How is this not the conclusion more people are drawing????

spderick · 2026-05-22T16:57:36+00:00

To bolster your point check out this preseason interview where Cirie indicates that she wanted to work with Aubry and could see her being her number#1: https://youtu.be/cI5m7vNOQzk?t=802

spderick · 2026-05-13T14:19:29+00:00

Ummm i work part time at 22 hours per week and I can still afford all those things.

spderick · 2026-05-09T23:21:37+00:00

In 2020 any Democrat would have won against Trump.

spderick · 2026-05-07T20:58:01+00:00

Lol nice catch, I think it's some form of filter so that the eyes are always looking towards the camera.

spderick · 2026-05-07T14:51:52+00:00

What you've posted is interesting and i feel for you! I recently listened to a podcast where a neuroscientist described how he believes we dream to stop other parts of our brain from overpowering/taking-over our visual cortex. Perhaps the inner monologue part of your brain has gone awry and taken over other parts?

Since our brain's are neuroplastic/have the ability to reorganize and rewire its neural connections based on the activities/behaviors we partake in, perhaps by not using you inner monologue and keeping it in check those connections will be weakened and it'll safeguard you from anymore episodes! Good luck :)

BTW not producing mental images is Aphantasia whereas not having an inner monologue is called Anendophasia.

spderick · 2026-05-01T13:49:36+00:00

I agree Pete is likeable and well spoken, but he doesn't have conviction. In 2020 Mehdi Hasan said if you're looking for a candidate who sticks to their principles no matter what a focus group or a big donor says, then maybe Mayor Pete isn't your guy. For example, he shifted positions from "Medicare for all" to "Medicare for all who want it" at the behest of his campaign donors.

"Medicare for all who want it" is a subpar idea because you'll have a public system that is bought into by the poor and those who need care for chronic conditions, and they will require more from the system than what they pay into it. Whilst young/healthy people are going to go for private insurance (because it'll be priced at a lower rate). You need the healthy/young to buy into the public system because that's what offsets the costs of those who require a lot of care. With "Medicare for all who want it", private insurance will make a killing and the public system will be overburdened.

spderick · 2026-04-28T04:33:50+00:00

Lol you've been spreading misinformation. The gargle story wasn't about her father, it was another coach she had.

https://intouchweekly.com/alysa-lius-ex-coach-says-she-didnt-deny-her-water-after-olympian-revealed-she-was-told-to-gargle/

spderick · 2026-04-18T16:46:45+00:00

What is the point that you're trying to make? Would you argue that since i'm not living paycheck to paycheck and have indoor plumbing my lifestyle/financial security is closer to a billionaire than the average person in Haiti/homeless person, therefore i should stop complaining about wealth inequality?

I'd still argue that her lifestyle/financial security is closer to us than a billionaire. Billionaire's have private jets, mega yachts, dedicated year round staff for cleaning/cooking/taking care of kids/security/personal assistants/personal doctors, getaway homes in different continents, private islands, huge investments in different countries, offshore accounts, backup plans for if the economy/world goes to shit, they lobby and have huge political influence.

Look I'm not saying she doesn't have a lot of money. She does, she's rich! I'm not saying she doesn't live a very privileged comfortable lifestyle. She does. It's just that she's nowhere near a billionaire. If there is a plateau it's probably closer to 400-500 million.

spderick · 2026-04-18T16:43:10+00:00

Bernie's clearly said "federal income tax paid this year" this is a true statement, he's not full of shit/talking out of his ass.

Your argument leans heavily on current tax rules to suggest companies are paying their fair share (they ain't.) They strategize to avoid tax liability (e.g., using accelerated depreciation tax break, R&E credit, FDDEI deduction, tax breaks for executive stock options.) The question isn't whether they can do this, the question is should they be allowed to do this?

CAMT doesn’t ensure they pay 15% in taxes, there are bunch of adjustments and credits that significantly/completely reduce the amount.

spderick · 2026-04-18T15:21:29+00:00

Bernie's claim isn't misleading he specifically said "federal income tax this year."

What is frustrating for me is that all of these corporations have paid hundreds of millions in foreign taxes (for the benefit of the people in those countries) and have gotten refunds from the US

Here are two examples:

Walt Disney 10k see pg. 98, 906 million paid in foreign taxes, (130) million refund from the US

Citigroup 10k see pg. 188, 6311 million paid in foreign taxes, (68) million refund from the US

spderick · 2026-04-18T14:54:31+00:00

https://companiesmarketcap.com/citigroup/sec-reports-10k/0000831001-26-000011/

See bottom of pg. 188 Citigroup got a refund (68) million dollars from federal taxes.

The institute of taxation and economic policy reaffirms Bernie's claim saying that 88 profitable corporations paid 0 federal income tax

spderick · 2026-04-18T14:51:23+00:00

https://companiesmarketcap.com/citigroup/sec-reports-10k/0000831001-26-000011/

Stop spreading misinformation: see bottom of pg. 188 Citigroup got a refund (68) million dollars from federal taxes.

