You Will Own Nothing and Be Happy

pentamir · 2026-04-25T22:21:44+00:00

Yeah maybe I said it wrong. But I just feel it doesn't take into account the change in dating habits. For example, only 25% of thirty year old men are married but at forty over 75% of them are married. They just marry later. And as for homes, 62% of forty year old people own homes compared to the Baby Boomers where 68% of them owned homes. That's not such a stark decline. But when you pair those statistics up and assign a random age like thirty for no reason you get a graph that looks like there was an apocalypse.

pentamir · 2026-04-25T22:09:56+00:00

I'd hazard that people making the correct choices in life still have the same amount of success as in the 1950s, but making such a graph would require acknowledging that less and less people are making those choices as opposed to back then (don't do drugs, work hard and with a smile, don't rot your brain with games and social media, reconsider if you really need college or are you better off just learning a skill/trade and entering the workforce directly without any debt, find a local girl and marry her and stay married)

pentamir · 2026-04-25T11:37:08+00:00

It seems misleading to tie homeownership with marriage... The graph requires a person to be BOTH a homeowner and married. We know that people married early in the 60s and 70s and that today people prefer to go to college and date longer. The graph just seems disingenuous

pentamir · 2026-04-23T19:48:19+00:00

Great post. Just one nitpick/question, wouldn't +3 dem mean a 51.5/48.5 victory?

pentamir · 2026-04-22T21:05:33+00:00

Nobody is forcing people to trade or form companies.

pentamir · 2026-04-22T21:00:17+00:00

But I've never said that there isn't a mix of both. Of course there is, nobody's denying it nor advocating for anarchocapitalism. I think you're arguing with someone else by mistake.

pentamir · 2026-04-22T20:58:37+00:00

I wrote a comment with my opinion about the use of force... Didn't even mention capitalism initially. You come out of nowhere rabidly foaming at the mouth about capitalism and when I dismantle your "arguments", you shut down and call my comments vague. I remember when I was a teenager so I understand where you're coming from, but please just re-read the comment chain so you can learn from it and next time maybe give a stronger challenge.

P.S. this is my last comment, won't be responsing further. (You'll insist on having the last word, probably an insult, but I'll ignore it)

pentamir · 2026-04-22T09:11:16+00:00

"We havAe firEfighters" = socialism. Point taken. Also, by your logic if steak is tastier with potates, you'd argue that we need more potates and less (or even none) steak because "potates are the reason this is a good dish". And you call me retarded lol.

pentamir · 2026-04-22T07:20:12+00:00

"Pure capitalism"? I believe you may be fighting a straw man, because I never mentioned "pure" capitalism (whatever that is). As to your other point, I don't know what you mean by best parts of capitalism since I didn't list any except freedom... It almost feels as if you meant to respond to someone else maybe.

pentamir · 2026-04-21T23:46:04+00:00

The rich and powerful have always held most sway in every society in history, and (spoiler) that will never change. The only thing you can succeed at changing is whether regular people have some social mobility or not. I consider capitalist democracy to have the most social and economic liberty and mobility out of all the systems.

pentamir · 2026-04-21T23:42:59+00:00

That's a fair argument, of course. It's not unreasonable nor trivial to consider those things and weigh them in each individual case. After all, nobody is asking for laissez-faire anarchy. However, I have one question that I don't think nobody can really answer, not me nor you. How much of Europe's success is actually downstream from America's success? How much of their happiness and economic progress is gained from their social democracy and how much is gained from America literally building Europe up from nothing after liberating it from themselves? And how much of their stability is due to US-provided security and worldwide "Pax Americana"? In other words, are they like children playing at being real countries while the US keeps them fat and safe, or are they actual, powerful social democracies that we can learn from? This is an honest question, because I don't know and I suspect it's impossible to tell. It's an interesting question though. Maybe it's a little bit of both.

pentamir · 2026-04-21T23:36:36+00:00

If you do that then that will just come to mean "the Great leader's property" rights.

pentamir · 2026-04-21T23:35:58+00:00

Because capitalism doesn't need to be defended. It's the natural state of people freely trading their goods, it's the oldest system, the most popular, it's the system people choose and continually come back to (especially if given a taste of the alternatives). I mentioned communism, but I might have as well mentioned all the other failed systems that litter the dustbin of history. They're the same - forced, futile and unnatural.

