Politics thread (USA Elections 2016) - Page 302

On August 30 2021 22:52 blackjacki2 wrote: Show nested quote + On August 30 2021 18:59 Stroggoz wrote:   On August 29 2021 06:56 Santafairy wrote: FINALLY youtube has solved politics we can shut down the internet now Although i dislike pop-science, this guy is actually a legitimate scientist. His video on godel's incompleteness theorems is the only decent video on the topic, though i don't enjoy watching a 20minute video as much as reading whole textbooks 10-15 times until you get it, that's what real education is about. I agree, his videos are top quality. The recent series he did about the wind-powered vehicle that can travel faster than the wind was fascinating. Though it does seem like the video that Spitfire posted is kind of a ripoff of Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers.

You might be right now that you mention it. Had forgotten about that book. Either way, my point was that the right is so heavily against the creation of social systems and put so much faith into the progress of each individual, which is ironic since considering the amount of luck involved in our existence it is only through safety nets that we allow individuals to get to the point where they take charge of their lives... Obviously, Santa's concerns are valid, but you could have safety nets without going into a full authoritarian mode and it's been well proven.

On August 28 2021 09:33 Santafairy wrote: serious question for my respected left-wing friends here -how can we constrain the unionization of labor to avoid cronyism to benefit the worker and not just big business interests -is your only interest in rights at the level of government or are you willing to pay more than lip service to defend individual liberty against corporations, despite when these corporations adopt a progressive facade for marketing convenience -how can you reduce deficit spending and perpetual government waste caused by the ever increasing entitlements and welfare state? -in considering immigration policy why are the effects on gross GDP which would invariably be positive not weighed against quality of life, GDP per capita, and effects on the government budget -how can we support progressivism while not kowtowing to fascists around the world in china, cuba, north korea, who have coopted the revolutionary ideology

1: On unions, one crucial part in Norway is how while different professions have different unions, those unions have bonded together to create super-unions. The biggest one of these - the 'Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions', has almost 1 million members - so, like, 18% of Norway's population or whatever. This makes the group 'workers' more powerful, but it makes the individual, profession-specific unions less powerful, because they can only make demands that are also supported by other unions. So when bus drivers are striking in Norway because they are asked to work first between 06:00 and 10:00 and then again from 15:00 until 19:00 without being paid between 10:00 and 15:00, this (their working hours) is considered unreasonable across the board, so the strike ends up getting public support. But if they were making a comparable amount of money as other jobs with similar demands yet they wanted to strike unless they got a 20% pay increase while other jobs are getting a 3% increase, then there's no public support.

My impression is that in the US, the unions are more in competition against each other, the union for railway workers only care about railway workers - not about caretakers for the elderly, the demands they make don't get support from workers working in other professions because those workers in other professions don't have the same privilege that the others are asking for, etc.

While I'm not super familiar with the history of unions in the US, I do understand that they, from the get-go, were subjected to a lot of skepticism (and violent attacks by law officials) because of the communist scare, and that they've later on had real issues with mafia connections, and that they, today, seem to protect their workers from liabilities even when those workers should not be protected. This is very, very different from my impression as a Norwegian worker, where the labor unions instead provide genuine and very valuable protection for employees, and where the yearly negotiations between workers unions, employer unions and the state consistently provide pretty fair results.

2:

-is your only interest in rights at the level of government or are you willing to pay more than lip service to defend individual liberty against corporations, despite when these corporations adopt a progressive facade for marketing convenience

Not sure exactly what you refer to here, can you provide an example? It sounds like one of those america-leftistisms that we don't have here. Do you mean something like people not defending freedom of speech when voices they disagree with are censored on social media, but that they care a lot about cake-bakers having to bake cakes for gay weddings?

-how can you reduce deficit spending and perpetual government waste caused by the ever increasing entitlements and welfare state?

