Oddbean new post about login | logout I hate to break it to you, but a communist totalitarian future will bring worse horrors than a presidential candidate shitcoining. Zoom out. Look at the whole picture in front of you.
The Trump and Musk haters here are short sighted and ignorant
Agreed, the cackling vapid communist hag is supremely worse than the pompous shitcoiner #FreeRoss
the shit-coining is retarded, but I still voted for him
Zero anything that relates to Harris and “communist totalitarian” but everything that points to Trump wanting to be a fascist dictator. It’s not even close. Zoom into anything Trump does and says and you will see the obvious picture in front of you.
Wow
He must be reading legacy media
I don't think I've ever heard the accusation about Trump and fascism fully explained. The best I can figure, it's something like this: for many people fascism isn't the corporatism that Mussolini envisioned but rather fanatical racist nationalism. The tiny group of Americans who are KKK-style white nationalists probably support Trump. Therefore, Trump is a fascist. Something like that.
Amount many other things, if you just listen to Trump vilify “others” (esp non White people), and say they are running the country, and just replace those references with Jews, much sounds extremely similar to Hitler’s rhetoric. Hitler was a facist.
Fascism is a form of govt, not the description of the character of a politician. Also, in my experience, most politicians vilify groups of ppl. Not justifying that - it's why I dislike the lot of them. But which groups of ppl has Trump said are running the country? I hadn't heard that
Examples of Trump and fascism? I'm not a fan, and I don't think he did anything like "draining the swamp" the first time around, so if he wins I'm not holding my breath for any of his promises. But I don't understand the fascism accusations. Harris totalitarian leanings: she advocates controlling the press and speech; she proposes taxes on unrealized gains; she's pro-gun control (which sounds great to many folks until you realize how much local police forces have been militarized, and that she wants to control what citizens use, not what govt can use - so it's effectively a further centralization of tools of violence).
I'm fascinated that people are calling Harris a communist. Have you ever been to a communist country? Is she proposing anything that remotely resembles what they do in communist regimes? What could she possibly be saying to call her a commie? You know, those who shoot people at borders, send their opponents to uranium mines etc.
She's talked about price controls for food and housing. Might not be full commie, but the flavor is coming through.
I think of what you're describing as late-stage communism. She is part of a propaganda machine, is committed to redistribution of wealth (by giving more centralized control over it), proposes "unrealized gains" which is even more egregious theft than usual taxes, and wants to regulate speech. Those are all hallmarks of totalitarianism, but the language and packaging is more left than right leaning.
I agree unrealized gains tax is bullshit, but isn't there a property tax in Florida (republican state) on an "assessed value" of the property? That feels like an unrealized gains tax in a state led by a republican. Again, I'm against centralization and I lean right, but what she's proposing doesn't feel so scandalous. But I am just an outside observer.
To the best of my knowledge, property taxes have been normalized in all US counties. There's a lot to say about how bad they are, but they're based solely on the value of your home and are structured to pay for local schools and local amenities (trash collection, etc). Your other assets don't come into play, and when they get too onerous people can move to a jurisdiction (even within the same state) with more reasonable property tax rates. Unrealized gains is just the federal govt grabbing a chunk of your asset wealth every year. When Biden first proposed unrealized gains, it was only for billionaires. In Kamala Harris's proposal, it's for folks who have $100 million in assets. Once the concept has been normalized, that threshold will likely continue to drop just as it did for income taxes after they were introduced in the early 1900s. At the same time, the people who benefit from those gains also control spending, which means that inflation is great for them - even better than before - because it brings more and more Americans into the pool of folks whose unrealized gains will be taxes. On a long enough timeline and with those incentives, it effectively wipes out private property.
Please understand that the average US American is undereducated with a primitive black/white pattern of thinking and zero knowledge of history. There are only two types of politicians for them - a communist and a republican. Don't waste your time and enjoy the show, they're about to learn their next lesson as a young nation.
yes but what if the candidate shitcoins AND becomes totalitarian?
They're going to call it a president that stands for American values. You just watch.
There aren't too many bitcoiners that I see who don't realize that this is a possibility. It's just that one candidate is actively promoting centralization and censorship and another who at least seems to be against them. Not a great choice 😫
Agreed. In the choice between an Elizabeth Warren (Democrat) style regulatory structure that is openly and extravagantly hostile to all non-CBDC tech, vs a shitcoining candidate who is positive to Bitcoin and "crypto", the latter aligns with individual liberties and property rights while the former is acid to modern civilization. Add the de-industrialization UN Agenda 2030 programs that attack energy usage, travel, production and consumtion. Under a system of property rights we will not agree with all adult consensual behaviors but they are protected none the less, with the benefit of our rights being protected as well. Shitcoining shows a poor judgement, yet many of us maximalists have recovered from that kind of past bad judgement. The process of liberty alignment is not equally fast for everyone.
bro, you can't imagine what communism really is. My country was communistic. I know what I am talking about.
I think there's revolution to communism and evolution to communism. The trends in most of the west point to the latter. But actually I don't think the word "communism" is that helpful here. We're looking at increased centralization with the rhetoric of "common good" and "consensus" and "equity" to justify censorship, increased taxes, and ever more control by the federal govt. For a lot of folks that looks like we're moving toward communism, but there's no point in arguing over the terminology. Whatever you call it, it's a concentration of power in very few hands and a terrible direction for the vast majority of the citizenry.
that's a good point, everyone it's focused on price going up more with one or the other... but they keep omitting the dystopia we are dancing with. I recently learned that there are the so-called acceleristonist, maxis that want it all to burn as fast as possible so the would prefer the worst criminals to be elected so that can do it faster. we've got a rare occasioni to make a great change in this life time, stay focused, stay humble , stack sats and always say the TRUTH.
There's an element that makes me nervous about Trump gathering so many freedom-minded folks, which is that it's a great way to lower their guard on everything from much more subtle (but effective) control of speech to overt control e.g. in the name of addressing what is in fact a serious immigration crisis, how about a national bio surveillance system? Vance's connection to Palantir is very unsettling.
