Prelude to the Apocalypse

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Iran War. When.

2021
3
6%
2022-2025
15
28%
2026-2030
7
13%
2031-2040
3
6%
2041-2050
0
No votes
Never
25
47%
 
Total votes: 53

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system11
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by system11 »

It's fun watching the pro-censorship, pro-war neocons in party hats getting supported by the "progressive liberal" press, while actual candidates displaying actual liberal values are shut out.

This kind of clown world shit is passing for normal now though.
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quash
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by quash »

Xyga wrote:Image
My favorite thing about this argument is that it provides the best counterpoint to itself.

Funny how Democrats are all on board with universal healthcare for illegal immigrants. Really gets the noggin joggin.
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by Xyga »

Yeah though the point is to remind dear Rob in his racist delusions that white people aren't any different than other humans, a lot of us may benefit from more prosperous civilization now but it is so fragile, most of us didn't really build it, individually we live off it even those lost in their randian fantasies. But faced with poverty and persecution we might turn to whatever means to get a better life or simply to survive, crime is one way a portion will follow, that's also the story of the USA. Imagine history had turned different and whites had ended up being fewer and remaining a minority on that land, statistics would look different today.

Years reading him here spout his "look! look! those people are INFERIOR!" without a care for human individuality and circumstances, makes me think racists are a prime example of our species degeneracy when they fall to such low levels that they're completely unable to put things into perspective nor have the slightest sense of responsibility for what they do and the consequences for our species and our future.
Ironically, calling for ethnic cleansing he's showing the face of a beast the kind he blames the 'others' for showing. I really pity those who can only conceive humanity as a never-ending battle royale (funny it's always them who use the word 'freedom' the most), but I pity even more those of us who dream to see all the destructive stupidity like religious batshittery or nazi-commie bullshit finally die, as it seems we're condemned to endure those fool's toxic crass shit over and over, because they always come back to destroy all hopes of breaking those stupid repetitive cycles.
Homo sapiens will never be wise enough, another species derivated might though, in several hundreds of thousands years at the very least since real evolution needs at least that much.

The dems: well, it's always been the achille's talon of the left's policies to pretentiously think they can limit or even contain the consequences or stark inequalities and resulting social conflicts by using welfare, just like that. though they almost inevitably end up doing it clumsily until the things they ignored and mismanagement turn against the population by sucking up resources in an exaggerated and unfair way then it all turns sour. But I give them that at the very least the original motive is at a human level more laudable, unlike the fuming reactionary and far right who just want to erase everyone who doesn't fit their imaginary uniform ideal, ironically joining hands at the ends of the spectrum with fuming reactionary and far left who just want to do the same though in their own fashion.
I give to religion that their model of oppression places invisible inaccessible fantasy super-entities at the top of their authority, which is brilliant diversion when you think about it, maybe a God-President really is the future after all, it's what more and more people seem to want.
Last edited by Xyga on Fri Jul 05, 2019 1:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Mischief Maker
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by Mischief Maker »

quash wrote:Funny how Democrats are all on board with universal healthcare for illegal immigrants. Really gets the noggin joggin.
No it doesn't. Because that's a lie.

Your news sources of choice are lying to you, quash.

And this isn't the first time.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by BryanM »

Mischief Maker wrote:No it doesn't. Because that's a lie.
Imagine actually believing that. When the overwhelming objective reality is that none of the democrats (except for Sanders... but he isn't a democrat) want anyone making less than six figures to have healthcare.

Suppose you'd have to have been foolish enough like those who believed that Donald Trump as president would be any different from Ronald Reagan or George Bush being president.

Ridiculous humans who can't even take five seconds to glance at a publicly posted donor list.

(Not that objective reality matters here. Calling it a "lie" is inaccurate since deception by definition must be believable. This is just telling them what they want to hear - "team blue is against team white". It's a complete fantasy, but god forbid they oppose capitalists by voting for a Jewish man, right? A partisan team rally at the high school is all that one needs for their dreams to come true.)

(Like I said before, this stuff is all just deflection from core substantive materialism. quash isn't really silly enough to think that democrats want to help any human being on the planet. That's not part of their own personal fiefdom or a high-tier patron on their donor list.)
Last edited by BryanM on Fri Jul 05, 2019 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by quash »

Mischief Maker wrote:
quash wrote:Funny how Democrats are all on board with universal healthcare for illegal immigrants. Really gets the noggin joggin.
No it doesn't. Because that's a lie.

