When you feel something like that, it is better to do a reality check. There’s no reason to assume current situation is the same as in 1939. Historical traumas are subject for therapy, not basis for political decisions.
> There’s no reason to assume current situation is the same as in 1939
A better example is that it's just like what lots of Americans were saying about Russia and Ukraine immediately before the invasions and occupations that are still ongoing began, but with “beyond Ukraine” replacing “Ukraine” now that facts on the ground have made the latter more obviously indefensible as a claim.
I wonder if you've ever looked at a graph of wealth accumulation of every economic strata in the US, or just inequality. There's nothing wrong with inequality if the poor are getting richer, have more access to resources, and a higher quality of life with time.
Except they're getting relatively poorer - having less access to housing, lower purchasing power, lesser access to medical care and are dying sooner (even before COVID).
Median wealth was the same in 1995 as it was in 2016 [0].
Median inflation adjusted household income was the same in 1974 as in 2016 [1]. If you go the full range it's gone from $54k to $67k between 1968 to 2021.
That is technically higher, but it's not CPI adjusted.
> There's these things called citations, there's tons of them throughout the piece, those pieces further cite primary sources for the data.
I clicked 10 or so citations that all went to the same guys blog where he at best had skewered pew research I sourced directly instead.
> Learn these things before you try to engage in conversations about this topic:
> The difference between income and total compensation.
If you have data on median compensation (outside of regular income) we can discuss it. It would however already be represented in wealth data, so it seems negligible.
> The difference between income and wealth.
Which is why I provided both.
> The dynamic nature of economic mobility over the course of someone's life. (Older people have more human capital and therefore more wealth).
How is this relevant to median income/wealth measured over time? It's not measuring one person's wealth growth, but a time series of snapshots of everyone's (meaning all ages).
>How is this relevant to median income/wealth measured over time?
Because the age and dominant generation of the population massively affects the median household wealth. It's why the median wealth of Japanese Americans is significantly higher than Hispanic Americans. The median age of the Japanese American population is almost double that of Hispanic Americans.
He's a global warming denialist often citing Daily Mail as a source. I know who he is. "just a guy" would've honestly been a better resume. What he is not is a primary source or a good source of unbiased anything.
> Because the age and dominant generation of the population massively affects the median household wealth. It's why the median wealth of Japanese Americans is significantly higher than Hispanic Americans. The median age of the Japanese American population is almost double that of Hispanic Americans.
Ok, median age in the 1990s was 32.9, and 37.9 in 2016 [0], so the wealth being the same means it actually shrunk even more since older people should have more. Got it. Thanks for clarifying.
> I have repeatedly, your inability to observe data from the CBO and BLS is not my problem
So we have this scenario where either
1) you can't explain how my points are wrong, and direct me to read some blogs you like.
2) you don't want to
In either case, why are you even responding? If everything on the internet is self-explanatory, everyone should agree. So why aren't we? This is why we explain how something is wrong, and support it using data from mutually reliable sources. You repeatedly sidestep this, for whatever reason I don't know.
Mate there's CBO, BLS, Journal of Economic Research, IMF, and several academic study citations in the video, post, blog, and all over the internet.
It's a myth that the poor get poorer. Market economies are not zero sum. Whether or not you want to explore that seriously or just participate in an exercise of confirmation bias is, again, not my problem.
All you've provided are ad hominems against sources that directly counter your initial contentions without sincerely examining the information or data contained within. I'm not interested in hearing your regurgitated, scripted nonsense on this topic that every ignorant believer in this myth spews out. I've participated in this conversation too many times to be surprised by how it goes or the points made. Nothing you've stated is new, unaccounted for, or unexplainable if you'd spend 5 minutes challenging your world view. It's not my job to provide sources only you approve of.
>> This is why we explain how something is wrong, and support it using data from mutually reliable sources. You repeatedly sidestep this, for whatever reason I don't know.
> Mate there's CBO, BLS, Journal of Economic Research, IMF, and several academic study citations in the video, post, blog, and all over the internet.
Yet the only thing you've linked is a blog and a medium post, not IMF, or BLS or the sources you seem to agree are reputable. Why is that? Is it because they don't say the things your blogs claim they do?
> There's these things called citations, there's tons of them throughout the piece, those pieces further cite primary sources for the data.
The author cites his own blog, which also cites his own blog. Almost all the citations in his blog are to his own blog. One single link in the article did not go to his own blog but instead went to a video at reason.com. This is not a pattern which gives confidence in the material.
For starters, the Native American and African men are metaphors, representing the continents of North America and Africa. You could have gotten this far just by going to the museum's web page.
Agreed, according to the sculptor himself, they are symbolic figures: “The two figures at [Roosevelt’s] side are guides symbolizing the continents of Africa and America, and if you choose may stand for Roosevelt’s friendliness to all races.” —Sculptor James Earle Fraser, 1940
The online exhibit is an interesting deeper look at the statue and controversy.
