mechoman444
@mechoman444@lemmy.world
I am live.
- Comment on Stereotypes 11 hours ago:
- Comment on 1 day ago:
Can’t talk about this in c/politics because one of the rules says they don’t want you celebrating death.
What a crock of shit.
- Comment on Growth and cuck mindset 1 day ago:
Bottom problems require modern solutions!
- Comment on He was no friend to the middle class 1 day ago:
Keep pushing back. Don’t let these disingenuous, self-righteous Lemmy users skate by without addressing the actual argument.
For the record, I don’t support the Republican Party, MAGA, or Mitch McConnell.
I just find this kind of rhetoric frustrating because it gets reflexively upvoted. It gives people the warm feeling that they’re standing up to oppression without requiring them to engage with whether the claim is actually true. It’s more about reinforcing the group’s narrative than critically examining the argument.
- Comment on He was no friend to the middle class 1 day ago:
I’ll see you August third sir.
I’ve saved this post.
- Comment on French village is switching their computers to Linux. They will no longer purchase Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Office 1 day ago:
There are indeed! And I grew up in Detroit, so I loved going across the river to Windsor and making trips up to Toronto.
Also, my original comment was meant to be a self-deprecating joke. It just seems like simply mentioning that you’re American, or even just saying “American” at all, immediately starts getting you downvoted here on Lemmy, so…
- Comment on French village is switching their computers to Linux. They will no longer purchase Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Office 2 days ago:
I’m sorry. As an American I don’t speak French.
- Comment on Of course 17-24 NEVER looked like the picture 3 days ago:
20 and 33 for me.
The ice cream sandwich and icee Popsicle.
- Comment on 4 days ago:
I’d like to point out that this isn’t capitalism, nor is capitalism telling us this.
To be clear, I don’t necessarily support capitalism in its current state, but let’s call it what it is: a corporatocracy written by oligarchs, which is far, far worse than capitalism.
Also, depending on who’s looking at it, this is either a complete failure of the federal government or a complete success, which is a whole other ball of yarn.
- Comment on no one is getting back to me on filling my hole 4 days ago:
I hope to the God I don’t believe in this is real.
- Comment on You needed to exhibit at least one to be admitted to the "lunatic asylum" 4 days ago:
Shoot. I was doing some deranged masturbation while reading this.
- Comment on In this thread: GIFs you've been waiting to post but the occasion never arises 5 days ago:
It was blotting out the sun!!!
- Comment on Probably accurate 6 days ago:
Benjamin Franklin is, by far, one of the most interesting figures in American history. He’s one of my favorite historical people to read about because every time he’s mentioned, you end up learning something fascinating about him.
I recently had a discussion with someone on Lemmy who absolutely hated Benjamin Franklin solely because he owned slaves early in his life.
Nothing else mattered to him. It didn’t matter that Franklin later became one of the earliest and most outspoken abolitionists in American history, serving as president of the Philadelphia Abolitionist Society for years and advocating publicly for the abolition of slavery.
I completely condemn the fact that Franklin owned slaves. Slavery is morally reprehensible and indefensible. At the same time, I don’t believe that should prevent us from recognizing Franklin as one of the most fascinating and consequential figures in American history. His life demonstrates that people can hold deeply immoral beliefs, later reject them, and spend years working to undo the injustice they once accepted.
- Comment on foil 1 week ago:
This is by far one of the best comment threads I’ve ever read through!
- Comment on foil 1 week ago:
100% South Georgia!
- Comment on Happy Birthday guys, gals, and other pals! 1 week ago:
Ya that’s how that works. Don’t talk shit about my homophobic, racist, pedophile billionaire loving shit hole! It’s my God dammed shit hole!
- Comment on Love the holiday where we slam beers and handle explosives! 1 week ago:
I was at Kroger today. I bought two things: a six-pack of beer and a $50 assortment of explosives.
The guy checking me out didn’t even make eye contact. It was such a mundane thing for him.
I’m like… what a weird holiday.
- Comment on America continues to fall behind the rest of the world 1 week ago:
The last person I engaged with in this sub tried to convince me that slavery is perfectly legal and universally practiced throughout the United States by every state and every institution. Feel free to look through my comment history if you’re curious. The man was clearly not arguing from a rational position.
As a quick summary, he was claiming that the exception clause in the 13th amendment is effectively a blanket authorization for chattel slavery. It isn’t. The Constitution contains numerous other amendments that establish and protect the rights of incarcerated people, even while they are serving sentences.
