Does your autism impact your political views?
funeralxempire
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Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 41
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 34,261
Location: Right over your left shoulder
I'm not sure the left always has decency, the ends justify the means can lead to some pretty nightmarish scenarios as well.
But, embracing selfishness as a virtue because the market will fix everything is a flat-out rejection of decency.
Nobody says that the free market will fix everything. But it's the natural way humans exchange goods and services for mutual profit. And there is no better alternative. It's just a fact of life. Ignoring reality because it doesn't cater to our every want is the ignorant's virtue.
No one's trying to eliminate markets, but mixed economies are undeniably a superior alternative to laissez-faire capitalism.
_________________
There's no such thing as a free market.
If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. —Malcolm X
Just a reminder: under international law, an occupying power has no right of self-defense, and those who are occupied have the right and duty to liberate themselves by any means possible.
If you would let a poor old lady get hit by a car because that gives you profits, you are objectively not good for society; 'evil'.
What??!
just suspend your disbelief for a moment. Let's say that the automated hitting of old ladies with cars is how you get money. Each old lady hit is +1000$. You're already a billionaire. Yet still, instead of considering the community ethics, you choose to line your pockets just that little bit more.
An extreme, to be sure, but the concept is not different from what corporations do to their workers when they have absolute power over them.
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My god. jelly donuts are so scary.
If you would let a poor old lady get hit by a car because that gives you profits, you are objectively not good for society; 'evil'.
What??!
just suspend your disbelief for a moment. Let's say that the automated hitting of old ladies with cars is how you get money. Each old lady hit is +1000$. You're already a billionaire. Yet still, instead of considering the community ethics, you choose to line your pockets just that little bit more.
An extreme, to be sure, but the concept is not different from what corporations do to their workers when they have absolute power over them.
Thats illegal. You will end up in jail. You and your associates. Your analogy is not correct.
Why would they hire more people than they need? Lower taxes won't make their business require more labour; only higher sales can do that.
Less taxes means more money in the hands of employers to do whatever they want with them. Most often than not employers, or anyone with savings for that matter, prefers to invest them. One of the ways to invest the money is to hire more people for better efficiency of your services. Better services offer an edge over competition. That is what my employer is doing right now for example. The buisiness went well for some time. Now he is hiring in order to maintain an edge over his competitors. His competitors are doing the same.
I understand as a hypothetical they might choose to hire more people, but in practice they will only hire more people if they believe it will increase profits. If they don't believe that's the case, they will not hire more people.
People talk about tax cuts like they're a panacea to economic problems and frankly, it's ignorant. It's just an ideological claim; things don't work in the real world like their oversimplified forms work on paper.
But it has truth.
Inequality is a fact of life. Wether one thinks that it's a good or bad thing it's irrelevant.
Whether one believes anything should be done to address the problems resulting from inequality is a good indicator of whether or not one possesses basic human decency; or at the very least, how much double-think one can engage in.
Yes the left has decency and the right has not. Stop patting yourself on the back.
my chum, that's literally just reality (the addressing of problems, not your oversimplification). If you would let a poor old lady get hit by a car because that gives you profits, you are objectively not good for society; 'evil'.
corporations do the same thing. Literally read any article about the human rights at Amazon warehouses.
I smell a strawman argument. And if anything, saying the left is decent and the right is not or evil is a very big oversimplification.
The only way that either side of the political divide starts "giving a damn" about anything is if (1) enough rich people pour money into the issue, and/or (2) a much larger number of ordinary people engage in grassroots organizing around the issue, including both political activist groups and other, larger, mutual aid groups of various kinds.
The latter is one of the reasons why I keep saying that the autistic community needs to become a lot better organized than it is now.
Anyhow, if and when the autistic community does become sufficiently well-organized, which side of the political divide do you think we could more easily convince to give a damn about autistic people?
_________________
- Autistic in NYC - Resources and new ideas for the autistic adult community in the New York City metro area.
- Autistic peer-led groups (via text-based chat, currently) led or facilitated by members of the Autistic Peer Leadership Group.
An extreme, to be sure, but the concept is not different from what corporations do to their workers when they have absolute power over them.
Thats illegal. You will end up in jail. You and your associates. Your analogy is not correct.
The point is that there need to be safety regulations for car manufacturers.
Libertarians often oppose government regulation of consumer goods, on the alleged grounds that the free market is sufficient to solve all problems with commercial products. It isn't, as in the example of car safety.
Of course the safety regulations need to be made by people who know enough about the car industry, and about how cars work, to be able to make sensible regulations. One problem that some U.S. government regulatory agencies have is that too many of their regulations don't make much sense. I'm not sure what's the best way to solve that problem, but simply getting rid of all regulation of business is not the answer.
_________________
- Autistic in NYC - Resources and new ideas for the autistic adult community in the New York City metro area.
- Autistic peer-led groups (via text-based chat, currently) led or facilitated by members of the Autistic Peer Leadership Group.
An extreme, to be sure, but the concept is not different from what corporations do to their workers when they have absolute power over them.
Thats illegal. You will end up in jail. You and your associates. Your analogy is not correct.
The point is that there need to be safety regulations for car manufacturers.
Libertarians often oppose government regulation of consumer goods, on the alleged grounds that the free market is sufficient to solve all problems with commercial products. It isn't, as in the example of car safety.
