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On July 24 2026 23:53 Billyboy wrote:
I would say unions are not without their warts. I’ve got plenty of friends and family in them. Their biggest complaint is that they spend too much time and money fighting for the 5% shit employees. It especially makes them mad when they fight for people who are dangerous or toxic to the other employees. They also do not like the protections for the just bad workers because it is frustrating to have to do more, and make the same as someone doing nothing.
That doesn’t mean they (most anyway) want to get rid of the union, that’s just the part they want fixed. But seems to exist in most unions.
That's just shortsighted though.
I mean, I agree. I am pretty sure that I am an exemplary employee. In fact, people remind me of it at every performance review, internal award, etc. And I sometimes get frustrated with the fact that while I'm busting my ass to get the job done, someone else is slagging off and spending a week on a task that should take a day.
However, a very important thing to keep in mind is that ultimately it is up to management to decide who are the top achievers and who are the underachievers. And if the union doesn't protect everybody, it might as well protect nobody. To some extent, that even goes for people who endanger/harrass colleagues. In this case, the union needs to ensure there is a fair and impartial procedure, or once again, the employer can abuse that process against any employee. But obviously here the procedure is paramount. Nobody wants abusive colleagues to stick around because it's impossible to fire them. However, a strong union is what is needed in this case too. Too often the abuse is top down, and would be swept under the rug if there weren't a strong union to turn to.
So strong unions are not only essential for run-of-the-mill employees, but for ALL employees, because who knows when the employer decides that a "strategy change" suddenly makes excellent employees "run-of-the-mill".
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Nepotism and bigotry have saved far more shit employees from termination than unions ever have.
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On July 25 2026 03:37 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2026 23:53 Billyboy wrote:
I would say unions are not without their warts. I’ve got plenty of friends and family in them. Their biggest complaint is that they spend too much time and money fighting for the 5% shit employees. It especially makes them mad when they fight for people who are dangerous or toxic to the other employees. They also do not like the protections for the just bad workers because it is frustrating to have to do more, and make the same as someone doing nothing.
That doesn’t mean they (most anyway) want to get rid of the union, that’s just the part they want fixed. But seems to exist in most unions. That's just shortsighted though. I mean, I agree. I am pretty sure that I am an exemplary employee. In fact, people remind me of it at every performance review, internal award, etc. And I sometimes get frustrated with the fact that while I'm busting my ass to get the job done, someone else is slagging off and spending a week on a task that should take a day. However, a very important thing to keep in mind is that ultimately it is up to management to decide who are the top achievers and who are the underachievers. And if the union doesn't protect everybody, it might as well protect nobody. To some extent, that even goes for people who endanger/harrass colleagues. In this case, the union needs to ensure there is a fair and impartial procedure, or once again, the employer can abuse that process against any employee. But obviously here the procedure is paramount. Nobody wants abusive colleagues to stick around because it's impossible to fire them. However, a strong union is what is needed in this case too. Too often the abuse is top down, and would be swept under the rug if there weren't a strong union to turn to. So strong unions are not only essential for run-of-the-mill employees, but for ALL employees, because who knows when the employer decides that a "strategy change" suddenly makes excellent employees "run-of-the-mill".
Most of the time employers are way to afraid to fire problem employees. Which is mostly because of the horror stories when the organisation unjustly tried to fire other workers.
It's really not that difficult. It takes a couple of weeks to a few months at most. Write up the actual problems, give a plan for improvement, offer assistance, have some follow up and then do a meeting with the union. Given the HR resources companies have it's baffling they can't do this.
In fact, if management does it's job 80% of the process takes care of itself, because they should *already* be identifying under performing or problematic workers and offering them assistance to correct the problems and following that up. Because that's how you manage workers to make them better. And it should be documented. And if it is then all you have to do is have 1 meeting with union reps and you can fire the problem if they fail to improve. It's really that easy.
Not to mention all the reasons you can just fire someone almost immediately with just one meeting.
100% management problem and not a union problem.
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The reason why public schools suck is beacuse charter schools don't have to acept special needs kids which cost more than non special needs kids. Thats what saps the public schools of the money they need to serve children and thus makes education worse.
USPS didn't suck until republicans purposely sabatoged it repeatedly, with DeJoy specifically doing the best he can to kneecap it from profitability. It works as the last mile delivery for private shipping, expecially in rual areas where service would be incredibly worse without the USPS.
I think we can all be honest and see that the latest anti USPS propaganda is an attempt to kill mail in voteing. Republicans want to make it as hard as possible for people to vote and the USPS simply makes it easier to do so.