Your news sources of choice are lying to you, quash.

And this isn't the first time.
https://youtu.be/aMSmoNOZJ9Y

You can drone on all you want about how they don't actually mean it. That's irrelevant. What's relevant is that this is such a strong sentiment in the party that every last person on that stage for whatever reason felt that it was necessary to signal support for it. What next, they aren't trying to confiscate guns? Because I have debate footage that proves that wrong, too.
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by BryanM »

Why would a "nationalist" be against documenting more people to put into their concentration camps? Weird.

(For those out of the loop, the 11 million people would have to pay a ~$10,000 fine, pass a test, live here for ~ten years, and register as a citizen. Therefore not being "illegal" anymore, whatever being an "illegal" human is supposed to mean. Nazis and Authoritarian State Communists understand the concept of an unperson better than I, have them explain it to you.)

(The concentration camps are price gouging us $750 per day per child. I spend about 60 bux on food, per month. So unless the "illegals" are the ones clamoring for their kids to go to camp at this exorbitant rate, I can't find any antagonism within my body toward them at this gross misappropriation of our currency rationing.)

(That's 22 people's worth of Yang bux to make damn sure some kid doesn't learn numbers from Sesame Street. But, that's our priorities.)

(Jesus I even forgot that people enter Mexico to exploit their healthcare system because ours is so shit. For some reason the alternate reality They paint of the place as being a complete failure made that slip my mind for a bit. God help you if you pay out of pocket for insulin and don't have a border to hop.)
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by quash »

If our country sucks so bad, why are these people willing to die to get here?
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by Koa Zo »

quash wrote:If our country sucks so bad, why are these people willing to die to get here?
Hollywood.
Our media has been exporting the illusion of superiority for generations.
Think of all the bafoons right here at home who proclaim "the greatest country on Earth!!" yet have never themselves been to any other country - what basis are they speaking from? Their favorite media tells them it is so.
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by Mischief Maker »

quash wrote:If our country sucks so bad, why are these people willing to die to get here?
Because our foreign intervention into central/south America sucks even worse.

Most of these people are fleeing drug cartel violence inspired by the very death squads Ronald Reagan subverted the constitution to arm. You know how in Game of Thrones the white walkers do that thing where they slaughter an entire village of people, then afterward nail a child to a tree and arrange the body parts of the other victims in weird patterns? That's the kind of thing those death squads did. How the hell do you make your gang scary enough to avoid being ripped off in the aftermath of that shit?

And the very same ghouls who fueled that horror are sitting at the topmost echelons of US government right now, instead of a jail cell where they belong.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by Weak Boson »

Not to mention the kind of migration crises climate change will create. When your land becomes arid there's nothing to do but head north. It's already happening, of course, and there will always be some folks who think the solution is to raise the drawbridge faster rather than doing literally anything to help.
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by Xyga »

Everyone hurry to Alaska at Rob's! :D

*sees the news today*

...crap hot af there too. :?
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by BryanM »

The crap going on in the Queens DA race man... electoralism probably is a farce.
quash wrote:If our country sucks so bad, why are these people willing to die to get here?
Our country sucks ass for an empire state. It's not a vassal or slave state.

Have higher standards to who you compare yourself to. (Though yeah, someone who survived the death squads of Reagan and the deserts of Arizona is indeed probably more worthy of citizenship than us lazy bastards who got it for free. Like you just said...)
climate change
Yeah we're all gonna die but at least we'll be slightly later in going down the toilet.

It's like the inverse of who will be eaten first?
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by Specineff »

Xyga wrote:Yeah though the point is to remind... (Respectful snip)
Thank you, sir.
quash wrote:If our country sucks so bad, why are these people willing to die to get here?
Because the system mostly works (or at least there is a system in place), because money earned is actually worth the effort put into earning it, because there's a system of checks and balances, because no one will burn or stone you for having a different faith or trimming/shaving your beard, because the police aren't in the pockets of drug cartels, because parental and domestic abuse can be prosecuted and the victims protected, because your taxes actually are good for something outside of paying politicians, because there are no guerrillas razing your land and raping your daughters before conscripting your sons, better medicine (expensive as it is), hotdogs, baseball and root beer.

It may not be perfect, but way better than nothing.
Don't hold grudges. GET EVEN.
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by quash »

The system works for some, not for all. In fact, it doesn't work for the majority of people. Which is exactly why we're in the predicament we're in right now.
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by Mischief Maker »

quash wrote:The system works for some, not for all. In fact, it doesn't work for the majority of people. Which is exactly why we're in the predicament we're in right now.
Welcome to the DSA.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

An oligarch walks in and grabs nine cookies for himself.

Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by BulletMagnet »

quash wrote:The system works for some, not for all. In fact, it doesn't work for the majority of people.
And the solution, of course, is to make it work for even fewer people. :lol:
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by quash »

Or, more accurately, for the people who made it possible to begin with, and then for those who have something to contribute. Gaming the system happens on every level anymore (it's arguably the only way to live at this point) and it needs to stop before it fails and brings everyone down with it. Of course, there are vested interests who will try their damndest to make sure that doesn't happen, which is why it won't and we're all just coasting along waiting for the next black swan event to hopefully bring about change that it probably won't.

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018 ... -preppers/

You can find plenty of other articles out there that cover this same topic if the source bothers you. The point here is that the elites are planning and indeed are counting on the system to collapse. If nothing else, you can take solace in the fact that even they won't be able to entirely escape the fallout from such an event. Running away to New Zealand may help them in the short term, but once the dust settles they are fucked.
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by Xyga »

quash wrote:Or, more accurately, for the people who made it possible to begin with, and then for those who have something to contribute.
So you mean you want baby boomers to keep their 20th century-earned prosperity ? I thought they pissed you off for lecturing and preaching us when they played on easy mode, one of the rare times I'd agree with you on something. :lol:

I don't live in the US but that phenomenon can be seen through many of the countries that peaked post-war, whatever aspect of everyday life their wealth and lifestyle aren't challenged to any significant level while the majority of the younger population faces an increasing amount of economic and social pressure. It's like the whole system's tailored to maintain theirs until the bitter end, no matter how much it weighs on their kids and grandkids (assuming the kids can afford to make grandkids now)

Of course we're not the ones who 'made it possible', and even less so our kids. But neither did the baby-boomers either, the times of innovators and builders were before that.
The little baby-boomers contributed was in mass-consuming thanks to the high employment, cheap living and high salaries, then from the 80's they financiarized capital further making it possible to exploit cheap workers anywhere on the planet and hide the profits in tax havens easier, and arguably to initiate or at least finance the 4th industrial revolution (or rather the next stage of de-industrialization since manufacturing was relocated to China. the final stage will be AI everywhere btw, then we'll have lost the final battle for work and money)

They were living-off the benefits of the previous decades and centuries, basically surfing at the top of the wave, and now it's headed to crash the anomaly is that the system keeps them on top, leeching from many vital sources.
One of the illusions of the right, shared by a good portion of the left anyway though with hypocrisy, and it's all an inherited from those prosperous past decades and centuries of growth and stability, is that "hard work pays and you get what you deserve", and they keep telling you that as you fail, like it's your fault for sucking or being lazy that you can't have a steady job and career, buy a house, make kids and take vacations in the tropics or ski resorts, or you have to rely on social aid during long unemployment periods etc.

In short it's forbidden to say the dices are loaded, and that we're playing in maniac mode because of that. Social mobility doesn't work nearly as well it did for them, and it's mostly their responsibility, but it's forbidden to say it.

So the problem is when you say "the people who made it possible to begin with, and then for those who have something to contribute", it's THEIR thinking, which was already broken to begin.
Most people live-off the system and what others do, even the ones in the highest positions and the bigger contributors because they're nothing without all the rest of the population.
Do you really still believe in what those old objectivist bourgeois say, quash ?
For me it's simple, I've had it, heard their shit enough no matter which ideological sensitivity they claim to have, obsolete ideologies anyway that were working only for them in their time, they don't know shit about the world and can't operate a computer mouse, yet society continues to provide them with the same wealth, status and peace they only still so-so deserved several decades ago.

The nanny-society you claim to despise has been pampering them the most at the increasing expense of younger generations, and this no matter the flavour of 1st world country we live in, if you still believe the left and right ideologies make any sense today you fail to see that for us the results were the same, ultimately being variables of the same core system.

NOW...

I haven't picked up on the possibility that when you say "the people who made it possible to begin with, and then for those who have something to contribute", you actually mean...the whites ?
If that's what you meant then that makes you a brainwashed drone of the baby boomers even more. :lol:
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by quash »

Xyga wrote: if you still believe the left and right ideologies make any sense today you fail to see that for us the results were the same, ultimately being variables of the same core system.


