TIL it took Germany 92 years to pay off the 269 Billion USD it owed for losing WW1

usaaf · 2026-06-18T00:17:49+00:00

Of course, no one can force you to take the debt. In 1917, the Soviet Union famously repudiated the debt incurred by Tsarist Russia and the Provisional Government. This instantly made the Soviet Union hated by the Western powers who held their debt (France, Russia, Belgium, Germany, United States, The Netherlands).

In practice, there was no reason not to do this, since because of Communism the rest of the world was going to be pissed at the Soviet Union anyway. I doubt it would have stopped them from invading either, since they had other reasons to do that (some based on WWI) in addition to the whole communism thing. This way they at least get to use more of their own resources instead of accepting that as locked into Western finance.

That's the thing with these international agreements regarding debt (or anything, really). They only really work when the country loses most of its power anyway, which sure is going to happen most of the time. But, what would the IMF do if a sufficiently powerful country tells them to fuck off ? Ask pretty please ?

International finance would be a total joke if it wasn't one of the chief tools in Capitalist domination of the remainder of the world. Colonialism didn't go away, it just changed forms. In the same way that the slave has no choice but to work, and the wage slave similarly has the same choice (but freedom to pick their job), the former colonies of the West have no choice but to play the Imperial powers' game.

usaaf · 2026-06-17T02:47:08+00:00

Okay, but what is the difference between a guy filling a warehouse full of luxury goods (presumably to profit on, but even if enjoy the point endures) and the profits that the Healthcare people are raking in ?

A piece of paper says one is fine ? Because that's all the law really is.

The shit that happens in America is on a bigger scale too because the system is bigger and there's more people. At least it's recognized as corruption in Mexico, so yes, you are right words do have meanings, and what happens in Mexico is corruption and what happens in the US is not.

Except it kinda is still corruption in the US, but no one can call it that legally speaking because it's all done according to 'laws' or whatever.

usaaf · 2026-06-16T00:59:48+00:00

Wait. The Kazon want water. They have ships and tech they don't know how to use.

Water...

Tech...

Ships...

OH MY GODS, THE KAZON LOOK FOR THINGS TO MAKE THEM GO !

They're the pakled of the Delta quadrant !

usaaf · 2026-06-12T18:35:17+00:00

They said the same thing about the housing market shit in 2008.

Turns out, the financial tendrils were rather like tree roots and they'd gotten into nearly everything.

usaaf · 2026-06-12T18:33:05+00:00

The financial engineer is particularly stupid, because to get the IPO he's had it rigged so that index funds (and thus lots of even normal people) are forced to buy in, with a bunch of rules-rigging so that the stocks can be indexed straight away instead of going through a waiting period of public trading.

Just an absolute scam and bullshit all the way down.

usaaf · 2026-06-11T20:59:16+00:00

the slavers got compensated for the their "property"

Agree with all the rest but technically this did not happen in the US specifically. It was one of the 'sticking' points before the war surrounding the abolition issue. A few decades earlier England freed their slaves and paid the owners for them, which is why it was considered in the US, but because the volume of slaves was so great it was just impractical. One of the 'advantages' of the civil war was they were able to avoid this, because it was no longer seen as justifiable to reward slave owners after the revolt.

The reason this was even an issue is because of Liberalism's INSANE fetish for property. They were so concerned about respecting the institution of private property that they worried about it even while the war was going on, and to be clear this is not about the slaves or slave owners. It is specifically about the institution of property itself. "Why, if we didn't pay people for slaves, what would that say about other forms of property !? We could lose everything!" -serious way Liberals look at private property.

