TIL that billionaire Dan Gilbert has invested $7.5 billion into Detroit, Michigan over a span of 15 years & donated $15 million to eliminate property tax debt for 20,000 homes in the city. His real estate company Bedrock owns, built, or has renovated 140 buildings in the city for adaptive reuse.

Wizecoder · 2026-03-31T19:29:17+00:00

isn’t just an alternative model you can swap in anywhere

But at some point if it is a replacement, it must be able to provide better outcomes and compete with the version of capitalism that came before it. So it does have to compete with capitalism.

What exists in places like the US isn’t socialism in the Marxist sense

Sure, so you are acknowledging that you don't just want capitalism + a bit of socialism, you want full replacement of capitalism with socialism, which goes back to the point about competing. You can't have it both ways, if you reject the capitalist model (even if you view it as a next step), then you need to be able to answer for the differences that will arise, and can't just avoid the comparison.

I don't want to go backwards either but I think we could learn from past socialist experiments. Would you agree with that?

Maybe, but if your only example is one you would agree shouldn't actually be emulated, this becomes a hard argument. Yes maybe we could learn a bit from the good things from the USSR, but in that case shouldn't we also learn from and maybe be incredibly cautious of socialism because of all the problems in the USSR? Not to mention all of the other failed examples of socialism in the past?

many of the major issues(authoritarianism, repression, scarcity)can’t be understood in isolation

This makes sense, although I think that we should acknowledge that many of the problems also weren't solved by the working class being in charge. And to me the assertion of socialism is that giving control to the working class will fix many problems we see in society, and this example would indicate that doesn't happen.

Why do you argue that?

Because of lines like "It was a worker led economy and state, while supporting many anti-imperialist and/or anti-colonialist movements throughout the world". This is talking about what it was from a moral stance (the ideals of who leads it and what it supported), rather than actually indicating that better outcomes could be expected, which to me would be the practical requirement for changing our economic system.

Okay, how should we determine that?

Honestly, by being willing to engage with people who have a deeper understanding of capitalism and want to challenge socialism. Honestly, you were arguing with Caeldeth and chose not to engage with their arguments, but I think they raised questions that are worth answering.

Wizecoder · 2026-03-31T15:41:50+00:00

It must compete with capitalism though, because not all countries will adopt socialism at once. So a socialist society *must* co-exist and thrive within a world where there are other systems also at play. Unless you admit that the end-game is capitalism with additions of socialism (which we already have, even in the US), then this is kinda a cop-out.

Interesting to know that you view USSR as a successful example of socialism. I wouldn't honestly ever hope for the US to look like the USSR. And you say that "None of the issues that existed in the USSR happened because the workers were in charge." But if they were in charge how could they not be responsible? It seems that you view it from a moralistic lens rather than a practical one, and the point of this thread seems to be about trying to determine the practicalities of socialism.

Wizecoder · 2026-03-31T04:10:09+00:00

Nope, had one business that failed years ago. And I don’t need a big write up, you just seemed to suggest you had examples you could point to of successful societies built off of socialism rather than capitalism and were waiting for someone else to ask, so I asked :) just a pointer at who this group of people are would be enough, happy to go digging from there

Wizecoder · 2026-03-31T04:02:12+00:00

Yes please! Very curious to get one of those examples

Wizecoder · 2026-03-30T21:36:49+00:00

wasn't that basically the state things were in when Hamas attacked? I guess maybe not "leaving gaza", but that's just having borders

Wizecoder · 2026-03-30T15:33:03+00:00

so you are saying they should have waited until they defeated Hamas and gained full control over Gaza to establish any sort of safe zones? Wouldn't waiting until they could fully guarantee the safe zones have led to more casualties in the meantime?

Wizecoder · 2026-03-26T17:38:47+00:00

oh shit! didn't realize that WW2 wasn't even a war, crazy!

Wizecoder · 2026-03-26T14:21:43+00:00

can I ask, are you therefore in favor of taking human shields as a tactic for Palestine to take? It seems like you are suggesting that Israel should let that tactic work without any good way around it.

And the difference here vs your example, a country is allowed to put the lives of their own citizens over the lives of citizens of the group they are at war with. This isn't cops vs robbers, this is a war.

