How Problematic is "All Lives Matter?"

Buyetyen

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I'll ask both of you again. Prove that socialism works and that capitalism isn't based on reality. History backs me up, I have yet to see you provide anything to the contrary.
You're misquoting the question in a deliberately misleading way. But fine, you want proof socialism works? Social Security. Medicare. The universal healthcare coverage of every developed nation except the US. Finland's experimental UBI system has so far yielded tons of positive data and results. SNAP keeps thousands of kids from going to bed hungry. Public education has gotten us to a literacy saturation point undreamt of a few centuries ago. These are all socialist principles. They are owned by the public because they advance the public good without the extraneous need to make a small handful of greedy shitbirds a fuck load of money.

And capitalism's flaw is in its failure to recognize that it is inherently built in such a way that capital will inevitably concentrate at the top and crash the market when the lower classes no longer have enough money combined to keep the market flowing. This is late-stage capitalism. Corporations have reached a peak of market share and saturation, but their shareholders expect ever larger quarterly returns. When your market it tapped out, the only thing to do is start cutting. But as we have seen play out repeatedly in the real world, it's rarely the CEOs who take a pay cut in solidarity with their workers. And of course, cutting has diminishing returns as before too long all those cuts to payroll and services result in a lower quality of service.

Or take the neoliberal scam of trickle-down economics. The theory goes that if we cut taxes for large corporations and the wealthy elite, they'll reinvest that money into the economy. Instead, they just squirrel the extra money away in tax shelters or trust funds and use the corporate largesse to initiate stock buybacks to artificially inflate quarterly returns.

Essentially, capitalism is a ponzi scheme by design. It recognizes no intrinsic value in humanity. It is a system that allows the rich to grow richer at the expense of everyone else. It is a system that rewards criminal behavior and in fact, the higher up the socio-economic ladder you climb, the less and less the rules and laws apply to you. Wall Street gambled with our money and crashed our economy in 2008, but not a single bankster saw the inside of a jail cell. Instead, they got bailed out and pocketed the money.

And this is before we get into outsourcing of jobs to skirt labor laws, the highly unethical means of acquiring raw materials from developing nations, the sheer amount of bloodshed in suppressing organized labor of any kind, the horrific environmental impact and the radical alienization of the populace as a consequence of hyper-consumerism, FOMO, and the commoditization of every facet of our existence. Capitalism is an anti-humanist ideology.

OK, let's pretend that Marxism is not the engine of mass murder and soul killing poverty it appears to be. That you think it can lead to something other than children digging through garbage looking for something to eat. Even if it would lead to all Western people farting through silk pajamas by Xmas if only we'd adopt it. Do it's proponents believe they need to divide and destroy to build their new "utopia".? I think they do and are trying to implement this destruction through BLM.

ITMT: Remember. If you don't vote Biden this November, you aint black. Everybody got that?!?!
That's a lovely strawman but what does it have to do with anything I just said? I mean, just go ahead and burn the damn thing, I don't care. Again, if you in any way, shape or form plan on voting for Trump this year, then you don't get to call other people divisive. Supporting Trump is supporting division.
 

Xprimentyl

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With organizers like BLM, you get to that conversation before the need to form the organization. BLM was created by generations of being ignored, mistreated, brutalized without repercussions. The pleas were ignored. The shows of solidary were villainized. The proof was dismissed. The community itself was blamed. And now, with literally the world's focus onto the movement, facets of America are acting indignant like "all we had to do was discuss it and you took it to this extreme".
^THIS.

You called the cops after the umpteenth time I beat your ass; why didn't we talk it out like civilized, sane and caring individuals before you brought attention to our abusive relationship?
 
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Houseman

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^THIS.

You called the cops after the umpteenth time I beat your ass; why didn't we talk it out like civilized, sane and caring individuals before you brought attention to our abusive relationship?
When you say things like that, it's like you don't recognize that black people commit a disproportionate amount of violent crimes.
It's like you're treating Japan as the poor victim for losing WWII.

