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Social War Room V241: HockeyBjj can't name this thread.

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Trotsky said:
The point went over your head.

The point isn't that pre-capitalist history was a fairytale of people foregoing personal gain for the charity of their neighbors or that sharing was the dominant ideology of humankind (although intra-ethnic collectivism was much more common; the conflicts you speak of were generally between rather than within social groups). The point is that history generally showed humans trending toward their own self-interest rather than working against it simply to spite a neighbor to a greater degree. Peasants weren't praying for drought because they thought that, even though everyone would starve, they had more grain reserves than their peasant neighbors.
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Good piece from the late David Graeber that is relevant to this (@Denter and @Khabib Khanate, you might like this too):

https://inthesetimes.com/issue/24/19/graeber2419.html

The relevant stuff starts at: "Mauss' conclusions were startling."

Very complicated issue, but it does seem (not just from that piece) that you had a system where acquisition came with obligation, which put a check on it and also balanced the social scale more. You see in observed potlatch societies there are people who live in relative material deprivation whom many people are (resentfully) obligated to. In our own society, we see stuff like this: http://people.duke.edu/~dandan/webfiles/PapersPI/Effort for Payment.pdf.

I think the move to a market-based economy (or you could say the invention of an economy as such, as opposed to one that is just embedded in other social interactions) was a clear and large improvement, but it's not accurate to say that the poor today live better than the "well-off of yesterday" because that completely discounts any non-material aspects of living (e.g., how the poor today are treated as being less than or how expectations determine the quality of experience).
 
Big Biden scandal coming up: The administration apparently allows child molesters to receive social security, as long as they are not currently incarcerated (their spouses still get it if they are). Impeach! People who push old ladies down stairs and drown puppies also get SS checks if they're not in prison.
 
Jack V Savage said:
I don't get it. Just commenting on the stupid "universal benefits also go to bad people" thing.
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Yeah, and many are of the opinion that shit bag Child Molestors that have been convicted shou.dnt get very much.

Why?



I get people need to do what they can to survive after they finish their sentences if they spend time behind bars but rapists and Child Molestors are among the worst and thus, IMO, shouldn't get nearly as much help.

If they died destitute and in a ditch then so be it.
 
Jack V Savage said:
Good piece from the late David Graeber that is relevant to this (@Denter and @Khabib Khanate, you might like this too):

https://inthesetimes.com/issue/24/19/graeber2419.html

The relevant stuff starts at: "Mauss' conclusions were startling."

Very complicated issue, but it does seem (not just from that piece) that you had a system where acquisition came with obligation, which put a check on it and also balanced the social scale more. You see in observed potlatch societies there are people who live in relative material deprivation whom many people are (resentfully) obligated to. In our own society, we see stuff like this: http://people.duke.edu/~dandan/webfiles/PapersPI/Effort for Payment.pdf.

I think the move to a market-based economy (or you could say the invention of an economy as such, as opposed to one that is just embedded in other social interactions) was a clear and large improvement, but it's not accurate to say that the poor today live better than the "well-off of yesterday" because that completely discounts any non-material aspects of living (e.g., how the poor today are treated as being less than or how expectations determine the quality of experience).
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Those are some good links.

I agree with the final sentence- people who say the poor today are better off than the kings of yesteryear completely miss the point of what makes life worth living. If comfort and gadgets are all that matters to you, you would think this way- and they do. How do they see the warrior kings of old, living their lives in the saddle, eating rough rations and enduring the elements and many dangers? "He didn't have Netflix and indoor plumbing, lol"
 


Only in Japananese media could a toy rubber accordian hammer become a weapon lol
 
Denter said:
Those are some good links.

I agree with the final sentence- people who say the poor today are better off than the kings of yesteryear completely miss the point of what makes life worth living. If comfort and gadgets are all that matters to you, you would think this way- and they do. How do they see the warrior kings of old, living their lives in the saddle, eating rough rations and enduring the elements and many dangers? "He didn't have Netflix and indoor plumbing, lol"
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Indoor plumbing and Netflix are pretty great, but there is more to life than that.
 
Kandyland said:
I heard that hill has a bunch of Trump 2020 signs. You sure you want to see it bro!?
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Gregolian said:
Yeah, and many are of the opinion that shit bag Child Molestors that have been convicted shou.dnt get very much.

Why?



I get people need to do what they can to survive after they finish their sentences if they spend time behind bars but rapists and Child Molestors are among the worst and thus, IMO, shouldn't get nearly as much help.

If they died destitute and in a ditch then so be it.
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Hating on child molesters will always be really easy political points. Literally no one likes them, and only rubes really need to constantly restate how much they specifically, heroically dislike them.

It doesn't mean that constantly basing thinking around that hate will make for coherent policy. There will always been a step further that critics will allege can be taken (you let them draw medicare??? shop using food stamps??? use public roads???). With the end being those persons are just sent back to prison. And then the cycle can restart for a new awful group - drunk drivers, thieves, frauds, Trump cabinet appointees, etc. The point being that, for public benefits to be effective and efficient, they can't accommodate all the gutter sniping about bad people receiving them.
 
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