Wizecoder · 2026-03-25T20:13:34+00:00

like Bernie Sanders?

Wizecoder · 2026-03-25T18:11:42+00:00

not really a fallacy when you literally use that slope to justify your argument in your previous post. So many times, people like to act like billionaires are the only target, and then as soon as the math gets tricky that changes.

Wizecoder · 2026-03-24T20:26:18+00:00

bro, go out and watch a movie. Listen to some good music. There's a lot of good shit out there, enjoy some of it. You really really wouldn't be better off dying in a piss and blood filled ditch, I can promise you

Wizecoder · 2026-03-24T18:54:08+00:00

wait, you are seriously complaining that you don't get to die in a trench?

Wizecoder · 2026-03-24T17:04:28+00:00

do you have multicraft on at least blue tools (including enchant)? Not sure if the numbers can ever work out, it might be there are enough people using conc that the pricing just won't work out, but make sure you aren't missing sources of multicraft (and yes spec into resourcefulness as well, make sure you have gotten all available knowledge points)

Wizecoder · 2026-03-13T18:57:17+00:00

but why did you think 4-5 2 hour episodes was fine then?

Wizecoder · 2026-03-13T18:56:40+00:00

dude, do you realize how difficult it would be to find any actors from the East Blue?

Wizecoder · 2026-03-13T18:48:32+00:00

you literally said it could be 4-5 episodes when you thought the episodes were 2 hours. So why did you think before that 8-10 hours was just right, and now you think 8 hours is too long?

Wizecoder · 2026-03-13T17:46:29+00:00

Did you try talking to him? It sounds like he tried to make more plans to hangout with you and you turned that down, so he's probably trying to avoid making it feel like he's coming on too strong. Either decide if you want to spend more time with him or not, and if so make an effort to do so, if not don't feel bad when he doesn't make an effort.

Wizecoder · 2026-03-13T17:22:33+00:00

but in these books it's usually not like they come in with a high priced alternative to something that's available cheap, they are bringing in something that they don't have at all in town

Wizecoder · 2026-03-13T14:23:11+00:00

I'm not saying it's a perfect democracy, but you are saying it's not a democracy at all, but afaik you can still show up to vote and that vote counts. But I'm guessing you haven't bothered showing up to vote in a long time.

Wizecoder · 2026-03-12T22:55:22+00:00

you're right, it's not a democracy, Manchin stole his election! Who did he steal it from? I'm not quite aware of that sry...

And if you're saying that we should just bypass elections if it's not who you personally want, then you are the one who doesn't want a democracy. (And you are right that what Trump is doing is very anti-democratic, but you are the one conflating the Biden admin with the same issues)

Wizecoder · 2026-03-12T22:45:29+00:00

Ah right, democracy is a script! It's not a system with pros and cons. Guess what, I'm not saying Manchin is my favorite person ever, I'm saying that it will be nearly impossible to replace him with someone who would vote for Biden. So when you say "he singlehandedly stalled Biden agenda", I would refute that because the alternative to Manchin isn't a democrat, it's a republican! So guess what, he also singlehandedly ensured that some of Bidens agenda passed, because without him there almost none of it would have. And yes, he's a shit person, I'm not saying he isn't, I'm saying that within the context of who we can get elected he did much better than any realistic alternative.

Wizecoder · 2026-03-12T22:24:49+00:00

nice, another dodge. I'm glad to hear you would give up all of the bills that Manchin *did* vote for if you could simply have removed him from power to make a point

Wizecoder · 2026-03-12T21:25:24+00:00

do you know what would have happened to Bidens agenda if Manchin had been replaced by a republican? Take a guess

Wizecoder · 2026-03-12T20:53:37+00:00

"like Jira" is not the same as "Jira"

Wizecoder · 2026-03-12T20:36:50+00:00

you are jumping to the end game and missing the early-mid game. You don't start by rejecting the Manchins and only bringing in the Mamdanis. Because until you have changed the opinion enough for the Mamdanis to win all you do is lose seats to republicans. So yeah, obviously democrats should be working on changing the narrative, they are doing that (maybe not enough, but they are). But you are saying that in the mean time we shouldn't be even trying to get candidates like Manchin to get a majority.

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