|
TheImmigrant posted:I enjoy hanging out in fora where I disagree with Prevailing Thought. Hanging out with like-minded folk for high-fives and other reinforcement seems to me the definition of intellectual flabbiness. 'Debate' on this thread is mostly whether wealthy people* should be summarily drawn and quartered, or summarily burned at the stake. Controversy!
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2014 23:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 06:35 |
|
|
TheImmigrant posted:I'm more fortunate than 95% of the people ever born.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2014 23:15
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:Well, I guess coming into a group that doesn't agree with you and mocking them repeatedly can be fun for some. But it sounds to me a lot more like the kind of resentnikism that you are railing against. I don't resent any of you at all. I pity perpetually-angry people who are unable to appreciate their good fortune, and define their own success or lack thereof against other people.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2014 23:17
|
|
|
TheImmigrant posted:Where are you from, and how do you define 'rich?' Arizona, $5m.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2014 23:17
|
|
|
Nevvy Z posted:Yet you are so concerned about the privileged elite at the expense of that 95% Incorrect. I'm merely disagreeing with the prevailing sentiment that relative wealth is prima facie evidence of evildoing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2014 23:18
|
|
|
NoEyedSquareGuy posted:Arizona, $5m. To most people in the world, you are rich. Are you willing to concede your head to a Guatemalan dirt farmer who has never had the opportunities you have? After all, being many times wealthier than he is, you are immensely more evil too.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2014 23:21
|
|
|
TheImmigrant posted:I don't resent any of you at all. I pity perpetually-angry people who are unable to appreciate their good fortune, and define their own success or lack thereof against other people. I do appreciate my good fortune. I know that my life is much better than a significant portion of the world population, and quite a bit of that in Israel and in the US, specifically. I have my own measures of success, and by them I am doing quite well. I don't expect and am just not interested in being jet-setting rich. I see ridiculously wealthy people in the tabloids and go, "good on them". But when people complain about policies that would mildly inconvenience them while creating immense benefits for the general population, that is when I get really pissed off. Anyway, not everyone in this thread has been talking about eating the rich, despite what you've decided to respond to. Do you have any constructive criticism to offer?
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2014 23:21
|
|
|
Ya'll able to think of an operational organization pursuing a policy of killing the rich to seize and redistribute their assets? I am: ISIS/ISIL. That's what the policy you advocate for looks like in practice. Its easy to say 'kill the rich' from the distance of the internet; think your policy through. Are you going to kill the rich? How? Will you wield the machette used to take the life from an individual as they're pleading for their life? Will you show your face while you do it, or are you a coward? loving internet marxists, don't kill the rich, invent creative ways to increase their effective rate of taxation through novel and actionable policy solutions. If you're not intelligent enough to work through the system, either learn or quit urging others to give up because you feel left out. Guess what? World doesn't exist to make you happy, it exists to earn some loving money in. Absurd Alhazred posted:Anyway, not everyone in this thread has been talking about eating the rich, despite what you've decided to respond to. Do you have any constructive criticism to offer? Assisted suicide with disincentivized tax implications.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2014 23:24
|
|
|
My Imaginary GF posted:Ya'll able to think of an operational organization pursuing a policy of killing the rich to seize and redistribute their assets? I am: ISIS/ISIL. Dude, the whole point of this thread is to find ways in which the system can be fixed without using a guillotine. Get off your high horse.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2014 23:25
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:Dude, the whole point of this thread is to find ways in which the system can be fixed without using a guillotine. Get off your high horse. Contribute more to Democrats and devote more time to organizing for Democratic candidates.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2014 23:26
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:But when people complain about policies that would mildly inconvenience them while creating immense benefits for the general population, that is when I get really pissed off. Reasonable people can disagree about the efficacy of programs ostensibly designed to create 'immense benefits for the general population.' I, for one, am in favor of a single-payer healthcare system, but not ready to sign off on any program of wealth distribution merely because it will piss off wealthy people.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2014 23:29