When we're talking in terms of broad statistics as opposed to personal anecdotes: don't start none, there won't be none.
 

Trunkage

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When you say things like that, it's like you don't recognize that black people commit a disproportionate amount of violent crimes.
It's like you're treating Japan as the poor victim for losing WWII.

When we're talking in terms of broad statistics as opposed to personal anecdotes: don't start none, there won't be none.
13/50. Yeah!

I thought we did this before on this thread. Anyway...

WHY are they disproportionately commiting crime?
 

Houseman

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I thought we did this before on this thread. Anyway...
We did, but Xprimentyl wants to bring up the same point again like it hasn't already been covered.

WHY are they disproportionately commiting crime?
We already covered that.

This isn't a circular argument. We know what the real problem is and how to solve it. Nobody has denied that. They just change the subject by bringing up anecdotes, as if feelings somehow justify ignoring facts. "But what about the time I was pulled over?" "You'll never understand my pain".
 
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Buyetyen

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WHY are they disproportionately commiting crime?
Weird how the anti-BLM crowd always assert that the answer to this question is obvious but never can come right out and say what it is. They always just kind of dance around it. Can't imagine why.
 
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Houseman

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Weird how the anti-BLM crowd always assert that the answer to this question is obvious but never can come right out and say what it is. They always just kind of dance around it. Can't imagine why.
I've literally said what it is multiple times in this topic, starting with post #79
The answer is poverty.

Sorry if I embarrassed you.
 

Specter Von Baren

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You're misquoting the question in a deliberately misleading way. But fine, you want proof socialism works? Social Security. Medicare. The universal healthcare coverage of every developed nation except the US. Finland's experimental UBI system has so far yielded tons of positive data and results. SNAP keeps thousands of kids from going to bed hungry. Public education has gotten us to a literacy saturation point undreamt of a few centuries ago. These are all socialist principles. They are owned by the public because they advance the public good without the extraneous need to make a small handful of greedy shitbirds a fuck load of money.
I'm sorry, I don't understand. How does showing policies being carried out by capitalist systems show that socialism works? Or are you trying to sabotage your argument and tell me capitalism does what socialism wants to do but actually work?

And capitalism's flaw is in its failure to recognize that it is inherently built in such a way that capital will inevitably concentrate at the top and crash the market when the lower classes no longer have enough money combined to keep the market flowing. This is late-stage capitalism. Corporations have reached a peak of market share and saturation, but their shareholders expect ever larger quarterly returns. When your market it tapped out, the only thing to do is start cutting. But as we have seen play out repeatedly in the real world, it's rarely the CEOs who take a pay cut in solidarity with their workers. And of course, cutting has diminishing returns as before too long all those cuts to payroll and services result in a lower quality of service.

Or take the neoliberal scam of trickle-down economics. The theory goes that if we cut taxes for large corporations and the wealthy elite, they'll reinvest that money into the economy. Instead, they just squirrel the extra money away in tax shelters or trust funds and use the corporate largesse to initiate stock buybacks to artificially inflate quarterly returns.
And yet, despite all of that, it's still been the best system we've come up with after all this time here on Earth. You got a better one? I'm more than willing to hear your ideas. I don't have any particular attachment to capitalism outside of it being better than what's been tried before.

Essentially, capitalism is a ponzi scheme by design. It recognizes no intrinsic value in humanity.
Neither does socialism once it has power. Then everyone is just a number to be flattened to almost 0.

It is a system that allows the rich to grow richer at the expense of everyone else. It is a system that rewards criminal behavior and in fact, the higher up the socio-economic ladder you climb, the less and less the rules and laws apply to you. Wall Street gambled with our money and crashed our economy in 2008, but not a single bankster saw the inside of a jail cell. Instead, they got bailed out and pocketed the money.
Oh yeah, and socialism produced such wonderful and moral people. Making everyone poorer and poorer so everyone is equal! Except for of course the thugs that got to the top of the power hierarchy because they made the promises everyone wanted to hear only to become tyrants once no one could talk back to them.

