Mastodawn

I would never describe myself as a "capitalist" but I do kinda understand the structure and function of markets a little bit, and it's sometimes frustrating chatting with leftists whose entire experience of markets has been watching the enormous trash-fire of post-2008 dysfunctional crime-based capitalism destroy the possibility of them ever owning a home. Like if you really liked trains but lived in a town where 3/4 of the population had been killed by a chemical supply train derailment

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Glyph Mar 8

"We should have better public transit!"

"Transit, what do you mean?"

"Like… you know… trains"

"Trains? Those machines that kill your entire family in wracking pain with clouds of poison from a realm beyond nightmares? Why do you want more of those?"

"Yeah but not like that"

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Glyph Mar 8

hard to ask someone whose whole body is covered in chemical burn scars to just imagine, for a moment, a train carrying a *different* thing, like maybe some people going to have a good time at a restaurant downtown, instead of the caustic hellfire that they see every time they close their eyes

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ɗ𐐩ʃƕρʋ Mar 8

@glyph Personally I don't really think it's important whether those dangerous chemicals were carried by a train, a lorry, an ox cart, or through a system of giant pipes. I don't really have much attention for listening to the merits of different transportation systems, when my main concern is about avoiding those chemical burns, and that means avoiding and/or protesting any kind of industrial infrastructure, whether it's trains, roads, or pipelines.

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ɗ𐐩ʃƕρʋ

@glyph In other words, I think that even the most hostile and authoritarian regime can work well when in the hands of benevolent and rational super-beings, acting with the best intentions and perfect understanding of their actions.

However, in practice, those in power somehow always turn out to be narcissistic selfish assholes with zero care about anything but their own future (and often not even that), and as such I would rather prefer to not give them any powerful tools of control.