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If you bring up UBI, or other reforms, you'll inevitably get someone who brings up: "voting yourself someone else's money".
You could convince me, except that things have gotten to an absurd state.
I look at some graphs of wealth inequality and it is unimaginably shocking. I never dreamed it could be this bad. More than 50% of the US wealth is owned by 5% of the people. [1] 35% is owned by only 1% of the population.
This image from this article also tells the story.
I'm not going to argue how accurate those numbers are. Rather, I will extrapolate the trend.
Let's continue the current trend to its logical absurd conclusion. The entire planet is owned by one single person. You (and everyone else) are one of the wage slaves in the bottom 99.99999999 % of the population (at least 8 decimal places). [7.5 billion people, minus that one person who owns everything, then divided by 7.5 billion people.]
Naturally, we should respect property ownership. Somehow this one person deserves and "earned" the wealth of the entire planet through his hard and diligent efforts and deserves to own everything and everyone. It is absurd on its face.
At this logical endpoint, it clearly seems that the rest of the planet should seize the wealth of the one person.
Wealth transfer has already happened. And is still happening. Republicans are just fine with this as long as it is all trickling upward.
Yes, "voting yourself someone else's money" involves taking away some of the absurd amounts of wealth hoarded up by a few. Amounts of individual wealth that one person couldn't spend in a lifetime; then leaves to others, who themselves can't spend it in their lifetime.
Not as a proposal, but just to make a point, hypothetically, if all of these people who exceed this threshold had their net worth capped at $100 Million, they would still be just fine. Yes, really! They would still live in fabulous homes, drive fabulous cars, and eat whatever they wanted, travel wherever and whenever they wanted -- for the rest of their natural lives.
In case my "one man owns the world" didn't get the idea across, I'll be more blunt. Any time too few people have owned way, way too much, and too many had nothing, there is always an uprising. I'm not proposing an uprising. I'm merely warning it is inevitable. Hopefully not in my lifetime. Maybe it would be better to solve this peacefully where the wealthiest, while heavily taxed, still end up, after taxes, fabulously wealthy beyond the dreams of most everyone else. I'm not proposing reducing all the rich people's wealth to some cap. Just that they should pay their fair share. Why are they the ones who get the tax cuts?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 28 2020, @02:27AM (11 children)
We've had this discussion before about my imaginary "bad faith". It's the same every time. You never can mention a single real world example of it and why it's supposed to be bad faith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 28 2020, @03:24AM
I think we have found khallow's problem.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 28 2020, @03:47AM (3 children)
Exqueeze me? Baking powder?
That sounds sociopathic, which matches your approach to human civilization.
Azuma was replying to Runaway's politics which harms the most vulnerable people under the guise of the prosperity gospel, where rich is equated with good, power with righteousness.
Your entire contribution to the argument was
You ignore the reality of people in need, people actively able and willing to WORK, and you pretend they don't deserve help. They don't deserve the opportunity to do the best they can with their lives, because some people would rather have a few more gold coins in their vault.
Top kek trying to preemptively mount the high road after yet another bout of intellectual failure by doing exactly what you accuse Azuma of doing. At least she had a real point, old people tend to forget how many of their friends and family rely on medicare.
Wrapping up -
So you didn't understand Azuma's point, brought in some petty insults, and declared yourself winner. -.- ;
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 28 2020, @04:32AM (2 children)
I see two things here. First, you drop down into yet another irrelevant narrative just like Azuma does. In a post, we ignore a billion irrelevant realities because we can't say everything about everything. Second, you too ignore the reality of the same list of shit you just scolded me on, because you too can't say everything about everything.
No I didn't. That was the point. As to her point, she didn't have one. It's the usual say something when you have nothing to say garbage. Just like you did here. Finally, since the rest of your post isn't worth bothering with:
Your inability to perceive is not my sociopathy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 28 2020, @10:29PM (1 child)
Said better than I could
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=40308&page=1&cid=1070118#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
You are not worth arguing with, the only response is always "no because muh dumb points"
Why argue with true believers? Really no point in it when verifialke reality is ignored in favor of fake news bullshit.