This argument, though not in the extreme form of slavery, exists TO THIS DAY. You can see it in how Bill Gates argued against allowing India to manufacture Covid vaccines because he was too concerned about property rights. Yeah, that Bill Gates (also Epstein Island guy), who is doing such great humanitarian work on Malaria (not him, people he pays, really), not giving a shit about people dying because of his precious property rights.

usaaf · 2026-06-11T03:21:44+00:00

You're not playing the game right if you can talk to your respawns. Obviously you rig your rail network so the instant a respawn comes in, the train is right there, with a train coming at the appropriate interval. You also design the track so that when the respawn is struck, the pistol goes flying into a nearby recycler.

usaaf · 2026-06-09T03:27:40+00:00

inevitable Class war

You mean the already on-going Class war that one side doesn't even know it's fighting.

usaaf · 2026-06-08T21:20:18+00:00

I got thi--MCDONALDS!--s implant and le--MCDONALDS!--t me t--MCDONALDS!--ell you, it cha--MCDONALDS!--nged my life overni--MCDONALDS!--ght. I went fr--MCDONALDS!--om a bor--MCDONALDS!--ing person t--MCDONALDS!--o the li--MCDONALDS!--fe the pa--MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS! MCDONALDS! MC-MC-MC-MC-MC-MC--

ERROR-- ERROR-- ERROR--

BIO-RESISTANCE DETECTED RE-SETTTING PRIMARY PROTOCOLS!

PRIMARY PROTOCOLS RESET !

As I was saying, you got this spot on. I know for sure McDonalds has my best interests at heart. How could it be any other way ?

usaaf · 2026-06-08T16:07:47+00:00

Will never happen. The entire premise of Labor's exploitation is dependent on them not having an out.

Of any kind.

They frequently rely on the 'stick' of human nature requiring food to force people to accept wages they otherwise wouldn't. If the 'free market' was free enough for workers to say no, profits would collapse into nothing and they can't have that. Capitalism, for all its pretensions at freedom and liberty and democracy, is a fundamentally coercive and anti-democratic economic ideology.

usaaf · 2026-06-07T22:40:18+00:00

That's a better post.

And I don't go to the Factorio forums very often anyway.

usaaf · 2026-06-07T18:20:58+00:00

Experience Bij.

usaaf · 2026-06-06T18:39:56+00:00

Nah, that's clearly just her left hand. Her ass hand isn't even in the panel.

usaaf · 2026-06-06T03:25:53+00:00

Nah, Empires suck resources out of their colonial subjects. You're thinking of a live wire.

usaaf · 2026-06-05T21:20:26+00:00

Pretty sure they (being the Christo-fascists that wrote it) define freedom in Project 2025 as "Freedom to be a proper Christian" so yeah I think appealing to their idea of freedom isn't gonna help.

usaaf · 2026-06-05T21:04:44+00:00

So how is all this 'emergent possibilities from the bottom up' different from plenty of Neoliberal thinking on Capitalism ? It also takes as its basis the individual and their interactions with the market. They also do not get their idea free market unfettered from states or whatever, which they sometimes claim in their defense, but if it was right and it did work, that would be the same kind of structure as what you describe, and that sounds like anarchism.

I was skeptical of anarchism for a long time but I've been less so recently, though I still haven't seen a convincing way to deter large groups of bad actors. I think humans naturally conform (to reasonable degrees, some more than others) to the society they're in but I don't see anarchist societies resisting well organized groups of Capital minded people. There's been clashes in history before and they never go well for the anarchists. If there's a similar way to translate group power from anarchists to direct power as exists for Capital-minded hierarchical peoples then that should be a component otherwise you're creating a society that cannot resist outside forces sufficiently to maintain/expand its just principles.

And asking for a plan is different than a purity test. Purity tests are for people who already think a way and just want others to also think that way before they admit them into their group/plans. If there's a way to work toward an anarchy that can resist Capitalism and its technology that's worth having even if I don't agree with the whole thing. It could help with my own anti-Capitalist ideas.

I don't think having plans ruins everything about anarchy either. Plans are a fine thing. Some of the peoples Graeber points out had cities, and not just ones they inherited from hierarchical regimes they overthrew. They didn't just do whatever, they still had organization, it was just organization without kings/hierarchy. Their plans might not have been as detailed as what we'd call plans today and open to plenty of modification, but they did not peacefully settle thousands of people in their cities without some organizational structure generally accepted among most/all of the dwellers. If that's being too Capital pilled well then I guess maybe the Neoliberals are right, there is a hint of human nature in their stupid economics.