|
|
|
My Imaginary GF posted:Contribute more to Democrats and devote more time to organizing for Democratic candidates. I'd rather Tea Party the Democrats from the left. In NYS, that means taking the Working Families Party while it's down, and changing its course away from blind Democrat worship. In my official capacity I can't be partisan, unfortunately; but hopefully my actions are helping create a cadre for the next generation of active politicians who will change this country for the better. TheImmigrant posted:Reasonable people can disagree about the efficacy of programs ostensibly designed to create 'immense benefits for the general population.' I, for one, am in favor of a single-payer healthcare system, but not ready to sign off on any program of wealth distribution merely because it will piss off wealthy people. Neither am I. Many of these plans will be terrible. I'm a fan of using America's distributed federal system to test several of these out and use whichever one works best, with plenty of oversight, and a basic willingness to drop bad plans when they fail.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2014 23:29
|
|
|
My Imaginary GF posted:World doesn't exist to make you happy, it exists to earn some loving money in. Not sure that the world has an intrinsic purpose, if it does I'm not sure what it would be. I am absolutely certain, however, that making money is not it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 25, 2014 23:53
|
|
|
Sizone posted:Not sure that the world has an intrinsic purpose, if it does I'm not sure what it would be. I am absolutely certain, however, that making money is not it. Amazing that people think a human invention is the entire reason behind existence.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 00:13
|
|
|
420DD Butts posted:Amazing that people think a human invention is the entire reason behind existence. I don't know anyone who thinks that.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 00:29
|
|
|
TheImmigrant posted:I don't know anyone who thinks that. Allow me to introduce you to My Imaginary GF, Rahm Emanuel fanboy, as expressed in this very thread (and as quoted in the post you are replying to): My Imaginary GF posted:World doesn't exist to make you happy, it exists to earn some loving money in.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 00:33
|
|
|
Well, that's a foolish way to view the world. Question: If money is so unimportant, why is it so imperative to take it from those who have a lot of it?
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 00:38
|
|
|
TheImmigrant posted:Well, that's a foolish way to view the world. If that is the imperative, why is that not the reality and why do people who pretend that it is an imperative not realize that in reality those who have a lot continue to make a lot off of those whom do not?
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 00:39
|
|
|
TheImmigrant posted:Well, that's a foolish way to view the world. Money is important in the sense that it acts as a stand-in for material wealth and social status. Its worth is entirely based upon the resources available in a society and thus society's perception of its worth. If we all, say, lived in a barren desert with no resources it is likely money would have little value. The reason people fixate on it in today's society is because its worth to the average person, not some inherent value in it. If we could find a way to give everyone everything they needed without money as a medium then no one would give a poo poo how many coins were amassed in Mitt Romney's Scrooge McDuck vault. Aves Maria! fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Dec 26, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 01:18
|
|
|
TheImmigrant posted:Well, that's a foolish way to view the world. Question, how the gently caress do you get from "not being the purpose of life" to "so unimportant"? Hey, you know what? I don't think eating is the purpose of life, just a means to sustain it. Guess it's time to give up food.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 01:18
|
|
|
TheImmigrant posted:Question: If money is so unimportant, why is it so imperative to take it from those who have a lot of it? Money is, however, important in the sense that wealth gives you power. It is the disproportionate power that people with lots of money have over society that is the problem this thread, among others, is trying to deal with. Money doesn't just buy yachts, it buys influence, and buys flaks like MIGF to sell one's bullshit to an overworked public.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 01:21
|
|
|
