Hot Takes Discussion

[Afrikan Staat]

Castro's Cuba, Mao's China, and Soviet Russia are far more unequal than most democratic capitalist country. This is because in those societies, "the ruling class has the authority to kill you and to do so very easily".

That is, power inequality is probably a far more important metric. In modern liberal societies power is distributed in and executed through an incredibly complex system of culture and norms, values, bureaucracies and conventions, media, wealth ownerships, etc, all having been developed for hundreds of years. In totalitarian societies power is concentrated on a very small class of secret police apparatus, or a """""vanguard party""""". This makes the latter society far more unequal.

The true result of communism is an inequality that is either as bad or worse than the feudal era.

[Haganham]

You can't be for family values unless you think every worker ought to be paid enough to support a family.

[Deblar]

Castro's Cuba, Mao's China, and Soviet Russia are far more unequal than most democratic capitalist country. This is because in those societies, "the ruling class has the authority to kill you and to do so very easily".

That is, power inequality is probably a far more important metric. In modern liberal societies power is distributed in and executed through an incredibly complex system of culture and norms, values, bureaucracies and conventions, media, wealth ownerships, etc, all having been developed for hundreds of years. In totalitarian societies power is concentrated on a very small class of secret police apparatus, or a """""vanguard party""""". This makes the latter society far more unequal.

The true result of communism is an inequality that is either as bad or worse than the feudal era.

honestly cold

i've got more socialism related hot takes:

hot take #1: Democracy and socialism are not mutually exclusive; in fact, socialism requires democracy to work effectively. Democracy can, and should, be used in a socialist nation to give the proletariat their voice, and should this voice be silenced, the socialist nation in question is no better than the capitalist nations they condemn.

hot take #2: personal freedoms, such as free speech, freedom of religion, etc., should be protected in socialist nations. If the proletariat is unable to express himself freely, he would be no more free than he would be under capitalism or feudalism

[Untecna]

Castro's Cuba, Mao's China, and Soviet Russia are far more unequal than most democratic capitalist country. This is because in those societies, "the ruling class has the authority to kill you and to do so very easily".

That is, power inequality is probably a far more important metric. In modern liberal societies power is distributed in and executed through an incredibly complex system of culture and norms, values, bureaucracies and conventions, media, wealth ownerships, etc, all having been developed for hundreds of years. In totalitarian societies power is concentrated on a very small class of secret police apparatus, or a """""vanguard party""""". This makes the latter society far more unequal.

The true result of communism is an inequality that is either as bad or worse than the feudal era.

honestly cold

i've got more socialism related hot takes:

hot take #1: Democracy and socialism are not mutually exclusive; in fact, socialism requires democracy to work effectively. Democracy can, and should, be used in a socialist nation to give the proletariat their voice, and should this voice be silenced, the socialist nation in question is no better than the capitalist nations they condemn.

hot take #2: personal freedoms, such as free speech, freedom of religion, etc., should be protected in socialist nations. If the proletariat is unable to express himself freely, he would be no more free than he would be under capitalism or feudalism

Both of those, in my opinion, are cold af

[Afrikan Staat]

We should bring back pre-industrial era custom of incredibly long and horrific curses. Apparently monks and clerics used to use elaborate curses to protect their property from bandits and other malevolent things. And it was effective.

We curse them and we separate them from the company of the holy mother church and of all faithful Christians, unless they change their ways and give back what they unjustly took away.

May they be cursed in the East, disinherited in the West, interdicted in the North, amd excommunicated in the South. May they be cursed in the day and night, at home and while away, in the spring, and summer, and autumn, and winter.

May they be curses in the head and the brain, and their eyes and their foreheads, and their ears and their noses, in the fields and pastures, when sleeping and while awake, when speaking and while silent.

