Poll: Where do you stand?

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  1. #361
    All UBI does is cut off welfare, make people poor in the long run who are already poor by inflation and does nothing at all until we are in a system where resources and production doesn't matter. As long as food exists, and can't be instantly created, as long as people need to work to maintain systems UBI is dumb. You give 1000 dollars to every person in the US. All that does is devalue currency everyone else has and the market will rebalance itself and that money is then worthless.

    Lets say this Box of cereal costs 3 dollars. Everyone gets UBI, so now everyone can buy that same box of cereal. But in order to pay for UBI you have to tax someone. That person who is taxed is likely to be some business owner. That business own then raises the price of cereal to help pay for that tax. That in turn raises the price of milk also, or of the movie tickets because those going to the theatre need to raise prices. The point here is that money is a medium of exchange for good. And when you give 1000 dollars of resources out, those resources need to be taken from somewhere else and those people whose resources are taken are of course going to try and recoup the money lost. So while initially it might work, in the end the economy rebalances and the only thing you managed to do is pretty much nothing in the end. The only way UBI works is in a post needs society where no human labor is involved in anything. Then you are in a communist society at that point anyways so why have money? Targeted social programs are much much much more effective then the money spent otherwise.

  2. #362
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wermys View Post
    You give 1000 dollars to every person in the US. All that does is devalue currency everyone else has and the market will rebalance itself and that money is then worthless.
    That same argument gets raised every time someone talks about raising the minimum wage.

    It's a bullshit argument and it is not supported by any data whatsoever. There's no correlation between hikes in the minimum wage, and hikes in inflation. Which means there's no reason to expect a different bump to low-income spending capacity to lead to a comparable bump in inflation.

    It's a bit more complex than with minimum wage, but minimum wage has the secondary factor of directly contributing to a rise in prices, via increasing the wage component of those prices. And that bump is still statistically irrelevant and not enough to produce a correlation in inflation. And that doesn't exist at all with a UBI. The whole claim lacks any merit whatsoever.

    Particularly when inflation can easily be addressed in both cases simply by tying the UBI stipend or minimum wage to the cost of living, so they're automatically adjusted with inflation on a yearly basis (or twice a year, or whatever you want).


  3. #363
    Old God Vash The Stampede's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wermys View Post
    All UBI does is cut off welfare, make people poor in the long run who are already poor by inflation and does nothing at all until we are in a system where resources and production doesn't matter.
    I'm sure the Federal Reserves pump of 4 Trillion dollars won't have any effect on inflation either. The reason UBI won't cause inflation is because the money isn't coming from thin air, unlike the Federal Reserve is doing by literally printing money to give to banks.

    As long as food exists, and can't be instantly created, as long as people need to work to maintain systems UBI is dumb.
    Farming is largely automated already, just not 100%.


    You give 1000 dollars to every person in the US. All that does is devalue currency everyone else has and the market will rebalance itself and that money is then worthless.
    You tax the wealthy who have far too much money and you redistribute it through UBI. You get the money by fucking the rich. As long as no money is printed, inflation shouldn't happen.
    Lets say this Box of cereal costs 3 dollars. Everyone gets UBI, so now everyone can buy that same box of cereal. But in order to pay for UBI you have to tax someone. That person who is taxed is likely to be some business owner. That business own then raises the price of cereal to help pay for that tax. That in turn raises the price of milk also, or of the movie tickets because those going to the theatre need to raise prices.
    As long as you have healthy competition then prices shouldn't go up. Rent and housing prices will because they're more like an oligopoly, which is why you need rent control. Also you don't tax the business, you tax the wealthy through a wealth tax.

    The only way UBI works is in a post needs society where no human labor is involved in anything. Then you are in a communist society at that point anyways so why have money? Targeted social programs are much much much more effective then the money spent otherwise.
    We're not too far off from having most jobs taken away via automation. We're probably 2-3 years away from truckers losing their jobs to self driving technology, and we can already replace Bank Tellers, cashiers, and even pharmacists with kiosks. Just a matter of time before the wealthy get even greedier and push our society into the brink of collapse. If Boston Dynamic robots can do this, then why debate about a UBI instead of enact it before the situation gets bad?

  4. #364
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vash The Stampede View Post
    As long as you have healthy competition then prices shouldn't go up. Rent and housing prices will because they're more like an oligopoly, which is why you need rent control. Also you don't tax the business, you tax the wealthy through a wealth tax.
    I can't even call these people capitalists any more, because what they're supporting isn't Adam Smith's vision, it's the mercantilism he was proposing an alternative to. Right down to the nationalist economics, rather than globalist.

