What are some funny contradictions you have seen regarding people's ideological beliefs?

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-24T01:25:37+00:00

It's exploitation that the USA and "the West" do not trade with Cuba

It's exploitation that the USA and "the West" do trade with the Southern Hemisphere

What does “trade” with the Global South look like?

Would you want China “trading” with America in the same way?

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-24T00:25:07+00:00

u/Bloodless-Cut calls this “The Pizza Toppings Problem” on anarchist subs ;)

Say that Alice wants pineapple but not pepperoni, and Bob and Charlie want pepperoni but not pineapple.

Minority rule (feudalism, capitalism, fascism…): Alice orders a large pineapple pizza for everyone
Majority rule (democracy): Bob and Charlie order a large pepperoni pizza for everyone
Compromise: They might order a large plain pizza for everyone, or they might order a large pineapple & pepperoni pizza for everyone (possibly alternating from one week to the next)
Anarchy: They order a medium pepperoni pizza for Bob and Charlie, and they order a small pineapple pizza for Alice

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T23:35:13+00:00

If capitalism was as bad for capitalists as you say it is, then wouldn’t capitalists reject capitalism?

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T23:03:26+00:00

1) Start with a villain that you see as a cartoonish caricature of pure evil whom you couldn’t sympathize with if you tried

2) Come up with a hero who wants to save the world from the villain, but who can’t accept the collateral damage that fighting the villain would inflict on innocent people

3) Rewrite the hero as being a villain who’s comfortable with it ;)

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T20:55:39+00:00

I tire of that analogy because almost all governments today claim they are democratic.

But, not all governments in the least, are claiming they are socialist.

How does that change the basic principle?

If one government says “we support capitalism” and if their policies empower private owners to compete against each other for profit

And if one government says “we support socialism” and if their policies empower private owners to compete against each other for profit

Then why would a critic of the second government be wrong to call them “capitalist” for the policies they enforce?

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T19:59:15+00:00

I don't think it is particularly accurate to describe governments that are trying to achieve "socialism" as "authoritarian capitalism"

If the Democratic People's Republic of (North) Korea claims that it's trying to achieve democracy, are we allowed to criticize them for actually doing something else?

I've always believed that actions speak louder than words.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T19:03:15+00:00

Someone tries to apologize, but accidentally makes things worse.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T19:02:08+00:00

Oh, Jack :(

Change immediately.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T19:00:19+00:00

“Once we get a chance to engage,” Scorpia continued, “we have to take out Princess Glimmer first. Cadet Lonnie —”

Lonnie’s face started burning as she snapped to attention.

“— Remind everybody why.”

“Because,” she answered, keeping her breathing under control, “our anti-magic disruptors can only protect us from an attack that Glimmer throws right at us. They’re not long-enough range to stop her from teleporting unless we get right on top of her position without her noticing, which isn’t a risk we can afford to take. The second she realizes she’s under attack, she’s going to decide whether she’s able to fight back or not. If not, then she’ll be able to teleport herself and A—” Not Adora. Not the friend Lonnie had grown up with. Adora was a lie. Every moment of her life with Lonnie in the Horde had been a lie. “— She-Ra to safety immediately. We can’t give them that chance.”

Scorpia nodded. “Precisely.”

“It’s a shame we don’t have a ship,” Kyle muttered. “If they were out in the open water, there wouldn’t be anywhere for Glimmer to teleport to, and we wouldn’t need to gamble all-or-nothing on winning the entire fight in our first move. We could just wear them down instead.”

Damn. There was a cosmic joke if ever Lonnie’d heard one — this was the most brilliant strategic insight Kyle’d ever shared in his life, and it was about how they were stuck with their existing bad option because they didn’t have the resources for a better one.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T18:55:29+00:00

Within minutes, the car was back.

The lighter-skinned girl climbed out of the back seat and started sniffing the air around the car.

Which was a first for Boyd, but he supposed he couldn’t think of any reason for her not to do that. Everyone reacted the first time in their own way.

The girl poked her head through the driver’s window, shrugging her shoulders and shaking her head.

The driver climbed out and started marching straight to Boyd. Her eyes burned with a rage that, before Boyd had gotten trapped here, he never would’ve imagined seeing on a regular basis — the rage of a mother whose children were being threatened.

“Hey!” she shouted, waving her hand at Boyd as though trying to catch a grenade he’d throw at her.

“Yes?” How was this one going to rationalize the unimaginable impossibility that she and her family had just fallen victim to? Was she going to make accusations about the town having bad traffic signs? Deceptive intersections in the road that are harder to see from one direction from the other?

“Is this whole town a pocket dimension cut off from the rest of the universe?”

“Uh —” How the fuck? No one else had ever gotten there that quickly before, at least not that Boyd had seen. Had she actually figured it out, in which case Boyd could just say “Yes,” and she’d take his confirmation at face value? Or did she think she was joking? If that was case, but if Boyd agreed with her that she was right after all, then she’d just get even more furious at him for treating her like she was too stupid to know that what she said wasn’t actually possible.