[Umeria]

Yeah, all of these except government spending and tax burden are also subjective. Trying to quantify any of them, never mind putting them together into one single number, is completely meaningless. You got this from the Heritage Foundation? I have no doubt that those guys are working backwards from their conclusion that deregulation and cutting taxes for the rich are objectively good, and ranked countries in a way that would seem to justify that position.

To entertain your conspiracy theory, the index is made by the Heritage foundation and the Wall street journal. It's data comes from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, Economist Intelligence Unit and Transparency International. So you're claiming that the most prominent economic institutions in the world risked their reputations to make a fake index all to... make authoritarian countries look bad?

"Prominent economic institutions" lol. What happened to the powerful being worthy of suspicion? "Lobbyists are not known for their honesty", you said.

The point, as you've demonstrated, isn't to make authoritarian countries look bad, it's to make free-market capitalism look good. The Heritage Foundation's argument is essentially: You know those countries you have a negative opinion of? Well, turns out they're like that because they have low "economic freedom". You should support deregulation and cutting taxes for the rich in your country if you don't want to end up like them!

My idea of a nice country is one where everyone has enough food, a roof over their head, healthcare, etc. Which seems similar to what you want, the difference being that I don't have to bend over backwards trying to label it as an unrestricted free market society.

Yeah, you have to break your spine to pretend that free market societies aren't doing a better job of this then those where the ruling class has more rights to the roof over someone's head then they do.

Aside from the already stated point that you're measuring what is and isn't a free market society wrong, I actually agree that the ruling class should have less rights to the roof over your head, which is why we need to break up the banks that gambled on people's mortgages. I doubt that's what you had in mind; you were probably talking about property taxes. If breaking up the banks was what you had in mind, it would be your largest stretch yet for what constitutes unrestricted free market capitalism.

You can't be for family values unless you think every worker ought to be paid enough to support a family.

Admit it: you're not a free market capitalist, you're a social democrat. Join us.

[Ifreann]

We should bring back pre-industrial era custom of incredibly long and horrific curses. Apparently monks and clerics used to use elaborate curses to protect their property from bandits and other malevolent things. And it was effective.

We curse them and we separate them from the company of the holy mother church and of all faithful Christians, unless they change their ways and give back what they unjustly took away.

May they be cursed in the East, disinherited in the West, interdicted in the North, amd excommunicated in the South. May they be cursed in the day and night, at home and while away, in the spring, and summer, and autumn, and winter.

May they be curses in the head and the brain, and their eyes and their foreheads, and their ears and their noses, in the fields and pastures, when sleeping and while awake, when speaking and while silent.

Watching the Vikings sail away with all the gold from my monastery like "Joke's on them, I cursed those chalices".

[Haganham]

Castro's Cuba, Mao's China, and Soviet Russia are far more unequal than most democratic capitalist country. This is because in those societies, "the ruling class has the authority to kill you and to do so very easily".

That is, power inequality is probably a far more important metric. In modern liberal societies power is distributed in and executed through an incredibly complex system of culture and norms, values, bureaucracies and conventions, media, wealth ownerships, etc, all having been developed for hundreds of years. In totalitarian societies power is concentrated on a very small class of secret police apparatus, or a """""vanguard party""""". This makes the latter society far more unequal.

The true result of communism is an inequality that is either as bad or worse than the feudal era.

honestly cold

spent the last four pages arguing the point, so apparently not. I think socialists are literally incapable of understanding the effect of power on their systems.

i've got more socialism related hot takes:

hot take #1: Democracy and socialism are not mutually exclusive; in fact, socialism requires democracy to work effectively. Democracy can, and should, be used in a socialist nation to give the proletariat their voice, and should this voice be silenced, the socialist nation in question is no better than the capitalist nations they condemn.

hot take #2: personal freedoms, such as free speech, freedom of religion, etc., should be protected in socialist nations. If the proletariat is unable to express himself freely, he would be no more free than he would be under capitalism or feudalism

Democracy and socialism are incompatible. Democracy lasts until the first faction realizes it can use state power to monopolize economic power, then this economic power is used to entrench their political power. Personal freedoms such as freedom of speech and religion will then necessarily be repressed, to prevent dissidents challenging the creation of what is effectively an aristocracy.