Further, in the context that statement was made, Roosevelt's "friendliness to all races" was freighted with some icky stuff --- that, for instance, leading them out of the darkness of their indigenous culture was a great favor done for them by western civilization.
Yeah man, all cultures are valid and deserve to exist, even if they sacrifice thousands of children annually, regularly participate in cannibalism, etc.
Westerners should have just ignored this stuff when they encountered it. The world would definitely be a better, more equitable place.
>Westerners should have just ignored this stuff when they encountered it.
That's odd because most of the cannabalism on the planet took place in Europe. The euro-anti-cannabalism stance is barely a century old.
Remember, food scarcity wasn't an issue in much of the rest of the world and unlike Europe, the non-European world had enough medical/scientific knowledge to understand human meat cured no illnesses.
So why dont we have many more Egyptain mummies? Because Europeans literally ate tens of thousands of them.
Weird how the West progressed but many cultures hadn't even invented the wheel by the time of colonialism. Nice try with the pre-enlightenment & pre-colonialism whataboutism though.
Instances of cannibalism for reasons other than desperation or individual criminality are basically non existent in western culture after the 15th century, and were certainly not a staple of culture. This is even more true for things like human sacrifice. It's also completely false that cannibalism was more rampant in Europe than anywhere else. That's laughable. It was prolific in Africa, the Americas, Australia & New Zealand pre-colonialism, some parts of East Asia.
Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of human sacrifice annually were taking place among native Americans. Cannibalism was and is a regular part of many African cultures, and also was widespread among native Americans.
Some cultures are better than others. That's just a fact. And it's not just Nazis that are bad.
>Weird how the West progressed but many cultures hadn't even invented the wheel by the time of colonialism.
It's hard not to economically progress when one robs and sabotages all the largest economies in the world. Using deception and fraud in a time where honorable men were revered is an edge, I agree.
You are pointing out rituals in the rest of the world but those were occassional ceremonies. In Europe, eating humans was "just lunch" or "just a meat pie", not a once in a year religious event. Same for European human blood drinking, which was very popular as medicine and a thirst quencher for more than 1000 years.
>basically non existent in western culture after the 15th century
Wrong, European medicine was primitive at best until the mid 19th century, colonisation is how Europeans gathered most of the valid medical knowledge from the world (indegenous herb and plant medicine knoweledge plays an outsized role in what we consider modern pharma).
Europeans also ate most of the mummies in existence.
Are you claiming Europeans ate all of the mummies they did eat before the 15th century? Before the major European excavations in Egypt occurred? Nonsense, the trade started much later and continued well into the 1900s. This is historical fact.
---
"Mummy was still sold as medicine in a German medical catalog at the beginning of the 20th century. And in 1908, a last known attempt was made in Germany to swallow blood at the scaffold.
"Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians, reveal that for several hundred years, peaking in the 16th and 17th centuries, many Europeans, including royalty, priests and scientists, routinely ingested remedies containing human bones, blood and fat as medicine for everything from headaches to epilepsy"
“...the poor, who couldn’t always afford the processed compounds sold in apothecaries, could gain the benefits of cannibal medicine by standing by at executions, paying a small amount for a cup of the still-warm blood of the condemned.The executioner was considered a big healer in Germanic countries,” says Sugg. “He was a social leper with almost magical powers.” For those who preferred their blood cooked, a 1679 recipe from a Franciscan apothecary describes how to make it into marmalade."
>It's hard not to economically progress when one robs and sabotages all the largest economies in the world.
You mean what literally every society and culture was doing for all of human history? Native tribes across the globe were in perpetual war. Why do you think it was called the Aztec Empire as just one example? Every primitive culture would have done the same thing if they had the technology. Deception is a recurring theme in The Art of War and similar strategic works across time. Ancient Greece, ancient Rome, China, Persia, Islamic empires, etc.
>You are pointing out rituals in the rest of the world but these were occassional ceremonies.
lol no they weren't, human sacrifice happened dozens of times a day every day in Mayan and Aztec civilization. Cannibalism was a regular staple in many native American and African tribes.
All your comments on cannibalism are complete bullshit. The mummy eating stuff was basically over by the 17th century, except in rare instances.
Eating mummies is also completely different from literally killing someone for the purpose of eating them, or decapitating/ripping the heart out of someone for human sacrifice.
For someone claiming objective facts you certainly don't have any.
>basically non existent in western culture after the 15th century
>basically over by the 17th century
It went from 15th century to 17th century? I like that you are admitting you dont know basic European history and based on your factually deficient response, you still have a lot to catch up on.
No it didn't, you'll notice I had very precise descriptors in each comment. I'm glad you accept that your perspective that Western colonials were uniquely bad is blatantly false.
>Eating mummies is also completely different from literally killing someone for the purpose of eating them...
Europeans did both. Everything I stated is factual and didnt require alteration or retraction. You on the other hand, have been proven wrong over and over again and that anecdata from a wikipedia page as a source is laughable.
