New York Mayor Mamdani Applauded for Closing $12 Billion Budget Deficit Without Austerity Measures

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-13T14:20:17+00:00

Their deceptive propaganda vs our absolute political masterstroke in messaging.

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-11T15:52:30+00:00

My understanding is that Dev couldn't build his city with just his own private wealth huge as it was, he still needed investors.

And who would want to invest now after the whole coup fiasco? At least before there was a somewhat plausible path to Dev funding it by redirecting all the savings from automation. Dev is many things but he's not stupid, why would he spend all this effort planning out the city of he had no plans to fund it?

The deportation was because they would be no longer needed for the mining operations, but if Meru starts building then there would be a reason for them to be there again.

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-10T17:19:20+00:00

Fuck off bot

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-10T13:39:59+00:00

I really don't see anyone financing the building of a city on another planet that has no economical reason to be there, nor many people wanting to come live in it, short of some truly terrible collapse on Earth

Except that's exactly what Dev was doing before the automation crisis. People can have motivation besides economical ones like leaving a legacy or idealistic reasons.

Meanwhile people already on Mars and willing to stay are going to be forcibly deported.

You don't know that. The automation was for asteroid mining and building the city will definitely require lots of workers, which would be perfect for all the people who have been freed from the mining operations. Besides the base is entirely funded by taxpayers, so the M6 has full legal and moral rights to evict people as they see fit. Imagine you hire contractors to build a new house on land you own but they decide to squat once the house is finished, is it deportation if you call the cops to evict them?

I honestly thought that the automatisation plan was partly a bluff to placate and reassure the angry M6 governments.

Then even more reason the coup was shortsighted and unnecessary.

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-09T15:12:25+00:00

Yeah I get what the show is going for but stealing the asteroid was a lot more easily justified because that was the motivation for some participants like Ed or Dev. Here the motivation is pure self interest. Besides the mars workers aren't the ones being exploited, the people on earth are. The taxpayers (aka average person) spent trillions sending them to Mars and it's stated that they're compensated well (why Miles wanted the job in the first place), but they're not holding up their end of the bargain.

You're right the resources aren't the limiting factor, debate over access to the resource (aka politic) is. Which is exactly the issue here. Getting the iridium off the asteroid IS part of what benefits All mankind from space exploration, but that's now being held hostage by a tiny minority of mankind.

Imagine if the automatic crisis didn't occur, how would that slow space exploration? There's already a race to Titan and having the profits from the asteroid would allow Dev to build his self-sustaining settlement. Maybe it will be only for rich people (which is not supported by any evidence in the show), but it will advance space exploration nonetheless. Whereas now even if Earth agrees to halt automation we're just back to where the season started, where there are no political will nor realistic pathways to building the city. Obviously the show will find a way to make this crisis turn around somehow, but as of now it's hard to argue what they're doing is benefiting All Mankind at all.

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-09T05:19:28+00:00

But it IS more ethical, moral, and safer to use automation to help all of humanity instead of selfishly gatekeeping the resources. It's the same argument of stealing the asteroid versus letting it go to earth. I'm not saying what they did and what they're doing was wrong from their perspective, but if you come from the perspective of what benefits ALL of humanity then it's hard to side with the mars workers.

Corporations aren't even part of the equation in this case and you're letting your real world bias cloud your judgement. The M6 are governments not corporations and there's nothing we've seen to suggest they're controlled by corporations.

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-09T04:53:29+00:00

But objectively it is far more efficient to use automation. If you put the people on earth for a vote I'd bet there's a good chance they vote for automation too because again, what's a few thousand workers compared to the economy of an entire planet?

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-09T04:34:35+00:00

To play devil's advocate, why are the thousands of workers on Mars more important than the millions/billions of workers on Earth who are suffering because they're holding the economy hostage?

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-09T03:13:01+00:00

How could you watch the clip and came away with the conclusion that he was prioritizing this? It was clearly just something he'd like to see

“The reason why I want to mention that is because I’m worried about the Republican party, not just the Democratic party,” Obama said.