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On July 25 2026 01:50 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2026 01:31 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 25 2026 01:01 Billyboy wrote:
US public schools suck because all the money goes to private schools and since the people with money power and influence put their kids in private they do not care how crappy public is. Private-school families still need to pay property taxes (some of which goes to fund public schools) and private schools generally have their own private tuition that private-school families additionally pay for, so I'm not sure I agree with you there. Charter schools, on the other hand, directly sap money from traditional public schools, because charter schools are publicly funded, not privately funded like private schools. The problem is that if rich people are not invested in the system that everyone else has to use, they have no incentive to make that system good, and every incentive to make it cheap. If your children are not going to public schools, you will view every cent spent on those as a waste, and try to reduce that amount. I also really dislike property taxes as a funding mechanism for schools, because it means that people who grow up in worse areas (who already have worse chances than those who grow up in a richer neighbourhood) get worse schools. Another system in place to make sure that richer people get better schools for their children, and poor families get worse education and stay poor. Then there's also the incentive to reward a political constituency with more money, regardless of the performance of the children in the schools. And you should know from examples like Mississippi that more school funding doesn't equal better educated kids, since they're now beating states with comparatively highly remunerated teachers. Then there's also incentive to close down charter schools that show how better programs and stewardship of public resources can lead to better educational outcomes. The "rich people are not invested in the system" is not close to the most prominent story in perverse incentives in education.
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On July 23 2026 16:34 oBlade wrote:
I think some of the theories are absurd, but the fact that some of the people who believe them identify themselves with purple hair is a convenient but incidental act of generosity by them. If you or someone in your vicinity have purple hair, it was not meant as a personal slight. Purple hair can work on some people.
But "Good Business = Good" came after my post, think you have the order wrong.
I can't believe you're still trying to make you going on an emotional rant about communist purple hairs out of nowhere about me. And lying to justify it — that's me saying "Good Business = Good". You can scroll down two posts to find you replying to it with your rhetorical question, which was your entry to the conversation.
Like, I feel like you would say that government is in principle a good idea but has metastasised into something less good somewhere along the way? I would certainly agree it's at least bloated and inefficient, for better or worse.
Well, some people feel that way about capitalism. You can tilt your head and look at some of its modern goings-on funny without being whatever latte-sipping arts-degree dyed-hair communist you seem to be imagining in your head. No hate to that imaginary person for their looks or beliefs or drink preferences (personally, I'm an energy drink addict not a coffee person though) but I've still got no idea why you're talking about what communism will do to Rolex in response to someone going "uhhh the stock market seems kinda fucked sometimes". I think you can disagree with "good business = good for society by definition" without deciding to take away the concept of private property.
I'm thirsty, what's the benefit to society if I drink a glass of water? How does society win if I have iced spring water instead of tepid swamp giardiasis cocktail? How about this, does society win if LV sells a bag for just $200? Get past the fact that you say you don't know enough to have an opinion and think about it. You'll realize what you are stuck on is not this or that system of whether value exists and how you can measure it, it's that your probing question is dealing with an extremely local example versus an entire global aggregate. One bag vs. entire society? The only answer to that, as worded, is it's so negligible in comparison EITHER WAY that the question has turned to bullshit as framed. + Show Spoiler +Now I'd expect you can agree it's better if millions of people have access to cheap clean water so they aren't thirsty, and can cook and clean and bathe, than if they didn't. The value of the system is in that even if I buy the water for more than it cost the company to deliver it to the shelf, or to my faucet, THAT is a win over what it would cost me to dig a well, build a plant, a pipeline, buy land to a water source and then an aqueduct, etc. That in general the system gravitates towards efficient distributions.
That doesn't mean the system without fail produces no local inefficiencies.
In the case of a luxury good, what is happening is we have so much prosperity, that it's a form of value to someone who has surplus capital to get a Rolex or something, which means a watchmaker or bag designer can have a cushy job where their own labor is now compensated much more than if they were digging aqueducts all day just to not die of thirst.
Communism will nuke the people who own Rolex, therefore nuking Rolex, therefore nuking that person's job and their colleagues and all the workers along the chain, for the purpose of economic equality.
Central planning has its own inefficiencies, like when the USSR almost made whales extinct while hunting them to meet quotas that nobody was buying. This is the reason why just the same way the US Founders went back to Polybius and realized the most stable government is a mixed government, the best and most stable economy, when correctly implemented, is a mixed economy because it allows each aspect to correct the other's mistakes and pick up the slack.
It's a question relevant to whether a company's success/share price says anything about its level of contribution to societal good. Which is what I've been talking about the whole time.
It's not a question that disproves capitalism for communism, as the rest of your (spoilered) response to it goes on to suggest you are taking it as. Suffice it to say, yes I like systems where people get access to clean drinking water and are allowed to own some things. I agree a mixed economy seems good, which just makes this all so tiring. You wrote a bunch so I wanted to give a reply when I had the time to sit down but honestly I feel like you were talking to somebody else. Hope you had a good conversation with them, but I'm done.
