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@Greyparrot
Everyone is already overtaxed with inflation that nobody agreed to.
Inflation is a feature of capitalism not a bug.
America was founded on tax evasion btw.Back when men protected themselves and didn't make excuses.
America was founded by scoundrels, rum smugglers and slave owners. One can admire their brazeness without thinking of them as good roll models.
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@Greyparrot
Of course it does if you are going to huddle on the beach with the women while the real men go hunt for food.
The workers ARE the ones producing the food. Without them it it s the one percent who would have to get off their ass and do something.
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@Greyparrot
It's not evasion if you don't get caught.
Is it moral to benefit from the countries infrastructure without paying taxes? The poor are not given the choice. Taxes are taken from them before they ever see their money.
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@Greyparrot
Then I call you out as a coward for giving them money.
I could starve on principle and take my family with me I suppose but I call you out as pretending I have choices I do not. I am glad your parents were affluent enough to help you get started. If they had not been your life would be very different I assure you.
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@Greyparrot
Then why would you willingly give them your money? They surely didn't take it from you at gunpoint. Unless you want to call the government the one percenters.
As a matter of fact they did through implicit threat of police violence as the government enforces their right to own all the means of production so we have no choice but to acquire all products from them. They decide what products are made and what they cost and their is no alternative to doing buisness with them in practice.
Surely you got SOMETHING out of the deal.
I get to avoid the homelessness and destitution that comes of not getting in line and doing a job that isn't fulfilling doesn't pay enough and doesn't in the end even need done. (The three biggest complaints people have about their jobs)
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@ILikePie5
Happy Columbus Day!
Columbus was a poor navigator and an actual monster who didn't discover anything that hadn't already been discovered by someone else.
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@zedvictor4
One World.Everyone is indigenous.
Yes but some people enacted colonialism and others had colonialism enacted upon them to their detriment even into the present day.
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@BigPimpDaddy
You had to SUPER bad to go to jail for crimes against natives back then.
You certainly did
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@zedvictor4
There was nothing to discover.
But there were nine year old native girls to sell into sexual slavery.
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@Greyparrot
Free trade is mutual exploitation. Both sides agree to exploit each other. You are arguing that trade is morally incorrect because exploitation is involved on both sides.
I'm pretty sure you are changing the subject here. The one percent don't produce anything at all they just own all the means of production. They are neither the doctor nor the computer expert. They are the con artist who convinces both to work for him and give him most of the profits from the fixing of both the arm and the computer without actually fixing either himself.
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@Greyparrot
Neither does failing to develop into one of the 1% of the top producers on the planet either then. Plenty of people below this development level can feed themselves just fine and you are delusional if you think this is not the case.You can fail to be a top producer and still have a fairly opulent life.
The world is on fire in part because of overproduction and we still can't get basic necessities to everyone who needs them. I don't need an opulent life and neither do you and neither do the one percent but starving homeless people need food and shelter. I don't see how you justify your opulent lifestyle (or mine in as much as it is opulent) given the very real human cost. One preventable instance of homelessness and starvation is one too many.
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@zedvictor4
If humans were less selfish, then there would be less humans.
Conjecture
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@zedvictor4
Everyone should be fed and housed regardless of wealth. This cannot be accomplished by capitalism because it treats human necessities as commodities. If you are correct that the poor are poor because they have poor abilities then by extension you are arguing that they are less deserving of commodities=necessities=life. No one is more deserving of life because they have more wealth that is patently absurd and so I must conclude some flaw in your reasoning.
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@949havoc
When do you get it that it is Marx who is exploitive.
Why are you so fixated on Marx? I'm certainly not. It doesn't matter who gives an argument it stands or falls on its own merits. I am not engaging in an argument from authority here.
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@949havoc
Who says you have to spend what you make?
For many people around the world their personal physical needs cannot be met with the wealth they are able to generate by working as much as they can and as hard as they can. You are asking a frog to fly and calling it lazy for not being a bird
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@949havoc
Who said life was fair?
Life is very much not fair. That doesn't make exploitation of others morally correct.
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@Greyparrot
.001% of all the people on the planet play in the NFL. How is that fair?
