I chose NOT diddling kids!

I think each Korea just sent the best of their culture!

Not really. Either way you’re not listening. In one case you’re not listening as a group.

You ever get tired of shilling for genocide?

Absolutely not! You may have a right to speak but you have no right to an audience. Just because someone wants to talk it doesn’t mean I have to “challenge their ideas”. I can just not listen. And if they want to come speak in my house I can trespass them. That’s what the Democrats are doing.

You can speak, but no one needs to listen. Some ideas don’t deserve the respect of a challenge. Anything Bibi wants to say right now is easily in that range.

Sure, if you change the definition of words then you’ll never be wrong. Of course when YOU said “free speech” you didn’t mean the commonly understood, legally defined term that people use when the government oppresses its citizens by restricting their ability to speak out against it. You meant some arbitrary broader concept that includes Bibi coming over and explaining why opposing genocide is anti-Semitism directly to Congress. As if any foreign agent has, or should have the right to address the government anytime they want.

I wonder what word you’ll redefine next to not be wrong.

THAT’S NOT WHAT FREE SPEECH IS!!!

It only means literally only one thing: the government isn’t allowed to punish you for saying something.

That’s literally it. No one is being punished. Bibi can say whatever depraved shit he wants to anyone who will listen, it just turns out that it’s not Congress.

You “free speech” literally don’t even understand the very basic thing you build your lives around. Less brain cells than an orange tabby.

Yeah, they won’t let me give a speech to Congress either. They’re stifling MY free speech too.

What’s that? That’s not what free speech means?

Wow, you seriously still believe that corporations compete with eachother in the healthcare sector despite the fact that most insurance companies have a “network” specifically so that they don’t have to compete with eachother? How is healthcare a competitive market that drives towards efficiency exactly? The more you privatise healthcare the lower life expectancy you get and the higher you all pay!

If you think private healthcare is more efficient than single payer healthcare when EVERY PIECE OF DATA WE HAVE says the opposite then I think that says more about you than it does about the government.

Damn, you’d have to be completely brain dead to still believe anything is more efficient than single payer healthcare. The US has the worst outcomes for the highest cost in terms of life expectancy. Same with roads, utilities, schools etc… the more you privatise the more expensive things get for a lower quality product.

A well regulated, competitive market is good for many things, but for others it’s atrocious. An unregulated market has never produced good outcomes on any scale larger than the board of directors.

If you’re seriously summarizing the libertarian agenda then I can’t believe any one over 14 could hold these ideas unless they were VERY sheltered from reality.

I like what you’re saying and I agree with it fundamentally. I wish it is possible to have the majority of crops be direct to consumer. I KNOW everyone is happier when they have a real personal relationship with the products they consume. That’s even part of what marketing abuses when it anthropomorphises brands.

I’m personally pessimistic on that front though, I think it can’t happen in modern capitalism for two major reasons. Number one, I don’t think the majority of the population of Western nations, let alone the world, can tolerate even a moderate increase in food prices without creating massive instability. I know what the “middle men” jack up prices considerably on almost everything, but the staples: wheat and meat in my part of the world, simply cannot be sold cheaper by smaller operations than grocery store prices (in part due to the regulatory capture so prevalent in modern capitalism). Number two, of the people that CAN tolerate the increase, I don’t think modern capitalism would allow their profits to be undercut by a significant shift towards small producers selling direct to customers. They have a few tools that I just don’t think most people are prepared to live without like comfort and consistency. I can get plums, cauliflower, tomatoes, broccoli ANYTIME OF YEAR at reasonably consistent prices. The idea that people will have to pay more AND change to seasonal eating habits where they just can’t get certain things most of the year? I think we’re too far into the comfort of bourgeois decadence, excuse my communist language, to tolerate the change.

I will say I have enjoyed this discussion and I certainly agree that I mischaracterised you by initially latching onto a throwaway “ew bugs” comment.

Using sustainable practices “they only eat a little” is totally valid. The way we farm now… A pest outbreak will ravage a monoculture crop.

I know there are great alternatives, but they all have higher labour requirements. Modern capitalism can’t tolerate that. If we can find a better solution now we can mitigate the damage before we end capitalism. After that we can definitely switch to more labour intensive sustainable practices. I’m not an accelerationist so I’m not rushing to end the current world order before trying to make all the improvements we can.

