I first saw it as ‘coop’ and immediately thought, ‘hell yes, I’d support a community-owned coop, but only if there were lots of fluffy chickens and a 24/7 camera on them’.

Then I realized what you really meant. Which I’m also not opposed to, if it was set up well.

You’d be surprised how much effort people will put into proving you wrong.

And of course he adds in a picture of John Wayne, the draft-dodging, woman-beating, other wannabe cowboy poser.

My uncle is a pastor. So when his kid came out as trans, he and his wife did the ‘good moral Christian’ thing and shamed her and harassed her until she committed suicide.

Then deadnamed her at the funeral, and wrote and published a book about how ‘his betrayal’ and ‘his unfortunate death’ were just tests from God to test their faith.

This is not a rare or unique story; many people all over the world have stories like this. Is it any wonder those who pay attention find religion distasteful? It may be a part of humanity, but many unpleasant things are, and there is nothing ‘edgy’ about rejecting them.

Yes, there are ‘good’ churches in my town that feed and clothe the poor; a far cry from my uncle’s church. But they are part of the same religion, and the fact that religion accepts both, morals be damned, means I have no interest in it.

With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion. -Steven Weinberg

I mean, it’s supposed to be.

Probably still won’t stop future humans from opening the vault, sadly.

Sequel to The Gold Cadillac just dropped

I see it as more a combination of self-delusion, coupled with other people getting hurt more (or them being told other people are being hurt more; it seems they don’t even need proof).

They really don’t want to admit that they are in the out-group, because it would shatter their whole self-image.

They do have ideology and ironclad values. It’s very simple: the law should have a class which it protects but does not bind, and a class which it binds but does not protect. And they are always supposed to be in the first class. Because they are awesome. And they’re awesome, you see, because they’re in the first class.

Anything they do is in service of this belief.

Science says the in-group folks are awesome and perfect? Science is great! Science says in-groups and those out-group guys over there are basically the same? Science is useless and probably evil! That out-group person over there says in-group people are better than them? That person is 100% correct! That person says in-group people aren’t better and the out-group people deserve the same things in-groups have? That person is evil and needs to die!

They didn’t hate COVID and refuse to mask because they were just being obtuse. They hated that they were being lumped in with the (in their minds) ‘out-group’ and having all the same restrictions put on them. In their mind, the out-group is the only one that should be restricted. Ever. For any reason.

This is also why the War on Drugs here in the states got so much support. It created a well-defined in-group (white rich people who could still use drugs with impunity) and an out group (poor and people of color who could be accused of drug use and locked up even if they were innocent).

And this is why they’re banning abortion. You’ll note, if pushed, there’s often the vague statement of ‘oh, they can go out of state if they need to’. What they’re really saying is ‘we of the in-group will still be able to get abortions by going elsewhere/having cops look the other way/etc, but you of the out-group won’t’.

They don’t care what it is, as long as they have an item/privilege that the out-group doesn’t have. (I think this might also be why they idolize the rich; the rich naturally have a setup sort of like this thanks to money letting them have more things, and they want that so bad.)

Oh noooo it’s old no-one should like stuff that’s old only new things are cool

You know, one day the stuff you like will be old too.

Also, Star Trek been around a long time, yeah, but it’s still going with new content.

No, you’re just being purposely vague for some reason. And you really want to pay people substandard wages for some reason.

But if you legit can’t come up with any concrete examples and have to fall back on things like eating food, then fine, we can end the discussion.

Again the vagueness. ‘Can’t work very well’. Define that. Are we talking someone who’s not mentally apt enough to do NASA rocket science but still can ring up groceries just fine? Are we talking someone wheelchair-bound so they can’t stock shelves? What level are we talking here? Because those people could still do jobs and earn a living wage.

No. Give me concrete examples, please.

And how do they do that?

Define ‘not valuable enough’ and I’ll answer you.

It has everything to do with it as you are very insistent on underpaying people for some reason. You have yet to state that reason.

To answer your question I would need more information. Exactly what do you mean by ‘not valuable enough to earn a living wage’?

Still didn’t answer my question.

For the love of…

I guess I need to use simple words and shorter sentences with you.

If you hire a person, you pay them a living wage.

If they’re not doing their job right, train them better.

If they still don’t work out, fire them.

There. Is. No. Reason. Not. To. Pay. Workers. A. Living. Wage.

None.

And you still haven’t answered my question. Why are you so enamored of exploiting workers?

Right, which is, as the other person said, why you fire them if they don’t do a good job. You don’t keep a mistake-maker and pay them less, you hire someone who can do the job and pay them well.

And how is it ‘meaningless’? You just defined it: a wage allowing someone to live in the place they’re located. So yes, it changes from place to place. That’s not ‘meaningless’, it’s ‘regional’. And you should still pay someone a living wage.

I don’t understand why you’re so opposed to it. Why do you want people suffering and in poverty for providing services? If you work, you should be able to eat and live, full stop. Even if it’s only in the cheaper parts of your town.

And again, that’s just wage slavery done up in a different bow.

Payment for a job is you not wanting to do it or being unable to do it, so you hire someone to do it. If they do the job, they can’t do something else, so you pay them enough to make it worth their time. You support them so they can help you. If you can’t pay them enough to support them, then do the damn job yourself.

Seriously, why are you so against people getting a living wage? It used to be even grocery checkstand workers could afford a decent place. Back then our economy was better too.

We’ve done it before, and it worked. Other countries today do it and it works - see the wages for McDonald’s workers in Denmark as an example.

The only thing taking away living wages does is force people into wage slavery to line the pockets of the rich to a ridiculous degree. It’s not sustainable and it benefits no-one but a few people who don’t need that money anyways.