BC SOCIETY
Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

If you ever want to consider how committed our society is to the foundational lie that life must be earned, and those who fail to earn it must die, consider that the proposition “giving everyone money to spend would be bad for the economy” is widely accepted as truth.

 “Giving money to people in poverty solves poverty” is an obvious truth, which needs (another) study for proof, for the same reason that this finding will be ignored (again).

We don’t want to fix poverty, even if doing so helps everyone—not if it means life for the “undeserving.”
It’s not about saving money.

There's a great fear in this country that a single dollar might go to someone who might not deserve it; or that a single given dollar might be spent on something we deem unworthy.

We'll spend five dollars to prevent the waste of that one dollar.
The manifestations are everywhere. From the overt, gleefully cruel hostility of conservatism toward people in poverty, of course. But also hidden in almost everyone's assumptions.

Our use of charity as a way of controlling who gets helped, for example. https://t.co/Ax6Av9J5vb
Even the reversal—a desire to prevent aid from going to "undeserving" wealthy who don't need it (true)—leads us to create obstacles to aid people in poverty often can't overcome, but wealthy people can.

Which is why wealthy people like means testing.

https://t.co/bgLKviRjVq
People of the lie love means testing because it keeps the conversation within the framework of the lie—which is that some people deserve the social contract and others don't.

As long as people go on believing the lie, it benefits them even if it targets them.
They don't care if the social contract goes away, because—as has been pointed out!—they don't need it.

But if you want to spend money trying to administrate it away from the "undeserving" they're happy to exploit it.

These are all expensive lies. https://t.co/WPixtkxACi
Things like this will help wealthy people, not people in poverty, because they are at the heart a reinforcement of the big lie, that some people deserve and other people don't.

Which benefits those who benefit from the lie. https://t.co/ZhU0Y3fhwT
If you accept the framework of the lie, people of the lie will exploit it.

Here we see one of the most malicious servants of greed ever born, using our desire to see help go only to the deserving, in order to prevent any help from going to anybody at all. https://t.co/8mM67pXpj1
The reason McConnell is using rhetoric certainly isn't because McConnell doesn't want to send money to the wealthy.

It's because he knows that as long as we stay in a framework where some deserve and others don't, money will go to the wealthy either way.

https://t.co/359PyMEgzl
Here we see again: Crenshaw is deploying this rhetoric specifically to *keep* money from going to unemployed people. He's trying to prevent the relief bill!

He's not standing up for unemployed people. He's defending the lie that life is for the deserving. https://t.co/iHXbGYqb6Q

More from A.R. Moxon

Andrew R.R. Moxon
Andrew R.R. Moxon
@JuliusGoat
Pundits: The fact that Ossoff and Warnock are unlikely to both win their elections means Joe Biden needs to court Republican votes rather than push a much-needed progressive agenda

*Ossoff and Warnock win handily*

Pundits: Ah. Nevertheless,


The only way political reporting in this country makes sense is if you understand that the almost universal, almost subconscious default assumption: that conservative white people are the protagonists of any story that's being told, no matter the facts of the story.

Just do the obvious and necessary good things and let the horrid evil people who hate good things squeal and cry about it forever.

I really need Democrats who will state the clear and obvious truth, which is that Republicans are our enemies, because they insist on attacking the very idea of a shared society and are more than happy to use violence to do it, which is the very definition of an enemy.

You can't make people who want to kill you not be your enemies even if you wish they'd be your friend.

They can stop trying to kill you, but until that happens they are your enemy, and acknowledging that fact isn't what makes that fact true.
POLITICS
A.R. (Actually Republic) Moxon
A.R. (Actually Republi...
@JuliusGoat
Imagine if Christians actually had to live according to their Bibles.


Imagine if Christians actually sacrificed themselves for the good of those they considered their enemies, with no thought of any recompense or reward, but only to honor the essential humanity of all people.

Imagine if Christians sold all their possessions and gave it to the poor.

Imagine if they relentlessly stood up for the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner.

Imagine if they worshipped a God whose response to political power was to reject it.

Or cancelled all debt owed them?

Imagine if the primary orientation of Christians was what others needed, not what they deserved.

Imagine Christians with no interest in protecting what they had.

Imagine Christians who made room for other beliefs, and honored the truths they found there.

Imagine Christians who saved their forgiveness and mercy for others, rather than saving it for themselves.

