Atlas Shrugged in the works. Yes again.

[Bok Tuklo]

I am not even worried about that. What the problem is that the overly strong pursuit of creating some perfect macroeconomic machine ignores the bodies such a thing is built on (dubbing it as "creative destruction" in an attempt to label the destruction of people's live and health as a positive thing and pretend that the harm and death that these ideas cause at not the fault of the system) and the inherent instability and march towards fascism or other form of authoritarianism once the instability begins and the rich want to distract people with social politics because their low level Maslow needs are not being met as wealth becomes too centralized, which eventually all topples down. Rich people being rich is fine, but people suffering is not. These people always ignore the social aspects of humankind and how that is going to feed back to their "perfect economic machine". Its always going to be a partial solution, at best, and in that partial solution, a lot of people get killed and hurt.

They just want to force bellum omnium contra omnes ethos on others from the comfort of a post Hobbesian state.

 

[Slartibartfast]

No, I think that's a lie. I spoke to your main point in post 10, and that you can do no more than cite a meaningless, mathematical percentage is evidence of that.

I was amusing myself with the %, I admit. In terms of this "lie" show me places in history where high amounts wealth concentration did not lead towards authoritarianism (or other forms of social breakdown, I am amending my thesis here with a bit of thought and considering what happened to Rome which was multiphased and is an example of the loss of a nation). We have things like the fall of the Roman Empire, what's currently happening in Russia, what happened in the Soviet Union, what is starting to happen in South Korea, The Weimar Republic, what almost happened to the US before WW2, etc.

In places where we have a sustained high amount of wealth concentration? We have monarchies, dictatorships, and other forms of authoritarianism. Even the Roman Republic went through such a phase in order to try to sustain it for a while.

During those times, people were ground down as well. Heck, look at the number of babies being born in South Korea right now (or even here in the US).

 

[SavannahMann]

That IP is named among a handful of other properties but I found this part of the article most interesting.....



So basically what he is talking about is our films used to be American First. You'd make a movie and America was the good guy and we had actual named bad guys with them often being the Soviet Union, or Nazi's or Middle East Terrorists.

In this day and age the bad guys are not named.

Here is an example from the recent Top Gun: Maverick

Top Gun: Maverick - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In the old days they just say... Iran.

Part of this has been that Hollywood is so woke. However they'll cut out the woke for the international markets. They're only spreading that filth here. But when they put it in here, the films don't do so well domestically. They need the foreign box office to be able often not end up with massive losses or even just to break even. Well if you need $200 million from China to make your film profitable then you don't name China as an enemy in the movie.

They could sort that out if they cut out woke bullshit, had good guys andbad guys be named along with clear plot points.

The argument against that is time. When Top Gun, the Original was filmed, the Soviets were the big bad boys on the Planet. But fifteen years later, the Soviet's collapsed. So if the movie had focused on the Soviets, it would've dated the movie should anything change.

It's interesting that you bemoan the absence of American Exceptionalism while using Top Gun as your example. In that exceptional American Pilots using Exceptional American tactics and equipment destroy years of work and set the unnamed enemy back a decade at least.

But go farther back in media history, and you find similar things. Notional Enemies that didn't really exist. The lifelong love affair with Buck Rogers. He never fought the Germans. Nor thwarted the plans of the Japs.

You don't need to beat your chest to be exceptional. History tends to forget those folks. They remember the ones who showed the quiet and respectful. Imagine Neil Armstrong beating his chest and screaming I'm the greatest. It was exactly his lack of that sort of thing that made him beloved by the population. His quiet shy behavior made him a professional doing his job and doing it very well. We didn't need to beat our chest and scream we made it to the moon and beat the Russians! Everyone knew it. Screaming and beating our chests would have soured the entire thing, and it would have faded from history.

 

[Slartibartfast]

The argument against that is time. When Top Gun, the Original was filmed, the Soviets were the big bad boys on the Planet. But fifteen years later, the Soviet's collapsed. So if the movie had focused on the Soviets, it would've dated the movie should anything change.

It's interesting that you bemoan the absence of American Exceptionalism while using Top Gun as your example. In that exceptional American Pilots using Exceptional American tactics and equipment destroy years of work and set the unnamed enemy back a decade at least.

But go farther back in media history, and you find similar things. Notional Enemies that didn't really exist. The lifelong love affair with Buck Rogers. He never fought the Germans. Nor thwarted the plans of the Japs.

