51 minutes ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

Let's not even get into income tax brackets. I'm not an advocate for social democracy, except as an accelerationist tactic. ******* Cuba, a country almost completely cut off from trade since the collapse of the soviet union, has better health outcomes than the richest country in the world. You know how they do that? Socialized medicine.

Your love for Cuba, one of the most oppressive countries in the world and an economic basket case, demonstrates all we need to know. You are aware that the Castro family and its supporters are thieves that have stashed away billions while keeping Cuba mired in poverty. If socialism is such a great system, Cuba's inability to trade with the United States would make little difference. But apparently you are conceding that Cuba cannot move beyond a subsistence economy without trading the capitalist United States. The problem with socialism is that really does not eliminate inequality; instead, it wrenches wealth away from the those that created it through risk taking, innovation, and hard work and concentrates it instead in the hands of those who have political power. In the end, inequality remains, but society is much poorer.

5 minutes ago, postje said:

You are aware that the Castro billionaire family and its supporters are thieves that have stashed away billions while keeping Cuba USA mired in (relative) poverty.

Where exactly is the difference?

9 minutes ago, postje said:

Your love for Cuba, one of the most oppressive countries in the world and an economic basket case, demonstrates all we need to know. You are aware that the Castro family and its supporters are thieves that have stashed away billions while keeping Cuba mired in poverty. If socialism is such a great system, Cuba's inability to trade with the United States would make little difference. But apparently you are conceding that Cuba cannot move beyond a subsistence economy without trading the capitalist United States. The problem with socialism is that really does not eliminate inequality; instead, it wrenches wealth away from the those that created it through risk taking, innovation, and hard work and concentrates it instead in the hands of those who have political power. In the end, inequality remains, but society is much poorer.

Is Castro also a lizard man disguised as a human? Qanon in the house.

22 minutes ago, ninclouse2000 said:

Is Castro also a lizard man disguised as a human? Qanon in the house.

The conspiracy is not very hidden except to those that wear socialist blinders:

https://www.ibtimes.com/fidel-castro-net-worth-2016-how-cuban-leader-built-wealth-after-1959-revolution-2451623

I have to get back to my work of oppressing the masses. I am sure you guys are busy fighting the capitalist running dogs and their lackies. Although I hope your political visions never become a reality in my country, good luck in your next plastic spaceship game.

1 hour ago, postje said:

Your love for Cuba, one of the most oppressive countries in the world and an economic basket case, demonstrates all we need to know. You are aware that the Castro family and its supporters are thieves that have stashed away billions while keeping Cuba mired in poverty. If socialism is such a great system, Cuba's inability to trade with the United States would make little difference. But apparently you are conceding that Cuba cannot move beyond a subsistence economy without trading the capitalist United States. The problem with socialism is that really does not eliminate inequality; instead, it wrenches wealth away from the those that created it through risk taking, innovation, and hard work and concentrates it instead in the hands of those who have political power. In the end, inequality remains, but society is much poorer.

I don't love Cuba dude. I think Cuba serves as a good example. Castro is a complicated figure. To my knowledge, the largest claim was 900 million dollars by Forbes, and there were no citations provided to those figures. Regardless, Cuba over the years have gone through several periods of democratic reform while maintaining a socialist economy with a limited private sector, Castro is dead, his brother is the leader of the party and no longer the president. As for Cuba being oppressive, yeah, the free press restrictions are bad. But their police, while they have problems, dont habitually kill black people. They don't have a blacksite on foreign soil where they keep political prisoners. Cuba's never really partaken in an ethnic genocide like the US government has. The government takes an active role in reducing violence based on bigotry, in a historically machismo heavy culture. They've sent troops to fight against Apartheid forces, while the US and Britain were still supporting the apartheid government. There is no evidence of systemic conversion torture in Cuba, a practice still used against many minors in a large part of the US. Sure, if you're a cishet white middle class man you might have a few less freedoms in Cuba. But pretending like Cuba is some human rights monster is hilarious when you live in the United States.