Now you're speaking my language.
If that's what you meant then that makes you a brainwashed drone of the baby boomers even more. :lol:
The same boomers who oversaw the biggest influx of migration in history? The same boomers who elected Reagan after he granted amnesty to millions of illegals in California, permanently changing the electoral landscape of the US? The same boomers who today are encouraging even more migration so they can find people willing to pay in to Social Security and buy their overpriced piece of shit houses? Are we talking about the same boomers, here?
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by BryanM »

So you're signing up for the DSA since you're anti-capitalist, right?
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by Xyga »

quash wrote:
Xyga wrote: if you still believe the left and right ideologies make any sense today you fail to see that for us the results were the same, ultimately being variables of the same core system.

Now you're speaking my language.
Depends. By that I don't mean opting for the further right or left narratives is better, it's the opposite, they're the epitomes of refusing to face reality and irrational wills to accelerate the destruction of our societies. I don't want (false) change their nasty way.
quash wrote:
If that's what you meant then that makes you a brainwashed drone of the baby boomers even more. :lol:
The same boomers who oversaw the biggest influx of migration in history? The same boomers who elected Reagan after he granted amnesty to millions of illegals in California, permanently changing the electoral landscape of the US? The same boomers who today are encouraging even more migration so they can find people willing to pay in to Social Security and buy their overpriced piece of shit houses? Are we talking about the same boomers, here?
For me that sounds like you're still completely trapped in the delusions of political/ideological bias, right/far-right in your case.

I'm not the type to use history as a ticket for today's populations to have the excuse-right to demand any special treatment. But that doesn't mean the human reality I was talking about should be overlooked, as I said we've all been in situation similar to those migrants, well, our ancestors were, whether they wanted it or not, and you can trace this back as far as the first migrations that happened after the first groups of humans settled and began to meet others, and there's been countless waves since then.
We don't migrate for 'leeching' off others at their better place, oh well some do, but it's a right-wing bias to be able to see only that aspect and forget we do it naturally.
Yes that's our nature, even at the core of the societies that settled and developped, movement and exploitation of other humans and resources are the basis of our ways of life, and whether we choose to delude ourselves into believing organizing it more in left or right fashion changes anything to those fundamentals it is the same (and the left-wing bias there would be that we're not that simple and we can make society durably fairer)

Failure to see that we only make excuses to see that whether we think we've arranged the system to make us believe it's 'better' and satisfy our personal biases is a component of why we ultimately spend everything and we have to look elsewhere.
Our first world societies have trumped that fatality for a time by importing/exporting wealth and labor making the best profit off that, that's how we've fed the monsters we like to call 'civilizations' to make ourselves look good, but we're all assisted punk-asses who can't do shit without that, that's how human society works, because we're not smart enough to think of better ways.
The illusion that isolating goups of populations under the pretense that they're 'superior' (when they were really only because they exploited to their benefit and thanks to that reached an economic and social temporary 'peak' at some point) will preserve them durably is hilarious, no matter which silly extreme ideology applied the same human nature is in effect, even in a closed vase all we can do is use others and our environment, ultimately leading to the collapse.

And then...what solution do we have? the usual: exploit other poorer populations and their environement from a distance, whether we wage war or not to that end, all shades of more or less capitalist and communist solutions all end up bottlenecked.
And we're still too dumb to realize all the systems and ideologies are doomed because they have in common that they require a 'fuel mix' called exploitable humans and planet resources that both have their natural limits.
No matter how strongly we believe we individually broke free from those depressing cycles our thinking still goes back to take refuge within the flawed narratives of those obsolete biased, delusional and convenient bullshiteries.

The reality today is that we're reaching the bottleneck no longer just locally but for the whole of humanity and at the global scale, we'll end up 10~12 billion of useless meat on a grill by the end of the century.

Again, I ask you what the fuck is the point in still clinging to the old ideologies and narratives ? they're shit, the evidence is nothing we did in the past will help us for that scary future.
And when I read you, or Rob or the leftists, yes, I only see that past, it's the run-off-the-mill narratives of the right and the left, same as the boomer's and their parents etc, all borrowed and barely modified, the same tic-toc that brought us nowhere.
In you case or Rob's or others that cling to the fear-and-scapegoat the poor and the other races or leftists like they're roaches from hell coming to steal the light of your imaginary superiority, tell me what's different? in what are you different from all the dusty delusional produces of the old human societies that all made the same mistakes?

