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In a stunning example of failure to understand the meaning of the word equality, Github's "social impact team" is now actively discriminating against people based on gender and skin color; white women in particular:
One insider criticized GitHub's "social impact team," which is in charge of figuring out how to use the product to tackle social issues, including diversity within the company itself. It's led by Nicole Sanchez, vice president of social impact, who joined GitHub in May after working as a diversity consultant.
While people inside the company approve of the goal to hire a more diverse workforce, some think the team is contributing to the internal cultural battle.
"They are trying to control culture, interviewing and firing. Scary times at the company without a seasoned leader. While their efforts are admirable it is very hard to even interview people who are 'white' which makes things challenging," this person said.
Sanchez is known for some strong views about diversity. She wrote an article for USA Today shortly before she joined GitHub titled, "More white women does not equal tech diversity."
At one diversity training talk held at a different company and geared toward people of color, she came on a bit stronger with a point that says, "Some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women."
From a site policy standpoint, this really makes me want to argue for finding another host for our rehash repository, enormous pain in the ass though that would be.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Post-Nihilist on Monday February 08 2016, @08:03PM
I wont kill you but I will add fuel to your desperation. Please have at look at that issue : https://github.com/opal/opal/issues/942 [github.com]
This particular new style lynch mob, made change my views from being indifferent to being on the anti-SJW side wrt #gamersgate. It made me realize that those caricaturals SJW exist outside Southpark.
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday February 08 2016, @08:13PM
The only people who crowbar their pet agenda into every discussion more than "SJW's" are people who use the term "SJW."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Post-Nihilist on Monday February 08 2016, @08:20PM
I use to hold the same belief, the issue aforementioned changed me last weekend.
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 2, Touché) by boxfetish on Monday February 08 2016, @10:11PM
Both are true.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Monday February 08 2016, @08:48PM
Horseshit. It's entirely a defensive term that only became necessary BECAUSE the aforementioned politically-correct post-modernist insurgency became ascendant in tech and video games. If they're ever defeated, or leave, and free expression and meritocracy returns the term will disappear and we'll all get on as before. I'd love to stop talking about it, but apathy is compliance with their goals, which I am against. Should we just stop talking about the issue and let these "diversity consultants" continue to preferentially hire and promote based on skin color--which is the definition of racism. I'm a liberal, and being against racism is a liberal value. It pisses me off when I see it and I'm not going to stop fighting it wherever it turns up, whatever the sick justification de jure is employed to defend it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday February 08 2016, @08:57PM
Except, we're in a sub-thread about GamerGate and a Code of Conduct for a developer forum. That's some powerful crowbarring.
Now if we want to discuss the accusation at hand, let's do it. The sum total of evidence presented that actual illegal hiring practices are occuring is one sentence in a 5 page article with an un-attributed quote from a single person.
(Score: 2) by Post-Nihilist on Monday February 08 2016, @09:11PM
...
...
One insider criticized GitHub's "social impact team," which is in charge of figuring out how to use the product to tackle social issues, including diversity within the company itself. It's led by Nicole Sanchez, vice president of social impact, who joined GitHub in May after working as a diversity consultant.
...
...
From a site policy standpoint, this really makes me want to argue for finding another host for our rehash repository, enormous pain in the ass though that would be.
Is it really a sub thread when it start in the summary ?
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Monday February 08 2016, @09:20PM
You're proving my point! This is a 5 page article about a whole host of issues. There is a single quote about the diversity issue. The "SJW" user chooses to cherry-pick his pet issue out of that and make the whole story about it!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Monday February 08 2016, @10:05PM
The summary posted here is very specifically about *this* issue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @11:27PM
Actually you have failed to prove you point. The commenter was plainly on topic as the topic is covered in the fucking summary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @11:50PM
Soylent is Racist!
Apparently this is enough evidence to get a Front Page story about it.
(Score: 4, Informative) by julian on Monday February 08 2016, @09:19PM
That's some powerful crowbarring.
It's not at all. These incestuous cliques are hugely congruent in their ideology, goals, and membership. Github's practices are firmly within the scope of #GamerGate. You can be forgiven for not understanding this if you haven't been very actively involved; there's a lot to take in about a subject that most people frankly don't find very interesting. That's fine too, but then your position needs to be one of admitted and humble ignorance instead of speaking about things you don't sufficiently understand.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 08 2016, @09:21PM
Read the racist bitch's statements. She hates white people. She hates male whites. No crowbar necessary to include the racist shit from Gamergate into this conversation.
I have nothing but contempt for SJW's, no matter where they are busy turning the world into an open latrine. "Punish whitey, let's get everyoen else in here, but no whites!"
Things may or may not be pushed far enough to spark violence. It wouldn't be that very difficult to do, at this point.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @10:33PM
"If it's white, it just ain't right!" -- Nicole "Cracker Smacker" Sanchez
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @12:45AM
If it weren't for your 4th word, you'd almost come across as reasonable.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 09 2016, @02:12AM
Ask any black person who suffered at the hands of a hateful white mob. Reason doesn't apply with racist bigots.
