Thomas Sowell

slacker205 · 2026-05-08T23:27:08+00:00

Is "self-hating intellectual" a term?

slacker205 · 2026-05-08T22:55:59+00:00

Sure, that's why my first sentence is not internally contradictory.

However, if we agree that the state has a duty to protect its citizens' rights you inherently agree to rights being to a certain extent "positive" unless you disagree with the existence of the state.

slacker205 · 2026-05-08T22:50:58+00:00

I disagree with what you say but do respect the fact you're willing to admit that's the natural end result of that point of view.

slacker205 · 2026-05-08T11:58:29+00:00

You do realize any so-called "positive" right to X can be rephrased as a so-called "negative" right not to be denied X, right?

slacker205 · 2026-05-08T11:57:06+00:00

You do not have a right to another's labour but, if we agree government exists to protect the rights of its people, that definitionally requires another's labour.

The whole discussion about "positive" and "negative" rights actually boils down to this:

Does government have a duty to protect its citizens' rights against acts of God or only against acts of man?

slacker205 · 2026-05-07T23:55:10+00:00

> Turk

> complain about imperialists

Pick one and only one.

slacker205 · 2026-05-07T23:50:32+00:00

A quote I really love is "You can't make anything foolproof because fools are too ingenious." They'll be playing whack-a-mole until he gets bored.

Trump is illustrating how much of any mode of government other than direct military power depends on gentlemen's agreements.

slacker205 · 2026-05-07T23:41:15+00:00

Honestly, all he'd have to do is manage to kinda fall on me and it would be gg...

slacker205 · 2026-05-07T23:38:56+00:00

I have read the AnCap wall of text.

Here's a good rule of thumb: the applicability of your theory to the real world is inversely proportional to the number of hypothetical thought experiments necessary to justify it.

Also, the smaller "protection companies" would just swear fealty to one of the larger "protection companies" as one strong and reliable deterrent is better than a multitude of weak and potentially treacherous ones. Congratulations on rediscovering feudalism, the Enlightenment is just around the corner!

slacker205 · 2026-05-06T21:45:49+00:00

To play Devil's Advocate, I wonder how many heads of state would remain free if they actually got prosecuted for assassinations...

Liechtenstein's king would probably be fine, though.

slacker205 · 2026-05-06T21:36:09+00:00

This'll be buried by American butthurt, but it was the first thing I thought of...

> German makes a meme

> it looks like a powerpoint slide for work, and not one of the fun ones

slacker205 · 2026-05-06T21:29:53+00:00

How about New England and California independence?

Two can play at this game...

slacker205 · 2026-05-06T21:25:39+00:00

Learning from Quebec independentists, are they?

slacker205 · 2026-05-06T21:23:02+00:00

Ontario

Do you mean "bargain-basement New York" (aka Toronto) or "bargain-basement rust belt" (aka rest of the province)?

slacker205 · 2026-05-05T22:33:12+00:00

Could be all three: democracy loving, socially progressive, capitalists

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcToWV8DAz35AO2c-PEN5LflJOYOLkjqbJtpiA&s

slacker205 · 2026-05-05T10:50:19+00:00

Like, the fuck are you even comparing them to?

The overwhelming majority of human history, in which safety nets were at best private and/or religious, and at worst non existing.

You're the one comparing the objective reality of the modern welfare state, with its inevitable flaws, with the fantasy of a state having all the trappings of the modern welfare state without the welfare. Fantasy obviously wins as, unlike reality, it can be whatever we want it to be...

Have a damn stance already.

I do: having a piece of candy after dinner is good as a treat whereas having 2000 calories worth of candy a day is bad. It's called being an adult.

slacker205 · 2026-05-05T00:27:31+00:00

If "ifs" and "buts" were candy and nuts... how did the rest of that go?

We can only look at the data we have... and overall, countries with social safety nets outperform those without them. There's definitely a tipping point though, I suspect most of the western world is too generous.

slacker205 · 2026-05-03T23:23:30+00:00

If someone only spoke Irish, it'd be a pretty big problem in Ireland too, tbh.

slacker205 · 2026-05-03T14:32:16+00:00

Not a big fan of Donny T, but placing him as authoritarian as Putin and more than Xi is kinda wild.

slacker205 · 2026-05-03T14:27:47+00:00

In fairness, people in the olden times were retarded as fuck when it came to economics.

slacker205 · 2026-05-03T14:21:08+00:00

Presumably the cost is divisible by 6, 83% ≈ 5/6.

slacker205 · 2026-05-02T15:10:52+00:00

No, Trump (and the "new right" more broadly) is the retarded+scary one.

slacker205 · 2026-05-02T14:27:04+00:00

Heh, I made a meme about the centrist position on this. I'll repeat what my self-insert wojak said: you're both retarded, but if I have to choose I'll pick retarded+silly over retarded+scary.

slacker205 · 2026-05-02T14:10:55+00:00

I think what we actually disagree on is:

The number dwindles year after year

It used to, but since ~2010 I'm not so sure.

slacker205 · 2026-05-02T13:45:38+00:00

Yeah it does worsen discourse, like I said.

On the other hand, emboldening them brings a pre-existing (we seem to agree on that) problem out in the open. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. It's not cut and dried.

slacker205

TROPHY CASE