My bad: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&amp%3Btype=pdf&amp%3Bdoi=f1b1f2dfb9c92c8aae42188a9e00ab305ee22085

I don’t think it’s crazy in the slightest and see no reason why it “would never work”, it’s just not a conservative idea. Why did you feel the need to minimize it so?

Not the intention. How would you prefer I had responded?

The argument is when there are more than 2 options a majority of people would not have selected the “winner” over any of the other individual losers. Therefore majority rule is an illusion, democracy is self-contradictory!!!

However, by reducing the options to just 2 you no longer have the same result and “democracy” is more “self-consistent”. You can do this in a fair/Democratic way by “simulating” the pairwise interactions (IE ranked choice voting, pairwise majority rule, etc.) or by establishing a false dichotomy (2 party systems, left v right spectrum, etc.).

This is not ‘not a thing’ but it’s a really old idea and is largely solved (ie. Distributed networks like the social media platform we are currently on, or stuff like this).

However, the claim isn’t entirely misplaced as modern social institutions refuse to implement any of those methods because it would be against their best interests as those in power are deeply unpopular (yes, especially your favourites whoever that may be). So yes almost all “Democratic” systems you interact with on a daily basis are inherently self-contradictory on the most cursory of examinations, but they dont have to be.

Yeah, the longer it takes the worse it gets. That’s one of the points the parent meme is getting across. But that response tells me you missed what I was saying.

Reread and try again.

We’ve been living in an authoritarian right wing country for 25-50 years. Historically the tactic of “we must sacrifice [insert marginalized group here] or it’ll get worse for us all!!!” has been very effective.

I find it very hopeful that this was the year that people were finally very vocally opposed that tactic and think it’s a good sign going forward that things might actually get better. However, that is reliant on people like you waking up to the fact that no amount of time and effort put into reinforcing the sacrificial machine will ever change its fundamental nature and that what you view as “being entitled brats” is often simply refusing to participate in the death, enslavement and marginalization of others.

Is active resistance better? Yes! But token resistance while actively reinforcing the authoritarian right is worse than nothing. The vast majority of those “opportunities to volunteer and donate” are doing just that; a $5 donation to “lesser evil INC.” is still actively funding evil.

Your frustration and anxiety for the future is perfectly valid, and I appreciate that you are at least a little mad about the state of things. But I would ask that you step back, reevaluate, and redirect that rage and start punching up instead of looking for who to punch down at.

1. Get started. Don’t waste both our time with numbers pulled out of your ass and wild speculation. So long as the Soviet Union is our example, how many hours of work did it take to purchase a vehicle? How many hours would you actually need to stand in the “banana line”? Was that even a thing?
2. 5 year plan was a perfect example because it highlights that maybe “productive output” isn’t the best/only metric to judge by ;)
3. Sure, I’d argue that’s a bit different but fair enough. However, you should look into if it was better or worse under communism and whether that was a causative effect or correlative with other events going on at the same time?

1. “Under comunism every one is equal” No. It follows the “from each according to their capabilities, to each according to their needs” idea

2. The “phenomenon” you describe is not the cause nor related to the causes of famines within the Soviet Union or China.

3. Compare “production output” from pre-soviet to Soviet Russia. It was one of the most rapid and dramatic increase in productive output in known history. The first 5 year plan saw gross industrial output increase by 118%.

4. “It also creates parallel economies of bribes and favours because well connected and productive people still want to be above every one else, this gives unfair advantage mafias and criminals.” That very accurately describes the post soviet kleptocracy and modern Russian capitalist state.

5. “In my opinion, no pure system is good if it’s comunusim or capitalism. You have to have a bit of everything” then it stops being communist or capitalist at that point but something else entirely like socialist, syndicalist, communalist, etc. putting every possible form of socioeconomic organization on a capitalist-communist spectrum is extremely reductionist.

Overall wildly inaccurate, uninformed and heavily biased take. Second paragraph shows you have good opinions and solid instincts, you should work on making them a bit more informed.

International history is filled with examples like this. The history of the Russian gulags is probably the most stark example, they were actually pretty decent (comparably) before everything outside went to shit…

Hell, nowadays most major corporations do this. Just nobody uses the scare word “propaganda” to describe it.

Correlation vs. causation.

A lot of things which impact “intelligence” can also have varying impacts on speech/articulation/communication skills. However it is important to note that the correlation isn’t strongly positive or negative (IE savant syndrome).