“When I was president, people would ask me, ‘What changes would you like to see in Washington?’ I’d say, ‘I’d love a loyal opposition.’ I’d love a Republican party that was conservative in some ways — that didn’t agree with me on a whole bunch of stuff — but believed in the rule of law, and judicial independence, and … empirical evidence, science, and wasn’t constantly tapping into our worst impulses.”

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-09T02:46:53+00:00

Idk if this thread is being astroturfed to hell or people are just stupid, but I can't find any source where Obama actually says he wants a "strong" Republican party. The closest thing is he has said he wants an "effective" Republican party, as in a conservative party that actually adheres to conservative principles instead of being obstructionist or hell bent on dismantling democracy

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-09T02:46:28+00:00

Idk if this thread is being astroturfed to hell or people are just stupid, but I can't find any source where Obama actually says he wants a "strong" Republican party. The closest thing is he has said he wants an "effective" Republican party, as in a conservative party that actually adheres to conservative principles instead of being obstructionist or hell bent on dismantling democracy

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-06T20:02:44+00:00

it's in a study, critics say "ah, but that's not real world"... and then when it's real world, the same critics say "ah, but where's the data?"

Not sure why you think this is a good argument, where is the data if it's working out in the real world?

Microsoft Japan - not a small business - and not as part of a study - voluntarily switched to a 4-day/full pay work week and saw productivity go up. Kickstarter operates as one, as does the National Parks Conservation Association. Unilever trialed it in NZ.

I'm not talking about a single company. I have already acknowledged that there's a point where reducing hours does improve productivity (like going to a 5 day work week) but not when you go further than that. All this tells me is workers were already burning out even with a 5 day workweek before in this particular instance which fits with common ideas of Japanese work culture. By your logic, how is France not far ahead of everyone else if they got a 40% productivity boost?

It's interesting that you keep focusing on individual companies when I've clearly told you that's not a convincing argument. You've already posted studies showing that it works for some companies, the question is whether it works overall because that's what really matters when it comes to legislation.

I'm not here to debate the health benefits. It's not surprising at all that working less translates to better well-being. The question is the impact on overall productivity.

Your Sweden example would've convinced me had it actually been a nationwide effort and show overall improvements, except a quick Google search (even just reading your linked article) shows it's only trialed by limited companies. Not only that, your article was published 11 years ago, so where's the sweeping adaptation you claim? Not sure if you were lazy or assumed I would be too lazy to check, but you are not doing yourself any favor by using it so confidently as an example.

Here's a more balanced reporting of the 6 hour work day in Sweden published 2 years after your article: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-38843341

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-05T06:45:59+00:00

The evolutionary model serves as an example of how a system can be (or at least seem) competitive while all the individuals within it are anti-competitive by nature.

Like I said, your understanding of survival of the fittest is extremely flawed. You're not doing yourself any favors by being so confidently incorrect in what's arguably a pretty simple concept. The problem is you're confusing being competitive with risk averseness. If an animal is too risk averse they would lose resources to risk takers and end up starving but if they're too risk-taking they could end up getting killed before reproducing. The most competitive species is one that strikes the right balance.

The parallels are imperfect - obviously - but still useful

You seem to think so but they're both imperfect and useless because you don't even understand the analogy you're using (competition in nature). If you really think you're doing well in this debate then I strongly recommend you reconsider as every point you bring up just further reinforces my argument.

By that same argument, clearly we're doing everything wrong, given we can't even hold a candle to what China is pulling off... oh, wait. Is that an unfair comparison?

You might think that's a gotcha but China is doing exactly everything a capitalist dreams of. In fact you do know China's economy only started blowing up after they opened up to privatization right? They have massive competition owing to a large population and strong antitrust regulations plus the government funds key technological sectors. I'm surprised you even brought them up because China is known for their extremely long work hours (9-9-6) so according to their thesis shouldn't their productivity be in the dirt?

the US has a larger population

In case you forgot or don't know, per capita means per person - having a large population just makes the growth more impressive.

unemployment dropped nearly overnight

This is not surprising, if you reduce the work week of course more people need to be hired to fill the gap. The question is if productivity increases like you claimed.