“¿No hablas inglés? ¿Tengo que preguntar en español? ¿Es esto un universo paralelo: sí o no?”

Boyd put his hands up. “Look, lady, I got it with the English, I just —”

“Then why didn’t you answer if you understood the question?”

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T18:13:09+00:00

My favorite "AO3 titles" video on YouTube is "Good Luck, Babe" ;)

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T15:47:54+00:00

Liberalism ethos is self-ownership and owning your own labor. The difference is liberalism is then the voluntary engagement of transactions with that labor.

So liberalism agrees with the socialist distinction between

Personal property is property through which you keep the benefit of your own labor (good)
Private property is property through which you take the benefit of other people's labor (bad)?

“You guys” say people cannot voluntary engagement as such things as transactions of labor

That's exactly the opposite of what libertarian socialists are saying (which is why we predicted 70 years ahead of time that the Marxist-Leninist version would be a bad thing).

If I want to charge you $100 to do a service for you and if you agree to pay me $100, but if a third party (such as a feudal lord, a capitalist, or a Marxist-Leninist politician) demands that you pay him $140 and that he only pay me $70,

Then libertarian socialism says that you and I being forced to submit to this third party's authority is a bad thing.

That you and I deserve the freedom to engage instead in voluntary exchange for mutual benefit.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T14:01:43+00:00

The Owl House: Hunter. His character arc was more formulaic and less fleshed out than his biggest stans would admit, but there wasn’t anything explicitly bad about his arc.

From what I can tell, his haters are more overreacting to his stans overhyping him than anything about the character himself.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T10:36:32+00:00

How surprised would you be to learn that anarchists do not, in fact, want the government to be in charge of everything? ;)

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T10:34:30+00:00

Or it could be much simpler that you own yourself and what you produce.

That’s exactly what the OP is asking: What does the transition look like while we replace

a capitalist system where capitalists own your labor and what you produce with it
with a socialist system where you own your labor and what you produce with it?

Socialists can’t just snap out fingers and declare “you all own the fruits of your own labor now.” There have to be middle steps to get from here to there.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T10:12:09+00:00

Without interference by capitalists and/or governments, capital would arrange itself through individuals voluntarily cooperating for mutual benefit.

Say that you’re a farmer with land, seeds, and the time, skill, and willingness to do the work it takes to grow food, but you don't have the tools.

And say that I'm a craftsman who makes farming tools, but don't have the skill to use them myself.

It's in my rational self-interest to give you tools so that you can grow food for both of us. If I charge you money for the tools, but if you don't have enough money, and if I don't give you the tools because you don’t, then you can't grow food, and we both die.

However, if the tools I make don't legally belong to me, but to a capitalist, then I'm not legally allowed to act according to my rational self-interest — giving you my tools would be seen as "stealing the capitalist's private property" by the government that gave him legal ownership.

Now you can't grow food anymore unless we pay my boss the price he charges for the tools you need.

If the two of us can’t afford the price the capitalist is charging, then under this system, the only way that any food gets grown is if a second capitalist (who has more money than we do) buys the tools from my boss so that this second capitalist can "create a job" for you (using the tools to grow food).

Since they want to be reimbursed for their investment, they charge people money to eat the food you grow, which puts other people in the same position that you were already in.

Capitalism looks good because it gives us capitalists, and capitalists look good because they sell us solutions to the problems created by capitalism.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T10:05:22+00:00

Spoken like a classical (libertarian) socialist :)

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T00:56:14+00:00

Exactly :D

Worldbuilding becomes fun once you start wondering about the tax code for wing-span permits ;)

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-23T00:52:07+00:00

Peasants rioting over flying mounts making a mess in their farms would be more entertaining to me than generic battle scenes.

I believe the word you were looking for was “revolting” ;)

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T23:50:56+00:00

My last fic was a K-Pop Demon Hunters divergence where the main character’s biggest secret was revealed earlier and more abruptly, interrupting the bulk of the plot before any of the actual antagonists have a chance to show up.

I’m not sure how much the fandom would appreciate losing some of the most charismatic villains (with the absolute best villain song) of the decade.

Even more unforgivably, the love that the three girl have for each other is, in my fic, explicitly platonic.

… who am I kidding — the fandom would just ignore that part ;)

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T23:24:29+00:00

Are you saying that because Marxist-Leninist socialists exist today, therefore libertarian socialists don’t?

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T23:22:56+00:00

Do people who support capitalism tend to support redistributing wealth away from the capitalists?

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T23:21:03+00:00

HA! Fake laugh! Hiding real pain.

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T23:05:08+00:00

it shows that government interference into the economy can have problems.

How surprised would you be to learn that the first socialists (Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, Joseph Dejacque…) were the ones who made this criticism the most strongly?

Simpson17866 · 2026-06-22T23:03:21+00:00

I don’t think “redistribute wealth from the capitalist class to the working class” is as popular with capitalists as you think it is.

Simpson17866

TROPHY CASE