    Wages are a small part of the costs of most products. For instance, fast food (where minimum/low wages are widespread, unlike a lot of other industries), studies show that a bump to a $15 minimum wage (a 107% increase at the time of the study) would lead to about a 4% bump in actual food prices; https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ra...nds-2015-07-28

    That's a ratio that's a clear, obvious win for low income earners. And again; that's considering the direct impact of higher wages on the cost of production.

    Once we exclude that particular factor, as we would have to with a UBI since it does not increase costs of production at all, the pressures on price are going to be supply, demand, and competition, roughly speaking (a few other minor factors). Supply won't increase, much. Demand is going to be highly dependent on the particular market; do lower-income people eat fast food because it's cheap, because it saves time, or do they see it as a luxury? The first two would tend to see a reduction in demand for fast food, because people can afford better and have more free time to cook. The latter would see an increase, because people can afford it more easily. And that complexity extends everywhere, and supply will generally respond to that demand shift; supply is a function of demand in a competitive economy, unless there's resource scarcity in play; if there's more demand, production will step up supply to meet it, and prices remain relatively static as a result. Because, as you noted, competition will let competitors undercut each other if they don't do this.

    Prices are a factor of how much people are willing to pay, not how much they are capable of paying. If McDonalds tried to create "McDonalds Elite", with the same food but ten times the price, for rich people, they wouldn't make money. Even though those rich people can afford those higher prices. Because they can get it cheaper at the regular McD's. No matter how much money people have, they're not willing to pay $50 (at current values) for a Big Mac combo.


  5. #365
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    That same argument gets raised every time someone talks about raising the minimum wage.

    It's a bullshit argument and it is not supported by any data whatsoever. There's no correlation between hikes in the minimum wage, and hikes in inflation. Which means there's no reason to expect a different bump to low-income spending capacity to lead to a comparable bump in inflation.

    It's a bit more complex than with minimum wage, but minimum wage has the secondary factor of directly contributing to a rise in prices, via increasing the wage component of those prices. And that bump is still statistically irrelevant and not enough to produce a correlation in inflation. And that doesn't exist at all with a UBI. The whole claim lacks any merit whatsoever.

    Particularly when inflation can easily be addressed in both cases simply by tying the UBI stipend or minimum wage to the cost of living, so they're automatically adjusted with inflation on a yearly basis (or twice a year, or whatever you want).


    The difference is that minimum wage targets a specific segment of the population. That segment with increased minimum wages causes the bottom earners spending levels to rise. Which is desirable. They are the most likely to spend that money and use it. But those earning over a certain amount will not spend that money at all. Instead it will get absorded into savings. And as that UBI money cycles through the economy it will reequalize. While money that is used for people on welfare OR through an minimum wage increase is targeted at a specific segment of the population and generally helps them a lot more. I will stand by what I said. Supply IS finite, and giving everyone 1000 dollars does absolutely nothing at all in the long term. Targeting minimum wage OR increasing welfare for specific segments of the population is much much more effective use of the money. Because that money is likely to get focused on a specific segment that is likely to spend it immediately. While UBI does nothing because you have a finite amount of resources in the economy and that money if everyone gets it will result in absolutely nothing in the end.

    An argument could be made harshly taxing the rich and supplying everyone with UBI which is viable. Because it is distributing resources to the bottom segment of the population and the middle of the population and even the rich. Who will not get back what they put into it in taxes. But why do that? Its stupid to me to do so when its smarter to just target a segment that needs it. And welfare or minimum wage increases does the same. We are not even close to the point of being post scarcity. Or to put it another way. I would rather take the 1000 dollars the middle and upper class gets and invest that into schools and education rather then give them that money. Which gets back again to my point. UBI only works post scarcity. Its much more effective to target segments with welfare or minimum wage increases. Otherwise its an inefficient use of resources just giving everyone a 1000 dollars.

