Joe Biden Love Thread

[Frownland]

Originally Posted by jwb

Lol... this is possibly the most emo debate tactic I've ever seen frowny.

Didn't mean to make you sad with reality, my bad.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by The Batlord

Of course it's not a black and white view, you idiot, nor is it a conspiracy of the rich, but the level of money needed to build money-making system (aka a business) grows with the level of economic development as competitors grow, fail, spread, and monopolize. It's new economic frontiers that allow for those who can't afford to break into the pre-existing markets to have a chance to develop their own foothold but the more developed the markets in general the more SEED MONEY is required even for developing in new economic frontiers.

Bill Gates got funds from his family but still used non-copyrighted software made by enthusiasts to develop his computers and operating system because computers were largely an untapped frontier.

Bezos was shut out of that frontier by the 90s because Microsoft was already a mega company but he could exploit the internet as a way to sell people ****, but that required so much startup capital that Amazon wasn't even profitable for years.

And now that computers as a general concept is a tapped market and using computers to do useful things is also kind of tappe you now see galaxy brained tech bros desperately trying to find the next computer frontier and inventing crypto and NFTs because the obvious avenues of monetizing computers are already taken and even though there isn't really a use case for any of that **** the energy use of all those servers doing crypto **** is as much as a country. If an actual use case that people latch onto is found then how many new servers will you need?

Uh you can say no obviously it's not black and white and by that I presume you mean you agree with me that said general store could indeed grow into a retail empire. So I don't know what use it was going to be for you to try to do more research on Walmart to disprove that particular notion. You call me the idiot but you originally tried to correct what I said which was that the main distinction between the large business owner and a small business owner is their level of success. You said its actually how rich their parents are. Which is just a vacuous anti capitalist virtue signal that even you realize isn't the actual distinction. You were just tone policing because the way I framed it almost made it sound meritocratic but my actual point was they are essentially (albeit very uneven) competitors driving at the same goal. So I don't see any particular moral high ground in being the loser in that race, even if you did start with a handicap.

But yeah I've seen pirates of silicon valley and none of that **** changes my point either bro. I'm not saying they don't cut throats to get ahead either.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by Frownland

Didn't mean to make you sad with reality, my bad.

...

Originally Posted by Frownland

I'd clarify but you don't care.

Do you want me to reassure you that I care so you can go ahead and make your point?

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by jwb

Uh you can say no obviously it's not black and white and by that I presume you mean you agree with me that said general store could indeed grow into a retail empire. So I don't know what use it was going to be for you to try to do more research on Walmart to disprove that particular notion. You call me the idiot but you originally tried to correct what I said which was that the main distinction between the large business owner and a small business owner is their level of success. You said its actually how rich their parents are. Which is just a vacuous anti capitalist virtue signal that even you realize isn't the actual distinction. You were just tone policing because the way I framed it almost made it sound meritocratic but my actual point was they are essentially (albeit very uneven) competitors driving at the same goal. So I don't see any particular moral high ground in being the loser in that race, even if you did start with a handicap.

But yeah I've seen pirates of silicon valley and none of that **** changes my point either bro. I'm not saying they don't cut throats to get ahead either.

No because your position is anti-intellectual cope to justify the idea that you can just start a business and become wealthy as a a vague ideal to strive for in order to put out of your mind oceans of history and context that suggest that you're essentially just playing the lottery in which your failure is mathematically highly likely unless you are of a particular economic stratum.

[jwb]

No. My statement was more precise than yours which is why I rejected your correction. Because it was an inaccurate one based on tone and rhetoric more than precision. There are people who don't have the wealthiest parents who go on to "win the lottery" as you put it. We've already agreed and established this is exceedingly unlikely. It's probably more likely for a Harvard student than someone with a high school diploma but once again it is exceedingly unlikely even for someone with Zuckerbergs exact background. For every one Zuckerberg there are a million clones of him who went on to live ordinary lives because they didn't create Facebook, they just got a job programming or some****. I completely agree for that level of success that it is just a lottery with a few winners. But that doesn't contradict anything I previously said.

[jwb]

That doesn't clarify that he doesn't consider small business owners to be on the owner side of the worker/ owner distinction. If anything it seemed to be commenting on their political disposition but like I said the quote was too out of context to say for certain.

Like I've sort of allowed you to run me down this dumb meandering road where you pivot from one thing to another but my initial statement about some owners being lower on the class totem pole than some workers is true even if I allow your exception for plumbers or whatever. Let's cut right through the bul****. If the person in question owns a small business that employs a handful of people for a wage, is that a capitalist in your eyes even if their income from doing so might be less than that of a surgeon who is employed by a hospital or something? Can someone literally exploit workers for the surplus value created by their labor and not be a capitalist?

[TheBig3]

He ****ed me out of free booze tonight so he's in jeopardy of losing my vote.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by elphenor

it's the only thing written in the Manifesto on the middle class I think

it seems to dismiss them as counter-revolutionary proles

Uh no it says blah blah they are trying to protect their existence as a class and that's motivated by resisting their impending transfer to the proletariat. Which assumes that they currently aren't.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by elphenor

to be a capitalist, you'd need to be making a living off of capital as opposed to your labor

else you'd stretch that definition so hard as for it to be meaningless

hmm interesting just Google Marxist definition of a capitalist just out of curiosity.

"In Das Kapital (Capital in English), Marx argues that society is composed of two main classes: Capitalists are the business owners who organize the process of production and who own the means of production such as factories, tools, and raw materials, and who are also entitled to any and all profits."

Comment?

[TheBig3]

Originally Posted by jwb

hmm interesting just Google Marxist definition of a capitalist just out of curiosity.

"In Das Kapital (Capital in English), Marx argues that society is composed of two main classes: Capitalists are the business owners who organize the process of production and who own the means of production such as factories, tools, and raw materials, and who are also entitled to any and all profits."

Comment?

Not that you asked me, but Das Kapital was written in the 1860s. Business owners then aren't business owners now.

I think Chomsky was citing a similar disconnect between what Adam Smith called "Trade" and what we call trade today.