And I don't think it is required that someone who is a business owner has to act in a way that is bad for people in a decently well run society. Systems are powerful but they aren't everything.
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For me, systems are always imperfect. When we were a more serious "democracy" we had tons of authoritarianism. Just depends on who you were talking to. It was still better to be a democracy than not.
sep 1, 2025, 4:02 am • 10 0 • view
I think it is absurdly obvious that something very dramatic needs to happen to get the US on a better track, and it would be insane to think that can happen without some large systemic change. But just changing in itself doesn't make me think it will improve, even if on paper the system is better.
sep 1, 2025, 4:07 am • 17 1 • view
How about making it illegal to buy politicians. Democracy is a bit fictional as long as democrats and republicans are bought by the elites. This goes for the supreme court as well. Stuff the court if you need to ...
sep 1, 2025, 4:12 am • 1 0 • view
Yeah I would make that illegal for sure hah. At least to the extent one can. It's not that my beliefs are centrist, they very much are not.
sep 1, 2025, 4:13 am • 1 0 • view
Back to the socialist thing. I guess I'm a socialist? Rings more true than being a capitalist. But it's not exactly my primary identity. If a politician was asking me for advice on a specific problem I would not necessarily tell them the socialist answer. To the extent there is one anyway.
sep 1, 2025, 4:19 am • 8 0 • view
To me it sounds like what you're saying is that you're not an ideologue deploying dogma, but someone trying to solve problems.
sep 1, 2025, 4:20 am • 2 0 • view
Yeah I think that's right. And I think problems are complicated and solutions come from often strange places.
sep 1, 2025, 4:22 am • 3 1 • view
I think about it as, there are clearly places where market solutions do not work (the worst example I know of being health care), and it's reasonable to demarcate things as off limits from the market in those cases. I don't mind people making money but I mind deeply people being exploited to do it
sep 1, 2025, 4:23 am • 1 0 • view
Def.
sep 1, 2025, 4:24 am • 0 0 • view
The one thing I wish we did have more of is the consequences of capitalism. I talked to a former coworker who has a rental property, and was mad about having to skip rent during covid. He wanted the government to pay him back. Nobody guaranteed your investment, my man! Sometimes you lose your money!
sep 1, 2025, 4:31 am • 0 0 • view
I think the scandis largely do it well. a free market economy but with high taxation and generous provision of social services they also have high social trust and cohesion, but it's hard to know which direction the causation runs (and it's probably a feedback loop)
sep 1, 2025, 4:24 am • 5 0 • view
although, depressingly, that may have been somewhat underpinned by ethnic homogeneity, and that model may be fraying at the edges now (especially in sweden)
sep 1, 2025, 4:26 am • 5 0 • view