Already been noted, but what an unbelievably sinister sentiment. "Effective life behaviors" which include being married. Social conformity enforced through corporate power with the approval of the state, and people…
The notion that language is "what the learned have built out of competence and reflection" is abjectly risible. The evolution of language consists of corruption, confusion, coinages of demotic provenance, and general…
I find it incredible that anyone could have such a cartoonish view of the world that the completely secretive, unaccountable and independent security apparatus, which has totally liberated itself from democratic control…
unlike you, who are clearly not morally outraged
What I found so frustrating about the comment was how close it was to some sort of insight, while maddeningly not connecting the dots. He has some vague sense that his unhappiness is related to "workaholism", but is so…
The point of the minimum wage is not to create jobs, it is to ensure that jobs that exist already pay a certain minimum. The more coherent argument against the minimum wage is that it destroys jobs which cannot be…
I'm curious what you mean by "homogeneous". I've just had a quick Google and apparently the Gini coefficient in Japan is ~0.3 compared to ~0.48 in the US, which is one definition of "homogeneous". Another search turned…
It's possible that once a company reaches a certain size, it's inevitable. Corporations internally have the same top-down centralized organizational structure as a typical government. Market forces can't eliminate that…
I understand now. Unfettered market freedom is the best way to organize things and at the same time, large-scale government intervention is an unfair competitive advantage. > This fails to explain why everything moved…
The offshoring of the production of consumer electronics devices is mostly the result of the free-trade policies of said countries, coupled with market forces. The growth centred around manufacturing has been the basis…
This a complete non-sequitur. Authoritarianism consists in undemocratic rule in which obedience is brutally enforced, and dissidence suppressed, using the security apparatus of the state. Authoritarianism does not…
I'm honestly baffled by this. I care who wins because of the POLICY DIFFERENCE, i.e. the difference between what the two parties want to DO with their power. I can't even imagine what kind of worldview I would need to…
I think I have the same feelings as you about the Democrats' spinelessness, but a disagreement about what a more robust approach entails. > standing up for decency without needing to pass a law is at least as big a deal…
A race to the bottom of decency is exactly what is currently happening. One side continuing to "take the high road" will do absolutely NOTHING to stop it. It is delusional to think that the Republicans will ever be…
I think "hold the first accountable" is the wrong focus to have here, especially since so much of what the Republicans do violates norms rather than actual rules. I think it would be better to see the Democrats adopt…
I agree with your point about the Democrats' disastrous rightward slide but I don't think that the resulting problem is that Republicans now struggle to distinguish themselves. They're still the party of further tax…
Venezuela is an excellent example of a government unable to issue money arbitrarily, because they pegged their currency to the US dollar and accumulated debt in a currency over which they had no control.
How common is it for the central banks of currency sovereigns to indulge in massive quantitative easing? If anything, they're far too reluctant to do so (even during recessions) precisely because of the kind of…
> while they may not be owned by social activists the day to day operations are certainly controlled by social activists Complete fantasy. You're not citing any evidence whatsoever here so I really shouldn't be…
Yes, the "left" represented by the Democratic party /s. Every single thing you've listed is controlled by capital, not by the left. Tech, Hollywood/Media, Social Media, News, and payment processing. Academia is a very…
I would "object" to Trump doing so in the sense that I would judge it to be the rationalizing behaviour of an egomaniac. Which is exactly my reaction to the linked statements by Hillary Clinton. It is still absurd to…
Hillary Clinton conceded immediately, and the Democratic party did not launch a wave of legal challenges to the election results. The argument that the extreme Russiagate types were making was that Russian agents and…
Actually, usually, when a bank gives out a loan, it simply writes two matching entries in its ledger. One is an amount of money which it owes the borrower (immediately) which manifests itself as credit in the borrower's…
All of that capital was produced by labor, except what fraction of the value derives from raw natural resources pre-extraction. So it is absolutely a fair framing to state "why shouldn't workers seek to capture as much…
This is clearly a joke, but "tuchu" (突出) is Mandarin for "emphasize" or "stick out", not random syllables.