By providing decent enough wages so that people in full employment can pay taxes and contribute to society rather than needing extra benefits. Have a massively different pay structure from what is the norm in the US, but change from means based programs to programs that are 'rights' for all citizens. The problem, from my pov, is not the taxation level, but the gross difference in income in the first place. I have no problems with a doctor making 2-3 times the wage of someone cleaning the same hospital, I had no problems with my previous boss making twice what I made - in both cases, they have more responsibilities and more specialized skill sets, and it's fine that this is reflected in their pay. But doctors making 10 times more? CEO's making 600 times that of the average worker? The first is unfair, and the latter is a perversion. I can't really provide a roadmap for how to change american society to be more to my liking, but I like incentivizing worker ownership (my brother works at a programming company where you have to buy stock in the company to be able to work there), and I like connecting CEO pay with entry level pay - where a CEO can only make x times entry level pay. If that number is 10 times, he'd have to increase entry level pay by $1000 to increase his own wages by $10k. Like, if there are two different scenarios, one is 'CEO makes $100 million and his 10000 workers make $50k each', and the latter is 'CEO makes $10 million and his workers make $59k each', I think the latter is much, much better.

I'd also think it was even more positive if the CEO went down to $400000 while the workers were at €59960 or whatever. I'd probably want to have some gradual increase in how much more a CEO can make based on how many employees he has, too. But I think the first $90 million are way more important to redistribute than the latter $10 million. Anyway, the key is that I don't like 'government taxing more and redistributing the money from there' - this functions to divide society into 'contributors' and 'leeches', and this is highly negative for both groups and for the social fabric. If people who work are paid enough to not have to get extra benefits and rich people also end up getting child benefits, part of the separation and tension between the classes might be reduced.

And I understand that 'wealth' and 'income' aren't necessarily the same as 'how much liquid money do I have', that wealth can be tied to companies and that income can represent growth of a company rather than how much extra money the person had, but it also happens that extraordinarily rich people spend $100 million on luxury items in one year, and I think that's just fundamentally fucked up.

-in considering immigration policy why are the effects on gross GDP which would invariably be positive not weighed against quality of life, GDP per capita, and effects on the government budget

I'm guessing people use gross GDP because they're trying to abuse statistics to deceive an uneducated population? I mean, I've seen it the other way around, too - where immigrants who on average commit fewer crimes than the rest of the population are still considered to 'increase crime' because - obviously - even if they only commit 10% as much crime as the rest of the population, you'd still get 'more crime' overall. (But, again, obviously, a society with 1000 people and 100 criminal acts throughout a year will have you much more likely to be the victim of a criminal act than one with 10 million and 1000 criminal acts.)

My solution here is to 'spend far more money on education, particularly public education, and alter education to be more focused on critical thinking and less on rote memorization and reproduction, and hope to reap the benefits of having a smarter, less manipulative population 30 years from now'. (Impactful social changes, especially cultural ones, take a long time to implement.)

-how can we support progressivism while not kowtowing to fascists around the world in china, cuba, north korea, who have coopted the revolutionary ideology

Not sure I can be on board with you here regarding your very premise. My communist friends have never idealized any of those countries, although that'd be slightly different if I were 60 years old - in that case, I'd say 'the idealization of those countries ended 40 years ago'. Norway is a better example of the fruits of the february revolution (which was the good one) than any of those countries are. I don't think China, Cuba, North Korea or Venezuela have actually coopted the revolutionary ideology at all, I think right-wingers who have wanted to warn about the dangers of socialism or social democracy have managed to convince a lot of Americans that socialism or even social democracy looks more like any of the aforementioned dictatorships than it looks like Scandinavia. It's like, the idiot right wingers say 'why don't you move to north korea or venezuela if you like communism so much', while the smart right wingers say 'sure, this works in small, ethnically homogeneous populations like you find in Scandinavia but it can never work in an as large and diverse population as you find in the US' - attempting to force lefties to prioritize between helping oppressed foreigners or oppressed fellow countrymen.

