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Doomkid

i am SO FREAKING DONE guys !!!!!!!

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21 hours ago, dr_st said:

If you insist, you can read this (I didn't write it, obviously, and I don't even necessarily support it, but it's just a bunch of studies that shows some other, possibly unintentional consequences of minimum wage increase):

https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/four_reasons_not_to_raise_the_minimum_wage.pdf

Ughhhhh... Cato Institute. Of course you preach what you preach if that's your go-to scripture. What's next, Ayn Rand?

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1 hour ago, dr_st said:

Then you must not have been paying enough attention when reading my discussion with NoXion. In countries that are "still capitalist by and large", billionaires are not viewed as criminals and as the enemy, and their existence is not abolished, which is what he seems to advocate for. That is flat out Marxism (as evident also by choice of words such as "ruling classes" and "centuries of privilege"). Now go ahead and try to prove to me that the actual Marxist and communist ideology ever succeeded in creating a just society.


A feudal king in 1300 CE could have easily pointed to the continual failure of peasant revolts to establish a better kind of society. But strangely enough, that didn't mean that feudalism was the perfect form of society that was destined to last forever. History kept turning, and here we are, no longer peasants. So I wouldn't be so confident that just because one potential alternative has been crushed so far, that there aren't any more waiting in the wings.

People like you back in the day would have been the ones saying that we need kings, and that the peasants who revolted against greedy priests and rapacious lords are just so damn ungrateful. Although at least in feudal times even the most cravenly servile boot-kisser of a peasant wouldn't have been deluded enough to believe that one day they would be king.

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51 minutes ago, Scuba Steve said:

LOL! Rich Dad Poor Dad? Are you fucking serious? Is this a joke?

No, not a joke. As I said, that book explains some basic concepts about money that I think are important to know. It's also short and simple to read. No, you won't become rich from reading it. If you can recommend a different book on this subject that's better, I will be happy to hear. Or if you can explain without mockery why you think that book is bad.

38 minutes ago, dew said:

Ughhhhh... Cato Institute. Of course you preach what you preach if that's your go-to scripture.

I don't know anything about Cato institute. That was the first link that came up when I searched for "who opposes minimum wage increase". The point is that it's not the billionaires who oppose it.

 

12 minutes ago, NoXion said:

People like you back in the day would have been the ones saying that we need kings, and that the peasants who revolted against greedy priests and rapacious lords are just so damn ungrateful. Although at least in feudal times even the most cravenly servile boot-kisser of a peasant wouldn't have been deluded enough to believe that one day they would be king.

I am not ungrateful. Everything I have I got through my skills, studies and work. We are not in feudal times. There are no absolute monarchs. The billionaires you so love to hate (Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos) are not part of any "ruling class" that dominated for centuries. They made all their money in their lifetime. They started at the same place as everyone else, and went through the same education system as everyone else. If you will, they are "the peasants that became kings". I don't know how they did it, but I bet it was not through sitting on their asses and whining about the billionaire criminals that existed before them.

 

I never said that there is no way to improve the system or make it better for the average person. I firmly believe there are. Doomkid's examples of countries that do it better than the US are one possible path. All I'm saying is that your particular ideas would never work, because they are based on deeply flawed and wrong axioms.

Edited by dr_st

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Some facts about the Cato Institute:

In addition to millions of dollars in support from its co-founders, the Koch Brothers, the Cato Institute has also received $125,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. The Cato Institute has also been listed as one of Philip Morris's “National Allies.” Cato's corporate supporters have included both Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds. [13]



Founded by the Koch Brothers and supported by Phillip Morris, a tobacco company.



The New York Times reported the Koch Brothers had long attempted to install their own people on the Cato Institute's 16-member board, to establish a “more direct pipeline between Cato and the family’s Republican political outlets, including groups that Democrats complain have mounted a multimillion-dollar assault on President Obama.” This had caused tensions inside the governing structure, as Cato officials said this threatened their reputation for independent research. [8]

The Kochs eventually relented on the condition that Ed Crane retire, who was later replaced by John Allison, reported the New Yorker. It also resulted in a revamp of the Cato's organizational structure, which had based ownership on a share structure. David Koch would remain on the board, but not his brother Charles. Bruce Bartlett, conservative economist and historian, said that the Kochs are ”[P]utting in place a structure that will gradually erode Cato’s independence and move it closer to the American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation.” [9]



Seems they've been becoming more of a mouthpiece for the Koch brothers over time.

