I remember a high school friend’s father saying something to me like, “You’ll get more conservative when you start paying taxes.” This was around 1993-1994 or so.
I’m 45 now, modestly wealthy, and pay plenty of taxes. I can’t envision ever voting for a Republican for any public office ever again…and the current circus of bullshit around TFG just seals that deal for me.
They only became more conservative because the party used to be somewhat sensible but also used a bit of nostalgia in their campaigning. Now they just use hatred and nostalgia for times where you could openly be hateful. More flies with honey and all that.
Also as someone who is in a not great position, thanks for voting and caring. Selfishly I ask that you especially listen to help for disabled folks. I am in a really bad position and its hard to get out of it because so few people care. When people don’t care then they don’t think about it when voting and we end up in worse positions. Disability benefits, where I am anyway, are stagnated and haven’t risen alongside inflation in 30 years while rent/food costs have exploded. Minimum wage isn’t a livable wage and disability here gets less than minimum wage.
Same (though not American). I did the opposite. I started off conservative cause that’s what my family and community was. Then found out that was hateful bullshit and am now extremely progressive. I’m happy to pay my taxes (and I pay waaaay more than average). I do sometimes wish they went to better things and weren’t squandered as often (especially on MPs paying for $16 glasses of orange juice), but overall Canada does a decent job at using its taxes. It’s impossible for taxes to go to 100% agreeable things, since there’s no satisfying everyone. They’re ultimately a net benefit.
I also don’t have kids but am happy to see kids get the benefits of my taxes (and many other things taxes go to that don’t directly benefit me). People who expect tax dollars to always benefit them are selfish and narrow-minded, which I think is the root reason some people don’t like taxes.
Even if conservatives go back to being about “small government”, I can’t see myself voting Republican. I don’t think I’m anything. I can see “small government” working. But I can also see the democrats vision of “government should do things” working too. I can see either technique working. The problem is, back when Republicans used to promote “small government”, I noticed after a while, they never made government smaller. When I confronted some of them on that, they used to say at least its not as big as what the democrats want. What the fuck does that even mean? Democrats, on the other hand, actually try to do stuff.
Nah, exactly 50% “of the world” is closer to Georgia than Georgia because the dividing line forms two perfect hemispheres. It just doesn’t seem like it because more of the world’s land area is closer to Georgia.
The fact that the map fails to color in the oceans doesn’t help, of course.
Well no, Georgia is bigger than Georgia so slightly more of the world is closer to Georgia than Georgia. If we were to shrink both Georgia and Georgia, the two regions would approach perfect hemispheres as Georgia and Georgia both approach a single point.
I’m just as annoyed by the overuse of the Mercator projection as the next guy, but no, I don’t think we can blame it in this particular instance. Consider the similar case of a day/night map, which pretty clearly reads as 50/50 even when it’s Mercator:
Market != Capitalism. You can have a free market without capitalism, and capitalism without a free market.
The hexbears will attack me for saying that a regulated free market is good and a planned economy is bad. The others will attack me for saying that capitalism is bad and that we should have market socialism instead. But if we can’t have that, a capitalist free market has proven much less bad than any planned economy, as long as it’s regulated enough that it stays free.
The hexbears will attack me for saying that a regulated free market is good and a planned economy is bad.
By ‘attack’ or do you mean engaging in well sourced arguments against your assertions? And by the way we have plenty of market socialists amount our numbers
I was told me another hexbear that essentially you guys don’t believe in good faith debate on public forums, hence all the insufferable shitposting and trolling.
I’m sure there’s probably a few Hexbear users that think that, but as far as I can tell it’s the minority. Maybe I’m wrong
In any case, there’s a lot of us who prefer to interact in good faith. Personally that’s why I left Reddit years ago, because people there are too at each other’s throats instead of interested in finding common ground and developing ideas.
I can’t really speak for a site - it’s users are not a monolith - but the general culture is that you are not owed a good faith discussion , if you clearly aren’t interested in one. If you look you’ll notice that when people ask questions they get them asnwered, but when they try to make gochas or they get embroiled in an argument, but then don’t respect the other well enough to respond to their queries, then it turns into shotposting. And why wouldn’t it? Why would I wanna spend energy validating some doofus that’s pretty obviously just trying to troll? Why would I validate someone’s opinion on something they obviously know nothing about, when I’ve shared sources and knowledge which they then disregard in order to continue knowing nothing?
I got a lot of good information about the Ukrainian war in another thread, but had to endure being called “A liberal” and hearing assumptions about what I read or believe in… So I support what you say in general, but as an outsider it feels like a mixed bag.