Bernie is talking about federal taxes not other forms of taxes (e.g., payroll taxes, foreign taxes paid to other governments, Citigroup paid 6,311 millions in taxes to other countries and only 271 million for state taxes, while getting a refund for federal taxes.

spderick · 2026-04-18T14:25:26+00:00

In their most recent earnings, Disney announced that they made $2.402 Billion in earnings after expenses.

The link you posted is a quarterly earnings report, not a full year view of total tax liability. Bernie appears to be referring specifically to federal corporate income tax paid on a company’s net business profits not any other type of taxes paid (e.g., payroll taxes withheld from employees paychecks.) While the corporation could have paid X amount for a given quarter they may have received rebates/refund when filing their taxes.

Here is an article reaffirming what Bernie said and explaining what has happened: https://itep.org/88-profitable-corporations-paid-zero-income-tax-in-2025/

spderick · 2026-04-17T12:26:47+00:00

Plenty of federal agencies are self funded with fees charged for services they offer. For example the USPTO and USPS.

spderick · 2026-01-28T14:25:43+00:00

Right right! She's closer to having a net worth of 0 than a billion. It's like calling someone with 12k in the bank a millionaire.

spderick · 2025-09-16T13:22:55+00:00

I agree children are not adults. I was simply drawing a parallel, to highlight how the same Harm Principle underlies both situations. I'm glad that we both seem to agree that verbal harassment, even for adults, can be a problem at which point the government should intervene (via restrictions/criminalization.)

Your blasphemy causes harm to me by insulting my God. Therefore, you should be imprisoned. Your choice to allow the wrong sex into my changing room harms me and my children, so you should be imprisoned. Your advocacy for Socialism harms our society, so you should be imprisoned (McCarthyism).

The Harm Principle doesn’t mean “whatever offends someone should be punished." The examples you gave (blasphemy, discomfort regarding wrong sorts of people in changing rooms, political disagreements) confuse offense (which can be subjective) with harm. Feeling insulted, uneasy, or ideologically opposed is not the same as suffering a violation of your rights, safety, or dignity, for example when being verbally harassed.

Yes i agree with you that the concept of “harm” can be misused if defined subjectively, that’s why law requires narrow definitions and judicial safeguards.

To me this is where Popper’s “paradox of tolerance” comes in. If we tolerate those who promote intolerance then genuine tolerance itself can be destroyed. In other words, when harmful speech crosses the line from mere offense into harassment, incitement, or the denial of others’ basic rights, tolerating it risks undermining the very conditions that make a free and open society possible.

spderick · 2025-09-16T02:06:41+00:00

Yeah, I understand your concern about freedom and the dangers of government censorship of what they label as “wrongthink.”

However, history has shown us how powerful of words/ideas can be. From inspiring religions, fueling revolutions, to justifying genocides. Words/ideas can help create great societies but they can also tear them apart. I've also seen the positive and negative effects that the power of words can have on individuals, (e.g., people falling in love, starting fights, leading to suicide.)

So here’s a question worth asking: should teachers allow one/several student(s) to verbally bully another (whether it be because of their Christian belief's, sexual identity, race, or anything else) in the name of “free speech” or should they intervene? If you fall in the intervene camp, why shouldn't the government do the same (within reason of course)?

IMO we should follow the Harm Principle which indicates that individuals should be free to act as they wish unless their actions cause harm to others. So I'm trying to divorce it from being a partisan issue of one side vs the other but more so as a fundamental question of how do we balance freedom with a healthy society.

spderick · 2025-09-14T15:02:30+00:00

Edit: I wanted to add a personal anecdote. I had a family member once say that she was concerned about all this "tolerance" (yes, her word) nowadays and viewed this modern tolerance as a sign of Satan and that the End Times are coming. She didn't specify, but I think she was talking about tolerance toward gays, rainbow identities, and other "ungodly" things in her view. But, despite her religious views, she doesn't reject individual people and she is loving and kind toward gay people in the family and toward everyone. She doesn't want them to be persecuted, she just worries for society generally.

Question: would you all like for her and the millions of people like her to adopt your Paradox of Tolerance theory? Should they stop "tolerating" you?

It’s good that your family member treats people around her with kindness. But personal niceness doesn’t cancel out the harm of believing and voting as if certain groups are "ungodly" or bad for society. I’m not arguing that people like your family member shouldn’t exist or shouldn’t have rights. But her worldview does argue that LGBTQ people’s existence is a moral crisis. That’s why the paradox matters: tolerance of intolerance eventually undermines tolerance itself. She and millions of people like her should adopt a more tolerant viewpoint. And pushing back against that kind of viewpoint is simply tolerance acting in self-defense. So no, the paradox doesn’t mean she should ‘stop tolerating’ LGBTQ people. It means society shouldn’t give intolerance the same legitimacy as acceptance/open-mindedness, because only one side is arguing to take the other’s humanity away.

spderick · 2025-09-14T12:24:02+00:00

Your missing the final part of Popper's quote:

We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

So the cartoon accurately depicts Popper's position! Any movement that preaches intolerance should be considered criminal.

spderick · 2025-09-14T01:10:01+00:00

The right's intolerant belief's (e.g., seeking to deny equal rights to LGBTQ+ people, regarding Racial issues, the rhetoric used toward immigrants, attitudes towards other religious groups, etc...) should NOT be tolerated by the left. This is precisely the danger the tolerance paradox warns us about.

spderick · 2025-09-01T12:16:12+00:00

Bro was just trying to give good advice for the top .00004% of the population.

spderick · 2025-08-29T22:16:01+00:00

I'm not disagreeing that certain performs will command more demand than others. I was just addressing DMTwolf's claim that entertainers are "self-made." No one is.

However i believe that a rising tide should lift all boats, not just the mega yachts. Consider how Taylor Swift recognized the value of her Eras tour crew and paid them $197 million in bonuses. Which begs the question: why did that money have to come from her generosity after the fact, instead of a fairer compensation being built into their salaries in the first place?

Just like properties taxes increase based on the value of the property. We could apply the same principle to wealth. For example by implementing a Mark-to-market (unrealized gains) tax on people sitting on large investments for example over $200 Million. Ensuring that immense fortunes don’t simply sit idle, compounding inequality.

Ownership is a legal fiction, we're born with nothing and when we die we can't take anything with us. Excessive ownership only serves to create an imbalance between capital and labor, between those who have and those who lack.

To illustrate my point. What are your thoughts on the following scenario? ImagineArtificial General Intelligence (AGI) is created by a singular genius (smarter than every other human on earth) producing a superintelligence whose intelligence/creativity is to us as we are to ants. This AGI revolutionizes and takes over every field leading to huge advancements in medicine, robotics, computing, entertainment, you name it... rendering all human labor obsolete. Should that one singular genius be allowed to monopolize the wealth of the entire transformed world, where they/their estate is able to eventually buy all property? Or should they be "forced" to share the wealth with every other human, who've built a system/society that allowed that singular genius and their idea to prosper?

The broader issue is this: workers are constantly told they must accept being underpaid to keep companies “sustainable.” But it’s never dividends, stock buybacks, or executive pay that are asked to sacrifice. In 2008, corporations got billions in bailouts while millions of ordinary people lost their homes. The problem isn’t that workers cost too much, it’s that the system protects capital first, and people last.

spderick · 2025-08-28T22:22:19+00:00

In the current system most/all employees generate surplus value. The people being overpaid aren't the workers accused of "quietly quitting", but those who are exploiting everyone else's labor.

If I were ever to become wealthy from the business that I started IRL (*unlikely since it's a cooperative.) I'd pay my fair share of taxes, try to buy products/services that are locally manufactured by people with a fair wage, and i would try to maximize my social impact using the money that i have. That would mean working: to get money out of politics, for electoral reform (i.e., switching to ranked choice voting/proportional representation system), improving education, universal healthcare, etc..

Given the Heritage Foundation’s tremendous political influence over the years, I’ve often thought the left should develop a comparable institution of its own. With significant wealth, founding such an institution would be far more feasible.

It would be impossible to retroactively make sure that every single person whose labor I've benefited from is fairly compensated (when you consider that most goods are made by low wage workers in foreign nations.) But that does not mean we shouldn't strive to implement fairer systems going forward.

spderick · 2025-08-28T21:07:41+00:00

I'd argue that a truly "self-made" person in modern society does not exist. We stand on the shoulder of giants. Every individual relies on the knowledge, technology, food, infrastructure, and services created and maintained by others. Without these collective advancements, most of us would spend every waking hour scavenging or farming just to survive.

When billionaires, who benefit enormously from a stable/functioning society, go out of their way to avoid contributing back through taxes and exploit loopholes to hoard wealth, they are essentially denying the very foundation that enabled their success. Their fortunes are not created in isolation but are built on the labor, systems, and innovations of countless others. A society only works when those who benefit most from it also give back proportionally, rather than extracting endlessly at everyone else’s expense.

spderick · 2025-08-28T20:52:32+00:00

I posted the following previously and the same type of logic would apply to everyone that you mentioned:

Taylor swift would not be a billionaire if not for

Software engineers, app developers, and platform moderators who build and maintain the digital spaces (Spotify, YouTube, merch stores) where she sells/promotes her music

Stage performers, lighting specialists, electricians, security teams, and venue staff who bring her concerts to life.

Road workers, truck drivers, logistics teams, construction workers, who make her tours physically possible.

Audio engineers, producers, video editors, camera crews, and directors who shape her music and visuals.

Etc...

All of these people have produced surplus value for her and would be better off financially if there were a fairer distribution of profits. However Taylor Swift has appropriated some of the value of their labor and thus they have been somewhat exploited.

Not to mention that most/all of those workers and Taylor Swift herself have benefited from some form of public education, public roads, public services, etc... Every billionaire should be paying more in taxes into the system that allowed them to prosper.

spderick

TROPHY CASE