Also, check out the lengthy list corporate donors in the above link. I wonder why a think tank supported by so many companies would be against the minimum wage. Makes you think.

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What's there to explain? It's made-up bullshit. The whole book is bog-standard "self-help" platitudes written by a con man who uses the book to sell seminars. Anyone who gets their financial advice from "Rich Dad Poor Dad" would be better served by taking the $6 they would have spent on the book and buying lottery tickets.

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15 minutes ago, dr_st said:

I am not ungrateful. Everything I have I got through my skills, studies and work. We are not in feudal times. There are no absolute monarchs. The billionaires you so love to hate (Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos) are not part of any "ruling class" that dominated for centuries. They made all their money in their lifetime. They started at the same place as everyone else, and went through the same education system as everyone else. If you will, they are "the peasants that became kings". I don't know how they did it, but I bet it was not through sitting on their asses and whining about the billionaire criminals that existed before them.


Billionaires are definitely part of the ruling classes, although I will grant they haven't been around for centuries. We've only had billionaires since John D. Rockefeller, but other members of the ruling classes have been around for longer. We still have god-damned landed aristocrats like the Duke of Westminster (who is also a billionaire as it happens) here in the UK.

Which means that billionaires having same start in life, the same education, as the millions of people like me who were born in working class families and went to a state school, is simply untrue.

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4 hours ago, dr_st said:

I don't know anything about Cato institute. That was the first link that came up when I searched for "who opposes minimum wage increase". The point is that it's not the billionaires who oppose it.

When Cato is the first search result, the point is the exact opposite of what you say. They're propaganda for Kochs, this is a sad self-own.

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4 hours ago, dr_st said:

I don't know anything about Cato institute. That was the first link that came up when I searched for "who opposes minimum wage increase". The point is that it's not the billionaires who oppose it.

Cato Institute, a simple google search:
 

Quote

Promoting an American public policy based on individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peaceful international relations.

 

Of course the Ben Shapiro types want as little government as possible, to have markets as "free" as possible, so they can hire at the lowest possible wage imaginable. That's quite literally the agenda they're wearing on their sleeves. Next time you get "knowledge" from somewhere, take a close look at where the supposed knowledge comes from.

 

 

The reasons why having a well-adjusted minimum wage is so good, among some others are:
-the reduction of slave-wage jobs (Amazon Box mines etc)
-less illegal immigration into the the USA (for example) because firing current employees in favour of somebody who works for 3$/hour is out of the question
-as well as the reduction of crime overall.

 

 

I don't think we need to discuss Bezo's chaingang, so let's move to the next point, which is kind of self-explanatory:

 

If you open your economy up such that business owners can make the decision to fire employees that cost them like +20$/hour, and instead hire somebody who costs half that amount, then it's no surprise that this feeds the notion of "immigrants stealing all our jobs". And while this is a very limited and one-sided view on the matter, there is an unfortunate element of truth to it. Contrary to what Cato-Inst suggests, keeping business owners motivated to fire the expensive workers in favour of cheaper ones is the exact opposite of protecting the lower income segments of the population. Meanwhile, the more people immigrate to the US in hopes of escaping Mexico's poverty, the more people get fired, and the more people are a burden on the state's budget, which includes welfare as well a medical needs, among other things. Simply put: Republicans in the US who are against immigration but also against minimum wages are shills by definition, because all their desired policies make (illegal) immigration more attractive rather than less attractive (walls be damned). Their entire "concept" of protecting the lower income class is built on a big and bold-faced lie. Of course, if you do minimum wage wrong, and you leave too much leeway for business owners to still have a high motivation to fire expensive and hire cheap, then a minimum wage will do very little, but if done well, it does certainly pull its weight:

 

Quote

The connection between minimum wages and immigrant earnings has been previously established. Orrenius and Zavodny (2008) find that increases in the minimum wage positively effect on the hourly wages of less-skilled immigrant but do not find evidence of disemployment effects6. Using a an instrumental variables approach, Giulietti (forthcoming) also finds that minimum wage increases substantially increase the expected earnings of immigrants without significant disemployment effects. In related literature, Lee (1999) and DiNardo et al. (1996) find strong effects of minimum wages on wage distributions for the whole U.S. population.

