Those of us who realize the building we all live in is old, has holes in the windows and floors, and never had an elevator installed, but would still prefer to renovate it than burn it down. Yes, we know some people are getting wet, or fell through the floor, and a few can’t even get to their rooms, but the majority of us are warm, well-fed, and mildly entertained. We definitely need to get the holes patched and we should work on some sort of lift, but burning the place down is not going to help those who are missing out now and will harm everyone else in the process.
You know that they tear down dilapidated buildings with good reason, right? The foundation is crumbling, the floor won’t support weight and the roof is more leak than barrier.
Trying to apply repairs to a crumbling and unsafe building is actually a great analogy for how your “moderate” bullshit is keeping most of society in a death spiral. Nice self-own.
Even if we are approaching a point where a tear down would be more cost effective, we are not at a point where we can unite enough to rebuild anything from the rubble.
Maybe pushing it any farther is risking a collapse, but I rather like being one united nation sitting at the top of lists for economic and military power, rather than 3 or 4 smaller nations barely in the top 10.
Military power is neither inherently virtue nor vice it is a tool that can be used for good or ill. However, without it the voice of a nation becomes smaller and smaller until it becomes non-existent without the support of others.
Do you think Zelensky thinks military power is a useful tool? Do you think he and NATO are doing evil by defending Ukraine?
Putting my cards on the table; I am not the biggest fan of the US getting involved in another overseas war, even if it is only providing weapons. I am curious though how a defensive war fits into your “military power is evil” mindset.
Organised murder isn’t free speech
Having a military does not mean you have to participate in offensive wars.
Do you think Zelensky thinks military power is a useful tool?
I think the people of Ukraine would have found it useful for Putin to not use that “tool” against them.
But yeah, while I’m of course on his side with regards to the war itself, I also think that Zelinski is finding emergency war powers a very useful tool to suppress political opposition and otherwise further his own political power.
Do you think he and NATO are doing evil by defending Ukraine?
Of course not, but there’d be no invasion to defend against in the first place if not for the military power of genocidal war criminals like Putin
I am curious though how a defensive war fits into your “military power is evil” mindset.
As I pointed out above, it fits fine since there would be no necessity to defend yourself against military power if not attacked with military power.
there’d be no invasion to defend against in the first place if not for the military power of genocidal war criminals like Putin
I completely agree though with a caveat. I can’t imagine a just way we would completely eliminate people like Putin.
The only way I could imagine is becoming the most oppressive and dominating force and pointing our weapons at anyone that glances at other territories. Incidentally, I think this pretty much what we did for 40 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, which explains the era of relative peace we are coming out of. Not that there was ever true peace, but mostly the world powers only played their proxy war games in much smaller nations.
I also think that Zelinski is finding emergency war powers a very useful tool to suppress political opposition and otherwise further his own political power.
Bruh, in your analogy where are you getting the money and materials to patch up the building? It’s being hoarded by the guy that owns a giant state of the art mansion up the street that needs 0 repairs.
In my hastily put together analogy, the rich guy would live up on the top floor which he converted to a pent house, probably with a helicopter pad. That guy like in real life is going to try to squeeze the money out of the guys a few floors down from himself. If it actually comes to a building collapse or something catastrophic, he probably tries to escape to another building.
Really though, this analogy is probably stretched to its limit.
Presumably their part of the building is holding up fine. We certainly aren’t seeing a lot of rich people flee the US so far.
Incidentally, not that it really matters, the holes in the floor were not meant to indicate the building itself was rotting away, just that the layers had worn through and need to be replaced. Basically everything after the first post has just been shoe-horned into the analogy on the fly.
Interesting. New Zealand seems like an odd choice for a prepper bunker. I’m sure it is wonderful to live there now, but that seems irrelevant if civilization collapsed. I have been working under the assumption that there were billionaire bunkers littering the Rockies and Appalachians.
Personally, if I was a billionaire, I would go full Fallout and build several sustainable vaults of various kinds that could each hold enough people to rebuild the human race from. That and dump every spare dollar possible into an off-world colony.
Sure, if you can get most of the residents to agree on what kind of building they want the new one to be, you might even make it happen fairly smoothly.
As is, we have at least a half a dozen groups who each want different designs and the two largest groups aren’t even sure they want to live in the same building anymore. Those two groups have already started drawing lines down the middle of the current building and are demanding everyone pick a side. To make matters worse the other groups don’t agree with each other enough to even band together for their own defense. In the end, we will be lucky if we get a couple small condos where once a sky-rise stood.
There is no reforming capitalism, and by pretending there is (or that “the alternative” which you are clearly not even able to articulate, is worse) you are helping to maintain the status quo, at best.
Yes, “moderates”.
Those of us who realize the building we all live in is old, has holes in the windows and floors, and never had an elevator installed, but would still prefer to renovate it than burn it down. Yes, we know some people are getting wet, or fell through the floor, and a few can’t even get to their rooms, but the majority of us are warm, well-fed, and mildly entertained. We definitely need to get the holes patched and we should work on some sort of lift, but burning the place down is not going to help those who are missing out now and will harm everyone else in the process.