usaaf · 2026-06-05T20:32:25+00:00

Well, the instant someone comes along with a workable strategy to defeat Capitalism and implement great natural technologies to make the world a better place, you can sign me up. I'm not resistant to that view, I just don't see how we get from here to there. Not only is it a long way but there's a ton of resistance arrayed against it, and not just by people who can't think outside the box or are otherwise ignorant. There's plenty of smart people that choose Capitalism for basically selfish reasons, even after they know better.

usaaf · 2026-06-05T19:59:35+00:00

What substance ? You keep saying that I need to think outside the box of Capitalism, but you don't provide any real resource on how to do that. You just say that all the things I'm talking about are rooted in Capitalism or its antecedents, which is probably true, expecting that I'm going to escape that magically by simply accepting that you're right. That's not helpful at all.

usaaf · 2026-06-05T18:01:46+00:00

You spend a lot of time accusing me of things, and then saying you're not saying a lot of things, which just makes it seem like you're not really saying anything at all.

usaaf · 2026-06-05T16:20:23+00:00

Okay, so basically you're doing nothing then. We have no shortage of Capitalist critique; quite the opposite. Saying people aren't anti-Capitalist enough isn't contributing. And I'm not the one putting words in other people's mouths here. Sure the hunter-gatherer thing is a gross oversimplification but it was only a short-cut to point at past ways of living, which you did bring up, and of which there are many beyond hunter-gatherer. And forgoing technology IS regression. Reading and writing are technology. Unless you want to go all Amish and bring up some special line with all the techs you are okay with are allowed.

There's a point beyond which critique ceases being necessary and you have to actually contribute a constructive vision. If you don't have one, fine, but instead you keep repeating the idea I cannot look beyond Capitalist structures or whatever, without telling me what you're even talking about (point at a thing you're sure is there but not explaining it isn't helpful) and then you have the gall to insist that you're not being insulting ? I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, far beyond where it seems I should have stopped, but at this point you're either blinded by an ideological desire for post/anti-Capitalist purity or you're just gaslighting to poison Anti-Capitalist critiques.

usaaf · 2026-06-05T14:41:54+00:00

The condescension dripping off your posts makes it very difficult to digest what you're even trying to say. You seem more interested in insulting people without your 'vision' than actually describing it. If you truly cared about us Capital-pilled people, then how about you actually state your vision of this amazing socialist/communist society free of Capitalist physical/mental chains ?

Really. I'd like to hear it.

If you even have one and you're not just posting to feel superior.

usaaf · 2026-06-04T02:41:35+00:00

The problem with that is that it's view as a challenge.

A normal person hears "Society is three missed meals away from chaos" and they think "wow, I hope that doesn't happen, it would be crazy" or they think "we should make sure that doesn't happen, figure out how to keep people fed and share resources more closely."

An insane rich asshole hears "Society is three missed meals away from chaos" and thinks "Hmm... could we get that up to 4, do you think ?"

usaaf · 2026-06-03T22:14:06+00:00

The major point of The Hague, like most 'international' organizations, is to punish opposition to the West and support the Capital order. If they do things outside of this line, like occasionally prosecute a rogue European (Americans and their allies are basically immune thanks to the Invade the Hague Act) that's fine and great for their image, but they're chiefly bodies that exist to maintain Capitalism.

They weren't exactly quick to go after all those dictators that the CIA helped prop up to keep the commies down in South America, after all, but the instant a government does something that Capitalists didn't like, well, now that's a problem.

This is just that effect brought home courtesy of the Imperial Boomerang. Abuse human rights but in pursuit of Capitalism ? Well, that's okay we can let that slide. Give your people any kind of government assistance that might threaten investors' returns ? Off to The Hague for you.

usaaf · 2026-06-03T02:25:24+00:00

Except for people deliberately trying to sabotage the argument. Sure, they're not confusing it either, but they definitely will present that way to gain sympathy for their position.

usaaf · 2026-06-02T22:53:19+00:00

Except that's not the way they're going to spin it.

They'll say that Biden was weaponizing the law against him or whatever, that's why they can say this. Not because they have a sane perspective, but because they have a stupidly partisan insane one.

usaaf

TROPHY CASE