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Life During Class Wartime

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Re: Life During Class Wartime

#241

Post by enoch_r »

FabCH wrote: post #47
enoch_r wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't appear to be true at all. Do you have a source?

I can’t be bothered to look one up to be honest. I’m not that invested in US internal politics. But Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of reactions with citations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Brian_Thompson

As someone who lives in the US I'd kind of prefer if people didn't flippantly mislead my countrymen to claim that assassinations are beneficial. I found zero sources on Wikipedia for what you claimed. Seriously, if you are too "bothered" to look up any source for an empirical claim, perhaps you should reconsider posting the claim in the first place.

Here are several articles about denial increases in the time immediately following Thompson's death:

- https://www.os-healthcare.com/news-and-blog/denial-rates-are...

- https://www.experian.com/blogs/healthcare/state-of-claims-20...

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#242

Post by UncleMeat »

pitaj wrote: post #57
zug_zug wrote: post #3

Yeah I'm glad somebody's talking about it. Wealth inequality seems like it will be THE defining issue of our lives (accelerated drastically by AI). I think there are many practical ways to solve it, and would love to see more proposals out there. Instead I tend to see nihilism or division.

My hot take is that wealth inequality is the least bad problem we could have, if it is even a problem at all. What people are actually experiencing is not wealth inequality, but cost disease. Vital things (housing, healthcare, education) are more expensive - and that's mostly the fault of state action.

More than one million people die of TB annually, a disease that has an inexpensive treatment.

That’s not cost disease. That is wealth inequality killing people.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#243

Post by senordevnyc »

FabCH wrote: post #47
enoch_r wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't appear to be true at all. Do you have a source?

I can’t be bothered to look one up to be honest. I’m not that invested in US internal politics. But Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of reactions with citations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Brian_Thompson

So the "factual answer" actually is false, and you can't be bothered to even do a google search, you're just spreading misinformation for fun and spite.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#244

Post by BrenBarn »

thunky wrote: post #223
BrenBarn wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any discussion about tax reform has to start with government spending otherwise it's not serious. I'd say almost the reverse. What we need most in terms of "tax reform" is to move away from thinking about taxes as solely a means of funding government operations, and towards thinking about taxes as a way of directly redistributing wealth. That is, the revenues of a wealth tax could simply be given to the non-wealthy…

Totally agree but its not the reverse of what I said, you're still talking about changing how the government spends money.

I would say the way to think about it is that the revenue from this tax is never the government's money. They are just administering the transfer of it from some individuals to others.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#245

Post by red-iron-pine »

goatlover wrote: post #97
readthenotes1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you're down voted. Perhaps the observation that inequality is often and the noble savage utopian dream of "all pigs are equal" is not the norm is too a bitter pill to swallow

We do need to include the vast human pre-history when makings sweeping claims about the natural state of human society. There might be something about civilizations that concentrate power which wasn't seen nearly as much among hunter-gatherer groups. If so, there might be steps that can be taken to counter it (indeed the past several centuries would strongly suggest so).

as someone else put it, the best loved, most successful hunter-gatherer still wore skins and slept in a cave with the rest of the tribe.

the surpluses of the agrarian farmers meant that the pharaoh lived a life vastly different from anyone in his kingdom.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#246

Post by webdood90 »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #181
webdood90 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people stan for billionaires? I don't get it - what motivates you to say this stuff? Most of what you said is greatly exaggerated or simply not true. It's like you cherry picked Fox News talking points.

You're on a site created by a VC fund for startups and startup employees and you are surprised that its inhabitants are in favor of wealth accumulation and capitalism? Don't shoot the messenger; I'm just pointing out the obvious.

Fair!

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#247

Post by red-iron-pine »

idle_zealot wrote: post #37
nervysnail wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If you have a vanguard with special privileges then congrats, you've replaced the inequality of Capitalism with another inequality. This is the exact challenge GP is talking about; it's hard to avoid the tendency for power to accumulate.

this is presumably why Jefferson mentioned the whole watering the tree of liberty with blood of patriots and tyrants.

or why Mao was all about continuous revolution.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#248

Post by BobbyJo »

suttontom wrote: post #234
BobbyJo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things: 1) You have to get it out of your head that it is enough when everyone has X standard of living. It isn't. It's enough when less than a critical threshold of the population is dissatisfied, and that dissatisfaction can come no matter what the median/lowest standard of living is. This is just how societies work, uniformly. 2) Money is a ledger supported by a social contract. Spending wealth in ways that er…

How do you run a society based on who is dissatisfied? It seems reasonable to say that, even though there's a massive wealth gap, if the poorest are healthier, wealthier, and generally better off than they were a generation ago (that might not be true though with this current generation, who it seems may die earlier than their parents did), then changing laws because those people are "dissatisfied" seems kind of arbi…

> How do you run a society based on who is dissatisfied?

We already do. Most of what governments do is reactionary to dissatisfaction.

> then changing laws because those people are "dissatisfied" seems kind of arbitrary

It's the opposite of arbitrary. Governments generally rule via power invested in them by the populace. Doing things that alleviate dissatisfaction is a survival tactic.

> dissatisfaction is kind of the human condition.

This is why building a rational and cooperative society is important, because they are the cure for misplaced dissatisfaction. That being said, historically, governments aren't stable, and that is, in large part, due to some of your points.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#249

Post by thunky »

BrenBarn wrote: post #244
thunky wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree but its not the reverse of what I said, you're still talking about changing how the government spends money.

I would say the way to think about it is that the revenue from this tax is never the government's money. They are just administering the transfer of it from some individuals to others.

We're splitting hairs but imo if the government takes money from bob and gives it to joe they own the money on between those two steps. The taxing -> spending plumbing is exactly the same as it is now.

And if you disagree with that look at social security which is supposed to be your money but clearly it is not.

Re: Life During Class Wartime

#250

Post by BobaFloutist »

BobbyJo wrote: post #73
pitaj wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hot take is that wealth inequality is the least bad problem we could have, if it is even a problem at all. What people are actually experiencing is not wealth inequality, but cost disease. Vital things (housing, healthcare, education) are more expensive - and that's mostly the fault of state action.

Two things: 1) You have to get it out of your head that it is enough when everyone has X standard of living. It isn't. It's enough when less than a critical threshold of the population is dissatisfied, and that dissatisfaction can come no matter what the median/lowest standard of living is. This is just how societies work, uniformly. 2) Money is a ledger supported by a social contract. Spending wealth in ways that er…

The problem is that wealth can be used to purchase dissatisfaction, so that becomes yet another lever for the destructive rich.
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