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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3051 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 19, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Post memes that move you thread:

I'm talking memes that make you feel something, not necessarily because they're funny. More poignant, or personally meaningful.

This one literally tears me up everytime I see it, and I didn't know it was an Undertale reference. Something about it hurts, it reminds me of all the shit I've been through, and have yet to endure, but I did it for me, I only put myself through Hell because even Purgatory is a step up.

As a child, you can resent your parents for making you eat your veggies. As an adult, you make yourself do things that you hate, and that make feel like a hollow shell of a human, but maybe you'll thank yourself later. It might be an exaggeration to say I hate my life, but I do feel like I've ended up somewhere I'd much rather not be, and since I don't care to kill myself, I'm just doing the best I can with a broken brain. I am a stoic person, but this makes me cry, and I found that I can't even desensitize myself by staring at it over and over again, not that I want to. It just happens to mean that much to me.

And there's this one, which just about sums up life in general.

But if you're an optimist, then maybe you'll prefer this alternate spin on things, though I don't think we're so lucky that it describes reality for us. Yet.

Edit:

Submission for a meme, that if not poignant in the same way, sums up my urge to slap people who find the slightest excuse to deny overwhelming evidence-

https://x.com/sebjenseb/status/1733534200089989387?s=20

https://old.reddit.com/r/PoliticalCompassMemes/comments/sjeplg/which_way_lib_right/

This meme contains more wisdom about politics in it than most books about politics do. It displays 5 starving children about to be run over by a trolley, a metaphor for how every day many, many people die from circumstances that are both preventable but out of those people's control. There is a rich man capable of saving them, but for whatever reason he doesn't want to. He didn't cause their doom, but he has the ability to stop it. Maybe he has a reason behind not wanting to save them, like he's really busy and a second of his time is worth thousands of dollars, or maybe he's a sadist who enjoys watching people die, but regardless he's not the one who put them on the tracks. Then there's you, with a gun, which gives you greater power than even the richest man if he doesn't have a gun. This is a metaphor for state power and how its individuals like us that ultimately control the state with its monopoly on power. You can force the rich person to save the children. Using force on an innocent person is normally very wrong, but is it justifiable to save even more innocents?

And this isn't just a hypothetical with no true real world comparison. There are many, many rich people out there whose wealth the US could tax or otherwise seize, and spend that money on saving real lives. Most of the affordable lives to save are outside America, but there are even American lives that could be saved if a portion of Bezos' wealth was seized.

Now today I personally believe that generally US taxes are high enough that any social benefit from even higher taxes is offset by the negative effects on the economy. But I do very much think that the optimal taxes are much higher than 0, and that going full libertarian would result in a lot of people suffering who could be helped if billionaires had a bit of their yacht money taken away.

Then there's you, with a gun, which gives you greater power than even the richest man if he doesn't have a gun. This is a metaphor for state power and how its individuals like us that ultimately control the state with its monopoly on power.

I think this is where it falls flat. It's not you, or us. It's an impersonal bureaucracy and a political theater troupe that'll point that gun. I don't think that those entities are you, or that you are in control of them, or that they represent you. You don't wield that power, and you do not decide how it is used. At best you can cast one vote to add a sliver of legitimacy to centralizing power a little more, and from there on it's out of your hands again.

Well, I have good news for you - the United States government already spends a large multiple of Jeff Bezos' net worth every year, so if there's something really important you think they could do with 150 billion dollars*, there's nothing stopping them from doing it.

*Note, this 150 billion dollars doesn't actually exist.

And mostly they use it to subsidize the American middle class, i.e. the global rich.

Yes, just like the person with the gun represents all voters rather than a single concerned citizen, the rich person represent all capitalists rather than a single moneybags.

The "s" in the link just takes me to the submit page for that subreddit

Fixed, thank you

I don't think the link works? It leads me to submit a post to the PCM subreddit.

Fixed, thank you

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