason. The Soviet Union was a totalitarian shit-state, but if you wanted to achieve socialism without the US destroying your efforts, you were largely forced to become a client state of theirs. Allende's regime had very limited ties. Nordic countries are the exception, we were, for whatever reason, allowed to go a reasonably socialist route without significant interference, while a Norwegian-style nationalization of oil would have been a risky endeavor if you were in some other part of the world. I'm not at all defending the communist/fully socialist regimes we've actually had - because they were truly shitty - but there's also truth to the idea that less shitty ones weren't allowed to really materialize, because the US was afraid of that happening. In Chile they just went fascist coup, in other countries, civil war, other places, soviet union supported totalitarian regimes, and none of these end up looking great, but some of them - perhaps - could have.
I think we were too close to the Soviet Union and too important strategically to risk giving us the « freedom treatment » when we nationalized the oil. Anywhere else in the world, i think you are right, that wouldn’t have been allowed.
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On July 12 2025 06:21 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 04:56 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 03:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 02:34 Dan HH wrote: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:
[quote]
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) Alternatively, you could also engage. It isn't hard to get agreement on "the current system is shit, it needs replacing". You'll find agreement on that even from MAGA people, you just don't like their proposal. Alternatively to what? I don't really want to talk about furries or be the 62094793409th time someone has fallen for oBlade's latest bad faith bait. Try explaining how your version of communism is going to avoid the pitfalls of the USSR, China, Venezuela and so on.
That's not what I asked and neither did Dan.
Americans, as a nation, firmly believe that capitalism is the best road to prosperity and the underlying culture is one of massive consumerism and love for all things money-related.
I asked how he was going to change that, since, as Dan pointed out, simply changing the government system doesn't do much if people behave in the same way, i.e. system change is ineffective without cultural change.
GH answered that he didn't need to convince people that socialism would be better for people's wellbeing than the existing system, i.e. a cultural change is unnecessary, that this wasn't how things worked in America, and that it was more important to make lists of things we all agree on.
I find that answer on the disappointing side so I asked him to actually engage with the question.
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On July 12 2025 16:09 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 06:21 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 04:56 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 03:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 02:34 Dan HH wrote: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:
[quote]
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) Alternatively, you could also engage. It isn't hard to get agreement on "the current system is shit, it needs replacing". You'll find agreement on that even from MAGA people, you just don't like their proposal. Alternatively to what? I don't really want to talk about furries or be the 62094793409th time someone has fallen for oBlade's latest bad faith bait. Try explaining how your version of communism is going to avoid the pitfalls of the USSR, China, Venezuela and so on. That's not what I asked and neither did Dan. Americans, as a nation, firmly believe that capitalism is the best road to prosperity and the underlying culture is one of massive consumerism and love for all things money-related. I asked how he was going to change that, since, as Dan pointed out, simply changing the government system doesn't do much if people behave in the same way, i.e. system change is ineffective without cultural change. GH answered that he didn't need to convince people that socialism would be better for people's wellbeing than the existing system, i.e. a cultural change is unnecessary, that this wasn't how things worked in America, and that it was more important to make lists of things we all agree on. I find that answer on the disappointing side so I asked him to actually engage with the question.
The reason why a lot of Americans believe capitalism is the ultimate good is because they've been fed capitalist propaganda throughout the Cold War. They didn't come to love capitalism on their own. Propagandists used the Soviet Union as a convenient villain and created a false dichotomy: look at them, then look at us. Which system fares better?
Today those propagandists have a problem. The EU is looking much better than the US. We have a balanced mix between capitalism and socialism, and yet we're prospering. We're strictly better than the US, with a few exceptions such as Italy.
As time progresses the EU is going to outpace the US even more. Especially when looking at specific countries and not just the whole block. It's even possible that the US will eventually fall behind in GDP.
But that will take a few more generations.