Whose empathy went first to the abused, not the abuser.

Who didn't see tax as theft; who didn't need to control distribution of public good to the deserving.
SOCIETY
Advertisement
A.R. Moxon
A.R. Moxon
@JuliusGoat
Observe: the lie that "government" is a monolithic entity, from which we are somehow separate.

Government is how we organize, manage and maintain our society, but to acknowledge that is to acknowledge society, and one's responsibility to organize, manage, and maintain it.


Government didn't close churches. Churches closed because people with something more than a childishly selfish view of the world understood their responsibility to the shared life of a society, and government is how that understanding was operationalized and delivered.

Nor does government militarize police. The police is militarized because people with a fearful, hateful or selfish view of the world understand a militarized police will operationalize & deliver that fear, hate, and greed through the mechanism of government.

Government is *us*.

Those who now align with a party actively working to dissolve and demolish democracy in our country do so not because they don't understand this, but because they do.

Democracy allows people they fear and hate to be government with them.

So they hate democracy, and government.

People who align with a party standing in the way of any solution, any maintenance, any governance, do so not because they don't understand this, but because they do.

Better to die of sickness, disease, and neglect than allow those they hate and fear to be government with them.
GOVERNMENT
A.R. Moxon
A.R. Moxon
@JuliusGoat
Republicans caused this to happen, because they wanted it to happen.

The president.
The Senators.
The Representatives.
And their voters.

An open show that they care about nothing but domination. That is their politics.

The American Fascist Party.


The gates were opened for them.

Later they were escorted out.

In between, they delivered their message. This space belongs to white supremacy, because this country belongs to white supremacy.

And now those who orchestrated it will pretend they had nothing to do with it.

"The worst of us are safer at their very worst than any of the rest of you are at your best."

That's the message. Republicans have delivered it for decades, last year most notably in their Covid policy.

They're very consistent to it.

The American Fascist Party.

If you belong to this party, and you aren't a white supremacist fascist, yes you are.

Yes. You are.

You just gave yourself an alternate reason to join. And you lend your support to the things an American Fascist Party does, which they do use, to deliver their promised atrocity.

The events of yesterday shocked everyone—with the exception of those who were pretending to be shocked.

But for millions of us, it wasn't a surprise. We've been watching what Republicans do and say.

An attempt to overthrow democracy was always the promise.

And still is.
GOVERNMENT
A.R. Moxon
A.R. Moxon
@JuliusGoat
Every argument against raising the minimum wage involves pointing to some other part of our broken system as if it were a beloved cultural treasure to defend rather than just the next unacceptable thing that needs fixing.

“How is it fair to pay people making minimum wage $30k a year when high school teachers start at that?” as if stagnant wages for teachers were an unrelated matter; don’t worry, Bill, we’ll get to it.

Everyone should have the means to survive and thrive and if the current system doesn't provide for that then nuts to the current system; we shouldn't work for it, it should work for us.

This is (pretty obviously to me) the real reason our leaders are so resistant to giving people the relief money needed to combat Covid.

They can't risk exposing the truth that you can actually just give people the money they need and nothing will break.

Our leaders are working to protect a system, but they shouldn't work for the system, they should work for us. The survival and thriving of human beings is the goal. Any part of any system that doesn't work toward that goal can be jettisoned.

Is this obvious, it feels obvious.
SOCIETY

More from Society

Eileen May
Eileen May
@suleskerry
Joanna Cherry:"Alex Salmond secured a concession that nothing in Scotland Act would preclude the people of Scotland from subsequently choosing an independent future. This is recorded in Hansard during second reading of Referendums (Scotland & Wales) Bill, May 21, 1997."

Donald Dewar said: “I should be the last to challenge the sovereignty of the people, or deny them the right to opt for any solution to the constitutional question they wished. For example, if they want to go for independence, I see no reason why they should not do so." JC

"In same debate Alex Salmond went on to emphasise that “… the Claim of Right referred to sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine a form of Govt best suited to their needs. It did not suggest sovereignty resides with English Members of Parliament." Joanna Cherry

Joanna Cherry: "Donald Dewar articulated the democratic norm later enshrined in the Edinburgh Agreement. His concession laid the foundation for the 2014 referendum in recognising the rights of Scots to choose whether to remain part of our voluntary union with England."

