EndRedStateSubsidies

This is exactly how drug dealers operate; the first bump is free to get you hooked and dependent so they can raise prices and cut product because you don't have alternatives.

There was a new Black Mirror episode along these lines as well.

It also raises issues with what happens when all firms use AI models that source the same data and we end up with a longer walk to the same price fixing...

Most people have a terrible understanding of most things because most subjects are basically infinitely complex and get worse the deeper you dig.

A representative Republic is the illusion of democracy at this point. You get to cast a vote for whomever you think will best ignore your ass while sucking off donors because the cost of elections is a product of capitalism and not a fault of democracy itself.

Any civilization that wants to function requires a government. The problem is usually who ends up in power.

Most people can't understand all the issues. Elections are largely popularity contests for single issue voters. The key to popularity is lots of advertising. Supply, demand, profit, ensure it keeps getting more expensive because most media outlets are privately owned and publicly traded.

Trump was put into office via billions in free news coverage legitimizing an obvious and known fraud making election coverage a horserace for ad revenue instead of informing people about facts.

It's never been easier to learn anything you've wanted to, but this is the first time people have actually started getting dumber to the point they dispute the shape of the planet under their fucking feet.

The better educated people are, the more questions they ask until they realize things don't actually work like they're told and then we get riots.

The US is a falling police state run by two private corporations that own the nation.

The dnc and rnc are privately held corporations that control who gets to run for office and both are well right of center entities.

Have you read about Smedly Butler and the business plot?

Unfortunately, what many don't realize is a win for capitalism is a loss for basically everyone else.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002169

Tldr- the endlessly parroted "capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty" notion stems from a study that basically equated subsistence farming to poverty because despite meeting all their needs and desires it made zero money per day.

Basically, the entire notion that capitalism is swell is a lot like saying Africans were better off as slaves because they were previously unemployed and then given jobs. Which is basically the first argument capitalists tried to make while "extracting value" with the slave trade.

Oh, and the reason it's mutually exclusive to democracy has already been demonstrated with Citizens United and putting unlimited dark money into elections and politics. If the law can be purchased, the wealthy have all the means and motivation they can to strip mine anything of value and pay for the propaganda calling it good.

The majority of all news is owned by billionaires telling us how to feel about what they tell us happens.

The Nixon campaign ADMITTED the war on drugs was a front to marginalize anti war leftists and black people. By criminalizing cannabis, they not only stifled Vietnam protests and the civil rights movement but also protected the profits of pharmaceutical corps, the alcohol industry, and the paper/wood industry.

The 24/7 news cycle came along to keep us hyper stimulated with bullshit we don't even notice the things that matter and front line reporting has become a thing of the past specifically because of how motivated it made people to speak out.

Now, if you complain about Palestinian genocide you get called anti semitic by bots paid for by corporate interests and foreign states.

It's all theater to keep us scared and fractured while they work us to death, steal our retirement with bubbles they pump and dump, and then start resource wars so poor kids will die for a chance at college.

Man vs woman, black vs white, gay or straight, it's all divide and conquer to keep the workers from realizing the one fight that matters is the have nots vs the have yahcts.

The priority of news should be telling us what is happening in the world. Instead, it's ad revenue, clicks, and sensationalism.

You have no rights when truth has become a toy of the ultra rich drunk on their own farts.

I'll bite.

The bitch of post social media reality is attention spans are fuck all and you're either going to be sacrifice specificity to be succinct enough for people to get the point or you cover all the details in a tome no one but the most pedantic or argumentative will engage on. The above was a massive over simplification, yes, but it at least sets a stage for a more significant suggestion.

I guess, unfortunately I'm a grown ass man with teenage kids and decades of reading but again to my previous point, citing all the above turns it into an academic project no one wants to fuck with but nitpickers.

What you have to learn and accept is that capitalism as an economic system is mutually exclusive from democracy as a political system.

I'll again use simplified views for the sake of brevity at the cost of some nuance...

What is capitalism? Are you a capitalist?

Economic systems basically revolve around who owns the factory that makes the things and private ownership. Now, that's not to be confused with PERSONAL property, items owned by an individual.

Capitalism is where the building is privately owned either by an LLC or some other corporate entity.

Socialism is where the building is owned by the workers.

Communism is when the building is owned by the government.

None of these have exclusive ownership of the concept of work, employment, wages, or anything and all of them exist side by side in the modern economy. I work in a municipal utility where money is collected from everyone to pay for infrastructure and resources owned by the city. We work with solar co-ops owned by the workers that get profit sharing and we consult with privately owned corporations that have higher prices to account for advertising and payouts to shareholders. Our local privately owned utility has higher rates and always raises them as much as they can meanwhile we're legally obligated to save as much money as possible as stewards of public funds.

And due to all of that, we have lower rates and far better service metrics.

The focus of communism is serving society. The purpose of socialism is serving the workers. The entire point of capitalism is wealth extraction for capitalists.

But what the fuck is a capitalist? A capitalist owns capital. Having and using cash doesn't make one a capitalist. Capitalism creates two groups in society: a small group of very rich capitalists that own the resources and a massive group of workers paid as little as possible to create and maintain those resources without getting much of them.

Every American is propagandized from birth to confuse consumerism with freedom.

Publicly traded corporations have a fiduciary duty to shareholders which is ultimately the engine of the race to the bottom. The short term focus on the obligation to beat q/q metrics is the reason people get laid off and you pick up their work instead. It's the reason raises aren't in the budget despite your cost of living going up. It's the reason we all have to tighten our belts and make sacrifices for 'the family' and executives making hundreds times more get millions in stock bonuses for laying off the people responsible for those achievements and holding on to the duplicitous self serving ladder climbers.

This isn't bitterness about the success of others or my personal failings. The system itself isn't sustainable because the focus of capitalism has always been about acreting wealth by stiffing employees and customers. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22002169

Bro, I've been high basically every fucking day for the last 5 years for sure but we're getting on a decade here.

There isn't much shit I haven't tried on weed because raw dawgging this timeline is a guaranteed shotgun slurpee.

It is but with inherent negative connotations.

One schemes to get away with shady shit but plans to do good things.

I'm so tired of being told I'm sad because I don't have drugs.

I've tried a dozen medications and they all make me feel worse. One made me allergic to fucking sunlight.

Our world is broken and dying as the rich hasten it along and we're gaslit to accept the blame for it.

The police are thugs servicing fascist tyrants and protecting them from us.

Wall Street, Walmart, schools, healthcare, fucking everything is about controlling and exploiting.

When I was a kid, super soakers were a hundred dollars. China has basically battery powered water rail guns at that same price point now while we still have the same hand pump plastic shit. The US gets farther and farther behind the world and yet somehow even more up is own ass despite being one is the dumbest and fastest countries on the fucking planet.

I've given up on hope. There's too much money to be made off suffering.

Ironically, forgiving the debt would generate immediate economic activity that the government would tax and collect that money back with far greater returns.

Every dollar in food stamps generated $1.70 in economic activity and that's just for "normal" poor people.

The problem isn't (just) the cost of education being insane but that wages aren't increasing to cover the bigger numbers.

The problem is that it's becoming harder to hide the entire country is a "company town" or African diamond mine where keeping you trapped in debt you'll never escape is the goal and it's perfectly legal because they own the laws.

I have been with my employer for a decade. My nominal wage has increased 50% but once you account for inflation I'm still basically at my starting wage even after a decade of promotions and certifications.

"about a meg" because it's almost unthinkable anyone cares about 3 tenths of a meg much less 2 hundredths.

People should constantly talk about Democrats being controlled opposition unwilling to speak against the wealthy.