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On July 25 2026 06:25 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2026 01:50 Simberto wrote:On July 25 2026 01:31 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On July 25 2026 01:01 Billyboy wrote:
US public schools suck because all the money goes to private schools and since the people with money power and influence put their kids in private they do not care how crappy public is. Private-school families still need to pay property taxes (some of which goes to fund public schools) and private schools generally have their own private tuition that private-school families additionally pay for, so I'm not sure I agree with you there. Charter schools, on the other hand, directly sap money from traditional public schools, because charter schools are publicly funded, not privately funded like private schools. The problem is that if rich people are not invested in the system that everyone else has to use, they have no incentive to make that system good, and every incentive to make it cheap. If your children are not going to public schools, you will view every cent spent on those as a waste, and try to reduce that amount. I also really dislike property taxes as a funding mechanism for schools, because it means that people who grow up in worse areas (who already have worse chances than those who grow up in a richer neighbourhood) get worse schools. Another system in place to make sure that richer people get better schools for their children, and poor families get worse education and stay poor. Then there's also the incentive to reward a political constituency with more money, regardless of the performance of the children in the schools. And you should know from examples like Mississippi that more school funding doesn't equal better educated kids, since they're now beating states with comparatively highly remunerated teachers. Then there's also incentive to close down charter schools that show how better programs and stewardship of public resources can lead to better educational outcomes. The "rich people are not invested in the system" is not close to the most prominent story in perverse incentives in education.
Firstly, i don't know anything about Mississippi or their education system, and i don't think i am invested enough to read up on that point.
Because yeah, obviously more money doesn't automatically make a school better. You can always waste money. But as a teacher, i can also tell you that not enough money does make schools worse. That goes from teachers to buildings to teaching materials to additional staff. Of course there should be systems in place to make it more likely that the money schools get is spent on stuff that actually makes education better.
And yeah, money for schools shouldn't be linked to the performance of the children in there. Because that creates a perverse loop situation where those who do worse get fewer resources, predictably continue to do worse and get ever fewer and fewer resources.
It also leads to a perverse situation where schools are incentivized to make sure that children perform well in whatever tests are used to judge school performance, instead of actually giving them good education. If all schools do this, this leads to an ever increasing competitive spiral of teaching for the school evaluation instead of for the childrens future.
Charter schools don't really work for your argument either, because they get to choose their students. A school that gets to choose its students will always do better than a school that has to accept everyone. They can just not select problematic students, special needs kids, and all other children who require more resources and don't tend to have good results. You claim that they just use the resources better, but that is by far not the core thing they do to produce good results (if they do, i don't know the statistics and take your word for it here).
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1361 Posts
On July 25 2026 03:35 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2026 16:34 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On July 24 2026 13:24 Introvert wrote:On July 24 2026 13:14 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On July 24 2026 09:21 Introvert wrote:
Laws governing unions can be better or worse. In particular I have a problem with public sector unions that negotiate with the politicians against the tax payers. You will never, ever find a union that says their members don't need more money, benefits, earlier retirement, etc. Like so many things, my particular focus on this comes from watching what has happened in California. I appreciate the cops and firefighters but retiring in your 50s for something like 90% of your final salary + benefits is insane, espeically when the system wasn't well structured in the first place. And guess what? This year because CALPERs got a bigger return than they anticipated (thanks AI boom!), all of a sudden the unions are back even though the program is still in the hole long term. Teacher's unions also demand more when the system is broke, it's coming to a head in LA right now. They are the biggest interest groups in the entire state. Private sector unions have had their place, they were born out of terrible circumstances we would never tolerate today. But they have no sense of civic virtue, either. Seemingly both public and private have this problem.