The nerve people have, of believing they're anything more as a race or a species or a nation compared to the majority of humanity that's strugling, because they've had more luck being born in a better place at a better time where others build shit for them...calling others who have less and hope to escape misery leeches or lazy, is the epitome of right-wing boomery, only matched by the left-wing boomery of never admitting no social policies are possible without taking advantage of others as well.

One of those days, that might be closer than we want to think about, the elements that will constitiute large-scale collapse will converge and hit hard-enough so that the most pretentious civilizations will bite the dust, and we'll see droves of white people join the others around the world attempting to escape the chaos, seeking food and shelter anywhere, like they already did many times in the past, except this time it'll be magnitudes bigger and nastier.

Heck, the Big One might be coming, quash, maybe you'll find yourself on the road backpacking with your shit sooner than you'd imagine possible, the economic and social impact on the US would be heavy or even devastating depending on the strenght and scale of the event.
How will the racist and xenophobes feel if Canada and Mexico close their borders and park you in inhumane refugee camps arguing which of you deserve to be kept either as dogs or to somewhat benefit from a bit of their help?
Never say never, even if it's not an earthquake now, sooner or later the bottleneck is happening, and no form of society will escape the consequences, it'll be very comical would the crazy dumb right manage to patch up some of their fantasy neoreich-ethno-states, to watch them fail so hard and struggle in their own shit then realize they can't prosper even less survive any decently in a closed-vase system and they'll have no choice but to cooperate and compromise with other peoples all over the planet or die (renewing relationships will be tough after treating them like scum though lol), or to wage war, invade them and steal their resources and workforce.

Except, if you realize maybe you really are not so special as a human that you have anything that grants you some imaginary superior right or morale that legitimates you looking down on humanity using condescending excuses to justify your bias, leave that to entitled boomers instead of - as it seems unconsciously - borrowing and repeating their narratives, then maybe when shit hits the fan so hard that you need help from your neighbors, you'll have at least the chance to find friends instead of angry faces that'll answer "fuck off racist gringo, go back to your own country since you there are so superior" or "well, we thought you people believe those who take help in fact leech on the strong? so you won't ask for our help now, eh ?"

The problem is not migrants now, what we see is only a droplet, the minuscule premisces of things to come that are immensely bigger and more dramatic that will affect everyone, rich or poor and no matter where we come from, the planet is a sphere, it's not extensible, we have no spaceships and won't have any that could be useful to escape to other livable planets before maybe several millenias in the future assuming we're still there to build them.
The core, urgent problem is that we don't really know what to do, or we might but we're too much of assholes to even try, and it's so much easier to cling harder to old beliefs and concepts of conservatism and progressism instead of courageously break them down entirely and admit they're useless shit that led us to a desperate situation.
Really, we don't know better, that's the drama, and we don't have the means nor the capacity to go back to middle ages or neolithic-style life like survivalist nuts or hippies say we should, it's not a matter or wanting it or not, we'll just die by the billions if that's what we end up having to do.
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by BryanM »

(Psst.

Dumping CO2 into the atmosphere going to kill everybody? I have a crazy extreme far-leftist solution for ya!

Stop dumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

Bing-bong so simple.)
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by quash »

BryanM wrote:So you're signing up for the DSA since you're anti-capitalist, right?
At this point, I'm willing to put ideology aside for whoever is willing to close the border and subjugate the ruling class. Had Bernie not bitched out on immigration he would've been so much more palatable.

@Xyga: If you think criticizing Reagan on amnesty is a sign of being stuck in the left/right paradigm, you clearly haven't the slightest insight into modern American politics. Lefties hate him despite the fact that he all but guaranteed their success in the electorate in the long term, and boomercons love him in spite of that.
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by BryanM »

"Subjugating the ruling class" doesn't seem to be your terminal goal. No one can have two masters, and considering you're not sufficiently happy with our concentration camps pumped full of all the low hanging fruit, including those who idiotically trusted the government and "self reported" like they were asked to, I can't imagine what you really want. Aside from landmines and machine guns along the entire border (but not airports and bus depots, I guess?). It's all unruddered speculation.

That you say you think the most powerful people on earth and the least powerful people on earth are both your enemy, well.. who is supposed to be your friend? How do you form a coalition to finally start eeking out wins on either of these fights?

