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Nov 2023 Mod notice:


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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

megarockman from The Sixth Borough (Experienced Trainee)
#417726: Nov 27th 2023 at 8:16:22 PM

[up][up]"FAFO"?

The damned queen and the relentless knight.
Steven (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
#417727: Nov 27th 2023 at 8:17:25 PM

Fuck about, find out.

Remember, these idiots drive, fuck, and vote. Not always in that order.
Florien The They who said it from statistically, slightly right behind you. Since: Aug, 2019
The They who said it
#417728: Nov 27th 2023 at 10:03:12 PM

Wait can we circle back from this conversation of the kind that occasionally happens and invariably goes nowhere and talk briefly about the extremely wrong assertion a couple pages back that the economy exists (or should exist) to serve people (contrasted with existing for people to serve it?) Because neither of those things are true, the economy exists as an emergent property of trade.

It doesn't exist "for" anything any more than water does. It can be guided (with a lot of difficulty and sometimes things go extremely wrong and thousands die, much like water), but the economy is a phenomenon, not an institution, and acting like the economy is an institution is an excellent way to fail at achieving things using it or to more generally misunderstand why things happen and how they happen.

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#417729: Nov 27th 2023 at 10:27:39 PM

If an emergent property of human endeavour doesn't serve humanity, it needs fixing. It doesn't need to be a concrete institution to fall in that category. "This is bad for us, let's fix it" is kind of a historical constant; we're just fucking awful at knowing long-term repercussions first.

Tremmor19 he/him (Y2: Electric Boogaloo)
he/him
#417730: Nov 27th 2023 at 10:51:35 PM

[up] yea but they have a good point, that this kind of teleological thinking can make things more confusing instead of clarifying, and make it more difficult to determine what can actually be done about it. For example, thinking of the economy as being designed leads to people thinking of it as having designers, which leads to ideas like "if we force the people in charge to design a good economy instead, it will work by default!"

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#417731: Nov 27th 2023 at 11:13:18 PM

Honestly, I don't get how Fighteer is getting from "everyone should have as many kids as their financial situation, capabilities and desires call for, and we should ensure that everyone has the financial stability and access to sex education to make that choice" to "people shouldn't have kids," unless he's making an unusually bizarre argument from the categorical imperative. Antinatalism is an extremely minority position, and I say that as something of a Child Hater.

Imca (Veteran)
#417732: Nov 27th 2023 at 11:51:51 PM

[up][up] Thats the thing though, any kind of replacment will have to be designed, replacments generaly are not emergent.

Kayeka (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#417733: Nov 28th 2023 at 12:33:22 AM

[up]Then the economy's current form is not emergent.

Edited by Kayeka on Nov 28th 2023 at 9:33:43 PM

Imca (Veteran)
#417734: Nov 28th 2023 at 12:37:03 AM

If you have ever looked into the history of currency you would learn you are correct.

It was in a lot of societies forced from the top down to make running the goverment easier.

While most people generaly preferred bartering directly for goods.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#417735: Nov 28th 2023 at 12:38:31 AM

"You will use this paper and you will love it!"

Disgusted, but not surprised
Imca (Veteran)
#417736: Nov 28th 2023 at 12:43:50 AM

Yea, just think about how weird coinage is from the perspective of a peasant from those times.

You cant eat it, you cant wear it, the only reason it has any value is that the people in charge say this shiny disk has value and that the other side of your bargaining has to honor it.

It's something we can apreciate now, being able to more easily store and transport wealth, but to them that value was abstract.

And in cases like Japan where rice was easy to handle the long term storage of, it took multiple attempts from the goverment trying to force coinage to make it stick.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#417737: Nov 28th 2023 at 12:46:00 AM

And then there's all of the people trying to force crypto down our throats...

Disgusted, but not surprised
Imca (Veteran)
#417738: Nov 28th 2023 at 12:50:11 AM

Thankfully there pretty likley to fail since most of them hate the goverment and its power, ignoring that it is exactly a goverments power that lets currency work.

The dollar has value because the US goverment says it does, and they have the force of economy... and well literal force to make sure you honor it.

A random collection of people cant really enact change on there own.

Tremmor19 he/him (Y2: Electric Boogaloo)
he/him
#417739: Nov 28th 2023 at 12:59:59 AM

crypto is/was genuinely a delight, from an outside perspective, imo. Just full-out speedrunning the entire invention of currency/banks/economic bubbles/bank collapse/regulations. 10/10 historical reenactment

Edited by Tremmor19 on Nov 28th 2023 at 4:10:19 AM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#417740: Nov 28th 2023 at 1:01:54 AM

This reminds me that Andrew Jackson tried to kill paper money and banks in general.

