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Zeitgueist posted:This old chestnut is making it around on my facebook: Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100... If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this... All of them pay the same amount because sales tax isn't progressively scaled and since they're buying something here income tax means gently caress all. Literal children can comprehend this, and you cannot. You're a loving embarrassment to your friends and colleagues and you would be ashamed at how idiotically gullible you are if you had half the sense of a 12 year old. Grow the gently caress up. THE END ----- To clarify, I really really hate that stupid lovely example a lot. God it's dumb.
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Oct 23, 2012 22:59
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Zeitgueist posted:Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100... If they divide up the beer the way we divide up our wealth, it would go something like this... The 9th and 10th man would split 8 beers The 7th and 8th would split 1.5 beers The 6th would get a half a beer The 1st through 5th would lick up whats left off the table
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Oct 23, 2012 23:10
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Mo_Steel posted:Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100... He's in Arizona, his friends and colleagues aren't ashamed, they're highfiving him and Like-ing the post.
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Oct 23, 2012 23:14
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Maybe I watch too many movies, but I always thought the microchip thing would be a great idea, to keep your medical history embedded in your arm or shoulder or whatever. So instead of having to carry your whole file around when you change doctors or see a specialist, they just scan your arm. Conversely, if you have to go to the hospital and you're unconscious, they can scan your arm and find out that you're allergic to penicillin or whatever. Guys did something similar in the military, they'd have their blood type and such tattooed on their torsos. I think that would be a brilliant "living in the future" thing to have some kind of RF scanner or something in your arm.
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Oct 23, 2012 23:49
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red19fire posted:Maybe I watch too many movies, but I always thought the microchip thing would be a great idea, to keep your medical history embedded in your arm or shoulder or whatever. So instead of having to carry your whole file around when you change doctors or see a specialist, they just scan your arm. Conversely, if you have to go to the hospital and you're unconscious, they can scan your arm and find out that you're allergic to penicillin or whatever. Guys did something similar in the military, they'd have their blood type and such tattooed on their torsos. That is actually a great thing. But then you get dickholes who like to play with your medical data. But the benefits seriously outweigh the percieved threats.
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Oct 23, 2012 23:54
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Implanted tracking chips could definitely happen but it'd start as a way of reducing costs for people placed on parole, sex offenders and other people the government already keeps an eye on. They'd implant a chip somewhere hard to remove and any time you walk through the entrance to a government building, bank, daycare etc, it'd log an entry. Then rich people would start putting them in their kids. It'd only take one foiled kidnapping to make everyone want to chip their kids. Eventually a large chunk of the population would voluntarily have a chip. Eventually it'll just be a pain in the rear end to not have a chip, in the same way that you aren't legally required to have a cell phone or internet, but good luck getting through life. No conspiracy necessary.
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Oct 24, 2012 01:02
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What about chips that just keep your medical history? I'd volunteer for that.
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Oct 24, 2012 01:05
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nsaP posted:What about chips that just keep your medical history? I'd volunteer for that. Or, you know, like an ID card such as many sane countries have.
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Oct 24, 2012 01:06
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nsaP posted:What about chips that just keep your medical history? I'd volunteer for that. More likely it would just be an I'd chip. This lets you scan it and pull up all your info online. This is safer because you don't want all your info able to be read by someone next to you on the subway. Of course the database could be hacked or your rfid stolen. But having all the info there is bad. That said. Diabetic/allergic penicillin/blood type. That stuff can be readily available.
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Oct 24, 2012 01:09
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Sorry what is that Chrome plugin for the FB screen shots again? Edit: The guy deleted the thread after he would not admit Obama never said Marines don't use bayonets.
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Oct 24, 2012 01:11
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ultimateforce posted:Sorry what is that Chrome plugin for the FB screen shots again?  did he even watch the clip before arguing? Or just assume the pundits were shooting straight on this one?
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Oct 24, 2012 01:14
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He posted some image macro about Obama not respecting the Marines, who use bayonets. I posted this “You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed.” And he pulled the I haven't served in the military card and I should thank him (he said I should stop posting on FB and call him personally) for defending my freedom. I kept bringing up the fact that Obama never said what he thinks he did and he went on some tirade about gas prices being Obama's fault. I told him not to change the subject and the thread was deleted. I think he dropped me from his FB friends list.  I have so many FB friends that apparently I should allow subscribers.
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Oct 24, 2012 01:20
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800peepee51doodoo posted:If they divide up the beer the way we divide up our wealth, it would go something like this... Somebody less lazy convert this story to calorie intake and explain how basically everybody starves to death except for the two dudes who die of heart failure from their obesity.
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Oct 24, 2012 02:46
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ultimateforce posted:he went on some tirade about gas prices being Obama's fault. Oh? Obama's policies are lowering the price of gas? Guess we should stick with him then. 