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On July 12 2025 16:25 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 16:09 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 06:21 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 04:56 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 03:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 02:34 Dan HH wrote: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:
[quote]
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) Alternatively, you could also engage. It isn't hard to get agreement on "the current system is shit, it needs replacing". You'll find agreement on that even from MAGA people, you just don't like their proposal. Alternatively to what? I don't really want to talk about furries or be the 62094793409th time someone has fallen for oBlade's latest bad faith bait. Try explaining how your version of communism is going to avoid the pitfalls of the USSR, China, Venezuela and so on. That's not what I asked and neither did Dan. Americans, as a nation, firmly believe that capitalism is the best road to prosperity and the underlying culture is one of massive consumerism and love for all things money-related. I asked how he was going to change that, since, as Dan pointed out, simply changing the government system doesn't do much if people behave in the same way, i.e. system change is ineffective without cultural change. GH answered that he didn't need to convince people that socialism would be better for people's wellbeing than the existing system, i.e. a cultural change is unnecessary, that this wasn't how things worked in America, and that it was more important to make lists of things we all agree on. I find that answer on the disappointing side so I asked him to actually engage with the question. The reason why a lot of Americans believe capitalism is the ultimate good is because they've been fed capitalist propaganda throughout the Cold War. They didn't come to love capitalism on their own. Propagandists used the Soviet Union as a convenient villain and created a false dichotomy: look at them, then look at us. Which system fares better? Today those propagandists have a problem. The EU is looking much better than the US. We have a balanced mix between capitalism and socialism, and yet we're prospering. We're strictly better than the US, with a few exceptions such as Italy. As time progresses the EU is going to outpace the US even more. Especially when looking at specific countries and not just the whole block. It's even possible that the US will eventually fall behind in GDP. But that will take a few more generations.
Capitalism has been a clear driver for prosperity. This is inarguable, it's not just propaganda.
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On July 12 2025 16:25 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 16:09 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 06:21 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 04:56 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 03:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 02:34 Dan HH wrote: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:
[quote]
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) Alternatively, you could also engage. It isn't hard to get agreement on "the current system is shit, it needs replacing". You'll find agreement on that even from MAGA people, you just don't like their proposal. Alternatively to what? I don't really want to talk about furries or be the 62094793409th time someone has fallen for oBlade's latest bad faith bait. Try explaining how your version of communism is going to avoid the pitfalls of the USSR, China, Venezuela and so on. That's not what I asked and neither did Dan. Americans, as a nation, firmly believe that capitalism is the best road to prosperity and the underlying culture is one of massive consumerism and love for all things money-related. I asked how he was going to change that, since, as Dan pointed out, simply changing the government system doesn't do much if people behave in the same way, i.e. system change is ineffective without cultural change. GH answered that he didn't need to convince people that socialism would be better for people's wellbeing than the existing system, i.e. a cultural change is unnecessary, that this wasn't how things worked in America, and that it was more important to make lists of things we all agree on. I find that answer on the disappointing side so I asked him to actually engage with the question. The reason why a lot of Americans believe capitalism is the ultimate good is because they've been fed capitalist propaganda throughout the Cold War. They didn't come to love capitalism on their own. Propagandists used the Soviet Union as a convenient villain and created a false dichotomy: look at them, then look at us. Which system fares better? Today those propagandists have a problem. The EU is looking much better than the US. We have a balanced mix between capitalism and socialism, and yet we're prospering. We're strictly better than the US, with a few exceptions such as Italy. As time progresses the EU is going to outpace the US even more. Especially when looking at specific countries and not just the whole block. It's even possible that the US will eventually fall behind in GDP. But that will take a few more generations.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1370584/g7-country-gdp-levels/
Let's hope we continue to be outpaced in such a way
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On July 12 2025 10:29 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 08:08 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 07:55 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 12 2025 07:45 misirlou wrote:On July 12 2025 04:34 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 12 2025 04:21 oBlade wrote:On July 12 2025 04:03 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 12 2025 03:32 oBlade wrote:On July 12 2025 03:11 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 12 2025 01:33 oBlade wrote:
[quote]
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. No, I'm not, for the same reason saying a plane is broken doesn't contain the claim that the tires are broken. You should seek out a union member to help you with categorical logic. Otherwise you would have discovered one rhetorical bullshit fallacy that makes every union on Earth unassailable because you can't attack the union without attacking the innocent good faith hardworking contributing members of it. I know you're being sarcastic here, but plenty of people have no problem demonizing teachers (with or without mentioning unions). Also, comparing the teachers in a union to tires on a plane is not an apt analogy when considering that the tires are not almost all of the plane, nor are the tires responsible for almost all of the plane's features, but let's bring it back to your original claim: why do you think "teacher's unions don't help education"? I wonder if he also believes "police unions don't help policing" I know GH is curious to find out! Let's make the most out of this 62094793409th try I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon Did you happen to look for more data since 2022 of public opinion on "socialism" specifically? I am curious what has turned up for you or others? I personally haven't had a chance to do additional research on it, but I also got the impression that it wasn't a priority. You had written "It's more practical to focus on organizing those that don't need to be convinced" so I'm interested in hearing more about that!
