hexthismess [he/him, comrade/them]

We were supposed to put fake names as our user names?

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

It just works.

I don’t think it’s a simulation. If it was, I don’t think it mattered unless I had some amount of control. Which might be why the simulation idea is taking off, people lacking control over their livelihoods.

I once heard a public radio host, during a segment on the economy, say, “We know the stock market isn’t the economy, but the stock market is doing great!” They then proceeded to not talk about the economy.

I’ve had conversations about socialism with people in my life who are well meaning. The thing I have found to work is to avoid using surface level words like “proletariat, socialism, etc.” This is to avoid the thought terminating reaction they have to hearing red scare words.

Most people have hardships and struggles caused by capitalism, but they’ve been led to believe it’s their fault or that the right flavor of capitalism isn’t being used. My method is to talk about why those hardships may be happening due to capitalism, without saying the words “capitalism or ruling class”. This allows them to listen and think over the concept that capitalism is destroying their livelihood, without recoiling and entrenching their position further.

I think that my senses can be backed up by empirical and reproducible evidence.

If i dont want to burn my hand, I can measure the objects temperature. Even if I don’t trust my reasoning and senses, a hot object will still burn me. I could have no senses to perceive the outside world, and I would still be burned by that object.

The reason I know I will get burned is not based on an absolute knowledge of how hot that object is, but that I and others have been burned before. The evidence is reproducible and most everyone agrees that a hot object will burn them.

Waste of money, which is a finite resource.

You are calling a self sustaining energy technology a waste of money, which is inherently a made up resource. Go be a downer somewhere else.

An ASCII image that says “Help.”

A year or two ago, I saw posters for them for months. I had no idea who they were, I was just excited that some form of “art” was coming to my town, which otherwise was constantly skipped by other shows. My liberal ass didn’t think twice about the tagline “China Before Communism”.

I went all dressed up with family and had a somewhat good experience, punctuated by very strange religious overtones and overt anti-Chinese Govt messages. Once the “Athiesm and evolution are a sin” song and dance rolled out, my experience soured. Ashamedly, I bought their political persecution message because I had the “China bad” brainworms.

I thought the experience was weird enough to do five minutes of research. I found that the show was a PR campaign by the Falong Gong cult. I wish I had done even the slightest bit of research before I gave them money.

The government giving out money to people so that they could stay housed/fed did not cause record inflation. The capitalists massively hiked prices, then said that inflation made them do it. They then declared record profits afterwards. Capitalists scooped up all that money with ease. They then did their little song and dance of, “We’re all in this together. We’re just widdle beans trying to survive like you.”

If the government doing stuff for people over a 2 year period causes massive amounts of inflation, wouldn’t decades of handouts to capitalists cause record hyper-inflation? Inflation doesn’t happen because the government does stuff. Inflation happens because capitalists will pounce on any opportunity to eek more money out of you, then blame you for having too much money.

Wow, what inciteful and valuable commentary you’ve added.

No need to jump in a conversation fists swinging.

Removed by mod

I already expected nothing from this shit-trumpet and yet I am now less happy after hearing this smug fucking take.