 

 

As for crime, less immigration, and less slave wage workers, plus an overall lower rate of unemployment (due to previously employed workers not being fired as often) means that the income disparity between the classes will shrink to some degree. And it turns out that income disparity is one of the biggest factors by which to determine how much crime there is. The less you have to loose, and the more you have to gain, the more likely it is that breaking the law for monetary gain is an attractive option. And this isn't news either:
 

Quote

Fifty years ago Gary Becker, a Nobel prize-winning economist, advanced an argument that all crime is economic and all criminals are rational. Becker’s seminal paper, “Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach” posited that would-be criminals make a cost-benefit assessment of the likely rewards from breaking the law against the probability of being caught and punished. In Becker’s world of utility-maximising miscreants, places that have larger gaps between the poor (the would-be criminals) and the rich (the victims) will, all other things being equal, have higher crime.

To be fair, not all crime is rational or economic, rape for example clearly isn't, but the point still stands regardless.

 

So yeah, basically, don't look at just one book and treat it like the holy bible.

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This change from a shitpost thread poking fun at a middle-aged, right-wing gamerboy fuckwit to an intellectual debate on the ethics of billionaires and the economic structures of capitalism is definitely one of the oddest turn of events I've ever seen on an internet forum.

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5 hours ago, Scuba Steve said:

What's there to explain? It's made-up bullshit.

As far as I recall, it's basically the writer sharing his life experience and things that worked for him. Not necessarily

 

will work for everyone, but that does not qualify as "made-up bullshit" to me.

 

1 hour ago, dew said:

When Cato is the first search result, the point is the exact opposite of what you say.

I suppose you missed this link, which listed NFIB as the opponents, and giants like McDonalds, Walmart, Target and Amazon as the supporters of increasing minimum wage.

 

5 hours ago, NoXion said:

Which means that billionaires having same start in life, the same education, as the millions of people like me who were born in working class families and went to a state school, is simply untrue.

Quit lying already. Jeff Bezos (son of a bike shop owner and a high-school student), Mark Zuckerberg (son of two doctors) and Bill Gates (son of a lawyer and a banker) were both born in normal, middle-to-upper-middle class families. They went to regular universities (Gates and Zuckerberg didn't even graduate as far as I know), none of them inherited any fortunes, and none had any ties to Rockefellers or any Dukes of Westminster. They had the same start as millions of other people. I'm sure if you check and each and every modern billionaire, you will find many more such examples (along with some examples to the contrary).

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16 minutes ago, dr_st said:

Quit lying already. Jeff Bezos (son of a bike shop owner and a high-school student)


Whose parents had a spare $300,000 lying around to invest in his business. How many people have parents that rich?

 

16 minutes ago, dr_st said:

 Mark Zuckerberg (son of two doctors)

 

Went to private school. Again, rich parents.
 

16 minutes ago, dr_st said:

Bill Gates (son of a lawyer and a banker)


Also went to a private school. Noticing a pattern yet?

Son of a banker. Not typical.

 

16 minutes ago, dr_st said:

They had the same start as millions of other people


Yet there are only ~2000 billionaires in the entire world. So even with all advantages that come with being born into an upper-middle class family in a wealthy country, the odds are heavily stacked against you.

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1 hour ago, Biodegradable said:

This change from a shitpost thread poking fun at a middle-aged, right-wing gamerboy fuckwit to an intellectual debate on the ethics of billionaires and the economic structures of capitalism is definitely one of the oddest turn of events I've ever seen on an internet forum.

If only you’d been here for the glory days era of unbridled stupidity in Everything Else. This is lite by the old standard!

 

Also, another thing that’s a staple of Doomworld threads, we’ve reached the point where everyone is spinning their tires in the mud. Those who will continue to support the interests of the ultra-rich over the interests of the country at large and its economic/social stability will not be convinced by an argument here, and the people who will continue to argue for livable wages, fair rights for workers and some basic reform so that the current situation is just a touch less like feudalism will also probably not be convinced to suddenly start arguing against their own interests and the interests of the vast majority.