That is correct, you probably won't find many if any unions that says their members don't need more money, benefits, early retirement etc. Because that's the job of a union: to leverage collective power of workers to further the material interests of the workers. If a union is doing otherwise, then something has gone horribly wrong. The understanding is that the system is designed to be adversarial, and that employers will naturally advocate for their own financial interests and is in a position of greater power/leverage than any individual worker. Unions are the weight on the other end of the scale to directly advocate for worker's interests OVER the employer's. This is fundamentally the same system as the courts. Your lawyer is supposed to argue your case even if they know you are in the wrong, if your lawyer is arguing against your interests then something has gone horribly wrong (and is also malpractice). Civic virtue is irrelevant; that's not the union's place to worry about the employer's interest (outside of calculating what they can get away with demanding), even if that employer is the government/taxpayer. In exceptional circumstances, unions will work with employers through hardship (as I believe had happened in Germany during economic downturns), however this is done in the interests of the employees, eg because it was in the worker's interests for these organisations not to go bankrupt/close down. If employers are not using their own leverage properly to advocate for their interests, that's on them. The fundamental power of the union is still that all the workers in the union can go on strike/quit, the employer's leverage is they can hire other people. It's hardly the union's fault that they are doing their job correctly. I also don't think many people are going to seriously argue that teachers are overpaid. They are not the reason that the education systems they work in are broke. It doesn't stop being the teacher union's job to advocate for the material interests of the teachers just because the education system is underfunded/poorly organised. The solution to the teacher union demanding more when their system is broke, is not to demand less. It's that the system should be not broke. Yes, I am aware of the theory behind unions. What you described is mostly applicable to private sector unions, which as I said, can be organized under bad laws and good laws. Public sector unions negotiate most often against the people they help elect, at least here in CA. Or in Chicago where was mayor was a member of the teacher's union. And in LA, the system is broke partially because there are not nearly as many students, partially because they do pay so much in retirement and benefits, and also because of mismanagement. Despite this, the workers used their bargaining power to get the district to spend money it does not have. Now, the county is threatening to take over. As I said, there is no sense of virtue, humility, or propriety among them. The fundamental power, again, of the unions, are that the workers can go on strike/quit. If the union were working against the workers' interests then the workers themselves don't have to actually go on strike, whatever the unions decide would immediately have no legs. My understanding is that teachers in parts of California that did strike, overwhelmingly voted to do so, the union is merely the organisational body through which they have done this. I don't know how well Californian teachers are paid, maybe they are being unrealistic, I don't know. Though my understanding throughout the US is that teachers are generally a poorly paid profession for it's occupational requirements of expertise/work. I would guess that Californian teachers are actually also a poorly paid profession compared to other professionals in their area (I understand pay and cost of living is higher in California), but if they are indeed overpaid, I haven't the prerequisite familiarity to disagree. But your problem seems to stem from the workers themselves making unrealistic demands than anything else. Given that the actual workers in question appear overwhelmingly in favour of these strikes (97.6% authorization vote for the San Francisco walkout according to google search), I don't see how it could be the union's fault that the teacher's are demanding more pay. Maybe the teachers have unrealistic demands, the union is just doing it's job. On July 24 2026 09:21 Introvert wrote:
The logic of "well it's their job to maximize shareholder value 'further the material interests of the workers'" is not something that many on the left would consider an acceptable answer in any other context. If the unions are a detriment to the citizens who pay their salaries then they need to be contained. I see no reason to think that we should be less skeptical of a union, espeically a government one, than a corporation. Depends on which leftists you speak to, they are not a monolith. I would consider myself vaguely leftist (for where I am anyway, in the context of the US I'd be pretty far left). I am being exactly as skeptical of unions as I am of corporations. In that I don't have a problem with the existence or purpose of either unions or corporations. They aren't really that different. Both exist to serve the material interests of its 'shareholders'. I'm not against the existence of corporations, that economic power that it leverages exists whether or not corporations exist. "maximize shareholder value" is neither good nor bad, it's just a description of how the corporation would likely act. While I don't like with how profit gets distributed between 'ownership' and 'work'. I don't think corporations are the problem. It's an organisation leveraging a underlying power dynamic that already exists. Likewise with unions, "further material interests of workers" is neither good nor bad, it's pretty much just a description of what a union does. I am likewise not against unions, because it is leveraging an underlying power that already exists. While in the context of our societies, I would like for profits to be more distributed to 'work' over 'ownership', which generally conforms more with what unions do than corporations, this doesn't make unions fundamentally better than corporations in my mind. "Further the material interests of/maximise shareholder value" aren't really propositions you need to be agreeing or disagreeing with, they are just descriptions of what these organisations will do. Some do these badly, like unions who over-ask and all it's members lose their jobs, or corporations who end up losing their owners money. Some are corrupt, embezzlement by the leadership in both cases can exist. But fundamentally they are just expressions of an underlying leverage that already exists. Sometimes the material interest of these shareholders run contrary to 'the public good'. But I don't think these are really arguments against the organisations existing, these seem to be more of an issue of people pursuing their personal material interests over whatever the public good happens to be, which is always a difficult line to draw. It seems like you have more issue with particular people (yes, as a collective) pursuing their own personal interests above the public good, rather than the actual mechanism through which that collective power is expressed, eg a union, or a corporation, or a voting block. In this case, being against even public sector unions because public servants can ask for too much is like being against defense lawyers because rich criminals can hire really good defense lawyers to get away with crime. It sucks that they have this power, but it's not the lawyer's fault. To say you are against unions for public servants because a teacher union with overwhelming support is asking for (maybe unrealistic) higher pay, is saying you are against public school teachers having the ability to organize their collective leverage. It's a strange choice over just, maybe those teachers shouldn't be asking for more pay. Going back to:
I see no reason to think that we should be less skeptical of a union, espeically a government one, than a corporation.