Are you going to pretend that no woman is a bitch?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @03:01AM
Are you referring to yourself as a racist bigot?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 09 2016, @03:06AM
RTFA - the female dog who is the subject of the article hates white people. She is a racist bigot. Grow up.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 10 2016, @12:18AM
Are you going to pretend that no woman is a bitch?
Slut (n):
1. A woman who will have sex with anyone;
Bitch (n):
1. A woman who will have sex with anyone except you;
Feeling a little neglected, Runaway?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @04:03AM
With Runaway, it is always about sex, the bitches, the unborn children, and vastly underestimated populations of China. SJWs surround you, Runaway. I suggest you run away, while you still can. Otherwise all us SJWs will have no choice but to violate you. (Wait a minute! Is that what you are trying to provoke? Oh you sly dog, you!)
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday February 09 2016, @03:12PM
Is this really the level of discourse we're aiming for here at Soylent?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 09 2016, @03:45PM
Well, you take the high road, and I'll take whichever road I happen to take. Allow me to make my statement more palatable to your sensitive senses. A racist is undeserving of basic human respect. Thus, the woman who hates white people is equal with any redneck who hates Negros just because they are black. Said people are all on a level with beasts, such as dogs.
Now, may I invite you to climb down off of your high horse, and condemn this subsentient being as she properly deserves?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday February 09 2016, @05:02PM
Or, perhaps you could make an actual argument instead of just ad-hominem slander. If she's such a racist, why don't you attempt to prove that point. Post some of those smoking-gun quotes you claim exist.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 10 2016, @02:17AM
RTFA, often? She claims that it's difficult to even talk to white people.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday February 08 2016, @09:29PM
Dude, you just need to let it go. People pretty obviously know now that GamerGate wasn't and isn't the problem. It was a reaction to these shorts of awful people. I'm not saying you have to like it or defend GamerGate, but stop deflecting whenever people point out how awful some people pretending to be for "social justice" are.
I don't even think social justice itself is that bad, but there are some shit people using it to cover for being awful hypocrites. Just don't defend THEM, you're not responsible for them or their actions even if you share some of their ideals.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @10:19PM
People pretty obviously know now that GamerGate wasn't and isn't the problem. It was a reaction to these shorts of awful people.
Wait, I thought it was about ethics in game journalism! Now its about awful people. So... gamergate was about you? Given how how much venerate it, I guess that's no surprise.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday February 08 2016, @10:31PM
Ethics in journalism includes people colluding to push agendas, such as cis-white-males are all misogynists. or supporting some game devs because they're your friends and support your cause while not giving coverage or intentionally negative coverage to people that don't fall into your clique.
I'm not sure what I've said that makes me an awful person. I've even stated I don't have issues with social justice or feminist, I just have an issue with some people that use those ideologies to push their personal bigotries without criticism. I'm just a gamer/tech person that's sick of being told, for over 30 years, I'm the bane of the universe because, through no fault of my own, I was born.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @10:41PM
> I'm not sure what I've said that makes me an awful person. I've even stated I don't have issues with social justice or feminist,
You know, just because you say something doesn't make it true. Your posts are all unintentional self-revelations. Or really the same revelation over and over again like a little bigotted robot, a little bigbot!
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday February 08 2016, @11:12PM
I have no idea what it is you're saying, but I'm happy to listen if you'd like to explain it to me. It'd certainly be more productive than you continuing to follow me around making incoherent snide comments to only make people I'm arguing with look bad. It's kind of unfair to them when people assume some random troll is them with no relevant argument.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @11:54PM
> I have no idea what it is you're saying
Correct! You are incapable of self-awareness. That's what makes your tirades so fucking amusing!
> It's kind of unfair to them when people assume some random troll is them with no relevant argument.
It's no less fair than some random troll refusing to acknowledge any relevant counter-arguments. Since you lack self-awareness, I'll spell it out: That's you.
Sometimes when you wrestle with a pig you decide: Fuck it! Let's see just how much fun I can have getting the pig dirty!
(Score: 1, Troll) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 09 2016, @04:06AM
You know, just because you say something doesn't make it true. Your posts are all unintentional self-revelations.
I just want to repeat this, because it is so true. (Nota Bene: Repeating doesn't make it true, but being true makes it worth repeating.)
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @11:04PM
I don't even think social justice itself is that bad,
You would if you knew more about it's true origins and goals. [youtube.com]
The same can be said of Feminism. [youtube.com]
Suddenly all those people fighting against these manufactured cultural conflicts start making sense. Perhaps they're not racist for disagreeing with the George Soros funded #BlackLivesMatter subversive agenda after all... but I digress.
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Tuesday February 09 2016, @06:31AM
[B]eing against racism is a liberal value.
