[-] SwampYankee@mander.xyz 10 points 6 months ago

But have you considered the heat death of the universe?

[-] SwampYankee@mander.xyz 10 points 6 months ago

No, conspicuousness is when something is obvious to the point of standing out, you're thinking of conscription.

[-] SwampYankee@mander.xyz 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

It's not a Ponzi scheme because withdrawals and deposits are scheduled and mandatory. You don't get into a situation where investors lose faith and ask for money that you don't have because that's not allowed. You get your money when you reach the requisite age. You also don't get into a situation where you run out of investors because it's a mandatory payroll tax.

Essentially the only issue facing social security is the fact that since 1974, wage growth has become decoupled from productivity gains, meaning the payroll tax that funds social security captures a smaller proportion of business revenue over time - because businesses spend less of their revenue on payroll than they used to.

Social security doomerism of the type on display here is a tacit acceptance of conservative propaganda on the subject. The government is fully capable of indefinitely maintaining a pension fund, we just have to stop accepting the lie that it isn't.

[-] SwampYankee@mander.xyz 11 points 11 months ago

Yes, Trump supporters honestly believe that the vast majority of undocumented migrants are criminals and terrorists. They honestly believe that the Democrats are trying to create a Soviet style dictatorship. They honestly believe we need a strongman to rid the country of people who are genuinely trying to destroy it. I know a bunch of them; they think they're helping.

[-] SwampYankee@mander.xyz 11 points 11 months ago

It's more that the third-party spoiler effect is inherent to the first past the post system, so voting your conscience (for a third party) is effectively the same as not voting, and if enough people vote their conscience, it's effectively like voting for exactly the opposite of what you want.

[-] SwampYankee@mander.xyz 12 points 11 months ago

Don't worry, everyone got called a fag at least once a week. I'm sure none of us ended up gay. Also there was one black kid and he got arrested for weed.

[-] SwampYankee@mander.xyz 10 points 1 year ago

The inconvenient other half is that they have blocked EVERY possible exit from Gaza, including telling the Egyptians to not allow anyone out.

Er... that's not true. They were initially telling Palestinians to go to Egypt. Egypt does not want them in the Sinai and told Israel to provide safe passage through Israel.

[-] SwampYankee@mander.xyz 11 points 1 year ago

The Balfour Declaration was in 1917, and Britain began discussing support for the Zionist project in Palestine immediately after declaring war on the Ottoman Empire in 1914. The idea dates back to at least 1896 when Theodore Herzl proposed it as a solution to the "Jewish question" which, itself, was being asked as early as the 1750s.

[-] SwampYankee@mander.xyz 10 points 1 year ago

You're over 30 in spirit. Welcome to the club, here's some ibuprofen.

[-] SwampYankee@mander.xyz 12 points 1 year ago

"Common ownership" as in the workers collectively own the means of production. You, individually, don't get to own it, but a union of workers, a local collective, or the state might own it and decisions would be made, ostensibly, by the workers who make up those entities.

[-] SwampYankee@mander.xyz 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If you follow the links in the article, you can get to the actual curriculum itself. Scroll for a while and you'll find this...

SS.68.AA.2.3 - Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).

Benchmark Clarifications:

Clarification 1: Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.

And frankly, it's not inaccurate. Slaves who worked as artisans were sometimes able to make money independently and even buy their own freedom from masters who allowed it. The absolute atrocity of the triangle trade and chattel slavery is not diminished by a lucky few, of course. The benefit of the skilled craftsmanship of enslaved people overwhelmingly went to their masters.

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SwampYankee

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