What causes politics?

Author: thett3

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#91
Greyparrot
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@bmdrocks21
This kind of thinking is very indicative of having never paid taxes, oneself
Debt is a spend-too-much problem, not a produce-too-much problem. 

Thank you Washington DC.
#92
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@Greyparrot
No, I was assured that open borders with a welfare state was sustainable if we just taxed the rich

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#93
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@bmdrocks21
Right. A budget deficit can happen in any system. It’s just weird to act like it is an inherent facet of capitalism or w/e
#94
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@Greyparrot
See its not that simple. Selling your hard assets and thinking you will start some new revenue stream immediately is preposterous. No one will have any money to buy anything other than what you need to survive. It will take decades for small business to recover. 85% of all wealth is created by small business.  I predict half the worlds population will die of starvation and murder.
#95
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@thett3
When you say capitalism, you mean as opposed to what? What is another system?
#96
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@thett3
Yeah for most of our history until the 1960s, we ran surpluses when we weren’t in war.

Every mildly socialist country (like Sweden) to moderate socialist country (China) to very socialist country (Venezuela) all have budget deficit spending.

Any system can run a deficit, but I’d argue that more capitalist ones (ie less welfare) are more likely to run surpluses
#97
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@bmdrocks21
Any system can run a deficit, but I’d argue that more capitalist ones (ie less welfare) are more likely to run surpluses
What's the point of a surplus when your people are hungry? 
#98
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No one will have any money to buy anything other than what you need to survive. 
Then don't invest in American dollars that will inevitably be worthless. Invest in the things Soros is investing in since Washington DC and Soros have officially won the war.
#99
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@badger
What's the point of a surplus when your people are hungry? 
America has an obesity problem. Inflation and deficit spending is the only cure.
#100
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@badger
In Venezuela, people have to eat rats.

During the Great Depression, very few people starved.

Deficits mean very little except for how production, taxation, and spending are related relative to one another
#101
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@bmdrocks21
Venezuela is a shit country. It could run a surplus tomorrow if it wanted. People would die, though. 

Deficits mean very little except for how production, taxation, and spending are related relative to one another
I can agree to this. 
#102
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@bmdrocks21
I really don't think you understand the effects on the entire world when the US goes belly up and defaults on all of its debt. It isn't a matter of if but when.

#103
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@sadolite
I think you responded to the wrong guy.

I haven’t talked about us defaulting or why I think debt is bad
#104
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@thett3
AND  - the concentration of wealth AND the capitalistic exploitation... also not capitalism itself, lmao
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#105
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@Theweakeredge
You aren’t answering the question. A budget deficit can happen in any system, it just means that government outflows are greater than their inflows. How is the US deficit due to “capitalistic exploitation”? You are just dropping buzz words

“Uhh, let’s just pretend that the debt isn’t caused by degeneracy and the destruction of the family…yup, let’s just pretend those aren’t the direct cause of the debt.”
#106
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It's so laughable. Nowhere is the concentration of wealth greatest than in Washington DC. The government today holds the vast majority of capital in this country to the tune of trillions of dollars a year in confiscated income and the ownership of every government industry and federal land. You can even go so far as to say the government effectively owns all land within American borders if you go by the strict interpretation of jurisdiction.

Even If the absurd notion that capitalism causes debt was true, then there is only one place to liberate the vast majority of capital. Washington DC.

Give it all back to the people.
#107
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@Theweakeredge
AND  - the concentration of wealth AND the capitalistic exploitation... also not capitalism itself, lmao
No, the legalization of gay marriage is the root cause of our rising deficits.

To fix it, we must adopt the Iran system.
#108
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@badger
Venezuela is a shit country.
There's politics for you...HaHa.



I would say that Venezuela is a delineated area of a land mass located on Planet Earth.

It is people who have a tendency to sometimes do "shit" things.


And most delineated regions, have a tendency to run a surplus of people......That's one big problem.


Natural hierarchy is what determines politics and outcomes.....Brains,  manipulation of the masses, power and the consequential benefits thereof. Irrespective of ideology.

People is variously politics.....The politics of 2 or the "shit" politics of 28,704,954.
#109
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@thett3
I think politics are a natural evolution of society. Chimpanzees and ants go to war. Chimpanzees go to war for territory and extermination even. That looks like a political move to me. 