"The bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me but I will kill it."

Of all things, Aqua Teen Hunger Force made note of this in a gag (the context is that using a cloning machine to counterfeit one dollar bills created a clone of George Washington made out of said bills protesting their counterfeiting):

Frylock: Man, we should have cloned twenties. Jackson wouldn't have given a shit.

Disgusted, but not surprised
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#417741: Nov 28th 2023 at 4:24:48 AM

Gentlemen, there is an economics thread.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#417742: Nov 28th 2023 at 4:32:08 AM

Gentlemen? We aren’t all guys here.

Disgusted, but not surprised
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#417743: Nov 28th 2023 at 4:33:19 AM

My apologies, but the English language is awkward like that.

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
Ultimatum Disasturbator from The Wiggle Room (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#417744: Nov 28th 2023 at 4:37:34 AM

You forgot the ladies and gentlemen!

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
3of4 Just a harmless giant from a foreign land. from Five Seconds in the Future. Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: GAR for Archer
Just a harmless giant from a foreign land.
#417745: Nov 28th 2023 at 5:12:34 AM

Ladies, Gentlemen, Honored Attendants and dearly Detested

"You can reply to this Message!"
DeMarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#417746: Nov 28th 2023 at 5:15:49 AM

Not saying which category I fall into ; )

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
GNinja The Element of Hyperbole. from The deepest, darkest corner of his mind. Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
The Element of Hyperbole.
#417747: Nov 28th 2023 at 6:08:39 AM

Whenever the topic of people not wanting to have kids comes up, what I tend to think Fighteer is referring to, (though please correct me if I'm wrong of course) is that the broad progressive left doesn't really have much positive messaging when it comes to having children.

What I mean by this is that while we have loads of media depicting, for example, found families and adoption and whatnot as explicitly noble, kind, acts that should be celebrated, we don't really do much of that when depicting having children. At best it feels like it's neutral. It's something you do if you want to do it. But we don't put the same kind of optical value on it as we do on say, the found family trope. Which makes sense, having children is seen as both the default and those other forms of family units haven't gotten as much exposure to a wider audience.

I think the argument is that we eventually need our own version of the nuclear family ideal. A depiction of a healthy family unit that is desirable (and hopefully realistically attainable) and embodies our values.

Edited by GNinja on Nov 28th 2023 at 2:09:55 PM

Kaze ni Nare!
RedSavant Since: Jan, 2001
#417748: Nov 28th 2023 at 6:32:38 AM

The problem is that progressive ideals are pretty poorly suited for that kind of model "this is what a family should look like" idea. The conservative nuclear family has strong visual messaging and decades of constructed propaganda behind it; a vision of a progressive family could be Steven Universe with its queer coparents, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse with Miles's working mom, maybe even the multi-generational family from Encanto. (I just now realized all of these are from Western animation.)

My point is that progressive ideals about family generally say that a family can be almost anything and look almost any way. That doesn't lend itself well to mythologizing like the nuclear family - and most of the healthiest ways to raise kids, including multi-generational homes, are just not economically plausible now.

It's been fun.
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#417749: Nov 28th 2023 at 6:38:55 AM

Yeah, it turns out the nuclear family arrangement has a lot of downsides and it's pretty damn isolating for most people involved in one. And the progressive messaging really is "a family can be basically anything", especially since it has to include queer couples.

The right ends up in this weird spot where they fucking love adoption as a concept but loathe the idea of queer adoption or adoption by people not in their group, so they throw up a ton of barriers.

Being neutral on children is kind of the best approach, because that shifts it to "if you want to have a kid, it's your choice" and not BREED DAMMIT. It's very, very difficult to actively message that people should have kids and to not be really nasty towards non-"traditional" families in the process, so a lot of left-wing people don't bother trying to thread that useless needle.

Resileafs I actually wanted to be Resileaf Since: Jan, 2019
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
#417750: Nov 28th 2023 at 6:46:20 AM

Considering the progressive left is all about choice, it would be pretty hypocritical to try to push some kind of family ideals on people.

Not to mention that for plenty of people on the left (particularly among LGBTQ+ people), the concept of birth family hasn't been super friendly to them.

Edited by Resileafs on Nov 28th 2023 at 9:46:36 AM


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