There's always only ever been three directions offered to us - capitalists without empathy, capitalists with feigned empathy, and reformists who'd like to make things slightly better for the many.
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by quash »

BryanM wrote:"Subjugating the ruling class" doesn't seem to be your terminal goal.
Oh, but it is. That much should be clear from years of bickering about how much I despise neoliberals and their attack dogs.
No one can have two masters
Tell that to the dual citizens in Congress :wink:
and considering you're not sufficiently happy with our concentration camps pumped full of all the low hanging fruit, including those who idiotically trusted the government and "self reported" like they were asked to, I can't imagine what you really want. Aside from landmines and machine guns along the entire border (but not airports and bus depots, I guess?). It's all unruddered speculation.
I don't want to waste another penny housing people trying to enter the country illegally. Build a wall, deploy drones, let border patrol actually do their job instead of forcing them to release people into the interior of the country, and finally bleed the oligarchs dry of their near infinite labor pool. Also revoke all H1B's, officially declare Google and Amazon as branches of the IC so you need a clearance to work at either, and actually enforce E-Verify and fine the everloving fuck out of anyone who dares to try to circumvent it.
That you say you think the most powerful people on earth and the least powerful people on earth are both your enemy, well.. who is supposed to be your friend? How do you form a coalition to finally start eeking out wins on either of these fights?
Your question answers itself, get together with the tens of millions of other dissidents and make something happen. Right now, things aren't bad enough for that to take form, so bitching on the internet will do.
There's always only ever been three directions offered to us - capitalists without empathy, capitalists with feigned empathy, and reformists who'd like to make things slightly better for the many.
Do you really think we live in a capitalist society? When the biggest companies in the world are all deep in the pocket of the Pentagon (one of them even calls itself Alphabet, just for shits) and banks are too big to fail, do we really have anything resembling a free market? Don't necessarily read this as a defense of capitalism as too many are quick to do when I bring this up, but really think about the implications of these things.
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by BryanM »

The new charges have also led to increased scrutiny of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, who as U.S. attorney approved Epstein’s 2008 plea deal on charges of soliciting underage girls that allowed him to serve just over a year and spend 16 hours a day outside prison.
They don't even try to pretend there isn't two justice systems in this world.

I bet his "jail cell" (glorified hotel room for daily napping) was private and had a big floofy bed and a big tv. Catered meals too, probably.

Don't understand why the Clinton press release felt obligated to specify a precise number of times he flew on the guy's plane, either. Trump's people had the sense not to specify that, I think? Why provide details that can be falsified later if you don't have to? Why are Clintons' people so goddamn horrible at lying? Is it just valuing loyalty over everything else, and competency at a zero?
quash wrote:Do you really think we live in a capitalist society? When the biggest companies in the world are all deep in the pocket of the Pentagon (one of them even calls itself Alphabet, just for shits) and banks are too big to fail, do we really have anything resembling a free market? Don't necessarily read this as a defense of capitalism as too many are quick to do when I bring this up, but really think about the implications of these things.
Quash, "capitalism" is not the "free market". We've gone over this a thousand million times.

Contrary to the propaganda you've been fed on this term since birth, markets have existed before capitalism or feudalism ever existed. Trading sea shells for mammoth feet or whatever.

"Capitalism" means one thing and one thing only - the ideal of a society run by and for the sake of capitalists. (Real capitalists, the ones who live off of owning capital, not their labour. Not the goofy posers who call themselves capitalists but receive wages for a living. Which is on the same level as being a weeaboo or wannabe gangster?)

How can you possibly say oligarchy isn't capitalist? Isn't that what capitalists want? Monopoly and full control of the government is what end stage capitalism is supposed to be. What capitalist wants less power and a smaller kingdom? Bill Gates is not Santa Claus. What has this man and his capitalist corporation ever done to give the faintest hint that "competition" is something it desires? (It doesn't even want to allow you to be able to own your own operating system anymore, for crying out loud.)

Competition never lasts forever. How do you compete against a saturated market controlled by a trillion dollar corporation?

Historically there's only been a couple ways, and both required action through the government: Trust busting and competition from the public sector. Either is imperfect - busting simply resets the game and requires everyone to go through it all over again in a few generations (though it does feel good). Nationalizing leaves that service to attack - such as how they undertake efforts to kill the post office here, or when Sweden gave back housing to the private sector for pennies on the dollar immediately after conservatives won an election.

The core issue is always one of who holds power. The IT guys want to replace everyone with robots and eventually create a machine god, mass global famine from climate change is incoming, and you're worried about immigrants picking olives and roofing houses.