No it's not. Liberal means to advocate for changes to the status quo. Most people oppose "racism" (despite it not meaning anything), so opposing it is status quo, that is conservative by definition.
Liberal does not mean "everything I like and feel self-righteous-metro about", despite that everyone self describing with the term seems to wish that it did. Eventually if liberal positions are adopted they become conservative positions and stop being liberal positions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @02:52PM
I think the word you're looking for there is "progressive".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by gman003 on Monday February 08 2016, @09:31PM
There is a heuristic that I have found to be surprisingly accurate.
If someone describes themself as a "SJW", they are probably not worth listening to because they place too much emphasis on words rather than deeds - someone who thinks that their "raising awareness" helps solve a problem. That's bullshit, and it's an idea of the lazy and stupid.
If someone is described by others as a "SJW" (and they do not primarily identify themselves as such), their ideas are probably worth at least considering. They may not be right (the heuristic is not about correctness, only whether they're even worth bothering with), but they're at least doing something that's making others take notice. And, usually, pissing them off - and if someone's taking enough action to piss someone off, they're generally not in the above group.
If someone chooses to describe their political opponent as a "SJW", they are generally not worth listening to. You don't declare your nemesis to be on the side of justice if you have some better descriptor for them, or think one is needed. It's the kind of insult only used by those who are so accustomed to groupthink and tribalism that they don't even see the need for actual reasons. To this sort of person, "SJW" is basically just a label for "the other tribe" - someone for whom no reason is needed to hate or fight. This is also an idea of the lazy and stupid - less lazy than the first group, but even more stupid for basing their own identity on what they are not, rather than what they are.
PS: I look forward to angry responses proving my point for me.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday February 08 2016, @09:52PM
Your first two points were some food for thought.
When I hear people use "SJW" as an insult, I interpret their meaning as "a group of people who have decreed that their viewpoint is the correct one and all others must fall in line with it; if not they are immoral and should be ostracized. we have no time to even listen to their arguments because we know they're wrong."
People in general are shitty. Yay picking sides!
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by julian on Monday February 08 2016, @10:02PM
You don't declare your nemesis to be on the side of justice if you have some better descriptor for them, or think one is needed
I absolutely understand where you are coming from. I don't like the term for aesthetic and tactical reasons. It's inflammatory, and needlessly so. Still, it clearly describes something that needs a name. I actually like the new term "regressive left" or just regressives, to describe left-leaning authoritarians who are against Western Civilization and the values of the Enlightenment. I try not to use the term SJW whenever it can be avoided. Usually you can just sub in regressive left without any other changes.
That term didn't come about to denigrate social justice itself, which is on the face of it a laudable collection of goals. Everyone on the left is, in some capacity, concerned with fairness and equality, that's why we're liberals. The term is critical of people who are militantly intolerant of having their own ideological assumptions questioned--which is a deeply illiberal position to take. It's critical of people who are cult-like in their hatred of people with different politics.
(Score: 2) by Post-Nihilist on Monday February 08 2016, @10:14PM
Thank, you for giving me the correct terminology:the regressive left, this is exactly what i should have said since using that acronym was a first to me and frankly it had a bad aftertaste.
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 08 2016, @11:00PM
SJW is quicker to say/type. cp, cd, rm, dd, cat, man, etc... There is much precedent for brevity by preference in this particular community.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Post-Nihilist on Monday February 08 2016, @11:15PM
I now mostly work in a language where there is a strong fetishism for long terminologically correct strings of qualified nouns typed in camel case ... but as i do not wish to start another flame-war I will refrain from naming it.
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 2) by julian on Monday February 08 2016, @11:36PM
Ruby or Objective-C
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday February 09 2016, @02:28AM
I thought he meant ECMAScript, there being no language more flamewarsy. I dunno about Obective-C, but I think Rubyists tend to shy away from camelCase.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by gman003 on Monday February 08 2016, @11:00PM
See, here's another problem. You're making extremely broad claims that, as a whole, sound very critical but I don't think it really describes the situation.
The social justice movement is, in many ways, trying to achieve the goals that Enlightenment set but failed to achieve. Egalitarianism is basically the key principle of the social justice movement. Equality based on gender, on race, on social class, it's all about eroding any remaining disadvantages one might have because of circumstances beyond your control (which necessarily involves eliminating any advantages some other group might have - possibly by giving everyone access to that advantage, but still eliminating it). This is in principle the most meritocratic system possible, because all that is left to judge on is actual ability.
Now, that's the principle. I think pretty much any described-by-others SJW would agree with that, as would any non-retarded self-described SJWs (being a movement with more than one person in it, it of course has some fucking idiots involved). I also think most liberal-leaning anti-SJWs would agree with those goals, yourself included.
The movement has run into certain problems. Due to a lack of forward progress, the popular bulk of the movement has dived too readily into the-ends-justify-the-means - things that go against the principles in general, in order to support those principles on specific battlegrounds. Winning the battle to lose the war, as it were. Obviously, I'm referring to things such as the original article (yay, we're not completely off-topic!) or quotas or whatnot.
