Fail Quotes

[Travis Retriever]

Don't you get it ? It's their justification. It's what gives them credibility in the liberal Wonderland. Because obviously, someone who is well off and think about "the poor" cannot have ulterior motive and is necessarily rational and wiser. I witnessed that over and over and over in my own family. You can't attack someone who has money and pretend to speak on behalf of "the poor". Doing it will always result in the claim that you hate said "poor", have no empathy/compassion/whatever, or that you have some ulterior motive of some sort.
In today's social climate, speaking for a supposed victim of society is seen as the ultimate proof of altruism (Complete illusion, but anyways ...) and liberals made sure that they had the monopoly on that !

You won't find rationality so easily, and if you do, don't expect much.

Yeah, you just have to be a socialist and boom, you care about the poor.  Oh, you don't have to actually do anything to make them better off, gods no.  It's like being religious was hundreds of years ago.
It's why folks like our own Lord T Hawkeye call things like statism McHeroism/McMorality.

[dallen68]

It seems to me that the SJW types don't give a rat's fuck about the genuinely disadvantaged.  All they care about is the otherwise advantaged that happen to be (fill in blank here). For example, recently we had months of SJW's on about "misogynous threats" on twitter, and when someone of their own sex, who actually has a fucking job,gets raped by someone who isn't white male, suddenly: radio fucking silence.

[AdeptusHereticus]

Yes, ultimately, it's merely about a lexicon of words and phrases you can use to generates a specific type of reaction more than anything else. That's today's politics. It's about formalising of a certain type of herd mentality, because it creates voters for your side.

[Travis Retriever]

And related to the above, is someone who has told me that "rich" = in top 1% or top 0.1%.
That is so arbitrary it is ridiculous.  I tried explaining how relative it is, but to no avail.  And why income?  What about someone who is a just short of a billionare, but who doesn't have an income?  Something my economics professor calls "Asset Rich, Income poor."  What's more it neglects the most important aspect of wealth. 

Physical stuff.

You can have all the Greenbacks and Continentals you want, but if the physical stuff ain't there, you're SOL.  Just ask the rich from 100 years ago.  Diseases killed the richest of them that you can cure with a $4 drug from Wal-Mart's pharmacy.  It's why I facepalm when I look at the metric they use to determine Rockefeller's wealth; percentage of total GDP or whatever.  What difference does it make to have a larger slice if the pie is so much smaller to make the increased proportion meaningless?

Take an imaginary economy with only two people (let's say, me & chipfox, just for the hell of it):
If I make $20,000/year, and he makes $100,000, he's rich.  But we'd still be better off if we both made $10,000/year, and even better if I made $5,000/year and he made $1,000/year.  Yet the percentile measure people use you'd think I'm richer when nothing could be further from the truth!

Also, the "1%"?  Of what?  Of North Korea?  Of the world?  of the USA?  If so, which part of the USA?  Among with group of people?  What about costs of living?  $10/hour will get you much more in the Midwest than it will in San Francisco, for example.

[AdeptusHereticus]

You can have all the Greenbacks and Continentals you want, but if the physical stuff ain't there, you're SOL.  Just ask the rich from 100 years ago.  Diseases killed the richest of them that you can cure with a $4 drug from Wal-Mart's pharmacy.  It's why I facepalm when I look at the metric they use to determine Rockefeller's wealth; percentage of total GDP or whatever.  What difference does it make to have a larger slice if the pie is so much smaller to make the increased proportion meaningless?

Take an imaginary economy with only two people (let's say, me & chipfox, just for the hell of it):
If I make $20,000/year, and he makes $100,000, he's rich.  But we'd still be better off if we both made $10,000/year, and even better if I made $5,000/year and he made $1,000/year.  Yet the percentile measure people use you'd think I'm richer when nothing could be further from the truth!

All of that went straight over my head. Can you expand on that please ?

[dallen68]

All of that went straight over my head. Can you expand on that please ?

He's saying how "wealthy" someone is depends on the precise circumstances an individual finds himself, relative to the circumstances of those around him. Another point he makes is the value (spending power) of the currency in question also plays an important role, for example it does little good to be a "billionaire" when a loaf of bread is 800,000 currencies.  Also, if their isn't the products/services you need are not for sale, all you have is a pile of currencies.

