Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

Yeah, capitalism = individuals can own property.

Socialism = state owning property, and state distribute wealth.

It is an economy system, it has nothing to do with the concept of mutual benefit.

I am not convinced socialism leads to more mutual benefit in our society either. If my country is going distribute wealth for me, surely I wouldn't want to work on giving other people benefit for my own benefit lol. What's the point to work for more benefit for other people if there are no chance to gain any for myself?

Commies are bad, mmmkay.

Y'all should stop fixating on that and start reading the Redwall series by Brian Jacques instead.

Euliaaaa!!!

Will you still insist you are not talking about politics?

The catholic church and it's leadership was accumulating wealth before they officially had "the Vatican" you knew what I meant!

It's economy!

Capitalism/socialism only become "politics" when supporters of those system fight. By itself it is just an economic system.

Good old economics.

Created this website to provide a goods or service to the public. The services I am rendered here are valuable, so I consider it a successful endeavour. Thanks Scragg for partaking in the economics.

I just watched a video that spoilered all Hunter x Hunter past the point I dropped it (because I was waiting it to be concluded).

Maybe for a good reason. That video had the objective of analyzing Gon as a character.

While at first glance just a typical shonen protagonist, strong, innocent and dumb, when you look at his context (being a kid abandoned by his father), the obsession to find the father meaning how he is still hurt by that despite not voicing it, the way how he idolize his father, as an attempt to cope his situation, the many kamikaze attacks being used showing how little self steem he has because exactly being given up by his father, all that shows a deeply complex and dark character that is not innocent and dumb as I thought at first, but being dumb and innocent is only a way to mask how deeply injured he is in his heart.

Kinda amazing understanding the message being exposed in front of me, but only noticed when you stop seeing the story for what it tell and start seeing if for what it is.

I completely get the gist of the Gon arc what destroyed my experience when i reread Hunter x Hunter, but considering im too dumb to get the hidden messages in things, im forced to admit that it was worth

I… don’t particularly am emotionally attached to my father.

I lived long enough with both my mother and father to think more about their flaws than for what they represent to me.

Stories that picture such strong attachment between father and son are foreign to me, so naturally they are also interesting.

Only sad thing in Gon story is how little he cares about his biological mother.

Despite once his father almost telling about her to Gon, he quickly dismissed it. His mother was his aunt. He didnt need another motherly love.

This adds another layer to Gon complexity. Both his father and mother abandoned him.

But still receiving a motherly love from his aunt, made him accept he was abandoned by his mother, so he probably never forgave her.

While not having a fatherly figure made him unable to accept the abandonment.

Kato appearance was that father figure. And this adds another layer of complexity that, in the end Gon never wanted to meet his real father. He only inherited the mission of Kato, that became the fatherly figure in his mind. That explain how the true father seemed so small for how much hype was built during the story.

In the end, HxH is a story about a kid accepting the abandonment, dealing with so many complex feelings, and eventually moving on.

Great story, btw

funny ***

Finally a Digimon con that didn't suck, new game Anime and merch

We like to larp that all people matter in western societies and our votes have value, we really don't at all and these are mostly vestiges of the past when we did. Most of us are just cogs in the machine of the economy and easily replaceable to our leaders (of all parties) by people from the 3rd world now (and if they have a stronger work ethic and are less demanding, they actually greatly outvalue us now), and our only real value is in consuming product and/or paying taxes. Billionaires and other elites are the only ones that really matter in our countries, we are all replaceable drones with no intrinsic or tribal value anymore.

This is why the fall of nationalism (previous value add to the masses in the nation) and western religions (previous value add) was so incredibly bad for the majority, and why these things were ultimately pushed from the top down upon us. Because it has utterly devalued the countries populations in the eyes of our leaders and the billionaires that influence them.

In 2025 a person born in a country has less value than ever in history, to the elites above them. Which should be a frightening thing, when we are so demanding and expensive to them (pensions, unions, health care, minimum wage demands, working hour limits etc etc).

