POG Politics Thread Version 3

i vaguely heard something about a civil war. is that a thing?

No.

Listened to a pod about the trump on the ballot case, they were more confident the liberal justices would keep trump off the ballot than I am. But also more confident it will be overturned in the end.

They were also skeptical a ruling trump can be left off the ballot for this will set any kind of precedent that will come up in the future, which I think lacks imagination.

you all seen the tea around taylor swift?

someone made a bunch of AI porn images of her. she said that's bullshit, and like instantly twitter is changing ****, and the white house said it was gonna change the laws.

meanwhile normal people have been complaining about these images, and other awful posts, and nothing.

I don't think normal people complain about stuff on Twitter.

Ai generated nudes or porn etc is interesting legal topic I think. I could kinda of see you having a intellectual property rights to your image on some circumstances but there would still be some fair use.

But maybe someone else could own the ip rights to your image as well.

i meant normal people, as in people who aren't taylor swift.

i saw a tweet about a girl who was complaining for months(years?) about ai porn posted of her, and she was underage at the time, and i had never heard of the story, and neither had anyone else.

but then taylor complains, and it's instantly addressed... i mean as it should be. it's just so unfair that normal people can't be protected, or make change we need. but taylor swift can

Should it?

at the very least we should all agree to protect underage kids from these images

protecting the mega wealthy, like taylor swift is less clear cut. i haven't fully thought it through yet.

generally though, im thinking more and more that computers, ai, social media... it's all making the world a worse place to live.

driving on freeways, walking on cement in between skyscrapers, crowded in by millions of people, 0 connection with our food and shelter. minimal connection with our villages.

most of us have more of a connection with our boss, or some random celeb, or fictional character, than we do with our cousins, aunts, uncles, or whatever

I agree not allowing kids on Twitter is probably good

Can't speak for everyone, though.

btw, im not talking about kids viewing these images. im talking about images being made of kids, and posted... if that wasn't clear.

Sure that's covered by kiddy porn laws possibly.

I think we can all agree that we shouldn't speak for what other people believe.

some beliefs should be universal:

slavery is bad
genocide is bad
wealth inequality is bad
usa is bad
destroying the planet is bad
kids need to be protected and cared for

or is your statement a troll because it contradicts itself? lol i honestly can't tell

Why is wealth inequality bad?

i can totally see the argument for *some* wealth inequality, but just in no way can you possibly think it's ok for 5 people to have almost a trillion dollars, while 4 billion people have basically nothing, like can't afford healthcare, live in appalling conditions, constant anxiety about food and shelter.

even among billionaires the inequality is absurd... the top 10 have something like one third of billionaire wealth. and the other 3000 of them the rest.

meanwhile there are workers supplying them with their wealth who have nothing.... kids mining lithium, kids in sweatshops... even in usa amazon workers shitting in diapers cuz they can't take bathroom breaks.

idk if this is true, but i read that warren buffet shorted some stocks just to ruin the retirement accounts of his old teachers he didn't like, just for fun.

even having just a billion dollars is absurd wealth, let alone over 100 billion lol

if you still don't understand why it's bad, think back to when you were teaching your kids about sharing.. or think about it when you teach your future grand kids about sharing... or when you learned about sharing from your parents and in preschool

when you learn about sharing in preschool or from siblings, you learn it's not ok for some people to have twice as much, let alone a million times as much, or a billion times as much, or a trillion times as much. it's just mind blowing lol

Honesty is the best policy

If you look at the global economy, if you take those 10 billionaires and distribute all their money to the lower 25% of the worlds population, what medium/long term difference would it make? Small - none?.

I assume the catastrophic effect of removing all that locked equity from those 10-20ish companies would be far more damaging.

i wasn't saying we should just take 10 people's money and give it to 2 billion people, although that sounds like a great idea lol, but the problem isn't just 10 people, and the solution isnt just taking all their wealth and giving it to 2 billion people

but i mean lol at just the idea that 10 people can have so much more than TWO BILLION people! the numbers are just staggering, the inequality is obscene.

but in your scenario where we imagine giving a trillion dollars to 2 billion people, that's only 500 dollars each, right?

that seems totally insignificant to you and me, in terms of life changing money, and long term change. but i really don't know what 500 dollars means to someone in desperate poverty... looking at the low gdps per capita, that is about a year!

and 2 billion is about 6 usas.

and you say the effect would be catastrophic... but catastrophic for who? not for the 2 billion people getting a free year of gdp per capita.

and it wouldn't have to be necessarily removed from the companies, but just owned/controlled by 2 billion people instead of 10 people.

the real problem is very simple, and the solution is very simple.

the problem is we don't own what we produce. we are forced to rent out our labor to capitalists who exploit us.

the solution is for us all to own what we produce so we can all share the value of our labor.

american ideals are supposedly govt by the people, for the people... which means power to the people. democracy. which we all know is a lie lol

but what im talking about really is power to the people. democracy. equality.

the billionaire class is all about inequality and exploitation

i can't even think of anything that is a more clear example of inequality... like maybe hostages and their captors? lol idk... cuz at least they are financial equals

like elon musk could spend a thousand dollars a minute, 24 hours a day, for the rest of his life, and not even notice. which would be around 500 million a year, if my math is right. so if he lives another 20 years, that's 10 billion, of his 237 billion or whatever he has

so make it 10k a minute lol, and he still would have more money than he could ever spend.

meanwhile other people are making less than 500 a year

Man, that sure is a lot of words that say nothing. How is your world different? And why would I want it over what I got now?

im so close to convincing mark to be communist! jk lol :p

Lal salaam comrade

I smell unicorn farts.

filthy, trying to convince somebody to give up a hierarchical view of society and who deserves what is never going to happen. Mark and his family have theirs, he believes its because they deserve it, and that means there must be some people out there who don't deserve it. whatever reason and logic you want to use wont apply, because it doesnt appeal to the "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" crowd.