I also feel like in the US - much like with your unions - you have a big problem with different marginalized groups that are marginalized to different degrees, all fighting separate ideological battles that don't necessarily have the support from other marginalized groups, rather than, what I would like to see, them banding together in a greater message that is more palatable to all of them. Stuff like gender pronouns and all that is a meaningless, irrelevant side-show.

drone man

why would you answer a sarcastic post directed at spitfiree though

oh god spitfiree didn't get it either he thought i was raising "concerns" instead of pointing out if you end a post pretending to ask for discussion with

"Also, can someone explain to me why are all those shitheads such good friends with Putin?"

nobody is going to want to fucking bother taking your bait

incredible so used to shitting on anything conservative you just take it for granted

It's a rhetorical question, sir ... I don't expect an answer. The obvious answer is that the right is leaning towards authoritarian regimes much more compared to the left, and somehow the political spectrum being 4 sided is left out of the question as if only the left can be authoritarian. It's hypocrisy often forgotten by the followers of the right ideology because of the most recent history having lefties be the authoritarians. It's a bias which restricts any possibility of having an honest debate

I mean you started the post with 'serious question', I don't feel that dumb for not understanding it was sarcastic. :D

On August 31 2021 15:48 Spitfiree wrote: It's a rhetorical question, sir ... I don't expect an answer. The obvious answer is that the right is leaning towards authoritarian regimes much more compared to the left, and somehow the political spectrum being 4 sided is left out of the question as if only the left can be authoritarian. It's hypocrisy often forgotten by the followers of the right ideology because of the most recent history having lefties be the authoritarians. It's a bias which restricts any possibility of having an honest debate

so to paraphrase

the big issue as to why SHITHEADS like le pen, a non-president, and erdogan, a dictator, and orban, who apparently has gays in his circle, oh the humanity, are FRIENDS with PUTIN, is that they're authoritarian buddies. unlike the honorable and left-wing biden who gave russia an oil pipeline while shutting down one that would support US energy

the big issue with that is that the RIGHT is leaning towards authoritarian regimes. and you know people are stupid, people forget that. because in recent history the left is more authoritarian, and that makes people forget that the right is leaning towards authoritarian regimes more. but people forget that. people forget that the right is leaning towards authoritarian regimes more than the left, "because of the most recent history having lefties be the authoritarians."

I got it it's clear now

On August 31 2021 15:56 Liquid`Drone wrote: I mean you started the post with 'serious question', I don't feel that dumb for not understanding it was sarcastic. :D

we don't deserve your purity and effort

On August 31 2021 08:39 Liquid`Drone wrote: 1: On unions, one crucial part in Norway is how while different professions have different unions, those unions have bonded together to create super-unions. The biggest one of these - the 'Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions', has almost 1 million members - so, like, 18% of Norway's population or whatever. This makes the group 'workers' more powerful, but it makes the individual, profession-specific unions less powerful, because they can only make demands that are also supported by other unions. So when bus drivers are striking in Norway because they are asked to work first between 06:00 and 10:00 and then again from 15:00 until 19:00 without being paid between 10:00 and 15:00, this is considered unreasonable across the board, so the strike ends up getting public support. But if they were making a comparable amount of money as other jobs with similar demands yet they wanted to strike unless they got a 20% pay increase while other jobs are getting a 3% increase, then there's no public support.

ah, of course, the solution to unions is that since they are too small they can make unreasonable demands, so the solution is to centralize power into a super-union that controls the job market nation wide, but they might also make unreasonable demands, the solution is a mega-union that oversees super-unions all across the European Union, yep that will totally work fine.

hahaha left wing statists are funny sometimes.

It has worked. Powerful labor unions are an essential part of 'the scandinavian/nordic/norwegian' model. I don't really care whether it doesn't 'make sense' to you, because empirically, it has worked wonderfully. If you look at western countries, '% of unionized workers' is a really good indicator of how attractive a country is to work in.

They don't make unreasonable demands, specifically because they need such wide support for their demands. Whereas I myself recognize that american unions, at least these days, seem to make more unreasonable demands quite consistently.

HA HA HA HA HA backbone of the left

Should I post the video of the dutch professor that they didn't air cause he shit on him cause Fox is against corporate tax increases? How is tax increase and more solid regulation a RIGHT measure? The fuck is he smoking.

Tucker Carlson can suck a fat one.

P.S. Corporations are not a backbone to any political ideology, they are the political ideology and only serve themselves.

you are the stravinsky of cognitive dissonance

On September 01 2021 08:21 Liquid`Drone wrote: It has worked. Powerful labor unions are an essential part of 'the scandinavian/nordic/norwegian' model. I don't really care whether it doesn't 'make sense' to you, because empirically, it has worked wonderfully. If you look at western countries, '% of unionized workers' is a really good indicator of how attractive a country is to work in. They don't make unreasonable demands, specifically because they need such wide support for their demands. Whereas I myself recognize that american unions, at least these days, seem to make more unreasonable demands quite consistently.

