Democratic elections are the modern equivalent of “bread and circuses”. A system cannot fail those it was never meant to function for. The only way to effect real change in the world is through revolution - as peaceful as we can make it. We must end capitalism before it ends us. And that starts with accepting the reality that the absolute best case scenario for democracy is to slightly limit harm.

It’s quite sad that you consider that the only way to “take part in society” is to have a job. I’m disabled and though I do work I might not be able to do so in the future, and you’re essentially saying that if that happens I’ll no longer have any sort of value. I really think that’s some brainwashing, you can only see your own value through your labour. It’s like some kind of slave morality.

I think it’s far more important to protect the welfare of children who had no choice in whether they were born or not, than it is to “punish” poor people for making bad choices. What would you have as the alternative?

You keep having this whole “having your cake and eating it too” argument with yourself. You are simultaneously hard-done-by because you can’t go on a holiday every year, but also you’re not because you have a mortgage and a big childcare bill.

The reality of the situation is that there is no such thing as the middle class, it’s just propaganda made up by the ruling class to divide the working class, and it has worked wonders on you. You’re envious of your neighbours, and you see them as your enemies rather than your potential allies in the bigger fight. We are all exploited by the ruling class, and unless we can accept that, we’ll never be able to change things for the better.

Personally, I believe that criticising the efforts of activists with whom you share a cause is one of the lowest things you can do.

If I think there’s a better way, then I go do it, or at the very least I would participate in that group and try to bring them around to my way of thinking.

I definitely would not publicly criticise them because that doesn’t actually help the cause, it just damages it.

But of course, I can’t hold people to the same high expectations I hold of myself.

If you have a mortgage, you don’t fully own your house.

The reality is that you’re in the exact same class as your neighbour but you believe all the propaganda you’ve been fed about taking benefits making you somehow less of a person. You’re probably not in the bottom 10%, though, so there are definitely people struggling more than you.

If you have £3k a month child care then unless both of you are making over 3k a month salary then possibly you should consider one of you leaving their job and becoming a stay at home parent.

Look, I get it. Things are tough, and you work hard and you deserve better. What I’m trying to tell you is that you’re hating on the wrong people. Don’t blame your neighbour, blame your boss.

if you fully own your own home and your household has two people fully employed how in the hell does someone with €1600 a month have a living standard remotely close to yours? none of what you’re saying is adding up at all

If you’re struggling to make ends meet, you’re not middle class. You’re the exact same class as your neighbour. If you want to improve your conditions then you need to learn some solidarity instead of blaming them for your problems. They’re not the ones taking advantage. It’s the fucking rich and powerful that are lazy, do zero valuable work, and leech off the rest of society. Working class people scamming the tax system is a good thing, really - all those taxes would otherwise go to other rich twats anyways, so I’d much rather it went to your neighbour.

thanks for making my point for me! It’s totally understandable, you’ve been subjected to that propaganda for your whole life, but it’s completely untrue.

definitionally, the middle class literally cannot be in the bottom 10%. I’d really suggest you learn about those “handouts” you mention and look into how much they are, what the conditions for receiving it are, how hard they are to get, etc. and consider whether you’d be able to live on them.

Would be way better off giving it to the people in the bottom 10% of wealth.

Americans have been brainwashed into believing they can only achieve political change by voting for one of two candidates

It should be illegal to profit from the sale of a living being. It’s slavery, pure and simple.

Your point was that we judge the harm of a procedure proportional to its benefits, basically. I don’t really get why you felt the need. Do you support the use of these procedures such as tail/ear docking?

I don’t think that is a fully-satisfying conclusion. If it held up to scrutiny, then we would also curtail the rights of the elderly in the same way, which in the overwhelming majority of cases we do not. We would do the same for people with relevant disabilities, which again in the majority of cases, we do not.

If someone proposed removing the right to vote from people with mental disabilities to “protect the mentally weak from the strong”, I’d like to think that we’d all see the problems with that. Why do we not feel the same way about the disenfranchisement of younger people?

We put arbitrary age limitations on seemingly everything, from voting to watching a movie. When we have no age limits on something, stories always come up about a young kid who is capable and competent.

So why do we even have those age limits? We have adults of 30+ who are way more immature than some 12 year olds. Just seems like needless limitation on the rights of kids.

The real exception to this I suppose are things like age limits on joining the military or giving consent.

Please explain why AIPAC is more of a threat than other PACs

Why are you only concerned about AIPAC’s money and not the billions of dollars from thousands of other PACs?

I’m an anarchist, and Musk’s behaviour is the farthest possible thing from anarchy. Anarchism is all about working together to build a better world where everyone has all of their needs met, not being a selfish, caustic, aggressive asshole. Elon would have no chance of getting consensus to join any commune anywhere in the world. Unless there’s some insane libertarian commune somewhere.

Problems like these are solved by expanding supply. It doesn’t really work to reduce demand.

Reddit also was open source, until it wasn’t.

It’s really, really not. If the people of the US accepted the fact that their political system is just one big fraud, then maybe they’d stop pinning their hopes for change on it and consider alternatives that may actually yield some success.