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Oct 24, 2012 02:47
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Arglebargle III posted:The way Adam Smith is appropriated by proponents of modern oligarchic state capitalism is nauseating, but he wouldn't have agreed with a lot of socialist programs either. He predates both ideas. Honestly Smith is a pretty refreshing read; he's still working out the basics of a market economy and so he has virtually no biases we would associate with modern schools of thought. He argues against excessive government control, and argues against corrupt businesses as well. As someone with a degree in economics I couldn't agree more. Smith definitely liked the free market, but he (even before the concept had been fleshed out) recognized it's predilections to fail - monopoly, oligarchy, "crony capitalism", and a slew of other problems. He was, in his own way, pro-regulation. He wasn't a socialist, as he was in favor of an industrialist class, and saw that innovation often arose from risk-taking behaviors. He also recognized that this risk-taking behaviors could often be taken with no regard for the consequences or the externalities they spawned. You're absolutely right in that anyone who has read Smith should be aghast at the way he was adopted by the Friedmans of the world. The belief that regulation only stifles business with no good end or that all taxes are theft isn't present in Smith, and doesn't really show up until modern times. Taxation itself wasn't seen as "bad" until very recently. "Taxation without representation" was bad, but that's because that is theft. The only reason government has a right to your wealth is if they are providing service for it.
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Oct 24, 2012 02:53
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ultimateforce posted:I posted this “You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed.” And he pulled the I haven't served in the military card and I should thank him (he said I should stop posting on FB and call him personally) for defending my freedom. Ugh, I hate this type of B.S.. I've served, and no, I have not guaranteed some freedom that would have failed to exist otherwise. And you can't compare a diesel ship from 1916 to a massive nuclear supercarrier. Also, this is the type of guy who thinks that somewhere a veteran is being spit on. I can honestly say I have only been treated well and I lived in San Francisco for awhile. Mitchicon fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Oct 24, 2012 |
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Oct 24, 2012 02:54
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Mitchicon posted:Also, this is the type of guy who thinks that somewhere a veteran is being spit on. I can honestly say I have only been treated well and I lived in San Francisco for awhile. This is because most people, even if they aren't a fan of how the military is used, at least respect that you put your life on the line for anything. The fact that anything just happened to be the nation is worthy of praise. Not the crazy hero worship the right has - though there are certainly heroes in the military. Then again, I got in a debate on Facebook with some nutjob who declared that anyone who was a member of the military was complicit in group murder - not just that "Yes, we gently caress up sometimes because everything isn't perfect", but that every serviceman and woman was a war crime committing murderer. I couldn't pin her down on whether there was ever a justified killing or not, but hey, she was a loon.
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Oct 24, 2012 03:11
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sicarius posted:Then again, I got in a debate on Facebook with some nutjob who declared that anyone who was a member of the military was complicit in group murder - not just that "Yes, we gently caress up sometimes because everything isn't perfect", but that every serviceman and woman was a war crime committing murderer. I couldn't pin her down on whether there was ever a justified killing or not, but hey, she was a loon. All I can picture is some fat Airman in finance taking forever to process my TDY paperwork. Murderer!
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Oct 24, 2012 03:20
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Mitchicon posted:All I can picture is some fat Airman in finance taking forever to process my TDY paperwork. Murderer! It becomes even more offensive when I have friends who I know shot and killed people. They were doing what they had to do or thought was right at the time - sometimes in defense of their lives or the lives of others. Yeah it sucks. Yeah it's lovely that we are presented with moral dilemmas.  Ideological fuckwits are the worst. It's impossible to even reason with them because they didn't arrive at their conclusions logically in the first place.
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Oct 24, 2012 03:37
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Mitchicon posted:Also, this is the type of guy who thinks that somewhere a veteran is being spit on. I can honestly say I have only been treated well and I lived in San Francisco for awhile. Veterans who are mistreated aren't actively abused, they're IGNORED. But if you start thinking about injustice toward veterans that way, suddenly it becomes easier to think about other groups.
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Oct 24, 2012 04:05
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This popped up on facebook: I couldn't help but agree, and elaborated on how it could be done: quote:That's a good point, why don't they do that? It seems like it would be pretty straight forward. Obviously, not many people could pay for a company to build a whole road. Certainly not you or I, as roads are very expensive to build. But that's ok, because you have multiple people using any one road, so they could pool their money together to pay for its construction. Ten people could pool their money and buy a road that would access ten houses, and if you have ten roads with houses like that, all 100 people could pool their money together to build an even bigger road that would connect each of their smaller roads. It would be kind of like some sort of co-op. Multiple smaller co-ops could also network to form larger co-ops that could then fund the construction and maintenance of things like freeways that would be able to connect these different smaller co-ops together.
