Pete Prodoehl 🍕Oct 20

I took my daughter to buy a car today. The dealership could not run credit report due to AWS outage. She called the bank, they could not approve a large transaction because of the AWS outage. We went to the DMV, they were able to get her a replacement car title, but also mentioned some systems were down. Back to the dealership where they could not do the credit application to buy the car.

In a completely unrelated note, I think I have some ideas for disrupting Capitalism...

Show threadPendell 🔜 TFFOct 21
@rasterweb @bontchev Capitalism is so great and efficient to consolidate the entire internet to rely on one company's servers.
Show threadVessOnSecurity
@pendell @rasterweb The problem here is not capitalism per se but the concentration of sources of products/services in a single producer (monopoly) or a small set of producers (oligopoly). The solution is not the scrapping of capitalism that the lefties dream about but better antitrust laws.
Oct 21 at 5:44pmWeb
Show threadPendell 🔜 TFFOct 21

@bontchev @rasterweb Capitalism as a system always incentivizes consolidation of wealth and resources to the top. It is the ultimate zero sum game.

For instance at this point you're not really going to get good antitrust passed because the wealthy realized long ago that they could prevent that by simply buying out all the politicians. Nobody's going to stop them, and that's by design.

Show threadVessOnSecurityOct 21
@pendell @rasterweb There are already plenty of antitrust laws that are dealing with the negative effects monopolism had in the "wild years". They just need to be improved, so that the free market capitalism is indeed a FREE MARKET capitalism. It brings way too many benefits to allow ourselves to destroy it - be it by socialism or by monopolism.
Show threadPendell 🔜 TFFOct 21
@bontchev @rasterweb The free market is what leads to monopolies. The government has to step in and break them up. But those antitrust laws are no longer being enforced, because ever since the Citizens United decision, corporations have been directly influencing policy and our leaders. And that decision was made in the interest of "freedom" but you cannot be truly free under the thumb of billionaires.
Show threadVessOnSecurityOct 21
@pendell @rasterweb Yes, it does - which is why antitrust laws are needed. Yes, the current situation is not ideal and needs fixing - but the fix is *not* to dismantle the whole system of capitalism that has brought such great benefits.
Show threadPendell 🔜 TFFOct 21
@bontchev @rasterweb Well, dismantling might not be the best move, but we can certainly take steps to transition our economy slowly towards a social democracy that benefits everyone. A good first step would be to reverse Citizens United (oops, good luck with the current SCOTUS) and taxing billionaires fairly (oops, good luck with a billionaire in the highest office in the land)
Show threadVessOnSecurityOct 22

@pendell @rasterweb The best solution is to enforce FREE MARKET capitalism. I agree that Citizens United ought to be reversed. Billionaires are indeed taxed unfairly - they pay the majority of tax in the USA. Taxes should be flat and equal for everyone.

BTW, the recent outage-caused problems were not so much Amazon's fault (it's not a monopoly; it handles about 30% of the cloud services) as the fault of the companies using it (relying on US-EAST-1 exclusively).

Show threadPendell 🔜 TFFOct 26
@bontchev @rasterweb "Taxes should be flat and equal for everyone" no. We need a progressive tax system like the one we used to have that allowed us to take on some of the biggest and most beneficial infrastructural and social projects our country has ever had, which have all since stagnated due to rising debt and lack of funds since we STOPPED taxing billionaires properly. Billionaires SHOULD pay the majority of the tax in the USA - after all, they steal more than anyone.
Show threadPendell 🔜 TFFOct 26
@bontchev @rasterweb As for companies relying on Amazon, it's almost like an incentive structure was allowed to grow that positioned AWS as a universally cheaper option to self-hosting, and in corporate America's endless pursuit of infinite profits over all else, a frankly terrifying amount of essential services rely on AWS running with 100% uptime and reliability. Capitalists will always prioritize short term profits over long term stability.
Show threadVessOnSecurityOct 26
@pendell @rasterweb The tax is flat 10% in my country and it works just fine. It is one of the things that allowed us to rebuild our economy, which was driven into the ground by the decades of fucking socialism, so spare me the socialist bullshit.
Show threadPete Prodoehl 🍕Oct 27
@bontchev @pendell I live in a country that has fallen into fascism in the last 9 months and I'd happily choose socialism over that.
Show threadVessOnSecurityOct 27

@rasterweb @pendell Probably because you have experienced neither real fascism, nor real socialism.

I have experienced only socialism (you know, the real one, Soviet-style) but my mother has experienced both (Hitler's fascism and Stalin's socialism) and assures me that there isn't much difference between them, except that socialism destroys the economy faster.

Show threadPendell 🔜 TFFOct 27
@bontchev @rasterweb I'll agree there's little difference between Hitlerian fascism and Soviet "socialism" because the Soviets never implemented socialism. Hitler also claimed to be implementing "national socialism" but, well...
Show threadVessOnSecurityOct 27
@pendell @rasterweb Yeah, right.
Show threadPendell 🔜 TFFOct 27
@bontchev @rasterweb lame comic that doesn't disprove the point at all. It is an objective fact that basically no nation which has claimed to be socialist or communist has really lived up to any of those ideals, save for some "democratic socialist" countries which are really just "what if a capitalist state had a functioning taxpayer funded social safety net instead of just telling poor people to die"
Show threadVessOnSecurityOct 27

@pendell @rasterweb The cartoon artfully illustrates the undeniable truth that all countries that have implemented socialism have destroyed their economies.