  6. #366
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wermys View Post
    The difference is that minimum wage targets a specific segment of the population. That segment with increased minimum wages causes the bottom earners spending levels to rise. Which is desirable. They are the most likely to spend that money and use it. But those earning over a certain amount will not spend that money at all. Instead it will get absorded into savings. And as that UBI money cycles through the economy it will reequalize. While money that is used for people on welfare OR through an minimum wage increase is targeted at a specific segment of the population and generally helps them a lot more. I will stand by what I said. Supply IS finite, and giving everyone 1000 dollars does absolutely nothing at all in the long term. Targeting minimum wage OR increasing welfare for specific segments of the population is much much more effective use of the money. Because that money is likely to get focused on a specific segment that is likely to spend it immediately. While UBI does nothing because you have a finite amount of resources in the economy and that money if everyone gets it will result in absolutely nothing in the end.
    UBI proposals come tied to complete overhauls of a lot of other economic factors. Which is why the tests have been non-universal basic incomes; you can test those in a smaller environment without needing to significantly change the entire national system.

    You'd need to rework income taxes. They'd be increased, and you'd likely lose the tax-free bracket entirely (the purpose of that tax-free bracket being replaced by the UBI). Raising income taxes and ensuring those making less than, say, 100k is fairly trivial math and not something to worry about; you can achieve that just by setting your expectations and spending 10 minutes with some paper and pen. You'd want to significantly bump income taxes on the wealthy, so even if they get the UBI stipend, they're paying more than its value in additional taxes.

    I think the $1000/mo is too low; I'd favor a living UBI, so closer to $20k/year, not $12k. At that level, you can remove minimum wage protections and the like, because workers can comfortably say "nah" when asked to clean toilets for $1/hour. You'd need to pay enough to entice workers, and that's all the control we need.

    The idea that a UBI will just negate out is just . . . wrong. Weirdly, crazily wrong. I have no idea where you're getting that. It's like you're forgetting that tax brackets exist, and that the stipend is tax-free.

    An argument could be made harshly taxing the rich and supplying everyone with UBI which is viable. Because it is distributing resources to the bottom segment of the population and the middle of the population and even the rich. Who will not get back what they put into it in taxes. But why do that? Its stupid to me to do so when its smarter to just target a segment that needs it. And welfare or minimum wage increases does the same. We are not even close to the point of being post scarcity. Or to put it another way. I would rather take the 1000 dollars the middle and upper class gets and invest that into schools and education rather then give them that money. Which gets back again to my point. UBI only works post scarcity. Its much more effective to target segments with welfare or minimum wage increases. Otherwise its an inefficient use of resources just giving everyone a 1000 dollars.
    The gain of a UBI is administrative. Any system that's not universal means you need to check on a monthly basis whether applicants still qualify for the stipend. They're having to verify their lack of sufficient income, you need staff who can adjudicate and process this information as well as new applicants, and a system for randomly auditing cases to check for fraud. It's a similar administrative demand that welfare already has, likely higher because you'd have more people on the stipend.

    With a UBI, all you have to verify is citizenship, and that their current address is within the country. This doesn't need to be updated every month. The administrative overhead is far less than a non-universal basic income, even if it covers a much wider population. And given that the stipends paid out to wealthier citizens get pulled back in higher taxes, there's no fiscal loss; the net effect is a much more efficient distribution of support funding to those in working- and lower-middle-class lifestyles.

    The idea that this can only work post-scarcity is incredibly wrong. Like, I don't think you understand what "post scarcity" means. Post-scarcity means if I want a new car every week because charging my car is annoying, that's fine. I can have that. Because they're free, or so cheap they may as well be (like $5 in current valuation, say).

    In such a society, a UBI is irrelevant, because everything is so abundant nothing has value and nobody needs help making ends meet.

    Nor do we need that kind of bounty to make a UBI affordable. We just need a tax structure for it, which we could establish literally tomorrow, if we wanted to. The difficulty there is political and systemic, because convincing everyone to do this and shifting the current system to the new one are both going to present challenges. It's not a difficulty based in achieving the end result.


  7. #367
    Quote Originally Posted by js3915 View Post
    Yeah but who is paying for this... You realize to give everyone 1K a month to 217M Americans will cost 2.604 trillion / year

    You could ask all the billionares to pay but they would be broke after the first year. Just because they're net worth is a billion doesn't mean they have a billion sitting in their bank account.
    Their net worth combined is not enough to pay UBI for one year. And they don't actually own their net worth but less.
    So even if we take ALL the money from every billionaire in the US and leave them completely broke on the street... it is not enough to pay UBI for even one year.
    So you can be sure it will be your taxes that will go up. And that is only for the UBI.
    and the geek shall inherit the earth

  8. #368
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by d00mGuArD View Post
    Their net worth combined is not enough to pay UBI for one year. And they don't actually own their net worth but less.
    So even if we take ALL the money from every billionaire in the US and leave them completely broke on the street... it is not enough to pay UBI for even one year.
    So you can be sure it will be your taxes that will go up. And that is only for the UBI.
    Because you're setting your standard at "billionaires", and not considering that there are plenty of people with "only" tens or hundreds of millions in income who should be paying much higher tax rates, too.