Failure to play in the NFL does not result in destitution, homelessness and starvation. Clearly this is not a pertinent example.
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@TheUnderdog
If would be nice if there was no need for rape whistles, but we don't live in that world.
I agree we live in a world where workers are exploited
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@TheUnderdog
Capitalism exists to fix some of society's problems.
No. Capitalism exists for the sole purpose of generating profit. Anything else that comes of it, good or bad, is merely an unintended consequence.
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@949havoc
Please do not be pedantic. I do not mean freec(without cost) I mean free (unconstrained by outside factors). Nothing is unconstrained by outside factors that I am aware of.
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@zedvictor4
The planet's problem is too many selfish human beings.....Not methane.
The solution is for humans to be less selfish not for there to be less humans
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@zedvictor4
The trouble is, we keep producing unnecessary people,
No people are necessary. The universe does not need and hardly seems to notice the entire human race. Are you suggesting efforts towards eugenics? In general I mistrust those who advocate for eugenics as they rarely offer imagine themselves as part of the great cleansing or final solution and I just don't trust anyone who would sacrifice another for personal gain.
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@zedvictor4
Naturally acquired ability dictates social hierarchy.
Incorrect. That does not have nearly as much to do with your social standing as your intergenerational wealth.
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@zedvictor4
Natural hierarchy
Word salad
Hierarchies are not natural they are man made.
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@949havoc
1% of people own more than 50% of all wealth whole nearly ten percent live in extreme poverty. Please explain how this is or could ever be fair.
If this is to be expected under our current system then our system itself is unfair.
YOU prove your worth.
Nurses ARE worth more than billionaires and they prove it every day and yet they make far less money. Proving oneself is not nearly as big a deciding factor in who is and is not wealthy as intergenerational wealth (the single biggest indicator)
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@BigPimpDaddy
JeFf BeZoS WaS PoOr
When and by whose measure?
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@Greyparrot
People are not forced to work for McDonald's specifically but they are obligated by the system to find SOME work or risk social stigma, homelessness and starvation. A threat is a threat is a threat. It doesn't matter if it is an implicit unstated threat.
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@949havoc
Thinking doesn't change the equation. Every thought is either caused (detetministic) or uncaused (indistinguishable from a random event) and neither leaves room for freewill. That you have a will doe not make it free.
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@Greyparrot
If McDonald's cannot pay a living wage then they deserve to go out of buisness. If people are homeless and hungry then we should feed and shelter them.
Unless you have a reasonable counterpoint to BOTH the above statements then you have not done much for McDonald's case with your argument about their inability to compete with welfare.
Unless you have a reasonable counterpoint to BOTH the above statements then you have not done much for McDonald's case with your argument about their inability to compete with welfare.
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@949havoc
that corporate profits robbed from the workers
Where else could profits possibly come from?
there are other costs
Yes but if the workers received the net of their generated wealth (wealth after expenses) then there still would he no profit left for the bourgeoisie. I don't care how you slice the pie the workers cannot get their fair share and also leave income for executives who do not produce anything (and if your money is generating more money you are not personally producing anything period)
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@zedvictor4
Why is anyone a billionaire is a better question. No individual human needs a billion dollars. If you have a billion dollars while other people are homeless and starving then you are an actual monster.
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@triangle.128k
Christopher Columbus was an actual monster and a poor navigator who never actually discovered anything that wasn't already discovered.
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@Ramshutu
If i decide whether to have Pizza or Burgers tonight, it feels like a free choice that I could make - but the reality is that it is the laws of physics ultimately determining which choice I make;
All "choices" are actually determinations based on a mixture of ones personal preferences (not a choice) and external factors/consequences (not a choice).
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@949havoc
If any action has a cause then it is deterministic. Determinism is not freewill.
If any action has no cause (undetermined) then it is indistinguishable from random. Random occurrences are not freewill.
No clever mix of caused and uncashed leads to freewill.
Freewill is logically incoherent.
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@Greyparrot
There's no forcing going on at all.
Would you consider the threat of homelessness, destitution and starvation force? In general would. A threat is a threat whether it is implicit or explicit.
