GoodbyeBlueMonday @ GoodbyeBlueMonday @startrek.website

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2 yr. ago

Right? Would be easy enough for a DM to just improvise if they don't want the players using everything. Big ticket items have inscriptions that terrify anyone they try to sell it to, which is itself a plot hook. Maybe it's all cursed. Or they get arrested by the local authorities on suspicion of trafficking in stolen goods. Or even just have another adventuring party steal it from them somehow.

Depends on the abilities of the party, but snatching away their spoils after they get away sounds even more fun than not letting them take it in the first place.

We don't disagree: there's a short-sightedness that causes folks to say things like "once the boomers die out, things will be great". There are systemic issues that gauze the greed and fear and violence, and the folks that get swept up in these movements are in large part products of their environment, as we all are.

So we need to change the environment, but otherwise well-meaning folks don't want it to change because they benefit from it, even when they are vaguely aware that there are monsters out there that keep it that way. I'd like to think there's more liberals/moderates who would be allies against fascism if this kind of thing can be communicated in a way that doesn't alienate folks, but I'm also sympathetic to arguments that fiery language is necessary to rattle people out of comfort zones... So in sum, thanks for the good discussion.

Call it pedantry if you want, but the fascists themselves are what truly "makes fascism possible".

Yes, there are plenty of folks have culpability in allowing these fucks gain control, from short-sighted collaborators who just want profit, idiots who think "they can't really be that bad", but there's an extent to which I think we should be careful about victim-blaming well-meaning (but naive) folks who believe that Liberty and Justice will win the day (being misled by whitewashed historical narratives who erase the boots on the ground required to make social and political changes - and the organization necessary to resist the rise of fascists).

I get your point, and clearly (from the paragraph I just typed) agree to an extent - I just think it's reductive to the point of undermining the movements against fascism when "liberals" all get thrown in the same basket.

Minotaurs, if anything like their brahman brethren, can get nutrition from all kinds of roughage that us puny primates can't. So while we're scrambling around for nuts and goodberries, they can make a meal of all the weeds sprouting in terrible soil, and the odd hay bale lying around to feed someone's horses.

TL;DR: They could feasibly turn what we consider indigestible garbage-plants into calorie-rich milk.

Ah, so when you said the "rest of the world", you are excluding Latin America. Where is your high horse located, and what do you think the rest of the world includes?

You're making a pretty big assumption! I've lived most of the last fifteen years in South America, so I actually do have a good hold on how folks in other nations view capitalism, and the USA's economic and political systems. My job for years was in a biological research institute that was part of the Uruguayan government, and before that for a decade I worked in small towns across the Amazon, in Peru and Colombia.

So my point from the start is that it seems inevitable that capitalists would levy their economic power to gain political power. The laissez-faire ideal sounds good (for those with capital, anyway), but without institutional protections against it, those with the most money would be dumb not to levy that money so they can rig the system.

So we're quibbling over different thresholds at which government intervention means it's no longer "Pure Capitalism", but from my perspective Regulatory Capture is kind of inevitable, without protections against that happening. So that's why I think it's just part of Modern Capitalism in most places, and an "Oligarchy with a Capitalist Facade" is just a different life-stage of Capitalism. I'm all in favor of the institutional controls against corporate takeover/influence of governmental bodies. Corporate lobbying is a cancer, because it's drowning out the public's voice in politics.

I don't see it as delusion, but being realistic.

What you and I do today is meaningless in the grand scale of the universe, and likely has a tiny effect on what happens to someone living a hundred years from now.

That doesn't mean that what we do doesn't have a more immediate impact.

Make your neighbor's day better, because while it won't matter in a million years, it matters now. So who cares if it costs you a few extra minutes of your life, it makes theirs better, and nothing means anything in the long run anyway, right? So why not make it easier for everyone else here, now? Making other people feel better feels good, so everyone wins, and we can better enjoy what time we have.

