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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)JI
Posts
3
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766
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • Maybe...but we did less during the financial crisis of 2008 and had a worse outcome. When we analyzed that data from 2008, we decided that it would probably work better if we spent more next time, which is what we did this time...and the result matched the prediction, which is pretty much how you prove something works scientifically. Make a prediction, test the prediction, and if the test results match your prediction, that is evidence for your hypothesis. So, the evidence we have says it's probably better to increase deficit spending to avoid economic collapses. This isn't a lab, so we can't control for every variable to really prove it, and we probably never could...we can just keep evaluating our results after a problem and see if the changes we made resulted in a better or worse outcome than we predicted.

  • Well, yes. Those are just the names of places. There were other Soviet/communists famines as well. All said, about 50 million died in various communist-nation famines. This isn't a defense of capitalism...it's just stating facts. If we actually want to reduce suffering, we need to be objective. As far as capitalism v communism goes, as far as I can tell, they're both very flawed systems prone to authoritarian takeovers. I think the best we've got right now is the sort of socialist-democratic systems we see in northern Europe where most businesses are still privately owned, but markets are severely regulated. Education and elections are well-funded from public coffers, so it's a fair playing field. Governments are comprised of multi-party coalitions that help force hard-liners to compromise, and no-cinfidence votes make it easier to reform government when it isn't working well.

  • Are you really asking for a comparison, or is this a red herring?

    3.9 million Ukranians died of starvation between 1931 and 1934. There are currently 0.5 million on the brink of starvation in Gaza, and 27 confirmed starvation deaths in Gaza (as of March 11th, and that is likely from incomplete data, but its what we have to work with unless we want to use imaginary data, and im assuming we don't). If we assume a linear growth rate and extrapolate, we could expect ~100 confirmed deaths and 1.5 million on the brink in a similar time period.

    So, if we use raw numbers the USSRs leadership in Ukraine led to a greater total amount of starvation, however, if we look at it from a per capita perspective, about 10% of Ukraine's total population of ~ 32 million was starving and the 1.5 million number I extrapolated above would be almost 100% of Gazans.

  • Why, indeed. Almost like it's a deliberate attempt to distract us from real problems...or, in the particular case of Elon, an attempt to make something that isn't about him be about him because he's the specialist little boy.

  • Broken homes feed into the prison-industrial complex, the only remaining form of slavery currently allowed in our country? It's not just about the babies. You need to make sure they end up poor, desperate, and too broken to hope for better as adults.

  • The criminal justice system doesn't normally care how awful you are to yourself, its there to try and prevent you being awful to others. I believe you can still be charged with a crime in most of America if you survive a suicide attempt, but it isn't normally pursued because it doesn't really accomplish the things the state cares about...just like the state doesn't typically care about any psychiatric conditions you have unless they make you a danger to others.

    I've got a few psychiatric conditions myself, and sometimes they contribute to me making bad choices that negatively impact the people I care about, but that doesn't absolve me of the responsibility I have to own up to my actions and make amends when I fuck up. I can't imagine anything I've dealt with leading me to the conclusion that killing a bunch of children or peers would be acceptable or desirable, but I also have the benefits of being properly medicated and having years of therapy under my belt that had given me a lot of great tools for dealing with my shit...but its still my shit and I'm responsible for it.

    And yes, I do tend to frown on suicide. It's a final solution to a usually temporary problem, hurts EVERYONE who loves you, and it destroys your ability to do anything to make the world better.

  • That vote was held before Trump had full control over the RNC coffers...anyone who doesn't vote the way Trump wants them to will either see a party-funded challenge from their right during their next primary or no funding during the general.

  • By allowing other women to make different decisions than she would. Allowing trans people to exist destroys her identity as a woman because other women might be different or have different experiences. Allowing others to get an abortion destroys her identity as a mother because if they made a different choice and thought it was right for them... how can she ever know if her own decision was right? Or maybe she was never afforded a choice and so seeks to deprive others of what she was denied.