Edited by Doomkid

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Also, forget individuals. It's populations that really tell us what's going on. What do the stats say about socioeconomic mobility?

In the US, there has been a decline since 1850, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Meanwhile here in the UK, our own government says:
 

Quote

- inequality is entrenched in Britain, from birth to work


- being born privileged means you are likely to remain privileged, whilst being born disadvantaged means you may have to overcome barriers to improve you and your children’s social mobility

- urgent action needs to be taken to help close the privilege gap

 

 


So yeah, given the above, I'm not inclined to give bootstraps nonsense much consideration.

 

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7 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

If only you’d been here for the glory days era of unbridled stupidity in Everything Else. This is lite by the old standard!

 

I do follow Doom.txt on Twitter and I've read about Post Hell ahaha, so I am somewhat familiar. Honestly, this just reminds me of the weird threads that cropped on my old forum and the shenanigans that would incur. I've missed this kinda thing :^)

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I just realised...

7 hours ago, pc234 said:

You guys should start talking about cats

 

7 hours ago, dew said:

Ughhhhh... CATo Institute.

 

This counts, right??

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1 hour ago, NoXion said:

Whose parents had a spare $300,000 lying around to invest in his business. How many people have parents that rich?

More than you imagine. Way more. And to borrow your methodology: do you realize the huge difference between 300,000 and 150,000,000,000?! Do you realize that if you made $300,000 every single day, you would need 1370 years to be as rich as Jeff Bezos?! Clearly, those 300,000 are not even a drop in the bucket.

 

1 hour ago, NoXion said:

Went to private school. Again, rich parents.

E-e-e-e-xactly! So it's not the billionaires who are your problem. It's not the billionaires you should hate. It's everyone who's just a little bit richer than you. So don't spin me crap about "enormous wealth gap". Don't bullshit me about "the difference between a minimum wage worker and a 200K/year engineer is nothing". Because apparently anyone who is just rich enough to send their kids to a private school (and you don't even need 200K/year to be able to afford that) is part of the "privileged ruling class" who exploits and leeches off the hard labor of the "poor workers".

 

This is just the Marxist ideology at its core, with the extra twist of the hatred of the poor, uneducated masses towards anyone richer, more successful than them. That which fueled the Communist revolution in Russia. You know, where they outlawed private property, forcibly took any means of production from everyone and "collectivized" them, and subdued the class of intellectuals to "the dictatorship of the proletariat" (a.k.a. the working class). We all saw how great that worked out. You think you can do better than that, I'm sure, but I hope you understand why some people, especially those who either saw it happen, or studied about it a bit more than you probably did, do not share your enthusiasm.

 

1 hour ago, NoXion said:

- being born privileged means you are likely to remain privileged, whilst being born disadvantaged means you may have to overcome barriers to improve you and your children’s social mobility

This is exactly true. And you know what the smart people, who were born disadvantaged, do? They work hard to overcome these barriers. They understand that most likely they will not be able to bridge the gap between being poor and being a multi-millionaire in their lifetime, but they may put their children in a slightly more advantageous position. And their children may do this to their children, etc. That's exactly how people have been getting ahead in life. Generation by generation.

 

You cannot choose the cards you were dealt. You can just try to do the best you can with what you have.

 

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

Also, another thing that’s a staple of Doomworld threads, we’ve reached the point where everyone is spinning their tires in the mud. Those who will continue to support the interests of the ultra-rich over the interests of the country at large and its economic/social stability will not be convinced by an argument here, and the people who will continue to argue for livable wages, fair rights for workers and some basic reform so that the current situation is just a touch less like feudalism will also probably not be convinced to suddenly start arguing against their own interests and the interests of the vast majority.

What's even more true is the firm conviction of people in particular groups (and typically, a specific political camp) that their beliefs and opinions represent "the interests of the vast majority", whereas anyone who disagrees with them must "support the interests of the ultra-rich over the interests of the country at large". This is also something that it is not specific to Doomworld at all, as I see it pretty much everywhere where such discussions take place.

