I believe it’s changed the expectations around “instant” messaging. When I was growing up, if someone texted you, you weren’t obligated to reply immediately. With IMs, you might reply if you were near your computer.

Now, my project manager messages me on slack over lunch break and then messages me like 15mins later with “Hello???”

what

I work with these fucking yuppies every day and I hate them so fucking much.

There are lots of examples where a socialist approach is preferable to unfettered capitalism.

None of the things you described are examples of socialism. Socialism is not “when the government does things”

Tell me why that’s a bad thing? Why should I care?

I don’t subscribe to any philosophy which advocates for the murder of its enemies

Did you read your own link? The one you yourself even quoted? It calls itself an independent socialist magazine.

Dylan Sullivan is an Adjunct Fellow and PhD candidate in the Macquarie School of Social Sciences, Macquarie University, where he teaches politics, sociology, and anthropology.

Which is why I don’t value his economics paper very highly

Richard Wolff, another economist, explains socialism in a very clear and comprehensive way. If you’re not intellectually curious enough to entertain Richard Wolff, I’m done responding. On the other hand, I’m happy to engage with someone interested in learning and discussion.

No serious economist refers to themself as a Marxian. A “marxian economist” is like saying “a psychic physicist”. Right off the bat, anyone who commits themselves to a pseudoscientific view should not have their scientific views taken very seriously at all.

To be frank, I don’t take anything economic commentary by “An Independent Socialist Magazine” seriously lol. Socialism has been so thoroughly discredited that anybody who willingly accepts such a label is inherently not a serious person.

“The standard of living was better before antibiotics! Nobody was poor!” lol, borderline religious nonsense

I think you’re mixing terms. Capitalism is the private ownership of property. Socialism is the worker’s ownership of property; often managed by a state (which in theory should be run by the workers). None of the things you mentioned are examples of socialism.

The official state religion of the Soviet Union was called “Marxism-Leninism”

Wow, it’s horrible that so many people live in extreme poverty. It’s also fantastic that, since the 1970s, most people (92%!) on earth no longer live in extreme poverty, thanks to capitalism and free trade!

relatively rare under normal conditions

Capitalism is “normal conditions”, so I’m not sure what this rag of an article considers to be “normal conditions”. Is the government arresting people for running their own business or owning property “normal conditions”?

What do you think most younger people not ever being able to afford their own property?

Housing prices are extremely expensive because of government intervention in the market. Local governments have artificially restricted the supply of new housing in order to intentionally make it more expensive. Unironically: the free market would make housing less expensive, like it did when our parents’ generation were buying houses.

Or the fact that grocery costs have been skyrocketing to unaffordable levels even if you make good money

Food inflation would not be solved by state intervention. I don’t think there’s any serious economist who will tell you that food inflation is caused by unfettered capitalism.

All while billionaires are hoarding unfathomable amounts of wealth? Extreme poverty might not be as high globally but regular poverty is gaining traction at record speeds.

Wealth inequality is gaining traction. The standard of living of the average poor American is better today than it was in the 1960s. What has changed is how we feel about it. Wealth inequality makes us mad, but it has not resulted in worse overall living standards on an absolute scale.

How do you guard against that when having vast wealth enables you to trick people into voting against their best interests?

I think we should solve specific problems. Some problems can be solved with more regulation (dismantling monopolies, safeguarding elections) and others can be solved by reducing regulation (taking away authority from local zoning boards, reducing the amount of legal hurdles for building public transportation).

But none of these problems are caused intrinsically by the existence of private property. Various European liberal democracies manage to provide high quality of life for their people without resorting to socialism

capitalism ends in the extreme poverty that you say it solves.

There is no evidence to support your claim. To the contrary, the evidence suggests that since 3rd world countries began liberalizing their markets from the 1970s/80s onward, it has resulted in huge increases in quality of life for their poorest citizens.

The same cannot be said of socialism, which experienced a worldwide delegitimization from the 70s onward as it collapsed under its own inherent contradictions and failed to provide for the people living under it.

No, voltage adapters are built into basically every electronic device now so it doesn’t matter which you plug into

No. Capitalism is the primary engine for human development. Thanks to capitalism, fewer people now live in extreme poverty than don’t. This means that, starting in the 1970s and accelerating today, less than half the world (and the number continues to decrease) lives in extreme poverty.

Fuck communism all my homies hate communism

England perfected it

Thailand has really cool plugs. they’re shaped so they can fit European or American outlets, quite often. I rarely needed an adapter when I was there

I can feel myself hopping off the tech train. Like when I was younger I was “the computer kid”, but I don’t find myself giving a shit about new technology like LLMs or even new smartphones.

Even with SMS, idk why people expect an immediate response. My dad texts me and if I don’t respond in an hour, he starts spamming me. I don’t think there is a single piece of technology out there where people should expect the recipient to be constantly reachable.

I don’t know why people think this is true. Just because you message me on slack doesn’t mean I’m going to see or respond to it immediately.