Skates

joined 1 year ago
[–] Skates@feddit.nl -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Your comment is weirdly aggressive

Yeah, sorry about that. I was imagining myself in those situations and offering my own reply to the supposed request of someone different taking the credit for my own hard work, while not taking any of the risks.

I feel like enough attempts and takes have been had at workers owning the means of production, by all communist states that have existed. And since they all had the inherent flaw that they are ran and populated by humans, they all end up in corrupt enterprises where there are still just a few sitting at the top, while the masses are fighting for scraps. Arguably the best implementation of it would probably be coops, but the people managing the coop are as susceptible to corruption as any other and are also likely to end in embezzlement/power trading.

the systems we have in place exist only due to opportunism of those who came before us

Oh, I fully agree. However, I was literally a few months away from being born in a communist state. All my life I heard stories from my parents and grandparents about the small daily injustices they lived through. I'm 100% sure capitalism benefits a handful of people and the rest are suffering - but they're not suffering more than in communism, I'll say that much. People aren't disappearing from the streets if they criticize the CEO of coca cola. They don't get found years later in a government camp, or in another communist country, or not at all. You don't need to hide your comments about the head of state in a layer of fable-like obfuscation. You don't have to worry about if the friends you're joking around with will rat you out to the government because 1/10 of the population is recruited by the secret police, and even more are collaborators. For what it's worth, you have these small liberties under capitalism. I was almost on the other side of that line, and it really annoys the shit out of me when I see people who are only arguing in favor of communism from the safety of their capitalism-created life, unaware that if the situation was the opposite and they were a capitalist in a communist country, they couldn't even dream of making their pro-capitalist thoughts public for fear of their and their family's life.

[–] Skates@feddit.nl -2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

While I agree with you - who can say which workers exert the majority of effort?

By the amount of physical effort - sure, blue collar workers do the most. But this effort is also easy to find from others - everyone can do unskilled labor. So should they receive a lion's share of the company profits just because, what? They managed to get hired?

By the amount of admin, maybe it should be IT or HR or some similar department. Without them, you wouldn't be efficient. Without them you'd never be able to expand. But they don't work on the actual product, they're just there for the ride and would be doing the same thing for any other business.

Should it be sales? Engineers? Security? All these categories have the same pluses and minuses going for them.

And now let's say I start a small business. I go through the trouble of being good enough in my field to come up with a product or service that people will like. I invest my own money into this small business, and I sometimes don't get paid so I can afford to pay my suppliers. I have months where I cut electricity at home so I can keep it on in the office. I fight the beaurocracy of the state, with its million forms I have to fill in and it's million hoops I have to jump through. And this business takes off, and I finally make enough to have it be worth it. And you're telling me I should share with the others? With everyone else who hasn't put as much as me on the line, but now wants to be part of the success? Motherfucker I will cut you.

Or let's say I don't keep the company, I sell it. It goes to some conglomerate who keeps it functioning but installs a new CEO to cut costs and streamline processes. Are you telling me they paid me tens of millions of dollars for the company just so that they can share the profit with the workers? So that they can take directions from them? From the workers, who paid nothing? Who offered nothing in exchange for the rights to the business? Fuck, I'm taking you to the parking lot and breaking your kneecaps with a baseball bat, where the fuck do you even get the balls?

Or let's say I go public. I sell shares, and people buy them. A lot of people invest a lot of money into the company, and want to get their money back. You're telling me that when I turn a profit and decide to share it, I shouldn't give dividends and reward the shareholders who believed in me - instead I should reward the workers who've been getting paid all this time, who've been risk-free in this enterprise, who've been profiting whether I go up or go under? Eat shit and die.

There is no universe where workers, who are staking nothing in a company, should get rewarded over those who have a financial stake in it.

[–] Skates@feddit.nl -2 points 1 week ago

I've HEARD a lot of women talk about how they'd rather be with a bear. I haven't actually SEEN any leaving society to go live in the woods with a bear. Nor have I seen many of the men supporting them cut off their testicles and dress as bears.

Now, that leaves me in a pickle. Should I conclude a lot of women are hypocrites and a lot of men are just white knighting, since none of them are actually putting their money where their mouth is? Should I begin questioning if all women talk out of their ass and only take their input to be true if they provide signed statements, ideally notarized?

Nah. Probably not. I'm gonna choose to believe #notAllWomen lie. Just, like, the ones talking about bears.

[–] Skates@feddit.nl 2 points 1 week ago

It was getting in the way of people voting for the most populist person so they got rid of it. It's now replaced with a combination of pavlovian reward system + "stay in line" reminders, so that voters can go for the simplest campaign promise (eg: make america great again), without struggling to understand if the 'how' can actually accomplish the 'what'.

[–] Skates@feddit.nl 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Decree 770 [...] signed in 1967

Gen X in Romania is actually replaced by "decreței" - loosely translated as children of the decree. About 20 years later, they'd be just old enough to take part in the revolution that brought about Ceaușescu's execution and fast replacement with a former chief of the communist party's propaganda department, who had strong ties to Moscow.

[–] Skates@feddit.nl 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You think they're going to pay when they can just use force?

[–] Skates@feddit.nl 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Sometimes it's good to commit war crimes.

Remember kids: Tankies aren't people.

Only people get to have rights.

[–] Skates@feddit.nl 11 points 2 weeks ago

The thing about wrestling in the mud with a pig is that the pig likes it.

Pig tends to not like it as much if the end result is you cook some bacon.

Also, the thing about not wrestling in the mud with a pig is, you're bitch-made.

[–] Skates@feddit.nl 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

privately owned

Nah sorry, conversation ends there.

Cameras on private property don't affect you. Also, they are never because of the kindness of humanity. They're always because someone was a bad neighbor/bad tourist/bad human. You can wish all you want for the state to not have you under surveillance - that's fine. But if you wanna enter private property, you succumb to private rules. And if you don't wanna do that, you can stay out.

[–] Skates@feddit.nl 13 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (8 children)

Name one open-world game from the past 5 years whose map looks like this. Seriously. I'd like to play it.

[–] Skates@feddit.nl 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

It hurts to do this, because you've obviously thought out your comment and you obviously like the game and want to believe the devs are doing their best. But I think your entire premise is wrong

To combat Chinese gold farmers, Blizzard started selling gold in a bit of a roundabout way

Why do you think this? Why do you grant a greedy game dev the benefit of the doubt? They're cashing in on Chinese gold farmers in all possible ways, man:

  1. By allowing their accounts to exist instead of banning and moving on
  2. By controlling the value of gold with a cash shop, ensuring economy is in their favor
  3. The cash shop also brings them monetary value.

They are triple dipping, and you choose to believe they are doing it because they're a good game dev.

A good game dev would ban accounts guilty of real money trading. A good game dev would fix the in-game economy with in-game methods. A good game dev wouldn't have micro transactions in a subscription game. You want to believe Blizzard is doing this because of those evil Chinese farmers - I'm here to tell you they're profiting from this and don't have the morals to make it right.

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