vanderreeah

I don't know what Gab is, or what its typical content is like, though I'm getting an idea from the replies to this tweet. But the principle of free speech has nothing to do with the right of a company to use Paypal's services. It's to do with the right of individuals to say what they like without government incarcerating or otherwise harming them or their ability to speak.

Wrong - Keynes believed the exact opposite. Perhaps his most famous opinion is that the gold standard was "a barbarous relic".

I don't know if I can prove you wrong, but in my opinion your example of Karl Marx's 200th birthday is misjudged. As far as I know he neither killed nor ordered to be killed anyone. He is no more responsible for people (I assume you have Stalin in mind) twisting his thought than is anyone else. To follow that logic to its conclusion you would also need to express outrage at Christmas, or at the depiction of Jesus on the billboards of churches, because of the deaths occasioned by the Crusades.

The AfD are far more frightening a right-wing group, and have far more power, than e.g. UKIP in Britain. I believe that because Germans refuse to see the Holocaust as anything other than a singular event they are now at risk of repeating it all over again. Their inability to relativise it (if that can be taken to mean to put it in a historical continuum in which other events of comparable atrocity are committed) means it's snugly in the past. I think this leads to a false sense of security.

Pedantic notice: an utter dearth of counterproductive features would seem to be a good thing rather than a problem.

As someone who's just entered the employment market after being a freelancer for a while, I have no idea how people who already have jobs can physically participate in the lengthy interview processes most jobs require these days. Ok they can take sick days, but if you're a bad liar or have an overactive conscience that's not ideal.

I totally understand the value of coding challenges, but I've been endlessly surprised at companies that expect me to expend more than 4 hours of my life interviewing for a chance at a job that will be paying maximum 50k. These are small companies, hardly the big 4. It's really an imposition.

The vast, vast majority of people in the world have to work most of the best hours of the day in order to pay for shelter from the weather and food for their family. In return they get the dubious privilege of allowing their brain to decompress in front of corporate-manufactured garbage on television.

Although we are not currently in a World War or its aftermath, and therefore our lives could reasonably be said to be better than in, say, 1917, I think this is taking a remarkably short view. There's a solid argument to be had that the life of an average human (well, admittedly a man) in the 17th century was immeasurably richer than the life of an average man in the late 20th / early 21st century, and that this downturn is because of the Enlightenment Pinker worships. Sure, life was shorter, but it's at least arguable that the quantification of life ushered in by the Enlightenment is responsible for the impoverishment of quality as a measure.

Please do not do this. Here is my reasoning:

You reasonably would want, for your 10k, to work at / learn from a respectable, successful company. But my guess is that 10k for any such company would not represent a huge amount of money, and they'd be unlikely to take you up on your offer.

On the other hand, there will be plenty of less respectable, less successful companies who would bite your hand off. But from your point of view this would not be a good return on investment.

Of course there will be exceptions, but in general I'd be suspicious of any company who would take your 10k. And since 10k is a large amount of money (to me at least!) I'd personally not want to gamble on finding one of the exceptions.

There is other advice in this thread on what to do instead - I'd think more along those lines. Just my 2c.

I only sporadically rant. But thanks for the encouragement.

I do not know. But there are of course millions of people in our position. I suppose any possible solution can only come from the only strength we have, which is the knowledge of our shared, common situation.

EDIT: Jesus I sound pompous sometimes...

I can't comment on the sanity of adaptation - it may well be the most expedient reaction. But your original description of the relative economic positions of worker and employer, and of who accrues the most benefit from the energy expenditure of the worker (hint: it's not the worker), is just simple 20/20 clarity. Not even the most conservative economist could disagree with it. To adapt to this seems an act akin to Stockholm syndrome, but to struggle with it, though perhaps more clear-minded, is also unlikely to bring happiness. But once you've seen what you've seen, you can't unsee it.

Why do you think that the behaviour of corporations is a matter of belief? You "refuse to believe" that they want to "get more money", but profit is the raison d'etre of corporations. It's why they exist. Increasing profit is therefore the prime goal. Your refusing to believe it, in the face of the evidence of history, business logic, and political science, is analogous to the blind faith of flat-earthers.

Ah I missed the different name. Thanks for the clarification. I was thinking of comments I've seen before where people say that if you have 100 bitcoins you'll have a hard time converting them to (e.g.) $700k cash.

Forgive my total ignorance of bitcoin but - why can't you sell 1 Bitcoin for $7000?

The point is to effect a separation from self-harming habits that are far more dangerous to your general well-being than believing that "inanimate objects or intangible ideas" may be interconnected in ways our small perspective on the world is unable to perceive.

As another user said, please make the URLs links.

Your being banned from a subreddit is not the same as your right to free speech being infringed upon. "Free speech" does not equal "permission to post in one or more specific subreddits".

Well that's fucking unpleasant.

You seem like a good person to ask the question that's appeared on this thread already a couple of times: if the business produces "passive income", why would you want to sell it? I.e. if you put little-to-no-effort into running it and it gives you an income, surely you would (in the long run) lose money by selling for a lump sum that bears any relation to the business's income.

I found the icons within five seconds - the menu on the left has a heading "Icon Sets".

Sorry, perhaps I misread your comment. I thought your second paragraph was disagreeing with my assertion that self-censoring is sometimes a valuable act.

Which is precisely why I added loads of caveats - "sometimes (not always)", "a sector of society one respects (whoever that may be)", "(depending on what they are)". I haven't seen anyone in this discussion suggest that one should conform to (in your words) "society at large". That's just a straw-man.

Not in my experience, but that is anecdotal. If you have evidence beyond the anecdotal I'd be interested to see it, though of course there's no obligation for you to do research work for me.

EDIT: Just to add that your comment's two halves are not logically connected. Even if we do act in this way, it doesn't make it a "critical part of what we are", or if it does, there is no reason that "critical parts" cannot be altered if need be. In the early 19th century most people would have thought that a 10 hour working day was too liberal - an 8 hour working day would have been unthinkable; but that "critical part" of people's way of perceiving society was not set in stone, as it turned out.

Ok, let's set aside the object of this "mind-control", i.e. the whole theme around men's attitudes to women, because we're not going to agree on that I guess. This is to be expected. But what I don't understand is your unwillingness to accept that it's sometimes ok to feel shame or the need to self-censor when one has certain thoughts. Is "mind-control", as you put it, always bad? Is one not allowed sometimes (not always) to attempt to regulate one's thoughts according to the guidance of a sector of society one respects (whoever that may be)? Indeed (though this is extreme) can one not even sometimes hate oneself for one's involuntary thoughts (depending on what they are, of course)? I understand you're linking this to the case of finding women attractive, but your post also seems to suggest that any kind of self-regulation, second-thoughts, self-criticism, is "ideological possession". Surely you don't believe that.

Or perhaps someone who doesn't want their valuation of other human beings to be solely based on criteria which are instilled by a mixture of: a) a centuries-long ingrained conception of women as possessions and b) (if you insist) evolutionary priorities.

Your civility is making it hard for me to pigeon-hole you as an unreasonable reactionary. Please desist.

Curious whence comes your familiarity with the scams?

Totally agree - but in my opinion, and in the knowledge that this will receive a lot of downvotes, such statements don't require refuting, only rebutting. In my opinion, again, only statements which bear at least a nugget of rationality require the expenditure of one's own rationality in the effort to refute them.

I agree my quick post was not a rebuttal, but I didn't claim it was.

Edit: to say that in the light of Aloha's response, I guess my post was a rebuttal. But not a refutation... Sorry, I'm just quibbling now.