I honestly can't tell anymore if most self-described SJWs realize that such things are, at best, a necessary evil (and at worst, simply wrong). There's so much noise that I can't tell if the idiot trend-followers are a vocal minority or a lazy majority. I'm fairly certain that most described-by-others SJWs are conscious of how problematic such things are - treating them as, at best, stopgap measures until the core cultural problem is solved (and there are quite a few who are outright against such things).
Anyways, to get back to actually responding to your post... I think the crucial piece of information that the label "regressive left" fails to transmit is the dissonance between the group's goals and their means. Their goals, at least as I enumerated them above, are hardly regressive at all. They're probably more worthy of the "progressive" label than any other active movement. However, you are right in that many of the methods that are being used, nominally to further those goals, instead go directly against them.
I do agree that we need a better name. My own proposal is "cargo cult liberalism" - although this describes purely the "self-described SJWs" I categorized before, and doesn't include the misguided described-by-others SJWs who are perhaps a greater long-term threat.
(Score: 2, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 08 2016, @11:03PM
Bull. Shit.
The social justice movement spits in the eye of egalitarians with its every breath. There is not one single position they take that is egalitarian in nature.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by gman003 on Monday February 08 2016, @11:41PM
Well, I could once again demand you produce evidence to support your vitriolic claims, but since you can't prove the absence, I suppose I must search myself to prove you wrong. Fortunately you're claiming an absolute, and I don't even think it can be written off as simple hyperbole. A single counterexample ought to be enough to prove you incorrect.
So I did a simple internet search for "social justice manifesto", to see what SJWs claim as their own positions. This [wordpress.com] was the second result (the top result was, a bit bizarrely, an Indian political party. I'll link to it for completeness [aamaadmiparty.org] but I skipped it as being distinct from the specific movement at hand). And out of five primary elements, two seem inarguably egalitarian to me:
"A concerted attack on damaging social divisions in society – based for example on class, race, gender, and location – which result in exclusion, ill-health and premature death."
"A universal child benefit and a universal basic pension paid at a level that enables full participation in society."
Because I'm honestly not sure you know what words mean sometimes, Wiktionary defines "egalitarianism" [wiktionary.org] as:
"The political doctrine that holds that all people in a society should have equal rights from birth"
Huh. "Universal child benefit" is pretty egalitarian. So is removing "damaging social divisions".
So yeah, that pretty much proves your absolute wrong. You'll obviously make up some excuse to not accept it (obvious moves: declare your prior claim hyperbole, declare that source to not a true scotsman^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HSJW, or move the goalposts), because you're trying to use evidence to prove your a priori belief right, rather than examine evidence to become right, but I expect third parties will see through that pretty transparently.
Oh, and to ward off one last criticism: I did attempt a search for "social justice warrior manifesto", but it returned nothing but anti-SJW think pieces/incoherent rants (supporting my heuristic about self-described vs. described-by-others SJWs). If we're allow enemies to be the ones to define their opponent's beliefs, I'll obviously have to stop using logic and start coming up with despicable positions for you to be supporting.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 08 2016, @11:47PM
Which would be a valid argument if what they claimed and what they did were in any way related.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday February 09 2016, @12:01AM
...
Well, you managed to find a less obvious goalpost to move, at least - going from "position they take" to "thing they do". That was unexpected, at least - I was hoping that, by describing such things as "obvious", you'd be goaded into actual, rational debate, but it seems that is not to be.
If I manage to prove you wrong even with this new bar for proof, will you actually change your mind? I see little point in continuing to argue with a brick wall, but there's still that faint sliver of hope that you might start to actually think.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 09 2016, @01:54AM
Ah, you want me to tell you why you were wrong then not why I am right. Okay.
A manifesto that proclaims the precise opposite of what you actually do does not make your organization a good one, it just makes you liars as well as the divisive hatemongers that you already were.
This again is diametrically opposed by actual egalitarianism. Egalitarianism does not require that you steal from those with more than you. It requires you treat their natural right to what they have produced as sacrosanctly as your own. Or are you going to pull out the tired old "for the children" argument and appeal to my emotions rather than my reason?
So, yeah, you've proven nothing except your own inability at reading comprehension and logic.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday February 09 2016, @02:21AM
And you have proven that you don't understand the difference between a universal pension and "basic income".
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 09 2016, @02:39AM
A) Everyone is given money simply for being alive.
B) Everyone is given money simply for being alive.
What difference, precisely?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday February 09 2016, @02:53AM
Pension, noun. An annuity paid regularly as benefit due to a retired employee, serviceman etc. in consideration of past services, originally and chiefly by a government but also by various private pension schemes. [wiktionary.org]
Retire, verb, intransitive. To stop working on a permanent basis, usually because of old age or illness. [wiktionary.org]
So no, not "simply for being alive". For being alive, and having worked (and under most pension systems, worked for a majority of your useful life), and now being unable to work due to conditions (for now) beyond human control.