No country can exist normally without external trade, regardless of the mode of production. Especially not a small island nation. Cuba isn't just not allowed to trade with the US, the US has organized an international embargo against Cuba. If the economic warfare does nothing, why is it there in the first place?

And regardless of Cuba's poverty, they're still the worlds most sustainably developed nation, with life metrics similar to the United States, the richest country in the world. And you still have yet to address this, because you have no explanation.

One of the problems with orthodox marxist-Leninist- socialism, not socialism in general, is that state actors enrich themselves to a greater or lesser extent. That's why modern socialist movements, including Latin american socialists, emphasize participatory democracy and low level democracy as a counterbalance to centralized democracy. We've seen examples of socialism reducing inequality. Despite the problems with Castro, he is no Batista. Despite all the failures of the USSR and China, their land redistribution policies actually did reduce economic inequality.

The people who concentrated wealth did not do so through risk taking, innovation, or hard work. The risk of a capitalist is that he loses passive income and has to get a real job. The innovation of a capitalist is legally owning the intellectual property of others. The hard work of a capitalist is done by legions of wage laborers.

1 hour ago, postje said:

The conspiracy is not very hidden except to those that wear socialist blinders:

https://www.ibtimes.com/fidel-castro-net-worth-2016-how-cuban-leader-built-wealth-after-1959-revolution-2451623

I have to get back to my work of oppressing the masses. I am sure you guys are busy fighting the capitalist running dogs and their lackies. Although I hope your political visions never become a reality in my country, good luck in your next plastic spaceship game.

I doubt you advocate the return of the guy that drove them to revolution, though. Pretty popular with the US government and organized crime too.

We propped up a dictator, provided him with weapons, and with his help turned Cuba into a playground for criminals and the elites while buying as many of their resources as we could get our hands on.

Given all this, how could Cuba ever have turned on capitalism?

And how could their system of government fail when they had such a healthy economy that definitely didn't depend on foreign involvement?

Especially when the US decided if people wanted to trade with Cuba, that was totally okay and just the free market at work?

Those poor Cubans must have been living a life of comfort under Batista and just decided to throw it all away.

It's pretty absurd to me how people point to the small island nation we abused, crippled and isolated as an example of a failed system. It would be remarkable for them to be unscathed under any form of government.

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Staff-Discussion-Notes/Issues/2016/12/31/Causes-and-Consequences-of-Income-Inequality-A-Global-Perspective-42986

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jul/21/offshore-wealth-global-economy-tax-havens

http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/pn_15_4.pdf

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w21035/w21035.pdf

Research, after research, after research has shown that giving more money to the bottom 90% of income earners improves GDP, and tax cuts for wealthy individuals has no net benefit for the economy. Consolidation of wealth at the top is bad for the economy.

1 hour ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

Regardless, Cuba over the years have gone through several periods of democratic reform while maintaining a socialist economy with a limited private sector, Castro is dead, his brother is the leader of the party and no longer the president. As for Cuba being oppressive, yeah, the free press restrictions are bad. But their police, while they have problems, dont habitually kill black people. They don't have a blacksite on foreign soil where they keep political prisoners. Cuba's never really partaken in an ethnic genocide like the US government has. The government takes an active role in reducing violence based on bigotry, in a historically machismo heavy culture. They've sent troops to fight against Apartheid forces, while the US and Britain were still supporting the apartheid government. There is no evidence of systemic conversion torture in Cuba, a practice still used against many minors in a large part of the US.... Despite all the failures of the USSR and China, their land redistribution policies actually did reduce economic inequality.

Perhaps you should read the Human Rights Watch report on Cuba. Here is the link:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/26/cuba-fidel-castros-record-repression

Or read up on Cuba's history of discrimination against blacks and the LGBT population:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-11147157

Soviet collectivization killed 6 to 13 million, but yeah people were equally miserable by the end of it and the USSR ended up a net food importer:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2938412?seq=1

But the Soviets were pikers compared to the Red Chinese, who killed 18 to 45 million:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#:~:text=The Great Leap resulted in,introduction of mandatory agricultural collectivization.

I am a little surprised you did not trumpet the success of the Khmer Rogue, who managed to kill a higher percentage of their own citizens than either China or the Soviets.