Yeah, you have to break your spine to pretend that free market societies aren't doing a better job of this then those where the ruling class has more rights to the roof over someone's head then they do.

Aside from the already stated point that you're measuring what is and isn't a free market society wrong, I actually agree that the ruling class should have less rights to the roof over your head, which is why we need to break up the banks that gambled on people's mortgages. I doubt that's what you had in mind; you were probably talking about property taxes.

Nah what I have in mind the sort of nonsense we have in the US, where a land developer can got to the government and say "hey, you see that land over there? We can get you more tax revenue then it's owners" And then the government will simply seize the land and give it to the developer.

Admit it: you're not a free market capitalist, you're a social democrat. Join us.

I am beyond labeling.
I should start a "Days since I've been called a:" tally=

[Ifreann]

*describing what happens under capitalism*
"And that's why socialism can never work"

[Kerwa]

We should bring back pre-industrial era custom of incredibly long and horrific curses. Apparently monks and clerics used to use elaborate curses to protect their property from bandits and other malevolent things. And it was effective.

Watching the Vikings sail away with all the gold from my monastery like "Joke's on them, I cursed those chalices".

The Catholic Church is still very much a thing whereas the Vikings are not. Maybe there’s something to it.

[The Jamesian Republic]

Castro's Cuba, Mao's China, and Soviet Russia are far more unequal than most democratic capitalist country. This is because in those societies, "the ruling class has the authority to kill you and to do so very easily".

That is, power inequality is probably a far more important metric. In modern liberal societies power is distributed in and executed through an incredibly complex system of culture and norms, values, bureaucracies and conventions, media, wealth ownerships, etc, all having been developed for hundreds of years. In totalitarian societies power is concentrated on a very small class of secret police apparatus, or a """""vanguard party""""". This makes the latter society far more unequal.

The true result of communism is an inequality that is either as bad or worse than the feudal era.

honestly cold

i've got more socialism related hot takes:

hot take #1: Democracy and socialism are not mutually exclusive; in fact, socialism requires democracy to work effectively. Democracy can, and should, be used in a socialist nation to give the proletariat their voice, and should this voice be silenced, the socialist nation in question is no better than the capitalist nations they condemn.

hot take #2: personal freedoms, such as free speech, freedom of religion, etc., should be protected in socialist nations. If the proletariat is unable to express himself freely, he would be no more free than he would be under capitalism or feudalism

While cold these are based.

[Haganham]

*describing what happens under capitalism*
"And that's why socialism can never work"

GINI tracks negatively with the IFE

[The Jamesian Republic]

I have my own socialist hot take: In a socialist society the government cannot own the means of production as it takes the means of production away from the workers.

[Afrikan Staat]

The Cheems Mindset is the silent cancer that will bring about the downfall of the Western society.

Those who fight against the Cheems Mindset is of a public good and saviour to the human civilization.

[Eahland]

Watching the Vikings sail away with all the gold from my monastery like "Joke's on them, I cursed those chalices".

The Catholic Church is still very much a thing whereas the Vikings are not. Maybe there’s something to it.

273 YEARS OF RAIDS, OCCUPATIONS, AND PROTECTION PAYMENTS LATER: "Ha! The curse worked!"

[Umeria]

Aside from the already stated point that you're measuring what is and isn't a free market society wrong, I actually agree that the ruling class should have less rights to the roof over your head, which is why we need to break up the banks that gambled on people's mortgages. I doubt that's what you had in mind; you were probably talking about property taxes.

Nah what I have in mind the sort of nonsense we have in the US, where a land developer can got to the government and say "hey, you see that land over there? We can get you more tax revenue then it's owners" And then the government will simply seize the land and give it to the developer.