Getting rewarded for doing a hard job, well. Gee, that sounds almost meritocratic. Isn't that another thing you claim SJWs are universally against?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 09 2016, @03:00AM
Sounds fine. We get to put everyone receiving it in jail for receiving stolen goods, yes? The government doesn't just get to shit that money, it first has to steal it from the people who actually earned it. Keeping what you earn is meritocratic, anything else is piling up a stack of bullshit, slapping a dress on it, and taking it to the prom.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday February 09 2016, @03:09AM
Is that how far you'll go just to avoid admitting you were wrong, or do you really oppose any and all taxation as matter of principle? Because that's the only way I can think of for your philosophy to have any sort of internal consistency.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 09 2016, @11:32AM
All involuntary taxation, yes. There are plenty of ways to raise money without stealing it, even for governments.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday February 09 2016, @01:34PM
So you expect to run a country off donations? Or do you have something in mind that would actually work in the real world?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 09 2016, @02:48PM
Bonds would work nicely if you could count on the government to reliably stick within its budget so they wouldn't lose value to a tanking dollar faster than they gained it off interest. Lottery is also an option that works well for many states and Indian tribes. Those are already implemented and proven methods. I'm sure we could come up with plenty more given the need.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Wednesday February 10 2016, @06:02PM
Well, that's the first actually interesting idea you've proposed. It took me quite some time to ponder it, because although I'm forced to conclude it's unworkable, it is at least a good idea to have had. It's the kind of idea that shouldn't have been discarded without lengthy consideration... so I considered it at length. (If any economist somehow reads this, please note that I'm not a trained economist, so I may be misusing terminology or expressing my ideas wrongly, but I am fairly confident my ideas are correct).
Bonds are not sustainable without some other form of government income, because they necessarily cost more in the long run than they bring in, except in very devolved scenarios. Consider by example:
Let us assume that we can trim the entire government budget down to $1T, to make the math easy. And let's also assume that this is fixed - we have no rise in actual expenses, as you helpfully specified. And let's assume we have no other income for the government - your proposal includes a lottery, but I'll explain later why that's small enough to be ignored.
So year one, the government issues $1T in bonds. (For more simplicity, let's make them mature in 10 years for double the value, much like current T-bills).
Years two through nine look much the same as year one. However, when we reach year ten, the payout for the first year's bonds is coming up, so now we need to issue $3T, not $1T, in bonds. Years eleven through eighteen then look much the same as year ten.
Then we hit year nineteen, and now $3T is coming due, not $1T, so we need to issue $7T ($6T to cover the bonds, and $1T for actual expenses). And so on ad infinitum. Every decade, the fraction of income devoted to paying off former debt increased, asymptotically approaching 100%.
But that is without inflation. As a first-order approximation over the long term, we can calculate 100% inflation per decade - so the effective value of the bonds is zero, it's just storing actual value. Were this the only source of inflation, we'd be overestimating it, but there *are* other causes of inflation so we can just skip recursive analysis.
However, that changes our previous budget estimates. Year 10 needs nominal $2T in actual-spending (equal in value to $1T in Y1 dollars), and $2T in paying off bonds. Then year 20 needs nominal $4T in actual-spending and $4T in paying off bonds. So we've hit exponential growth of the budget.
So what is 100% inflation per decade? A bit over 7% per year. That's actually not quite as impossible as I was expecting, it's within the realm of possible with sustained economic growth, but it's going to require extreme handholding of the economy, which I suspect you're opposed to on principle. Even the current US government considers 7% too high to be managed, so we'd need almost Chinese-style central planning, which even I consider too much. And even if we were willing to tolerate 7% inflation per year, and the massive central planning necessary to make it work, it would *still* be a bad idea because even a small spike in inflation from other sources causes a complete collapse of the government's budget. One failure and it's a default. So then next year you must cover two year's bonds being paid off, and who would buy bonds from a government that failed just last year to repay their debt?
I did say I would come back to the lottery thing, and so I will. Both bonds and the lottery work by offering a potential value in excess of their cost. However, with lottery tickets, the expected value is almost always lower than the face cost, while bonds are essentially a gamble that the yield will be greater than inflation (which is why our first-order estimate was yield=inflation, because if it were consistently lower, nobody would buy them).
Therefore, bonds appeal to sane actors, and thus can be managed by simple economic models. Lotteries simply would not function if everyone acted in their economic best interest - and I think basing the operations of your entire system of government on people acting irrationally is a poor idea. Governments should never have an incentive to make their population stupid.
But more to the point, while both lotteries and bonds have an upper limit based on how many people are willing to participate, lotteries will hit that limit first because, because "people who are bad with money" have far less money (both individually and collectively) than "people who are good with money". In an ideal future where the government (either through positive action or simply by stepping out of the way) raises the average intelligence continually, the funding that can be gained from a lottery will approach and eventually pass zero. Since we're looking for steady-state behavior, we can thus safely treat it as zero.