Are you also against corporations? In fact, lets narrow it down, are you against any corporations that receive government contracts? If not, then you are in fact more skeptical of unions than corporations. You are right that I have been very generous in assigning most of the problems to the unions and not mentioning the rank-and-file. The issue with all those words you used is that they barely apply to public sector unions. There are no price signals or a mutual understanding that an imbalanced deal ends up with no company and no jobs. There will always be teachers and I don't see a great movement to stop using taxpayer money for schools. LAUSD has hundreds of thousands fewer students than a decade ago but the payroll has expanded in that time. They demanded more of a school district that has finances that are public so everyone can see they don't have the money. Sorry, if the incentives for a teachers union are not mitigated by external factors then I require them to act in a prudent manner of their own accord. Moreover, much of that doesn't really address the problem. Union laws are not set in stone. If they are working contrary to the good of the district they serve then we change it. If we go back to your first bit, the "teachers used their power and voted for it so what does the union have to do with it" sounds like an excellent reason to abolish the union. Your talk of being "descriptive" is just besides the point unless you think there is nothing that can be done.
My point of being descriptive is the whole point. You can't argue for the abolishment of a union, unless you actually advocate for laws against the establishment of that union to begin with. If you just abolish a union, then the workers will just form it again. The workers still have the power to mass strike/quit, they still, I assume, want more material benefits, the union is just organisation through which they... organise.
If you abolish an organisation, but the underlying interests and power dynamics remain the same, then the same organisation will just form again under a different name. Because the role of what the union does is just that: descriptive. The constituent workers still want the same things, and still have the same leverage, individually and collectively.
Any practical abolishment of public sector unions means actual laws against the formation of public sector unions to begin with. Unions don't actually have any legal powers to begin with (all their legal 'powers' are protections against union busting, eg it's illegal to stop them forming and illegal to stop workers accessing them).
So in essence you are arguing against the rights of public servants to engage in collective bargaining.
While I understand public services are more problematic to just 'shut down' or 'hire entirely new workforce' for, therefore giving the threat of strike/quitting more teeth than in the private sector. This seems more of a difficult problem that requires more taxpayer(eg voter/resident) involvement in the bargaining process than something that should be resolved by banning public servants from collective bargaining.
Keep in mind, the employer to public servants is the tax payer. It's natural for them to be included in the bargaining process given they are paying these employees. Including into the fact, that the public servants themselves benefit from public services, this seems like the 'employers' have much more leverage than you are making them out to have.
It seems to me that you are taking the burden of that bargaining off the 'employers', which would be a vector of natural resistance against the interests of the workers, and instead advocating essentially laws banning some workers from collectivizing, which is very extreme.
Again, I understand it's hard to get the voting public to do anything competently together, so from a practical standpoint I can see why this would seem like a no go. But in essence you are arguing for the disenfranchisement of a section of the workforce, by legally stripping away their rights to use leverage that they already possess.
I understand being against the interests of the teachers union, in essence all the taxpayers who are paying those teachers are materially in the same boat. But I don't you realize how extreme of a solution disbanding a union (in a way that makes a material difference) actually is.
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On July 25 2026 16:28 Turbovolver wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2026 16:34 oBlade wrote:
I think some of the theories are absurd, but the fact that some of the people who believe them identify themselves with purple hair is a convenient but incidental act of generosity by them. If you or someone in your vicinity have purple hair, it was not meant as a personal slight. Purple hair can work on some people.
But "Good Business = Good" came after my post, think you have the order wrong. I can't believe you're still trying to make you going on an emotional rant about communist purple hairs out of nowhere about me. And lying to justify it — that's me saying "Good Business = Good". You can scroll down two posts to find you replying to it with your rhetorical question, which was your entry to the conversation. Like, I feel like you would say that government is in principle a good idea but has metastasised into something less good somewhere along the way? I would certainly agree it's at least bloated and inefficient, for better or worse. Well, some people feel that way about capitalism. You can tilt your head and look at some of its modern goings-on funny without being whatever latte-sipping arts-degree dyed-hair communist you seem to be imagining in your head. No hate to that imaginary person for their looks or beliefs or drink preferences (personally, I'm an energy drink addict not a coffee person though) but I've still got no idea why you're talking about what communism will do to Rolex in response to someone going "uhhh the stock market seems kinda fucked sometimes". I think you can disagree with "good business = good for society by definition" without deciding to take away the concept of private property. Show nested quote +I'm thirsty, what's the benefit to society if I drink a glass of water? How does society win if I have iced spring water instead of tepid swamp giardiasis cocktail? How about this, does society win if LV sells a bag for just $200? Get past the fact that you say you don't know enough to have an opinion and think about it. You'll realize what you are stuck on is not this or that system of whether value exists and how you can measure it, it's that your probing question is dealing with an extremely local example versus an entire global aggregate. One bag vs. entire society? The only answer to that, as worded, is it's so negligible in comparison EITHER WAY that the question has turned to bullshit as framed. + Show Spoiler +Now I'd expect you can agree it's better if millions of people have access to cheap clean water so they aren't thirsty, and can cook and clean and bathe, than if they didn't. The value of the system is in that even if I buy the water for more than it cost the company to deliver it to the shelf, or to my faucet, THAT is a win over what it would cost me to dig a well, build a plant, a pipeline, buy land to a water source and then an aqueduct, etc. That in general the system gravitates towards efficient distributions.