 

Here, in particular, I find it funny that most of the last two pages has been me going up against you and NoXion, over the flaws of the American system, and it seems that none of us 3 even lives in the US. :)

Edited by dr_st

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Just now, dr_st said:

More than you imagine. Way more. And to borrow your methodology: do you realize the huge difference between 300,000 and 150,000,000,000?! Do you realize that if you made $300,000 every single day, you would need 1370 years to be as rich as Jeff Bezos?! Clearly, those 300,000 are not even a drop in the bucket.


I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that the proportion of people with parents rich enough to give them $300,000 is most definitely a minority. US median income is about $30,000, so as a lump sum to that's ten times that. Only a minority of a minority ever get this chance, and it is just a chance. Most start-ups end up in failure.

 

 

7 minutes ago, dr_st said:

E-e-e-e-xactly! So it's not the billionaires who are your problem. It's not the billionaires you should hate.


What, even when they try to use their wealth to subvert democracy? They failed that one time, but they've got more than enough money to try it again. $1.5 million is a drop in the ocean for these people. Why shouldn't we hate them for that? Don't you even feel a mild dislike towards those who would use their obscene wealth to neutralise your vote while further enriching themselves?

It's not like being an anti-democratic saboteur is something that they can't help, like being gay or having a certain skin colour. It's a conscious action that they have a choice in making. They could choose not to, but they do it anyway.

Same thing with the awful working conditions in the warehouses. Amazon has a choice there too. There's no way that Bezos is unaware. He's OK with that. Are you OK with that?

 

 

10 minutes ago, dr_st said:

It's everyone who's just a little bit richer than you.


I know who my enemies are, thanks.
 

 

10 minutes ago, dr_st said:

Because apparently anyone who is just rich enough to send their kids to a private school (and you don't even need 200K/year to be able to afford that) is part of the "privileged ruling class" who exploits and leeches off the hard labor of the "poor workers".


Did you miss the bit where I pointed out that even among the upper-middle class, most of them don't end up becoming billionaires? Going to a private school gives you social connections unavailable to state school students, but even that isn't enough to give you a better-than-even chance. 
 

 

12 minutes ago, dr_st said:

This is just the Marxist ideology at its core, with the extra twist of the hatred of the poor, uneducated masses towards anyone richer, more successful than them. That which fueled the Communist revolution in Russia. You know, where they outlawed private property, forcibly took any means of production from everyone and "collectivized" them, and subdued the class of intellectuals to "the dictatorship of the proletariat" (a.k.a. the working class). We all saw how great that worked out. You think you can do better than that, I'm sure, but I hope you understand why some people, especially those who either saw it happen, or studied about it a bit more than you probably did, do not share your enthusiasm.


I've already explained that the dichotomy between something like what we have now, and the Soviet system, is a false dilemma. The Cold War is over, but the class war is still going on. 


 

25 minutes ago, dr_st said:

This is exactly true. And you know what the smart people, who were born disadvantaged, do? They work hard to overcome these barriers. They understand that most likely they will not be able to bridge the gap between being poor and being a multi-millionaire in their lifetime, but they may put their children in a slightly more advantageous position. And their children may do this to their children, etc. That's exactly how people have been getting ahead in life. Generation by generation.


Except that people haven't been getting ahead, as the links show. Socioeconomic mobility has been decreasing. But at the same time, people aren't getting any less smart, as shown by the Flynn effect. So what's happening?

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21 minutes ago, NoXion said:

I know who my enemies are, thanks.

It's great to have someone to hate. I imagine you should start doing these with Jeff Bezos's photo, if you haven't yet.

 

21 minutes ago, NoXion said:

Did you miss the bit where I pointed out that even among the upper-middle class, most of them don't end up becoming billionaires?

No shit, Sherlock.

 

21 minutes ago, NoXion said:

I've already explained that the dichotomy between something like what we have now, and the Soviet system, is a false dilemma.

Yes, but what you, personally you, are advocating for is exactly the Soviet system, even if you don't have the guts to admit it (or perhaps not even the knowledge to understand it).

 

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1 hour ago, dr_st said:

You cannot choose the cards you were dealt. You can just try to do the best you can with what you have.

 

You seem to be neglecting that the dealer is society. And as such, we can chose to deal a fairer hand to all. 

 

(just my two cents, not gonna dive much more into this)

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Just now, dr_st said:

It's great to have someone to hate. I imagine you should start doing these with Jeff Bezos's photo, if you haven't yet.