Okay, eminent domain is bad. How many people have been kicked out of their homes because of that vs because a bank scammed them? Never mind the tricks that landlords pull.

Admit it: you're not a free market capitalist, you're a social democrat. Join us.

I am beyond labeling.
I should start a "Days since I've been called a:" tally=

You're the one trying to label social democratic policies as unrestricted free market capitalism.

[The Jamesian Republic]

The Cheems Mindset is the silent cancer that will bring about the downfall of the Western society.

Those who fight against the Cheems Mindset is of a public good and saviour to the human civilization.

Is that the big dog vs small dog meme?

[Imperial States of Duotona]

The Cheems Mindset is the silent cancer that will bring about the downfall of the Western society.

Those who fight against the Cheems Mindset is of a public good and saviour to the human civilization.

If the mindset that kills society is named after a popular meme dog, then I will not be mad.

I will be laughing my head off.

[Afrikan Staat]

We should spend billions and trillions of dollars into researching and investing in geoengineering technology, with the ultimate goal of not only reversing climate chage, but also achieving the technology and capability and scale necesary to bring the entire planetary climate and weather system under total human control.

Indeed humanity should have and deserves the ability to both create and destroy entire ecosystems and landscapes at whim.

Talking about future trends, a different hot take: Mars will be like Antarctica and we won't be colonizing them in a mass scale. Instead, space stations and habitats are far more promising prospects. Based on the respectives' current focus alone, this means that the future interstellar God-Emperor is Jeff Bezos, not Elon Musk.

Indeed Elon Musk haters and skeptics may rejoice, for the universe ultimately belongs to Bezos.

[The United Penguin Commonwealth]

We should spend billions and trillions of dollars into researching and investing in geoengineering technology, with the ultimate goal of not only reversing climate chage, but also achieving the technology and capability and scale necesary to bring the entire planetary climate and weather system under total human control.

Indeed humanity should have and deserves the ability to both create and destroy entire ecosystems and landscapes at whim.

Talking about future trends, a different hot take: Mars will be like Antarctica and we won't be colonizing them in a mass scale. Instead, space stations and habitats are far more promising prospects. Based on the respectives' current focus alone, this means that the future interstellar God-Emperor is Jeff Bezos, not Elon Musk.

Indeed Elon Musk haters and skeptics may rejoice, for the universe ultimately belongs to Bezos.

I don’t like Bezos either though

[Mettaton-EX]

The Cheems Mindset is the silent cancer that will bring about the downfall of the Western society.

Those who fight against the Cheems Mindset is of a public good and saviour to the human civilization.

this is just the old "weakness bad/people i don't like weak" canard

[The Reformed American Republic]

The Cheems Mindset is the silent cancer that will bring about the downfall of the Western society.

Those who fight against the Cheems Mindset is of a public good and saviour to the human civilization.

Is this just the "bad times create strong men and weak men create bad times" meme repackaged?

While I'm not woke by any means, the biggest problem with society aren't "weak men" but rather corrupt leaders hoarding all the wealth for themselves and giving everyone else crumbs at best. Most societal problems are the effects of that reality, including metal health issues and other problems.

Hell, current low testosterone levels are at least in part due to micro-plastics and other industrial chemicals. Rather make money than ensure there are no negative effects.

[Afrikan Staat]

The Cheems Mindset is the silent cancer that will bring about the downfall of the Western society.

Those who fight against the Cheems Mindset is of a public good and saviour to the human civilization.

Is this just the "bad times create strong men and weak men create bad times" meme repackaged?

While I'm not woke by any means, the biggest problem with society aren't "weak men" but rather corrupt leaders hoarding all the wealth for themselves and giving everyone else crumbs at best. Most societal problems are the effects of that reality, including metal health issues and other problems.

Hell, current low testosterone levels are at least in part due to micro-plastics and other industrial chemicals. Rather make money than ensure there are no negative effects.