Already been noted, but what an unbelievably sinister sentiment. "Effective life behaviors" which include being married. Social conformity enforced through corporate power with the approval of the state, and people…
The notion that language is "what the learned have built out of competence and reflection" is abjectly risible. The evolution of language consists of corruption, confusion, coinages of demotic provenance, and general…
I find it incredible that anyone could have such a cartoonish view of the world that the completely secretive, unaccountable and independent security apparatus, which has totally liberated itself from democratic control…
unlike you, who are clearly not morally outraged
What I found so frustrating about the comment was how close it was to some sort of insight, while maddeningly not connecting the dots. He has some vague sense that his unhappiness is related to "workaholism", but is so…
The point of the minimum wage is not to create jobs, it is to ensure that jobs that exist already pay a certain minimum. The more coherent argument against the minimum wage is that it destroys jobs which cannot be…
I'm curious what you mean by "homogeneous". I've just had a quick Google and apparently the Gini coefficient in Japan is ~0.3 compared to ~0.48 in the US, which is one definition of "homogeneous". Another search turned…
It's possible that once a company reaches a certain size, it's inevitable. Corporations internally have the same top-down centralized organizational structure as a typical government. Market forces can't eliminate that…
I understand now. Unfettered market freedom is the best way to organize things and at the same time, large-scale government intervention is an unfair competitive advantage. > This fails to explain why everything moved…
The offshoring of the production of consumer electronics devices is mostly the result of the free-trade policies of said countries, coupled with market forces. The growth centred around manufacturing has been the basis…
This a complete non-sequitur. Authoritarianism consists in undemocratic rule in which obedience is brutally enforced, and dissidence suppressed, using the security apparatus of the state. Authoritarianism does not…
I'm honestly baffled by this. I care who wins because of the POLICY DIFFERENCE, i.e. the difference between what the two parties want to DO with their power. I can't even imagine what kind of worldview I would need to…
I think I have the same feelings as you about the Democrats' spinelessness, but a disagreement about what a more robust approach entails. > standing up for decency without needing to pass a law is at least as big a deal…
A race to the bottom of decency is exactly what is currently happening. One side continuing to "take the high road" will do absolutely NOTHING to stop it. It is delusional to think that the Republicans will ever be…
I think "hold the first accountable" is the wrong focus to have here, especially since so much of what the Republicans do violates norms rather than actual rules. I think it would be better to see the Democrats adopt…
I agree with your point about the Democrats' disastrous rightward slide but I don't think that the resulting problem is that Republicans now struggle to distinguish themselves. They're still the party of further tax…
Venezuela is an excellent example of a government unable to issue money arbitrarily, because they pegged their currency to the US dollar and accumulated debt in a currency over which they had no control.
How common is it for the central banks of currency sovereigns to indulge in massive quantitative easing? If anything, they're far too reluctant to do so (even during recessions) precisely because of the kind of…
> while they may not be owned by social activists the day to day operations are certainly controlled by social activists Complete fantasy. You're not citing any evidence whatsoever here so I really shouldn't be…
Yes, the "left" represented by the Democratic party /s. Every single thing you've listed is controlled by capital, not by the left. Tech, Hollywood/Media, Social Media, News, and payment processing. Academia is a very…
I would "object" to Trump doing so in the sense that I would judge it to be the rationalizing behaviour of an egomaniac. Which is exactly my reaction to the linked statements by Hillary Clinton. It is still absurd to…
Hillary Clinton conceded immediately, and the Democratic party did not launch a wave of legal challenges to the election results. The argument that the extreme Russiagate types were making was that Russian agents and…
Actually, usually, when a bank gives out a loan, it simply writes two matching entries in its ledger. One is an amount of money which it owes the borrower (immediately) which manifests itself as credit in the borrower's…
All of that capital was produced by labor, except what fraction of the value derives from raw natural resources pre-extraction. So it is absolutely a fair framing to state "why shouldn't workers seek to capture as much…
This is clearly a joke, but "tuchu" (突出) is Mandarin for "emphasize" or "stick out", not random syllables.