Right, that is the reality now. That’s the point. We make the rules. They’re completely made up. By us.

We should pick rules that have the greatest overall benefit to humanity. I.e. its time to change the rules.

Let me dispel one more myth while I have your attention.

Capitalism has not “lifted more ppl out of poverty.. blah blah blah”. PROGRESS has. That is, science and technology.

I can prove it.

Imagine a circle of ppl, a book, and $5. We can make the rules of our economy any way we choose. We can make the book and money go round the circle faster, slower, clockwise, counter, etc.

But we cannot improve anyones life outside of ensuring equitable access to the book and money. The only way to do that is to WRITE MORE BOOKS!

Unfortunately there’s no short way to discuss complex topics, so I apologize in advance. Please bear with me, I’ll be as clear and brief as possible.

Lets imagine an explorer discovers an iron mine. Society wants to promote exploration so it decides to reward the explorer.

There are two main ways of doing this.

Capitalism. The explorer KEEPS the mine. He hires workers from society to mine the mine, and sells the iron to society. The explorer keeps the profits.

Socialism. Society keeps the mine. The explorer is paid a finders fee. A manager who specializes in managing iron mines is hired to hire workers from society to mine the iron. The iron is sold to society. Society splits the profits.

Notice a couple of important points. One, in both scenarios, everybody is being paid for their work. There’s no “free shit” in socialism unless you count the windfall of the iron. But if you do, the same is true of capitalism, it is just the explorer who gets the free shit.

Two, its important to understand where the profit comes from. Its LABOR the town must provide to the explorer. Not the mining, that happens anyway. But to pay the profit, society must do more labor to get the same iron. More doctoring, tailoring, farming, etc. To the benefit of the explorer.

Lastly, its more than just the profit. Under capitalism, the explorer gets “property rights” to direct the workings of the iron mine, despite his lack of expertise. And the operation of the mine VERY MUCH affects society.

Hi. So, lets look at it from a Marxist perspective.

Karl Marx advocated for socialism, NOT communism. Communism was the GOAL. An economic utopia.

“Marx's concept of a post-capitalist communist society (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_society) involves the free distribution of goods made possible by the abundance provided by automation.[28]

(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy#cite_note-28)” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity_economy

Marx was taking about Star Trek. You can’t just “switch” to communism. You need robots doing all the work or else you have scarcity!

Socialism, Marx said, is the PATH to communism. This is because of the problem of automation. What happens when one man owns an army of robots that does most jobs better and faster than humans? That’s where socialism comes in (UBI).

Where does the money come from? Think of it like us splitting the robots paycheck rather than it going entirely to the “owner”.

Please notice that socialism in this context is about what to do with surplus. As we approach full automation (communism) we need to split the surplus or else extreme wealth inequality and economic collapse.

Decentralize Congress

(This one’s mine. I got the idea from bitcoin and harry potter. Don’t ask. My mind is weird.)

That is, whenever a session is about to convene, members are chosen AT RANDOM from a large pool of qualified citizens (I’ll address quals in the next paragraph). Like jury duty. The sessions are held remotely and the citizen is excused from work and paid well.

Qualifications vary based on the substance of the meetings and participation is entirely VOLUNTARY. Most matters on general affairs will require the equivalent of a HS Diploma, but if the substance is more complex, higher quals are required. These are decided by examination. For example, if the session is on climate change, you need to have passed the sciences portion of the exam to qualify.

This is MORE representative than voting. Consider, you could abstain from voting the rest of your life and not a SINGLE election would change outcomes. Here, you have a real voice, but we don’t have Joe Blow making laws about economics.

Think about it. No more money in politics. No more career politicians. No bribery. And no ppl who can’t pass a science exam making medical decisions.

Lastly, this only applies to Congress and possibly state senate.

West sider here. Being a cleveland fan is masochistic.

Drilling holes in heads was once the pinnacle of medicine. All the literature agreed.

As someone who’s spent years in the field, we ain’t that good at it yet.

To be clear, your counter argument is “nuh uh”. K

Really? Strawman argument much?

Look. If ppl are being fired from their jobs or assaulted, we should deal with that criminally. I’m all for that. I don’t support bullying, violence, or oppression.

But that’s just not what Ive seen from the trans community. The loudest Ive heard them is over Dave Chappell and Lia Thompson.

Contrast that to the BLM movement where ppl are literally being beaten and murdered.

Gays actually DID go through that stuff. But trans using the same playbook as the gays is inappropriate because the issues arent nearly the same.

Doesnt change the treatment plan?! You can’t be serious. We don’t change reality to better suit schizophrenia. Or ask that society play along.

So you admit its a mental health issue

I appreciate the nuanced presentation but I take issue with your conclusion. Gender dysphoria only exists because of the existence of gender ROLES.

A man wearing a dress has nothing to do with mental heath, but is instead a recognition that socially constructed gender roles are dumb.

This is VERY different than the claim that you are in the wrong gender. Not matching socially constructed gender roles would yield a wide variety of behqviors, NOT exclusively the OPPOSITE genders’ behaviors.

Do you see my point? A rejection of gender roles is logical. But that would almost NEVER lead to embracing a different gender role!

The article is talking about ppl dying from socioeconomic issues and “accessibility” to healthcare. Not that the hospitals were too full.

I have a heart condition. I go to the hospital a lot. At no point during the pandemic was it too crowded (Cleveland, OH). Anecdotal, true, but heres something that’s not.

If hospital fullness were a concern, then lockdowns would be LOCAL based on current beds available. Not case count and not state or county wide.

Hospitals get overwhelmed during flu season. It happens all the time even when there’s no pandemic. Also, are you claiming that a significant amount of deaths from covid were caused by inaccessible hospitals?! Because that’s patently false.

I see. They didn’t give anybody the vaccine. They used other studies and inferred results. I hate that these studies get as much credit as primary studies.

This comment is so dumb. You believe fewer ppl would die if the virus spreads SLOWER??

What is “risk of hospitalization” as opposed to actual hospitalization?