Now on to Travis.

In general, the 1% refers to people in industrialised nations. How they came up with the idea that "85% percent of wealth is held by 1%" is beyond me, but that's what they're talking about.  Along with this, they try to insinuate that most of this is unearned income. (Please, by all means, I'm sure Bill Gates would love to hear about how he didn't earn...)

As for the economy scenario, which one would make either/both of you better off would depend on the costs of trade, and who had what resources.

[Travis Retriever]

He's saying how "wealthy" someone is depends on the precise circumstances an individual finds himself, relative to the circumstances of those around him. Another point he makes is the value (spending power) of the currency in question also plays an important role, for example it does little good to be a "billionaire" when a loaf of bread is 800,000 currencies.  Also, if their isn't the products/services you need are not for sale, all you have is a pile of currencies.

More or less.  Also to show how arbitrary and asinine the whole rat race thing is when it overlooks that the poor of today are objectively richer/better off than the rich of 100 years ago!

Now on to Travis.

In general, the 1% refers to people in industrialized nations. How they came up with the idea that "85% percent of wealth is held by 1%" is beyond me, but that's what they're talking about.  Along with this, they try to insinuate that most of this is unearned income. (Please, by all means, I'm sure Bill Gates would love to hear about how he didn't earn...)

Which is kind of my point in that huge post here.  Why is it many people say, "Well *I* earned what I have!" when it's them, but they just always assume someone better off than them, in the "richest one percent" or whatever/whomever they're railing against didn't earn it as well?  It's special pleading is my point.  I will always adore Hawkeye's take on it; That their position and stance conveniently overlooks the fact that if someone got rich, he ALREADY paid back for it through whatever good or service he provided that made him rich in the first place.  Saying he owes you again after the fact for it is double dipping.

Now, it's one thing if they're talking about getting special privileges from government, but near as I can tell that's NOT what they're talking about.  Especially when a lot of these people screaming about "the rich" are people who also scream the loudest about wanting goodies from govco.

As for the economy scenario, which one would make either/both of you better off would depend on the costs of trade, and who had what resources.

I was assuming the available goods/services/costs of trade/etc would be equal between us in that scenario.  Ceteris paribus and all that.

[MrBogosity]

And why income?  What about someone who is a just short of a billionare, but who doesn't have an income?  Something my economics professor calls "Asset Rich, Income poor."

Coincidentally, my new video, How to Argue for Social Security, which will post this afternoon, deals with that very issue.

[tnu]

[Travis Retriever]

Says the people who want only police to have guns, and give them more power, and they're going to pretend to be surprised when they abuse it?  Fuck them.  #NotYourShield

[AdeptusHereticus]

Says the people who want only police to have guns, and give them more power, and they're going to pretend to be surprised when they abuse it?  Fuck them.  #NotYourShield

That, or confirmation bias, or anecdotal evidence, etc. Take your pick

[Travis Retriever]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/08/fat-healthy-dieting-health-reasons-overweight-lifespan-weight?CMP=fb_gu
Notice how 1) They don't link to the actual studies on pubmed 2) they conflate fat and total weight (which is rather annoying...) and 3) it ignores the HUGE amount of evidence demonstrating being obesity & inactivity being a risk factor for about every disease known to man...

[AdeptusHereticus]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/08/fat-healthy-dieting-health-reasons-overweight-lifespan-weight?CMP=fb_gu
Notice how 1) They don't link to the actual studies on pubmed 2) they conflate fat and total weight (which is rather annoying...) and 3) it ignores the HUGE amount of evidence demonstrating being obesity & inactivity being a risk factor for about every disease known to man...

Well, they do cite their source : It's The Independant apparently ...
( The TI article is also worth a reading )

[BlameThe1st]

I'm sure most of you will get a groan out of this: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2015/04/05/why-atheists-are-a-myth/

[Dallas Wildman]

I'm sure most of you will get a groan out of this: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2015/04/05/why-atheists-are-a-myth/

That is one dogpile of Strawmen