2024 ELECTION THREAD
The next presidential race will be here soon! Please see current Bovada odds. Thoughts?
I would set the O/U at 45 minutes after the polls close on the west coast. And I would put the odds of him declaring victory before major media outlets call the election at near 100%. And it won't matter whether he actually appears to be winning.
That is the point. There is no such thing as rule by the people for the people. Power always corrupts.
Marxism is a fine theory in the abstract. **** sapiens are just the wrong species to be trying it out with. Our evolution, social behavior, psychology, and ultimately genetic structure itself makes true Marxism unworkable.
I broadly agree that "power always corrupts", but with that said, capitalism, feudalism, or any other ideology of which I'm aware shares that same problem. That's part of why I'm so interested in putting a hard and low ceiling on the amount of wealth any one individual or family can hoard; it's way, way easier to attain power when you're sitting on a giant pile of money...
That's true, isn't it. I shouldn't have included the sarcastic emojis!
Is this based on something other than betting markets (which are poor indicators of the true odds for a POTUS election for a million obvious reasons) and/or the consensus of crypto dorks? All the mainstream stuff I see has it right around a flip.
I have to say, regardless of what I think of KoG's political views, I do enjoy his posting. His style is much more engaging than the other leftists here, and the man actually has a sense of humour, so he's probably not a real leftist anyway.
👍
I think leftists are roughly equally as good at comedy as liberals, and that both factions are infinitely funnier and cleverer than the right. It's really hard to be a funny right-winger; so much of their comedy involves punching down. Also, right-wingers have a dubious relationship with the concept of irony, an innately funny concept.
The occasional right-winger or right-adjacent person can be funny. For instance, I think South Park is a brilliant show (although it's been years since I've seen new episodes) even though the creators are contrarian/libertarian types.
That is the point. There is no such thing as rule by the people for the people. Power always corrupts.
Marxism is a fine theory in the abstract. **** sapiens are just the wrong species to be trying it out with. Our evolution, social behavior, psychology, and ultimately genetic structure itself makes true Marxism unworkable.
It isn't at all and btw it isn't what "egalitarian" people ask for either.
Marxian economic/moral theory is about who deserves to keep profits (labor theory of value). Marx answers is "the workers". And btw not all workers necessarily, workers *in that entity*.
It would be marxist to have only co-ops with the office cleaning co-op workers making 30k/year and apple co-op workers making 1 million/year.
Economic marxism thus is terribly wrong not because of a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature.
But because it fails to realize that capital "deserves" compensation because risk deserves to be rewarded otherwise not enough people risk and everyone is worse off.
Marx doesn't understand that capital is mostly NOT like "being lucky and owning a prime piece of land that generates resources regardless of my efforts", rather it's about choosing to risk accumulated resources to organize ships or factories or try to develop new items and so on, which *could fail* for me personally.
Without people gambling their savings on projects that could fail, there is little economic advancement. Which is why "state capitalist" countries can only catch up and never innovate outside of sectors where the leadership is... willing to gamble for non-economic returns (space exploration or whatnot).
Leftism isn't only economic marxism though, it's a lot worse than marxism. Deciding that everyone should get a lot of healthcare paid by others goes way and above marxism for example.
It is not marxism to give welfare to the unemployed either lol. For Marx the Lumpenproletariat is the enemy as well.
The unproductive blokes aren't "people who deserve to be helped by the state" for Marx, they are terrible people
From the communist manifesto:
The lumpenproletariat is passive decaying matter of the lowest layers of the old society, is here and there thrust into the [progressive] movement by a proletarian revolution; [however,] in accordance with its whole way of life, it is more likely to sell out to reactionary intrigues.
And, OF COURSE, Marx (and his partner Engels) was exceptionally racist as well.
https://eu.newsherald.com/story/opinion/...
When the U.S. annexed California after the Mexican-American War, Marx wrote: "Without violence nothing is ever accomplished in history." Then he asked, "Is it a misfortune that magnificent California was seized from the lazy Mexicans who did not know what to do with it?" Friedrich Engels added: "In America we have witnessed the conquest of Mexico and have rejoiced at it. It is to the interest of its own development that Mexico will be placed under the tutelage of the United States." Many of Marx's racist ideas were reported in "Karl Marx, Racist" a book written by Nathaniel Weyl, a former member of the U.S. Communist Party.