Why bother with that? It's much more fun to argue with people on the internet who defend billionaires for free (wow :'D), even when it's not in their own interests. You've already shown that you either don't mind or don't care about billionaires and corporations meddling in elections or treating their workers like disposables.

The allusions to 1984 are especially funny, since the author George Orwell was a life-long socialist, who fought for the anti-Soviet POUM during the Spanish Civil War.

 

2 minutes ago, dr_st said:

No shit, Sherlock.


So becoming a billionaire is like winning big in a casino (a casino you have to have the right parents to play at). Thank you for admitting that billionaires don't become so by merit. How could they? They're human, just like the rest of us.

 

13 minutes ago, dr_st said:

Yes, but what you, personally you, are advocating for is exactly the Soviet system, even if you don't have the guts to admit it openly.


Now who's lying? Are you claiming to be a mind-reader? There are a whole bunch of political positions compatible with abolishing billionaires.

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@dr_st Out of curiosity, do you support the idea of free market Capitalism or regulated Capitalism? Or is there another option not mentioned?

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12 minutes ago, NoXion said:

Now who's lying? Are you claiming to be a mind-reader? There are a whole bunch of political positions compatible with abolishing billionaires.

 

This actually, the political ideologies are much vaster than just what's mentioned all day long, but I'm gonna have to be with dr on that.

 

I agree with many of the points you've mentioned as I find them good and fair, but at the same time, a lot of what I'm reading sounds more like general pure hatred and frustration against the rich, those richer than ourselves, and people who managed to rise above others, by whatever means they had at their disposal. I don't agree with the way some of them have chosen to exert their power and influence, however (and obviously), but, I'm sorry if it's rude, at this point this almost starts sounding like peasant talk.

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12 minutes ago, seed said:

 

This actually, the political ideologies are much vaster than just what's mentioned all day long, but I'm gonna have to be with dr on that.

 

I agree with many of the points you've mentioned as I find them good and fair, but at the same time, a lot of what I'm reading sounds more like pure hatred and frustration against the rich and people who managed to rise above others, by whatever means they had at their disposal. I don't agree with the way some of them have chosen to exert their power and influence, however (and obviously), but, I'm sorry if it's rude, at this point this almost starts sounding like peasant talk.


Kind of surprising. I've been trying not to allow my discussions in this thread to descend into an incoherent shouting match; I think this subject is much too important to allow such distractions to happen. I've even reined in my usual profanity-laden approach to politics, because I know that can get some peoples' backs up, thus wasting everyone's time. I'm not expecting agreement by any means, but I think it's reasonable to want understanding.

That you can still sense my frustration, despite my care, is completely understandable. I am curious though as to which parts of my postings on this subject you've found to be hateful. It's not as if I've been backing up my points with fake news from some shitty blog. I'm not calling for anyone to be killed. So I am wondering.

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I'd just like to say that, despite what a wild turn this thread has taken, it's refreshing to see this kind of debate in a civil manner and that neither NoX or Dr-who've carried the bulk of the debate-have stooped to ad hominems, strawmanning or other petty bullshit tactics and vitriol we're so used to seeing when it comes to online political discourse.

 

It's... really nice to see for a change. So, thank you for that, guys.

Edited by Biodegradable

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13 minutes ago, NoXion said:

That you can still sense my frustration, despite my care, is completely understandable. I am curious though as to which parts of my postings on this subject you've found to be hateful. It's not as if I've been backing up my points with fake news from some shitty blog. I'm not calling for anyone to be killed. So I am wondering.

 

It's just the general sentiment your writing seems to carry along with it, as opposed to a very specific statement or point you've made.

 

It gradually evolved to a point where no, it isn't an incoherent mess by any means, but one where I get the impression that "rich = automatically bad and must be fought". I just can't shake off that feeling when reading, that everything the rich have done in this world is evil and they are worthy of nothing but utter contempt. Generally in a conversation arguments tend to be balanced more than anything, with pluses and minuses on both sides, but that's something I'm not seeing at this stage, so it's started to look like bias and prejudice against them.

 

7 minutes ago, Biodegradable said:

I'd just like to say that, despite what a wild turn this thread has taken, it's refreshing to see this kind of debate in a civil manner and that neither NoX or Dr have stooped to ad hominems, strawmanning or other petty bullshit tactics and vitriol we're so used to seeing when it comes to online political discourse.

