US Politics Megathread

[deleted_user0]

I only go on reddit for gonewild, so I don't know what you're talking about. But since ad hominems is all you seem to have in your repertoire, I guess that's a good comment section for you to be.

[fightinfrenchman]

I only go on reddit for gonewild, so I don't know what you're talking about. But since ad hominems is all you seem to have in your repertoire, I guess that's a good comment section for you to be.

There's way better porn subs than that tbh

[Riotcoke]

I only go on reddit for gonewild, so I don't know what you're talking about. But since ad hominems is all you seem to have in your repertoire, I guess that's a good comment section for you to be.

There's way better porn subs than that tbh

Porn subs are just sad

[deleted_user0]

What about porn hubs?

[Kawapasaka]

What about porn tubs?

[Dolan]

Eh, why aren't they capitalist countries? Does capitalism only exist in Europe and the USA? Are you saying Nigeria isn't capitalist? What about Brazil? Senegal? Indonesia? Mexico? Philippines? South Africa? Thailand? India? Not all of them are capitalist. Not all of them aren't capitalist.

Nigeria has a mixed economy. Brazil is also a mixed economy, but it's a huge one, with lots of resources and a rich colonial past. Maybe they're one of the few countries that have gained more from colonialism than they lost. Senegal is a commodity economy, half rural population, high unemployment, low industrialisation, etc. Indonesia is also one of the largest economies in the world, a mixed economy that has surely raised their living standards through market economics. Mexico is another success story, one of the largest economies on the planet, hosting lots of production facilities for huge companies like Mercedes, BMW, Audio, Hyundai, Mazda etc etc etc. Even my Shure mic is made in Mexico (who could have thought they produce audio equipment too). The Philippines are a newly industrialised economy, yet another success story of market-based economics, a major location for outsourcing. South Africa is a rich financial centre. The biggest online retailer from Romania, a multibillion business, is owned by a South African financial conglomerate. Need I say more? If South Africa is not a success story for market-based economics, I don't know who else is. Thailand is a newly industrialised country that relies heavily on global trading, an economy that is only second to Indonesia in Southeast Asia. India is maybe the biggest destination for service outsourcing on the planet, a 2.9 trillion bucks economy. All that wasn't achieved by having a centralised, planned economy, that's for sure. So I'm not sure what your argument is, besides trying to obscure things by throwing in a bunch of "mixed bag" cases. I mean, even European economies are mixed to a certain extent, but the foundations are market-based, they're not centralised.

Stop trying to polarize everything :) and in any case, in countries which aren't capitalist their access to medicine is also influenced by capitalism companies who can and often do raise prices exorbitantly at the drop of a hat.

That's often the case for very specific medication that treats very specific diseases. Nobody made aspirin or smallpox vaccines a luxury item. The argument was that those diseases that are now treated routinely used to kill large swathes of the population in the past. They didn't even have any option to buy such medicines as a luxury item back then. So a king from the 16th century was surely poorer than some average person in a developing country today, in terms of lifespan chances and access to medical care. It didn't matter much that a king ruled from atop a mountain of gold if he couldn't escape smallpox.

And then we aren't even talking about how "capitalism" influence economies and the lives of individuals in other countries, for example in the way corporations like Shell do business, or how companies like Nestle control water supplies or how cocoa and palm oil products are bought and how farmers are bullied into selling at rock bottom prices. Because we're trying to keep it simple here. We were just talking about whether access to modern medicine means you are super rich.

Well, yeah, that's globalism, not capitalism. Indeed globalism has led to lots of nefarious effects, including trying to forcefeed other cultures on a diet of European human rights, when they didn't even believe in them (see China or Saudi Arabia). Maybe Trump is onto something here, maybe he wants to send everyone back home instead of developing perverse cross-border relations that lead to all kinds of exploitation (emotional, cultural, economic).

So it's not about capitalism being good or bad lol. I can believe that capitalism is the best social invention on earth, without believing that it has made the poor richer than the kings of the past.