You don't need to beat your chest to be exceptional. History tends to forget those folks. They remember the ones who showed the quiet and respectful. Imagine Neil Armstrong beating his chest and screaming I'm the greatest. It was exactly his lack of that sort of thing that made him beloved by the population. His quiet shy behavior made him a professional doing his job and doing it very well. We didn't need to beat our chest and scream we made it to the moon and beat the Russians! Everyone knew it. Screaming and beating our chests would have soured the entire thing, and it would have faded from history.

Every society thought it was exceptional. Invoking exceptionalism is not a valid argument, unless its an argument that all societies are equally able to make. If that's the case, then what's the practical point of invoking it at all?

 

[Mithrae]

I believe it is entirely reasonable for someone to earn ten times -- or even a thousands of times -- more than "other competent" folks and I don't believe in supermen. I do believe in value creation and in markets, and that's enough.

To be clear, accumulating profit off other people's actions and needs is not "earning" money in any meaningful sense.

 

[NatMorton]

I was amusing myself with the %, I admit. In terms of this "lie" show me places in history where high amounts wealth concentration did not lead towards authoritarianism (or other forms of social breakdown, I am amending my thesis here with a bit of thought and considering what happened to Rome which was multiphased and is an example of the loss of a nation). We have things like the fall of the Roman Empire, what's currently happening in Russia, what happened in the Soviet Union, what is starting to happen in South Korea, The Weimar Republic, what almost happened to the US before WW2, etc.

In places where we have a sustained high amount of wealth concentration? We have monarchies, dictatorships, and other forms of authoritarianism. Even the Roman Republic went through such a phase in order to try to sustain it for a while.

During those times, people were ground down as well. Heck, look at the number of babies being born in South Korea right now (or even here in the US).

Sure, the US has had high concentrations of wealth throughout its history and has no lead us to "authoritarianism."

 

[Slartibartfast]

Sure, the US has had high concentrations of wealth throughout its history and has no lead us to "authoritarianism."

The three times it reached its peak we got a civil war (the antebellum period) which turned temporarily authoritarian during the war and reconstruction (and the entire premise of the war was slavery, which is quite authoritarian), the first American Nazi movement (aftermath of the gilded age), the MAGA movement (now). We may not dodge the current bullet.

 

[Bok Tuklo]

Sure, the US has had high concentrations of wealth throughout its history and has no lead us to "authoritarianism."

You don't consider the enslavement of an entire group of people authoritarian?

 

[NatMorton]

The three times it reached its peak we got a civil war (the antebellum period) which turned temporarily authoritarian during the war and reconstruction (and the entire premise of the war was slavery, which is quite authoritarian), the first American Nazi movement (aftermath of the gilded age), the MAGA movement (now). We may not dodge the current bullet.

None of the times you cited put us close to authoritarianism.

 

[Slartibartfast]

None of the times you cited put us close to authoritarianism.

Then you need to use an honest definition for that term as its quite obvious there were authoritarian movements in our history that occurred right after each peak of wealth concentration.

 

[NatMorton]

Then you need to use an honest definition for that term.

I am. More importantly, I'm not using a politically expedient one.

 

[Slartibartfast]

I am. More importantly, I'm not using a politically expedient one.

I can't stop you from weaseling out of this if that is truly what you want.

 

[NatMorton]

You don't consider the enslavement of an entire group of people authoritarian?

Yes, I do, but that was not the product of wealth inequality. His argument is that wealth inequality peaked in the mid-1800s and led to the Civil War. He's neither proven there was such a peak nor that this supposed peak caused of the war. Most historians attribute the root causes of the war to slavery itself and economic matters like tariffs.

 

[NatMorton]

I can't stop you from weaseling out of this if that is truly what you want.

Lucky for you then I'm not weaseling out of it. I'm speaking directly to your argument and, frankly, you're doing a poor job defending it. (Don't fault yourself, though. It's the argument that's flawed, and not you, I think).

 

[Slartibartfast]

Lucky for you then I'm not weaseling out of it. I'm speaking directly to your argument and, frankly, you're doing a poor job defending it. (Don't fault yourself, though. It's the argument that's flawed, and not you, I think).

Then do that. I named the authoritarian movements that resulted from the peaks which you ignored. Until you actually address the argument, you got nothing.