You know that they tear down dilapidated buildings with good reason, right? The foundation is crumbling, the floor won’t support weight and the roof is more leak than barrier.
Trying to apply repairs to a crumbling and unsafe building is actually a great analogy for how your “moderate” bullshit is keeping most of society in a death spiral. Nice self-own.
Even if we are approaching a point where a tear down would be more cost effective, we are not at a point where we can unite enough to rebuild anything from the rubble.
Maybe pushing it any farther is risking a collapse, but I rather like being one united nation sitting at the top of lists for economic and military power, rather than 3 or 4 smaller nations barely in the top 10.
We are way past the point where a tear down is necessary to save millions of lives, never mind “cost effective”.
You KNOW that all that economic power belongs to the rich and the rest are poorer than most western countries, right?
Also, celebrating military power as a virtue is some North Korea type shit, not something a modern democracy should be doing.
Military power is neither inherently virtue nor vice it is a tool that can be used for good or ill. However, without it the voice of a nation becomes smaller and smaller until it becomes non-existent without the support of others.
False. It’s an evil. Some would say a necessary evil, but that’s debatable.
Bullshit. Organised murder isn’t free speech, nor does it protect free speech. It’s very often used to SUPPRESS free speech and democracy, though.
Do you think Zelensky thinks military power is a useful tool? Do you think he and NATO are doing evil by defending Ukraine?
Putting my cards on the table; I am not the biggest fan of the US getting involved in another overseas war, even if it is only providing weapons. I am curious though how a defensive war fits into your “military power is evil” mindset.
Having a military does not mean you have to participate in offensive wars.
I think the people of Ukraine would have found it useful for Putin to not use that “tool” against them.
But yeah, while I’m of course on his side with regards to the war itself, I also think that Zelinski is finding emergency war powers a very useful tool to suppress political opposition and otherwise further his own political power.
Of course not, but there’d be no invasion to defend against in the first place if not for the military power of genocidal war criminals like Putin
As I pointed out above, it fits fine since there would be no necessity to defend yourself against military power if not attacked with military power.
I completely agree though with a caveat. I can’t imagine a just way we would completely eliminate people like Putin.
The only way I could imagine is becoming the most oppressive and dominating force and pointing our weapons at anyone that glances at other territories. Incidentally, I think this pretty much what we did for 40 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, which explains the era of relative peace we are coming out of. Not that there was ever true peace, but mostly the world powers only played their proxy war games in much smaller nations.
I have been noticing the same.
Bruh, in your analogy where are you getting the money and materials to patch up the building? It’s being hoarded by the guy that owns a giant state of the art mansion up the street that needs 0 repairs.
And that mansion has TWO elevators.
Fair question.
In my hastily put together analogy, the rich guy would live up on the top floor which he converted to a pent house, probably with a helicopter pad. That guy like in real life is going to try to squeeze the money out of the guys a few floors down from himself. If it actually comes to a building collapse or something catastrophic, he probably tries to escape to another building.
Really though, this analogy is probably stretched to its limit.
Why wouldn’t he escape before the building got that bad? Why wouldn’t he escape the first time someone fell through the floor?
Presumably their part of the building is holding up fine. We certainly aren’t seeing a lot of rich people flee the US so far.
Incidentally, not that it really matters, the holes in the floor were not meant to indicate the building itself was rotting away, just that the layers had worn through and need to be replaced. Basically everything after the first post has just been shoe-horned into the analogy on the fly.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand
Interesting. New Zealand seems like an odd choice for a prepper bunker. I’m sure it is wonderful to live there now, but that seems irrelevant if civilization collapsed. I have been working under the assumption that there were billionaire bunkers littering the Rockies and Appalachians.
Personally, if I was a billionaire, I would go full Fallout and build several sustainable vaults of various kinds that could each hold enough people to rebuild the human race from. That and dump every spare dollar possible into an off-world colony.
Or you could build a new and better building instead of patching up poor construction.
Sure, if you can get most of the residents to agree on what kind of building they want the new one to be, you might even make it happen fairly smoothly.
As is, we have at least a half a dozen groups who each want different designs and the two largest groups aren’t even sure they want to live in the same building anymore. Those two groups have already started drawing lines down the middle of the current building and are demanding everyone pick a side. To make matters worse the other groups don’t agree with each other enough to even band together for their own defense. In the end, we will be lucky if we get a couple small condos where once a sky-rise stood.
There is no reforming capitalism, and by pretending there is (or that “the alternative” which you are clearly not even able to articulate, is worse) you are helping to maintain the status quo, at best.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/14/liberalism-and-fascism-partners-in-crime/
https://truthout.org/articles/fascism-is-possible-not-in-spite-of-liberal-capitalism-but-because-of-it/
https://nyanarchist.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/scratch-a-liberal-a-fascist-bleeds-how-the-so-called-middle-class-has-enabled-oppression-for-centuries/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/22/american-democracy-was-never-designed-to-be-democratic-eric-holder-our-unfinished-march-nick-seabrook-one-person-one-vote-jacob-grumbach-laboratories-against-democracy
https://libcom.org/article/capitalist-democracy-illusion-choice