On July 12 2025 16:09 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 06:21 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 04:56 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 03:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 02:34 Dan HH wrote: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:
[quote]
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) Alternatively, you could also engage. It isn't hard to get agreement on "the current system is shit, it needs replacing". You'll find agreement on that even from MAGA people, you just don't like their proposal. Alternatively to what? I don't really want to talk about furries or be the 62094793409th time someone has fallen for oBlade's latest bad faith bait. Try explaining how your version of communism is going to avoid the pitfalls of the USSR, China, Venezuela and so on. That's not what I asked and neither did Dan. Americans, as a nation, firmly believe that capitalism is the best road to prosperity and the underlying culture is one of massive consumerism and love for all things money-related. I asked how he was going to change that, since, as Dan pointed out, simply changing the government system doesn't do much if people behave in the same way, i.e. system change is ineffective without cultural change. GH answered that he didn't need to convince people that socialism would be better for people's wellbeing than the existing system, i.e. a cultural change is unnecessary, that this wasn't how things worked in America, and that it was more important to make lists of things we all agree on. I find that answer on the disappointing side so I asked him to actually engage with the question.
These things are related.
When I say "It's more practical to focus on organizing those that don't need to be convinced" I'm talking about a few things, but I also want to clarify what I am not saying.
I am saying that it's important to know who supports socialism and doesn't need to be convinced of its necessity. Exploring the data (or lack thereof) also helps highlight contradictions (in the Marxist sense). Organizing/collaborating with them is (generally speaking) a much better use of our time all around.
I'm not saying no one will ever need to be convinced of anything or that "cultural change is unnecessary" but if we look at the limited data we have, I think a lot more progress has been made by socialists than most people realize.
In the March 2025 survey, Cato/YouGov asked a national sample of 2,000 Americans aged 18 and older about US fiscal policy, including the following: “Do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of Socialism?”
A total of 43 percent said they have a “favorable” view of socialism, and for those aged 18–29, 62 percent said favorable
www.cato.org + Show Spoiler +(they paid for the survey, but yougov is pretty decent)
Most people don't have a deep intellectual and ideological relationship with capitalism, it's basically just all they know/(sorta) understand. A lot of people are followers (not in a derogatory way) they'll be socialist or capitalist and basically decent or moral monsters as long as that is what society is more or less doing. I'm saying they don't really have to be "convinced" in the traditional sense, they just need the right conditions (one of which is existing socialists being organized) to accept socialism as a "lesser evil" so to speak.
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On July 12 2025 17:03 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 10:29 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 12 2025 08:08 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 07:55 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 12 2025 07:45 misirlou wrote:On July 12 2025 04:34 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 12 2025 04:21 oBlade wrote:On July 12 2025 04:03 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 12 2025 03:32 oBlade wrote:On July 12 2025 03:11 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
[quote]
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. No, I'm not, for the same reason saying a plane is broken doesn't contain the claim that the tires are broken. You should seek out a union member to help you with categorical logic. Otherwise you would have discovered one rhetorical bullshit fallacy that makes every union on Earth unassailable because you can't attack the union without attacking the innocent good faith hardworking contributing members of it. I know you're being sarcastic here, but plenty of people have no problem demonizing teachers (with or without mentioning unions). Also, comparing the teachers in a union to tires on a plane is not an apt analogy when considering that the tires are not almost all of the plane, nor are the tires responsible for almost all of the plane's features, but let's bring it back to your original claim: why do you think "teacher's unions don't help education"? I wonder if he also believes "police unions don't help policing" I know GH is curious to find out! Let's make the most out of this 62094793409th try I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon Did you happen to look for more data since 2022 of public opinion on "socialism" specifically? I am curious what has turned up for you or others? I personally haven't had a chance to do additional research on it, but I also got the impression that it wasn't a priority. You had written "It's more practical to focus on organizing those that don't need to be convinced" so I'm interested in hearing more about that! Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 16:09 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 06:21 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 04:56 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 03:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 02:34 Dan HH wrote: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:
[quote]