TheImmigrant posted:This entire thread is a resentnik bitchfest, and I don't know who has positioned him- or herself as your better. I certainly haven't, and wouldn't, since I know nothing about you other than that you're a self-loathing Israeli who's fortunate enough to have 'lifeboat' US citizenship too. You could be a trustafarian for all I know, richer by several orders of magnitude than I am. The thread is full of self-congratulatory veiled references to violence against the wealthy, regardless of their merit or lack thereof. The assumption is that the world is unjust, and anyone who does relatively well automatically has dirty hands. It's a deeply cynical way to view the world, and it's a bunch of poo poo. Wealth, in and of itself, is not the problem. You're absolutely right: being rich doesn't make someone a bad person, and someone owning a private jet doesn't hurt you or me. The problem is that wealth buys more than just private jets. It is a proxy for political power. Wealthy people have the means to heavily influence government policies via the campaigns they fund, to shape public opinion via the media outlets and PR agencies they control, and to get away with bad behavior via expensive and very competent legal representation. They basically rig whatever system they are operating in in their own favor. What this means is that a rich person who is an rear end in a top hat has a disproportionately more negative effect on their community and society as a whole than a middle-class person who is an rear end in a top hat. When you or I are having a bad day, we might vent on an Internet forum and move on. When a corporate CEO is having a bad day, entire departments can get laid off. I've seen it happen. The reason rich people get a lot of flak is because, as a group, they are fiercely protective of their wealth and resist all attempts to distribute it to level the playing field a bit. This wouldn't be a big deal if they were just keeping to themselves in their private jets. But they don't: they run society and its organizations and their wealth allows them a much bigger say in pretty much everything. This is why they are the target of so much outrage.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 01:21
|
|
|
TheImmigrant posted:I don't need a private jet, and the fact that someone else has a private jet doesn't affect my quality of life at all. Oh, I missed this. Here, let me explain something very simple to you. The world is finite. So someone having a private jet does, in fact, effect your quality of life as the resources and labor that went into making it are excluded from going in to producing any thing else.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 01:31
|
|
|
Sizone posted:Oh, I missed this. It depends on your frame of reference. The person with the Jet should have produced a Jets worth of value to the economy if they have it. Hence someone can have a jet without affecting me in the same sense that someone can take some lumber from their basement and make a shelf without affecting me. On the other hand you're correct that it's theoretically possible for the resources contained in the Jet to be diverted elsewhere, just like the shelf.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 01:48
|
|
|
If one thousand people do labor to create a jet that is going to be used by one person then that can easily be argued to be a less efficient use of the labor than something that would benefit more people. Just because those one thousand people got paid for their labor does not make the usage of that labor equal to any other goal.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 01:59
|
|
|
asdf32 posted:It depends on your frame of reference. The person with the Jet should have produced a Jets worth of value to the economy if they have it. Hence someone can have a jet without affecting me in the same sense that someone can take some lumber from their basement and make a shelf without affecting me. Your shelf doesn't burn poo poo tons of fuel and pollute the environment every time you use it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 02:00
|
|
|
Despite what many infinite growth proponents want you to believe, the earth is in fact a functionally closed system in terms of material resources and using resources unwisely will deplete them assuming they cannot be recycled in perpetuity.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 02:56
|
|
|
TheImmigrant posted:Question: If money is so unimportant, why is it so imperative to take it from those who have a lot of it? Because while money isn't the goal of life, it's a straight up requirement to live a comfortable and secure one, as well as to pursue any kind of life goal or hobby. If you don't have money, you get to live in a crime-infested rundown neighborhood where you get the amazing choice of either having food or warmth for the night. These are conditions that actually exist in real life, mind you, and there are plentiful examples in almost every major city you can think of. Meanwhile, Rich McGee is busy paving his third Mansion's secondary swimming pool with solid gold. Now, I'm not saying that anyone with more money than what is absolutely necessary is a horrible monster who needs to give away all of their wealth immediately or face the death sentence, but that doesn't mean that there isn't clearly an issue here. The reason I don't like rich people and want to see more penalties imposed on them is not because they are more fortunate than me. I could give less of a drat if they went on to live the happiest life there ever was. I take issue with the super-rich because they usually spend their vast wealth to buy absurdly unnecessary and vain crap while people who could desperately use that money suffer. And not only do they don't care about other people's suffering, they also jealously guard every single dollar belonging to them as if they were sacred, and always exploit every single loophole they can possibly find to make sure as little money as physically possible goes to anyone that isn't them. Any claims to the existence of a "trickle-down" effect have been reliably disproven by the wealthy's behavior, so the only discourse we have left is to force them to give out their money. The entire purpose of this thread is to figure out how to do that without going into a full-scale proletariat revolution.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 02:58