I think as politics evolve, many political questions arise from ethics, by virtue of being inextricably connected with ethics. 
#110
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@thett3
Fear. Or various nuances or manifestations thereof.

Most issues boil down to either/or choices that have positive or negative implications.

Which side of the issue you come down depends on how much you have, and how you weigh it.


#111
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@Ramshutu
Ramshutu spotted, lol

This is a very interesting observation to say the least, it reminds me of several concepts that would kinda support this - like us versus them mentalities that are quite systemic, we reject what we don't understand, and so on and so forth, but I would be hesitant to generalize politics as merely fear or even manifestations of fear, certainly some ideologies (mostly radical ones), but it's a broad brush, I think, to claim it as a response to "what causes politics" in general. 
#112
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@bmdrocks21
Probably so. Cant remember what I was responding to based on what I said
#113
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@Theweakeredge
We have higher level reasoning ability that sits on top of a system of emotions. With almost every decision we make being driven off some aspect of risk vs reward. Fear or some derrivation of it is present in everything.

Want to eat at McDonalds vs Pizza Hut, fear that one may take too long, fear of getting the order may factor in - but even what you’re feeling like right at that moment has that fear component - worrying about whether the meal will be satisfying.

Fear is much more nuanced than simple “x scares me” we weigh all these negative factors; but the inherent nature of every decision we make boils down to weighing the negatives of something and the corresponding drive to avoid it ; that always boils down to some subtle form of fear.


While some feats are overt: fear of chance, fear of the other, and fear of attack - some are much more subtle, but still boil down to fear nonetheless.
#114
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@Ramshutu
Fear - as defined by the APA
n. a basic, intense emotion aroused by the detection of imminent threat, involving an immediate alarm reaction that mobilizes the organism by triggering a set of physiological changes. These include rapid heartbeat, redirection of blood flow away from the periphery toward the gut, tensing of the muscles, and a general mobilization of the organism to take action
Fear is the avoidance of what we perceive to be dangerous, while, as I admitted, it is the case that in some ideologies that are driven by this - the risk/reward system is not the same thing as fear, you are conflating the two things. While risk/reward has some analogous qualities with fear, fear is, in general, a much more immediate reaction. You are getting more into anxiety and paradigm, not fear. It's a false equivalence. 
#115
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@Theweakeredge
Anxiety is chronic fear. 
#116
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@Theweakeredge
You’re now delving into more semantic nonsense now. Fear is both the emotional response, and describes the conditioned behavioural choices that comes from it.

IE: I have a fear response if I am chased by a tiger; fear if being chased by a tiger is why I don’t climb into a tiger enclosure- so in that regard you completely miss all semblance of the point with that quote.

I’m talking about that behavioural avoidance, learned from various emotional responses through our lives - and can be changed; that pattern of avoidant behaviours is what assuredly helps drives all our decisions.

If you can think of a better name for the subtle learned behaviours triggers that push us to want to avoid certain actions that lead to perceived negative consequences than “fear” than knock yourself out and use that instead.
#117
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@FLRW
Suppose you were standing...
one might easily ask you if you think God would extend his question with... "... and don't tell me you voted for Biden, because, to be frank, I don't care.."
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#118
thett3
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@Ramshutu
I would say “interests” is probably a better descriptor than fear but we are broadly on the same page. People choose their affiliation based on what they want, who they are around/value, what they fear, etc and then rationalize how actually their positions are the side of objective reality and they came to these conclusions intellectually!

But the deeper preferences that actually drive political affiliation don’t really seem to be that easy to modify. That’s why I would recommend everyone try to be charitable to the people who disagree with them. To a large extent, I don’t think they can help it 
#119
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@Ramshutu
If you can think of a better name for the subtle learned behaviours triggers that push us to want to avoid certain actions that lead to perceived negative consequences than “fear” than knock yourself out and use that instead.

I think risk-assessment definitely has a biological chemical fear component to it. 
#120
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@Ramshutu
No - I'm saying you made a false equivalence, and a non-sequitur - the fact that avoidance of danger is PRESENT in risk/reward analysis does not mean it pervades it, nor does it mean it is ALL that. Sure, you can redefine fear here, but I wouldn't view it any different than people trying to define god into existence or something, we have a word for that already.