The Still New What Did You Last Do Thread

[Woolie Wool]

"Smaller goverment" just leads to those functions being outsourced to private bureaucracies which are worse than any government could ever be. Most of those "third world governments" are very small and weak compared to the social democracies of Europe before everything went to shit.

[Gez]

As someone who has seen third-world government agents/people basically take tax money for the tax received, I can see why people are all for a smaller government and possibly be burned of the idea of "proper government spending".

I'm less inclined to believe that people think that it's inherently evil and rather, just burned out due to a "lack of progress" or even "visible utility". (Make no mistake, I've seen what happens when a good mayor is then preceded by a bad one, shit feels weird. No one really knows how important a function is until it's removed or just downgraded)

The nation-states in Europe and North America are not third-world countries; they're first world by all definitions of the term. (Including the original definition which was about political allegiance during the Cold War rather than about development and wealth: first world the Western Block around the USA and Western Europe; second world the Eastern Block around the USSR and China; third world the unaligned South which did not form a block.) These are countries that rose to prominence and built world-spanning empires through the magic of having a big government which intelligently used its tax income to invest in the things that were useful to the welfare of the nation as a whole.

Since the 1980s, we've seen a trend towards dismantling nation-states to instead transfer financial power to corporations. This is largely what inspired the "cyberpunk" literary genre. Here we are today with people like Warren Buffet complaining that they have over 100 billions of dollars that they don't know what to do with. His investment company Berkshire Hathaway is sleeping on a hoard of 114 billions that are not being invested anywhere because he hasn't found where to invest them -- all this money is effectively removed from the economy until he finds a use for it. Keep in mind that these billions are in addition to the money that he has found use for. The world we live today is one that gives extremely wealthy people more money than they can spend. And meanwhile, governments are suffering from colossal debts, which they use as a pretext to slash social welfare, but the first priority of any new government is to cut taxes even more.

The very idea of "common good" and "public investment" have been expunged from the political ideology. Everything is judged solely on whether it brings an immediate, short-term financial profit. The entire definition of efficiency has been changed to mean profitability rather than success at accomplishing its primary mission, so a hospital where all the patients die but which turns up a big profit is more efficient than one which loses money but successfully cures all patients. Welfare is attacked as being useless, a form of "entitlement" for "welfare queens" instead of an instrument of social cohesion and solidarity. Any sort of long-term planning has been entirely eradicated from the political discourse, so a measure that would require investment during five years but pay hefty dividends afterwards has no chance of being approved; whereas a measure that brings instant cash but will have expensive consequences on the long term is fast-tracked.

Austerity is a policy that can be summed up as the systematic, mass-scale slaugther of any and all golden-egg geese. It's sawing off the branch on which we're sitting. It's a complete total disaster born from the greed of a few and the blindness of the many.

[insightguy]

To be fair, I've seen people use welfare as an excuse not to be productive in society (in essence, making it a ban-aid solution rather than a long term one, in turn, giving governments a larger debt to fill). But I see your point and do actually agree with most of it.

"common good" and "public investment" are probably still in political ideology. These Ideas are not inherently "blacklisted", but people are less inclined to invest in them if they can't see the actual results. I think that's why at least some short term success is needed (It's like investing in a charity that swears that it's doing it's job, but not actually see any results from your contribution. kind of a hard sell.).

so a hospital where all the patients die but which turns up a big profit is more efficient than one which loses money but successfully cures all patients.

Sorry, but I have to ask for a source on this claim, it seems more theoretical than realistic. Why would any rich person, or anyone, go to a hospital with a high mortality rate and spend their cash there? Unless you're talking about selling organs, then that's probably illegal to intentionally let someone die on a hospital to harvest their organs.

Any sort of long-term planning has been entirely eradicated from the political discourse, so a measure that would require investment during five years but pay hefty dividends afterwards has no chance of being approved; whereas a measure that brings instant cash but will have expensive consequences on the long term is fast-tracked.

As with the third world country experience again, the last 3 presidents of the country I'm in basically promised better country for the last several years, the 1st one got impeached, the 2nd one stole 90% of the countries coffers and spent it behind the people's backs over the years and the 3rd one did...OK. But at this point, people wanted results. You can only promise the population a better tomorrow for so long until they begin to want getting what they were promised.