In 1887, Paul Lafargue, who was Marx's son-in-law, was a candidate for a council seat in a Paris district that contained a zoo. Engels claimed that Paul had "one eighth or one twelfth ****** blood." In an April 1887 letter to Paul's wife, Engels wrote, "Being in his quality as a ******, a degree nearer to the rest of the animal kingdom than the rest of us, he is undoubtedly the most appropriate representative of that district.
/
Marx and Engels would get banned in this forum because they were too rightwing
Can anyone point to any analysis about mail-in ballots this cycle compared to 2020?
I broadly agree that "power always corrupts", but with that said, capitalism, feudalism, or any other ideology of which I'm aware shares that same problem. That's part of why I'm so interested in putting a hard and low ceiling on the amount of wealth any one individual or family can hoard; it's way, way easier to attain power when you're sitting on a giant pile of money...
Money accumulation as one avenue for power *reduces systemic risk* because it *decentralizes power* compared to systems where all power is political (!!!!).
The richest person in constitutional liberal capitalism can never have but a fraction of the power a leader of a socialist country has, in his country.
Castro in Cuba had more power than the 50 richest americans combined ever had in America.
Power will always exist , and *in fixed sum inside society in terms of status*, the only option you have is to have a system that decentralizes it a lot, or not.
And in order to have decentralization of power you need to allow competing interests to accumulate power.
And the easiest way to do that is to allow money accumulation of competing capitalists. Sectors compete as well to be clear, among the "capitalists" you have people who gain if housing prices go down (those who have to pay the salaries to the people who have to rent for example, those who need more real estate to conduct their business and so on) and viceversa.
In a society where you have power in judges, power in the military, power in elected politicians that are against each other (senators against potus against state governors and so on) in representing different interest, and power in 3, 5, 10, 20 groups of billionaires/capitalists that fight each other, + the top 5-10% owning a significant portion of the country assets (and all the myriad different interests that causes), you have protection from corruption.
Which doesn't mean corruption doesn't happen, it will *always happen*, it means your country has a very low chance of imploding and becoming a terrible place.
I suppose we can dispense with the "MAGA are all racist whites" meme
Is this based on something other than betting markets (which are poor indicators of the true odds for a POTUS election for a million obvious reasons) and/or the consensus of crypto dorks? All the mainstream stuff I see has it right around a flip.
it's based on what the public believes (based on actual money rather than just thoughts and prayers) the chances Trump wins are.
Is historic underpolling of Trump support built into any of the current models?
Can anyone point to any analysis about mail-in ballots this cycle compared to 2020?
Not analysis per se but a data breakdown of all early voting:
it's based on what the public believes (based on actual money rather than just thoughts and prayers) the chances Trump wins are.
While that is true, this "public" is pretty dumb - they were betting on Trump to win in 2020 after he already lost. So, what the "public" believes in this regard generally means **** all.
Not analysis per se but a data breakdown of all early voting:
This is great thanks
While that is true, this "public" is pretty dumb - they were betting on Trump to win in 2020 after he already lost. So, what the "public" believes in this regard generally means **** all.
If you systematically know better than the market (even only slightly better) you can make incredible amounts of money, so unless you do regularly beat markets, yours is just a cope
Ya me neither. People ITT seem to think it's a coinflip.
Imagine you believed something was 50/50 to happen and you had a 125% expected ROI on it over a 36 hour period. Seems pretty foolish to not take that opportunity.
Sure, if you believe it's a coinflip. Like I say, I personally have no idea.
If you systematically know better than the market (even only slightly better) you can make incredible amounts of money, so unless you do regularly beat markets, yours is just a cope
I have to systematically beat markets to know that betting against something which has already happened is dumb? Fascinating stuff, sensei, how much do I owe you for these sage words?
I am praying that whoever wins, it's not a repeat of 2020 where Trump "wins" on election night followed by a loss the following morning. I think that would be really, really bad.
Polisci completely deserves its reputation as an easy discipline and this is part of why it drives me crazy when people who speak about politics for a living do not spend a weekend reading Wikipedia articles and learning terminology and stuff.
lol, this i agree on 100%
was at my college reunion this weekend and a student asked me what my major was, when i responded that it was polisci she said "why is it all of you guys are polisci" to which I immediately answered "because by the end of my freshman year it was very clear to me that would be the easiest major"