And this is before we get into outsourcing of jobs to skirt labor laws, the highly unethical means of acquiring raw materials from developing nations, the sheer amount of bloodshed in suppressing organized labor of any kind, the horrific environmental impact and the radical alienization of the populace as a consequence of hyper-consumerism, FOMO, and the commoditization of every facet of our existence. Capitalism is an anti-humanist ideology.


Oh man! Such wonderful ecological bounty given by the socialist system! Truly we would have no environmental problems if we all just became socialists.
 

Buyetyen

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I'm sorry, I don't understand. How does showing policies being carried out by capitalist systems show that socialism works? Or are you trying to sabotage your argument and tell me capitalism does what socialism wants to do but actually work?
The US has operated on a mixed economy for some time. It's just that since the Cold War we've unnecessarily demonized the word socialism and justified it to ourselves by pretending our socialist policies are something else.

And yet, despite all of that, it's still been the best system we've come up with after all this time here on Earth. You got a better one? I'm more than willing to hear your ideas. I don't have any particular attachment to capitalism outside of it being better than what's been tried before.
This is an article of faith, nothing more.

Neither does socialism once it has power. Then everyone is just a number to be flattened to almost 0.
So you agree then that capitalism is an inherently anti-humanist ideology?

Oh yeah, and socialism produced such wonderful and moral people. Making everyone poorer and poorer so everyone is equal! Except for of course the thugs that got to the top of the power hierarchy because they made the promises everyone wanted to hear only to become tyrants once no one could talk back to them.





Oh man! Such wonderful ecological bounty given by the socialist system! Truly we would have no environmental problems if we all just became socialists.
And this is why I say you don't know what socialism actually is. If I address your questions and your rebuttal is petulant snark, then I think we're done.
 

SupahEwok

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I'm sorry, I don't understand. How does showing policies being carried out by capitalist systems show that socialism works? Or are you trying to sabotage your argument and tell me capitalism does what socialism wants to do but actually work?



And yet, despite all of that, it's still been the best system we've come up with after all this time here on Earth. You got a better one? I'm more than willing to hear your ideas. I don't have any particular attachment to capitalism outside of it being better than what's been tried before.



Neither does socialism once it has power. Then everyone is just a number to be flattened to almost 0.



Oh yeah, and socialism produced such wonderful and moral people. Making everyone poorer and poorer so everyone is equal! Except for of course the thugs that got to the top of the power hierarchy because they made the promises everyone wanted to hear only to become tyrants once no one could talk back to them.





Oh man! Such wonderful ecological bounty given by the socialist system! Truly we would have no environmental problems if we all just became socialists.
Your fundamental misunderstanding, carried by a culture still rooted in McCarthyist dialogue, is that socialism stands in opposition to capitalism, when as a matter of fact it was conceived of as a system which addressed the flaws of capitalism. In other words, the next step in the evolution of economic systems.

Please tell me what you consider capitalism to be. It is my impression that you have paired "capitalism" with your first world lifestyle, ignoring any actual economical definition.
 

Trunkage

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I've literally said what it is multiple times in this topic, starting with post #79
The answer is poverty.

Sorry if I embarrassed you.
But you 13/50, what did you expect? The catch cry of ALM.

With the caveat that I don't think you haven stated that the best solution is way more police. More guns. More prison. And taking away welfare. But I may have misremembered.

When you bring something like this up, I'm going to be looking very carefully for any sort of Authoritarian and marginalizing people chatter. Because 90% of the time it goes hand in hand
 

Houseman

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But you 13/50, what did you expect? The catch cry of ALM.
Sorry, I don't understand what these two "sentences" are supposed to be saying. Mind rephrasing?