Of course the safety regulations need to be made by people who know enough about the car industry to make sensible regulations. One problem that some U.S. government regulatory agencies have is that too many of their regulations don't make much sense. I'm not sure what's the best way to solve that problem, but simply getting rid of all regulation of business is not the answer.
Yes we oppose regulations for some good reasons. First it's the disbelief that the car manufacturing companies have any incentive at all to produce substandard cars. Consumer demand and competition will orient manufacturers towards ever better quality of production. Have you ever tried to run a business or service? Do you know how difficult it is to please customers?
Second argument is that regulations require a vast number of bureaucrats to check every product. It's basically impossible to check every product circulating in the market.
Third argument is who gets to decide what is the quality of an aprooved product and that of another one that it's not approved? Do the bureaucrats on their ivory tower know better than the consumer what works for him/her?
Fourth argument is corruption. Lobbying being the legsl form of corruption. Big companies are usually the ones lobbying for regulations because usually they are the only ones that can pay the extra costs that compliance to those regulations requires. This is a way to put out of competition smaller companies and start-ups. Ultimately the consumer pays those
extra costs and simultaneously cannot choose another company for the same services since the other company cannot pay for the extra costs that the regulation requires. An example was how big social media companies supported the legislation for fact checkers because in this way they eliminated any possible start-up from growing and out competing them. Because the startups wouldn't be able to pay for services from fact check companies.
There is also the possibility of other forms of corruption. Like paying government employees for not approving a product from a competitor or aproove yours.
the video game crash of 1983 proves that a free market cannot be relied on to always make quality products. It arose from an oversaturation of various companies making low-effort cheap games. Of course, Nintendo essentially saved video games, and it is a company, but take a look at modern video games: some would say they're stagnating again, but on a genre scale. (not to mention Nintendo's greediness lately.)
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My god. jelly donuts are so scary.
Anyhow, to answer the O.P.'s question:
Ever since age 20 or so, I've been aware of the need for a social safety net. I didn't suspect I was autistic until age 50 or so, but I knew throughout my adult life that I am generally a weirdo and that this has made it more difficult for me than for most people to find jobs.
IMO we need the 599 Program to be much better-funded and to stop being the unemployment office's best-kept secret, so that more people who lose jobs in shrinking industries can re-train for better jobs. (I was once very lucky to have a friend who was able to tell me about this little-known program at a time when I needed it.)
And I have long been appalled at the utterly cruel attitudes many Americans have toward homeless people. Luckily I have never been homeless but I can easily see myself being in danger of same under the wrong circumstances. In any case we desperately need looser zoning laws and more government incentives to build affordable housing.
_________________
- Autistic in NYC - Resources and new ideas for the autistic adult community in the New York City metro area.
- Autistic peer-led groups (via text-based chat, currently) led or facilitated by members of the Autistic Peer Leadership Group.
funeralxempire
Veteran
Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 41
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 34,261
Location: Right over your left shoulder
Why would they hire more people than they need? Lower taxes won't make their business require more labour; only higher sales can do that.
Less taxes means more money in the hands of employers to do whatever they want with them. Most often than not employers, or anyone with savings for that matter, prefers to invest them. One of the ways to invest the money is to hire more people for better efficiency of your services. Better services offer an edge over competition. That is what my employer is doing right now for example. The buisiness went well for some time. Now he is hiring in order to maintain an edge over his competitors. His competitors are doing the same.
I understand as a hypothetical they might choose to hire more people, but in practice they will only hire more people if they believe it will increase profits. If they don't believe that's the case, they will not hire more people.
People talk about tax cuts like they're a panacea to economic problems and frankly, it's ignorant. It's just an ideological claim; things don't work in the real world like their oversimplified forms work on paper.
But it has truth.
It's a gross oversimplification and claiming it is true when it typically is not true is dishonest.
Claiming it to be true because you'd like for it to be true doesn't make it true but does undermine the credibility of the person claiming it.
_________________
There's no such thing as a free market.
If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. —Malcolm X
Just a reminder: under international law, an occupying power has no right of self-defense, and those who are occupied have the right and duty to liberate themselves by any means possible.
Why would they hire more people than they need? Lower taxes won't make their business require more labour; only higher sales can do that.
Less taxes means more money in the hands of employers to do whatever they want with them. Most often than not employers, or anyone with savings for that matter, prefers to invest them. One of the ways to invest the money is to hire more people for better efficiency of your services. Better services offer an edge over competition. That is what my employer is doing right now for example. The buisiness went well for some time. Now he is hiring in order to maintain an edge over his competitors. His competitors are doing the same.
I understand as a hypothetical they might choose to hire more people, but in practice they will only hire more people if they believe it will increase profits. If they don't believe that's the case, they will not hire more people.
People talk about tax cuts like they're a panacea to economic problems and frankly, it's ignorant. It's just an ideological claim; things don't work in the real world like their oversimplified forms work on paper.
But it has truth.
It's a gross oversimplification and claiming it is true when it typically is not true is dishonest.
Claiming it to be true because you'd like for it to be true doesn't make it true but does undermine the credibility of the person claiming it.
It's the other way around. It's you who like it not to be true. But that doesn't make it not true it just undermines your credibility as a person. You already provided a source that admits that research on the topic shows it to be true. Go figure out.
We are being a little ungrateful here. It's not that the video games were invented by government bureaucrats. The video game companies created them and the consoles in order to profit from the sales. You are complaining about the companies greediness while the same greediness is the one that has brought to existence video games to begin with.
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