Sometimes you can be obtuse seeing everything from your scandi bubble, yeah your socialist friends aren't morons bashing people faces in, yet Antifa in the US does, yeah turns out that pockets of tiny super-civil homogenous socites can implement most systems with relative success, switzerland has no minimum wage and norway has massive a massive one turns out both work out well, perhaps it's not super-unions isn't what is keeping Norway afloat.

You think that local unions are unethical and seek self interest, but a super-union far more powerful and detached will be ethical and won't act in self interest for some reason lol/



Let me paint you a picture of labor unions outside of the scandi bubble, in México we have the SNTE which is the union of teachers for gov schools, it has about the same # of members as your super-union, among the shit they have done is block the roads into a state for over a year, keeping it under siege because they don't want any law reform currently teaching jobs are inherited to family, rented or sold... yes, RENT.. as in you pay the owner of this teaching job slot to work as a teacher. The leader of this union is Elba Esther Gordillo, the most powerful woman in the country, she was just released from jail by Obrador because she gave him the votes of all the teachers, she owns two political parties, and obviously she is immensibly corrupt rich and poweful and she can sway elections with the hundreds of thousands of votes she controls.

Also theres an even bigger union, the oil one (PEMEX) you can't even being to comprehen the corruption going on in there, and you tell me the solution to these problems is to create a mega-union, dozens of millions of workers under the control of a few union leaders many times more powerful than Elba Esther Gordillo LOL you madman, you cleary have no idea how the world really works past the pretty landscape of the peninsula.

On August 30 2021 16:00 Stroggoz wrote: I put the share of responsibility for many problems on both individual people and systems, after all, it is people's life choices that perpetuate a political or economic system. If someone wants to be responsible for their individual actions, usually many other people are too, and often the best way to be responsible for them is to deal with them on a political scale.

Oh yes, the right way to take responsibility for your own actions is to protest lol.

One of the reasons I don't take the individual responsibility rhetoric from the right very seriously is that no one who preaches it practices it.

Yep, ignore right wingers who preach personal responsibility and dont take their own.

Also ignore left wingers who preach redistribution and don't redistribute their own.

Of course the union acts in self-interest, lol. But when the self-interest is 20% of the population in Norway, and frankly, by extension, everyone that works in Norway, that's not a problem, it ends up being a good thing. The difference between a more unionized society and a less unionized society is that the more unionized one has employees that are more powerful in relation to their employers. That is a good thing, because in most societies, employers exert too much power over their employees, and there are far more employees than there are employers. (So say, a 10% reduction in life quality of employers and a 10% increase in life quality of employees ends up being an overall good for society. Tbh, I'm not sure the life quality of employers is hampered in any way - I think bosses are better off in Norway than they are in the US, too, even if they make less money. )

And I'm not arguing that Mexico should just adopt everything in Norway and expect it to work wtf. I'm describing what works here. You can't separate a piece of policy within a country from the culture of that country, and I'm fairly consistent in making that argument.

On September 02 2021 00:35 Baalim wrote: Also theres an even bigger union, the oil one (PEMEX) you can't even being to comprehen the corruption going on in there, and you tell me the solution to these problems is to create a mega-union, dozens of millions of workers under the control of a few union leaders many times more powerful than Elba Esther Gordillo LOL you madman, you cleary have no idea how the world really works past the pretty landscape of the peninsula.

First I'd like to point out that I agree with all of the above, but isn't it then fair to say that it's a matter of society reaching the point of mentality/morality where unions would be the GTO strategy, meaning we should rather focus on actions/events that would push society towards that mentality rather than anything else?

The main issue with politics is we're trying to solve it on a global scale, when the 'lifecycle' of a society is very different for each country. E.g the Scandis are able to do what they're doing because of a lot of cultural and historical factors (e.g. constant battle with Russia forcing them to be more united in general, no real external propaganda that would try to split them up etc...)

Solutions that would work perfectly for some countries would turn up to be a disaster in others.

