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Messages - More Than Mortal
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2281
« on: February 23, 2016, 12:58:16 AM »
your refusal to acknowledge race as a social construct sometimes leaves me wondering My position on race is that it's a biological phenomenon insofar as sub-populations differ phenotypically. This is literally the most uninteresting opinion you could've picked on. and the difference between you and me so far is that I want to vanquish the monster entirely, and you want to keep it around. I suppose the fact that your chosen policy would increase the national deficit is irrelevant. . . Or does public debt not count? If you hate all kinds of debt, why are you not literally railing against government excess given how we have a debt-to-GDP ratio unprecedented in peacetime? Why the inconsistency? I don't need to remind you that there are already colleges in the US that are highly exclusionary already. U.S. colleges are exclusionary on academic grounds. Germany excludes that proportion of the population so they can afford it, not because only half of all German high school grads are smart enough. . . Students should be paid to go to college. What the actual fuck? Students should be paid to pursue something that almost entirely benefits them, and which has incredibly small positive externalities? because putting people in crippling debt does How long are you going to ignore the fact that this is something I want to avoid. If you're going to challenge my positions, at least give both of us the courtesy of challenging my actual positions. People can't be expected to be charitable--so we should force them.
Something something unintended consequences. I have no idea why you--rightly--believe the world is incredibly fucked up, yet seem to think the government can rectify it if only they'd do the obvious thing. The reason they don't do the obvious thing is because it doesn't work. Humans are not pawns which can be moved on a board, not even by Bernie.
2282
« on: February 23, 2016, 12:20:45 AM »
but what good are they if our own kids aren't prepared for them? Exactly my point. What's the fucking point in having free college is those colleges have to try and educate people spat out by a failing primary and secondary public school system? All of this noise about reforming higher education--which is not just coming from Bernie--is largely a case of politicians unknowingly kicking a problem down the road.
2283
« on: February 23, 2016, 12:16:06 AM »
Maybe if we made better education available to them they wouldn't be fucking dumb
Now you're talking about primary and secondary education.
2284
« on: February 23, 2016, 12:15:29 AM »
"I'd rather have billions of dollars worth of cash burn holes in the pockets of a bunch of rich fuckholes, utterly wasted, than I would oblige them to make life a little bit easier for future generations the only people in the universe who really matter. The rich deserve their money, for [some reason]. We have no right to help secure a better future for our youth, because that would involve forcing people into being good and charitable--even though it's virtually impossible for human beings to be good and charitable on their own. Fairness is too much to ask for from humanity."
If you don't want college to be free, this is what you believe. Embrace it.
Right, because college can just be free. Just like that. Bernie will waltz into the White House, snap his fucking fingers and all of a sudden no student will have any debt (never mind the fact that "free systems" still incur debts on students in some manner, if not for tuition). It's not like economists have studied this or anything, Bernie can do what he wants through willpower alone.
2285
« on: February 23, 2016, 12:13:37 AM »
but you enable it with your ideology. Which is a ridiculous thing to say. I suppose I enable racism because I'm opposed to affirmative action? My goals for HE policy revolve around making people smart, and not sapping all of their money in the process and not being inequitable in the funding model. Despite what Sanders wants people to believe, all of the problems in the US cannot be solved by the government throwing more tax money at it. If you'd rather not have the rich pay for student tuition, that's basically the same thing as saying "I want millions of young, dumb people in debt." No, it isn't. It's saying "There are better ways of financing the higher education system than general taxation". Do they entail debt? Yeah. But debt isn't some big spookeh ghost waiting to jump out of your closet; debt is an issue in America because America has a buttfuck dumb loans system. And let's not talk shit, the government can't fund its current obligations, no way in hell only the rich will pay for free higher education nationally. Do people even grasp the magnitude of what this policy implies? Do you know how Germany manages to offer free higher education? They effectively bar half of the population from ever getting a degree; would you prefer that to some system which involves debt? You may not nominally believe that, but those are the consequences of your beliefs. The consequences of my beliefs that people should have access to the best education possible and not be poor is that people will end up stupid and with no money? Are you even paying attention to what I'm saying, man? You want the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. Verb, what the fuck is this shit?
2286
« on: February 22, 2016, 11:39:22 PM »
so your solution is to keep them idiots.
And sap them of all their money, too, for good measure. Brilliant.
I'm pretty sure you know that's a mis-characterisation of what I actually think. You also avoided my point, which is that youth support for Bernie is meaningless because young people are fucking dumb. That doesn't entail avoiding issues specific to young people, merely that listening to them is not usually a good way of forming policy.
2287
« on: February 22, 2016, 11:24:20 PM »
It's ok to spend trillions on wars, but not on our own people?