When Alexander the Great lived, icecream was a treat only for emperors and kings. They had ice quickly transported to their palaces, where it was prepared with sweeteners and flavours and served only to the emperor, whose status was that of a demigod. Today you can get a bucket of this stuff for 2 bucks tops:



Poor Alexander the Great, he died of fever because he didn't have the luxury of modern medicine, but hey, at least he had icecream fit for a demigod.

[deleted_user0]

Eh, why aren't they capitalist countries? Does capitalism only exist in Europe and the USA? Are you saying Nigeria isn't capitalist? What about Brazil? Senegal? Indonesia? Mexico? Philippines? South Africa? Thailand? India? Not all of them are capitalist. Not all of them aren't capitalist.

Nigeria has a mixed economy. Brazil is also a mixed economy, but it's a huge one, with lots of resources and a rich colonial past. Maybe they're one of the few countries that have gained more from colonialism than they lost. Senegal is a commodity economy, half rural population, high unemployment, low industrialisation, etc. Indonesia is also one of the largest economies in the world, a mixed economy that has surely raised their living standards through market economics. Mexico is another success story, one of the largest economies on the planet, hosting lots of production facilities for huge companies like Mercedes, BMW, Audio, Hyundai, Mazda etc etc etc. Even my Shure mic is made in Mexico (who could have thought they produce audio equipment too). The Philippines are a newly industrialised economy, yet another success story of market-based economics, a major location for outsourcing. South Africa is a rich financial centre. The biggest online retailer from Romania, a multibillion business, is owned by a South African financial conglomerate. Need I say more? If South Africa is not a success story for market-based economics, I don't know who else is. Thailand is a newly industrialised country that relies heavily on global trading, an economy that is only second to Indonesia in Southeast Asia. India is maybe the biggest destination for service outsourcing on the planet, a 2.9 trillion bucks economy. All that wasn't achieved by having a centralised, planned economy, that's for sure. So I'm not sure what your argument is, besides trying to obscure things by throwing in a bunch of "mixed bag" cases. I mean, even European economies are mixed to a certain extent, but the foundations are market-based, they're not centralised.

Stop trying to polarize everything :) and in any case, in countries which aren't capitalist their access to medicine is also influenced by capitalism companies who can and often do raise prices exorbitantly at the drop of a hat.

That's often the case for very specific medication that treats very specific diseases. Nobody made aspirin or smallpox vaccines a luxury item. The argument was that those diseases that are now treated routinely used to kill large swathes of the population in the past. They didn't even have any option to buy such medicines as a luxury item back then. So a king from the 16th century was surely poorer than some average person in a developing country today, in terms of lifespan chances and access to medical care. It didn't matter much that a king ruled from atop a mountain of gold if he couldn't escape smallpox.

And then we aren't even talking about how "capitalism" influence economies and the lives of individuals in other countries, for example in the way corporations like Shell do business, or how companies like Nestle control water supplies or how cocoa and palm oil products are bought and how farmers are bullied into selling at rock bottom prices. Because we're trying to keep it simple here. We were just talking about whether access to modern medicine means you are super rich.

Well, yeah, that's globalism, not capitalism. Indeed globalism has led to lots of nefarious effects, including trying to forcefeed other cultures on a diet of European human rights, when they didn't even believe in them (see China or Saudi Arabia). Maybe Trump is onto something here, maybe he wants to send everyone back home instead of developing perverse cross-border relations that lead to all kinds of exploitation (emotional, cultural, economic).

So it's not about capitalism being good or bad lol. I can believe that capitalism is the best social invention on earth, without believing that it has made the poor richer than the kings of the past.

When Alexander the Great lived, icecream was a treat only for emperors and kings. They had ice quickly transported to their palaces, where it was prepared with sweeteners and flavours and served only to the emperor, whose status was that of a demigod. Today you can get a bucket of this stuff for 2 bucks tops:



Poor Alexander the Great, he died of fever because he didn't have the luxury of modern medicine, but hey, at least he had icecream fit for a demigod.

The point is that poor people die from malaria in those countries. According to horsemen malaria is a thing of the past, at least in capitalist countries (most of which, if not all, are mixed economy countries). So he's wrong. Thats all there is to it. We don'r need to turn it into a capitalism vs communism story.