 

[Bok Tuklo]

Then do that. I named the authoritarian movements that resulted from the peaks which you ignored. Until you actually address the argument, you got nothing.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Perhaps the website should be renamed to arguepolitics

 

[NatMorton]

Then do that. I named the authoritarian movements that resulted from the peaks which you ignored. Until you actually address the argument, you got nothing.

I assert you have not cited such peaks nor proven cause and effect.

Let's start here. Where is your proof that wealth inequality peaked just prior to the Civil War?

 

[Slartibartfast]

I assert you have not cited such peaks nor proven cause and effect.

Let's start here. Where is your proof that wealth inequality peaked just prior to the Civil War?

Post 32

 

[NatMorton]

Post 32

Post 32 reads as follows:

The three times it reached its peak we got a civil war (the antebellum period) which turned temporarily authoritarian during the war and reconstruction (and the entire premise of the war was slavery, which is quite authoritarian), the first American Nazi movement (aftermath of the gilded age), the MAGA movement (now). We may not dodge the current bullet.

There is no prove given here. Only assertions absent proof.

It is increasingly clear you cannot defend your point. Need we continue?

 

[Carjosse]

Hope they forgo any government tax credits. Thats a handout.

 

[NatMorton]

How wonderfully ironic.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Post 32 reads as follows:



There is no prove given here. Only assertions absent proof.

It is increasingly clear you cannot defend your point. Need we continue?

You are literally ignoring slavery..

However, if you need a stat: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/122/article/873217

Inequality had been rising since the start of the century and was high everywhere by 1860, but the southern slave economy had the most unequal distribution of wealth (Lindert and Williamson 2016). The Gini coefficient on total property wealth was 0.82 in the south prior to the war compared to 0.75 in the north.<a name="f3-text" href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/122/article/873217#f3" data-hasqtip="true">3</a> Roughly half of Southern wealth was in the form of enslaved persons, yet ownership of slaves was itself deeply unequal. Soltow (1975) found that only 21 percent of white Southerners owned slaves while about 0.5 percent owned more than 50 slaves. The war and slave emancipation of course dramatically impacted the southern economy – median wealth in our sample in 1870 was only about three-quarters of its 1860 level. And overall inequality fell in the south as well – the Gini coefficient on total [End Page 803] property wealth fell to 0.79 in 1870 as the share of wealth held by the top 10 percent in our sample fell from 71.7 to 66.8 percent over that decade. These changes in regional wealth holding and its distribution are reflected in Figures 1A and B, which compares total property holding at several different points in the wealth distribution across Northern and Southern states in 1860 and 1870.

The GINI coefficient didn't starting falling until after the civil war.

Digital History

 

[Bok Tuklo]

How wonderfully ironic.

Wealth Mobility in the United States: 1860-1870

 

[MamboDervish]

That IP is named among a handful of other properties but I found this part of the article most interesting.....



So basically what he is talking about is our films used to be American First. You'd make a movie and America was the good guy and we had actual named bad guys with them often being the Soviet Union, or Nazi's or Middle East Terrorists.

In this day and age the bad guys are not named.

Here is an example from the recent Top Gun: Maverick

Top Gun: Maverick - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In the old days they just say... Iran.

Part of this has been that Hollywood is so woke. However they'll cut out the woke for the international markets. They're only spreading that filth here. But when they put it in here, the films don't do so well domestically. They need the foreign box office to be able often not end up with massive losses or even just to break even. Well if you need $200 million from China to make your film profitable then you don't name China as an enemy in the movie.

They could sort that out if they cut out woke bullshit, had good guys andbad guys be named along with clear plot points.

You're funny. All you're doing - inadvertently, no doubt - is declaring that "woke" is synonymous with Capitalism. Who'da thunk, huh?

And your own example shoots your entire premise in the foot. Top Gun: Maverick only cost $170 million to make, but the domestic take - as in North America only - was over $718 Million! In other words, well over 400% profit, before any overseas box office numbers. Of course the international take was twice that, although I don't have data for Iran.

Actually, not naming the bad guys makes much more sense, as we learn from movies like 1984's Red Dawn, which, only 7 years after its release, became stale dated. The "bad guy" in the movie - the old USSR - no longer even existed, and Russia became an "ally" - at least it was until the rise of Putin. Maverick will still be fresh generations from now, when even Iran might once again be an ally after the fall of the Ayatollahs.