A man with one sight knows where his target is, a many with many sights it’s never quite sure

There’s a difference between someone-needs-to-coordinate-and-manage-complex-undertakings “authoritarian” and line-the-dissidents-up-against-the-wall “authoritarian”. Tankies are the latter.

Lots of people say lots of silly things, nonetheless Trump is worse for the proletariat than Biden, and turning your nose up at the lesser evil endangers real people when the greater evil wins. You don’t have to vote for the greater evil to help tip the scales in their favor. Accelerationism is authoritarianism with extra steps and no one in the driver’s seat.

A tankie is, broadly, someone who wants to effect left-wing ideology using authoritarian methods. It originally referred to those who defended the USSR using tanks to suppress the Hungarian Revolution, but it could be aptly used to describe those who defend China’s actions in Tiananmen Square. It’s rightfully used as a perjorative, since authoritarian enforcement is antithetical to leftism, particularly communism.

Tankies are hypocrites who didn’t understand their self-proclaimed ideologies. If someone’s idea of communist praxis is lining up dissenters for the firing squad, you’re dealing with a tankie.

As stated, images are reasonable to blur, because having them in your screen would Not be Safe For Work. Text generally doesn’t really make sense to blur, especially an article published by a major news source. If it could be seen in print sitting on a lobby coffee table, it probably doesn’t qualify as NSFW.

None of that contradicts the observation that, over time, the accumulation of capital through profit incentivizes private owners to reinvest that capital to increase the profit potential of their business. Passive investors (e.g. pension-holders) don’t do much of this, that much is true. Even small-scale investors (e.g. small business owners) typically only do this in positive, productive ways we like to see (e.g. reinvesting in the means of production to create more valuable products).

But large investors (e.g. corporations) inevitably bubble up. That’s what capitalism “selects” for, over time. They are heavily incentivized, at the demand of shareholders, to maximize profit. Profit = Revenue - Expenses, which means maximizing profit requires maximizing revenue and minimizing expenses.

Maximizing revenue eventually leads to suppressing competition through market forces (e.g. selling at a loss to drive smaller businesses to failure a la Walmart) and regulation (e.g. the aforementioned political influence through bribery gratuity), as well as directly exploiting monopolies to raise prices (e.g. Ticketmaster). Then there’s the many other mechanisms used to increase sales without increasing value (e.g. planned obsolescence, subscriptions, etc). Minimizing expenses eventually leads to cheaping out on quality (which nicely dovetails into increasing revenue through planned obsolescence) and minimizing wages.

So what you get, in a model based on private investment and driven by profit, is an environment where the most successful investors with the most capital at their disposal to reinvest will be the ones who use every tool in their arsenal to maximize profit. Sure, there will be plenty of other small businesses and individual investors getting by, but the mega wealthy are an inevitable by-product. It’s natural selection.

And as the mega-wealthy get wealthier, they siphon wealth from down the food-chain. Wage suppression and price increases mean less disposable income for the average person to reinvest. Regulatory capture, as you said, sets a barrier to small businesses in entering the market. Even if a small business makes it to market, corporations are comfortably poised to undercut them.

I’m not seeing a definition of capitalism here.

To my knowledge, capitalism is defined as a market economy where the means of production are privately owned by investors and operated for a profit. It fundamentally concentrates money to a small number of investors, who are incentivized to use that money to more efficiently concentrate money in their pockets (e.g. influencing politics).

Whether it’s the intended outcome of capitalism, it’s certainly an inevitable one. Which is why I asked, how you would define capitalism such that it doesn’t inevitably lead to the mega wealthy with power to influence regulation.

I’m curious, how exactly do you define “capitalism”? I’m having difficulty constructing a definition which doesn’t inevitably lead to corporatism.

Then, this begs the question - What other structures might be similarly equipped?

I also think this theory is plausible, and if it is true I assume it’s stayed under wraps precisely because they didn’t want future terrorists to be able to just trigger the conveniently pre-installed explosives.

Do you? “Thousands” is the word in question here

If you haven’t watched the Netflix series, it is also pretty great. The whole series is a master class in world building.

A large percentage of women actively prefer many of the behaviors we’re describing as “toxic”. The majority of my casual partners have explicitly requested, or discussed how attractive they find, borderline abusive behavior: physical aggression, jealousy, catcalling and infantalizing language, relentless pursuit, etc. My first girlfriend told me to be less respectful with her, and lost a lot of attraction toward me the first time I was emotionally vulnerable with her.

So a big problem is that while a vocal portion of women are telling men that certain gender norms are toxic and they need to stop, they’re watching the women they’re pursuing choose the men who exhibit this toxic behavior. At the end of the day, without any guidance from feminists, they have to choose between what the feminists tell them, and what the pick-up artist types tell them. The pick-up artists promise them romantic success, the feminists call them toxic for feeling entitled to romantic success.

With sexual/romantic success being the primary motivator for young men, is it really a surprise that they make the choices they make?

They’re good when they’re crumbled as an ingredient or topping. As-is they’re gross.

I play GURPS and my son is also named math

Once again, I said none of that. Scroll up to verify I didn’t call you out at any point.

This is a public forum, when you make a statement people are free to comment. You made a statement I disagreed with, and all I said was that the statement was questionable. All the rest of this “calling beliefs out” happened purely in your head. Feel how you wish about your choices, but don’t implicate me in your projection.

Uh, you do know it’s possible to focus on fruits, which are freely given, right? You volunteered your perspective in the first place, and you’re the one throwing your hands up instead of finding an ethical diet. You’re the one trying to justify your choices based on subjective distinction. You’re the one calling yourself a hypocrite. All I said was that your absolute claim was questionable.

I eat, primarily, botanical fruits (which includes cucumbers, squash, and a surprising quantity of other vegetables freely given by plants for our consumption) as well as meat which would otherwise be thrown away. Once the animal is dead, it is far more respectful to consume it than let it be wasted. I typically buy meat on clearance, at the end of the night, on the expiration date.

I have no desire to “gotcha” people who sincerely want to make a better world, but hypocrites who call out others while justifying their own ethical blind spots are typically more interested in self-righteousness than actually improving the world.

Consciousness is an open question. A potato does not perceive the same way as a pig, but a pig does not perceive the same way as a human. Plants communicate and make rudimentary decisions. Once you start getting into questions of degree, you subjectively decide where to draw the line. If you can argue that the line is between animals and plants, then someone else can argue the line is between animals and humans.

It’s intellectually dishonest to pretend our understanding of sentience and sapience is simple and unambiguous.

Plants have no concept of pain without a brain, nervous system or even nerve endings.

Ehhh, questionable.

Was vegan, not anymore. Meat takes a little while to readjust to but eventually it’s fine, dairy is the real problem.

No no no, the store belongs to the Bed, the Bed belongs to the Recliner, which in turn belongs to the Chair, which in turn belongs to the Sofa .