2 ms·

Personally, I've been feeling the pain of this kind of 'giving.' I've seen people get handed out huge opportunities, big bonuses despite objective incompetence

by jongjong 10mo ago

Personally, I've been feeling the pain of this kind of 'giving.' I've seen people get handed out huge opportunities, big bonuses despite objective incompetence! Meanwhile I was highly competent and never once received a raise or Christmas bonus. I got the opposite of help. Anything I ever got, which isn't much, I had to force through sheer skill and hard work, as far as the law and ethics allowed me. It seems like the entire system is working against me. What do I have to do to get EQUAL treatment? I would vote for communism, any opportunity I get because I don't even care about equality of opportunities anymore. That was a luxurious idea. If I could get just equality of outcomes, I wouldn't even mind that I worked 10x as hard. It's interesting because I used to think people who supported communism were confused and misled. Now I'm thinking that, probably, they were entirely rational. It's an entirely rational and predictable response to system dysfunction. It's probably an unavoidable cycle. The result of human nature at scale. Throughout history, China has had plenty of experiments with fiat monetary systems... Always ended badly and yet now they managed to export this horrible, satanic system to the rest of us.

jaredklewis 10mo ago
But has there ever been communist societies that achieved equality of outcomes? The levels of inequity in the USSR were staggering. Likewise in China.
- jongjong 9mo ago
  Probably closer to equality than we have now. I've been told by people who lived there that there were no homeless people and very little crime in the USSR. Capitalism is just much better with PR and covering up its failures. Even the word PR is itself capitalist spin; a euphemism for propaganda.
lesuorac 10mo ago
> It seems like the entire system is working against me. What do I have to do to get EQUAL treatment? 1) Take advantage of the peter principle [1]. Figure out what work you've done and interview for positions where that's just below the work expected. The economy doesn't allocate resources with a magic wand; you'll (unfortunately) have to take an active role with job searching if your current position isn't a good fit. 2) Recognize that politics is part of work. Just doing a good job isn't actually enough and you have to play office politics if you want patronage. Do understand that communism is just state control over resource allocation. Under a capitalistic system; if the capitalists control the government then you still really have communism (it's not like the soviets didn't have a currency ...). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

jaredklewis 10mo ago

But has there ever been communist societies that achieved equality of outcomes? The levels of inequity in the USSR were staggering. Likewise in China.

jongjong 9mo ago
Probably closer to equality than we have now. I've been told by people who lived there that there were no homeless people and very little crime in the USSR. Capitalism is just much better with PR and covering up its failures. Even the word PR is itself capitalist spin; a euphemism for propaganda.

lesuorac 10mo ago

> It seems like the entire system is working against me. What do I have to do to get EQUAL treatment? 1) Take advantage of the peter principle [1]. Figure out what work you've done and interview for positions where that's just below the work expected. The economy doesn't allocate resources with a magic wand; you'll (unfortunately) have to take an active role with job searching if your current position isn't a good fit. 2) Recognize that politics is part of work. Just doing a good job isn't actually enough and you have to play office politics if you want patronage. Do understand that communism is just state control over resource allocation. Under a capitalistic system; if the capitalists control the government then you still really have communism (it's not like the soviets didn't have a currency ...). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle