Taken at the white screens party center. 37 adults. 48 feet of sandwich. You do the math. When we got the whiteboards out for pictionary **** started to get CRAZY.

https://ak7.picdn.net/shutterstock/v...37/thumb/2.jpg

Went to my old buddy's wedding. The bunny hop was killer and when they opened up the open bar we tore Azeroth up.


https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c1/3b...c901c31a34.jpg

great work guys, keep it up.

Really making the thread title bitterly ironic here guys! :laughing:

Lol.

https://i.imgur.com/iffjc3P.png

Good stuff. Awful channel.

I'd say America was great up to about ... 1491?

Why what did Donald Trump do in 1491?

I think he still would have been a Drumpf tbh.

And it's only coincidence that he paid all of the people he grew up with and have been around his whole entire life... in Detroit...

yeah, eminem's track was hella weak but that meme is far more embarrassing. i think once you hit 50 your computer just needs to be unplugged, cause otherwise this is the type of stuff we end up with.

Thanks. :(

you're the exception to the rule Dad. chula too, this place isn't the same without him here. imagine both of you left. who the hell would we pick on and mock in PMs sent behind their back?

Me, cause I'm clearly not getting those PMs.

we (every member here) don't feel the need to mock you, you do a good enough job on your own.

Ja that's why we mock Chula, TH, and Jguy instead.

They simply don't have the balls to be willful self-parodies. Pussies.

You .... you guys mock me? I had always thought I was quite popular. :(

Deep.

:laughing:

I’m not going to lie. Trump’s presidency has been a big boring anti-climax. I honestly thought something tremendous or even earth shattering was going to happen.

For anyone interested:

What exactly is Marxism?

I know that it's an ideology based on the relationship of economic structures and social evolution that highly criticizes capitalism for creating social hierarchies based on class.

But is there a better description I can be given or is this just too complicated of an ideology?

And why exactly is Marxism becoming a dirty word being fear mongered by the right? Is it because our society is starting to turn against the symptoms of capitalism's flaws and most politicians on the right directly benefit from that system or am I missing something?

Are the people on the left really as Marxist as people on the right try to scare us into thinking they are or are they just leaning on socialist ideas?

First off, whenever a right winger says "Marxist", what they really mean is "stupid doo doo head that I don't like"

Second off, they probably don't know what the word actually means.

I only know the basics, sorry homie.

Right-wingers don't like Marxism because they believe that attempts to implement it have killed more people than Capitalism, and also that it tends to fail at scale historically. So in that sense their fears are justified: income inequality as a consequence is better than nobody having anything at all. Doesn't mean such a system would never work, but that's the gist of it.

Secondly, all politicians (especially here in the West) benefit from capitalism. Bernie Sanders owns multiple homes and has a net worth way higher than the average person. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's father was a highly successful architect and she benefited greatly when she settled his estate after his death, plus she owned a publishing company for a few years before she ran for office. That's why their positions don't tend to gel well with the majority of independents who want the federal government to have less power in shaping people's lives rather than more.

As flawed as Capitalism can be, it has produced more success stories than not. There are plenty of untold stories out there of people who went to six-figure incomes or millionaires despite in a lot of cases coming from average or even low-income origins....a situation that would be impossible in any other economic system. And even if all you ever aspired to be was middle class, that's pretty feasible too: https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/t...-middle-class/

If someone wants to prove the benefits of a purely Marxist system, they need to go build a country above the pygmy village level and prove it works with populations that are comparable to the U.S.'s biggest cities.

I mean you can always Wiki it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism

And Marxism has been a dirty word since it was conceived. At least two Supreme Court cases that set precedents for restricting free speech during WW1 involved socialists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenc..._jurisprudence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrams_v._United_States

And then there's McCarthyism and the Red Scares after both World Wars. It's not that socialism is hated more now than before, it's that political polarization is reaching ever further heights and the insults must match.

That I knew, which is why I wonder why people are afraid of 'implementing Marxism'. From what I understand there is no direct or agreed upon idea on how to implement it. Who in history has ever tried to 'implement Marxism'? I know that socialism and communism have failed but were any socialists or commies who put that structure forward ever Marxists?