That said, this can go one of two ways. I can simply tell you that you’re mistaken and leave it at that, or I can go point by point explaining why, with sources and supporting evidence. I’d rather not do the latter because it’s a substantial amount of work, and I don’t know whether you’re interested in an actual discussion or just an argument.
Socialism is not a spectrum. It is, fundamentally, the public ownership of the means of production. Nothing more and nothing less.
Universal or nationalized healthcare, by itself, is not socialism. In most countries with universal healthcare, the means of production remain privately owned. Healthcare is financed or subsidized through taxation, while private hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and medical practices continue to operate alongside the public system.
I also don’t understand why people advocate for socialism specifically. It has never demonstrated a consistently successful long-term track record. Countries that have attempted to organize their economies around it have generally struggled with inefficiency, poor management, and authoritarian tendencies.
If what you actually mean is social democracy or democratic socialism, that’s a different discussion. Those systems are broadly compatible with market economies while supporting robust social programs, and those are approaches I generally support.
So my question is simple: why do you support socialism specifically?
- Comment on I wonder why the world is on fire? A mystery 1 week ago:
I think this meme fundamentally misidentifies the problem. People keep attributing every societal issue to “capitalism,” when many of the things they’re describing have very little to do with capitalism itself.
To be clear, I have plenty of criticisms of capitalism as an economic philosophy. Left unchecked, it incentivizes wealth concentration, externalizes costs, and often places profit ahead of broader societal well-being. There are legitimate reasons to criticize capitalism, and I don’t particularly admire many of its outcomes.
My issue is with the inconsistency in this meme. The behaviors it’s describing, pathological greed, regulatory capture, monopolistic behavior, and the relentless pursuit of short-term shareholder profits, are better described as corporatocracy than capitalism itself. That’s a system where large corporations wield enormous influence over government and markets, insulating themselves from competition and shaping policy to serve their own interests.
If you want to criticize corporatocracy, I’m right there with you. But treating every economic or social problem as though it’s simply “capitalism” is an oversimplification. Distinctions matter, especially when you’re trying to identify the actual root cause of a problem. If we’re going to criticize a system, we should at least be criticizing the correct one.
- Comment on Large portrait of Hagrid 1 week ago:
No low ballers. I know what I got!
- Comment on Bill to raise minimum wage to $25 an hour will be introduced in Senate 1 week ago:
War is peace.
- Comment on America continues to fall behind the rest of the world 1 week ago:
I find myself correcting this misconception constantly. It is alarming how many people either don’t know or don’t understand what socialism actually means.
People routinely label any government subsidy, welfare program, or public service that benefits the population as “socialism.” That is not what the term means. In political and economic theory, socialism is fundamentally about social or public ownership of the means of production, not simply the existence of government programs.
I suspect the persistence of this misconception is a combination of confirmation bias, the Dunning–Kruger effect, and simple stubbornness.
- Comment on America continues to fall behind the rest of the world 1 week ago:
Socialism refers to collective ownership of the means of production. Social democracy refers to a capitalist market economy supplemented by welfare programs, labor protections, and public services. The two terms are not interchangeable despite frequent misuse on the internet. You are describing and advocating for social democracy not socialism.
- Comment on 1 week ago:
No. The Exos were human minds downloaded into Android bodies.
Rasputin, a massive AGI was self aware and empathic. It could splinter its own mind into smaller AGIs as well if necessary. They killed it right before the final chapter of the light and dark saga. (This isn’t a spoiler since you can’t play any of this content ever again.)
Man… Destiny lore was freaking amazing. The way Exos came into being was a whole novel on its own.
- Comment on 1 week ago:
I like AI or more specifically, LLMs. I find them useful in a mundane sort of way.
And I can tell you that AI would not have saved Destiny 2, a game that’s been out for nine years, from the poor and greedy decisions made by Bungie and Sony.
Destiny 2 declined because of bad leadership. Nothing more. There was nothing philosophically or technically wrong with the game itself.
- Comment on Rockstar Games could strike before GTA 6 launches over unionization 1 week ago:
At this point I think we should just boycott the game for the utter utter greed it had shown to this fan base.
- Comment on America continues to fall behind the rest of the world 1 week ago:
- Comment on America continues to fall behind the rest of the world 1 week ago:
And once again you were commenting under the comment that isn’t removed.
- Comment on America continues to fall behind the rest of the world 1 week ago:
None of my comments have been removed. You’re literally commenting under my comment… That is still up.
Dude. You’re losing it man.
- Comment on America continues to fall behind the rest of the world 1 week ago:
Nothing, nothing happened to any of my comments.
There’s no active slave labor in the United States. That is an objective fact.