Finally, the embargo against Cuba is terminated by statute when the Cubans hold free and fair elections. So to the extent that the U.S. embargo is preventing Cuba from becoming a Socialist powerhouse, it is due to Cuba's leaders choice of oppression over freedom.

You need to read some history other than Howard Zinn. Your criticisms of the United States are a slightly less subtle and truthful than Soviet propaganda.

15 minutes ago, postje said:

Perhaps you should read the Human Rights Watch report on Cuba. Here is the link:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/26/cuba-fidel-castros-record-repression

Or read up on Cuba's history of discrimination against blacks and the LGBT population:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-11147157

Soviet collectivization killed 6 to 13 million, but yeah people were equally miserable by the end of it and the USSR ended up a net food importer:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2938412?seq=1

But the Soviets were pikers compared to the Red Chinese, who killed 18 to 45 million:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#:~:text=The Great Leap resulted in,introduction of mandatory agricultural collectivization.

I am a little surprised you did not trumpet the success of the Khmer Rogue, who managed to kill a higher percentage of their own citizens than either China or the Soviets.

Finally, the embargo against Cuba is terminated by statute when the Cubans hold free and fair elections. So to the extent that the U.S. embargo is preventing Cuba from becoming a Socialist powerhouse, it is due to Cuba's leaders choice of oppression over freedom.

You need to read some history other than Howard Zinn. Your criticisms of the United States are a slightly less subtle and truthful than Soviet propaganda.

Regardless of the arguements position, i always appreciate the posting of credible sources. I knew about the "The Great Leap" atrocities before but the other ones not so much. So thank you for those links. This helps a discussion much more than unfounded, emotion driven knee-jerk reactions like we've seen before.

1 hour ago, postje said:

Perhaps you should read the Human Rights Watch report on Cuba. Here is the link:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/26/cuba-fidel-castros-record-repression

Or read up on Cuba's history of discrimination against blacks and the LGBT population:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-11147157

Soviet collectivization killed 6 to 13 million, but yeah people were equally miserable by the end of it and the USSR ended up a net food importer:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2938412?seq=1

But the Soviets were pikers compared to the Red Chinese, who killed 18 to 45 million:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#:~:text=The Great Leap resulted in,introduction of mandatory agricultural collectivization.

I am a little surprised you did not trumpet the success of the Khmer Rogue, who managed to kill a higher percentage of their own citizens than either China or the Soviets.

Finally, the embargo against Cuba is terminated by statute when the Cubans hold free and fair elections. So to the extent that the U.S. embargo is preventing Cuba from becoming a Socialist powerhouse, it is due to Cuba's leaders choice of oppression over freedom.

You need to read some history other than Howard Zinn. Your criticisms of the United States are a slightly less subtle and truthful than Soviet propaganda.

Did you see me, at any point, provide uncritical support for Cuba, China, or the USSR?

All the **** that's been done by Cuba is small potatoes, let us be real for a moment. Yes, it should be criticized. But the US calling it authoritarian at the same time the US puts people in concentration camps, supports the extermination of Yemeni people, and has crackdowns on peaceful protests all over the country is ridiculous. And you still haven't addressed my point on their better health outcomes and environmental sustainability.

Are you trying to spin Castro apologizing for discriminating against LGBT people in the early years as a bad thing? Cuba was implementing serious measures to protect the LGBT community when US politicians were laughing about the aides epidemic.

You're equating disasters in planning and execution with genocide. If you want to talk about Stalin being a monster to Ukrainians, go ahead. **** Stalin, he's a massive PoS. If you want to criticize Mao for struggle sessions leading to dead landlords and landed peasants, that's also a fair criticism. But if we're criticizing famine, I have bad news for you about how many people die every year of starvation in capitalist countries. And let's not even get into intentional genocide. Also this entire thing is happening in the backdrop of the US suffering a massive pandemic because of incompetency. Are we going to chalk up the one million+ deaths that are about to happen in the US to capitalism? Because we should, and while we're at it, let's throw the 10 million starvation victims from capitalist countries every year onto the pile as well.