With the caveat that I don't think you haven stated that the best solution is way more police. More guns. More prison. And taking away welfare. But I may have misremembered.
Go ahead and look through my posts. Nowhere have I claimed that those things are solutions. For the record, I believe that solving poverty would ultimately fix every other problem in the chain.

When you bring something like this up, I'm going to be looking very carefully for any sort of Authoritarian and marginalizing people chatter. Because 90% of the time it goes hand in hand
Feel free.
 

SupahEwok

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Go ahead and look through my posts. Nowhere have I claimed that those things are solutions. For the record, I believe that solving poverty would ultimately fix every other problem in the chain.
What is your preferred solution to poverty? Perhaps you've stated it begore, but I know I haven't read it.
 

Trunkage

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Sorry, I don't understand what these two "sentences" are supposed to be saying. Mind rephrasing?
You were talking about how blacks make up a disproportionate amount of crime. Commonly known as 13/50. Blacks make up 13% of the population but 50% of the crme. The term 13/50 is a few years old but the content is a copy of Reagan's argument to get elected. And most presidents since then. It's usually then followed by the term 'law and order'. I.e. in my eyes, Authoritarism. And usually doing the opposite of helping the situation. And usually targeting poor people. I don't trust that term coming out of Reagan, Clinton or Trump

Also, very common for ALM supporters to say.
Go ahead and look through my posts. Nowhere have I claimed that those things are solutions. For the record, I believe that solving poverty would ultimately fix every other problem in the chain.
As I said, pretty sure you didn't. Otherwise we'd be having a very different conversation

For example, Sam Harris believes in Race Realism: minorities have a lower IQ to whites. Charles Murray believes in Race Realism but his solution is give more money to white people because minorities dont know how to handle money. Becuase of IQ. I'll have a different discussion with Sam Harris and Charles Murray, despite having similar beliefs because they aren't exactly the same.

As another example, I've had multiple people say ALM to me. You have one perspective about what it means. I've also had people say 'ALM: if you need a color, you're the racist.' Which probably isn't help the conservation. Then Ive had people complaining like you about BLM, say their ALM, then take a sharp turn. In the next paragraph they say that Floyd got what he deserved because he was a criminal. I'm treating this situations different but highly aware they fall under the same banner: ALM.

It's a copy of your situation. You've found evidence of racist motive by BLM organizer. It doesn't mean all BLM are racists but you are wary of the term
 
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Houseman

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It's a copy of your situation. You've found evidence of racist motive by BLM organizer. It doesn't mean all BLM are racists but you are wary of the term
I see.

At least in my case, BLM is an actual movement with a mission statement and an actual organization with chapters and a bank account and nonprofit status and everything.

ALM isn't any of those things. It doesn't make the most sense to equate my criticism of an organization with your criticism of a non-organization.
Also, could you answer post #207? That might help clear some things up.
 
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gorfias

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I don't have one. (preferred method of solving poverty)
Kind of off topic, but encourage a fair, simple, income tax. We waste a ton of time, energy and funds messing around with the gargantuan US tax code. Make tax rates reasonably low and one that you can fill out a post card to complete. Encourage many paths to professional credentials. If you are paying to take an exam and can pass it without cheating, it is no one's business how you trained to pass the exam. Yet, the US has a ton of hoops you must jump through to take the CPA and Bar exams and more. End affirmative action. No, not just for race but more importantly, sex. The 1st Amendment's protection of the right to freedom of association needs to encompass the work place. Why? Because outlawing the practice would reduce the size and scope of gargantuan HR departments (largely staffed by women at about 76%), cut the costs of doing business and job opportunities will grow. It will reduce lawsuits and the fear of them and the need for lawsuit insurance. Again, reduce the cost of doing business and opportunities and wages will grow. As for "don'ts": don't have the US sign on to stupid "climate change" agreements that do nothing to improve the environment, but do shift jobs and opportunities to nations that don't bother with such stuff.

We are being restrained by people that care more about control than prosperity. Make them pay for that at the ballot box this November.