Defence spending - 4pc of GDP. Welfare expenditure - 19pc of GDP.
2288
« on: February 22, 2016, 11:20:30 PM »
Issues specific to younger people are among the most important issues--if not THE most important issue.
What about when issues which aren't specific to younger people are the more important ones, even for younger people. Your free college won't mean jack shit if we don't address issues like entitlement spending, infrastructure, inequality etc. Let's face it, young people in America are some of the most fortunate people on the planet and half of them have the fucking gall to complain that their future career path isn't being paid for by other people. Fuck young people, they're idiots; most of them either have no idea what's good for them, or don't fucking care. Exactly like pretty much everybody else. The fact that Bernie has a bunch of self-entitled GIB MONEY SO I CAN HAVE A HIGH PAYING JOB faggots behind him is a fault more than anything.
2289
« on: February 22, 2016, 11:16:08 PM »
The economy may have, but your average Joe still feels it in his bank account.
My point was the economy has recovered because of significant and harmful processes in the labour market and in other areas affecting aggregate supply. We've recovered because potential output has been revised down constantly since the Recession; we've recovered by atrophying.
2290
« on: February 22, 2016, 11:08:29 PM »
and when the global economy is still recovering
It has already recovered. Get used to the new normal.
2291
« on: February 22, 2016, 11:06:52 PM »
Then we disagree. It happens.
No, you misunderstand me. I mean what happens when the policies you want, with me completely out of the picture, are objectively stupid?
2292
« on: February 22, 2016, 11:05:37 PM »
My issue is that I don't think having kids start off their adult life $30,000 in the hole [on the conservative end] is setting them up for much success.
Shall we just ignore than the entire rise in tuition over the last few decades is wholly explicable by government reforms to the HE system? Or how about the fact that the debt burden leads to graduates seeking out higher-paying work? Or the fact that there are alternative systems of loan-based financing that aren't as fucked up as America's and don't rely on some Neanderthal notion of HURR DURR JUST FUND IT WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY.
2293
« on: February 22, 2016, 11:02:55 PM »
No other candidate offers any significant change that aligns with what we want.
What happens when what you want is stupid?
2294
« on: February 22, 2016, 10:56:35 PM »
If you invest in them, you'll see it on the other side. Great, you've just made an argument for having higher education. You haven't made one for financing it a certain way, though. The investment is fucking happening either way; the U.S. has an 89pc enrolment rate already. You've given me absolutely no reason to think (and the evidence doesn't support that) it's a good idea to finance tertiary education through general taxation. . . Especially not since we're living in a world, as I said, where deficit and debt reduction ought to take front and centre stage in fiscal policy. But no, lets keep doing the same old shit that benefits the rich people. That's been working great for us.
Yeah man, we should have a system where, like, the richest 2.5pc of taxpayers pay nearly half of all income taxes. . . Oh, wait. . .
2295
« on: February 22, 2016, 10:50:44 PM »
But he's the only candidate who has indicated any desire to fix the problems that effect young people more than the older folks.
You mean like how fucking terrible it is that college students have to pay for an education which primarily benefits them, as opposed to having it being paid off the back of the taxpayer? Yeah man, issues specific to younger people are so important. Who gives a fuck what young people want right now? We're living in a world where the economy has stalled and will continue to grow slowly, public debt is at unprecedented levels and geopolitical tensions are among the highest they've been since the collapse of the Soviet Union. And you want to elect a guy whose economic policy is based on magic, and whose grasp of foreign policy is limited to "I didn't vote for the Iraq War", because muh younglins. What the fuck is wrong with people's priorities?
2296
« on: February 22, 2016, 10:33:59 PM »
But worrying too hard about being spooked is being spooked in and of itself
Something explains everything something something explains nothing.
2297
« on: February 22, 2016, 10:33:17 PM »
Remember that Youtube video I was going to go rebutting his account of the Recession?
I never did it because at the end of the day he's an insufferable fuck, so what's the goddamn point? The guy is a grade-A, moralising asshole.
2298
« on: February 22, 2016, 08:24:55 PM »
I wonder if racial minorities are more likely to end up in jail because they are more likely to be products of broken homes and shitty schools, so they're left with few options, so they choose a life of crime...
Except that's exactly Flee's point. The fact that he is white, and that blacks disproportionately commit crimes, are irrelevant. The reason black people end up in jail is not because they are black (mostly), it's because they're prosecuted under laws which happen to cover a greater range of proscribed behaviours which they perform due to determinants other than race. This should be obvious, because race itself is not a determinant of behaviour. . .