It's funny you bring up Pol Pot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_United_States_support_for_the_Khmer_Rouge

Who overthrew Pol Pot again? I think it was the Vietnamese Communists wasn't it? After they'd beaten back the US?

Cuba's national government needs democratic reforms, but to suggest that it is a dictatorship is ridiculous. Especially at the municipal level. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Cuban_constitutional_referendum

funny, on page 1 I post to the topic, then further on page 1 I read a question to topic (if people have been given the choice of moving), latching on to it I eagerly read the next posts....

and some more....

turning to page 2...

mild disheartening sets in...

skimming pages 3 and 4...

suspicion of non-answer being a possible outcome becoming palpable..

flipping through pages 5, 6, 7...

realization this wont end well...

8, 9 and 10....who is counting, anyway?

Did I miss the answer? A possibility.

Am I passionate for politics? You bet.

So I just end by repeating that I feel very sorry for the loss these FFG employees must feel (on more than one level, especially in these times). The game is the best, thank you indeed. A lot of things associated with it clearly were and are not (over many years), and even if everything has the potential to get worse, chances are things will improve.

But, you all DO realize there are better ways to promote progressive social policy than to follow the Cuban blueprint, right? Or the Russian or Chinese methods?

All of these are anathema to me. Free and fair elections and strict term limits are, to me, a prerequisite for any just society (and not just for the executive; the legislature and courts must be term-limited as well, I think). But people MUST have the power to choose their leaders, and they MUST have the freedom to remove those leaders every few years at least.

Anyway, I would like to think America could be held to a higher standard of behavior than Cuba. But as I think back on the genocide, slavery, racism, imperialism, torture, inequality, needless military interventions, and black site imprisonment... maybe not. How about we just do better? Why don’t we become the first country to just be excellent to everyone? We can start with our own people, by ensuring their safety and health and housing.

1 hour ago, BiggsIRL said:

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Staff-Discussion-Notes/Issues/2016/12/31/Causes-and-Consequences-of-Income-Inequality-A-Global-Perspective-42986

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jul/21/offshore-wealth-global-economy-tax-havens

http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/pn_15_4.pdf

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w21035/w21035.pdf

Research, after research, after research has shown that giving more money to the bottom 90% of income earners improves GDP, and tax cuts for wealthy individuals has no net benefit for the economy. Consolidation of wealth at the top is bad for the economy.

Here’s where we can start looking for the money to do it.

It’s a change in our state of mind that’s required, more than anything. The conservative mindset is one of scarcity; of assuming that there isn’t enough. We need a mindset of plenty. That there IS enough, and that everyone can have a share. Maybe a few shares, if they work hard or get lucky or are very clever. We just have to stop people from taking 300 shares, because that breaks the system. That’s when there ISN’T enough.

2 minutes ago, Cpt ObVus said:

But, you all DO realize there are better ways to promote progressive social policy than to follow the Cuban blueprint, right? Or the Russian or Chinese methods?

All of these are anathema to me. Free and fair elections and strict term limits are, to me, a prerequisite for any just society (and not just for the executive; the legislature and courts must be term-limited as well, I think). But people MUST have the power to choose their leaders, and they MUST have the freedom to remove those leaders every few years at least.

Anyway, I would like to think America could be held to a higher standard of behavior than Cuba. But as I think back on the genocide, slavery, racism, imperialism, torture, inequality, needless military interventions, and black site imprisonment... maybe not. How about we just do better? Why don’t we become the first country to just be excellent to everyone? We can start with our own people, by ensuring their safety and health and housing.

Here’s where we can start looking for the money to do it.

It’s a change in our state of mind that’s required, more than anything. The conservative mindset is one of scarcity; of assuming that there isn’t enough. We need a mindset of plenty. That there IS enough, and that everyone can have a share. Maybe a few shares, if they work hard or get lucky or are very clever. We just have to stop people from taking 300 shares, because that breaks the system. That’s when there ISN’T enough.

