flamble

8 ms·

1.
by flamble 5y ago
Already been noted, but what an unbelievably sinister sentiment. "Effective life behaviors" which include being married . Social conformity enforced through corporate power with the approval of the state, and people willing to co
2.
by flamble 5y ago
The notion that language is "what the learned have built out of competence and reflection" is abjectly risible. The evolution of language consists of corruption, confusion, coinages of demotic provenance, and general chaos. The co
3.
by flamble 5y ago
I find it incredible that anyone could have such a cartoonish view of the world that the completely secretive, unaccountable and independent security apparatus, which has totally liberated itself from democratic control or oversight, is sim
4.
by flamble 5y ago
unlike you, who are clearly not morally outraged
5.
by flamble 5y ago
What I found so frustrating about the comment was how close it was to some sort of insight, while maddeningly not connecting the dots. He has some vague sense that his unhappiness is related to "workaholism", but is so fixated on
6.
by flamble 5y ago
The point of the minimum wage is not to create jobs, it is to ensure that jobs that exist already pay a certain minimum. The more coherent argument against the minimum wage is that it destroys jobs which cannot be profitable for the employe
7.
by flamble 5y ago
I'm curious what you mean by "homogeneous". I've just had a quick Google and apparently the Gini coefficient in Japan is ~0.3 compared to ~0.48 in the US, which is one definition of "homogeneous". Another searc
8.
by flamble 5y ago
It's possible that once a company reaches a certain size, it's inevitable. Corporations internally have the same top-down centralized organizational structure as a typical government. Market forces can't eliminate that kind o
9.
by flamble 6y ago
I understand now. Unfettered market freedom is the best way to organize things and at the same time, large-scale government intervention is an unfair competitive advantage. > This fails to explain why everything moved to China and not Me
10.
by flamble 6y ago
The offshoring of the production of consumer electronics devices is mostly the result of the free-trade policies of said countries, coupled with market forces. The growth centred around manufacturing has been the basis of Chinese prosperity
11.
by flamble 6y ago
This a complete non-sequitur. Authoritarianism consists in undemocratic rule in which obedience is brutally enforced, and dissidence suppressed, using the security apparatus of the state. Authoritarianism does not consist in using every ave
12.
by flamble 6y ago
I'm honestly baffled by this. I care who wins because of the POLICY DIFFERENCE, i.e. the difference between what the two parties want to DO with their power. I can't even imagine what kind of worldview I would need to have to beli
13.
by flamble 6y ago
I think I have the same feelings as you about the Democrats' spinelessness, but a disagreement about what a more robust approach entails. > standing up for decency without needing to pass a law is at least as big a deal as a tan sui
14.
by flamble 6y ago
A race to the bottom of decency is exactly what is currently happening. One side continuing to "take the high road" will do absolutely NOTHING to stop it. It is delusional to think that the Republicans will ever be shamed into coo
15.
by flamble 6y ago
I think "hold the first accountable" is the wrong focus to have here, especially since so much of what the Republicans do violates norms rather than actual rules. I think it would be better to see the Democrats adopt their tactics
16.
by flamble 6y ago
I agree with your point about the Democrats' disastrous rightward slide but I don't think that the resulting problem is that Republicans now struggle to distinguish themselves. They're still the party of further tax cuts and
17.
by flamble 6y ago
Venezuela is an excellent example of a government unable to issue money arbitrarily, because they pegged their currency to the US dollar and accumulated debt in a currency over which they had no control.
18.
by flamble 6y ago
How common is it for the central banks of currency sovereigns to indulge in massive quantitative easing? If anything, they're far too reluctant to do so (even during recessions) precisely because of the kind of superstition on display
19.
by flamble 6y ago
> while they may not be owned by social activists the day to day operations are certainly controlled by social activists Complete fantasy. You're not citing any evidence whatsoever here so I really shouldn't be bothering, but
20.
by flamble 6y ago
Yes, the "left" represented by the Democratic party /s. Every single thing you've listed is controlled by capital, not by the left. Tech, Hollywood/Media, Social Media, News, and payment processing. Academia is a ve
21.
by flamble 6y ago
I would "object" to Trump doing so in the sense that I would judge it to be the rationalizing behaviour of an egomaniac. Which is exactly my reaction to the linked statements by Hillary Clinton. It is still absurd to act like ther
22.
by flamble 6y ago
Hillary Clinton conceded immediately, and the Democratic party did not launch a wave of legal challenges to the election results. The argument that the extreme Russiagate types were making was that Russian agents and bots on social media ha
23.
by flamble 6y ago
Actually, usually, when a bank gives out a loan, it simply writes two matching entries in its ledger. One is an amount of money which it owes the borrower (immediately) which manifests itself as credit in the borrower's account: a liab
24.
by flamble 6y ago
All of that capital was produced by labor, except what fraction of the value derives from raw natural resources pre-extraction. So it is absolutely a fair framing to state "why shouldn't workers seek to capture as much of their la
25.
by flamble 6y ago
This is clearly a joke, but "tuchu" (突出) is Mandarin for "emphasize" or "stick out", not random syllables.
26.
by flamble 6y ago
> Is there a practical difference between someone choosing to join your cause and your coercing someone to join your cause? Yes, in that one involves coercion, which in itself has a moral weight. > Is there a practical difference betw
27.
by flamble 6y ago
With respect to point 1, the entirety of the leadership of the Democratic party acted in concert to prevent Bernie Sanders from being the nominee. The overwhelming majority of the party is ideologically opposed to the kind of large-scale so
28.
by flamble 6y ago
> Lockdown has a death toll. This is just fact. I steeled myself to read this post in the most charitable possible light. Yes, lockdown most likely has some death toll. But the specific points you're making are very dubious and also
29.
by flamble 6y ago
There's a lot of interesting stuff here. You're right in that there are multiple things that people mean when they say cancelling. Specifically, in the NYT article, the phrase "based on an opinion or an action" really st
30.
by flamble 6y ago
It has always been the case that certain behaviors incur social opprobrium. I assume that you don't literally think that shaming or punishing someone for their actions is categorically wrong, regardless of the situation. I've seen

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