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) Alternatively, you could also engage. It isn't hard to get agreement on "the current system is shit, it needs replacing". You'll find agreement on that even from MAGA people, you just don't like their proposal. Alternatively to what? I don't really want to talk about furries or be the 62094793409th time someone has fallen for oBlade's latest bad faith bait. Try explaining how your version of communism is going to avoid the pitfalls of the USSR, China, Venezuela and so on. That's not what I asked and neither did Dan. Americans, as a nation, firmly believe that capitalism is the best road to prosperity and the underlying culture is one of massive consumerism and love for all things money-related. I asked how he was going to change that, since, as Dan pointed out, simply changing the government system doesn't do much if people behave in the same way, i.e. system change is ineffective without cultural change. GH answered that he didn't need to convince people that socialism would be better for people's wellbeing than the existing system, i.e. a cultural change is unnecessary, that this wasn't how things worked in America, and that it was more important to make lists of things we all agree on. I find that answer on the disappointing side so I asked him to actually engage with the question. These things are related. When I say "It's more practical to focus on organizing those that don't need to be convinced" I'm talking about a few things, but I also want to clarify what I am not saying. I am saying that it's important to know who supports socialism and doesn't need to be convinced of its necessity. Exploring the data (or lack thereof) also helps highlight contradictions (in the Marxist sense). Organizing/collaborating with them is (generally speaking) a much better use of our time all around. I'm not saying no one will ever need to be convinced of anything or that "cultural change is unnecessary" but if we look at the limited data we have, I think a lot more progress has been made by socialists than most people realize. Show nested quote +In the March 2025 survey, Cato/YouGov asked a national sample of 2,000 Americans aged 18 and older about US fiscal policy, including the following: “Do you have a favorable or unfavorable view of Socialism?”
A total of 43 percent said they have a “favorable” view of socialism, and for those aged 18–29, 62 percent said favorable www.cato.org + Show Spoiler +(they paid for the survey, but yougov is pretty decent) . Most people don't have a deep intellectual and ideological relationship with capitalism, it's basically just all they know/(sorta) understand. A lot of people are followers (not in a derogatory way) they'll be socialist or capitalist and basically decent or moral monsters as long as that is what society is more or less doing. I'm saying they don't really have to be "convinced" in the traditional sense, they just need the right conditions (one of which is existing socialists being organized) to accept socialism as a "lesser evil" so to speak.
They may be followers, but consumerism is ingrained and not just at the "this is all they've ever known" level. People move to America because they associate being able to buy things with a better standard of living. Most people don't envy Cuban's better access to healthcare and less stressful jobs, none of that is important if they can't buy the latest Tesla.
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On July 12 2025 16:25 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 16:09 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 06:21 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 04:56 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 03:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 02:34 Dan HH wrote: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:
[quote]
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) Alternatively, you could also engage. It isn't hard to get agreement on "the current system is shit, it needs replacing". You'll find agreement on that even from MAGA people, you just don't like their proposal. Alternatively to what? I don't really want to talk about furries or be the 62094793409th time someone has fallen for oBlade's latest bad faith bait. Try explaining how your version of communism is going to avoid the pitfalls of the USSR, China, Venezuela and so on. That's not what I asked and neither did Dan. Americans, as a nation, firmly believe that capitalism is the best road to prosperity and the underlying culture is one of massive consumerism and love for all things money-related. I asked how he was going to change that, since, as Dan pointed out, simply changing the government system doesn't do much if people behave in the same way, i.e. system change is ineffective without cultural change. GH answered that he didn't need to convince people that socialism would be better for people's wellbeing than the existing system, i.e. a cultural change is unnecessary, that this wasn't how things worked in America, and that it was more important to make lists of things we all agree on. I find that answer on the disappointing side so I asked him to actually engage with the question. The reason why a lot of Americans believe capitalism is the ultimate good is because they've been fed capitalist propaganda throughout the Cold War. They didn't come to love capitalism on their own. Propagandists used the Soviet Union as a convenient villain and created a false dichotomy: look at them, then look at us. Which system fares better? Today those propagandists have a problem. The EU is looking much better than the US. We have a balanced mix between capitalism and socialism, and yet we're prospering. We're strictly better than the US, with a few exceptions such as Italy. As time progresses the EU is going to outpace the US even more. Especially when looking at specific countries and not just the whole block. It's even possible that the US will eventually fall behind in GDP. But that will take a few more generations.