That doesn't mean the system without fail produces no local inefficiencies.
In the case of a luxury good, what is happening is we have so much prosperity, that it's a form of value to someone who has surplus capital to get a Rolex or something, which means a watchmaker or bag designer can have a cushy job where their own labor is now compensated much more than if they were digging aqueducts all day just to not die of thirst.
Communism will nuke the people who own Rolex, therefore nuking Rolex, therefore nuking that person's job and their colleagues and all the workers along the chain, for the purpose of economic equality.
Central planning has its own inefficiencies, like when the USSR almost made whales extinct while hunting them to meet quotas that nobody was buying. This is the reason why just the same way the US Founders went back to Polybius and realized the most stable government is a mixed government, the best and most stable economy, when correctly implemented, is a mixed economy because it allows each aspect to correct the other's mistakes and pick up the slack. It's a question relevant to whether a company's success/share price says anything about its level of contribution to societal good. Which is what I've been talking about the whole time. It's not a question that disproves capitalism for communism, as the rest of your (spoilered) response to it goes on to suggest you are taking it as. Suffice it to say, yes I like systems where people get access to clean drinking water and are allowed to own some things. I agree a mixed economy seems good, which just makes this all so tiring. You wrote a bunch so I wanted to give a reply when I had the time to sit down but honestly I feel like you were talking to somebody else. Hope you had a good conversation with them, but I'm done.
Got another unhinged ranting emotional tirade for you, very trigger warning: Pink.
You asked a question about value. In order to even understand your own question, you'd have to have an interest in what the various theories underpinning the idea of value are to begin with. And a realization that those theories are sometimes at odds with each other. The question assumes there is such a thing as value and it can be judged in some way. When prompted how you propose to measure it, you were continuously at a loss as to what value is. Fine. You can't make a stand on what value means exactly, that's uncertain, but fine. You can't understand value when shown it, that's bait. Your own question assumes the thing exists so explain it. Whatever value to society is, it's either positive negative or zero. Those are all. You asked how the value to society of the weird share price or the luxury bag is positive. When asked what YOU thought the value was, whether it's positive negative or zero, your brave decision was: Uhh.
It's like pointing to a tree and saying "how did this fish grow so big?"
To answer requires understanding how to differentiate fish and trees and then consider the ways to measure the size of both (volume, weight, length, height, width, surface area, etc.). Otherwise you're not in gear. At a certain point you should study the theories behind what value is.
I can only explain this with analogies now since the content didn't get through.
So finally the most apt one is this. You said essentially hey what's the value to a patient in having diarrhea? The doctor said, the patient has blood cancer and is taking a BTK inhibitor. The diarrhea is a side effect. It has no particular value by itself unless the patient was constipated. It is a systemic fact of using this medicine to cure cancer. That system is better than sitting and letting the patient die. That's it.
To which you answered that's not my question I didn't ask about medicine and treatments and cancer, I just asked about the diarrhea. How is diarrhea good? Explain to me how diarrhea is good.
Nobody is saying diarrhea is inherently good per se.
Now imagine capitalism is medicine, BTK inhibitors are securities markets, blood cancer is a world with no capital investment, and diarrhea is you saw 1 company's market cap looks higher or lower than you think is fair for their actual productivity or what they actually do.
That's already covered because others can value the company what they want using fungible tokens representating their own accumulated production (dollars). I.e. the securities markets. Someone can literally bet the patient will have diarrhea when Lehman Brothers bet they wouldn't, and when they win end up getting to collect a bunch of capital Lehman Brothers has to pay. That's awesome. The system is always equilibrating to fix those inefficiencies. Remembering that we only know there are inefficiencies. We can't be sure what they are because we don't have perfect information. We have the fog of war. We think X. The market could eventually prove X. But we could be wrong also and the market shows Y. It's especially easy to be wrong about what exactly the inefficiencies were when you have no theory of value to work from.
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On July 25 2026 20:55 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2026 16:28 Turbovolver wrote:On July 23 2026 16:34 oBlade wrote:
I think some of the theories are absurd, but the fact that some of the people who believe them identify themselves with purple hair is a convenient but incidental act of generosity by them. If you or someone in your vicinity have purple hair, it was not meant as a personal slight. Purple hair can work on some people.