There's a reason why both left and right ideologies have persevered through the test of time, simply because one or the other was needed throughout different periods. It's not a competition, it's a matter of how can the two work best together to solve a specific problem.. That's what I don't get in this tread.

On September 02 2021 08:29 Liquid`Drone wrote: Of course the union acts in self-interest, lol. But when the self-interest is 20% of the population in Norway, and frankly, by extension, everyone that works in Norway, that's not a problem, it ends up being a good thing. The difference between a more unionized society and a less unionized society is that the more unionized one has employees that are more powerful in relation to their employers. That is a good thing, because in most societies, employers exert too much power over their employees, and there are far more employees than there are employers. (So say, a 10% reduction in life quality of employers and a 10% increase in life quality of employees ends up being an overall good for society. Tbh, I'm not sure the life quality of employers is hampered in any way - I think bosses are better off in Norway than they are in the US, too, even if they make less money. ) And I'm not arguing that Mexico should just adopt everything in Norway and expect it to work wtf. I'm describing what works here. You can't separate a piece of policy within a country from the culture of that country, and I'm fairly consistent in making that argument.

You are making mistakes in many domains, first you are missing all the problems centralization causes, addressing things on bigger scale is usually a blanket of inefficiency, local self management is in most circumstances far more productive, this is quite a long subject tho.

The second mistake is that you are making that many people do is assuming a the economy as a zero sum game, if workers do better and bosses get fucked is good because of worker/boss ratio... except that the economy isn't a zero sum game, productivity has to be taken into equation, like if you legistlate certain worker benefit that "is good cuz its good for workers" but the competitiveness against a foreign market drops then you just fucked yourself because your move is simplistic and narrowsighted.

And last, as I said you constantly argue "in norway", "my socialist friends", dude thats not a reflection of the effectiveness of systems nor the trends of socialism in the world, as I said most things will work out in Norway, but systems must the stess-tested in shitty places, because there are hundreds of thousands of ppl living in shit holes for every scandy in this world and also its important to point out that the current scandinavian systems aren't the ones that pulled you out of the muck, they are the ones who sustain you in an arguably stale economy.

On September 02 2021 09:48 Spitfiree wrote: Show nested quote + On September 02 2021 00:35 Baalim wrote: Also theres an even bigger union, the oil one (PEMEX) you can't even being to comprehen the corruption going on in there, and you tell me the solution to these problems is to create a mega-union, dozens of millions of workers under the control of a few union leaders many times more powerful than Elba Esther Gordillo LOL you madman, you cleary have no idea how the world really works past the pretty landscape of the peninsula. First I'd like to point out that I agree with all of the above, but isn't it then fair to say that it's a matter of society reaching the point of mentality/morality where unions would be the GTO strategy, meaning we should rather focus on actions/events that would push society towards that mentality rather than anything else? The main issue with politics is we're trying to solve it on a global scale, when the 'lifecycle' of a society is very different for each country. E.g the Scandis are able to do what they're doing because of a lot of cultural and historical factors (e.g. constant battle with Russia forcing them to be more united in general, no real external propaganda that would try to split them up etc...) Solutions that would work perfectly for some countries would turn up to be a disaster in others. There's a reason why both left and right ideologies have persevered through the test of time, simply because one or the other was needed throughout different periods. It's not a competition, it's a matter of how can the two work best together to solve a specific problem.. That's what I don't get in this tread.

yes its very likely different societies need different systems which is in nature, localist, which is precisely what I'm talking about when im arguing against mega-unions and massive centralilzation of bureaucratic power.

The kind of system that I think works best in general terms is non-enforced and with a community sense, bosses taking care of their workers, not through unions but by their own volition, a societal safety net through family, friends and community, I've mentioned this before but you don't see as many homeless ppl in Mexico than in the US, your family will almost always take you in, that thing of kicking the children out of the house and they are on their own is a 1st world phenomenom that seems like a symptom of a fragmented and atomized society which is wrongfully attributed to the free market.