Western populations are kind of like a family pet among many others that had a funny fur marking, that the owners wife thought was cute and made them unique and so let them get away with getting on the couch and having expensive diet tastes. Then the owner paints out the cute fur marking, and now the owners wife doesn't think it's special anymore and it's getting the slop and getting of the couch like the rest of the dogs.

Why is this a bad thing?



If you truly believe in nationalism, you would believe that the gain of your nation is far more important than individual.

So why are you complaining elites and billionaires matters more than average person then? They are contributing a nation's GDP far more than average person.

For example, in South Korea, the government got Samsung CEO out of jail because they need him for GDP. Samsung contributes 22% of GDP in SK so this company matters more than everything else for the country.

Other average people don't even have this kind of privilege because they don't generate nearly as much gdp for their nation. Elite people > average people because nations benefit > individual's, more so in nationalist countries.

Nationalism is built on the sentiment that everyone isn't and shouldn't be equal. And individual privilege must be suppressed for the greater good.

Or did you just praise nationalism without knowing what it really is? Lol.

Because they retain their great value and native populations have lost almost all of theirs (AI is speeding this up in the more advanced sectors too, so even white collar workers ain't special anymore), if your national populations start being annoying there is an unlimited stream of workers from India who are used to earning $15 a month there and who won't be.

50+ years ago, the greatest treasure of a nation was always stated to be its people and because of this they did everything they could to build them up with health programs, better wages, training and all the other things we enjoy today. The thought of introducing something like MAID was unthinkable because their people were their greatest resource.

The change in mindset is blatant, native born people are no longer important and are in-fact not only easily replaceable but are often seen as worse workers who are lazy and too demanding. This even works in relation to 2nd gen immigrants who also may become entitled, who also can then be replaced with more 1st gen immigrants from places like India and China.

The real funny part is most people still don't understand how much value they have lost as a national population, and are still demanding UBI and other expensive stuff from the elites above. GL with that though.

Is this why you think nationalism is a good thing? Interesting. Because coming from a nationalist cultural background my perspective on nationalism is completely different from yours(see my post above.)

I think if you actually live in a real nationalist culture, your perspective on nationalism may change, and I think you'd ended up hating it too. You complained about US government banning TikTok months ago, even though this policy is entirely nationalism based policy. In a even more nationalist country than the US, you will see this kind of unfair thing happen more often: such as elites getting more resources than other people for the benefit of the nation, or individual right being suppressed for the nation etc.

IMO, I don't think nationalism is the solution for social fairness, if that's your goal.

ohreally?

I live, and vote, in a solid red area of a blue state. My vote counts for nothing except for maybe in school levy elections. Maybe.

I still vote in every election. In my personal philosophy if you don't vote you can't ***. And I so enjoy bitching.

My very first +2 Sortie earring...



I swear, +2 Sortie earrings are a humiliation ritual by SE.

@ Arcane and Afane

Empathy is the main reason it's a bad thing.


If someone has used greed to trample on thousands or millions of people for enough profit to make it to a billionaire tier of wealth, there is usually a seriously lacking amount of empathy and in a ruler or a position of power, that turns into hatred and discrimination


You'd notice a pattern because even before anyone gets to the point of billionaire, anyone with wealth and into the millions will not keep accumulating wealth, with empathy they will be putting that wealth towards causes to help their fellow man and improve the lives of all of humanity. And they often never reach any billionaire status because their goal is not greed and wealth, and their causes for the betterment of civilization are the goal.

Are you saying that all billionaires doesn't improve lives of all humanity? I don't agree. And I'd argue that most of the human live improvements from this world came from businesses that makes big money, not from someone on welfare or work minimum wage. And since most billionaires got rich through their business, it's safe to conclude at least good amount of billionaires improved human live quality far more than average person.

Does AI, cancer treatment, e-commerce improve live of human quality? They absolutely do. And business owners got rich because they own stocks of these companies, and the market decided that those service has great value so they give those stocks a high price. That's why they are rich.

If a billionaire got rich by inherit wealth, then maybe you can say this person didn't contribute to humanity as much. But afaik most people become billionaire status by running a very successful business. And business profit has been the driving force for technology advancement for hundred years. So how is that not benefiting the humanity?