|
|
|
what are some prevailing opinions among modern leftists on old timey, Huey Long-style ultrapopulist Democrats? Excepting the racism, I mean. Long's platforms did feature a lot of the things that come up on this forum (basic living stipend, reduction in work hours and increase in wages, aggressive graduated taxation, capping personal incomes, inheritances and fortunes at a certain multiple of the nationwide average) along with things that ended up happening under FDR/Truman/Johnson. Often seemed to (very thoroughly) target the 0.01% rather than hitting the 1%, though, which I suppose is the main divergence from a lot of more conventional tax-n-spend platforms. PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Dec 26, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 03:40
|
|
|
Start a foundation investing in productive businesses and using the proceeds to fund entrepreneurship among poor people. Use your controlling interest in those businesses funded to direct some of their profits into successive rounds of funding. Repeat until done. Has the benefit that if you do it well rich people will compete to give you money.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 03:56
|
|
|
My Imaginary GF posted:Contribute more to Democrats and devote more time to organizing for Democratic candidates. I don't know if you've noticed mate, but democrats have been in power shitloads of times in your country and they've never, ever successfully fixed the horrible stuff, but have always perpetuated it or come up with something newer and more horrible. This is particularly evident considering the president right now is both a democrat and an oppressed minority but his line on your country's soft apartheid and regular as clockwork racial murders by police is "be nice to cops, please  ". It'.s almost as if your system only gives political power to the wealthy, and democrats aren't an exception!It's a bit like telling someone from the UK that the path to socialism is to personally ask for Blair back.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 03:59
|
|
|
wateroverfire posted:Start a foundation investing in productive businesses and using the proceeds to fund entrepreneurship among poor people. Use your controlling interest in those businesses funded to direct some of their profits into successive rounds of funding. Repeat until done. Yeah. There is a dearth of entrepreneurship funds/VC's.  Here's the thing: most businesses fail. Poor people cannot survive a business failure, unless you have a really good social safety net. So instead of yet another "Bill Gates Young Innovators Fund", you can just create mincome and universal healthcare, and make failure less painful. Then more people will create businesses. Easy peasy.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 04:00
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:Yeah. There is a dearth of entrepreneurship funds/VC's. Sure you can "just" do those things. Nothing to it. LOL. "Getting poor people hooked into productive enterprises is just too impractical an idea. Let me tell you about my practical plan to peacefully expropriate the rich.."
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 04:09
|
|
|
It's not that it's only impractical, it's also insufficient.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 04:11
|
|
|
wateroverfire posted:Sure you can "just" do those things. Nothing to it. LOL. "Let's change things by promoting initiatives that are already failing to lead to the desired outcome." --- wateroverfire, genius social entrepreneur.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 04:14
|
|
|
We could fix the class system without guillotines, but that'd be loving boring.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 05:59
|
|
|
Can I threaten the ultra-rich with a guillotine? Is that allowed in this scenario? Because that's basically what caused the New Deal.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 07:57
|
|
|
Ghost of Reagan Past posted:Can I threaten the ultra-rich with a guillotine? Is that allowed in this scenario? In my left hand there is the guillotine, and in my right hand there is a bill for a global wealth tax. Do not let that bill fall out of my right hand.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 07:59
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:In my left hand there is the guillotine, and in my right hand there is a bill for a global wealth tax. Do not let that bill fall out of my right hand. "When that bill falls, so too doth thy head" -- a toff
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 08:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 06:35 |
|
|
Ghost of Reagan Past posted:Can I threaten the ultra-rich with a guillotine? Is that allowed in this scenario? What caused the New Deal was a general chickening out on a coup sponsored by the rich.
|
|
#
?
Dec 26, 2014 08:21
|
|