And no. Not having the option to buy something which doesnt exist doesnt make you poorer. You'd have to put those kings with their assets in our time, and then compare. In any case, even if you'd compare relatively across the ages, then it's only a very tiny part of the picture. Like I said, how rich are you really if you work 24/7 to pay for medicine that will jeep you alive longer just so you can work for 24/7 longer to keep you alive. Wealth is more than health, it's more than having access to commodities. And I'm sure you know this. So what are you arguing here?

We don't actually know what caused alexander's death. But anyway, if you think a modern day beggar in new york is richer than alexander the great was, just because people working on minimum wage have access to medicine, the joke is on you. And guess what? The people living in ussr russia also had access to aspirine. So do the people in china currently. It's like saying that this guy who lives off 1 dollar a day is richer than bill gates because bill gates has cancer and the poor guy doesn't. It's like saying that you and i are richer than rockefeller because we have smartphones, and he couldnt buy those...

Generations have always been better off than the previous one due to innovations. This has nothing to do with capitalism. But to say that the poor of the 19th century were richer than mansa musa because of advances in medicine is simply ridiculous. I don't understand why I have to type 4000 essays just to point out this simply fact.

[pecelot]

communism did not make people more equal — at least not in my country!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN3z3eSVG7A

harsh, but true!

[Dolan]

Eh, why aren't they capitalist countries? Does capitalism only exist in Europe and the USA? Are you saying Nigeria isn't capitalist? What about Brazil? Senegal? Indonesia? Mexico? Philippines? South Africa? Thailand? India? Not all of them are capitalist. Not all of them aren't capitalist.

Nigeria has a mixed economy. Brazil is also a mixed economy, but it's a huge one, with lots of resources and a rich colonial past. Maybe they're one of the few countries that have gained more from colonialism than they lost. Senegal is a commodity economy, half rural population, high unemployment, low industrialisation, etc. Indonesia is also one of the largest economies in the world, a mixed economy that has surely raised their living standards through market economics. Mexico is another success story, one of the largest economies on the planet, hosting lots of production facilities for huge companies like Mercedes, BMW, Audio, Hyundai, Mazda etc etc etc. Even my Shure mic is made in Mexico (who could have thought they produce audio equipment too). The Philippines are a newly industrialised economy, yet another success story of market-based economics, a major location for outsourcing. South Africa is a rich financial centre. The biggest online retailer from Romania, a multibillion business, is owned by a South African financial conglomerate. Need I say more? If South Africa is not a success story for market-based economics, I don't know who else is. Thailand is a newly industrialised country that relies heavily on global trading, an economy that is only second to Indonesia in Southeast Asia. India is maybe the biggest destination for service outsourcing on the planet, a 2.9 trillion bucks economy. All that wasn't achieved by having a centralised, planned economy, that's for sure. So I'm not sure what your argument is, besides trying to obscure things by throwing in a bunch of "mixed bag" cases. I mean, even European economies are mixed to a certain extent, but the foundations are market-based, they're not centralised.

Stop trying to polarize everything :) and in any case, in countries which aren't capitalist their access to medicine is also influenced by capitalism companies who can and often do raise prices exorbitantly at the drop of a hat.

That's often the case for very specific medication that treats very specific diseases. Nobody made aspirin or smallpox vaccines a luxury item. The argument was that those diseases that are now treated routinely used to kill large swathes of the population in the past. They didn't even have any option to buy such medicines as a luxury item back then. So a king from the 16th century was surely poorer than some average person in a developing country today, in terms of lifespan chances and access to medical care. It didn't matter much that a king ruled from atop a mountain of gold if he couldn't escape smallpox.

And then we aren't even talking about how "capitalism" influence economies and the lives of individuals in other countries, for example in the way corporations like Shell do business, or how companies like Nestle control water supplies or how cocoa and palm oil products are bought and how farmers are bullied into selling at rock bottom prices. Because we're trying to keep it simple here. We were just talking about whether access to modern medicine means you are super rich.