But we shouldn’t, Nordic style Social Democracy is still experiencing rises in disparity and reliance on both US military presence as a peacemaker and economic Imperialism to subsidize costs.
Yeah and then you wrote “in either case, I agree” as in you think it would be better to have Scandinavians, than whatever you have now, which is why I ask what you mean by that?
I still disagree with this statement, insofar as it makes it seem like Scandinavia is more reliant on the third world than any other imperialist country.
This statement makes it seem like if the us just did enough imperialism it’d finally get healthcare. That’s obviously not the case. It works as a shield for the American liberals to explain why they do not have healthcare.
The welfare state was a concession won by labour movements in Scandinavia. These concessions could be afforded due to the fact that the Scandinavian countries benefitted from empire - though such a benefit is not necessary for welfare to be present, as has been shown by the many aes states that provide services for their citizens.
Dismissing this victory of labour as “a product of imperialism” diminishes what we can accomplish. We should critique Scandinavia and be aware that those countries - like the rest of the west - benefit from empire. We should however not correlate the existence with a welfare state with participation in empire.
The largest Scandinavian companies don’t pay their taxes, the welfare state is primarily funded for by outsized taxes on the poor and the “middle class”. The upper classes in Scandinavia have been embroiled in countless tax fraud scandals.
It’s not to say that Scandinavia doesn’t benefit from imperialism or that the existence of the countries as they are now aren’t reliant on exploitation of the third world - they are.
It is to say that the statement “Scandinavia can only be the way that it is due to imperialism” implies that with sufficient imperialism the us would turn into Scandinavia (it wouldn’t) and that Scandinavia somehow does more imperialism than the us or other puppet masters.
if we try our absolute hardest to just “do scandinavia” we will only get one step forward three steps back. you can count on reactionary capitalist claw back of any progress, the only long term solution is to defeat the capitalist class and remove their dictatorship. not beg them to give us tiny scraps from their extravagant buffet.
Kid, Scandinavia is falling apart. It’s being hollowed out by neoliberal regimes like those that hollowed out the UK a few decades ago.
Even before being hollowed out, the place was far from perfect. There has always been homeless and exploited immigrants. One of the largest Scandinavian firms is Mærsk, which ships all over the world - mainly using underpaid labor.
None of the “good stuff” is paid for by these companies anyway - they’re just cheating with their taxes like anyone else - it’s paid for mainly by taxes of the lower and middle classes (when you’re wealthy enough you put your money in a tax haven). At that point it’s not “well regulated markets” it’s outsized taxes on the part of the population with least resources available to them.
Is it better than the us? Very much so, but it’s not even close to good
Personally I just think your distinctions are a bit idealistic. Maybe useful as abstract definitions, but too removed from real world economics to make strong statements about it.
For example, a regulated market economy is kind of the natural state of capitalism, unless perhaps you zoom in on single transactions. As capitalism was struggling to emerge out of feudalism, the newly emerging capitalist class had to contend with governmental entities that arose out of feudal economic relations (and thus were geared towards protecting the power and wealth of the landlord class against the peasant class). In that struggle, as the capitalist class gained dominance, they tended to enact laws that protected their interests against both the old landlord class as well as the new working class.
In regards to central planning, that’s a tendency of complex economies to drift towards for a variety of reasons. Capitalism tends towards monopoly (because monopoly is the most profitable state an enterprise can strive towards), and in later stages of monopolization, the economy is de facto, if not de jure, a centrally planned economy. ln the US, a large amount of our industry and distribution is centrally planned by corporations like Amazon and Walmart, large agriculture corporations, etc. And I imagine companies are going to continue to consolidate.
The big problem is this central planning is done without our or society’s best interests in mind, their primary purpose is to benefit the company’s shareholders. What some of us theorize is that once it reaches a point of consolidation, that infrastructure can then be seized, and systems can be set up such that the efficiency and whatnot is preserved, but the purpose is changed to benefit everyone (as much as possible) instead of a small number of shareholders. That’s very theoretical and general, of course. The specifics and nuances will depend a lot on the specific conditions we live in.
That’s the thing, when people say free market they mean a unregulated one and not a social democracy, markets are a effective tool to generate wealth and progress but they don’t spread that wealth very well and profit over everything isn’t a great way to help people so you need heavy regulations and certain areas shouldn’t be under market control at all because people can’t choose to use them!
The hexbears will attack me for saying that a regulated free market is good and a planned economy is bad.