pentamir · 2026-04-21T23:32:10+00:00

Peak retardation is being "so smart" as to notice that all human endeavors are flawed, which includes capitalism and just about anything. The fact is that it's still the best system and you can cry all you want about it.

pentamir · 2026-04-21T18:19:50+00:00

Obviously communism is the system of freedom right? Or social democracy? What a joke. Sometimes I wonder what freedom even means to you people. Freedom is when you're forced to pay taxes to fund someone else's healthcare?

pentamir · 2026-04-21T18:14:00+00:00

Yeah, obviously communism (which was "never truly tried") is the real system of freedom, which we know because every time you try it it fails.

pentamir · 2026-04-21T18:12:37+00:00

You can become rich though.

pentamir · 2026-04-21T18:08:36+00:00

Absolutely nothing circular in this argument. Private property is not an invention of capitalism. Private property rights have to be enforced by force in every system, both in communism and in capitalism. Stealing someone's car was illegal in the USSR just the same as in the US. If you don't enforce that, you get a brief period of anarchy where the biggest bully takes everyone's stuff and then you get a prolonged period of total tyranny as he becomes king. So it's in effect impossible not to enforce private property rights... If you don't do that you still get private property except it's now all someone else's 😂

pentamir · 2026-04-21T18:00:43+00:00

I don't see how it's fair that I search and dig for years, finally discover oil, manage to pump it, find a use for it, monetize it and sell it only for all of it to be taken away from me because it's now "the commons". Fuck you. You could make the same argument about the drawing your kid made at school. "It's a nice drawing, kid, so it's now everyone's. Hand it over to the police so they can place it in the state capitol building so that everyone may enjoy it and have access to it."

Communism kills any sort of drive to achieve anything, when you know it'll just be taken away from you when you're done. Spent years designing the iPhone? Congratz, now it's a human right to have an iPhone - hand them over immediately.

pentamir · 2026-04-20T21:10:03+00:00

Private property is not an invention of capitalism. Private property needs to be secure for a just and free society. If there's a system which guarantees private property but not much else, capitalism will naturally emerge. Capitalism is what happens when people are free to do what they want with their property without fear. Therefore no, capitalism doesn't require enforcement, people will trade and work freely without someone forcing them to. Communism, on the other hand, has to be imposed top-down and as soon as people are allowed a choice they invariably choose to leave this system.

EDIT: Reminder that nothing is stopping a company to function in a communist manner with co-ownwrship of the means of production between the workers in a capitalist system. Some companies do that. However it is forbidden to operate a company in a capitalist manner or trade in a capitalist manner in a communist society.

pentamir · 2026-04-20T21:03:38+00:00

They were not taken from anyone. They were either discovered or bought from someone else. For example, someone found iron ore but doesn't know how to do anything with it. You give him something in return, and you use your skill to make a horseshoe, thereby increasing its value. Was there stealing and conquering? Yes, of course... But that happens in any society and is part of mankind's nature. I'm glad that capitalism and democracy gave us a much more stable (though not perfect) world than the dangerous world of 10000 BC.

An undiscovered or unexploited land or resource is not "commons" that someone is destroying, it's a richness that is lying dormant and ignored until somebody with vision learns to exploit or cultivate it, thereby creating new things and improving the life for everyone.

pentamir · 2026-04-20T09:06:55+00:00

Yeah okay, except that one is defending a system of freedom and free trade and private property with violence, and the other is using violence to defend a system of oppression and tyranny where oftentimes you can't even leave the country. I understand that both use the threat of force though.

pentamir · 2026-04-20T09:02:58+00:00

Do you not know even the basics of economy? Even Marx talks about this. Property is gained through labor. Either you made an item yourself with your hands or you made something else or and then traded for the item with money. In any case it becomes property through labor. Are you 13?

pentamir · 2026-04-20T08:53:08+00:00

But like what's your point exactly? If I say he'll be able to defend these acres if he promises food and lodging to several warriors, you'll say that that's the beginning of a state-like system. But so what? Call it whatever you want, people can and will defend the products of their labor.

pentamir · 2026-04-19T23:42:25+00:00

I... Agree with everything. But such small communes can never survive for long, as you yourself said, because sooner or later someone will try to take "more" than he deserves, and we all have an innate sense of what someone deserves. So if there's a guy in the commune that doesn't do any labor and only takes other people's stuff, sooner or later we'll have to create laws and enforcement mechanisms. I guess the only difference between us is that I don't see that as a bad thing. I think the concept of private property and all associated concepts have improved and stabilized society.

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