So while some disorders may have some common correlations with specific speech/articulation patterns they (usually) are not good diagnostic criteria and extremely broad generalizations like the one above are particularly bad.

Another aspect to consider is whether you anticipate inflation to exceed interest. With all the threats of major tariff wars it might make sense not to pay them/resist paying for as long as possible for that reason alone.

Walmart, Kroger, etc.'s entire business model is to undercut other local stores to drive them out and become local monopolies. If they exist in a location there likely aren’t many, if any, local stores remaining…

Ironically my response was fueled by my frustration with that same mantra, lol.

The “solid Democrats” of the last 4+ years have been putting people into camps ~migrant detention centers, prisons, enhanced interregation facilities, any other euphemism for camp that doesn’t come with the same baggage~, stripping legal protections and significantly reducing access to medications.

The “existential horror shit” does not stop with this election, regardless of outcome.

that allowing Trump into power is a legitimate threat to the entire system.

If only… That’s literally what he is campaigning on and honestly I can not believe people are still unironically and uncritically repeating this after his administration in 2016.

Look at the time spans that nations in Asia or Europe have existed by comparison and the length of time it took to change their ways, often through drastic social upheaval. In comparison the gains in social equalities here have come at a rapid pace in the past century.

I would caution against such sweeping generalizations about world history. Yes, some nations have existed for looooong periods of time relatively coherently, but that isn’t typical and “progress” isn’t a one way street. Within the lifetime of the US, hell within the last century, there are countless examples of those “social equalities” moving significantly faster, and in both directions.

Also I can’t quite tell what you are trying to get at with the historical side tangent. Could you clarify?

I think you are spot on with explaining the perspective of the Democratic party campaign strategists, but I would push back on some of those points.

Remember that the stock market is important to these voters (and his donors), and Trump had everything set up in his favor and still squandered it.

I don’t think they see it that way and honestly using the same “objective” metrics, removing 2020-2021 due to COVID being a major outlier, there isn’t much difference between the Trump and Biden presidencies from an “economic perspective”. If you include 2020-2021 it looks like Trump “squandered it” and Biden had “unprecedented growth” but it’s really a story of outliers and how they can be manipulated to tell whatever story you want.

It’s also needs to be said that those “objective” metrics have/are becoming increasingly divorced from “objective” reality but that’s a conversation for a different thread…

Corporate America does not want a repeat of this

Trump was great for Corporate America, Biden has been even better. The MAGA propaganda is that ‘Trump really stuck it to corporate America and was actively working against their interests’ or ‘he might suck but at least he’s hitting the corporations where it hurts them most’ but I really haven’t seen any good evidence for any of that (see the point above). If you’ve got some counter evidence to share I’d be interested.

convince some Republican voters who would have voted red “because that’s what you do”, to instead vote for Kamala.

But they won’t any more than you’ll convince many Democrats to vote for Trump. Those voters that the Harris campaign is targeting will be voting Libertarian, Green or (mostly) “holding their nose” and voting Trump.

Honestly, one of my biggest annoyances surrounding the Nader spoiler controversy is the assumption that all votes would’ve gone to Gore where the evidence does not support that conclusion and it’s subsequent use as a cudgel to support duopoly instead of the more accurate warning of what happens when you sacrifice your voting block to pander to the other half of the duopoly.

it’s easy to forget that just because they’re Republican’s does not mean they are MAGA

You’re right, and within that context it may be useful to use the self identify method the house tepublicans use (“the House Freedom Caucus, the Republican Study Committee, the Main Street Caucus, the Republican Governance Group”) to discuss who “is MAGA”, who Harris is pandering to and play the fun game of ‘which of those 5 groups is the lesser evil?’ and look at the ven diagram between those…

How is Bush the counterexample reason to vote for Harris while she is actively campaigning with Dick Cheney?

We can eventually have that conversation as a nation

That’s a good way to describe the last 50 years of American politics…

Supreme Court justices are nominated by the president and then the house and Senate approve or deny the nomination. The current justices were nominated by Democrat majorities.

Kamala Harris is actively campaigning with Dick Cheney.

Electoral districts are drawn via bipartisan committee.

This is ultimately the problem with metaphors… What specifically are you looking for to confirm or deny?

Are Democrats holding a gun to your head?

Yes. They are called police, the gun isn’t figurative.

But if you want to change metaphors:

“if you leave him alone with your stuff he’s going to steal it, you better leave me alone with your stuff as I won’t steal it.”

They then invite the other guy over and help them steal it, but blame it on the other guy and say “we tried to stop it”. Who would you be more angry with?