I swear I’m not Jessica

  • 1 Post
  • 125 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 4th, 2023

help-circle
  • It doesn’t matter what you want the solution to be based on your values. If your solution jeopardizes your values more than the alternative solution would have, all you’ve done is make yourself feel better at the expense of others.

    If you let people accumulate power unopposed, they will use less of it on improving the common good than if it was in the hands of more people. Poorer people give a greater proportion of their wealth to charity. A lower portion of the excess wealth controlled by billionaires goes to improving people’s lives than if that excess wealth went to those who had barely enough, or not enough. Wealth has diminishing returns on happiness. A million dollars to a billionaire won’t be noticed, while a million dollars to 99% of people would be life changing.

    Taking from the wealthy and giving to everyone is tyranny of the majority on a tiny minority. The wealthy would still be on top and live comfortably, but they would now live in the same economic reality as everyone else. They could no longer burn money for fun while their fortune passively accumulates to see a net gain in wealth. Losing a million dollars would actually be felt, and they would need to adjust their lives in reaction to the loss.

    On the other hand, if you rely on voluntary charity in the spirit of freedom, you see tyranny of a minority on the majority. They give far less of their money to the common good, instead spending more of their wealth on protecting their riches. This is what we see in reality. They lobby the government to serve their interests at the expense of the public, or in non capitalist systems, hire guards to protect their interests directly.

    Feudal lords pay their workers wages that are lower than the value their work generates because they control the farmland. They control the farmland by protecting it with guards they pay, think knights and samurai. If the workers complain or try to sell food made on the land without giving the lords their cut, the guards suppress them using violence. The lord’s ownership of the land is only valid if they are protected, with violence, by their personal guards, payed for by the workers.

    Does that sound like freedom? Do those workers sound free? By allowing people the freedom to gain power over a resource, the land and crops on that land, the workers have lost their freedom to see the fruits of their labor, sometimes literally. The fruits they pick are given to the lord, who trades the fruit for resources, but only give the workers enough resources to survive.

    Freedom without limit destroys freedom for most people. Freedom must have a ceiling and a floor, or the freedom of others can be taken by that of another. I value everyone having freedom, which requires a cap on the freedom people can have. No one can be free to horde too much power.





  • I am very much in favor of using violence to take resources from people that don’t give back to the community they rely on. It’s a good thing to take money from the rich and greedy using violence. There is no imaginable society where people should be permitted to not contribute when they are capable of contributing.

    If people are permitted to not contribute excess power, it places more of the burden on everyone else to make up for it. On top of that, as the tax dodger accumulates too much control over resources(wealth), they can use those resources to hire people that then impose violence on the community when they try to take the resources back.

    If anything, an anarchist society should be more vigilant of resource accumulation, forcing each other to contribute through violence and ensuring that large power imbalances don’t emerge. There would be no state to handle redistribution, so it’d be the responsibility of every individual to make sure everyone has enough. There’d be no justification for anyone to have too much exclusive control over important resources, nor would there be a justification to not give excess resources to ensure everyone has the essentials.

    In a society that prohibits excessive wealth imbalance or centralization of control, there’d be power inequality, but there’d also be a well established ceiling and floor to the inequality. That will always require some form of progressive “taxation” or system of redistribution. There’d also need to be taxation on almost all worker productivity to help develop public goods that everyone will benefit from. Everyone would need to chip in what they can if they need a new communal well, or if they need to maintain the roads, or need to put someone’s home out if it caught fire. People would need to contribute even if they don’t benefit from the particular public service, as they might benefit from another one more than others.

    A well functioning society must require people to contribute what they can to maintain & improve the community, must take from those that don’t contribute by force, must tax people even if they don’t consent. This isn’t optional for any system, state or no state. If it fails, exploitation, abuse, and suffering will destabilize the system until it falls apart from under its own weight. A society that taxes properly can minimize violence, maximize efficiency, and be far safer for everyone without exception. Even those on top are constantly in danger of being deposed by someone who wants their position, as well as the people they exploit.

    Tldr: Yes, we must use violence to force contribution. Not doing so only causes more violence. Violence is unavoidable, and can only be minimized by ensuring no one gets too powerful to oppress.



  • Oh, got it. I can only use the term genocide after the genocide is fully completed. I guess it helps you virtue signal by saying “never again” without actually having to put in work when “again” comes around.

    Last time I listened to the “boy who cried wolf” argument, I was proven wrong. We should have listened when Trump was called a fascist in 2016. It was unpopular to use that F word then, but what else can you call the Republicans now? It’s just what they are.

    If you can’t use the word “wolf” until after it’s eaten all your sheep, you’re not a good Shepherd.


  • The current genocide being carried out by Israel against Palestinians and supported by almost all American politicians, including Biden? The genocide that we need to not shut up about because it’s a bad idea for literally everyone on top of being evil beyond measure? The imminent slaughter of a million children and adolescents? That genocide?

    Nah, I’ve never said a word about that. I totally don’t tell anyone who might listen about how terrible it is. Nope, I’m exactly the liberal caricature you think I am. If I started from the same facts as you, I’d totally share your opinions because you’re an absolute genius about everything compared to me.





  • Sorry. This ethnic cleansing is clearly genocidal by now. They want the Palestinians in Gaza gone, and neighboring countries are not capable or willing to take them. That leaves death as the most likely fate for almost all Gazans. A million kids live there for fuck’s sake. It’s evil Nazi shit being done by the very fuckers who claim criticism of Israel is antisemitism.

    They are Judeo-fascists, because no fucking group will ever be immune to fascism: Socialists, feminists, African Americans, trans people, every conceivable group of people for the rest of human history. There is no identity that cannot lead to fascism.










  • Obesity itself is probably too vague and non specific to be usefully called a disease. The basic measurement for obesity, BMI, would classify bodybuilders or strengthen based athletes as obese. Bodybuilders and strong people can often be unhealthy, but it’s not quite the same as someone with high body fat.

    Even then, people who are obese because of high body fat might have their lives shortened through multiple mechanisms. It could be heart disease that kills them, skeletal problems due to weight, immune issues, digestive issues, practically every organ can be affected. Any or all of these things could occur in a chronically obese person, so even if pathologized, obesity is less useful as a diagnosis.

    Excess weight is bad, but you can calculate weight/height without a doctor. Focusing on better nutrition, eating habits, and exercise is the solution, even if you’re young and have a high metabolism. That sugar in our food needs to be taxed or regulated, as economic incentives drive obesity rather than people being uniquely stupid or culturally degenerate.