Yeah, of course. Those governments all started out under feudalism and tried to jumpstart their way to socialism while being under constant threat by imperialist powers. As a result of that, they ****** up massively, some more so than others. Cuba looks like it is reforming itself into something more akin to other more recent twenty-first century latin american socialist/participatory democracy projects, which is where the really interesting stuff is happening, while China's become a state capitalist lovecraftian nightmare almost as terrible as the US or the former British empire.

30 minutes ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Free and fair elections and strict term limits are, to me, a prerequisite for any just society (and not just for the executive; the legislature and courts must be term-limited as well, I think). But people MUST have the power to choose their leaders, and they MUST have the freedom to remove those leaders every few years at least.

^This so much. I think this needs to be pointed out extra clearly each time when discussing socialism, since many people (maybe rightfully so) dont take this as granted with socialism at all.

2 minutes ago, >kkj said:

^This so much. I think this needs to be pointed out extra clearly each time when discussing socialism, since many people (maybe rightfully so) dont take this as granted with socialism at all.

I will point out that term limits were only added to prevent another FDR from happening, and have somehow been standardized all over the world because of US hegemony.If elections aren't free and fair, and you don't have the political capital to make them free and fair, you're screwed, with or without term limits.

I think there is also propaganda on the nature of some socialist countries that do have legitimate democratic institutions, because western powers are very wedded to maintaining the concept that you can only have democracy within capitalism, and workers councils and municipal councils in Cuba or Bolivia or Venezuela poke holes in that.

58 minutes ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

Did you see me, at any point, provide uncritical support for Cuba, China, or the USSR?

No we did not. But i can somewhat understand someones (unjustified) assumption that you would do support those. Not because of you specifically, but rather because its very hard for people to imagine a middleground between 2 pretty radical ideologies, especially when they are part of one. The fear of the old "slippery slope"-arguement is huge, unfortunately, and people always assume the worst they can imagine. (And keep in mind that when i say"radical", it's not a valuation or devaluation, since "radical" linguistically comes from latin radix = root, aka a complete change that begins at the root of things.)

5 minutes ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

I think there is also propaganda on the nature of some socialist countries that do have legitimate democratic institutions, because western powers are very wedded to maintaining the concept that you can only have democracy within capitalism, and workers councils and municipal councils in Cuba or Bolivia or Venezuela poke holes in that.

I do agree with that for sure, especially for the US.

4 hours ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

Despite all the failures of the USSR and China, their land redistribution policies actually did reduce economic inequality.

1 hour ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

Did you see me, at any point, provide uncritical support for Cuba, China, or the USSR?

I was responding to your praise for their land reform (collectivization). The death toll is much higher if you add in the purges, the gulags, the re-education, and cultural revolutions.

16 minutes ago, postje said:

I was responding to your praise for their land reform (collectivization). The death toll is much higher if you add in the purges, the gulags, the re-education, and cultural revolutions.

Reread what I wrote. Not all land redistribution policies were part of collectivization. The policies that fairly distributed land are distinct from the policy of forced collectivization.

Why would we talk about the purges, gulags, reeducation? Do I assume you support the genocides toward Indians under the British, the genocides of Africans by Belgium or the genocides toward indigenous peoples in the Americas, just because you support capitalism? No? Then why do you assume the inverse?

9 hours ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

Why would we talk about the purges, gulags, reeducation? Do I assume you support the genocides toward Indians under the British, the genocides of Africans by Belgium or the genocides toward indigenous peoples in the Americas, just because you support capitalism? No? Then why do you assume the inverse?

Thats a good point and really highlights the partisan blinders many of us (not adressing anyone specific with this) often wear.

19 hours ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

Let's not even get into income tax brackets. I'm not an advocate for social democracy, except as an accelerationist tactic. ******* Cuba, a country almost completely cut off from trade since the collapse of the soviet union, has better health outcomes than the richest country in the world. You know how they do that? Socialized medicine.

Care to back that claim up with data?

23 hours ago, >kkj said:

This is utter nonsense. Noone here ever proposed something like that. This is just the typical knee-jerk reaction when someone criticizes inequality. All this thread long we have been argueing about creating equal starting positions, that means compensation for people that are in a worse position in life than others because of factors they cannot control . Like who your ancestors were and what they did or didn't do. Where you have been born. Which genetical dispositions you have.