That's... interesting I guess.
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by quash »

BryanM wrote:How can you possibly say oligarchy isn't capitalist? Isn't that what capitalists want?
Oligarchy can take on the facade of capitalism, as it sort of does today, but I don't think that's the most accurate way to describe our current state of affairs. When government subsidizes industry which subsidizes government which subsidizes industry, at best you can say that the system is a self serving money burning machine. Can't even really call it fascism or corporatism because at least under those systems the government would get things that it actually wants/needs. We don't need the F-35 for ourselves, we need to sell it to fund the next money starved black hole currently forming somewhere beneath the Pentagon.
Monopoly and full control of the government is what end stage capitalism is supposed to be.
Amazon didn't turn a profit for fifteen years. One way or another, Bezos was able to bleed money for as long as it takes for a newborn to get their driver's permit until he finally got a piece of that sweet CIA contracting dosh. You're seeing things backwards if you really think Bezos is in charge of the government and not the other way around.
Competition never lasts forever. How do you compete against a saturated market controlled by a trillion dollar corporation?
I hear there's a venture capital firm called In-Q-Tel which specializes in just this. :wink:
Historically there's only been a couple ways, and both required action through the government: Trust busting and competition from the public sector.
Do you think Google will ever be broken up? It's really just one of many heads of the hydra, so even if the government ever does put on the dog and pony show of splitting it up, it won't result in much of anything changing.

Do you think the government will ever let the things Google does to be subject to the increased scrutiny that comes with having a government agency in charge of people's personal information? There's a reason they go through the effort of making people like you believe that it's an evil corporation and not an evil branch of government.
Nationalizing leaves that service to attack - such as how they undertake efforts to kill the post office here
Bezos is skimming off the top there too, so don't worry, it'll stay around as long as it needs to.
The core issue is always one of who holds power. The IT guys want to replace everyone with robots and eventually create a machine god, mass global famine from climate change is incoming, and you're worried about immigrants picking olives and roofing houses.

That's... interesting I guess.
Nobody in this thread has railed anywhere near as hard against big tech as I have. In fact, with the positions you hold, not only do you have no reason to be against them, but you should actually hope that they succeed. I won't even address your immigration strawman because if it were that simple nobody would have a problem with it. Again, I have to assume that you and several others live in primarily affluent or at least not completely decimated majority white communities for you to be this oblivious to the long and short term effects of mass immigration.
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by BryanM »

Do you think Google will ever be broken up?
I've been thinking about asking on how Warren's hypothetical idea of breaking up tech monopolies is supposed to work, exactly. How do you break up a website? You can break up a website, technically, but, weeelll......

I like to focus on more basic bread and butter issues. If there's only ever a duopoly of two kinds of cellphones, I can live with that. Reinventing the wheel a dozen times over is a huge pain in the ass when developing anything. If The Internet knows everything about us more than our own families do, that's extremely creepy and mildly concerning for when the killbots are unleashed.
quash wrote:Amazon didn't turn a profit for fifteen years.
It was four years before they had a profit year, and some years they were up, some down. (Obviously peddling books forever would have left them as a nobody or worse, a Pets.com. (Amazon renders Pets.com obsolete.))

This is natural in an expansionary business model, investing in acquiring capital and growth instead of pocketing money. Amazon in particular has ambitions to replace all of retail. It'd spend everything it has to eat Wal-Mart.

(On profits, ExxonMobil pockets more in a few weeks than Amazon has in its entire lifetime.)

This is something I've been thinking about the difference between capital ownership and worker ownership. In a co-opt, the incentive to expand is nearly non-existent (your share of the take is based on your labour, after all. Spending your money to give jobs to other people only makes sense if those "other people" are family or friends, and you don't have to sacrifice much or anything to do it.). So when the two collide, the capital model of ownership is superior at creating a universal brand.

It's a concern I have when Richard Wolff talks about his ideas of how the workplace should be like - I don't see how the eventual nepotism won't begin to parallel capitalism eventually.
You're seeing things backwards if you really think Bezos is in charge of the government and not the other way around.
Bezos is only one king among many, which is why capitalism is supposed to be better than feudalism.

We're just splitting hairs about the revolving door here, these people aren't aliens that passed into this dimension through a membrane, as George Carlin used to say. You say Pentagon, I say Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ExxonMobil and so on.
There's a reason they go through the effort of making people like you believe that it's an evil corporation and not an evil branch of government.
It's definitely a representative of the establishment, as much as Samantha Bee or McConnell is. You say "government", I say "alliance of capital interests". All cats are animals but not all animals are cats.
In fact, with the positions you hold, not only do you have no reason to be against them, but you should actually hope that they succeed.
I've talked at length at how human nature never changes, only technology makes major shifts in society. More has changed in the past 100 years than perhaps the 1,000 or 10,000 that came before it.