Cheems Mindset is probably best described as "the loss of willingness and institutional ability to 'do things' to 'solve problems'". E.g., UK's high speed railways is set to complete in 2045, astronomically slow, and the "why" is the Cheems Mindset that has seeped into societal structures. Its symptoms is the NIMBYs, insane bureaucracies, zoning, Greenpeace, corporate bullshit, the hoarding of wealth in financial institutions.

Instead, cheems mindset is automatically dismissing an idea on the basis that it cannot be done, or would be hard to do- it would be cheems mindset to oppose introducing rent control legislation because you were worried about staffing levels in MCHLG, for example.

Cheems mindset isn’t a wholly bad tendency in its steelman form. Knowing and being clear-eyed about the barriers that exist to implementing any policy is important. However, it becomes a deadly cause of sclerosis if it is the reflexive reaction to any new idea or policy proposal.

The problem is that for the vast majority of people innovation does not come naturally. Doing new things is hard and, for lovers of a quiet life at the sharp end of policy delivery, there is often less personal risk in doing nothing. If we can always find reasons not to do things, the world will never improve.

The opposite of the Cheems Mindset is probably "build": build nuclear plants everywhere, go to Mars, build cyberpunk megacities, space tethers, geoengineeing projects, city cathedrals, educational revolution, moon base, material science.

We should have gleaming skyscrapers and spectacular living environments in all our best cities at levels way beyond what we have now; where are they?

You see it in education. We have top-end universities, yes, but with the capacity to teach only a microscopic percentage of the 4 million new 18 year olds in the U.S. each year, or the 120 million new 18 year olds in the world each year. Why not educate every 18 year old? Isn’t that the most important thing we can possibly do? Why not build a far larger number of universities, or scale the ones we have way up? The last major innovation in K-12 education was Montessori, which traces back to the 1960s; we’ve been doing education research that’s never reached practical deployment for 50 years since; why not build a lot more great K-12 schools using everything we now know? We know one-to-one tutoring can reliably increase education outcomes by two standard deviations (the Bloom two-sigma effect); we have the internet; why haven’t we built systems to match every young learner with an older tutor to dramatically improve student success?

We know how to build highly automated factories. We know the enormous number of higher paying jobs we would create to design and build and operate those factories. Why aren’t we building Elon Musk’s “alien dreadnoughts” — giant, gleaming, state of the art factories producing every conceivable kind of product, at the highest possible quality and lowest possible cost — all throughout our country?

Where are the millions of delivery drones? Where are the high speed trains, the soaring monorails, the hyperloops, and yes, the flying cars?

If the reasons why we are not going to this direction can be pinpointed and then corrected, then we should like, do it.

[Umeria]

Cheems Mindset is probably best described as "the loss of willingness and institutional ability to 'do things' to 'solve problems'". E.g., UK's high speed railways is set to complete in 2045, astronomically slow, and the "why" is the Cheems Mindset that has seeped into societal structures. Its symptoms is the NIMBYs, insane bureaucracies, zoning, Greenpeace, corporate bullshit, the hoarding of wealth in financial institutions.

I will never understand the impulse to blame what are clearly institutional failures on individual character flaws. Why not just advocate for the solutions to these problems instead of complaining that society isn't motivated enough?

The opposite of the Cheems Mindset is probably "build": build nuclear plants everywhere, go to Mars, build cyberpunk megacities, space tethers, geoengineeing projects, city cathedrals, educational revolution, moon base, material science.

Just because the products of today's innovations and scientific advancements aren't literal physical structures doesn't mean those innovations don't exist. This isn't a sci-fi novel where every invention is a cool gadget that does something futuristic.

[Diaboland]

The Real Ghostbusters is a godawful cartoon that is a slap in the face to the original movie. Everyone only says they love it because of nostalgia. It is really good if you want to watch something bad and make fun of it with friends though.