This is where that whole "its fine to inherit wealth because somebody back in the past worked for it"-arguement falls on its head. Because with that kind of logic its totally fine to blame poor people that they are poor because their ancestors "just didn't work hard enough". Wow what a bad, evil choice to been born into the wrong environment.

I don't think you actually have any abstract concept of justice or fairness. The only concept of justice you seem to know is "kill or be killed". You dont even want to know how inefficient and unlikely that concept is in getting yourself what you need in life. Fine then. But that concept only works until you too get ****** by the injustice that exist in the world and maybe then you will have some sympathy with those that had no fault in their own misery.

With that being said i will now follow @Ling27 s advice and back out of the conversation with you, since it seems to be pretty pointless.

No, what's utter nonsense is complaining about factors out of people's control when the example was single motherhood. The argument was not about the "genetical dispositions" that you identify. That would be a different conversation. What's funny is that @ExplosiveTooka is showing my "when you have a hammer, everything is a nail" concept. Single motherhood becomes an issue of inequality from the point of socialism. Here's the problem... we've been enacting social policies since the 1960s. During this time, the single motherhood rate increased, not decreased or stayed the same. If you want to propose that social policies would help, the history should track with you. It doesn't. So what is the answer? Did we not go far enough, and need more policies? If that is your argument, then we have to take it on face value that you are right and implement your policies until you are proven right. How is that a good political opinion?

When people are discussing issues like single motherhood, they are not discussing any cultural or personal issues. No, we have to boil it down to a struggle between groups. Men vs. women. Rich vs. poor. Race vs race. Everything is about your group identity. It completely takes personal responsible out of the equation. Your actions don't matter. If you are a certain class, gender, or race, then you should give up. You are part of a group, and this is what you will be. You are not an individual. I find that idea disturbing.

Your argument that its somehow wrong to provide for your offspring isn't justice. You want to steal from someone, because in your mind everyone has to start at 0. This is where people like @ExplosiveTooka like to say that people working for their wealth is atypical. The economic disadvantage is too great. The same people then bring up Trump as someone who has done nothing with his wealth, and group him in with a Hunter Biden (which I find hilarious). You have to ignore how the wealth was accumulated when making this statement. You have to ignore that his grandfather was an immigrant who started as a barber. We have a giant move to the west of people seeking out their fortunes. We have a bunch of techies coming up and dethroning previous tech giants to become Windows and Apple. We also bring up Cuba, but ignore the example of many Cuban immigrants running from Cuba and making their wealth in America. This is why I brought up Miami, which I see no one wanted to discuss. If you want to hear about all the wonders of Cuba, go have a conversation with them.

Then @postje brings up the percentage of taxes that the top 1% covers. Good job, because this was my next point. People want to bring up Trump and Amazon, because those examples feed into the "corporations don't pay anything". Then you look and see that on average they do, and people just want to fix examples and anecdotes. The response has been "well, that's not enough." Again, many people here have no end goal except to take from others until all our problems are solved. How much? Don't know... all the problems have to go away first. No plan. When I start bringing up the idea that maybe small changes in our health care system would be a better idea, I get an emoji reaction. The discussion isn't about tweaks that could make our system better. We just need to pay for everyone's healthcare. That's the answer for everything.

So many words to say that while we have the means to feed, house, and provide medical care for the entire world, we shouldn't. Because otherwise people might live who should die? I don't know, the counter-argument shifts a lot and mostly just falls back on how people should starve and die for a system or something.

It comes down to whether you want to make the world better or not. All this shouting about "personal responsibility" as some kind of magic bullet to solve problems despite all of human history suggesting that no, it's actually collective action that solves most things. You'd be surprised how many problems you can solve by providing food, shelter, and medicine to people. It's hard to convince someone who's well-fed, housed, and healthy to strap a bomb to themselves or shoot at someone else's family.

