Bahahahhahahahaha
Grandpa you gotta get your eyes checked, and turn up your hearing aid!
Grandpa you gotta get your eyes checked, and turn up your hearing aid!
In a libertarian utopia, I'd expect debt would be greatly minimized because special companies wouldn't be given the magical ability to create the common currency our of thin air OR there would be a variety of competing currencies and if companies magically created their own currency out of thin air it'd end up not used as much as one that better holds its value.
Not just central banks can print money -- normal banks magic money into existence through virtually unbacked debt and while fractional reserve banking may exist it would be a much higher risk endeavor subject to routine bank runs because people could and would demand their money back and the fraud that is the bank could not return it.
It's entirely possible and probable that people using a currency without magagovernments backing them would demand something backed by something of value or otherwise protected by devaluation caused by magical money printing.
Banking and debt is so deeply entrenched with the state at this point, I don't think we can correctly conceive of just how different things would look without it all. I doubt credit cards would even be a thing.
In the current system, a credit card represents money that was spent and magically spawned into existence so if you have $50,000 in credit card debt that's a you problem unless and until you go bankrupt. If they had to back it up if someone came looking for that money, they wouldn't possibly want to so cavalierly lend random amounts to random people for random purposes.
Not just central banks can print money -- normal banks magic money into existence through virtually unbacked debt and while fractional reserve banking may exist it would be a much higher risk endeavor subject to routine bank runs because people could and would demand their money back and the fraud that is the bank could not return it.
It's entirely possible and probable that people using a currency without magagovernments backing them would demand something backed by something of value or otherwise protected by devaluation caused by magical money printing.
Banking and debt is so deeply entrenched with the state at this point, I don't think we can correctly conceive of just how different things would look without it all. I doubt credit cards would even be a thing.
In the current system, a credit card represents money that was spent and magically spawned into existence so if you have $50,000 in credit card debt that's a you problem unless and until you go bankrupt. If they had to back it up if someone came looking for that money, they wouldn't possibly want to so cavalierly lend random amounts to random people for random purposes.
Seems to me that a lot of westerners are fundamentally disconnected from reality, in part because in spite of the imperfections of western society, it's the freest, safest, most equal society there is and possibly has ever been, and again while imperfect it also has things like relative legal consistency giving a modicum of fairness. As a result, people can get the mistaken impression that this state is normal when it's highly unusual and extremely fragile, and most societies today and throughout history have been brutal, tyrannical, strongly hierarchical, and unfair.
Two other factors contribute to this. First, western society in general has become extremely insular and doesn't know about other cultures except through its own narrow lens, so a lot of people might only know messages tailored for western audiences that sand over the fundamental value differences between cultures. Second, the boomer ethic says that the worst thing you can possibly do is judge someone so there's a reflex against judging things we ought to consider evil in spite of the glaring evil of the thing.
Most people don't know, for example, that muslims were unrepentant slavers, and the only reason the descendants of those slaves aren't around is their practice of castrating slaves. The only reason the slave trade ended was European imperialism imposing that behavior upon the entire world. Modern Muslim scholars saying slavery is wrong are likely engaging in an ex post facto rationalization of something that now is the norm. It is not clear that slavery wouldn't return once western political influence fades.
Another issue is the nature of the family structure of Islamic society. It is a true patriarchy with the eldest father having overwhelming control over the clan including all the sons, and it is also a society that allows cousin marriage, something that Christianity by contrast prohibited. This family structure puts women at the very bottom of the hierarchy since the sons who are dominated by the father need someone to dominate in turn, and the only saving grace for women in the Islamic world is that wives are often already closely related by blood. For western or westernized women who go to isis territory, they'll have the one downside without the other upside.
To be clear, I am not stuck in traffic in any of these regards, I am traffic. A little bit of study here and there doesn't mean I'm not still seeing the world through a western Christian liberal democratic lens, and it's only through the Herculean efforts of some truly gifted individuals that I have the slightest understanding that all I'm seeing are shadows on the wall and that there's a real world outside that's much different.
Two other factors contribute to this. First, western society in general has become extremely insular and doesn't know about other cultures except through its own narrow lens, so a lot of people might only know messages tailored for western audiences that sand over the fundamental value differences between cultures. Second, the boomer ethic says that the worst thing you can possibly do is judge someone so there's a reflex against judging things we ought to consider evil in spite of the glaring evil of the thing.
