The Political Satire/Meme Thread
- Thread starter Danoff
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- TenEightyOne
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- Chrunch_Houston
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ROAD_DOGG33J
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- holyc0w1
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Joe has passed his sell by date.
- 3,727
- Elizabeth, New Jersey, USA
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- a baby, candy, it's like taking.
- TexRex72
I've been thinking about this in particular, and it seems it's a bit like Reddit.
Reddit isn't bad in and of itself. The creators developed a means for subs to moderate themselves through user input in the form of upvote/downvote karma.
When utilized most reasonably, bad elements can be downvoted and repeated abusive behavior by those elements results in an inability to post at will.
However the system itself can be abused in the form of downvoting otherwise reasonable positions that simply don't fall in line with the sub, until those with contradictory views can't respond to all comers and are effectively smothered by those with the sub's preferred position. Boom...echo chamber.
UKMikey
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- UKMikeyA
- UKMikeyA
You may want to check out this post before whipping it out again.
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/thre...mage-meme-thread.343002/page-92#post-13079656
Does that make Reddit the echo chamber or just those subreddits whose members practice brigading? I hope there are subreddits which encourage dissenting opinions and that they're not all echo chambers.
- 29,726
- a baby, candy, it's like taking.
- TexRex72
By all means keep fighting the good fight, but that may not always be the deterrent it ought to be.
I didn't intend to attribute that dynamic to the whole of Reddit. I think it's more likely to prevail where strong positions are held, but there are likely still venues for the exchange of opinions.
The point, in case it got lost in the fold, is that only people can make the platform good or bad.
- 3,727
- Elizabeth, New Jersey, USA
To clarify, I don't form my political opinions from Reddit if that's what you're insinuating. Doing so is no better than forming them from instagram posts or tweets, as well as corporate MSM like Fox or CNN. Reddit is great for finding political images/cartoons/memes though, for all political views. Most of the images I post in this thread that come from reddit are copied from the subreddit r/LateStageCapitalism. There's some funny/relatable content in there, but to be fair, I disagree with at least half of what gets posted there. There are regulars in that subreddit who think that we should completely abolish the idea of a market economy or private property, and that we should have communism exactly how Marx proposed it, and post memes which support those views. That subreddit has memes for anything as left or "lefter" than democratic socialism/critiquing American capitalism.
And I absolutely agree about it Reddit being an echo-chamber. In many political subreddits, whether it be LateStageCapitalism, The_Donald, or simply r/politics, dissenting views are not merely downvoted, but the users who post these views, even in good faith, are usually permanently banned from that subreddit. Certainly not a way to have healthy discourse nor is it a democratic system.
You basically proved my point about Reddit. Being that the meme was from r/LateStageCapitalism, I had thought it was accurate and didn't even bother to fact check it. And quite honestly, if it was a similar post but had a right-wing undertone to it instead, I would have likely doubted it. I've realized that I haven't been as aware of my bias as I should, I guess.
Whether the image is genuine or not though, the point it makes still stands. At one time in American history, children half my age could work 10+ hours a day in steel mills across the rust belt without receiving any education, safety standards, or adequate pay, all so that powerhouses like Carnegie could reap as much profits as possible. And when politicians finally realize how immoral it was and propose legislation to outlaw it, they faced harsh opposition from these corporate lobbyists. "If child labor is outlawed, how could we afford to stay in business and innovate" basically summed up the argument the lobbyist used. This country can make great strides today if our politicians, on both sides, would not be spineless and actually stood up to lobbyists instead of getting bought by them, and actually serve the constituents that elected them to begin with. We have to remind ourselves that outlandish practices like child labor were not outlawed because the market regulated itself or actually cared about being ethical, but because politicians did the jobs that we elected them to do. But as things get worse and worse and we move closer and closer to a corporatocracy, it honestly doesn't sound unreasonable that a workers' revolution is the only way to achieve real, systemic change, getting money out of politics once and for all.