Well, yeah, that's globalism, not capitalism. Indeed globalism has led to lots of nefarious effects, including trying to forcefeed other cultures on a diet of European human rights, when they didn't even believe in them (see China or Saudi Arabia). Maybe Trump is onto something here, maybe he wants to send everyone back home instead of developing perverse cross-border relations that lead to all kinds of exploitation (emotional, cultural, economic).

So it's not about capitalism being good or bad lol. I can believe that capitalism is the best social invention on earth, without believing that it has made the poor richer than the kings of the past.

When Alexander the Great lived, icecream was a treat only for emperors and kings. They had ice quickly transported to their palaces, where it was prepared with sweeteners and flavours and served only to the emperor, whose status was that of a demigod. Today you can get a bucket of this stuff for 2 bucks tops:



Poor Alexander the Great, he died of fever because he didn't have the luxury of modern medicine, but hey, at least he had icecream fit for a demigod.

The point is that poor people die from malaria in those countries. According to horsemen malaria is a thing of the past, at least in capitalist countries (most of which, if not all, are mixed economy countries). So he's wrong. Thats all there is to it. We don'r need to turn it into a capitalism vs communism story.

And no. Not having the option to buy something which doesnt exist doesnt make you poorer. You'd have to put those kings with their assets in our time, and then compare. In any case, even if you'd compare relatively across the ages, then it's only a very tiny part of the picture. Like I said, how rich are you really if you work 24/7 to pay for medicine that will jeep you alive longer just so you can work for 24/7 longer to keep you alive. Wealth is more than health, it's more than having access to commodities. And I'm sure you know this. So what are you arguing here?

We don't actually know what caused alexander's death. But anyway, if you think a modern day beggar in new york is richer than alexander the great was, just because people working on minimum wage have access to medicine, the joke is on you. And guess what? The people living in ussr russia also had access to aspirine. So do the people in china currently. It's like saying that this guy who lives off 1 dollar a day is richer than bill gates because bill gates has cancer and the poor guy doesn't. It's like saying that you and i are richer than rockefeller because we have smartphones, and he couldnt buy those...

Generations have always been better off than the previous one due to innovations. This has nothing to do with capitalism. But to say that the poor of the 19th century were richer than mansa musa because of advances in medicine is simply ridiculous. I don't understand why I have to type 4000 essays just to point out this simply fact.

The argument was about living standards, not just wealth. It's not about whether someone of average income has more assets than a past king. It's about whether a market-based economy has lifted living standards so much that an average schmuck today lives better than a king from the past (living better as in longer, healthier, safer lives). And on this metric they do. People survive longer today in market-based economies, there's much less starvation than in the past, and everyone's level has improved substantially in every way (access to education, infrastructure, public goods, etc etc).

[Dolan]

And yeah, in a sense, we are richer than the Rockefellers, since their phones were rudimentary garbage.

Newer technologies eventually trickle down to the extent that eventually they become cheaper, since companies need a much wider consumer base to stay profitable. All major innovations were first luxury items (cars, cellular phones, radios), then they gradually got cheaper and cheaper until everyone could afford one. In this sense, we are indeed richer than our ancestors. We have access to a wealth of cheap technology, information, basic healthcare, the kind of which they couldn't have even dreamt of.

[deleted_user0]

Show hidden quotes

Eh, why aren't they capitalist countries? Does capitalism only exist in Europe and the USA? Are you saying Nigeria isn't capitalist? What about Brazil? Senegal? Indonesia? Mexico? Philippines? South Africa? Thailand? India? Not all of them are capitalist. Not all of them aren't capitalist.