    Plus, there's plenty of money that could be adjusted around in the budget. 2.6 trillion is a lot, but current outlays are already ~4.1 trillion.

    Current outlays are about 18.7% of GDP, mandatory and discretionary combined. Just as a comparison, Canada's closer to 21% lately (and our budget is way more balanced than the USA's, to boot). Germany's around 19.5%. The USA could be drawing significantly more, particularly as all these figures aren't accounting for a UBI.

    A UBI should expect to see higher overall tax rates as a percentage of GDP than we currently do. People making upper-middle-class or above should, in theory, be contributing more in taxes; I'd say the tipping point should be in the region of $75k-250k/yearly income. Anyone making below that would be better off, anyone above that not quite as well off, scaling in both directions. The idea that this would kill the economy or something is just ridiculous nonsense.


  9. #369
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    People making upper-middle-class or above should, in theory, be contributing more in taxes; I'd say the tipping point should be in the region of $75k-250k/yearly income. Anyone making below that would be better off, anyone above that not quite as well off, scaling in both directions. The idea that this would kill the economy or something is just ridiculous nonsense.
    And why SHOULD they be contributing more than they already do? Because that's how you'd stop poor people from dying of preventable crap? Who cares?

    You're going to have a hard time convincing me the discrepancy between humans shouldn't be accurately represented in their earnings as well. We're not all similarly capable. On the contrary, we're hugely disproportionately capable in basically every regard. Ergo, if what society desires from a services standpoint also has that huge disproportion in results and capability, why should lifestyles not reflect that?

  10. #370
    I dunno...put a wealthy man in the same Thunderdome that most of us have to fight in.

  11. #371
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BeepBoo View Post
    And why SHOULD they be contributing more than they already do? Because that's how you'd stop poor people from dying of preventable crap? Who cares?
    Anyone who's not literally a sociopath, or some other mental illness damaging their capacity to empathize with others.

    Seriously, lacking empathy is a symptom of mental illness. All by itself. It's not something you should be bragging about as the basis of your viewpoint.

    You're going to have a hard time convincing me the discrepancy between humans shouldn't be accurately represented in their earnings as well. We're not all similarly capable. On the contrary, we're hugely disproportionately capable in basically every regard. Ergo, if what society desires from a services standpoint also has that huge disproportion in results and capability, why should lifestyles not reflect that?
    That's not what anyone's talking about. It's a straw man, because you'd rather not deal with the actual point.

    We're not arguing against wage stratification. We're arguing against a system that's so wildly separated on that front that lower-income earners are suffering hardship. Set that income floor at a living wage and we can talk, otherwise your viewpoint necessitates and encourages human suffering as a desired outcome.


  12. #372
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadowferal View Post
    I dunno...put a wealthy man in the same Thunderdome that most of us have to fight in.
    Most people are not in a Thunderdome even in a competitive economy. Most Americans have insanely easy lives comparative to most of the world and people, especially Americans, historically. The denial of that simple fact leads people to endorse some strange, radical policies that are grounded in the false perception that the average American is becoming destitute.

  13. #373
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    Set that income floor at a living wage and we can talk, otherwise your viewpoint necessitates and encourages human suffering as a desired outcome.
    Not every human is deserving of the life they have if sustaining it comes at the expense of someone else's life and efforts. Suffering of the weak is a desired outcome because it encourages people to not want to be weak.

  14. #374
    Quote Originally Posted by BeepBoo View Post
    Not every human is deserving of the life they have if sustaining it comes at the expense of someone else's life and efforts. Suffering of the weak is a desired outcome because it encourages people to not want to be weak.
    This guy took the Social Darwinism pill.

  15. #375
    I recall an amazingly ignorant letter written almost 10ys ago by "Joe Wall Street" about the possibility of jobs being lost on Wall Street;
    but essentially, some banker/trader/finance type took time of out his very busy day to warn Main Street of his imminent arrival into the ranks of the working class.