UKMikey
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That was pretty much the counterargument a few pages back. It just made it easy for people to shoot holes in the point it made though, whereas a genuine photo could be argued for or against on its own merits.
It's the repeat nature of the photo which got to me, however.
VolkswagenX
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I mean you can hate it up to the point that you realise Amazon has been extremely handy for a huge amount of people - including business owners - during this odd time.
It really pisses me off that people will put so much energy into hating a guy like Bezos. He makes a disgusting amount of money, yes, I'm sure a bunch of people on the board do, and you don't know their names, and they have as much weight in any pay-the-warehouse-workers decision as Bezos does, I'm sure.
I am not a rich man, company owner - Amazon prime is a sweet thing in my life though and I'd be willing to say that to any Amazon warehouse worker - this is the West, the door is there if you hate your job. If people put nearly as much energy into their own lives as they do trying to **** on corporate leaders for having good business ideas, working to build their companies, and following a logical path of expansion on a good idea, people might just come up with a decent idea themselves.
Honestly I don't see why you'd need a news article to tell you Amazon is doing well during the lockdowns, it seems a natural enough result of people staying home. People still have the to-your-door availability of all the fruits of capitalism, however, and I doubt they are going to complain about that with any of the rabid fury that the size of the bank account of the man that runs it seems to invoke.
TL;DR? The Expanse is really good, and Jeff's paying for it.
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You can like the concept of Amazon and hate Bezos at the same time. I doubt there's many that dislike the ability to buy virtually anything online and get their product in two days or less. I totally agree that Amazon has been very useful during lockdowns and that has helped Bezos gain so much in wealth during this time.
I don't hate Bezos because he's rich. I hate Jeff Bezos because he doesn't pay his fair share, and has no desire to do so. His company completely avoids all taxes at the federal level. He cut wages and benefits for thousands of his low-wage workers, yet his net worth continues to skyrocket. He's patronized and insulted his workers, once even saying "as a joke" that they should "pay him" to work at Amazon. His employees simply are a means to an end, objects and resources to be exploited and discarded. He is not very philanthropic and refused to sign the Giving Pledge. He has bribed many municipalities across the country to give Amazon tax breaks, yet many of these workers who gain jobs in Amazon warehouses are making less than $30k a year and need governmental assistance just so they could afford to live.
The notion that a man can amass a net worth of over $150,000,000,000 and supposedly be on track to be the world's trillionaire in six years all because he had a great idea is simply flawed. There's no doubt that Amazon was a good idea from the start. But one simply cannot amass this much wealth without exploiting their workers, dodging taxes, and being extremely power-hungry. Call me crazy but I think there's a certain amount of wealth one can have, and anything above that number gets redistributed. I'm not sure what that number is, maybe it's one billion, or a few billion, but there's simply no need for one person to have so much wealth. I really don't care how that wealth was obtained, either. It is estimated that Jeff Bezos will never even spend 20% of his entire wealth. And yes, I know much of his wealth his not liquid wealth. People forget to realize that it is in fact the workers that make Amazon so rich.
If Jeff Bezos paid the taxes he is required to pay (many ask "how would we pay for things like universal healthcare; taxing Amazon alone would greatly contribute) valued his workers and paid them fairly, not have a power-hungry attitude, was charitable with his wealth, I wouldn't revile him as much as I do. But it seems as if that's far too much to ask for.
- 29,726
- a baby, candy, it's like taking.
- TexRex72
Is that what I'm supposed to have been doing? Why? Just how was any of that post about you?
- 3,727
- Elizabeth, New Jersey, USA
We both know that China isn't a "communist" country. There has never been any truly "Communist" countries in the world; the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China were both totalitarian superstates, and Cuba and other latin-American countries were embargoed by the US before they could even implement communism.
If I'm not wrong, China is considered a "command economy" in which China has a market economy containing a mixture of privately-owned and state-owned enterprises. Either way, child labor exists because of a lack of regulation. Child labor contributes to making Chinese corporations so profitable.
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