Nigeria has a mixed economy. Brazil is also a mixed economy, but it's a huge one, with lots of resources and a rich colonial past. Maybe they're one of the few countries that have gained more from colonialism than they lost. Senegal is a commodity economy, half rural population, high unemployment, low industrialisation, etc. Indonesia is also one of the largest economies in the world, a mixed economy that has surely raised their living standards through market economics. Mexico is another success story, one of the largest economies on the planet, hosting lots of production facilities for huge companies like Mercedes, BMW, Audio, Hyundai, Mazda etc etc etc. Even my Shure mic is made in Mexico (who could have thought they produce audio equipment too). The Philippines are a newly industrialised economy, yet another success story of market-based economics, a major location for outsourcing. South Africa is a rich financial centre. The biggest online retailer from Romania, a multibillion business, is owned by a South African financial conglomerate. Need I say more? If South Africa is not a success story for market-based economics, I don't know who else is. Thailand is a newly industrialised country that relies heavily on global trading, an economy that is only second to Indonesia in Southeast Asia. India is maybe the biggest destination for service outsourcing on the planet, a 2.9 trillion bucks economy. All that wasn't achieved by having a centralised, planned economy, that's for sure. So I'm not sure what your argument is, besides trying to obscure things by throwing in a bunch of "mixed bag" cases. I mean, even European economies are mixed to a certain extent, but the foundations are market-based, they're not centralised.

Stop trying to polarize everything :) and in any case, in countries which aren't capitalist their access to medicine is also influenced by capitalism companies who can and often do raise prices exorbitantly at the drop of a hat.

That's often the case for very specific medication that treats very specific diseases. Nobody made aspirin or smallpox vaccines a luxury item. The argument was that those diseases that are now treated routinely used to kill large swathes of the population in the past. They didn't even have any option to buy such medicines as a luxury item back then. So a king from the 16th century was surely poorer than some average person in a developing country today, in terms of lifespan chances and access to medical care. It didn't matter much that a king ruled from atop a mountain of gold if he couldn't escape smallpox.

And then we aren't even talking about how "capitalism" influence economies and the lives of individuals in other countries, for example in the way corporations like Shell do business, or how companies like Nestle control water supplies or how cocoa and palm oil products are bought and how farmers are bullied into selling at rock bottom prices. Because we're trying to keep it simple here. We were just talking about whether access to modern medicine means you are super rich.

Well, yeah, that's globalism, not capitalism. Indeed globalism has led to lots of nefarious effects, including trying to forcefeed other cultures on a diet of European human rights, when they didn't even believe in them (see China or Saudi Arabia). Maybe Trump is onto something here, maybe he wants to send everyone back home instead of developing perverse cross-border relations that lead to all kinds of exploitation (emotional, cultural, economic).

So it's not about capitalism being good or bad lol. I can believe that capitalism is the best social invention on earth, without believing that it has made the poor richer than the kings of the past.

When Alexander the Great lived, icecream was a treat only for emperors and kings. They had ice quickly transported to their palaces, where it was prepared with sweeteners and flavours and served only to the emperor, whose status was that of a demigod. Today you can get a bucket of this stuff for 2 bucks tops:



Poor Alexander the Great, he died of fever because he didn't have the luxury of modern medicine, but hey, at least he had icecream fit for a demigod.

The point is that poor people die from malaria in those countries. According to horsemen malaria is a thing of the past, at least in capitalist countries (most of which, if not all, are mixed economy countries). So he's wrong. Thats all there is to it. We don'r need to turn it into a capitalism vs communism story.

And no. Not having the option to buy something which doesnt exist doesnt make you poorer. You'd have to put those kings with their assets in our time, and then compare. In any case, even if you'd compare relatively across the ages, then it's only a very tiny part of the picture. Like I said, how rich are you really if you work 24/7 to pay for medicine that will jeep you alive longer just so you can work for 24/7 longer to keep you alive. Wealth is more than health, it's more than having access to commodities. And I'm sure you know this. So what are you arguing here?

We don't actually know what caused alexander's death. But anyway, if you think a modern day beggar in new york is richer than alexander the great was, just because people working on minimum wage have access to medicine, the joke is on you. And guess what? The people living in ussr russia also had access to aspirine. So do the people in china currently. It's like saying that this guy who lives off 1 dollar a day is richer than bill gates because bill gates has cancer and the poor guy doesn't. It's like saying that you and i are richer than rockefeller because we have smartphones, and he couldnt buy those...

Generations have always been better off than the previous one due to innovations. This has nothing to do with capitalism. But to say that the poor of the 19th century were richer than mansa musa because of advances in medicine is simply ridiculous. I don't understand why I have to type 4000 essays just to point out this simply fact.