This is quite patently not true. Europe is not outpacing the US in many metrics. Sure, our public education is better, and our welfare nets are better, meaning there is more upward mobility and lower wealth inequality. We don't have food deserts, or tent cities. But that is only relevant if you care about those things. And it really seems Americans don't.
If instead you care about "winning", then the US beats Europe hands down. It has the best educational institutions money can buy. It has the best healthcare money can buy. It has the best structure for companies to innovate and grow ideas in (it is no coincidence that there are far more unicorns in the US than anywhere else). It has the greatest military in the world. The average American owns more *stuff* than the average European (including more debt). These things seem to be important to the average American, even if you and I cannot understand why. And while Trump is doing his best to ruin the bit about the best educational institutions, the rest seem likely to increase over the short to mid-term future, at least in comparison to Europe. If you want to look for a country that might challenge the US' hegemony, you need to look at China. But I wouldn't want to live there either.
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On July 12 2025 16:35 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 16:25 Magic Powers wrote:On July 12 2025 16:09 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 06:21 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 04:56 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 03:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 02:34 Dan HH wrote:On July 12 2025 01:29 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 19:27 Dan HH wrote:
[quote]
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) Alternatively, you could also engage. It isn't hard to get agreement on "the current system is shit, it needs replacing". You'll find agreement on that even from MAGA people, you just don't like their proposal. Alternatively to what? I don't really want to talk about furries or be the 62094793409th time someone has fallen for oBlade's latest bad faith bait. Try explaining how your version of communism is going to avoid the pitfalls of the USSR, China, Venezuela and so on. That's not what I asked and neither did Dan. Americans, as a nation, firmly believe that capitalism is the best road to prosperity and the underlying culture is one of massive consumerism and love for all things money-related. I asked how he was going to change that, since, as Dan pointed out, simply changing the government system doesn't do much if people behave in the same way, i.e. system change is ineffective without cultural change. GH answered that he didn't need to convince people that socialism would be better for people's wellbeing than the existing system, i.e. a cultural change is unnecessary, that this wasn't how things worked in America, and that it was more important to make lists of things we all agree on. I find that answer on the disappointing side so I asked him to actually engage with the question. The reason why a lot of Americans believe capitalism is the ultimate good is because they've been fed capitalist propaganda throughout the Cold War. They didn't come to love capitalism on their own. Propagandists used the Soviet Union as a convenient villain and created a false dichotomy: look at them, then look at us. Which system fares better? Today those propagandists have a problem. The EU is looking much better than the US. We have a balanced mix between capitalism and socialism, and yet we're prospering. We're strictly better than the US, with a few exceptions such as Italy. As time progresses the EU is going to outpace the US even more. Especially when looking at specific countries and not just the whole block. It's even possible that the US will eventually fall behind in GDP. But that will take a few more generations. Capitalism has been a clear driver for prosperity. This is inarguable, it's not just propaganda.
I wanted to argue that point. But then I looked at the definition of capitalism on ENGLISH wiki and realized that this definition is something vastly different from what I understood, and it's probably the definition some folks here and maybe even the majority of Americans use.
The definition in question:
"""
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit.
"""
Now, your point is true when you apply this definition of capitalism to it. But I want to state that I find this definition to be very troubling. It is
a) Wrong --> economic systems commonly understood to be non-capitalistic in nature fall under this defintion
b) Not useful --> By this definition, almost all economic activity of the human race during its existence can be called capitalism. Which makes it very non-specific and not useful in discourse.
c) It is also different from the definition on the Polish wiki. The beginning is the same, but it appears that the end of defintion was cut from english wiki.
"""
Capitalism - an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit AND FREE MOVEMENT OF GOODS [...] Freedom of activity on the market is manifested in the form of free enterprise, free trade in goods and services, free trade in property rights, the existence of efficient financial institutions and free competition between entities.
"""
I guess what I am trying to say is this: people when they say capitalism, mean different things. For me, your statement isn't true. Because I don't consider private economic activity to be the only requirement of capitalism.