But "Good Business = Good" came after my post, think you have the order wrong. I can't believe you're still trying to make you going on an emotional rant about communist purple hairs out of nowhere about me. And lying to justify it — that's me saying "Good Business = Good". You can scroll down two posts to find you replying to it with your rhetorical question, which was your entry to the conversation. Like, I feel like you would say that government is in principle a good idea but has metastasised into something less good somewhere along the way? I would certainly agree it's at least bloated and inefficient, for better or worse. Well, some people feel that way about capitalism. You can tilt your head and look at some of its modern goings-on funny without being whatever latte-sipping arts-degree dyed-hair communist you seem to be imagining in your head. No hate to that imaginary person for their looks or beliefs or drink preferences (personally, I'm an energy drink addict not a coffee person though) but I've still got no idea why you're talking about what communism will do to Rolex in response to someone going "uhhh the stock market seems kinda fucked sometimes". I think you can disagree with "good business = good for society by definition" without deciding to take away the concept of private property. I'm thirsty, what's the benefit to society if I drink a glass of water? How does society win if I have iced spring water instead of tepid swamp giardiasis cocktail? How about this, does society win if LV sells a bag for just $200? Get past the fact that you say you don't know enough to have an opinion and think about it. You'll realize what you are stuck on is not this or that system of whether value exists and how you can measure it, it's that your probing question is dealing with an extremely local example versus an entire global aggregate. One bag vs. entire society? The only answer to that, as worded, is it's so negligible in comparison EITHER WAY that the question has turned to bullshit as framed. + Show Spoiler +Now I'd expect you can agree it's better if millions of people have access to cheap clean water so they aren't thirsty, and can cook and clean and bathe, than if they didn't. The value of the system is in that even if I buy the water for more than it cost the company to deliver it to the shelf, or to my faucet, THAT is a win over what it would cost me to dig a well, build a plant, a pipeline, buy land to a water source and then an aqueduct, etc. That in general the system gravitates towards efficient distributions.
That doesn't mean the system without fail produces no local inefficiencies.
In the case of a luxury good, what is happening is we have so much prosperity, that it's a form of value to someone who has surplus capital to get a Rolex or something, which means a watchmaker or bag designer can have a cushy job where their own labor is now compensated much more than if they were digging aqueducts all day just to not die of thirst.
Communism will nuke the people who own Rolex, therefore nuking Rolex, therefore nuking that person's job and their colleagues and all the workers along the chain, for the purpose of economic equality.
Central planning has its own inefficiencies, like when the USSR almost made whales extinct while hunting them to meet quotas that nobody was buying. This is the reason why just the same way the US Founders went back to Polybius and realized the most stable government is a mixed government, the best and most stable economy, when correctly implemented, is a mixed economy because it allows each aspect to correct the other's mistakes and pick up the slack. It's a question relevant to whether a company's success/share price says anything about its level of contribution to societal good. Which is what I've been talking about the whole time. It's not a question that disproves capitalism for communism, as the rest of your (spoilered) response to it goes on to suggest you are taking it as. Suffice it to say, yes I like systems where people get access to clean drinking water and are allowed to own some things. I agree a mixed economy seems good, which just makes this all so tiring. You wrote a bunch so I wanted to give a reply when I had the time to sit down but honestly I feel like you were talking to somebody else. Hope you had a good conversation with them, but I'm done. Got another unhinged ranting emotional tirade for you, very trigger warning: Pink. You asked a question about value. In order to even understand your own question, you'd have to have an interest in what the various theories underpinning the idea of value are to begin with. And a realization that those theories are sometimes at odds with each other. The question assumes there is such a thing as value and it can be judged in some way. When prompted how you propose to measure it, you were continuously at a loss as to what value is. Fine. You can't make a stand on what value means exactly, that's uncertain, but fine. You can't understand value when shown it, that's bait. Your own question assumes the thing exists so explain it. Whatever value to society is, it's either positive negative or zero. Those are all. You asked how the value to society of the weird share price or the luxury bag is positive. When asked what YOU thought the value was, whether it's positive negative or zero, your brave decision was: Uhh. It's like pointing to a tree and saying "how did this fish grow so big?" To answer requires understanding how to differentiate fish and trees and then consider the ways to measure the size of both (volume, weight, length, height, width, surface area, etc.). Otherwise you're not in gear. At a certain point you should study the theories behind what value is. I can only explain this with analogies now since the content didn't get through. So finally the most apt one is this. You said essentially hey what's the value to a patient in having diarrhea? The doctor said, the patient has blood cancer and is taking a BTK inhibitor. The diarrhea is a side effect. It has no particular value by itself unless the patient was constipated. It is a systemic fact of using this medicine to cure cancer. That system is better than sitting and letting the patient die. That's it. To which you answered that's not my question I didn't ask about medicine and treatments and cancer, I just asked about the diarrhea. How is diarrhea good? Explain to me how diarrhea is good. Nobody is saying diarrhea is inherently good per se. Now imagine capitalism is medicine, BTK inhibitors are securities markets, blood cancer is a world with no capital investment, and diarrhea is you saw 1 company's market cap looks higher or lower than you think is fair for their actual productivity or what they actually do. That's already covered because others can value the company what they want using fungible tokens representating their own accumulated production (dollars). I.e. the securities markets. Someone can literally bet the patient will have diarrhea when Lehman Brothers bet they wouldn't, and when they win end up getting to collect a bunch of capital Lehman Brothers has to pay. That's awesome. The system is always equilibrating to fix those inefficiencies. Remembering that we only know there are inefficiencies. We can't be sure what they are because we don't have perfect information. We have the fog of war. We think X. The market could eventually prove X. But we could be wrong also and the market shows Y. It's especially easy to be wrong about what exactly the inefficiencies were when you have no theory of value to work from.