Most people don't know, for example, that muslims were unrepentant slavers, and the only reason the descendants of those slaves aren't around is their practice of castrating slaves. The only reason the slave trade ended was European imperialism imposing that behavior upon the entire world. Modern Muslim scholars saying slavery is wrong are likely engaging in an ex post facto rationalization of something that now is the norm. It is not clear that slavery wouldn't return once western political influence fades.
Another issue is the nature of the family structure of Islamic society. It is a true patriarchy with the eldest father having overwhelming control over the clan including all the sons, and it is also a society that allows cousin marriage, something that Christianity by contrast prohibited. This family structure puts women at the very bottom of the hierarchy since the sons who are dominated by the father need someone to dominate in turn, and the only saving grace for women in the Islamic world is that wives are often already closely related by blood. For western or westernized women who go to isis territory, they'll have the one downside without the other upside.
To be clear, I am not stuck in traffic in any of these regards, I am traffic. A little bit of study here and there doesn't mean I'm not still seeing the world through a western Christian liberal democratic lens, and it's only through the Herculean efforts of some truly gifted individuals that I have the slightest understanding that all I'm seeing are shadows on the wall and that there's a real world outside that's much different.
Doesn't matter, the whole system has been dead for 4 years anyway(which I'm surprised at -- I thought it was before the pandemic it went down, but everything I've got suggests it was mid-2020)
A lot has happened in the past 4 years, hasn't it?
A lot has happened in the past 4 years, hasn't it?
Reminds me of newproject2, a patreon alternative set up by a comedian named Dick Masterson (who ran a couple instances for a while) and got shut down by the credit card processors.
It's fuckin bullshit. Sorry to hear it happening to you.
It's fuckin bullshit. Sorry to hear it happening to you.
I think you misunderstand. The inhibitors were released. Every one was on full display, just as Mark Twain wrote it back in the 19th century.
I've got a wonderful leather bound anthology of several of Twain's works. And the N-Word inhibitors have been fully released.
I mean... The guy who was like "Let's kill half the life in the universe, that's a long-term solution to the problem of too much life in the universe" kinda fits.
For those of you following the Disney/reedy creek thing, Disney finally folded, the court cases are over. It's pretty funny given that guys like Leonard French thought it was a totally winnable lawsuit that was going to embarrass Florida.
In Canada the number of government employees at the federal level is up 40% in the past 8 years.
So we can fire 75% and not feel it.
So we can fire 75% and not feel it.
Write books. Make games. Film videos. Sculpt art. Play music. Because nobody is coming to save us, we can only save ourselves.
(And put your stuff out into the world so people can enjoy it! Publishing in particular is so easy today there's no excuse)
(And put your stuff out into the world so people can enjoy it! Publishing in particular is so easy today there's no excuse)
One thing about incels is that I feel like the whole thing started once we started telling men it was evil to try to become more attractive to women if you're not succeeding with them.
It seems self-evident that if you tell men they're just losers who, if they are not presently attractive to women, they will never be and should just accept they'll die alone, of course they'll become hateful and reclusive and sometimes violent, it's an existential threat men will feel at a genetic level.
Otoh, you tell women they're automatically worthy of the top 1% of the top 1% and have them all chasing like 15 guys worldwide and they'll have a different but equally existentially destructive threat on their hands because those 15 guys probably won't marry any of those women.
Becomes pretty obvious why everyone is miserable and the birth rate is less than replacement.. in car terms, the men are being told that if they can't immediately go out and buy a car with cash then they don't deserve a car ever, and the women are being told that if they don't buy a Ferrari then the car doesn't deserve to be bought by them. So everyone walks.
It seems self-evident that if you tell men they're just losers who, if they are not presently attractive to women, they will never be and should just accept they'll die alone, of course they'll become hateful and reclusive and sometimes violent, it's an existential threat men will feel at a genetic level.
Otoh, you tell women they're automatically worthy of the top 1% of the top 1% and have them all chasing like 15 guys worldwide and they'll have a different but equally existentially destructive threat on their hands because those 15 guys probably won't marry any of those women.
Becomes pretty obvious why everyone is miserable and the birth rate is less than replacement.. in car terms, the men are being told that if they can't immediately go out and buy a car with cash then they don't deserve a car ever, and the women are being told that if they don't buy a Ferrari then the car doesn't deserve to be bought by them. So everyone walks.
The best part is that it wasn't even like his fine was reduced. He just needed to pay slightly less but still more money than these journalists will ever see in their entire lives many times over to appeal the decision.
These are the same leftists who want to eliminate cash bail.
These are the same leftists who want to eliminate cash bail.