By comparison, someone on welfare or work on minimum wage are "replaceable" precisely because their work didn't benefit humanity as much. If you actually have the ability to benefit humanity by a great deal, you'll never be replaced because our society will see how important you are. Then money will come.

Overall, I think the importance of each individual in a society should come from their contribution in the society, not empathy. Empathy by itself doesn't improve ***for anyone except feels. And everyone's ability to contribute just isn't the same in this world. That's why I struggle to see why what RA said is even a bad thing.

Afania has the right of it.

Billionaires have to both innovate and play a market centered around that innovation in order to provide a product that has massive appeal.

Innovations, whether they are for serious work or play, improve the lives of billions of people.

The billionaire doesn't hold anyone up with a gun or threat of violence in order to sell their innovation. They market it, and then both market forces and word of mouth sell the product. Demand for the product determines how filthy stinking rich they become.

Take the creator of Minecraft, for instance. He created a game that became the best selling video game of all time, based on a simple premise, suitable for all ages. He then sold his intellectual property to a far larger corporation that had a mind to make even more money than they'd spend on it. The end result lead him to become a billionaire. Every heartwarming moment had in Minecraft amongst millions and millions of people, friends and family, are because of him. Because of a billionaire.

You gotta put the kool-aid down.

There are 3 basic types of billionaire.

There are people who made something, and sold it (george lucas, minecraft guy)

There are people utterly fixated with building their company and making their thing, these people are rarely actually billionaires and all their "wealth" is tied up in shares of the company that they are legally not allowed to sell. (Elon Musk and the open AI guy are good examples of this)

Then there are people who do underhanded awful stuff, like buy and sell companies and fire all the workers. Short companies, play the stock market and ruin peoples lives. (George Soros is a good example of this, and in 1992 he almost broke the bank of england and the pound doing this)

The first group are harmless, the second group tend to be single minded and any damage they do is usually akin to a whale squashing a surfer (they don't intend to be bad, they just accidentally are in pursuit of their goals) and the third type is a demon from satans a55hole.

This is a dangerously naive view of the world because the empathy behind the action is what changes the world. It’s the difference between that billionaire choosing to continue to build their wealth and things like stock buy backs for example or sustainably contributing back to their “community” that has funded and enabled their growth in wealth. And to continue to trample on the lowly individuals involved in their respective industry until wealth is accumulated to this level.

The empathy is what motivates both examples you posed, so the value of the minimum wage worker that might inspires the billionaire to change something about society they see as unfit. It’s never just about feels, it’s about willpower to overcome our defaults for greed that empathy enables.

“Drinking the kool-aid” would be to blindly support the rich like this lack of empathy that continues to create billionaires is not a plague on humanity. I wonder if seeing someone finally become a trillionaire will wake people up or will it be the same delusion of, “yup. They just worked hard. What a fine example of a innovative person”

Are you trying to say that all investment in better products and services has no empathy behind it? Cancer treatment isn't developed to extend human life? AI isn't developed with the mindset to increase productivity for the humanity too? What about every other QoL products that we use daily?

You fall into the same trap that thinking "make money" and "human benefit" can not co-exist. But very often they can. Maybe not 100% of time, but they definitely happen quite often.


It creates positive feedback loop for everyone that contributed.

Say if you developed a product that has value for customers, and your company makes a lot of money because the society approved the value of the product. Plenty of investors agree with your products and invest in your stocks. Which enable your company to further refine your products and create even more value.

Of course you will want to reward your investors in return so they have more incentive to invest in your products more. It's the positive feedback loop that encourages everyone put money into improving people's lives via better products.

I emphasis on the importance of mutual benefit in our world multiple times. People are more willing to help the society if they get something out of it. And business is the ultimate form of mutual benefit.

Mutual benefit also doesn't always exclude empathy too. Very often they can co-exist. An investor may invest in cancer treatment because they want to make money, and it extends human life for example. There are plenty of products and services that may not be as flashy as cancer treatment, but they still improve our quality of live, that's why they sell and make money.

I don't think mutual benefit based contribution is a dangerous thought, IMO it's a more effective way to accomplish growth in technology advancement.



No, I don't blindly support every rich equally. It depends on what they do in the society still.