I’m not fighting you. It’s just you’re acting as if the reason we research pesticides isn’t because we need it to protect our food source.

I’m not even saying that there isn’t some possible alternative, I’m just saying monoculture grains is how humanity gets most of its calories right now. It’s how we currently survive. That requires pesticides. These pesticides are far less damaging to the world than the current ones in use right now. It’s in the research phase too, so it’s not like we’re committing to this specific idea. Everyone knows there are pros and cons, the scientists doing the research do too. You’re not the first person to realise that this will trap all small insects. Just a reminder that our current solution kills all insects and this one is better. The fact it doesn’t harm bees is already a massive improvement.

Everyone should be welcome and encouraged to research any idea that’s better than our current ideas in any way. Any knowledge is good knowledge.

As for your preferred ideas? There are lots of ways to help be part of a future that includes what you feel is the best solution. That being said, none of them include being disingenuous about why we use pesticides in the first place. I don’t know why that was contentious to you. We don’t kill bugs because they’re gross, we kill them because they eat our food.

In the Jurassic period there were giant insects like dragonflies with 4ft wingspan. Turns out THIS is how we get to Jurassic park

It’s not because they’re gross, it’s because they eat our food. And we grow monocultures so it’s a perfect breeding ground for pests. Also if you read the article the new pesticide is physical and doesn’t harm large predatory insects.

I’m generalizing here, but men’s lib looks VERY different to women’s lib. Women started from a position of very low power, liberation was nearly a continuous improvement for all but the most privileged women.

Men’s lib requires first giving up a lot of patriarchal power before gaining the benefits of men’s lib, which in my opinion far surpass those of patriarchal power. There are a lot of barriers to this. First, most “online” feminists talk only about giving up patriarchal power. This feels hostile to most men and has bolstered misogynist influencers like tate et al. Second real life men and women are typically both complicit as men in enforcing patriarchal views of what a man is supposed to be. You can see experiences of men crying or expressing real emotion in front their prospective significant others as a prime example of this. Third there is no easy to access popular description of the benefits to men of men’s lib. There are great examples, but they aren’t as culturally relevant as patriarchal influencers yet.

The path to men’s lib is complex and has very different challenges than women’s lib. I think we’re getting there, but it’s certainly a slow process and at this time I think the counter reaction is more prevalent and popular.

That income is high enough to be taxed more, but I agree more granularity would be better. I hope that they increase taxes on the rich mostly by closing loopholes that favour the 1% at our expense. A billionaire that pays no taxes now isn’t going to owe more if we increase the tax rate. 3 times 0 is still 0. It’s the loopholes we have to close.

It’s not usually the doctors making 250-400k that are shirking their fair share of taxes, but the use of loopholes certainly starts in that range and accelerates exponentially with higher wealth and income.

I’m mad because I didn’t get a chili cheese dog at a gas station. I’m also mad because I saw someone using a phone and they didn’t look at me when I (likely rudely) complained at them. These two things both made me mad so they must be directly related and I’m willing to ignore and excuse all evidence that tells me otherwise.

No bitch, the only thing that links the two events is that you’re easily upset.

People like you are the reason we’re overrun with conspiracy theories. They should teach critical thinking in schools. Smh.

Yup, even if you’re a poor retiring boomer you don’t deserve a social safety net if you spent your whole life committed to destroying it. Conservative boomers who are the large majority of boomers voted in the conservative assholes explicitly to gut the “new deal” that their parents put in place for them. “I got mine” was their motto, well now live in it.

You should get the retirement you voted for all your life. Show me your blue voting record and you can have a social safety net.

My favorite part about your anecdote is that they literally didn’t have any chili, so phone or no phone you’re not getting a chili cheese dog and it’s the manager’s fault not this has station clerk. Even if the woman didn’t own a phone your experience would have been identical in practice, unless you think eye contact with a woman is included in the price of the chili cheese dog you didn’t buy.

Your only complaint is that she was on her phone. Not that she could have done something if she wasn’t on her phone. Just “phone bad”. Classic boomer entitlement.