    The letter cautioned that because of our unwarranted meddling in his industry, we're going to lose our cushy "$85k a year" jobs to him and all his financial friends. We'll lose our "4 month" vacation privileges, the superfluous bathroom breaks that we take, and our swollen, blue-collar benefit packages. Naturally, Wall Street folk don't require such frivolities, he says, but they'll gladly take them (or assist in their elimination) if they're forced to work our jobs.

    In jest or not, if this tirade is at all representative of what bankers think of their fellow countrymen, it's quite clear why there is such a gaping intellectual divide between Wall Street and Main Street.

    Dear Joe Wall Street:
    Allow me to be the first person to welcome you to the Proletariat! Let me bring you up to speed.

    To start, what planet do you come from? A job with an $85,000 salary and pension, four months of paid time off, and all the other blue-collar perks that you claim exist sounds great, but you're so far off from the life of the average American that I have to question your sobriety.

    I know $85,000 doesn't sound like much to you. After all, last year, the average employee at Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) pulled in over $235,000 a year, at JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) $380,000, and at Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) more than $498,000. But the typical American family -- husband and wife combined -- actually survives on just $50,000, according to the most recent Census data. And that number hasn't changed much since 1999, even while average bonuses rose 10-fold between 1985 and 2006, according to the New York State Comptroller's Office. Lower pay is part of life in America these days -- for everyone except you, that is.

    Next, do you really think we won't fight back when you try to take our jobs, as you suggest? Years of off-shoring has forced us to become quite accustomed to competition. Recent surveys suggest that between 10% and 20% of American workers maintain more than one job to pay the bills. Only two-thirds even take all of the paltry 10 work days of vacation allotted to them. Plus, down here, there's no expense account, corporate car, free meals, or slush funds to tap.

    Next, you operate under the bizarre assumption that the normal world relies on your seven-figure "bonuses" to function normally. But just how many of our nation's "cushy middle-class jobs" do you think are dedicated toward popping the corks of your champagne bottles, sweeping the floors of your Hamptons estates, and holding the mirror while you gel your hair in the morning?

    The reality is that no one here relies on your munificence. Our nation's stagnant per capita income and growing wealth divide should make that obvious. In fact, when this country's collective wealth was at its greatest, bankers had little more responsibility than to hold onto our money until we wanted it. Since then, you've grown like an aggressive cancer feeding off our prosperity. It's high time you realize that whether or not it hurts your feelings, you will no longer have that kind of unchecked autonomy.

    Which leads me to my last point: What makes you think you could even survive in the real world? What exactly do you do well? Your own people acknowledge your uselessness. Jeremy Grantham believes that you "add nothing but costs." Paul Volcker believes that the best thing your business has produced in the last 25 years is the ATM machine. Jack Bogle ... well, you don't want to know what Jack Bogle thinks. Even in the best of times, 85% of professional money managers still can't beat a simple market index. Your business has a long and well-documented history of failing to provide value.

    Honestly, I'm not sure I even want you doing something as complex as mowing my lawn. With the seemingly perverse attitude with which you view the world, I certainly don't want you within 500 yards of my kids' schools, let alone teaching at them. Your arrogance, your lack of a moral compass, and your incompetence spell out only one thing to me: You're unemployable.

    Here's an idea to consider: Rather than infiltrate our lowly jobs, why don't you take that huge brain of yours and that renowned work ethic and become an engineer or a scientist or a doctor and actually create something of value? It would probably be more fun, potentially more lucrative, and you'd finally develop something that you could be proud of. We might even respect you for it.

  16. #376
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BeepBoo View Post
    Not every human is deserving of the life they have if sustaining it comes at the expense of someone else's life and efforts. Suffering of the weak is a desired outcome because it encourages people to not want to be weak.
    Then, do you agree with these quotes? Trying to get a handle on your views, here.
    The struggle for the daily livelihood leaves behind in the ruck everything that is weak or diseased or wavering; while the fight of the male to possess the female gives to the strongest the right, or at least, the possibility to propagate its kind. And this struggle is a means of furthering the health and powers of resistance in the species. Thus it is one of the causes underlying the process of development towards a higher quality of being.


    This whole edifice of civilization is in its foundations and in all its stones nothing else than the result of the creative capacity, the achievement, the intelligence, the industry, of individuals: in its greatest triumphs it represents the great crowning achievement of individual God-favored geniuses, in its average accomplishment the achievement of men of average capacity, and in its sum doubtless the result of the use of human labor-force in order to turn to account the creations of genius and of talent. So it is only natural that when the capable intelligences of a nation, which are always in a minority, are regarded only as of the same value as all the rest, then genius, capacity, the value of personality are slowly subjected to the majority and this process is then falsely named the rule of the people. For this is not rule of the people, but in reality the rule of stupidity, of mediocrity, of half-heartedness, of cowardice, of weakness, and of inadequacy

    Simple question, really. Both quotes are fairly clearly written, so there shouldn't be room for confusion about what they're saying. Not necessarily every specific detail, just the general gist.
    Last edited by Endus; 2019-12-21 at 02:27 AM.