Yes, and we are right. The Soviets went from an agrarian backwater to an industrial giant in basically a decade using economic planning, doing all the complex math by hand. The US is a semi-deindustrialized state with access to supercomputers.
Do you understand that a law banning slavery is a piece of regulation? Would you agree that society is more free with that regulation, or less free?
The same logic applies here. The market is free when everyone can freely participate in it. Which means that we have to stop (regulate) those who want to prevent people from participating (i.e. monopolists).
Look man, good on you for understanding that “free markets”, the fundamental ideology of capitalism, is antagonistic to people’s liberty. Its just wild that you acknowledge that but then go on to insist we should keep doing free markets and capitalism.
Free markets and capitalism will always both ideologically and materially put people into power who disagree with you, people who want to deregulate the market and restrict people’s freedom. In order to actually do what you want you must shut those people, the bourgeoisie, out of power. It doesnt matter if you do that through revolutionary violence like the communists or through peaceful democracy like so many Latin american nations. You will be met with violence from the bourgeoisie. Doesnt matter if all you want is an actually regulated free market.
“free markets”, the fundamental ideology of capitalism
Wrong already. The fundamental ideology of capitalism is that people with capital reap the profits (through control of means of production, but also means of living). You can shorten that to “rich get richer”. But nothing related to markets.
In fact, there were several instances of capitalist economies without a free market. Nazi Germany comes to mind - the government bought weapons, supplies, and everything else, but they were contracted from private corporations controlled only by “desirable” individuals. Other wartime economies apply here too, to a lesser degree - with rationing but still private ownership.
And yes, capitalists are always afraid of a genuinely free market, because they don’t want competition.
The fundamental ideology of capitalism is that people with capital reap the profits
That’s not an ideology. That’s the actual material conditions of capitalism. An ideology exists in people’s minds. Its the justification for those material conditions. The capitalist justification is “the freer the markets the freer the people”. Sometimes people see through that bullshit and they adopt a new ideology, usually some variant of fascism.
The Nazi’s and many fascists will cannibalize sectors of the market that dont get along with the new regime. This isn’t a particularly novel observation.
Its like you understand that everything the capitalists told you is bullshit but you still want the fake goal they set up. So you kept the label of “free market” and slapped it on “well regulated market” and are pretending like you’ve done some clever judo. Everyone will call you a market socialist because that’s what you want.
My problem is you’re calling a well regulated market a “free market” when thats universally accepted as the total opposite definiton of the phrase. I dont know why you insist on calling market socialism “free markets”. You want market socialism for a free society.
Free markets are antithetical to a free society as you pointed out before.
It’s definitely possible to go three days without taking a shit. I’ve had to do it before. I was a 45 minute drive away from the nearest gas station, and the only available toilet within walking distance was an outhouse that was infested with yellowjackets. By the end of the third day, I was considering digging a new outhouse.
It’s not even always that bad, I’ve gone a week and a half before, could’ve gone longer but I forgot my lactaid at home. It’s just genetics and training how long you can hold it. These days I regularly go more than 3 days, usually twice a week.
I don’t think I’ve talked about this in the last 10 years or so. Even I had forgotten about it till now. In primary school, I had a friend who would challenge me with things. We’d see who can finish a Popsicle first, or who can run faster, mostly stupid innocuous stuff. One day he challenged me to hold off poop. We’ll see who gives up first. Now, back then I only pooped like once every 2 days or so. I thought it won’t be a big deal and I’d win easy. But days go by, he claims he still hadn’t pooped. Well, I didn’t wanna lose, so I didn’t poop either. It ended with me having extreme stomach pain, and finally giving in on the 8th day. I ended up seeing a doctor as the pain won’t end. My parents were really angry with me when I told them what had happened. (They didn’t know I was doing this. I’d go into the toilet, sit a while, flush, and come out. I knew they won’t let me do it otherwise.) Then they went to talk to his parents. Turns out that bastard had given up on the second day! We’re still in touch, but never did any challenges after that.
It’s honestly very possible depending on the setting. I’ve gone over two days before without really realizing it while camping. Part of it is just not eating that much, part of it I think is some subconscious desire to avoid shitting in the woods or in an outhouse. But I’ve had it happen multiple times where we go camping on a Friday night and I realize late Sunday that I never went.
I realize that’s not the same as three full days, but I have to think if I was intentionally eating very little it would be attainable.
It needs to be 2. Otherwise all the people will materialize inside eachother. In fact, everyone will be deposited onto the 2-dimensional pane of the blue portal itself, like an infinitely thing coat of paint, absolutely smearing them.
