Messages

136

Off Topic / Re: POLITICS & DONALD Annoying Orange MEGATHREAD

« on: January 01, 2018, 12:57:38 PM »

I'd rather live in a socialist country because of the greater safety nets in case something bad happens to me (lost my job, injury, etc) than here in America. I wouldn't live under communism though, that's for sure. I don't want to have to choose between being bankrupt and jobless, or having some kind of illness or health problem for a long period of time

I lived in Switzerland growing up, and I have quite a few stories about the amazing healthcare system.

Obviously, this is entirely anecdotal, but bear with me;

When I was younger, I fell off of a stool and cut my face up on a glass table. I was bleeding pretty badly from the side of my face and we were obviously concerned and rushed to the hospital. It took me 9 hours of waiting to have a doctor, and they didn't even stitch my face up. They told us to come back tomorrow because it wasn't life threatening. Once the doctors heard that we were Americans (and realized we had money to pay them), they COMPLETELY changed their tune, offering to treat me then and there, because there was more money in it for them.

The reason we left Switzerland in the first place was because my mother had grown a malignant tumor and was on a waiting list to see a specialist, but because of her age, the wait was expected to be 9 to 18 months. We picked up and moved back to the US and treatment was started within the week. God only knows what could've happened if it were allowed to grow and potentially metastasize for another year. Did it cost more than it would have in Zurich? Certainly. But the treatment she received was top notch and quick, and she's been in remission for years now.

I don't disagree that healthcare is ludicrously priced in the US for people who don't have insurance, but that's more a result of industry lobbying and corruption which needs to be reigned in. The price of private healthcare in Switzerland is crazy as well, but the point I want to make is that the quality of service in the US is uniformly stellar in comparison to the variable experiences we had in Switzerland (which were many more than just those two, but those are the most effective at demonstrating my point)

137

Off Topic / Re: POLITICS & DONALD Annoying Orange MEGATHREAD

« on: January 01, 2018, 12:50:12 PM »

Probably because higher education at this point is full of socialists and hyper political asshats.

The Overton Window in higher education is shifted quite far to the more radical part of the left wing of the political spectrum. Expressing any sort of conservative idea to the right of that which would be considered "moderate" is basically thought crime to the administration at my university. But advocating for communism is perfectly okay, and we have a club on campus called the Radical Students Association that does exactly that.

138

Off Topic / Re: POLITICS & DONALD Annoying Orange MEGATHREAD

« on: January 01, 2018, 12:38:12 PM »

at which point everyone starves

and then upper-middle class university students born and raised in the United States, a western capitalist republic, claim that it wasn't real socialism ad-nauseum, and that we should try socialism, too.

And the cycle continues


Editing because I found an interesting statistic:

51% of millenials would rather live in a Socialist or Communist society, compared to 42% that favor capitalism, and 7% that favor fascism.

139

Off Topic / Re: POLITICS & DONALD Annoying Orange MEGATHREAD

« on: January 01, 2018, 12:24:43 PM »

you definitely could've chosen a better example, like investment or some stuff. loans are pretty often predatory, and universally (at least in the US) place a higher burden on people who already have money problems

You're right in the assertion that irresponsible lending can have incredibly vast ramifications on the economy (see: buying stocks on margin in the 1920s, banks irresponsibly giving mortgages to people that can't afford them in the 2000s, etc)

But the beauty of bank loans is that there is a surplus of accessible capital, which allows for wider market participation in terms of entrepreneurship, home ownership, etc from the average individual. Here's a (very simplified) example of what I mean:

- Person A goes to the bank and deposits $100. The bank has a 15% reserve requirement, leaving the bank free to lend $85 of the $100 it holds.
- Person B comes to the bank to borrow money to buy a fancy new Widget. They borrow the $85, which they use to pay the Widget salesman.
- The salesman deposits his $85 into the bank, meaning the bank has now stored $185 in deposits, with a 15% reserve requirement on the new deposit requiring $12.75 of that cash to be held in reserve.
- The bank can now lend that $72.25 of the new deposit which is not required to be held in reserve, and person B will repay their loan, giving the bank the $85 + interest (let's just assume 5%, so $89.25 is repaid)

To recap, the bank now holds $185 in deposits, will receive $89.25 from the balance owed to them, and is free to lend any other cash not required by regulation to be held in reserve, thus the bank has created wealth, although the bank is unable to literally print currency.

name one system where you, a healthy, fit-for-work human being, don't starve by not working

communism would label you a social parasite
capitalism wouldn't pay you
all forms of anarchy would just directly have you starve

A socialist welfare state would subsidize economic parasitism (until they run out of other people's money to spend due to incentives for workers to not work and for people with money to take it out of the economy and put it somewhere else)

140

Off Topic / Re: POLITICS & DONALD Annoying Orange MEGATHREAD

« on: January 01, 2018, 12:43:24 AM »

no cappy we need to kill jeff bezos right loving now

I don't know about Bezos as much, but I've heard from a few people that working at Amazon fulfillment centers is a living hell due to a lot of really sketchy/borderline illegal practices by management, long hours, and like 20 miles of walking per day. I can't personally verify this, but it sounds plausible because working in logistics for an operation of that size just sounds like a nightmare

141

Off Topic / Re: POLITICS & DONALD Annoying Orange MEGATHREAD

« on: January 01, 2018, 12:37:19 AM »

neither. it's totally possible to have billions of dollars and not be a bad person, but the tactics necessary to get billions of dollars require exploiting people.

you're making the assumption that capitalism is inherently a zero-sum game in which wealth is limited and one's acquisition of said wealth requires taking it from others, which is absurd. If I go to work and get paid, I'm not stealing the money from my employer and they're not stealing my labor from me. It's all consensual. Look at how bank loans work as an example of how wealth can be generated through simply managing money.