  17. #377
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    Simple question, really. Both quotes are fairly clearly written, so there shouldn't be room for confusion about what they're saying. Not necessarily every specific detail, just the general gist.
    The only way I'm discussing anything around mein kampf is if you can first acknowledge the theories and the methods employed are two completely separate things, and that his ideas about what make someone weak (such as the asinine fact that just because someone has a particular religious or cultural upbringing predisposes them to UNEQUIVOCALLY BE something) are incredibly logically flawed.

    I'm not making any suppositions as to WHO society should let slip. I'm just saying society should be free to let people slip.

  18. #378
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BeepBoo View Post
    The only way I'm discussing anything around mein kampf is if you can first acknowledge the theories and the methods employed are two completely separate things, and that his ideas about what make someone weak (such as the asinine fact that just because someone has a particular religious or cultural upbringing predisposes them to UNEQUIVOCALLY BE something) are incredibly logically flawed.

    I'm not making any suppositions as to WHO society should let slip. I'm just saying society should be free to let people slip.
    And the point, which you're skipping over, is that this was a core part of Hitler's viewpoint, too. And not the pseudo-socialist dressing he used to gussy it up for the masses; the underlying core parts that made Nazism so execrable a worldview in the first place.

    Saying "I want to achieve the same goals as Hitler, but I'm not going to put Jews in ovens" really isn't the big win for you that you seem to think.


  19. #379
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    And the point, which you're skipping over, is that this was a core part of Hitler's viewpoint, too. And not the pseudo-socialist dressing he used to gussy it up for the masses; the underlying core parts that made Nazism so execrable a worldview in the first place.

    Saying "I want to achieve the same goals as Hitler, but I'm not going to put Jews in ovens" really isn't the big win for you that you seem to think.
    Look at it like this: The concept of putting people to death for crimes is something I agree with. Putting someone to death because they murdered 100 people is vastly different from putting someone to death because they're gay in my books. One I condone, the other is something I define as inhumane. The concept of "putting someone to death" is no less valuable. It's the lines drawn in the sand.

    Also, I'm not and will never be about HUNTING people down because I think they deserve to die. I don't presume to know when someone should or shouldn't die. I presume society can tell when it's had enough and no longer wants to support someone, though. If they die as a result of that support withdrawal, that's not society's fault or problem. That was always that person's problem and they were just lucky to get as much support as they did up until they no longer got it and should be thankful for the extra days they got tacked onto their life. "Not helping" is not "hurting" or being responsible for the thing causing the hurt in the first place.

  20. #380
    Old God Vash The Stampede's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BeepBoo View Post
    And why SHOULD they be contributing more than they already do? Because that's how you'd stop poor people from dying of preventable crap? Who cares?
    Because the world is made of love and peace, and when you break this ideology then it'll backfire onto you. Historically when the rich get too greedy the people with pitchforks and fire come after them, which at that point no amount of money will save them. If you read the book "The Good Earth" this is what inevitably happens.
    You're going to have a hard time convincing me the discrepancy between humans shouldn't be accurately represented in their earnings as well. We're not all similarly capable. On the contrary, we're hugely disproportionately capable in basically every regard. Ergo, if what society desires from a services standpoint also has that huge disproportion in results and capability, why should lifestyles not reflect that?
    Usually those with great wealth aren't exactly contributing to society. Jeff Bezos does nothing now except accumulate more wealth by just existing, and Paris Hilton is literally born into money. Even Bill Gates hasn't gotten involved in any actual coding at Microsoft in decades, and as we all know he bought DOS for a few thousand dollars from some sucker. Most banks subsist over subsides from the government.

    Those who actually work hard and create the products you use aren't the ones benefiting from the profits they generate. Music artists tend to get the shaft when it comes to selling their music. You don't even know the name of the people who created the hardware in your iPhone, but everyone knows Tim Cooks name like it matters.

    If you want to promote creativity and better living standards then a UBI is currently the best answer. That and public housing, free healthcare, and etc.

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