Sophronius

@lporiginalg The bizarre thing is that nobody on the left admits to believing Blank Slate nonsense, but they all act as if it's true. IMO the *real* load-bearing delusion is the idea that everything is relative and so it doesn't matter.

@Shalxxx1 @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks delusional

@Janfreterson @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks If it is not requested, then it is not profitable.

If capitalism truly rewarded intelligence and skill, the richest people would be scientists, engineers, and neurosurgeons. If it rewarded talent, artists, writers, and creators would be at the top. If it rewarded hard work, cleaners, laborers, and service workers would be wealthy. But they’re not. So what exactly does capitalism reward?

It still just feels to me that with something like the failure to build high speed rail in California, all the serious liberals and centrists and neoliberals are like, “yeah, what can we say? That does suck.” And it’s just like, no. It doesn’t suck. It’s disqualifying. It means that any people or party or system associated with it is invalid, illegitimate. It’s a totalizing repudiation of a worldview.

@Shalxxx1 @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks No. No, that's clearly just not true. 2 seconds of thinking will let you come up with examples of things that are profitable but not requested, don't say insane things.

@Janfreterson @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks There is nothing circular about it. Activities are profitable only if they are requested. It is a simple demand/offer rule.

@Shalxxx1 @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks "And all of those are required activities. If they were not, they would not be profitable." This is completely circular reasoning and makes your belief an article of faith. This is no better than "socialism is defined as good so if it doesn't work it's not real socialism".

@Janfreterson @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks And all of those are required activities. If they were not, they would not be profitable. Gambling is illegal in games, but yes, making products more desirable is required for those who sell the products.

@Shalxxx1 @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks Of course, things like high frequency trading. Spending endless money on marketing to figure out how to make people buy more crap, or just making products more addictive. Adding lootboxes and gambling to games for kids...

@Janfreterson @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks Legal ways?

@CincyNomad @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks It literally does, the more money you have the easier it is to make money, you can literally get a full passive income as a reward just for being born with money.

@Janfreterson @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks money is the reward. capitalism doesn't reward you for being rewarded.

@Shalxxx1 @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks That's not true, there are tons of ways to extract money from people without providing value, how do you not know this?

@Janfreterson @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks And you make money by providing products or services that others want. Otherwise, they would not pay for them.

@CincyNomad @Nyremde @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks just because wealth does not logically *have* to be zero sum does not change the fact that an enormous amount of economic activity is zero sum games.

@Janfreterson @Nyremde @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks wealth is not zero sum, regardless of whether a monetary placeholder is involved.

Like, national socialism at least makes *some* kind of consistent sense. "We are better, if you disagree we will kill you" But global socialists somehow combine authoritarian superiority with a rejection of nations, borders and everything else that could be the basis of that.

Global Race Communism has to be the most self-defeating ideology of all time. "All men are created equal and those who disagree are twisted degenerate traitors".

@ellisislandsup @wil_da_beast630 @kleistmeister You also believe that all men are created equal but you think those who disagree are "twisted degenerate traitors". Isn't this a totally self-defeating position?

@ellisislandsup @wil_da_beast630 @kleistmeister How can you talk about "national cause" while at the same time rejecting the right of the US to defend its borders? That seems schizophrenic.

Shut your non-American herbivore ass up. No one who is not an open enemy of this nation could believe that allowing in 10,000,000 wholly unwanted illegal aliens during one Presidential administration is some kind of minor paperwork error - but shooting three (?) fleeing felons is some type of apocalyptic disaster.

Well...nothing, of course. Every lib argument - perhaps "leftist," rather than lib - just breaks down to putting a shocking label on normalcy and trying to shame people out of logical behavior. No, I don't want mass low end illegal migration, and high-pitched screaming will not change that.

@QuaintTransfer @Noahpinion He should have promised to start ww3, that would have made him even more successful for not doing it.

@Noahpinion I think he's been pretty successful at not doing much of the dumb shit he promised during this campaign. Overall a win.

Zohran is bad, he's just hot. You want to think he's good because he's good looking. In the past, we toadied up to power; now, we toady up to a TikTok face.

@Nyremde @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks No that’s not what you do, you try to extract money in zero sum games by trying to make your product more addictive or gaming the youtube algorithm or going viral with some stupid stunt that gets attention. Or predicting what idiots will do on the stock market.

@Janfreterson @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks And making money is done by satisfying the desires of other

@Langdon316 @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks That is definitely a big problem and I hear you but it’s not the problem I brought up. The fact is that maximising freedom (economic or otherwise) does come with downsides (you create a society that only rewards the strong) and it’s silly to pretend it doesn’t.

@Janfreterson @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks The government picking winners and losers is not capitalism I can’t have a transaction with my neighbor without the government taking a cut. That’s the problem

@Oakmanbearcow @wil_da_beast630 I understand but I don’t think you can conclude person A is a worse criminal than person B because A was more successful in stealing money. For one thing, Trump actually became president, which makes it a lot easier to steal money as the president!

@Janfreterson @wil_da_beast630 I really can’t believe you’d bring up Hilary getting debate questions. I’m talking about *billions* of dollars in corruption with a B

Which of these notable families is/was the most crooked?

@Langdon316 @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks No, you cannot just put “crony” in front of your system and act like that explains all the negatives away, that’s like blaming all your mistakes on a twin with an evil moustache.

@Janfreterson @KonstantinKisin @omgsidewalks That’s crony capitalism. Get rid of the government and it solves a lot of those issues

@Oakmanbearcow @wil_da_beast630 You talk of gluing eyes shut, but you can literally watch Trump and Hillary talk to the media and see the difference. Hillary got debate questions in advance by CNN, Trump didn’t. The judges were on her team.

@Janfreterson @wil_da_beast630 More of a mob boss than current Trump? He has literally publicly directed his prior AG on which political enemies to go after. His current AG is his personal defense lawyer. The FBI is spending all their time on his 2020 election horseshit. Give me a break

@Oakmanbearcow @wil_da_beast630 Hillary had the media accusing Trump of being a Russian spy based on fake dossiers etc. I dunno, Trump might steal more money but in terms of institutional power Hillary was more of a mob boss.

@wil_da_beast630 Stunning that people are saying Clintons over Trumps. They just have their eyes glued shut