Oceans Yet to Burn — bambamramfan: @flowingblades replied to this...

bambamramfan

@flowingblades replied to this thread with

the government has not given each person the regulations to look at and sign

That’s not an argument about the complexity of the regulations, just their imposition by force.

Which, you know, some things the state makes us do and support are genuinely cruel and stupid. But other things are like… don’t murder. No I never willingly signed away my right to murder, other people chose that for me. I don’t really blame them.

Plus, you know, good luck getting internet, traveling via plane or a car you bought, or getting healthcare without signing ridiculously complex contracts and EULA’s. So you can’t travel, can’t connect to the mass of humanity, and will get sick and die, unless you accede to things that ~~you haven’t~~ are difficult to read. This isn’t that different from “choosing” to be in jail.

You should have a position on the question of “are byzantine technical details understandable by the average citizen, and should we expect the citizens to know them?” That position should be consistent whether they are byzantine details brought by the government or by companies you do business with. Otherwise you’re just making up any clever argument you can for the side you favor, which yes is very possible to do you are very smart, but is pointless and you’ll never learn anything or convince anyone.

the invisible fist

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kissingerandpals-deactivated201

mrthugisolation:
“lol i bet this is a exhilarating read
”
Honestly, these sorts tend to overestimate the degree to which marketers are just being desperate.

Source: mrthugisolation the invisible fist gendpol queue

the-grey-tribe

You Can’t Have It All (even in communism)

thathopeyetlives

In past ages, communists, socialists, and anarchists were usually reacting to a world in which resources were scarce in general as well as in specific and in which the situation of the poor in general was one of miserable deprivation. Meanwhile, the future potential of automation and robotics – machines which might not merely reduce the amount of work that needed to be done, but largely eliminate it – was not really visible.

Today things are… different.

It’s pretty common that I see far leftists more-or-less promising the following after a Revolution:

1. That it will no longer be neccessary for everybody to work, and moreover that people will be permitted not to work, and yet to have enough to live on, without needing to justify not working to anybody.

2. That industry will change to vastly decrease damage to the enviroment

3. That material quality of life and industrial capacity will not catastrophically plummet, especially not in things like medical technology

I think that this is… very optimistic. The kind of optimistic that no wise person would ever bet on.

Some far leftists claim that communism is more efficient and will do better than capitalism. This is unlikely. The Soviet Union did great things – industrializing rapidly after everyone else had a head start and after having the Nazis burn half their country – but they were just catching up to others, and they were oppressive, enviromentally destructive, and didn’t let people not work by any means. It didn’t last.

(However, in the post-Stalin soviet union, there were some labor rights that would make Americans drool.)

If you combine this with confiscationism and the intersectionality thing where anybody’s position in the grand hierarchy of justified people can be questioned, you have a nightmare: a society that continually eats itself, finding new classes of “bourgeoise” and kulaks and “counter-revolutionaries” to force into slave labor or just murder and loot, so that the Beautiful People can have their gleaming solarpunk utopia and their communism of leisure.

I do not wish to suggest that I intend to be the enemy of hope; our current system is unjust and needs to be reformed. We can reform it in a way that will turn automation from a curse into a blessing, and which will improve peoples’ lives now and in the future. But this will not be revolution but counter-revolution, and will have no place for bloodstained red flags.

rendakuenthusiast

Endorsed.

Source: thathopeyetlives politics the invisible fist mostly endorsed the red hammer

“Capitalism with a Human Face”

shtpost politics the invisible fist

argumate

“Movies will be free after the revolution!”

Movies take the work of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people. How will we decide where to allocate our resources for the best results?

shlevy

Centralized committee!

argumate

Yes! The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television smiles upon you!

mitigatedchaos

shtpost visual shtpost the mitigated exhibition what even is this blog the invisible fist the iron hand the red hammer

“Money is no object”

That’s right, as my new theory details, money is not a collection of particles, but actually a wave -

shtpost the invisible fist

argumate

uk.businessinsider.com

There are almost 20,000 'ghost' homes sitting empty in London

Research from Property Partner shows London is the vacant home capital of the country, with 19,845 homes sitting idle for over six months in 2016.