I'm also not sure what the actual difference is from taxation. Economics, like thermodynamics, has conservation laws. Value cannot be created, only transformed. I'm a bit shaky on economics at this level, but I suspect this plan has the same effect as a fixed-percentage income tax, with the "value" being taken from all people (not just those who buy bonds) via the artificial increase in inflation.
The difference, of course, being that an income tax is relatively stable, whereas your bonds plan will plunge us into anarchy at the first hint of a recession.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday February 10 2016, @07:20PM
Which is why bonds and a lottery would only be pieces of a solution, not a solution in and of themselves. There's also the option of allowing the federal government to practice limited amounts of competing against private industry. Infrastructure building for instance. They'd have a very strong incentive to build the hell out of infrastructure and sell/lease it for profit. There are sales taxes on non-necessities where the purchasing thereof and thus paying of the tax is still voluntary. That's just off the top of my head. There are undoubtedly other ways that intelligent people can come up with short of outright theft.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Wednesday February 10 2016, @07:34PM
I think that's much more dangerous than just using taxes. It gives the government a STRONG incentive to impede private industry - which I'm pretty sure we can both agree is a Bad Thing.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday February 10 2016, @11:19PM
Indeed but in the infrastructure, and probably a very few limited other areas, it would most definitely be some welcome competition. At the very least someone would be laying fiber.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @01:29PM
I don't think the goalposts were really moved.
Claim: There is not one single position they *take* that is egalitarian in nature.
Refutation: see what SJWs *claim* as their own positions
To refute the claim, you'd need to provide evidence of a position taken (as in, actually egalitarian *actions*), not just claimed to be taken.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 09 2016, @04:21AM
Which would be a valid argument if what they claimed and what they did were in any way related.
This from a Soylentil who has a sig all about weiners and his "johnson"? Take it to heart, Mighty Buzz! If you think that these bugabear Warriors of Justice, Social, are only what you fear and not what they say they are, despite the fact that they do not exist, are you really saying anything more than "The President is Black!" Yep, in your mouth.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 09 2016, @11:31AM
♫ All we are saying, is take off your pants ♫
* Sung to the tune of Give Peace a Chance *
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by julian on Tuesday February 09 2016, @12:04AM
The problem isn't with the goals. They can begin by saying "people should have equal rights from birth" which is a good starting point, and then they end up with "white men to the back of the queue, and anyone who disagrees is a racist/misogynist"--which is absolutely not true to the original goal of equality. There's a tortured and convoluted thought process joining those two statements but the more you inspect it the more it unravels. It's a tangled root-ball of moral relativism, self-hate, misandric feminism, racism, and authoritarian bigotry.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by CirclesInSand on Tuesday February 09 2016, @10:45AM
Egalitarian is a word used to mean equal legal requirements and rights.
Social Justice is an ambiguous term, but usually used to mean equal equal social or economic standing.
The two are in contradiction with each other. If you have 10 sports teams of different ability, they can't all have the same expectation of winning unless they are playing under different rules. Egalitarian seeks to equalize the rules at the expense of equal outcomes, social justice (again, ambiguous, but under usual usage) seeks to equalize the outcome at the expense of uniformity of rules.
Proponents of egalitarian standards often believe that attempts to create and implement multiple sets of rules for different economic and social groups is a Pandora's Box that results in either exacerbated economic inequality or misery for everyone involved.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Tuesday February 09 2016, @11:53AM
That's probably the best description of the situation I've heard in the last year.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Tuesday February 09 2016, @12:49AM
Still, it clearly describes something that needs a name.
So if it needs a name, why not use the accepted one, SJW. Everybody knows what is being referred to and that is the point of language for the Right. We use language to communicate ideas clearly. On the Left the use of language is to not speak clearly, which is why they use NewSpeak. We should demand political debate use language as clear and unambiguous as an RFC even if a delicate snowflake gets triggered occasionally. If the emotionally unstable can't handle adult conversation the solution is to tell them to disengage, not to demand everyone restrict their communication to avoid triggering a child. (where 'child' these days can include a 40y/o intersectional studies major who hasn't managed to graduate yet)
It also has the bonus of being historically accurate. "Social Justice" has been a thing for a longtime. A quick search in Kirk's _The Conservative Mind_ (one advantage of ebooks vs paper, especially paper without a very good index) gets a first hit on a reference to it in use as early as 1889, and by the usage it assumes all readers already know what it means. The SJWs themselves were calling themselves "Social Justice Warriors" and "Warriors|Crusaders for Social Justice" and variations for at least a decade or two. It was when their opponents distilled it down to an acronym, gave it a negative connotation and managed to make that negative meaning stick that they suddenly declared it problematic. Just like the rotation between Communist, Socialist, Progressive, Liberal, and back to Progressive as people associated a word with failed policy and suddenly calling someone that word, a word any search will turn up thousands of hits on the target associating themselves with, was suddenly impolite. When you are taking return fire it only means you are over a defended target so pour it in.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 09 2016, @04:33AM
So if it needs a name, why not use the accepted one, SJW. Everybody knows what is being referred to and that is the point of language for the Right.