To loop this back around to the main topic, it sucks that someone's ability to live is left to the whims of others who are given inordinate amounts of power based on a myth about "wealth = hard work" and now some people who do some cool things that we all enjoy have to scramble to provide for themselves and their family. All because we decided the right to live has no correlation to available resources anymore.

It's messed up and anyone who argues otherwise has to answer for untold amounts of human suffering. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk, I will NOT be taking questions.

Back to lurking for me (swishes cape)

1 hour ago, BigPoppaPalpatine said:

Care to back that claim up with data?

Quote

Cuban health statistics appear to be a paradox. Wealth and health are correlated because greater wealth can buy better health care. Yet, Cuba remains desperately poor and appears to be healthy. Cuban life expectancies of 79.5 years and infant mortality rates of 4.3 per 1000 live births (2015) compare well with rich nations like the USA (78.7 years and 5.7 per 1, 000 live births) (World Development Indicators DataBank, 2017).

https://www.econlib.org/about-that-cuban-life-expectancy/

Cuba's life expectancy / health care is comparable in outcomes to the US. Some years it's better, some years it's worse. It certainly suffered post-Soviet Union with it no longer receiving Soviet subsidies, but it has bounced back slightly since.

What allows them to be close is that the US is basically the worst country for healthcare out of the industrialized nations.

Quote

Conclusions and Policy Implications
While the United States spends more on health care than any other country, we are not achieving comparable performance. We have poor health outcomes, including low life expectancy and high suicide rates, compared to our peer nations. A relatively higher chronic disease burden and incidence of obesity contribute to the problem, but the U.S. health care system is also not doing its part. Our analysis shows that the U.S. has the highest rates of avoidable mortality because of people not receiving timely, high-quality care. The findings from this analysis point to key policy implications, as well as opportunities to learn from other countries.

First, greater attention should be placed on reducing health care costs. The U.S. could look to approaches taken by other industrialized nations to contain costs,12 including budgeting practices and using value-based pricing of new medical technologies. Approaches that aim to lower health care prices are likely to have the greatest impact, since previous research has indicated that higher prices are the primary reason why the U.S. spends more on health care than any other country.13

Second, our findings call for addressing risk factors for, and better management of, chronic conditions. We can start by strengthening access to care and primary care systems. Our findings show that the U.S. has a relatively lower rate of physician visits compared to other nations. This is surprising given U.S. adults’ seemingly greater health needs. We do know from previous Commonwealth Fund surveys that adults in the U.S. experience greater affordability barriers to accessing physician visits, tests, and treatments.14 Increasing access to affordable health care and strengthening primary care systems are two of the most important challenges for the U.S. health care system.15

Third, the U.S. should promote incentives to use effective care and disincentives to discourage less-effective care. For example, a recent analysis estimated that as much as one-quarter of total health care spending in the U.S. — between $760 billion and $935 billion annually — is wasteful.16 Overtreatment or low-value care — medications, tests, treatments, and procedures that provide no or minimal benefit or potential harm — accounts for approximately one-tenth of this spending. The U.S. can learn from other countries; for example, our comparably high use of MRI scans and surgeries for hip replacement suggests we should assess when these interventions bring the greatest value. The global Choosing Wisely campaign promotes conversations around evidence-based care between physicians and their patients to help evaluate which tests and treatments are truly necessary and free from harm.17

In sum, the U.S. health care system is the most expensive in the world, but Americans continue to live relatively unhealthier and shorter lives than peers in other high-income countries. Efforts to rein in costs, improve affordability and access to needed care, coupled with greater efforts to address risk factors, are required to alleviate the problem.

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2019

Also Cuba invests heavily in healthcare so that they can use it as a diplomatic tool, sending Cuban doctors out to the developed world as a form of soft diplomacy.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/4/1/cuba-has-a-history-of-sending-medical-teams-to-nations-in-crisis

TLDR: Cuba looks good, because we aren't playing to our potential, and the Cuban government invests HEAVILY in health care.

Here's a nice .gov source that shows some lessons that we can take from the Cuban model to fix some of our own problems with overpriced and wasteful healthcare, and lack of qualified physicians.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3464859/

2 hours ago, BigPoppaPalpatine said:

Care to back that claim up with data?