Of course, the situation may be completely different in your county, just an observation with populism and political climates.

Honestly, I wonder if the problem can't be solved with currency that can expire if not used after a year or something. You can't sit on your ass with it, Investments are a sure fire way to keep your money, and being rich is something you have to constantly keep-up. Though the mortality might be questionable in that regard (maybe tweak the time to expire or something?).

and yes, this idea was kind of inspired by the orks in 40k.

And i'll stop here, might end up doing something that will get me banned if I continue this discussion.

[Woolie Wool]

The problem is not people not being productive. We have a massive excess of production, hordes of disposable products and gratuitous services chasing too few people who can afford them. If more people "leeched off welfare" instead of slaving away producing crap nobody needs or debasing themselves performing services nobody deserves, we'd all live a lot better and so would the other creatures on our planet.

[Vostyok]

.....Honestly, I wonder if the problem can't be solved with currency that can expire if not used after a year or something. You can't sit on your ass with it, Investments are a sure fire way to keep your money, and being rich is something you have to constantly keep-up. Though the mortality might be questionable in that regard (maybe tweak the time to expire or something?).

and yes, this idea was kind of inspired by the orks in 40k......

HaHAHA

Not gonna lie, that first paragraph there, I was thinking the exact same thing while reading this!

Need a little change? Go to the dentist and "KNock a few owt".
Big fat millionaire sitting on the fortunes reaped by his more skillful predecessors? Wait a few years for the whole pile would have crumbled to dust.
Down on your luck and broke? Scrape by for a few months, and you'll soon have a whole mouth's worth of spending money to get back on your feet.

I anticipate problems involving muggers armed with pliers. Apart from that, sound basis for an economy.

[Shadelight]

It'd be nice if the politics discussion stopped now.

[Pixel Eater]

It'd be nice if the politics discussion stopped now.

But what does that say about the deconstruction of critical thought in a progessively hive-minded society?

[Hellser]

It'd be nice if the politics discussion stopped now.

But what does that say about the deconstruction of critical thought in a progessively hive-minded society?

ZDoom is not a religious/political debate platform anymore. Because we've had big problems with users coming to blows over religious and political issues many times in the past, we've decided that it's better that nobody discuss them at all. If you want to talk about your day at church, you might be okay. Similarly, declarations that "I voted!" are probably also okay. But serious political and religious debates usually end badly, with many users getting warned or banned for poor behavior, so any threads that attempt to start such will be closed on sight.

That ends that.

[insightguy]

I think he was being sarcastic. What with the smiley face and all.

[Jared Deberjerak]

I finally finished and submitted my map for the Vinesauce Mapping contest. I'm honestly not very proud of it, halfway through the map I kinda just rushed everything to meet the deadline so a lot of stuff I wanted to include was either unfinished or just completely left out. I'm at least proud that I finally got something done for once and didn't just move on to something else and I had a lot of fun making it so that was good.

[TheFerries]

Speaking of Vinesauce:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HumSvDr6mp8

This video is amazing and wow that ending.

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Never in my life i would have thought about Jon St. John saying GRAND DAD with his famous Duke Nukem voice but the madman did it!

[Captain J]

Jon St. John ain't dead, baby! Now his another task would be saying 'Zap to the Extreme!!' with Big the Cat skin recolored yellow.

[NeuralStunner]

Latest CD purchases: Blind Guardian's At The Edge Of Time and Lost Horizon's Flame to the Ground Beneath (currently on backorder). At this rate I'm going to need a CD tower.

Edit: BG album just arrived. It has a lyric booklet! I really wanted a lyric booklet.

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[Vostyok]

What's with the new members getting banned?

andreat1988 had two posts to his name, Masonicon managed exactly one before expiring. Penelope....oh, yeah ok, that one was asking for it.

Is something going on in the Discord that I'm not aware of?

Or have our standards just gotten more strict recently?

[lil'devil]

Maybe they're ban evaders. For some reason many forums have an intolerance towards ban evaders, maybe thinking they don't deserve a second chance or something.
Penelope and Masonicon were probably banned because they'd made a bad first impression.
And, of course, there's probably some conspiracy involved, as always.