To draw a comparison, Loyder with Crowder did a podcast on some glacier expanding and declared "checkmate libs" while totally ignoring the global trend of ice loss. Cherry picked examples is all you have left because reality is asserting itself. You are free to be a crowder head here on SN, but you should expect to be mocked mercilessly for such bullshit tactics and bad faith arguing.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 29 2020, @01:39PM
In other words, you have nothing to say, but you have to say it anyway. Those "muh dumb points" are why I believe what I believe. I'm not going to change my mind just because you've noticed that I have reasons for my beliefs.
You haven't addressed them then, and continue not to address them now, leading to lack of change in "muh dumb points". What's the point of complaining that someone doesn't agree when there's no reason for them to agree with you?
So what? Remarks that boil down to "muh dumb points" or (as in the above linked post) "I haven't placed any argument before you this time." aren't criticism that will stick. They are noise. I would start with the observation that there is more than one glacier and go from there (# glaciers that are advancing versus # of glaciers that are retreating).
I use cherry picked examples when someone makes universal statements. It shows those statements are false. That's how logic works. If someone were to say "all glaciers are retreating", which is the sort of universal statement, then noting that some glaciers aren't is a valid point though it may not be enough to reverse the argument. If they say "most glaciers are retreating", then cherry picking glaciers that are retreating doesn't affect the argument.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday October 28 2020, @09:47AM (5 children)
Please, you have your head so far up your own ass you can taste that cheeseburger your grandpa ate at the 1972 Memorial Day cookout. And now even random-ass ACs (WHY won't these people register? I don't have enough mod points to bump insightul comments up from far enough!) are dissecting your bullshit piece by piece.
Refusing to understand something doesn't make it wrong, any more than locking yourself in a windowless basement and scribbling "darkness" on the walls in your own shit can blow out the sun. And make no mistake, Hallow, what you are doing is exactly the mental equivalent of locking yourself in your own basement (your skull) and fingerpainting the walls with your own excrement.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 28 2020, @12:25PM (4 children)
Because then they'd be on record and have a record I could contest. Anonymous accusations are easy to defend. Nobody knows who made them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 28 2020, @04:56PM (3 children)
Not the AC you have been jousting with (or trying to joust with in your own typically palsied sort of a way), but I always post as AC. And the reason is to stop idiots like you from trying to bring in extraneous arguments to use as distraction from your losing arguments. See, when I post as AC you actually have to address the argument placed in front of you rather than go for the ad hominem as distraction.
And I will just point out that an argument does not stand or fall based on the person making the argument. Hence the reason it is called an ad hominem fallacy. Yeah, I know it really gets under your skin that you lose the ability to deflect and distract.
Obligatory smirk: But that is a price I am more than willing to pay.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 28 2020, @06:44PM (2 children)
So what is this argument that you've allegedly placed in front of me? It's missing!
Hypocrisy, lying, etc are other reasons that an argument can fall when you've made different arguments elsewhere. This is a Fustakrakich specialty. Or when the poster demonstrates a pattern of abuse or delusion. Azuma has done this a few [soylentnews.org] times [soylentnews.org], that's also relevant to bring up.
I see once again a complete absence of detail. And of course, we only have your word that you're not the same nuisance AC as before.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 28 2020, @10:08PM (1 child)
I haven't placed any argument before you this time. I'm merely pointing out to you that when I do choose to engage you (or anyone else) in discussion I always do it is as AC. In the future, do try to read for comprehension.
Actually, no. That is the classic ad hominem fallacy. Fair point to note the hypocrisy when people do that kind of thing but it doesn't change the validity of the argument itself.
*Shrug* You can believe whatever your addled mind wants to believe. But I'm sure that you and everyone else knows that anyone has the ability to post as AC. There are lots of us posting here on SN as AC. Surprise!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday October 29 2020, @03:22AM
This is the second such post. How about you drop this nonsense and post when you finally have something to say? I'll note your previous post assured me that I would have to address your argument when you posted - none of the above weasel-speak.
Except of course, when such hypocrisy, lying, etc is material to the discussion. Then it's not an ad hominem fallacy.
I don't mind thoughtful, substantial discussion. But when are you going to do it, rather than merely say you're going to do it?