Listen, Jim - how much do you realistically own in unrealized gains? It doesn’t even matter to be honest - since you’re shit posting on the Internet, I wouldn’t put your net worth much higher than $10-20 million - and that’s me being an absolute philanthropist, in terms of how much “benefit of the doubt” I’m willing to afford an Internet shit poster.

Even if you were somehow blessed to have more than that - you still wouldn’t qualify as one who needs to pay this kind of wealth tax.

Where’d you get the idea that it would “tax all unrealized gains”?

Is that why the far right made such a stink about genital inspections and bathrooms?

No, I think I’m far enough on the left to be aware of capitalist propaganda. In all fairness to you, my statement did not treat the subject with the appropriate nuance the subject should require.

The DDR was socialist. However, it was state socialism, which in my opinion is not ideal and not something we should strive to replicate. Yes, the means of production were “owned by the people,” but the state tasks itself with protecting the people. And therein lies the problem with state socialism - the state is easily commandeered by a corrupt minority who then uses the governmental apparatus to run an authoritarian regime. Precisely what happened in the DDR and the USSR.

We should be able to recognize the imperfections in prior socialist attempts, without immediately calling it “capitalist NGO propaganda.”

Even the DDR wasn’t doing socialism. The public had to be all-in the idea, or they were discredited or arrested. It was an authoritarian autocracy acting in the name of socialism.

Lol. Nice erasure of the existence of McCarthyism.

Communism pwnd itself bruh - shit sucked so hard they didn’t need Anti-Propaganda like:

Is This Tomorrow? America under communism!!

Shit was so bad, that the US didn’t need to run any covert operations to subvert, discredit, arrest, jail, or even, allegedly, assassinate the prominent figures and leaders of progressive, socialist, and communist movements – I mean, if they did, they certainly wouldn’t have called it COINTELPRO. It’d be a dumb name anyway.

Pfft

Education is anywhere from free to really cheap in Germany, and we still don’t get many people from poorer families into uni.

I am not German myself, but I am familiar with the system. Please correct me if things have evolved, but…

I thought the post-elementary education system in Germany was a tiered system. University admission requires completing the Abitur exams, but one can only feasibly do this if they’ve attended Gymnasium, or the “highest” tier of high school. It may be possible to do if one gets very high marks in Realschule (mid tier), along with Abitur preparation courses, but it’s virtually impossible if one attends Hauptschule (lowest tier). These schools are not intended to provide university preparation, but instead provide a general education to prepare students for trades/vocational careers.

Whether a child attends Hauptschule, Realschule, or Gymnasium is decided at 9 or 10 years old, and is dependent on performance in elementary classes and teacher recommendations.

And when one considers that a child’s educational performance is directly related to both familial socioeconomic status and parental educational attainment, it’s not surprising that poorer people are less likely to attend or complete university.

Capitalists’ dominant position within the class hierarchy necessitates exploitation of the working class, and this is maintained by fomenting division. This tiered system is just one manifestation of how society can be stratefied and divided.

Where are these “men’s groups” you speak of? As a “man,” I’ve not heard of any, at least none that aren’t inherently linked to toxic masc MAN-man personality traits.

What do you mean by “police speech?”

Not if Ianthe has anything to say about it.

Yes, but …

Setting aside the polarized nature of named generations, as a class; for these are entirely arbitrary and designed to create polarization …

There’s fun theory on the “Gen X are forgotten” meme. Yes yes, you Gen Xers got shafted, here’s a cookie 🍪 Please hear me out.

Most people fall on the cusps of their “generation” and Gen X is no different - in this case, you’re either old enough to identify with boomers, and are shouting “snowflake millennial” with them; or you’re young enough to identify with millennials, but still too old to identify with Gen Z, so you’re shouting “cringe zoomer” with the millennials, they who are cuspers themselves and too old to identify with Gen Z. The quintessential Gen Xer is uncommon, but exceptionally kind. You always know when one is around though, because they are quick with a self deprecation point out that Gen X was “forgotten again.” 😉

The sad thing is that many of the so-called boomers are being replaced by Gen Xers. And the millennials shouting the same inter-generational slurs will eventually take the throne of generational bully.

On the other hand, there is hope inspired by this meme - all we need to do to stop inter-generational trauma is stop perpetrating it.

Yeah kind of - I think “a complete body” is neither necessary or sufficient to make one a “human being.”

For example, there are plenty of murderers, rapists, and pedos with “complete bodies,” that have entirely lost their humanity in commission of their crimes against humanity. (However, I will always argue that this can never be a justification to exact cruelty upon them, as we necessarily lose our humanity in that process).

And there are so many people with “incomplete” bodies who are amazingly beautiful and strong human beings.

What if we use the little fetus bones to replace some of the smaller adult bones, and take those smaller adult bones to replace some bigger adult bones, and so on until we have a big ol’ femur?

I appreciate what you’re saying here - people come in all shapes and sizes, with different abilities, limb counts, etc. Every one is a human being deserving respect and dignity.

But OP didn’t say “a complete human being” - it said “a complete human skeleton.”

If an individual is missing a limb, by birth or by accident, they don’t have a complete skeleton. It’s a plain fact. Doesn’t mean they are any less human.

Oh - that’s quite a deliciously nuanced take, a subtext that I indeed did not catch.

I’m at times a simpleton; I chuckled at “billionaire jerky” and “pickled billionaire,” as the phrases reminded me of the Bubba Gump quote.

I hear your point now - compared to the hundreds of millions of cattle, pigs, and chicken processed annually, 2000 billionaires would be small potatoes. The end product would be so scarce, supply/demand would necessarily dictate an ironically immense price, only affordable to those that served as the raw material.

…by working 370,000 times slaves in his daddy’s emerald mine harder than the rest of us.

Fixed that for you.

Good thing Ocean’s Gate already started that process for us.

He really would have done well as the lead in a fictional Michael Jackson biopic that’s an alternate retelling of how his life took a turn in the mid/late 90s, when he discovers that he’s actually in the Matrix and is the one. And instead of Annie, we’re asking “Neo, are you okay? Are you o.k. ne-o? – Sha-mona”

I’m sorry you’ve lost so many friends.

To quote Bubba Gump:

Anyway, like I was sayin’, [billionaire] is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There’s uh, [billionaire]-kabobs, [billionaire] creole, [billionaire] gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple [billionaire], lemon [billionaire], coconut [billionaire], pepper [billionaire], [billionaire] soup, [billionaire] stew, [billionaire] salad, [billionaire] and potatoes, [billionaire] burger, [billionaire] sandwich. That- that’s about it.

How is this defendable in any way?