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Cuba/United-States/Health yeah, sure! You'll find the US and Cuba are comparable on a lot of things, with Cuba better at vaccinating, preventing infant mortality, and increasing literacy. Cuba does slightly worse on maternal deaths, although women in general have the same life expectancy as in the US. That the statistics are similar when Cuba is a small island nation under economic warfare the last 60 years, with no support for 40 of those, and the US is the wealthiest nation in the world, is revealing.

1 hour ago, BigPoppaPalpatine said:

No, what's utter nonsense is complaining about factors out of people's control when the example was single motherhood. The argument was not about the "genetical dispositions" that you identify. That would be a different conversation. What's funny is that @ExplosiveTooka is showing my "when you have a hammer, everything is a nail" concept. Single motherhood becomes an issue of inequality from the point of socialism. Here's the problem... we've been enacting social policies since the 1960s. During this time, the single motherhood rate increased, not decreased or stayed the same. If you want to propose that social policies would help, the history should track with you. It doesn't. So what is the answer? Did we not go far enough, and need more policies? If that is your argument, then we have to take it on face value that you are right and implement your policies until you are proven right. How is that a good political opinion?

When people are discussing issues like single motherhood, they are not discussing any cultural or personal issues. No, we have to boil it down to a struggle between groups. Men vs. women. Rich vs. poor. Race vs race. Everything is about your group identity. It completely takes personal responsible out of the equation. Your actions don't matter. If you are a certain class, gender, or race, then you should give up. You are part of a group, and this is what you will be. You are not an individual. I find that idea disturbing.

Your argument that its somehow wrong to provide for your offspring isn't justice. You want to steal from someone, because in your mind everyone has to start at 0. This is where people like @ExplosiveTooka like to say that people working for their wealth is atypical. The economic disadvantage is too great. The same people then bring up Trump as someone who has done nothing with his wealth, and group him in with a Hunter Biden (which I find hilarious). You have to ignore how the wealth was accumulated when making this statement. You have to ignore that his grandfather was an immigrant who started as a barber. We have a giant move to the west of people seeking out their fortunes. We have a bunch of techies coming up and dethroning previous tech giants to become Windows and Apple. We also bring up Cuba, but ignore the example of many Cuban immigrants running from Cuba and making their wealth in America. This is why I brought up Miami, which I see no one wanted to discuss. If you want to hear about all the wonders of Cuba, go have a conversation with them.

Then @postje brings up the percentage of taxes that the top 1% covers. Good job, because this was my next point. People want to bring up Trump and Amazon, because those examples feed into the "corporations don't pay anything". Then you look and see that on average they do, and people just want to fix examples and anecdotes. The response has been "well, that's not enough." Again, many people here have no end goal except to take from others until all our problems are solved. How much? Don't know... all the problems have to go away first. No plan. When I start bringing up the idea that maybe small changes in our health care system would be a better idea, I get an emoji reaction. The discussion isn't about tweaks that could make our system better. We just need to pay for everyone's healthcare. That's the answer for everything.

You know you only have to @ me once right?

Anywho, you're completely misunderstanding my point on single motherhood. Being a single mother is totally okay! And we shouldn't be opposed to people being single mothers! Single mothers increasing is a good thing, because it means less unhealthy relationships! The problem is that we do not provide enough support to people raising kids on a single income.

You're arguing that single mothers existing/increasing is bad, and you haven't brought up arguments for that. You could make the economic argument, but the obvious counter to that is going to continue to be "then why aren't you living in a giant polycule, never having kids, and pooling your resources, if economics within capitalism are how we determine what is a good and what is a bad relationship?"

By the way, have you read those two chapters on economics that I linked? Because your arguments are responded to within the first few chapters of kapital, and you can either read those, or you can read the wikipedia article on surplus value theory, which I will link again for maximum convenience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value#:~:text=According to Marx's theory%2C surplus,profit when products are sold.

Although Kapital really provides a point by point take down of why the capitalist class does not generate wealth in society, but merely extracts and concentrates it.