Oscar Williams-Grut, Business Insider UK

commissarchrisman

The hotspot for ‘ghost’ houses — those left empty to appreciate in value — is in the affluent borough of Kensington & Chelsea in London, where 1,399 houses sit empty. The number represents an 8.5% rise on 2015 and a 22.7% rise between 2006 and 2016.

Why on Earth are any people from Grenfell still sleeping in sports halls after the disaster? London and Kensington especially is chock full of empty luxury apartments being sat on by speculators. These must be opened up immediately.

the-darkest-of-souls

Unless they’re owned by the gov you can’t just take people’s bloody property even if it’s empty that’s why

ace-pervert

thats fucked up

notyourmoderate

The problem in essence is that property owners would rather leave their property empty than to accept less than market value for rent. The question is not “no rent”, it’s “less rent”. Virtually anyone you find sleeping rough on the streets is going to have *some* degree of walking-around money, hardly anyone has literally *no* money. But, the owners of housing don’t want that money, they want market value. They believe that a better offer will come along, and if they accept a low offer they will miss their opportunity for the high offer. It’s a failing of people’s payoff-to-probability calculation.

And also it’s a failing of core concepts of how contemporary capitalism is executed. Not to go too deep into it, the crux is this: If they accept a low offer, their property is worth less. If a fork is sold for five dollars, it is worth five dollars. If a fork is sold for five cents, it is worth five cents. So marking down the rent on a property depreciates the property, marking it up appreciates the property. Because value is determined by common belief rather than any concrete consistencies, sellers try to fix the value of property high and buyers try to negotiate value low. So if one party wants to raise their profit, and one party wants to not sleep on a bench, they have similar ability to set the price but wildly disproportionate levels of need. It’s a conundrum, and there’s virtually no way to feasibly and achievably solve that problem.

argumate

set a reasonable level of land tax, then holding on to an empty house in an expensive area costs you money, encouraging you to rent it out or sell it.

mitigatedchaos

Alternatively, allow them to actually build more housing units. Japan isn’t seeing similar massive price spikes in its cities that are undergoing population growth. Send a guy over there and copy whatever it is they’re doing.

Source: commissarchrisman urban planning the invisible fist

collapsedsquid

argumate

some kinds of common knowledge are a massively valuable public good, and a centralised authority is typically the most efficient way of providing it.

collapsedsquid

It’s related to that idea that we all have time and love to comparison shop between everything. It’s basically saying “you’re going to get screwed by that crucial detail you didn’t know was important beforehand.“

mitigatedchaos

Explore vs. Exploit strikes again.

Source: argumate the invisible fist

argumate

All the NTSB recommendations are technically trade offs that have costs; consider American Airlines Flight 191 which crashed on take off killing everyone on board and two people on the ground after an engine separated from the wing due to improper maintenance procedures had cracked the pylon.

While 273 people may have died, the improper shortcuts taken during engine maintenance saved 200 man hours per aircraft! Why, the meddling FAA banning this procedure may have done more harm than the original crash!

mitigatedchaos

Nah it’s alright fam,

If we assume that the GDP per capita is $55,000, and that the typical passenger has 35 working years remaining, we can just have the state bill the company and its shareholders $525,525,000 and put them into debt bondage and sell off their assets if they are unwilling or unable to pay.

Now you may object to the state rolling around and charging huge sums of money as payment for accidental deaths, but I have it on good authority that everyone signed over their trusteeship to the state rather than get kicked into the ocean, entirely of their own free will. Quite remarkable, really. So I assure that this plan is entirely Capitalist.

death shtpost the invisible fist the iron hand policy politics

argumate

quasi-normalcy

Brand loyalty is such stupid nonsense though. Like…we know you’re not a real person, McDonald’s™; we’re not going to swear an oath of fealty to your shitty ass hamburgers.

argumate

teens in unison: today we will cast off the corporate shackles

mitigatedchaos

OP may not realize what practical brand loyalty is. It isn’t about swearing fealty, but about not putting in the effort and risk to try another brand. Not a big deal for hamburgers, but, say your family had major issues with a Ford minivan and started exclusively buying all their cars from one Japanese company…

Source: quasi-normalcy the invisible fist