2299
« on: February 22, 2016, 07:04:07 PM »
is to recognize that there is one
Right, and this is something that continued civil rights activism and policy reform haven't accomplished? The concept of "white privilege" is meaningless because it transfixes on a variable--race--which is largely unimportant. The fact that I am white is irrelevant to my position of privilege outside of being a demographic indicator. Black people aren't in gaol for minor drug offences because they are black, they're in gaol because we have pursued policies (like the war on drugs) which disproportionately affect black people despite their being no racist motivation behind such policies. In what way does me "checking my privilege", with all the associated political baggage that comes with, help policy makers improve public education or end the war on drugs? What about the growing white underclass being left behind in both the US and the UK? Are we going to pretend that their problems are not, by and large, an extension of the same kind of policy mistakes which have for so long disproportionately harmed people of colour? What about the fact that the attainment gap is really one of class and not of race? The actual problem here is one of class, social mobility and inequality.
2300
« on: February 22, 2016, 05:47:15 PM »
Look, there's a point to what these SJW's are saying.
They're just blowing it out of proportion.
This is pretty much it. Are there some remaining institutional barriers to non-white people in majority white countries like America and Britain? Yes, probably. Almost definitely so in the case of America. That being said, it doesn't really seem like throwing around accusations of institutionalised racism or systemic white privilege is particularly useful. Most of the institutional disadvantages that exist to non-whites in countries like the U.S. aren't motivated by racism for the most part; things like the war on drugs, mandatory minimum sentencing and the failure of inner-city public education are not caused by some ominous desire to fuck over black people. In the same vein, casting the historical position of whites as some kind of religious original sin--for which the sinner (in this case an entire race) must atone--is not at all helpful to the dismantling of these institutional barriers.
2301
« on: February 22, 2016, 01:35:42 PM »
I'm just gonna make a big post about where current econ lit suggests we are going, how that relates to Sanders' policies and the work of Gerald Friedman.
2302
« on: February 22, 2016, 12:51:18 PM »
The tax revenue he plans on generating is a tiny fraction of how he proposes to get the money to pay for his plans
And where, prey tell, is the rest of the money going to come from?
I feel like you should know this beforehand...
>based on gerald friedman's work Literally get the fuck out of here with that voodoo bullshit. You don't get to scream and shout about how an economist supports Sanders when that economists' work is based mostly on unicorn farts and rainbows. Like, did you even read the article in the OP?
2303
« on: February 22, 2016, 07:17:54 AM »
2304
« on: February 22, 2016, 07:10:54 AM »
What a brilliant movie. The first half was better than the second half, I think, but taken as a whole it was an incredibly enjoyable movie to watch. And, in a lot of ways, moving. Top notch soundtrack, too.
2305
« on: February 21, 2016, 02:51:05 AM »
So a facebook group for anarchists which I used to follow just used this word. What's wrong with the word transphobia? Is the social justice left becoming so allergic to the concept that white men could have troubles that they have to twist the terminology to reflect that?
2306
« on: February 20, 2016, 05:29:11 AM »
The Shawshank Redemption and Art Pupil are hands-down two of my favourite short stories out there.
2307
« on: February 20, 2016, 04:28:51 AM »
Fucking imbalanced
I'm inclined to slightly agree. In terms of vehicular combat, it seems like one tank camping on an objective will fuck up your day. That said, most imbalances seem to be failures in one team's ability to be strategic. I usually play with my two flatmates, who go Assault and Engineer while I play Support. It makes life a bit easier if you're squad is configured properly.
2308
« on: February 20, 2016, 04:25:17 AM »
These kinds of intersectional feminists and social justice activists operate primarily through shutting discussion down, either through tactics like the progressive stack, no-platforming or altering the definitions of words to mean something specific and largely disagreeable to most people.
The worst part is that they act as if this is obvious. Obviously you can't be racist towards white people, because white people are a privileged group. But, predictably, if you ask them about the historically privileged position of the Ashanti people, or the current privileged position of the Akan people then you're met with accusations of shilling for colonialism.
Let's not fool ourselves as to who these people are for the most part: white, middle-class kids who have nothing better to do but fit their own narcissism into some epic narrative of hardship and eventual justice. Fuck them, and their moralisations.
2309
« on: February 19, 2016, 01:22:08 PM »
The tax revenue he plans on generating is a tiny fraction of how he proposes to get the money to pay for his plans
And where, prey tell, is the rest of the money going to come from?
2310
« on: February 19, 2016, 05:49:22 AM »
whilst drinking artisan coffee that could have only been made possible through financial and capital markets
Commodity markets*
Talk fiscally to me <|:^)
That actually made me laugh out loud.
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