On September 03 2021 04:51 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On September 02 2021 09:48 Spitfiree wrote:   On September 02 2021 00:35 Baalim wrote: Also theres an even bigger union, the oil one (PEMEX) you can't even being to comprehen the corruption going on in there, and you tell me the solution to these problems is to create a mega-union, dozens of millions of workers under the control of a few union leaders many times more powerful than Elba Esther Gordillo LOL you madman, you cleary have no idea how the world really works past the pretty landscape of the peninsula. First I'd like to point out that I agree with all of the above, but isn't it then fair to say that it's a matter of society reaching the point of mentality/morality where unions would be the GTO strategy, meaning we should rather focus on actions/events that would push society towards that mentality rather than anything else? The main issue with politics is we're trying to solve it on a global scale, when the 'lifecycle' of a society is very different for each country. E.g the Scandis are able to do what they're doing because of a lot of cultural and historical factors (e.g. constant battle with Russia forcing them to be more united in general, no real external propaganda that would try to split them up etc...) Solutions that would work perfectly for some countries would turn up to be a disaster in others. There's a reason why both left and right ideologies have persevered through the test of time, simply because one or the other was needed throughout different periods. It's not a competition, it's a matter of how can the two work best together to solve a specific problem.. That's what I don't get in this tread. yes its very likely different societies need different systems which is in nature, localist, which is precisely what I'm talking about when im arguing against mega-unions and massive centralilzation of bureaucratic power. The kind of system that I think works best in general terms is non-enforced and with a community sense, bosses taking care of their workers, not through unions but by their own volition, a societal safety net through family, friends and community, I've mentioned this before but you don't see as many homeless ppl in Mexico than in the US, your family will almost always take you in, that thing of kicking the children out of the house and they are on their own is a 1st world phenomenom that seems like a symptom of a fragmented and atomized society which is wrongfully attributed to the free market.

It's not wrongfully attributed because it's not a free market, it only works by manipulating people's worldviews, their sense of self and their desires. Do you consume more or less shit you don't need if you are less satisfied with your life and if you are (or feel) alone? You know the answer to that.

The more atomized a society - the less you have a sense of societal obligations - the less satisfied with life you will be, and also the less access to sharable things you have - so you end up buying your own. And that is why atomization has been a central part of the "evolution" of capitalism - to grow markets and make new ones you have to grow unhappiness and loneliness, and the best way to make people unhappy is to incentivize their lives in a way that pulls them away from what has naturally made them human and form strong communities in the past. Relationships based on a trust cannot be the default of human relationships under capitalism, they must be based on fear - fear of the Other, fear of the future, of missing out. Constant fear, generally at the subconscious level, is a defining factor of this new economy.

It's ironic how much you harp on Drone's supposed myopia when you indirectly make the same argument you condemn by thinking that individual free will and familial values exist in their own bubbles and could be strengthened significantly irrespective of powerful higher order economic forces.

A central belief behind right-wing ideology is to encourage a "stay thirsty" mentality and the belief that pain builds character. You believe people should not feel entitled to anything, that they should be their own person, responsible for themselves only. That people are fundamentally lazy and uncreative and if their basic needs are not consistently threatened they will just vedge out in front of the TV and do drugs while taking advantage of other people's hard work. From this POV, kicking out your kid is obviously the moral thing to do - you help them build character and learn the "real lessons of life" - that you are on your own, responsible for yourself, and you can't afford to be lazy.

This is usually the justification a parent has, but the main reason it's done is not out of this "tough love" - it's because it's financially advantageous to the parents doing it. It's an unburdening because of either immediate pressures or a fear of the future and the parent not having enough to meet their own needs at some point (the kid takes away from the "rainy day fund''). Its increase is directly linked to the increasing cost of living while salaries stagnate and decent worker benefits become more difficult to acquire over time in such an economy.

Texas banned abortion after the 6th week of pregnancy. It's interesting how populism keeps pushing towards degradation. The whole 'prolife' - 'proabortion' argument is so stupid. Women will keep getting an abortion even if it's illegal, what laws like this one is doing is making the entire thing quite unsafe for them. On top of that almost all abortions are done because it would be a single mom raising the child, it's quite surprising that conservatives tolerate that but wouldn't increase the social welfare for single moms. The hypocrisy of the entire thing is astonishing.

robbers are going to keep breaking into homes and stealing even if it's illegal, these things like "castle doctrine" and "self defense" are just making the whole thing quite unsafe for them