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Topic: Accidental digression on left-right (Read 5979 times)
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Zanthius
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If you have a system that make rich people richer but also poor people better off, is that bad?
Well, if people also produce more waste (pollution) the richer they get, one might argue that even such a system is bad for environmental reasons.
But this idea seems to suffer some kind of misconception about the nature of wealth. As if wealth is some abstract mathematical thing, that we can just grab infinite amounts of without reducing the amount available for other people. If the total amount of wealth on this planet is more like a cake, it shouldn't be so difficult to envision that the more cake you grab for yourself, the less cake there will be available for other people. Of course, in reality this cake isn't necessarily of a fixed size. Some activities might actually increase the size of the cake. But lots of activities are just about grabbing more cake to yourself, and that of course only reduces the amount of cake available for other people. Lots of people seem to think that grabbing more cake to yourself, is the same as making the cake bigger, even though those two activities are very different.
Also rich are just numbers. Does it matter if someone have 1 million or 1 billion? They are both rich.
If wealth is just a number, then why don't we just add 1 billion USD to every bank account on the planet? Wouldn't that make everybody more wealthy? Actually, that would be more or less the same as rescaling an SVG image. It would just decrease the value of a USD.
The total amount of wealth on this planet is very much like an SVG image. Different currencies are just like different metrics applied to the SVG image. I actually think lots of people mistake the metric (money) for what the metric is measuring (wealth).
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« Last Edit: November 10, 2017, 11:17:38 am by Zanthius »
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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How do you know Homosexuals are not more likely to be pedophiles? Even if they are 1% more likely, they are still more likely.
I am not saying it's true, I am just saying you don't know yet you speak like you do. You see the danger here?
The original claim, and the one I said is not the kind of diversity of opinion that adds value, was that 100% of homosexuals are pedophiles. I made a contrary claim, the negation of which is a weaker claim. My claim is based on studies which closely examined the question and found a weak, non-significant amount by which homosexuals are less likely to be pedophiles. Now, I would also consider non-embraceable diversity to include the opinion that a very large fraction of homosexuals are pedophiles. But if it's 1% as you say, or something higher - so long as it's vaguely close to supportable by evidence and not merely a bat to attack people with, that is again a valuable contribution.
I don't know a lot about the confederacy. Again, it might just be a cultural thing, like people who are religious don't stone people to death just because the bible says so?
Yes, it's a cultural thing, but it's a cultural thing by which a particular minority pretends that the Confederacy was a noble enterprise, which excuses keeping up statues of people who fought and bled and died to protect the institution of enslaving the black populace, holds slavery not to have been a bad thing, demonizes the reconstruction, justified segregation, etc. These consequences make this lie particularly anti-valuable in terms of diversity of opinion.
Trickle down CAN work. The point of trickle down is... you shouldn't care how much rich people make, you should care about how much YOU make.
That is a good metric, I agree. The problem is, the real wages of working-class people underperform under it. There is another metric, though - is it actually true? The explicit lines of reasoning that lead to suspecting it would work have parts and predictions they make on their way to justifying the move, and those predictions are falsified - cutting taxes on the rich does not produce the degree of increased investment that would be required for it to work. It is not even close. So you can tell that if you follow that policy and the real wages increase, it's not because of that.
Similarly, the Laffer Curve is correct in principle, but the peak is not near our current tax levels, nor Clinton-era tax levels.
As for the 'everyone poor'… what? If it's not one extreme it has to be the other? That's not how people work, it's not how logic works. It's a lot like how you're applying the standard that if there is any limit on valuing diversity of opinion, then it must be WAY TOO CLOSE. No possible gradation of value that eventually dips negative.
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Sargon
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What I thought you were saying is that Trickle down never works, and rich people should always be heavily taxed.
If we look it on taxes it could make more sense.
Just like the gaussian graph, there is a balance between the income the state gets from taxes and the boost to the economy from lower taxes.
So when you find the optimal point, you do amount of tax that optimize growth and the share of the pie that gets back to the state.
As you said, the size of the pie can change(growth).
That is the idea behind trickle down, you want to optimize taxation to optimize growth and what the state earns from it. Of course trickle down does not mean 0% taxes or 0% taxes on the rich.
Why wouldn't we blow up the Pyramids? Weren't there slaves in the time of ancient Egypt? What about ancient Roman statues? The Roman empire also had slaves.
I don't know, 100% of homosexuals might be a certain degree of pedophilles. They might not act on their desire, but it is possible that all Homosexuals are actually attracted to young boys?
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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That is hardly the only problem there, Zanthius.
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Sargon
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Are you saying ancient Egyptian didn't have any slaves or they were completely progressive? lol
Even if masterful artisans were carrying the Pyramid rocks, I am sure ancient Egypt had a lot of racism, suffering and injustice. So the Pyramid must be destroyed.
Sexy young girls might mean 20+ women. Not sure.
And teens might be searching for photos of teens, I dunno.
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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This is a bit of a digression from the starting point, which is about the parallel.
As far as I know, no one is seriously suggesting blowing up Stone Mountain, which would be the closest equivalent I can find to the Pyramids. The statues are generally simply taken out of their positions of prominence and honor in the centers of cities. Most are moved to museums and Confederate cemeteries. This is exactly what we did with the pyramids, by the way - put part in museums and the rest stays in its Egyptian Monarchs cemetery.
So once again, it's suggested that an action is extreme, with horrible parallels… and they don't hold up and the action is not extreme.
That is hardly the only problem there, Zanthius.
No. …
Do you mean your no as, "Agreed, it isn't"?
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« Last Edit: November 14, 2017, 12:07:59 am by Death 999 »
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Sargon
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Well the Pyrmaids are not inside a city.
But all sort of Roman statues or Greek statues. The Greek were probably sexist and raped women and children, so their statues should be removed?
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Sargon
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The Empire state builing was also used during times of racism? Why don't you move that?
What about mount Rashmore? Isn't George Washington racist?
Isn't Lincoln a little racist/sexist himself?
Edit: What if they find MLK said Homophobic things? Remove his monuments as well?
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« Last Edit: November 16, 2017, 06:07:43 pm by Sargon »
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