On an individual level, I disagree. I think the number of victims of Capitalism completely out weigh the success stories. It's just that people have this idea that one day they just might be rich so they just see themselves as success stories that just haven't reached success yet. Statistically speaking, success stories are all too rare. On a government level, I personally don't know a Capitalist system that has failed (I'm not really educated very well on those things) and I do know that Capitalism is what has made our country so powerful and an economic powerhouse. Yet, it also seems to be the biggest reason for our flaws and the highest potential cause for our downfall. It's what keeps greed flowing and has made a criminally large wealth gap. I don't think Capitalism as it is right now is sustainable. Challenging that is what often times gets people labeled as Marxists or Commies. I don't know if I'd qualify as a Marxist because my idea of how to evolve is to form a system of government that's more of a Frankenstein's monster that takes what works from multiple systems and sticks them together rather than moving to pure socialism or something like that. I'm not sure how, I'm not the person with enough knowledge to really flesh out that idea.

I don't pretend to know what would work better, but it seems clear that capitalism is evil. Most of the wealth of the world is stashed away in the pockets of a small elite. The name of the game for capitalism is exploitation of the weak. A great system? I don't know about that.

I like the last two posts.

No, you're right.

The goal of capitalism is not to advance technology and make life more comfortable (a common pro-capitalism argument). The goal is to generate capital. Whatever has to be trampled and burned down in the process is expendable.

Didn't think of that.

It's also a cause for plenty of war.

Also, have you ever stepped on a lego? Capitalism. Think about it.

Edit: Oh, wait, I'm supposed to be an adult about it, huh?

This is exactly what seems so stupid about anti-Marxist propaganda to me. The basic concept doesn't inherently mean a Marxist supports socialism or communism it seems more geared toward being against capitalism. How to replace it doesn't seem fairly agreed upon. The reason why there's a rise of Marxism in the US is because people are starting to realize the flaws of our capitalist society.

Edit: And there are so many differing shades of grey in the Marxist ideology that to really paint them all as one shade like a hidden army trying to overthrow our government is really disingenuous. Just seems like blatant fear mongering to silence those who may challenge right wing politics. The same way our government tried to slander the hippie movement for opposing the war.

Edit again: So it seems more like these dictators wore exploiting Marxism.

Yeah im not a fan but his show had some great guests and civil discussions. Its a pleasure to watch on occasion compared to modern discourse and many of the topics are still relevant.

Thats not my name!

You could argue he had good intentions but the end result was still awful.

I'm personally not for or against a Marxist system. But societies are made up of individuals, and individual wants and needs will always push society into a more capitalistic direction unless a "power" (government, military, law enforcement, etc.) decides to stomp them out. The question would be how individuals would be punished for going against the grain in any Marxist scenario, because there are plenty of possibilities.

China has been Mercantilist throughout most of its history, with much of that history spent as one of the dominant nations of the world. The White Lotus rebelllion (which killed almost as many people as the combined fatalities of WWII) that started the Ming dynasty decimated the population, and the extreme conservative policies and de-emphasis on international trade shifted China away from Mercantilism, and set them behind the rest of the world, leading to bullying from other world powers (esp. Britain).

Japan, being much more open to modernization and Mercantilism in the post Tokugawa years, dealt some heavy blows to China early on in the occupation, but China had been catching up in the post Qing years as a Republic, and ultimately put up more of a fight than Japan expected, esp. when the warlord/generals and the Communists teamed up to mount an extensive defense.

When Mao pushed the Republic to Taiwan, he destroyed China's infrastructure and economy (not to mention culture with the Great Leap Forward), leading to a drastic decline in the average quality of life compared to the Republic years, and even the late Qing.

China only returned to its position as a proper world power when Mao died, and subsequent leaders turned the nation back to Mercantilism.

China has had some extreme highs and lows, the highs usually coinciding with periods of open trade and an emphasis on Capitalism (Han and Tang dynasties being the prime examples), and the lows coinciding with conservative policies, a lack of free trade, and foreign occupation (Early Marxist years and the Yuan dynasty are examples of this, and the Jin following the Three Kingdoms Era).

Sorry if there are any errors. I'm typing this off the top of my head on my phone. :laughing:

Was already being industrialized during the Republic period. Like I said, similar to how Japan modernized in the Meiji Restoration, China was heading in the same direction, only they had less of a headstart since the Republic started around 1912 iirc, while the Meiji was late 1800s (again, off the top of my head and on my phone).

Most Sino historians agree that Mao set China back considerably. Only the increasingly Capitalist policies following his death brought China back to where it was.

The "periods of great power" all coincide with Mercantilist policies and free trade. Saying that Mao/Communism put China ahead is very ignorant of Chinese history.

Elph is still thinking about a really clever one sentence retort. :D