Who watches this slop? I just… why. There are so many good books, movies, tv shows, whatever. Stop watching slop.

Ok then no system works because any system can be sabotaged. Democracy can be subverted in various ways. Making a sandwich can be ruined by any number of methods. That’s not a useful way to look at the world.

This sounds like more of the “socialism never works [because conservatives/capitalists sabotage it]”

I think there’s some truth to this. Specifically, a lot of people are sort of reflexively conservative. That is, they don’t like change. If zohran gets free bus fare in, a lot of people who fight it now will fight to keep it.

I think some famous conservative said something once about how they can’t let social programs get in because people like them too much.

He could use some of that money for more immediate good. Start paying off people’s school debt. Build housing. Whatever.

the nation will see that democratic socialism will get them what they were promised.

What’s that old saying like “none are so blind as those who will not see”? I feel like people are so emotionally invested in “socialism bad, democrats bad” that it’s going to be hard for them to accept contradicting that.

Yeah I think that’s one of the things people that don’t always get.

Like you walk down the street and no one’s going to say hi to you, or engage with you much at all. People think that means we’re unfriendly. No, it’s more that we see ten thousand people every day and there’s no way to engage with all of them. Some of them don’t even have a shared language.

But if someone needs help? People step up. I saw a lady trip and fall down the stairs at the subway and a whole lot of people fake running over to make sure she was okay. Bike accident? Lots of people that had been in the background suddenly were helping.

People aren’t perfect. I saw a guy screaming at a woman he was with and no one stepped in, but I like to think there’s a line past which more people would intervene.

edit: fix autocomplete error

That feels on brand for conservatives

Someone else posted this, but I like the idea that Zohran’s response should be “No means no, Cuomo”

Ok, I understand what you meant better. Thanks for explaining further.

But capitalism sucks in a more tolerable way to me than communism.

Ok, this I understand. That’s a position reasonable people can agree or disagree on. (Though from earlier posts, I’m not certain we have the same working definitions of capitalism and communism. That’s a problem for later)

Personally, I find the model of “I work all day and create $100 of stuff. The boss keeps $90 and I get $10” kind of bad. But that’s a whole complex topic with more solutions than just “laissez-faire capitalism” and “communism as attempted by the soviet union”.

I would further assume that the original meme was meant to take a shot at how ceaseless profit motive by the ownership class (ie: capitalism) has given us a bad outcome. Isolated, samey, homes with heavy car dependency. Pollution, inefficient, dehumanizing travel. Bland consumerism. Old people left to rot in for-profit homes.

Now, you can rightly say “other systems can lead to the same outcome!”. That’s true. But, we know that capitalism as implemented in most of the world got us here. Maybe the solution is some other system or combination of systems. I don’t know. But the original poster didn’t say anything about communism. To reuse a metaphor I made earlier, that’s a bit like someone saying “These wolves circling the camp suck” and someone responding “Yeah but bears are worse.” Okay. But we’re not talking about bears. When someone says “We should bring in bears to deal with the wolves,” then sure, bring up bears. But, from what you’re saying, I guess you feel like you’ve seen this song and dance before, and are confident that bears were in the subtext, or were about to be brought up. Fine. I get that can make sense to you, but it can be jarring to anyone who isn’t sharing that mental context.

Name a country that doesn’t possess any of those problems?

I don’t know if there’s anywhere on earth that doesn’t have some capitalism. I feel confident that unchecked capitalism (which the US favors) leads to worse outcomes than what most of Europe does. Our health care system is pretty bad, in large part because it’s run as a capitalist (ie: not owned by the workers) system.

I had more thoughts but someone started texting me, and my train of thought derailed.

Ok, but that seems like a non sequitur. I don’t understand how your metaphor is supposed to help translate “[capitalism] beats communism any day of the week” into “communism isn’t automatically good because capitalism isn’t”. Those are two completely different statements.

I think it would help me if you connected the dots more when you write things.

My original point is: Communism isn’t automatically good just because capitalism isn’t.

I absolutely did not get that meaning from your comment at the top of this thread, which was:

No, but It beats communism any day of the week.

But you’re the one who brought up communism. That’s like someone saying “Poison ivy sucks” and you’re like “Yeah, well, getting bit by bugs sucks”. Like, ok, maybe, but we weren’t talking about bugs. And now you won’t even tell us what bugs you’re talking about.

I feel like you think you’re being very clever, and maybe communicating your ideas, but it’s not coming across. I’ve gathered you have an idea of what communism means, and you don’t like it, but I’m not getting any specifics. If you’re trying to convey what you believe and maybe change people’s mind, your current approach isn’t working. If you’re not, then what are you trying to do?

But that doesn’t make any sense. Words mean things. When people say “communism”, they usually mean something more concrete than whatever you said. Usually it has to do with who owns the means of production.

This is a terrible definition that could be applied to any form of government the speaker dislikes.

You didn’t even come close to answering the question. You didn’t say anything about who owns and benefits from production.

I think the recommendation is 30% of income goes into shelter? Not sure if that’s gross or net. You’d want to be making $80k i think, if it’s gross.

Anyway, this is all hair splitting. Basic costs are too high, yes.

I’m not good at math, but looking at the chart I think the average is dragged up but the huge spike of $5k+/mo units. You can find places for ~$2k/mo that don’t look terrible, assuming the listings on zillow are real. That’s still too expensive, but better than the $3700 average on that chart.

“It could be worse!” is extremely small comfort, though.

I kind of assumed you were making a joke, not asking the question in good faith. Perhaps others made the same assumption.