nikita @ nikita @sh.itjust.works

Posts

9

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70

Joined

2 yr. ago

That’s true but what I mean is that the other options for wealthy people are just as exploitative.

Shareholders exploit workers and add nothing to society.

Creditors harass people and exploit the fucked up loan system that regular people are forced to rely on, also adding no benefit to society.

Thanks for the links. I understand these concepts better now.

By that definition shareholders are rent seekers too. They extract way more value from the company than they add to it. Except instead of making money through leasing, it’s through dividend collection, capital gains and share buybacks.

As for loan givers, you could argue their existence provides value because it gives people access to funds they wouldn’t otherwise have had, allowing them to purchase goods they wouldn’t have been able to. However, when the whole system is set up such that going into debt is a requirement then the service offered by the loan giver doesn’t really add that much value to society.

In fact, if loans weren’t so tolerated, the market or government would have been forced, at an earlier point in time, to do something to reduce the costs of things we purchase with loans like real estate, cars and education (in places where it isn’t free/cheap).

Instead, loans artificially increase the cost of things to the point where buying them without getting a loan becomes impossible. For instance, by increasing the amortization period of mortgages from 10 years to 20 years to 30 years, the price of a home increased such that now it is completely out of reach to people looking to buy property without a loan.

Exactly. That kind of comment serves to divide and distract us and while we are busy fighting over these relatively tiny sums, the ultra rich are getting richer.

The solutions you propose make way more sense.

I think its a weird argument to say all landlords are evil because even if they were forced to sell their real estate properties, they would just put their wealth elsewhere. They would instead become shareholders or creditors.

The problem is more so in general with people that have a lot of wealth, regardless of how they choose to hold it.

And furthermore, the problem isn’t even with people that have a bit of wealth, it’s with billionaires. If we taxed those assholes properly then governments could just afford to build high rises which would drive real estate prices down.

I fucking love that show. Such good writing.

This is my favourite video ever. Thanks for sharing.

Daily reminder that ScoMo shat himself at at a Maccas in Engadine

This eclipse is only hitting eastern Canada correct?

More like Marx

This implies there was ever a time cops weren’t violent pieces of shit.

I’ve heard many stories of cops in the 80s regularly beating on people in my area.

In fact, sociologists like to say cops were invented in America specifically make sure slaves stayed indentured to their owners.

Reminds me of this: https://neal.fun/absurd-trolley-problems/

In Greece it’s common for children to stay with their parents past 30. Your conflict is a cultural one.

My advice is to not worry about it and not feel ashamed. There are plenty of reasons to live with one’s parents, especially these days with the high cost of living. I’m sure your peers understand this.

In fact, the money you save on living expenses can potentially be used to buy yourself a home in the future, instead of perpetually paying rent like the rest of us.

Good point. What I meant is that it’s different from grammatical gender typical of European languages as you defined it.

Grammatical gender is a bad name for such a general concept that goes beyond the social definition of gender. In fact, that term is a bit eurocentric.

Even cooler, in my opinion, are languages that are even further outside of common indo european language paradigms, such as Navajo which uses degrees of animacy instead of grammatical gender and Basque which uses ‘focus’ and ‘topic’ to determine word order rather than subjects and objects.

It’s derived from Irish, originally meaning thieves or bandits if I recall correctly.

You’re effectively proposing government subsidized housing as well as a direct tax on rental income. As in the landlords are encouraged to charge less for rent because the government is chipping in by covering a percentage of their tax, resulting in lower rents for tenants. Under this system, people’s taxes would pay for everyones rent.

Not a bad idea. In fact, it probably exists somehow already under some governments.

Thank you. I will say that I listed a lot permadeath roguelikes and not everyone is into those. They can be very frustrating.

Gunpoint. Story based detective game where you solve a murder. Gameplay mechanics make you feel like a badass. You can pretty much finish it in a single sitting but its great.

Heat signature. A stealth based top down bounty hunter game with roguelike elements. Really well done. Made by the same guy that made Gunpoint.

Neo scavenger. A murder hobo roguelike with a surprisingly long storyline.

Super house of dead ninjas. Great fast paced platformer where you’re a badass ninja. Great to pick up and play in short bursts.

Fez. 2D exploration platformer with to change the perspective. Pretty chill and has a cool art style

More well known games that I’ll list anyway in case someones looking for some awesome ones:

Super meat boy

Project zomboid

FTL

Celeste

Crypt of the necrodancer

Enter the gungeon

Spelunky

Noita. Saw it mentionned in this thread and I am seconding this. Great game. But brutal as fuck.

Cave story. A classic. And it’s free.

Owlboy. Took the developer like 10-15 years to make. I’ve heard good things but I’m only just starting to play it.

Also pro tip: if you want more recommendations go look at what speedrunners are playing. People that spend that much time playing a single game over and over generally choose very good games to play.

The point is that a proportional voting system would be more democratic overall. There would still be a right and left wing split but it would allow for many more parties with differing perspectives to exist within it.

Coalitions are always a possibility but I’d rather have two left and right wing coalitions made up of 5+ parties than a two party system as coalitions are less likely to be as unified. Also more diversity probably reduces corruption and regional grassroots movements may have an easier path towards attaining political power.

And like you said, such a change wouldn’t prevent fascism from taking hold either. Fascism never respects democracy and as such it cannot be dealt with by changing our voting systems. Rather, I believe the best way to deal with it is to explicitely ban it by law, paradox of intolerance style. In other words, you shouldnt be able to vote for someone who doesn’t believe in voting or in democracy. Also education is very important in this matter like you said.

I was so jealous when I found out they have SVT in Australia. We need something like that here. I hope they at least get to have a discussion about it during these talks.

Having a good voting system means a better democracy and more accountability placed on the politicians to represent the people. With FPTP, Trudeau doesn’t have to care as much if he fucks up and gets the left wingers to dislike him because he knows that they will vote for him anyway in order to prevent a conservative majority. With SVT for instance we will just vote Trudeau away when he does some bullshit in favour of an NDP government or other.

Increased accountability is especially important because we need those fuckers to address the climate crisis and a more democratic voting system would mean there would be real consequences for the politicans if they fail to do so.