And this is why you fail! "Death tax"? "Trickle down"? All these Frank Luntz attempts at the Big Lie technique are well past their sell-by date. No one knows what is being referred to by the "SJW" appellation, other than Right-wing nut-jobs disagree with whatever it is that it is supposed to mean. At least when you say "right-wing nut-job" people say, "Oh, you mean like jmorris?". So at least that term has reference.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday February 09 2016, @04:56AM
Like I said, right over the target! So BOMBS AWAY!
No one knows what is being referred to by the "SJW" appellation...
Oh, I see. You are just trying to stop us from looking foolish when we start talking about something nobody will know what the heck we are going on about. Riiight. Totally believe that one. Those who have been under a rock and didn't read anything about GamerGate, the kerfluffle over the Hugo awards, any other story about political correctness run amok in the last year or so where the term has moved into mainstream usage and has managed to not watch the last season of South Park AND plus on top of all that are so dim witted can't figure it out from the context or use that new fangled Google thing. So other than the more low info of your fellow Prog drones, everyone else should be up to speed enough to follow the conversation.
If the term didn't cause pain you would not squeal so loudly. If using it actually harmed the speaker you would be keeping your trap shut and allowing your enemies to self immolate.
And this is why you fail! "Death tax"?
You die, the government taxes it. Death Tax, a tax on dying. Where does this chain of logic break down over in your universe?
"Trickle down"? All these Frank Luntz attempts...
Did your mother drop you when you were a baby? Trickle down a Luntz creation? It was popularized long before Mr. Luntz entered political life. "Trickle down" probably originated with Will Rogers and is a disparaging term used by Progs to discredit Laissez faire economics.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 09 2016, @05:17AM
You die, the government taxes it. Death Tax, a tax on dying. Where does this chain of logic break down over in your universe?
What, pray tell, is the return address on your tax form when you have to file this "death tax"? Next you will be insisting that the Tea(bagger) Party was a real thing and not just a Dick Armey! Oh, jmorris, you are soo funny! Point remains, however, SJW is a meaningless apellation. Political correctness just means being polite in pubic venues. Taxes are the price we pay for civilization. Never let a good man down. And buy low and sell high. Reagan is dead.
(Score: 2) by julian on Wednesday February 10 2016, @07:28PM
Conservatives think that when you die with outstanding tax debt and the Govt takes what you owe from your estate that this is a "death tax".
As for political correctness, it's not mere politeness; it's enforced politeness with some very nasty consequences for trespassing those fluid rules of etiquette. The rules are also defined by a group who is hostile and bigoted against men, Europeans, Western Enlightenment values, political conservatives, those who oppose Islamism, and many others in a growing list of unpersons.
I'm not against politeness in general, broadly construed. I am against attacking someone's career, private life, and ability to function in society for violating those rules. If someone is rude to me, I avoid them, and that's all I have any right to do. I don't launch a crusade to excommunicate them from civilization. I see the regressive left doing this all the time now and it's disturbing. There are even times when I myself want to be impolite impolitic for effect. There's a place for it, and we're poorer culturally if we lose that option in the name of comfort.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @04:21AM
"The regressive left" - not bad, but I usually just call them "the professionally offended".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday February 09 2016, @01:23AM
That said, it's a very concise term that refers to a very well defined group and everyone knows what we mean. I really don't see it as a slur because it adopts their own language - in fact if I'm not mistaken they actually invented the term themselves. Certainly it's exactly what they portray themselves as - warriors for 'social justice.' That's what they act like. And that's exactly what's wrong with them.
We don't need "social justice" just "justice" is fine please. "Social justice" is what you call it when you don't actually want justice, you just want your socialist demands to be *viewed* as just, because you know that will make it more likely that people bend to your demands. And frankly we don't need warriors either, we have quite enough of those as well. Instead of social justice warriors, let's have people of peace promoting real justice through reason and understanding.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 10 2016, @07:48AM
Since when? I've been asking for months for somebody to tell me what an "SJW" is, and the best answer I can come up with based on how its used is "anyone who disagrees with the one calling another an SJW". If thats not the case, I would love for you to tell me to which group this refers and what it means. Should be easy, right, since its such a very well defined group that everyone but me apparently knows what it means?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @02:33AM
> You don't declare your nemesis to be on the side of justice
"Social Justice" != "social justice"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 10 2016, @07:52AM
Well there's your problem, you're using words but intending them to mean something completely different from their actual meaning. I believe this would fall under a dog-whistle slur.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @10:51PM
Yeah but if I call them fucktards like I want to not everyone knows who I'm talking about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 10 2016, @08:02AM
But they do know who you're talking about when you call them "SJW"? Because I sure don't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 10 2016, @06:46PM
But they do know who you're talking about when you call them "SJW"? Because I sure don't.
