Good grief, no.

It is hard to understand the problem between zikzak and me. He had a problem with me arguing that:

'we should oppose torture because it is wrong rather than because it doesn't work'
and
'we have to reconsider practical politics when new factors (such as the internet and automation) emerge' This came up in conversations about AC which may or may not have been the underlying objection.

We had one decent bit when he agreed with my view that if/when we move to UBI (which I think we should - indeed have to given the new 'factor' of the automation era we are entering) then we mustn't allow lenders to count the UBI as income when seeking repayment.

Most of the rest is history and my opinions that all the personal animosity is either childish fun - I sometimes think of 'bottom'* (which maybe makes him hitler, if I'm Rich ) or otherwise a bad thing.

*Now I'm the one with my head in the kitchen fridge I may need my emergency pint.

Thanks. Bruce really was racist . 13ball came along as the top poster, if having to pick any. Brian also did a good job. pvn was a bit in your face. masque trying his best. chez a bit undetermined.

Bruce should have kept to areas where he knows stuff.

I'm sceptical that UBI will be brought in. Why would TPTB (banks, large companies, governments) want a population surplus to requirements paid via UBI from company profits that would otherwise go to them?

I think we're more likely to see initiatives to reduce populations and maintain current employment levels, perpetuating the neo-liberal model that suits TPTB very well.

Not temp-banning a few loud neo-Nazi sympathisers resulted in the perma-banning of all P8.8 posters.

Well played chez!

They don't want it I agree but now we're entering the automation era the old model of capitalist democracy with some amount of socialism, that we are used to in the West, isn't going to work. Some disagree about what's happening with automation but we're at the stage now where it's denial analogous to climate change denial (except that automation is inherently a good thing for humanity)

The problem is that labour becomes less and less valuable at the same time that the overall wealth of humanity is fast increasing. Somehow we have to redistribute the 'free wealth' that comes from automation/technology that is radically different to the idea of working to better ourselves. If we don't then the electorate is going to become increasingly angry and dissatisfied (even if they don't quite know why) and we will lurch into increasingly dangerous political waters because the way we have organised democratic capitalist societies around work is simply failing

I was always of the view that the key answer to redistribution is basically to tax the rich and reduce the value of earned income by socialised services such as the NHS, free education etc. (Plus minimum wage and some other things) but I don't think it will be enough anymore.

Tptb will either come up with something that keeps them in power (which I think is very likely to be a big dose of UBI), abandon democracy to prevent people voting for more and more desperate populist promises or watch their system collapse as people demand the impossible.

This is already happening, cf Brexit and Trump etc.

Agreed with all of this. We've had almost 40 years of the low tax alternative and it clearly isn't working very well for most people.


Or find ways to reduce the population and maintain their profiteering racket. It's not hard to see how a right wing Tory government could engineer a reduced welfare state to hit those with more than one child hardest, not far removed from China's old policy of taxing people with more than one kid but branded as something unrelated of course.

I'm not an economist and unintentional side-effects makes these things very hard to predict, but I'm not convinced the numbers stack up for UBI.

Can't prove it but I think this is very likely to be true. And we're just at the leading edge of the problem

Bad as it's been, it's been sustainable as a political system.

Maybe but that sort of approach is going to get increasingly draconian and the population isn't going to go down fast enough unless they start killing people off as well. I just don't see how it's going to be close to possible if people have a meaningful vote that allows extreme populists to thrive.

Not really disagreeing with that. Full blown UBI isn't coming in tomorrow but it's a conversation that needs to be had if there's going to be any chance of it developing alongside the automation era rather than after we have gone through massive political pain. I'm not over-hopeful we will get ahead of it but we might stumble along a path that does enough to muddle through.

Describes Toothless to a T.

You don't say?

Everybody can be wrong. Nobody forced anybody to pick the wrong choice, Trump. Not fair to blame people working for good things, like it was their fault.

But people are learning, his support ratings are dropping. And the world is one bad example richer. We must learn from mistakes. Though, this mistake was unnecessary to make imo, but apparently not for the American Majority at that time.

0% chance I'm clicking on that link, I'm going to assume it's more of the same "if you're mean to racists they'll just be more racist" crybaby ****, guess, what, GOOD, I hope the DO get more racist. the fact that they've been able to blend in so long is a big part of the problem. Now we're seeing them WILLINGLY self-identify, this is a GOOD thing.

Some people are having trouble understanding the thread title. Pray you're not the next.

What in the devil is going on ITT the last 11 posts? Ghost links, poltergeist Euro convos, it's madness.

Alternate post title: A History of 2+2 Deplorables, From A to BruceZ

That would be a fun exercise for anyone who's been here a long time and has an hour or so to kill. I reckon most of the 26 could be found.

So this. Libertarians and ACists are particularly susceptible.

Using only logic you may miss important things. Things you didn't incorporate in the logical process.

Like sex with girls...

Describing most of the internet's shut ins as following the unfettered path of reason and logic wherever it may lead is entirely too charitable. 95% of the internet that backpats itself about such things are actually really, really bad at logic. So is the rest of the population obviously. But this is not like some sort of roundabout argument that there limits to logic or that they forgot to include this bit of evidence or that bit of information. It's that they're just very bad at formal logic. Like they can't even do the thing well that they think they're doing.

As a 2014/15 PUC reg I'd want as many SilverMan & Proph posts memorialized as possible, TIA.

I think it can be both. Not including relevant things and mess up the things you do include. The first is worse, because you don't stand a chance of getting things right after that.

Like forgetting about freedom and its implications when discussing slavery.

People aren't "forgetting" about freedom for ****'s sake.

When they say logic, they don't really mean logic, they mean they read a syllogism for the NAP and got an erection.

Most internet dudebro failure proof, unfettered logic is simply like:

- Men and women have biological differences
- it is a known fact women are extremely hormonal during their menstrual cycles
- therefore Google cannot except the risk that a hormonal human with lady parts writes bad code during the time in which she is bleeding but not dying, they are a private company and therefore EXCLUDED from the politically correct unconstitutional 14th Amendment 'protections'
- ergo James Damore's 7th Amendment rights were VIOLATED when he was fired by Google without a common law trial by jury, QED

It's just a bunch of nonsensical herp derp where none of the arguments even follow the premises and is always either explains why white men are the greatest or why no women want to have sex with them, and that's it. It's usually not clever, not interesting, nothing approaching logic at all, just crypto white guy babble. The hallmarks are not the logic, but usually some tortured legal and economic knowledge is interspersed into the ramblings, and the conclusion is always a victimized white male.

Several half truths chained becomes a lie.




How about moving this over here?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/21...music-1621327/

It could be a monument of that quite everything wasn't bad.