People who got rich through crime by inherit wealth has less social value than people who started a business and create valuable products in my eyes. People who are rich because they have one billion dollar cash in their bank account that they don't spend also has less value than people who are rich because they are the creator of a QoL improvement product, who reinvest their money in their products. Your wealth means nothing in the society if it's not reinvested in the economy for more economic growth.

However I still think people with wealth has far more chance to contribute than people who work on the minimum wage or on welfare, because rich people have the ability to. It just takes a little bit ambition or empathy for the action. While people who work on minimum wage has to survive first, before they can help other people. Even if they have empathy, they have less ability to contribute than rich people because what they can do in life is more limited.

So imo, it makes more logical sense to put rich people on a higher priority. Maybe not every rich people will contribute, but at least they have higher chance to. If you value the growth of humanity as a whole more than absolute equality, it's the more logical choice imo.

Unless humanity extinct or WWIII happens, trillionaire will eventually appear, it's just the matter of time lol.

And it isn't because people lacks empathy, but because the amount of money in our economy has been increasing at a very fast pace. In 1990, global nominal GDP was 22 trillions, now it's over 110 trillion. Over 5x increase in 30 years. Basically, more money are being added to the economy over time.

Also because of the Mathew effect, big money will generate more money. So everytime when more money is added into the economy, the successful rich business will naturally siphon those money more than everyone else. The richest business will occupy a higher % of wealth in the world and this % will get higher over time too.

That's just how economy system works, it has nothing to do with the lack of empathy.

You can't have a trillionaire and most of the top 10 richest men in the world do not have the wealth in a form they can use it. It's all propoganda from the media, and they rarely go after the actual bad guys.

If you started a company and go public owning 60% of the shares, and then that company becomes worth a trillion dollars. You could say you're technically worth 600 billion dollars, but in reality you could possibly only have a few million in the bank from what you're paid to run it. The media states technical wealth as actual wealth, but that's not how it works because you cannot liquidate those shares into cash without a) losing control of the company you built and b) the act of selling shares destroys their current value. Added to that, there are lots of legal issues in selling off your stock (since this hurts other shareholders), so you can't just do what you want.

The media like to assign a number to a person to farm jealousy.

I wouldn't say it's just the media; pretty sure folks like Musk, Bezos, and Gates want that #1 rank.

Still just a matter of jealousy though. There's nothing inherently wrong with becoming a billionaire. For the most part, people somewhere see your product as worth buying or investing in, or you wouldn't be making money.

The primary exception, imo, is when regulatory capture is used to create a captive market. Lobbying allows groups like ISPs and insurance industries to maintain monopolies despite not providing unique value. Suppress their competition instead of improving their product, then force customers to pay more for less.

This logic is applied dangerously both ways sadly. That 9-5 worker will have a lot less chance to contribute globally, but they also have a lot less chance to exploit millions of people around them or cause tremedous suffering or poverty. Inversely the billionaire has the greatly increased chance of using the power and money to exploit their workers or humanity as well.

Being a billionaire had nothing to do with the creative actions he took that fans and gamers have loved, it was the end result of financial decisions years later and with or without eventually becoming a billionaire, he would have always been a creator bringing valuable content to the world. He was not a billionaire when he was creating your example, ironically being a billionaire almost seemed to ruin his life but that's a completely different discussion.

That would be the same poor argument if Hitler had become a billionaire in his old age theoretically and I had then said, "look at all the death billionaires cause" and pointed at him, he wasn't a billionaire when he was starting world wars.

No I'm saying if someone was trying to cure that form of cancer because their investors thought it was a good way to make a strong quarter and recover from a bad public showing or image, it would not be empathy based.

Actions taken can still benefit humanity regardless of empathy, but the individual is much more likely to take these types of actions when empathy comes into play.

How many billionaires out there purposely go out of their way to cause tremendous suffering and poverty? And what did they do? Give me some real examples please.

(And no, bosses lay off employees isn't "causing tremendous suffering and poverty". To me tremendous suffering and man-made poverty means something like genocide or great famine or armed riot. Those things are rarely done by a business person in history.)