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On July 12 2025 17:17 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 16:25 Magic Powers wrote:On July 12 2025 16:09 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 06:21 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 04:56 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 03:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 02:34 Dan HH wrote:On July 12 2025 01:29 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 19:27 Dan HH wrote:
[quote]
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) Alternatively, you could also engage. It isn't hard to get agreement on "the current system is shit, it needs replacing". You'll find agreement on that even from MAGA people, you just don't like their proposal. Alternatively to what? I don't really want to talk about furries or be the 62094793409th time someone has fallen for oBlade's latest bad faith bait. Try explaining how your version of communism is going to avoid the pitfalls of the USSR, China, Venezuela and so on. That's not what I asked and neither did Dan. Americans, as a nation, firmly believe that capitalism is the best road to prosperity and the underlying culture is one of massive consumerism and love for all things money-related. I asked how he was going to change that, since, as Dan pointed out, simply changing the government system doesn't do much if people behave in the same way, i.e. system change is ineffective without cultural change. GH answered that he didn't need to convince people that socialism would be better for people's wellbeing than the existing system, i.e. a cultural change is unnecessary, that this wasn't how things worked in America, and that it was more important to make lists of things we all agree on. I find that answer on the disappointing side so I asked him to actually engage with the question. The reason why a lot of Americans believe capitalism is the ultimate good is because they've been fed capitalist propaganda throughout the Cold War. They didn't come to love capitalism on their own. Propagandists used the Soviet Union as a convenient villain and created a false dichotomy: look at them, then look at us. Which system fares better? Today those propagandists have a problem. The EU is looking much better than the US. We have a balanced mix between capitalism and socialism, and yet we're prospering. We're strictly better than the US, with a few exceptions such as Italy. As time progresses the EU is going to outpace the US even more. Especially when looking at specific countries and not just the whole block. It's even possible that the US will eventually fall behind in GDP. But that will take a few more generations. This is quite patently not true. Europe is not outpacing the US in many metrics. Sure, our public education is better, and our welfare nets are better, meaning there is more upward mobility and lower wealth inequality. We don't have food deserts, or tent cities. But that is only relevant if you care about those things. And it really seems Americans don't. If instead you care about "winning", then the US beats Europe hands down. It has the best educational institutions money can buy. It has the best healthcare money can buy. It has the best structure for companies to innovate and grow ideas in (it is no coincidence that there are far more unicorns in the US than anywhere else). It has the greatest military in the world. The average American owns more *stuff* than the average European (including more debt). These things seem to be important to the average American, even if you and I cannot understand why. And while Trump is doing his best to ruin the bit about the best educational institutions, the rest seem likely to increase over the short to mid-term future, at least in comparison to Europe. If you want to look for a country that might challenge the US' hegemony, you need to look at China. But I wouldn't want to live there either.
While everything you are saying is true, my question is how long can that last, how long can the upper classes keep pulling the ladders up, how long can they reduce their taxes and remove the social nets for the poorest citizens until something breaks?
I guess Americans are betting on "forever", but sooner or later something will break. I'm in no way proponent o vigilante violence but Americans have an unfathomable amount of guns, even the poor ones, and I think that the case of United CEO shooting is just a preview of what could happen long term. And that one was just a best case scenario of a guy doing a surgical assassination, as people get more desperate they will get more radical, and no amount of militarized police and ICE can stop thousands of lone wolves all across the country.
I don't advocate for it or hope for it, but I think that the system in the US might have been "better" for Americans for a long time, some band aids were applied like ACA, but sooner or later all these tent cities and people being denied life saving treatments will spill over and it's not going to be pretty.
Europe, each country with it's own problems is still way more stable and takes care of it's people way more.
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On July 12 2025 16:35 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 16:25 Magic Powers wrote:On July 12 2025 16:09 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 06:21 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 04:56 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 03:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 02:34 Dan HH wrote:On July 12 2025 01:29 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 19:27 Dan HH wrote:
[quote]
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) Alternatively, you could also engage. It isn't hard to get agreement on "the current system is shit, it needs replacing". You'll find agreement on that even from MAGA people, you just don't like their proposal. Alternatively to what? I don't really want to talk about furries or be the 62094793409th time someone has fallen for oBlade's latest bad faith bait. Try explaining how your version of communism is going to avoid the pitfalls of the USSR, China, Venezuela and so on. That's not what I asked and neither did Dan. Americans, as a nation, firmly believe that capitalism is the best road to prosperity and the underlying culture is one of massive consumerism and love for all things money-related. I asked how he was going to change that, since, as Dan pointed out, simply changing the government system doesn't do much if people behave in the same way, i.e. system change is ineffective without cultural change. GH answered that he didn't need to convince people that socialism would be better for people's wellbeing than the existing system, i.e. a cultural change is unnecessary, that this wasn't how things worked in America, and that it was more important to make lists of things we all agree on. I find that answer on the disappointing side so I asked him to actually engage with the question. The reason why a lot of Americans believe capitalism is the ultimate good is because they've been fed capitalist propaganda throughout the Cold War. They didn't come to love capitalism on their own. Propagandists used the Soviet Union as a convenient villain and created a false dichotomy: look at them, then look at us. Which system fares better? Today those propagandists have a problem. The EU is looking much better than the US. We have a balanced mix between capitalism and socialism, and yet we're prospering. We're strictly better than the US, with a few exceptions such as Italy. As time progresses the EU is going to outpace the US even more. Especially when looking at specific countries and not just the whole block. It's even possible that the US will eventually fall behind in GDP. But that will take a few more generations. Capitalism has been a clear driver for prosperity. This is inarguable, it's not just propaganda.