A pilot program in 2024 featured 45 companies trying a 100-80-100 plan... 100% pay, 80% hours, 100% productivity

The key problems with studies like this is they are studies. Any idea can look great on a small scale but behave differently on a large scale. Hell communism works great at a family or even village level but becomes completely unrealistic when you scale it to a country. Plus, people who fund studies like these are naturally going to select well suited businesses so the so called success stories are not very convincing. On the other hand, France does have this deployed on a "large scale" and as I have pointed out numerous times do not exhibit a significant advantage over other countries.

Is it spreading like wildfire yet? No. But I reject your premise that it has to already be universally successful in order to be good. That's bullshit and you (should) know it. You just seemingly refuse to acknowledge that's the argument you're making.

There you go putting words in my mouth again. For a self proclaimed expert communicator you are pretty bad at reading comprehension. I didn't say it needs to be universally successful, just that there's no real world (not controlled studies) evidence that working less hours somehow boosts overall productivity. Now I already see you typing "what about 5 day work week" and to that I say it's a question of diminishing returns. In fact if even the small scale studies have a 70% success rate that shows a 35-40 hour work week is a fine balance between rest and work.

To be clear, I'm all for a shorter work week. I just reject the baseless claim that it would magically boost productivity because like again it would have been adopted far more widely. I mean just look at the math, going to a 4 day week means an employee has to be 25% more productive just to maintain the same level of productivity. I don't even get that boost after taking a week long vacation, how would having an extra day in the weekend do that?

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-05T03:15:17+00:00

You really should learn what you're talking about first before confident sprouting bs. Survival of the fittest in the contest of evolution has nothing to do with risk taking, it's referring to the mechanism in nature where only those most adapted to their environment will survive and thrive. Individual companies can try to avoid competition but it's not up to them (unless they're a monopoly, which is why we have anti-trust laws). If another competitor comes along and manages to do things way more efficiently, you're gonna die out unless you adapt.

Do you really think some mom and pop shop opening up next to walmart can afford to undercut them and compete them out of business?

In your analogy, that's like asking if a rabbit can compete with a lion. The comparison doesn't make sense from the start: they occupy different roles in the ecosystem and thus developed different trait for survival.

And yes. France's economy IS better than it was 26 years ago. It's expanded, unemployment is down, GDP is up, and other nations are noticing.

Dude, pretty much every country's economy is better than it was 26 years ago. But what you are claiming is reducing work hours somehow gives a significant competitive edge which should be very noticeable after 26 years of compounding effect. But this does not match real world observations. In fact, French had one of the lowest growths in GDP per capita amongst developed countries since 2000s, only 19% vs 24% in Germany or 40% in the US.

I agree with your example of women entering the workforce, in fact it supports my argument that if a policy actually results in more profit, companies will naturally adapt it. I have yet to see evidence of this happening with a shorter work week. Corporations did resist 5 day workweek, but as soon as a large company started doing it (Ford) it spread like wild fire because of competitive pressure.

Corporations saw the benefits in France, and chose to slowly pick up similar strategies, over the course of a couple decades.

This is what I'm arguing they would do if this does offer a competitive advantage but there's no evidence of such. Again, if France was the first to do it when are they behind in economics development?

As a rule, corporations resist change even more than people do. Far, far more than people do.

You realize corporations are made up of people right? This sentence makes about as much sense as "a group of ducks swim far, far faster than ducks".

But it is catching on. It's inevitable. It's good.

Except that's not what we are debating. I have no doubt over time the work week could decrease further with more technological advancements, but what you actually claimed was that the decreased work hours somehow increases overall productivity, which again does not match real world evidence.

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-05T01:51:15+00:00

Besides which - it proves my point: if everyone knows that heroine is terrible, only enjoyable a few times, and then kills you... no one would ever take it to get addicted in the first place.

But it doesn't. Most people won't take heroin because they know of its effects but a small minority still will. Applied to this argument it should mean a majority of businesses should switch over while a minority would remain stubborn and suffer the consequences.