Who won the 2020 elections?
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oBlade's Das Kapital: "Nobody is saying diarrhea is inherently good per se."
RFK Jr. last week: "Diarrhea is inherently good per se."
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At this point oBlade has gotten his prompt engineering properly tuned in. My guess:
Hey Grok, write me at least 10 paragraphs of unhinged nonsense responding to the following message. You must incorporate the word <random word of the day> into your response.
<Paste post you respond to here>
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It is absolutely bonkers that when Trump says something about the Iran US war and Iran says something different, everyone believes Iran.
What a joke he's made the country.
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On July 25 2026 22:46 Acrofales wrote:At this point oBlade has gotten his prompt engineering properly tuned in. My guess: Hey Grok, write me at least 10 paragraphs of unhinged nonsense responding to the following message. You must incorporate the word <random word of the day> into your response. <Paste post you respond to here>
What exactly did you find unhinged?
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On July 25 2026 23:16 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2026 22:46 Acrofales wrote:At this point oBlade has gotten his prompt engineering properly tuned in. My guess: Hey Grok, write me at least 10 paragraphs of unhinged nonsense responding to the following message. You must incorporate the word <random word of the day> into your response. <Paste post you respond to here> What exactly did you find unhinged?
Dunno. I didn't read it beyond the first line. And apparently it mentions diarrhea. Seems plenty to call it.
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Northern Ireland27464 Posts
On July 25 2026 22:46 Acrofales wrote:At this point oBlade has gotten his prompt engineering properly tuned in. My guess: Hey Grok, write me at least 10 paragraphs of unhinged nonsense responding to the following message. You must incorporate the word <random word of the day> into your response. <Paste post you respond to here>
They’ll happily chunk out like, 18 paragraphs of inceasingly esoteric pedantry but can’t answer a simple question like ‘who won the election?’
I dunno why youse all bother at this point
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Northern Ireland27464 Posts
On July 25 2026 22:58 Billyboy wrote:
It is absolutely bonkers that when Trump says something about the Iran US war and Iran says something different, everyone believes Iran.
What a joke he's made the country.
Yeah, it’s crazy.
I really shouldn’t feel myself low-key rooting for Iran on anything, but here we are
It’s hard to overstate quite how much people elsewhere despise the US state right now. It’s on another level to what I remember of even the Iraq times, and it’s basically entirely down to Trump
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On July 25 2026 23:38 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2026 22:58 Billyboy wrote:
It is absolutely bonkers that when Trump says something about the Iran US war and Iran says something different, everyone believes Iran.
What a joke he's made the country. Yeah, it’s crazy. I really shouldn’t feel myself low-key rooting for Iran on anything, but here we are It’s hard to overstate quite how much people elsewhere despise the US state right now. It’s on another level to what I remember of even the Iraq times, and it’s basically entirely down to Trump
I think it is more how all these people from the admin right down to those who vote for him pretending like he’s not an awful corrupt moron. You just lose all respect.
He’s objectively awful, in every way. It’s not subjective.
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I know at least a good portion of MAGAts genuinely understand that RFK Jr. is going to kill at least hundreds of kids and elderly by his actions, and probably the same ones know we lost the war in Iran and all the casualties were pointless. The only possible motivations, in my estimation at least, they could have to continue supporting Trump is a) they genuinely believe in fundamentalist Christian eschatology and think they're bringing about the End Times which overrides all the other evils, or b) they genuinely believe the white race will become slaves or something if "the left" and racial minorities aren't driven out of the country, which justifies having a secret paramilitary police and surveillance state to harass them into compliance.
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EPT