 

It's... really nice to see for change. So, thank you for that, guys.

 

Oh don't worry, we got plenty of that (and drama) to throw around ;) .

 

Start up a topic focused on Brutal Doom/Sgt Mark IV or one presenting a general, strong hatred for slaughter maps, see where that goes :D .

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1 minute ago, seed said:

 

It's just the general sentiment your writing seems to carry along with it, as opposed to a very specific statement or point you've made.

 

It gradually evolved to a point where no, it isn't an incoherent mess by any means, but one where I get the impression that "rich = automatically bad and must be fought". I just can't shake off that feeling when reading, that everything the rich have done in this world is evil and they are worthy of nothing but utter contempt. Generally in a conversation arguments tend to be balanced more than anything, with pluses and minuses on both sides, but that's something I'm not seeing at this stage, so it's started to look like bias and prejudice against them.


A Roman Senator might find modern discussions about the merits of chattel slavery to be very "unbalanced". Back then, slaves were a vital part of the economy, which is why the steam engine never took off, even though the basic principles of steam power were understood at the time.

Obviously modern employment is much better than ancient chattel slavery, even employment at one of Amazon's workhouses. But I think the overall historical trend towards more liberated forms of society is clear enough. We can always do better than yesterday.

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2 hours ago, Joshy said:

@dr_st Out of curiosity, do you support the idea of free market Capitalism or regulated Capitalism? Or is there another option not mentioned?

Regulated, of course. A completely free market is a fallacy; it can never exist, and if it somehow did, it would not be a good idea.

 

I recall that this book does a good job in explaining some of the issues with the theory of "pure" Capitalism (even though, like every book, you should not take it as 100% accurate or truthful):

https://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/1608193381

 

How exactly it should be regulated should be the topic of much deeper discussions, and I imagine the best approach would also vary in time and place.

 

 

 

6 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

The reasons why having a well-adjusted minimum wage is so good, among some others are:

I'm sorry. I don't quite understand you. You say "well-adjusted" minimum wage, but what does it mean? Well adjusted to what? As in "the higher the better"? Or some other policy? I think, given that you started your post as a rebuttal of the Cato institute's opinion, that you believe minimum wage should be increased. Can you please explain the following then:

6 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

less illegal immigration into the the USA (for example) because firing current employees in favour of somebody who works for 3$/hour is out of the question

How does increasing the minimum wage cause reduced immigration? If now the minimum wage is $7.25, and an employer can fire his employee to hire someone illegally for $3, what prevents him from doing the same if the minimum wage is $15? If anything, it gives him even higher incentive to hire illegally, as the gap grows.

 

And if you're talking about employers that pay legal minimum wage to everyone regardless of their migrant status - well, then the immigrants have even higher incentive to immigrate, so they can be making $15 instead of $7.25.

 

You then quote this study:

Quote

The connection between minimum wages and immigrant earnings has been previously established. Orrenius and Zavodny (2008) find that increases in the minimum wage positively effect on the hourly wages of less-skilled immigrant but do not find evidence of disemployment effects

Did you read their conclusion? I don't quite think it supports the theory that increasing minimum wages reduces immigration:

Quote

Using the minimum wage’s close linkage with a less-educated worker’s expected income, I find that in addition to being an important component of wages, a minimum wage increase can induce migration. This study’s conclusion corroborates recent work by Giulietti (forthcoming), who finds that immigrants are more likely to settle in states that have high minimum wages. I find significant effects for immigrants who have been in the U.S. between two and four years. Within this window, a dollar increase in the minimum wage is associated with up to a 26% increase in immigrant counts.

 

Edited by dr_st

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Wealth tax was almost 90% during the United States' most prosperous time. If that's Marxism then fine, I'm a fucking Marxist. Bezos can take his fortune and ram it up his ass. Wanna know what I'm working hard toward? Having my own farm. So I can grow food. Which, interestingly, is the most important job anyone can do other than give birth. But man those poor farmers should really just work harder, maybe go work for Amazon so that we can have our shit delivered to our door. The free market will definitely make sure that we all have enough to eat. You can clearly see that by the high monetary value of agriculture!

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