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Oct 24, 2012 05:59
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zeroprime posted:This popped up on facebook: I really want to see the replies to this.
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Oct 24, 2012 06:02
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VideoTapir posted:I really want to see the replies to this. It's going to be the standard poo poo about how they shouldn't be forced into it and how the groups of people would do it better and cheaper. They're going to ignore the fact that organizing that many people without a government would be impossible and that if you didn't "force" people to pay into the system then how would you realistically keep them from using the fruits of that system. What if I live on the same "road" but don't want to pay. Are you going to use force to keep me from using it?
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Oct 24, 2012 06:12
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sicarius posted:It's going to be the standard poo poo about how they shouldn't be forced into it and how the groups of people would do it better and cheaper. I'm hoping for people not getting the point of that reply, and agreeing with it.
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Oct 24, 2012 06:31
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sicarius posted:What if I live on the same "road" but don't want to pay. Are you going to use force to keep me from using it? Pretty sure in a world where you are paying for your own road, you're also legally allowed to murder a person for driving on it.
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Oct 24, 2012 06:33
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THE GAYEST POSTER posted:Pretty sure in a world where you are paying for your own road, you're also legally allowed to murder a person for driving on it. Who defines what's legal?
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Oct 24, 2012 06:35
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zeroprime posted:This popped up on facebook: I love that they're using a movie about how corporations are terrible soulless monstrosities that snuff out their employees' spirits order to gouge out a few extra bucks. Dr Christmas fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Oct 24, 2012 |
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Oct 24, 2012 06:43
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VideoTapir posted:Who defines what's legal? Who currently has the biggest gun?
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Oct 24, 2012 06:48
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nsaP posted:What about chips that just keep your medical history? I'd volunteer for that. Seems to work for Taiwan V-Men fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Oct 24, 2012 |
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Oct 24, 2012 06:53
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THE GAYEST POSTER posted:Who currently has the biggest gun? Alternatively: I and my twin desert eagles.
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Oct 24, 2012 07:24
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zeroprime posted:This popped up on facebook: Great response. I've had a similar argument with a libertarian and when I asked how a free market would have provided a better highway system his response was actually "the market will find a way". That was the only response he had to every single one of my questions.
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Oct 24, 2012 09:38
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zeroprime posted:This popped up on facebook: It's almost like the Government is serving the role of a contractor/foreman.
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Oct 24, 2012 13:08
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It's almost like the market, let to it's own devices, would end up with a number of people organizing to effectively manage their collective resources towards ends that individual corporations wouldn't be able to, arbitrate disputes and enforce agreements between parties! Maybe the people involved should be elected, so as to provide a certain degree of resistance to individual companies being able to sway this body, and to ensure participation in it? I wonder what this body of people would be called?
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Oct 24, 2012 13:23
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zeroprime posted:This popped up on facebook: I just had this pop up on facebook. I had a half-hour to blow so I went on a rant. This happened (I'm red): 
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Oct 24, 2012 14:06
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seigfox posted:I just had this pop up on facebook. I had a half-hour to blow so I went on a rant. This happened (I'm red): You know the worst part of that Blue square's line of thinking? In this perfect libertarian world, you'd end up with less suburban sprawl because almost no company would want to foot the cost of building and maintaining a road to their store, so they'd end up building only when they couldn't find an already developed area. So not entirely a bad thing. You know, until the urban sink conditions turn into a nightmare and a fire burns down most of it due to lack of regulations and fire safety. He also seems to have his own personal definition of government, I'd be interested in hearing, in his definition, what exactly government is if it's not a form of collective ownership and decision making. Bonus points if you can find any comments of his in the posts to the gist of "Your tax dollars at work.  "
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Oct 24, 2012 14:15
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If he starts decrying "collectivism" in general ask him what he thinks a corporation is.
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Oct 24, 2012 14:28
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VideoTapir posted:If he starts decrying "collectivism" in general ask him what he thinks a corporation is.
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Oct 24, 2012 14:34
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I finally got one from Facebook:quote:Republicans lately have been looked upon as less concerning towards the needs of Blacks. But, if one is clearly interested in knowing which party has contributed the most in improving equality of minorities, we know its the Republican Party . He isn't trolling.
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Oct 24, 2012 15:16
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euphronius posted:I finally got one from Facebook:
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Oct 24, 2012 15:18
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euphronius posted:I finally got one from Facebook: There's little doubt that, if pressed for examples, he would note how Lincoln was a Republican. Just drop a link to the wiki on the Southern Strategy and move on. Does anyone have any idea where the common talking point of ridiculously expensive government purchases come from? Like, people I know talk about the government spending hundreds of dollars for a toilet seat cover or a ladder. It's too pervasive a talking point to have not originated from somewhere, and I'm curious if you can pin it down (like the Welfare Queen myth).
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Oct 24, 2012 15:33
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