The fact that you can't figure out word's meanings from context clues with a backup of google on your side is nothing to be proud of son.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NullPtr on Monday February 08 2016, @08:20PM
> made change my views from being indifferent to being on the anti-SJW side wrt #gamersgate
If you side with the fucking idiot side of gamergame then it makes you a fucking idiot.
Surely the right side to be on is the side that is fair, and just, and in favour of equality, and freedom, and non-harassing people, and not making up shit like "it's something to do with journalism". Game journalism is nothing to do with proper journalism; it's just people writing about video games. The whole industry could disappear tomorrow and it would make fuck all difference to anything (as opposed to journalism, where people break stories that have a tangible effect on reality resulting in laws being changes, politicians losing their jobs etc).
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Post-Nihilist on Monday February 08 2016, @08:34PM
well, as far as I kown, the fucking idiots viewpoint is summarized as
1-The rise of moral crusaders, with little to no opposition from the gaming media.
2-Accusations that gamers are “anti-inclusive,” despite ample evidence that this is not the case.
3-Demonization, mischaracterization, and abuse from members of the press.
4-An inability to discuss any of the above issues on many popular online communities.
5-A press that fails to report on both sides of a contentious story.
After reading through issue opal-942, those points look pretty accurate generalizing gaming to technology.
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday February 08 2016, @09:22PM
And the opal issue isn't even the half of it. That whole mess was manufactured and discusting, but even now the same people are involved in trying to have technically inclined people ousted from their own projects. The same women, Coraline Ada, who created the Contributor's Convenient and has also advocated to have Yukihiro Matsumoto, creator of Ruby, removed from the "community" management aspect of Ruby [twitter.com]. Also interesting the Kurtis guy who made the original accusation of transphobia [twitter.com] against Elia Schito of Opal, is also involved [twitter.com]. There's a pretty clear group of shit disturbers here who are pushing to use CoC to throw out anyone they personally disagree with. Another one recently has been Randi Harper [reddit.com]
Completely by chance all these people are "anti-GamerGate" eh.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @09:33PM
Vanderhoth!
Vanderhoth!
Here he comes to save the day!
And he will prove that SJW's must always pay!
So let the trumpet players play
For Vanderhoth is here today!
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Monday February 08 2016, @10:25PM
This couldn't be modded high enough if it went to 11.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @10:31PM
> This couldn't be modded high enough if it went to -1.
FTFY
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2016, @04:32AM
Surely the right side to be on is the side that is fair, and just, and in favour of equality, and freedom, and non-harassing people, and not making up shit like "it's something to do with journalism".
This is such an absurd and biased way to frame the issue that I originally thought you were parodying people who believe they are the only intelligent ones on the planet and everyone else is an idiot. Good work.
(Score: 2) by NullPtr on Tuesday February 09 2016, @10:06AM
To be clear, you seriously believe gamergate is about improving the quality of journalism?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 10 2016, @06:52PM
To be clear you frame the issue in a way that shows your ignorance of the issue beneath a thin veneer of snottishness?
(Score: 2) by NullPtr on Wednesday February 10 2016, @07:03PM
I'm well aware of the issue. I notice most of the people defending the retarded, undereducated bigots who harass women and pretend that 1) the issue is about game journalism and 2) game journalism is an issue worth even commenting on, let alone attempting to change, post on forums anonymously.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @08:23PM
Really? What is it with you types who think linking to 400+ comment threads and hour long youtube videos is informative? Who the fuck has time to dig through all that crap on the off chance that you aren't one of the perennially indignant? Its to the point where citing a source like that is a pretty good counter-indication that you have a legitimate point.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Monday February 08 2016, @09:07PM
That's the sort of copy-pasta of the GP that gets scrolled right past, although acknowledges their passion for the subject.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Post-Nihilist on Monday February 08 2016, @10:39PM
The only copy paste involved was between my browser history and the comment box; I stumbled unto that cesspool this weekend, trying to get some answer on why would anyone be opposed to a meritocracy after reading an article linking the management problems at GitHub to the removal of the meritocracy rug from GitHub headquarter main lobby.
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 2, Funny) by GungnirSniper on Monday February 08 2016, @11:04PM
What? You expect us to actually read the comments we reply to? ~
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday February 09 2016, @04:44AM
What? You expect us to actually read the comments we reply to? ~
Ease up, the kid's new here. He'll learn after a while.
(Score: 2) by nukkel on Monday February 08 2016, @08:27PM
:(
reminds me of the crusader who tried to eliminate "master/slave" terminology
https://www.drupal.org/node/2275877 [drupal.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @10:51PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @11:46PM
Waaait, this is the one who wrote the code of conduct that specifically said meritocracy should be destroyed, right?