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@Greyparrot
Dude, McDonalds can't pay people enough to get them to come work for them right now.
Profits can only exist if a buisness first pays all its expenses and paying workers is the most important expense since no buisness can run without workers. McDonald's cannot afford to pay a living wage then they should close their doors.
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@BigPimpDaddy
No one wants to work at McDonalds or work as a janitor; they HAVE to. Thats the big problem with capitalism.They are coerced into working for for the greedy rich.If someone goes to jail once for say, drugs your life is ruined.
Well stated.
Indeed IF being coerced into consenting to sex is rape THEN being coerced into consenting to work is slavery.
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@Greyparrot
Workers generate ALLthe wealth and then are paid back a FRACTION of this generated wealth. The difference between the wealth generated and the pay is called profit and it is exploitation by its very nature to pay someone less than they have made.
As for risk investors rarely risk more than money and are generally shielded from any losses by diversification. It is the workers who suffer the most of a company goes out of buisness so I would say they are risking more.
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@949havoc
Whenever two parties make a mutually beneficial deal it is generally at the expense of some third party and all corperations must exploit their workers in order to turn a profit. It inbuilt into the system.
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@Stephen
He also said: " Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple" . While on the other hand the bible also states that:"Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness".1 John 2:9-17He just thrives on contradictions , doesn't he?
Well stated
you clown
Naughty naughty. Ad hominem can ruin an otherwise persuasive argument, at least for me.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
As a very small part of a much bigger system that is itself part of a much larger system it is hard to monitor all possible relevant factors and so the system is inherently unpredictable from my perspective. This is true of the most celebrated and foremost expert in any subject. Predictions can be made and some hypothesis and theories make better predictions than others and so are more valuable mechanisms but this does not mean we can reliably predict any given outcome with total certainty.
The universe seems fickle because determinism is obdurate and exponentially more complex the more we learn (rather than simpler) even as our knowledge allows us to not just create wonders undreamed of even just twenty five years ago (and frankly probably impossible to explain to someone who lived two hundred years ago) but to make them ordinary.
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is it a weak point that many types of miracles of the bible dont happen nowadays?
That it is under discussion is a little telling actually. It is true that every holy book (not just abrahamic ones) describe the wonders and miracles that some deity performed that showed the people what was what and proved his power and it is also true universally for all of them that those kinds of showy miracles don't seem to be going on anymore.
The red sea no more parts than do horses fly people to heaven and just as much as gods battle giant fire breathing demon bulls. Semantic arguments about what constitutes a miracle aside it is clear that the type of miracles being done in the biblical narrative are not happening now and that seems strange since yahweh used to be such a boots on the ground type of god.
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@Greyparrot
There is no collective consumer without solidarity and so long as the individual consumer is blamed as though they were the collective consumer we do not have solidarity. You are referencing an almost mythic figure when you invoke the collective consumer as a force which makes conscious determinations about policy.
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@BigPimpDaddy
No point in responding to greyparrot hes worse at making arguments than me.when he does its copied from an article.
Ad hominem attacks are a poor substitutes for logical arguments.
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@Greyparrot
I don't know about prophets but profits have been shown to incentivize mistreatment humans and should definitely not be allowed to make these decisions.
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He will look like pasta made in the flying spaghetti monster's own image bless his noodly goodness
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@Greyparrot
Consumers already spoke out on this.
Yes that is what makes it a good example. Corporations behaved maliciously and were forced to make some restitution only when so many people's lives were adversely impacted that the outcry was impossible to ignore.
This illustrates that corporations do not care about human welfare and that the only thing we can do as consumers to create or change executive policy is to come together in solidarity.
So long as we blame the average consumer for the state of affairs perpetrated by international corporate interests and elite oligarchs we cannot fight corporate interests effectively. Until the outcry against the corperations themselves becomes impossible to ignore it WILL BE IGNORED
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@Greyparrot
I do not blame the average consumer at all I put the blame on the elite oligarchs. I do not blame the average consumer for embracing the fictions that corporate interests sell them. Such fictions as that we can continue to burn fossil fuels indefinitely without appreciable consequences or the function that fewer than one in ten patients prescribed opiates will become addicted.
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