No I’m making that claim that the title to this post has the world’s New York Times in the title and you’re deciding you want to have a different conversation, which is fine, but why do you gotta hijack someone else’s thread to do it? Make your own post and do it there.

Sure, but the context of the post is NYT. Feel free to start your own thread about the WP I guess?

Ok, but isn’t the OP about the NYT?

I’m confused, this is an article from the Washington Post?

Anon has discovered the origin of religion.

No one ever cares here. The NYT does this explicitly to avoid being an echo chamber but, well, people love echo chambers.

Sure! Show me a socialist county with no capitalism.

I’m not arguing with you! I agree that socialism exists! It does not, however, exist in a vacuum completely free of the influence of capitalism. Every implementation of socialism on the planet has had to work with, or work around, the human propensity towards selfishness to continue existing. The ones that worked against capitalism failed, or were subverted into adopting capitalism in some form. Maybe Cuba got the closest. Even non-contacted tribes that exist outside the sphere of influence only continue to exist because the capitalists haven’t decided to try and extract value from them or their land.

Well, you kind of mean Ideal Socialism. I’m saying none of the solutions humans have implemented have worked, as evidenced by the fact that the planet is not a socialist utopia. The closest we have to that nowadays are the countries that have harnessed capitalism with the yoke of socialism, and even they’re constantly fighting their own right wings that are trying to call more back for fewer.

Capitalism isn’t a thing, it’s a label for a specific human behavior.

The problem is people. Greed is a human trait. You could wave a magic wand tomorrow and delete capitalism and greed would resurrect it before the wand cooled off.

You need a system that subverts greed, harnessing the human potential for selfishness to drive common social selflessness. The best answer humans have found is highly regulated capitalism and graduated taxes. This answer (and others) never last because capitalism either breaks out of jail when capitalists gain control of government, or another capitalist society physically (or politically, or economically) destroys or undermines the non-capitalistic one.

It’s kind of the same reason cancer kills: It’s really good at spreading, and really bad at stopping.

If all the citizens are trained in the defense of the nation, then both things can be true. There’s only so many fighters jets, tanks, and nuclear bombs to go around, so the stewardship of those assets is going to fall to a trusted committee anyway (an organized military), but that’s logistics, not politics.

What does such a society do with conscientious objectors and Pacificsts? Hopefully value their option as a source of diversity and honor their choices.

Your question was disingenuous and you know it.

That’s a great take. I never considered that the ring’s machinations essentially led to its own destruction.

If you’re ever in Austin, Tx, there’s a place called Mexta that serves them as a side. Best ones I’ve had outside Mexico.

It makes sense at scale the U.S. Military operates at.

Oh.

Oh

Just one of the many steps along the road to perfection: counterstrike.

All games eventually evolve a counterstrike mod. It’s the carcinisation of games.

cyber tuk tuk

Perfect. No notes