It's a turbulent time, yes. Do want the robot cars. Don't want the Elon cubes. The two might be inextricably linked.

A society that's in a place that a UBI is even something you can talk about out loud might be able to tone down the shittiness of the cubes. It's for that reason I don't really have any negative feelings toward Andrew Yang even if his is a rightwing UBI plan. God knows there are 20+ interchangeable Democrats running right now, with the only material differences between them are which ones are willing to lie and pretend to be leftists, and which ones just admit they're bog standard republicans outright. Anything else, including Vermin Supreme, would be a breath of fresh air.

(And I even get annoyed at excessive mockery of him. Michael Brooks can crack a joke about "a robot fucking my wife" once and I can crack a smile. Repeating it four or five times, it stops being funny. It's far too dismissive of what may be physically possible some day, and of course, the robot fucking is primarily a male market, last time I checked.)
Again, I have to assume that you and several others live in primarily affluent or at least not completely decimated majority white communities for you to be this oblivious to the long and short term effects of mass immigration.
This is BryanM you're talking to.

There were about eight white people in my grade when I was in elementary school. (Nine, if you want to count Sarah. I guess she considers herself an honorary white person. Even though her friend's dad kicked her out of his house and told his daughter to never bring Mexicans to his house again.) My highschool had around 40, total? The "long and short term effects of mass immigration" on my life, personally, is it introduced me to roughly half the people I know. (If you want to exclude European immigrants.)

I no longer live on a mountain nor grow turnips. (I do miss the black bears, they're such cute cowards. Rattlesnakes, I can continue to live without.) The neighbors on this street block include:

* A vacant house where an elderly white man lived alone. (Lurkers: do not try to rob him I will punch you. His family finally packed it up anyway you greedy thieves.)
* A middle aged black man and his family.
* A younger black couple with a ~4 year old kid. (The kid pet my dog on the head once. It was cute. He shouldn't have been walking his dog after sunset though. Only freaks and weirdos do that!)
* A white family on the corner
* A white family across from them
* A latino family across from me. Lots of kids. Sometimes I think about crashing their barbeques when they have hamburgers.
* A latino family that bought the best house on the block for ~$120,000. The former occupants were an elderly white couple - had to help the husband walk to his door once after heart surgery. (I wish people had a wheel chair before the day comes they need it... I know it's grim to think about the end and pride makes some people want to walk even when they shouldn't.)

And of course I live only one block away from the railroad tracks. You can think of me as King Friday if you want.

You can confirm all of this by e-mailing Google or Facebook about this. They're surprisingly friendly and chatty, if you get through on the right channels. (Ok, I can't really vouch for Facebook.)

The antipathy I have towards this anti-immigrant stuff is that it's such a big deal with the BOOMERS I sometimes have to talk to endlessly (against my will. Why the fuck don't they want to talk about something nice and pleasant everyone can enjoy, like Ghostbusters or Zombieland 2) about it. They'd rather melt down the entire welfare state including social security and medicare, than allow them to help one (1) single non-citizen even tangentially. Do everything in their power to make sure a baby gets born, and then do everything to make sure it doesn't have a decent start in life.

They have a long list of people who "deserve" stuff, and those who deserve "punishment". Too often the people they specify (of either type) are exaggerations and "straw men". Whoever they want to punish often do get their concentration camps, but the alleged people they want to "help" never seem to get any of that help. Unless the people they want to "help" are those who are already doing great.

(This always reminds me of the byzantine maze of means-testing liberals like to use. Liberals really like means-testing, social and conservative liberals alike. Want money for food? Pee in this cup. The pee testing is more expensive than the SNAP program itself? Who cares! Can't let those fuckers eat bread.)

Any of them ever learning something that goes against their model of reality, like the history of foreign imposed debt and associated effective foreign governorship in post colonial Africa? Might as well ask a dog to learn calculus. If it's not repeated on TV every single day, they don't know it.

You know it though, and the worldwide austerity They want to impose for the many, but not the few.
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Re: 2020 (D) Presidential Primary - Welcome to the Gravelanc

Post by szycag »

https://berniesanders.com/anti-endorsements/

This is the coolest political move I've ever seen in my life. It's like a who's who of douchebags.
That is Galactic Dancing
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