Re-read the thread and quotes, perhaps you missed the part where you lost this argument. We need to argue using facts and citations, not feelings. You, for one, being off by 2-3 centuries is not trivial in a discussion of recent history.
Your hyper focused whataboutism on European cannibalism and refusal to acknowledge the myriad examples and counters regarding human sacrifice, war, technology enabled conquest, cultural norms across the globe, cannibalism, and particularly that Western societies didn't do anything everybody else wasn't already attempting, they just did it better and had more progressive cultures while doing so, doesn't do your argument any favors mate. My points stand on firm foundations in context.
Luckily, debate is for the observer, not bad faith historical revisionists with anti Western indoctrination.
Prediction: Former Activision workers attempted to form a union, but were quickly replaced with a more productive workforce
The gamedev labor market is way too competitive with way too many competent professionals chomping at the bit to work for a big name company for this to result in anything but turnover in my estimation.
In addition to federal law that dictates such actions, the Microsoft merger still has to get past regulators. Not a good look if you're firing workers who are trying to unionize, and though IANAL, it seems rife with legal landmines to step on. Regardless, it will be interesting to watch how it turns out.
I have heard both the market is competitive but also the talent pool has to be somewhat slimmer than the general software market as a whole. I knew of someone who worked at Blizzard for maybe 2 years IIRC, claiming he felt it wasn't a great fit as he was not passionate about games. I imagine the game dev industry would generally select a candidate who is passionate about gaming (and preferably their products) over someone with similar skills but without that passion (which would possibly narrow the labor market somewhat?)
>blockchain on principle - as opposed to problematic elements within the contemporary blockchain space
The problems are impossible to decouple from "blockchain on principle" because the problems are intrinsic to the data structure itself, not "contemporary" approaches to the data structure implementation.
I am probably aligned with you politically (if not more radical in my libertarian sentiments), and I can sympathize with the stated goals of the crypto space/bitcoin whitepaper. The problem is that the technology and computer science behind it fails completely to deliver on these goals from both an abstract and practical perspective.
>>The problems are impossible to decouple from "blockchain on principle" because the problems are intrinsic to the data structure itself, not "contemporary" approaches to the data structure implementation.
If that is indeed the belief, then I concede that is an example of someone opposed to blockchains in principle, for a reason that is not an illiberal political agenda.
In any case, I like to think I am pretty well informed on blockchain technology, and I can't think of a single problem that currently afflicts the space, that cannot be solved through engineering a solution that does not involve moving away from the general blockchain architecture, or more generally, a solution that does not involve moving away from autonomous ledgers that use cryptoeconomics to maintain consensus.
A transaction is definitionally something that has been written to the blockchain, so no it isn't.
In the case of layered solutions, you're no longer using blockchain. If we want to count uncomitted transactions on a second layer as "reversible", that comes with a host of its own issues, and points out another intrinsic flaw of blockchain: incapable of fulfilling its philosophical purpose, and requires secondary solutions that violate the very core philosophy of the data structure in hopes of overcoming just one of its many issues.
>>A transaction is definitionally something that has been written to the blockchain, so no it isn't.
You can have a smart contract that writes reversible transactions to the blockchain. This would mean that the smart contract imposes a delay for withdrawals, to allow time for any possible requests for reversals. There could optionally be an expedited wirhdrawal upon some set of authorities deeming the balance as finalized and not subject to any reversals.
>>requires secondary solutions that violate the very core philosophy of the data structure in hopes of overcoming just one of its many issues.
Even when you lose some of the benefits of blockchains, via secondary solutions like a reversible transaction smart contract, you retain some benefits, like:
* optionality, e.g. those who are fine with irreversible transactions are free to use them,
* permissionless market entry, e.g. any party is free to deploy their own 'reversible transaction' smart contract, giving payment consumers maximum choice
* stronger guarantees of the integrity of transaction processing, with transparency into any tampering, given the code that executes the transactions, along with the transaction itself, is publicly auditible
* debundling the provision of the different services that are required for transaction processing, by allowing transactions to be processed by immutably open smart contracts that no third party can later close off access to.
>>You can have a smart contract that writes reversible transactions to the blockchain
No you can't. Once a smart contract is included in a block, it has finished executing and is irreversible. The transaction is irreversible, again, by definition.
>>Even when you lose some of the benefits of blockchains
>>Once a smart contract is included in a block, it has finished executing and is irreversible. The transaction is irreversible, again, by definition.
The transaction is irreversible, in the sense that it can't be removed from the blockchain, but the transfer from person A to person B can be made reversible, via a smart contract that doesn't allow person B to withdraw from the smart contract for a duration, during which time person A can effect a reversal transaction that would effectively undo the transfer.
>>So you're no longer using a blockchain.
In my example, you are using the blockchain in all cases. You are just using smart contracts in a way that reduces some of disadvantages of naive blockchain use (e.g. allowing a consumer to dispute a fraudulent charge) while giving up some of its advantages (e.g. reduced risk of charge backs for honest merchants).