You certainly don't have to be evil to make money. Wealth is just a numerical representation of power and influence, and having said power and influence is what can turn people bad. Wealth is only one such way to power, however. There are many ways to consolidate power other than wealth.

142

Off Topic / Re: POLITICS & DONALD Annoying Orange MEGATHREAD

« on: December 31, 2017, 11:48:25 PM »

ok google show me not evil rich people

Does wealth somehow make people evil in your eyes? Or is everyone just inherently evil with wealth giving them the means to express their evil to a greater degree?

143

Games / Re: Cappy's Winter Break Minecraft Fiesta (aka o stuff here we go again)

« on: December 23, 2017, 02:38:26 AM »

Treecapitator has been added, just fyi.

No more floating leaves woo

144

Off Topic / Re: [removed by the ADF for tribal content] Boogie2988 divorces his wife

« on: December 19, 2017, 11:31:45 PM »

I don't like the 'sensitivity culture' of college much either, but this sounds at least partially editorialized. Was it an online thing or did you have to go somewhere to take it?

It was a physical class, as in we had to go to a classroom to take it.

It was once a week for a semester and covered such amazing concepts as institutional racism, toxic masculinity, privilege, and why white people apparently are by default tribal (the rationale given was that because white people are inherently born with privilege, they inherently benefit from not experiencing institutional racism and therefore are part of the problem.)

needless to say, it was loving cancerous

145

Off Topic / Re: [removed by the ADF for tribal content] Boogie2988 divorces his wife

« on: December 19, 2017, 11:27:18 PM »

Well, if your friend is in college, it's his own damn fault for registering for some class that teaches him stuff he doesn't care about. Unless you go to a ho-dunk school with zero variety of gen-eds, you can curate your humanities education to be whatever you want. My last humanities credit was a class about jazz history.

My college mandated a "sensitivity training" course that was pure horsestuff about how white people are evil and gay transgender womyn of color are the most beautiful kind of people and should control every institution

it was loving cancerous and if anything made people less tolerant

146

Off Topic / Re: Is Communism the worst? Or national socialistsm is the worst?

« on: December 19, 2017, 11:23:27 PM »

We already have some on this very page of this very thread.

also r/politics (and most default subs for that matter)

147

Off Topic / Re: [removed by the ADF for tribal content] Boogie2988 divorces his wife

« on: December 19, 2017, 11:11:35 PM »

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand SeventhSandwich. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the jokes will go over a typical viewers head. There's also Seventh's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realise that they're not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike SeventhSandwich truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Seventh's existential catchphrase "This is the end for Drumpf!" which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenevs Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Seventh's genius wit unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. how I pity them. 😂

And yes, by the way, i DO have a SeventhSandwich tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid 😎

148

Off Topic / Re: [removed by the ADF for tribal content] Boogie2988 divorces his wife

« on: December 19, 2017, 11:03:40 PM »

I actually thought I was being too vague 

I try to maintain decent anonymity since part of me wonders whether one of you Sephiroth types is going to kick down my door at night.

tfw your own 900 IQ is your own worst enemy

149

Off Topic / Re: [removed by the ADF for tribal content] Boogie2988 divorces his wife

« on: December 19, 2017, 11:01:18 PM »

Let me paint you a picture here: I just finished a really excellent semester studying engineering in college, and I'm posting from my couch, back home, on my time off from school. During the semester? I post at night, on my phone on the bus, or when I'm waiting in line for coffee.

I do waste a stuffload of time online- that's pretty much a statistical fact. But I waste all that time on top of a heavy engineering courseload plus a full-time research position. Meanwhile, what are you doing? Do you have a job? Did you get into that design college you were preemptively bragging about like a year ago? What could you possibly be doing that equips you to condescend how I choose to spend my time?
Nah dude I'm a loving twig. I had a good fitness regimen going over the summer but I kinda broke my routine when fall started. Hoping to get up to a more middling BMI by the end of the year.

The cardinal sin of a liar is that they give far too many details. The liar does this because they feel like their story won't be taken with validity unless there's and intricate narrative to support it. Unfortunately, by this same token, they out themselves for what they are: simple storytellers.

/s

150

Games / Re: League of Legends - some kind of space frog girl.

« on: December 18, 2017, 06:53:39 PM »

useful champ hehe


them q casts tho


o boi