The argument was about living standards, not just wealth. It's not about whether someone of average income has more assets than a past king. It's about whether a market-based economy has lifted living standards so much that an average schmuck today lives better than a king from the past (living better as in longer, healthier, safer lives). And on this metric they do. People survive longer today in market-based economies, there's much less starvation than in the past, and everyone's level has improved substantially in every way (access to education, infrastructure, public goods, etc etc).

he was specifically talking about poor people being richer. then when that turned out to be horseshit, it became about living standards. Living standards have increased since the dawn of time. It's a moot point. But I love how you walk into an argument and then say that it was about something else than what it was about...

everyone's level has improved substantially in every way (access to education, infrastructure, public goods, etc etc).

Not everyone's. The majority, for sure. So what, though? Like I said, I wasn't comparing political or economical systems lol. So I don't understand why you keep insisting that that's what I'm talking about when I've said repeatedly that I'm not interested in that.

[Dolan]

To me it was obvious that this discussion was about living standards not wealth. Obviously, you can't simply compare the assets of an average wagecuck today with the wealth of a past king. Nobody would claim the former would be wealthier than the latter.

Maybe you guys should have defined the terms of your debate in clearer ways first.

[Dolan]

everyone's level has improved substantially in every way (access to education, infrastructure, public goods, etc etc).

Not everyone's. The majority, for sure. So what, though? Like I said, I wasn't comparing political or economical systems lol. So I don't understand why you keep insisting that that's what I'm talking about when I've said repeatedly that I'm not interested in that.

And that's a big deal. We found a market-based system that has been mostly successful at lifting most people's living standards, but it does have it flaws that need to be corrected.

We shouldn't lose sight of how far we have gotten thanks to a market-based economy.

[Goodspeed]

You say "thanks to", but one could just as easily claim "in spite of". Neither is provable. Correlation does not imply causation. Come on, you know this.

[deleted_user0]

And yeah, in a sense, we are richer than the Rockefellers, since their phones were rudimentary garbage.

Newer technologies eventually trickle down to the extent that eventually they become cheaper, since companies need a much wider consumer base to stay profitable. All major innovations were first luxury items (cars, cellular phones, radios), then they gradually got cheaper and cheaper until everyone could afford one. In this sense, we are indeed richer than our ancestors. We have access to a wealth of cheap technology, information, basic healthcare, the kind of which they couldn't have even dreamt of.

By that logic this is also true.

It's like saying that this guy who lives off 1 dollar a day is richer than bill gates because bill gates has cancer and the poor guy doesn't.

I guess we have to call fortune 500 to tell them they've had it all wrong.

Sure, in that limited sense you can say that you are correct. And in the more common sense, and in all the other aspects (money, assets, access to rare commodities, power, privilige etc), it is wrong.

[lejend]

Capitalism is another word for free markets. I don't think there's any country with total economic freedom, but pointing to countries with the lowest level of economic liberty (like third-world nations) as proof of capitalist failure is beyond silly.

Index of Economic Freedom

[deleted_user0]

nice post lejenda... Don Quiote would be proud! Can you quote the post you are referring to? that would just make it even more glorious. thanks! You're my favorite giant chaser :)

[Amsel_]

nice post lejenda... Don Quiote would be proud! Can you quote the post you are referring to? that would just make it even more glorious. thanks! You're my favorite giant chaser :)

ya seething?

[fightinfrenchman]

I'm tempted to quote one of those giant walls of text but will refrain.

Anyway Warren 2020

https://twitter.com/micahcohen/status/1 ... 4673285120

[Horsemen]

I'm tempted to quote one of those giant walls of text but will refrain.

Anyway Warren 2020

https://twitter.com/micahcohen/status/1 ... 4673285120

This post is Anti-American

[fightinfrenchman]

Why

[Goodspeed]

Ah you finally got off the Biden train? Why?

[fightinfrenchman]

Ah you finally got off the Biden train? Why?

I'm just expecting him to start slipping in the polls and Warren to overtake him, and I like to back a winner. Plus I want a woman as president

[Riotcoke]

Still think biden is going to win, he's just the broadchurch candidate.

[fightinfrenchman]

Kind of hope we get a contested convention and the delegates pick Hillary instead