Anyone else see Reddit’s stock tank 20% yesterday?

According to…that woman with a book about his wealth? Article says 70 to 200 btw, not 200. Sources elsewhere guess much lower (tens of billions).

US GDP is 27.72 trillion. That’s the movement of money annually.

Yes, Putin’s in charge, with his one hundred million dollars (sarcasm, not exact figure) and zero sway over the entire Western economic establishment.

It’s not laymen, it’s a journalist. Their job is to accurately describe the truth.

It is factually incorrect. It is not giving them money, it is taking less money from them. That has different consequences under tax law and describing it that way also completely muddles people’s understanding of how the budget works.

I hate the language around the federal budget. First, how budget figures are reporting in 10 year intervals, when everything else is reported in 1 year intervals. So everything sounds 10 times bigger. When like only 5% of the population ever looks at the federal budget, this creates a TON of confusion.

Second, how reductions in tax (like to the rich) are reported as “giveaways”. Taxes go in, not out. That’s a reduction in revenue, not an expenditure or liability. You can say, “shift the tax burden even more onto the lower and middle classes”. Then it’s actually accurate. Getting fired from your job is not an expense, it’s a loss of income. Same thing.

“Did you stop beating your wife yet?”

History will look back at the American empire and judge all its complicit civilians equally. It’s Democrat vanity that makes them think they’re not in the same genocidal boat as Republicans. You may think of yourselves in another class, but your politicians were complicit in the same crimes.

I am already remembering why I walked away the last time I made the mistake of talking to this guy.

Because the direction “left” doesn’t actually have any inherent relationship to political ideologies, but people strive for some kind of ideological purity, especially to draw a contrast with a fundamentally unjust society?

Just practically speaking, hard work alone doesn’t cut it. You need to figure out how to get enough money out for the labor you’re putting in. Goes without saying, for many people that’s impossible, especially with no financial wiggle room. On top of whatever inequalities are inherent to capitalism, the government’s also gone out of their way to completely rig the rules of the game.

The origins of metal have more moral correctness than the “Christian” US. Scroll all the way back to 1970, “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath. Song very plainly and literally about the corruption of the political establishment and the evil of war. That undercurrent never went away, all the way to the present.

For the ten thousandth time in this thread, it’s circular logic for a population not to vote for someone because they think no one will vote for them.

If everyone who had voted for Harris had voted for De la Cruz instead she still wouldn’t have won.

And?

There are no serious third party options in the US currently.

As assessed by you, based on arbitrary criteria and questionable analysis.

I can’t magically change everyone’s behavior. I’m not a deity. All I can do is describe what behaviors are required of a population in a representative democracy, for the system to not turn on them, or to reverse the grip of a system that has already turned on them. Each one teach one.

Game theory of course applies. But the game has hundreds of millions of participants (ignoring the broader global population, which also influences it). The error in analyzing election choices is to only myopically look at the “what do we do if it’s a 49.999% 49.999% split” and ignore the behavior of the entire GROUP. The fact that every member of the population has the power to make arbitrary choices in the election, and entirely determines the result of the election, including the supposedly predetermined 49.999%x2 split we keep ending back at, prior to the election actually taking place. We create this reality by assuming its inevitability - no more, no less. There’s literally infinite pathways for social organization among the general population, but in ignoring them, we completely sacrifice our own power.

Yes, I have heard this math. Many, many, many, many times. Now, try the math where this is a democracy, we have the right to vote for whoever we want, the election results aren’t magically predetermined, and the 100% can be subdivided in any way among the group of all candidates - so long as the population, or even just a majority of it, isn’t religiously locked into the idea that they must vote for whatever candidate has a specific label or color next to their name.

And, lo and behold, he did not respond with specific responses to the actual claims I made. On reddit, this is when I would hit the “block” button, because I know they’re just wasting my time. But here they just keep responding forever until I stop responding myself.

How is it that I had heard of them months before the election, and you’re still catching up?

Back to the point I made elsewhere - the population is abdicating their responsibility to vote responsibly, that is the core problem here. Election came and went, and you didn’t even research the non-D/R candidates. As the saying goes, politics isn’t a spectator sport. Your approach is basically like going to a car dealership and asking them nicely to give the best deal. You gave up all your power at the door. You didn’t fight them on the random fees they threw into the price, you just went, well, at least it’s not the RAM dealership across the street. You didn’t look on Craigslist for used cars listed by sellers, you didn’t ask a mechanic what brand to get, nothing.

You claim I don’t, but you don’t show it. That’s the big red flag for “Dunning-Kruger” - unsubstantiated claims, or claims with faulty arguments behind them.

And for the love of god, don’t respond to that with anything but specific responses to the actual claims I made. I cannot take anymore of these circular arguments today.

It’s not the “human condition”. All of these things are products of cultural practices and belief systems. Not all societies wage war. Not all societies put mass murderers in control. You cannot be so careless with your logic and hope to ever arrive at a correct conclusion.