• 1 Post
  • 41 Comments
Joined 3 months ago
cake
Cake day: March 4th, 2026

help-circle
  • No, you aren’t missing anything. You’re right that some sort of basic income is inevitable (universal or not). Even if you are a raging capitalist, you still need the plebs to have SOME income to be able to purchase goods and services.

    However, for this to happen, it must be demonstrable that AI is actually causing high unemployment. Right now, while economic productivity is kinda increasing due to AI, unemployment isn’t. When it happens:

    • Capitalists will advocate for BI.
    • Market socialists will advocate for BI combined with government/coop ownership over some or all means of production.
    • Socialists that prefer planned economics could advocate for an expansion of universal basic services.
    • Primitivists will advocate for bans on AI or whatever, I dunno.

    Massive unemployment is bad for everyone including the ruling class, as that leads to pitchforks, guillotines and chopped off heads.






  • It’s always the same story, poor sanitation, environmental degradation, corruption and climate.

    Naah I don’t buy it. Individual cities and countries collapse, but not anything larger. Also, poor sanitation throughout history was mostly because of a lack of understanding of germ theory.

    Nawww, I was thinking more of a secret nihilistic text or something. Something that just makes an entire civ kill themselves or something. Or maybe some equation that spells eternal doom or something that leaves everyone absolutely hopeless.

    I’ll try going through the summaries of the books you recommended! Thanks :)








  • Ok, rant time.

    This is how the market is SUPPOSED to work: Demand high, supply low. Suppliers rush in to increase supply with the incentive of profit. Eventually, supply increases and profits become razor thin. Consumers (average folk) win.

    BUT, there are certain sectors where monopolies/oligopolies form naturally. Not necessarily because companies are evil, but because it’s simply economically more efficient to do so. Rail being the best example. Why would another rail company build a parallel track to an already existing freight corridor that connects 2 companies?

    Banks require to pass through a lot of financial regulation (as they should). Hence, oligopolies form naturally. Same with telecom.

    NOW. Let’s look at our utopic market again. Profits should be high where supply hasn’t met demand. NOT where supply and demand are the same. This is very good for those owning the companies (capitalists), but not good for the consumers (us). In our ideal market, this profit reduction happens due to competition. However, we have established that some sectors naturally are prone to less competition.

    Banks posting record profits (when banking isn’t exactly a sector that requires crazy investment to meet allegedly crazy increasing demand) is bad for the average person. Same with companies that are in sectors where not much investment is needed. Groceries being an example.

    So what do we do to reduce profits in such sectors so that a handful of people aren’t ripping us off? Here’s my opinion:

    The state should force oligopolies/monopolies to become consumer cooepratives. If this is too politically infeasible, then raise capital, start a state owned corp and immediately shift the operations to a consumer cooperative (of which every citizen is a member by default).

    So TLDR: The stock market booming isn’t always a good thing. Sure, actually innovative corps posting record profits (from the new stuff they’ve worked on) can be a good thing. BUT, boring ass corps which aren’t exactly innovating posting increasing profits means that the consumer (us) is getting ripped off.





  • wraekscadu@vargar.orgtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldLemmy.jpeg
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 month ago

    Schizophrenia is a serious mental health condition that affects how people think, feel and behave. It may result in a mix of hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thinking and behavior. Hallucinations involve seeing things or hearing voices that aren’t observed by others.


  • So here’s the thing. I wouldn’t view it as impolite in all cases. It just… depends on the context a lot.

    I have no love for my cultural heritage at all. The reason I came to Canada was to get away from… all that, right? So if you’d ask me excitedly about my “roots”, I would give exceedingly one worded answers hoping that you’d drop the topic. I don’t want to glorify the culture I grew up in, because there’s nothing to glorify. Ah, now if you wanted to have a sociological discussion about it, I would be very interested in talking with you. So as I said, “context”, right?

    Often, racist white folk also tend to ask about “culture” as a sly way to remind non white folks that they “aren’t really Canadian” or whatever. Yeah, it makes no logical sense to do that, but well… It happens. So you know… It depends.


  • Lemme explain the sensibility even when we use 1.a.1. I said the idea of a nation itself should cease to exist.

    An analog would be religion. If someone asked me, “what’s your religion?”. I would say, “I’m non religious”. I wouldn’t reply by saying, “my religion is atheism”.

    Similarly, if someone asked me what nation I belonged to, I would say something along the lines of “technically, I’m under the jurisdiction of XYZ state, but I do not identify as a member of any nation.”

    I’m hoping that this becomes the majority viewpoint. That’s how my answer is sensible even with 1.a.1.

    And as for “will inevitably rise within any sovereign state which will persist for a long enough time”, it’s not true necessarily. Example being myself and so many other people (anarchists, lib socialists, even right wing libertarians). Yes, it has been true throughout history (descriptive), but I’m hoping it isn’t going forward (normative).


  • My bad. I incorrectly assumed that the above terminologies were common knowledge. I should’ve provided direct links. Well, here they are:

    Difference between nations and states

    Definition of a “nation-state”

    When I talk about nations and states, I talk from the perspective of these definitions. As you can see, they’re not really synonyms. It’s not squabbling about terminologies. If we have a different understanding of what different words mean, then our logical arguments are going to look very different. I’m not saying that your definition is wrong or whatever. I’m just clarifying how I define these terms in my arguments. That way, you can understand what I mean to say.

    As for the “questions” you posed… I’m not sure exactly what answers you want me to provide. I already told you that I do believe that states need to exist. We’re in agreement there. I just don’t think that it’s healthy for society to divide itself among different nations. Seems quite a waste of mental space, resources, etc. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