You're dreaming of "democratic socialism" which really means an underlying capitalist economy (that provides the goods) and a parasitic socialist system on the top of it. The only advantage it has over a pure socialist system is that degrades slower, because it is still supported by the underlying capitalist economy. Until it eventually runs out of other people's money, that is.

Show threadPete Prodoehl 🍕Oct 27
@bontchev @pendell If you value "the economy" more than human life then you'll love Capitalism.
Show threadVessOnSecurityOct 28
@rasterweb @pendell Having lived under both socialism and capitalism, and also valuing human life, I love capitalism and hate socialism with a passion.
Show threadPendell 🔜 TFFOct 27
@bontchev @rasterweb you're sounding like the kind of person whose response to the impending freeze of food assistance in the US due to the government shutdown is telling impoverished mothers who work 80 hours a week and still can't afford to feed their families to "just go get a job" about it. You sound comically monstrous and cruel. There is nothing "parasitic" about making sure nobody in your country is suffering or hungry. If you think otherwise, you are evil, and you lack empathy.
Show threadVessOnSecurityOct 28

@pendell @rasterweb The current government shutdown having a negative impact on so many innocent people is because the welfare system existed in the first place. When it is shut down, it is extremely painful.

Don't remember who said it, but "a welfare state means taking quietly money from everyone, giving it to the government, which then flamboyantly gives a little money to a few people". It's much better to teach people to be self-reliant in the first place. For those who are physically unable, it's better to leave helping them to the community, instead of to the state.

Show threadPete Prodoehl 🍕Oct 28

@bontchev @pendell The government was shutdown by people who wish to do others harm. It would be ideal to not put people into positions of power when their primary goal is to enrich themselves and harm others.

If we leave helping those who need it to the community, what happens to people who don't have a community?

1/2

Show threadPete Prodoehl 🍕Oct 28

@bontchev @pendell Wealthy people who happen to be racist will help "their own kind" but not the people they don't like.

People who base their community on religion may not be willing to help those that do not believe the same things they do.

I think the idea of everyone paying taxes and using that money to help *everyone* who needs it is that you don't have to be white or religious and you can still get help.

(I've simplified things a bit, obviously.)

2/2

Show threadPendell 🔜 TFFOct 28
@rasterweb @bontchev we already see this in how the regime is deliberately withholding disaster relief funds from communities which swung blue in the last presidential election, while freely giving those same funds to communities which voted in the regime. This is an explicitly fascist administration and withholding capital as a means of punishing and harming the poor and disadvantaged is rule # 1 in the game of capitalism.
Show threadVessOnSecurityOct 28
@pendell @rasterweb Well, they wouldn't be able to do that if they had no capital (stolen from all citizens) to withhold and if these people hadn't become reliant on government handouts.
Show threadPendell 🔜 TFFOct 28
@bontchev @rasterweb alright next time flooding washes your home down the river I better not see you asking for disaster relief, you'd better be self reliant mister hyper-individualist. I don't think I've heard a take as stupid as "a community requiring disaster relief aide after a natural disaster is reliance on government handouts that shouldn't exist" in a LONG time. You sound like an ancap, you sound like you want more people to die. That is your political philosophy.
Show threadVessOnSecurityOct 28
@rasterweb @pendell The downside is that then you get people who could otherwise be self-reliant depend on government handouts. Plus cases like the current one, when vulnerable people are hurt because the state has a hiccup and there are no established communities around who know how to help them and are willing to do so.
Show threadPendell 🔜 TFFOct 28
@bontchev @rasterweb You're working off some baseless presumption that capitalism would naturally give everyone everything they need to survive. Your model also totally disregards disabled people and those who for whatever reason are unable to work, "leave helping them to the community" means leaving them to starve and die, and you are an evil person for supporting the death of disabled people. Just say you're a eugenicist and leave. State welfare programs ARE community support.
Show threadVessOnSecurityOct 28

@pendell @rasterweb That some socialist bullshit.

Capitalism doesn't "give" anything. It's just the most efficient economic system for allocating capital. By allocating capital efficiently, you get the highest possible rate of progress and development.

Yes, it has the drawback that some people are poor while very few people are unfathomably rich. But most people are quite well-to-do and it certainly beats socialism, where everybody is equally poor except a handful of ruling elite.

State welfare programs are *not* "community support". They are not voluntary. It is the state forcibly stealing money from the citizens and wasting most of it in the name of helping a few (usually - insufficiently).

Show threadPendell 🔜 TFFOct 28
@bontchev @rasterweb ok so you just hate poor people and think it's fine for people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to hoard more wealth than any human could ever use while millions of Americans are about to starve next week, alright. Yeah no I get it, you probably would be a capitalist if you saw yourself as inherently better than others and able to game the system in your favor. But under socialism you'd be forced to help others who you think deserve to suffer so of course you'd reject that.
Show threadVessOnSecurityOct 28

@pendell @rasterweb No, I don't hate poor people in general. I hate socialists, Marxists, communists, and other leftists - and I hate governments who steal their citizens money and waste it.

Yes, it is fine to have a handful of super-rich people like Bezos or Musk, if the vast majority of people have a good life. It's certainly preferable to life under socialism, where almost everybody is poor and miserable.

And, as I said, I've lived under socialism - for 3 decades. I hated every single day of it. The lack of freedom, the stupidity of those controlling our lives, etc.