mmirate

52 ms·

451.
by mmirate 9y ago
Notably, this flaw is one of the big reasons why the War on Poverty, and socialism/UBI/etc. in general, disempowers the poor and the poorly-educated. Remember, Rome fell to tyranny in part because its citizens became willing to su
452.
by mmirate 9y ago
Eh? I thought the flaw in US safety nets was the income-based "cliffs", whereby taking a better job would often decrease a welfare-recipient's overall income due to the decrease in benefits received.
453.
by mmirate 9y ago
Oh, it gets better. Many of our allies have so little military spending precisely because of our military bases on their territory, and our resulting ability to respond to threats with the same speed as their own military. So in some ways,
454.
by mmirate 9y ago
Then only one single crazy national-leader has to not actually demilitarize, and he can then conquer anyone who truly did demilitarize. Which means that the logical thing for anyone is not to demilitarize. Which means that the overall resul
455.
The Case Against a Basic Income(jacobinmag.com)
22 points by mmirate 9y ago|13 comments
456.
by mmirate 9y ago
> I think this is just way too simplistic of a view of it. People won't just follow two exact patterns of behavior regardless of their environment. We all have, to varying extents, a proclivity to instant dopamine-based gratificatio
457.
by mmirate 9y ago
Why the personal attacks on this CEO? I don't see anything in this article that merits them.
458.
by mmirate 9y ago
Indeed, the scenario you describe would be optimal. Meanwhile, however, trying to make the current society function better under the ubiquitous-welfare thesis is a step in the wrong direction. Better to, instead, make the act of discarding
459.
by mmirate 9y ago
> there will always be people who choose trivial entertainment, and there will always be folks who chase knowledge and self improvement That's why the entire thing seems like a non-issue to me. If some people don't want to do a
460.
by mmirate 9y ago
Our tools are computers not MP40s. For our tools to be as dangerous as Godwin's MP40s, someone else must connect an MP40 to a computer. And that person is the root of responsibility.
461.
by mmirate 9y ago
If the program's user-to-be is a customer instead of someone in the same company? Sure. I would also gladly write a program used to calculate a way to kill the biggest number of terrorists in a missile strike, and that has much less po
462.
by mmirate 9y ago
> So, I guess that makes me complicit in all this too. No, that makes the salespeople, and your bosses at that communications company, complicit. We're just as neutral and tool-like as the computers we program.
463.
by mmirate 9y ago
Ah, so it's that only Ellison has managed to make such a PR blunder under this modification (and thusly reveal he is modified). Makes sense.
464.
by mmirate 9y ago
In our society, hurting people is usually expensive, so it goes against the first goal unless it is done in a way which isn't expensive.
465.
by mmirate 9y ago
Because they don't believe in their own product, but hope that their salespeople convince you otherwise.
466.
by mmirate 9y ago
> Really, without the metaphor, what's going on is that Larry Ellison has modified himself to hold the values that a corporation holds, in order to more efficiently drive said corporation toward optimizing on its corporate goals (i.
467.
by mmirate 9y ago
(Not sure why I was unable to reply earlier. Anyway.) The poor being poor is indeed a consequence of their preference to queue-up for handouts rather than do anything productive e.g. raise their own chickens. Which is to say they are indeed
468.
by mmirate 9y ago
> rich for the wrong reasons Bingo! I hear that being the state-appointed redistributors-of-wealth (or maybe their friends and relatives, too?) is important, and that actually doing or making anything of value ... isn't. For ins
469.
by mmirate 9y ago
That is correct. It ought be no-one else's fault if someone cannot produce anything of value greater-than-or-equal-to that required to sustain their own life. Such people are as vestigial to society as an appendix is vestigial to the h
470.
by mmirate 9y ago
Correct.
471.
by mmirate 9y ago
But how do we know that western Europe is doing well because of the welfare systems that their capitalist economies prop-up? How do we know it isn't the opposite; that western Europe would do better if its highly effective capitalist e
472.
by mmirate 9y ago
That's only half of it; are the rich producing value? or stealing it instead?
473.
by mmirate 9y ago
Well, then I'm still waiting for my paycheck from Uncle Sam. :)
474.
by mmirate 9y ago
Ah, true, the EPA has been rather incompetent in fully charging the proprietors of certain industrial processes for their pollution of the environment. But I don't see why that problem can only be fixed by socialism. (Indeed my prior e
475.
by mmirate 9y ago
In which case you probably won't even encounter them unless either you walk/drive/travel near to a military asset/base, or your government's territory gets invaded. Unless, you mean to describe juntas as "small
476.
by mmirate 9y ago
> (and most of the western democracies besides the US will recognize and embrace some elements of socialism). Indeed. Quite unfortunate for those other democracies.
477.
by mmirate 9y ago
Err, why do you assume that everyone with a certain opinion must be a troll?
478.
by mmirate 9y ago
Funny how socialism always seems to require the amount and kind of force provided by a dictatorship...
479.
by mmirate 9y ago
Yet as usual, the clarity is provided by responses that got downvote-bombed.
480.
by mmirate 9y ago
Narcissism, eh? That's a new one. There are probably several hundreds of millions of personnel who will produce more net-worth in their lifetimes than I will in mine (and who therefore have a greater right to their lives than I've

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