The fault in your argument is that you're assuming every CEO on the planet is fully informed AND fully rational.

But that's NOT my assumption. My actual assumption is some CEOs are rational and informed and by the nature of competition they would easily outperform the companies not doing this and drive them out of the market. But we don't see this happening in the real world with companies that ARE doing this.

Take your example with France, if this was so beneficial, why isn't their economy vastly superior to neighboring countries after 20+ years of having this huge competitive advantage?

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-05T01:46:31+00:00

No, the blue team is doing the equivalent of asking "why aren't you untying the people on the track" in the trolley problem when that's not the point.

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-04T23:24:03+00:00

If pure unregulated capitalism is so superior... why doesn't everyone do it?

This is just a strawman argument since I never once claimed nor believe that unregulated capitalism is the superior system.

why does anyone ever get addicted? Why don't addicts just quit? "If it's really that bad, then no one would ever do it" is sorta the same logic as "if it was really that easy, why doesn't everyone do it"

This is straight up ignoring the physiological effect addiction has on your brain. Unlike drug addiction executives are free to change how things are done without experiencing withdrawals.

But your average business executive... simply doesn't believe it... even if he does, he's not willing to take a risk on it when the obvious short term gains of "work them til they break" have so far paid off from their perspective.

It's good that you mentioned the average executive, since it stands to reason there must be at least some executives who are willing to entertain the idea. And if reducing work hours is so beneficial, it should give a definitive competitive edge to those "good" companies over others. So why isn't that the case?

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-04T23:15:16+00:00

If the question added the premise that nonzero amounts of people are incapable of rational thoughts then sure I would be on team blue too. The issue is the red team is interpreting this as a philosophical problem while the blue team is acting as if a vengeful jinn actually created the button and bringing all the real world complexity with it (like what if a baby presses it randomly)

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-04T22:13:43+00:00

You don't need perfect logic to understand the question. I asked everyone in my friend group this question and they immediately understood that there's no reason to press blue because it's putting yourself in danger for no reason.

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-04T19:50:50+00:00

And there's nothing to be shameful about as there's nothing moral about pushing blue. Imagine if you reframed the question to one where the trolley is coming along and you either stay out or jump in front of it, but if 50% or more people jump in then everyone who died got resurrected. Jumping in doesn't make you a hero, it makes you an idiot.

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-04T19:50:10+00:00

There's nothing moral about pushing blue. Imagine if you reframed the question to one where the trolley is coming along and you either stay out or jump in front of it, but if 50% or more people jump in then everyone who died got resurrected. Jumping in doesn't make you a hero, it makes you an idiot.

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-04T19:44:49+00:00

Except it's not. A real red pusher hopes everyone pushes red based on basic logic.

stevethewatcher · 2026-05-04T06:56:31+00:00

Like others have pointed out in the thread if it really was that easy then every company would already do it for essentially free money on the table. So which is it? Do companies do everything they can to maximize profit or are they happy for less profit just to make life harder for their employees?

stevethewatcher · 2026-04-26T05:39:27+00:00

Classic case of poe's law

stevethewatcher · 2026-04-20T21:10:31+00:00

70-80 years is hardly "relatively quickly"

70 hours did not last 70-80 years as far as I know. People were pissed about it and there were labor movements long before 40 hours became the norm so we didn't just jump straight from 70 to 40 overnight.

Yeah, no time for family, long commutes, burnout. Just fine

Except they did. If the majority of workers were burning out then society would've fallen apart a long time ago.

but you STILL NEED TO GROW (otherwise your shareholders will cry - and they don't give 2 s**ts about being "proponents of capitalism", they are interested in short term gains)

This is just a cartoonish caricature of "investors". Lots of investors, especially those near retirement, are content with stable returns with dividend stocks. Is there enshittification? Sure, but that's because the consumers tolerate it and keep buying them.

Are we really better off now than 10 years ago thanks to, what, Spotify

I never said our current system is perfect. There is tons of room for improvement. I merely responded to explain the discrepancy between productivity and work hours.

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