Think about it. As your fingertips enter the orange portal, they materialize at the entrance of the blue portal. Then your wrist enters the orange portal, where does it materialize at the blue portal?
If your fingers shift to make room, then that has imparted momentum and it’s option B.
If you continue to materialize on the other side of the portal like a mirror image, then for all intents and purposes the blue portal is also moving at the same speed as the orange portal, even if orange ring appears still.
If your fingertips don’t have momentum and your wrist materializes at the portal, then your wrist is occupying the same space as your fingertips. Congratulations, you’re now a paste.
For whatever reason I feel more willing to break conservation of momentum than I am to
This has the interesting implication that the relative speed between the portals is “added” to whatever goes through it.
Example: the blue portal is on a train running with the same speed in opposite direction. The people-bundle would instantaneously be accelerated to twice the speed of each of the trains. (This becomes a real headscratcher if you were able to put the portals in a particle accelerator)
It’s two dimensional in the sense that the surface of the portal is a plane, through which things pass.
So as things pass through the portal, conservation of momentum is either preserved or it isn’t, with respect to a constant observer. What happens as they partly enter the portal in both of these situations?
If momentum is preserved, and they have zero momentum going in to the portal, then they are motionless as they exit the portal. There is nothing to cause your hand to move out of the way for your arm. Scaled down to the atomic level, you become a paste.
So you say that your hand moves out of the way because it is connected to your arm. The fact that it moves out of the way fast enough to make room for your arm means that it has velocity, and therefore momentum. The momentum means that it (and you) would get launched into the air, but conservation of momentum was violated.
There is no scenario where you exit the portal motionless but intact.
Zero fast. There is no energy being transferred to the people, they would plop out and push into each other as they are forced through.
If you blocked the stationary portal then the portal moving would essentially just be a wall, no one would go though.
This whole relative thing makes no sense, energy isn’t just created because it’s observed by someone else, the door is moving not the people so them sitting there won’t suddenly be catapulted going through a moving portal, where is that energy created?
No, the dude is right - if they’re moving “zero fast” upon exiting the portal, then that means they’re either a 2 dimensional paste on the surface of the portal (dead), or they were entirely transported upon contact (cannot partially enter a portal) which is explicitly not how the portals in the game work.
This is because: if your hand goes into the portal and appears on the other side, it must move out of the way to make room for your arm. Because it is moving, it has velocity, which means it has momentum. If it doesn’t move out of the way, then you’re now 2 dimensional, and dead.
Also, in portal, energy is absolutely created. Every time you portal to a higher place, you gain potential energy that you didn’t have before, without losing any of the other kinds of energy that you had.
I really think you didn’t read my full comment, because I explained the problem with this exact scenario.
First, in your hoolahoop example both sides of the hoop are moving with the same velocity (this is essentially option 3 I described). But the entire thought experiment is “what if the two sides didn’t move with the same velocity”
If you’ve played the game, you know that you don’t instantly teleport when you touch the portal, you can be half in the portal. This means that when something enters the portal, it is deposited on the surface of the other portal. So as your arm enters the portal, your hand needs to move out of the way to make space for your arm.
If your hand doesn’t move out of the way to make room for your arm (it is still because it has the same momentum that it had when it entered) then your arm will materialize in the same space as your hand. Now scale that down to the atomic level, if the atoms of your fingertips don’t move for the next atoms, everything will be deposited in a 1 atom thick film.
If your hand does move out of the way fast enough to make room for your arm, then it is moving at the same speed that the train was moving. Your momentum from that speed would fling you into the air.
In no scenario do you just pop out intact but motionless.
I just don’t agree that’s how it would work. You can’t gain momentum simply by passing through a portal. The portal cannot create momentum. The object passing through has no kinetic energy going in, it can’t have kinetic energy coming out. It would exit the portal at the velocity of the first portal, as the entry portal passes over the object, and then the object would drop to the ground.
There is no way that it works without breaking even more laws of physics than the game. So you’re right, you can’t gain momentum. Nor can you be deposited intact on the other side of the portal.
But of the options, the one you described seems the least likely. I keep telling you exactly how it wouldn’t work, and rather than addressing the concerns you just say “no”.
We can agree that you can partially enter a portal, so you can put your hand in and only your hand comes through the other side. So now tell me: how does your hand move out of the way for your arm to come through, without moving? Because if it moves, then it has gained momentum, which you’ve explicitly said doesn’t happen.
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