Based on what evidence exactly? The US is an outlier. Most EU countries are not capitalist and they manage to stand shoulder to shoulder with all the economic giants. Even China has been radically catching up and they're certainly not a capitalist country. They just became a bit less oppressive.
There's very little evidence proving that full-blown capitalism is all that great for people's pockets or any other kind of prosperity.
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On July 12 2025 17:17 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2025 16:25 Magic Powers wrote:On July 12 2025 16:09 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 06:21 Billyboy wrote:On July 12 2025 06:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 04:56 EnDeR_ wrote:On July 12 2025 03:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 12 2025 02:34 Dan HH wrote:On July 12 2025 01:29 WombaT wrote:On July 11 2025 19:27 Dan HH wrote:
[quote]
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) Alternatively, you could also engage. It isn't hard to get agreement on "the current system is shit, it needs replacing". You'll find agreement on that even from MAGA people, you just don't like their proposal. Alternatively to what? I don't really want to talk about furries or be the 62094793409th time someone has fallen for oBlade's latest bad faith bait. Try explaining how your version of communism is going to avoid the pitfalls of the USSR, China, Venezuela and so on. That's not what I asked and neither did Dan. Americans, as a nation, firmly believe that capitalism is the best road to prosperity and the underlying culture is one of massive consumerism and love for all things money-related. I asked how he was going to change that, since, as Dan pointed out, simply changing the government system doesn't do much if people behave in the same way, i.e. system change is ineffective without cultural change. GH answered that he didn't need to convince people that socialism would be better for people's wellbeing than the existing system, i.e. a cultural change is unnecessary, that this wasn't how things worked in America, and that it was more important to make lists of things we all agree on. I find that answer on the disappointing side so I asked him to actually engage with the question. The reason why a lot of Americans believe capitalism is the ultimate good is because they've been fed capitalist propaganda throughout the Cold War. They didn't come to love capitalism on their own. Propagandists used the Soviet Union as a convenient villain and created a false dichotomy: look at them, then look at us. Which system fares better? Today those propagandists have a problem. The EU is looking much better than the US. We have a balanced mix between capitalism and socialism, and yet we're prospering. We're strictly better than the US, with a few exceptions such as Italy. As time progresses the EU is going to outpace the US even more. Especially when looking at specific countries and not just the whole block. It's even possible that the US will eventually fall behind in GDP. But that will take a few more generations. This is quite patently not true. Europe is not outpacing the US in many metrics. Sure, our public education is better, and our welfare nets are better, meaning there is more upward mobility and lower wealth inequality. We don't have food deserts, or tent cities. But that is only relevant if you care about those things. And it really seems Americans don't. If instead you care about "winning", then the US beats Europe hands down. It has the best educational institutions money can buy. It has the best healthcare money can buy. It has the best structure for companies to innovate and grow ideas in (it is no coincidence that there are far more unicorns in the US than anywhere else). It has the greatest military in the world. The average American owns more *stuff* than the average European (including more debt). These things seem to be important to the average American, even if you and I cannot understand why. And while Trump is doing his best to ruin the bit about the best educational institutions, the rest seem likely to increase over the short to mid-term future, at least in comparison to Europe. If you want to look for a country that might challenge the US' hegemony, you need to look at China. But I wouldn't want to live there either.
Quality of life is better in the EU than in the US. Freedom is better. Food safety is better. Crime rates are better. Healthcare is better. Transportation is better. Environmental programs are better. Education is better.
The US literally only leads in GDP and military strength. And not even that much compared to how far ahead they used to be.
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EPT