Government intervention in the economy doesn't mean it's not Capitalism IMHO: I see that as an unnecessarily restrictive definition. I think of capitalism in more broad terms as being for-profit private ownership of trade/industry.

I can agree that there's some theoretical upper limit at which Crony Capitalism turns into an outright Corporate State, but I don't think we're quite there yet, and hopefully we can avoid it (as much as we seem to be headed that way, unfortunately).

Facade isn't accurate IMHO. Capitalist Oligarchy is fine though. Maybe a subtle distinction, but I think it's important.

Initially the CDC didn't know how much asymptomatic spread was going to be a factor: that definitely changes the math on advising everyone to mask up. By July of 2020 they were unequivocal: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p0714-americans-to-wear-masks.html

Oligarchic fits, and isn't mutually exclusive with being a capitalist. IMHO it seems like that's an inevitable outcome in capitalist economies if safeguards aren't instituted. Also I certainly don't think oligarchies are restricted to capitalist economies, either. It just seems like it would be the natural goal of amassing capital: rig the system in your favor.

Also I don't want you making up definitions, I just assumed you had another one in mind when trying to define what most modern corporations aren't.

What are they, if not capitalist?

It seems obvious that in a capitalist system those with capital will benefit if they use that capital to gain political power. Regulatory capture is just good business, right? It's the same reason capitalist enterprises will just buy up competition - they don't want competition, they want profit. It's a lot easier to win the game if you can cripple your opponents.

Until we make and are are able to enforce stronger laws protecting us little people, corporations will tend to wield power to keep squeezing us, because it's (unfortunately) perfectly legal (though obviously, at least IMHO, perfectly immoral).

There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.

• Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

Let's not throw in the towel, as dire as things look. It's not over yet. Organize.

When folks claimed, in 2015, that no one hated trump before he ran for president (also forgetting he ran a sweaty napkin of a campaign years prior) I always loved playing a couple songs by the Coup.

They had someone pretending to be him rap in one from 1994 (the joke being that he's hated even by other rich assholes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrSk8Um2Sso (lyrics here: https://genius.com/The-coup-pimps-free-stylin-at-the-fortune-500-club-lyrics)

And in a powerful line in a track of their 2001 album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84bJG5qj96w (lyrics here: https://genius.com/The-coup-ghetto-manifesto-lyrics)

I practice this like a sport, met Donald Trump and he froze up

Standing on his Bentley yelling, "Pimps down, hoes up"

Reminds me of a great pair of line from a Warren Zevon song: "I can saw a woman in two, but you won't want to look in the box when I'm through."

It’s not disingenuous. Jewish people literally just weren’t there until very recently. You’re talking like 1000+ years ago.

This is the central question everyone can't agree on, right? Which group that conquered the region and eradicated their enemies has the "rights" to the land? I'm seriously ignorant on the subject, and more than happy to delete this comment if it's not really adding to anything, but we're calibrating our standards of who has the rights to a region based on what the latest Empire said, be it Ottomans or Romans or however far back we want to go, until we're talking literally Neolithic folks showing up, right? I'm not religious, so there's a critical part of this conflict I simply cannot fundamentally understand.

The difference between making claims based on occupation in the late 1800s versus late 800s seems arbitrary, to me. That said, I know that can sound patently ridiculous, since we're talking generations we can count on one hand versus the same number of Empires controlling the land: so this is where I throw my hands up and just cry a little. Solidarity to everyone suffering oppression and terrorism, in whatever forms they take.

Good guess, but doesn't look like it: July is when the Earth is at its furthest point from the sun.

Is there a Republican who is better than McCarthy?

IMHO the bar has to at least be someone who is not on this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Caucus

Also, just about any of the Republicans on this list would be better than McCarthy. The ones who haven't been ousted since, at least. https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/19/politics/house-republicans-january-6-commission/index.html

A quote I think about a lot is one by Susan Sontag, and I think it maps pretty well to what you've laid out (just obviously not in that same order!). "10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.”