"I am wholly in agreement with view that we must find a legal & constitutional way to demonstrate that public opinion in Scotland has changed since 2014 referendum, in order for our independence to be internationally recognised & therefore meaningful." Joanna Cherry
SOCIETY
Arielle Selya
Arielle Selya
@ArielleSelya
1/14 How do e-cigarettes (ECs) affect cigarette smoking among youth? My new paper with @FloeFoxon simulates each scenario and finds out which one best matches actual trends... https://t.co/dBB7kcnTls @jgitchell @mikepesko @SwitchFinder @jkelovuori @TobPolicy @Clive_Bates

2/14 First, let's talk about why this question is so difficult to answer: COUNTERFACTUALS. We can't know the alternate-reality answers, like which smokers would have never started in a world without ECs, and which nonsmokers would now be smoking without ECs as an option.

3/14 So, the best we can do is use fancy/sophisticated methodologies to estimate what would have happened to youth smoking rates in the absence of ECs. In our case, simulation modeling


4/14 First, we look at the declining smoking trends *that were already happening* before ECs came (~2010), and project them into the present. This is our BASE-CASE SCENARIO about what smoking trends would be if ECs were never invented. Actual trends were LOWER than this base-case


5/14 Side note about terminology: We use the term “catalyst” instead of “gateway,” because “catalyst” is more precise about the claim we are modeling (that ECs are used first, and then causally lead to smoking). Whereas "gateway" can include other mechanisms like renormalization.
SOCIETY
Advertisement
Noah Smith
Noah Smith
@Noahpinion
Remember: Just because an idea is old doesn't mean it's good.

Knowing whether old ideas are more likely to be good requires understanding whether conditions have changed in important ways.

Horse archery was an amazing method of warfare for over a thousand years...then people invented guns, and suddenly this great idea that had stood the test of time became obsolete.

Then again, when underlying conditions don't change much, tried-and-true approaches are probably better.

"Learning the lessons of history" usually just means assuming ergodicity and stationarity in an informal time-series model...

(end)
SOCIETY
Somya Lakhani
Somya Lakhani
@somyalakhani
Thread:
A year ago, at this hour exactly I was in Maujpur in northeast Delhi. For days, weeks & months, I -- like several other reporters -- filed multiple stories on the #DelhiRiots. On the violence, the perpetrators, the victims, the burnt homes & shops, the fear.

I remember every minute of Feb 23, 2020 -- from the speeches to smoke billowing from afar. What I can't ever forget is the face of a man who sat alone in front of a shop, his kurta dusty and torn, blood on his forehead, unable to answer who he was & where he wanted to go.

I've his photo, I never posted it anywhere, and I won't either. He was in such shock, and there was no help around. I tried talking to him but he didn't say a word. He was numb.

It'll take me years before I can fully write down what happened that afternoon -- a stampede, stones flying all around me, a colleague who held nu hand & ran, another who lost her slipper for a minute, tear gas, my inhaler, salt.

I sent my mother messages, my hands trembling. At 1 am, I was home -- my head buried inside a pillow between my parents.
SOCIETY
Hemani Bhandari
Hemani Bhandari
@HemaniBhandari
Thread

"Main jab mar jaun to meri alag se pehchan likh dena,mere lahu se meri peshani pr Hindustan likh dena(After I die,write my identity differently,with blood,write India on my forehead)”- msg on wall in Brijpuri. It's faded.

A year on,we revisit where #DelhiRiots broke out.


Feb 2020 Vs Feb 2021
While the hustle and bustle of the area has returned in severely hit Shiv Vihar, some cracks in the walls, a black smoke patch on the door, a few burnt utensils and a pile of photographs remind the victims of the days and nights they lived in “terror”.


Khushnaz’s daughter Alfiza was six days old on February 25 when the riots broke out near her house. She recalled pressing her palm against the infant’s mouth to prevent her voice from being heard as she cried.


Shawra Begum’s single-storey residence near Medina Masjid has still not been repaired. Looking at the broken and burnt taps of her washroom, Shawra said, “That time reminds me of death.”


Sitting inside his house near Auliya Masjid, Nizamuddin had tears in his eyes thinking about the time. Over 5,000 men were walking and running amok on the streets destroying everything and everyone, he said.
SOCIETY

You May Also Like

TWABMPTLPAFA
TWABMPTLPAFA
@SeekerIIIII
Act of 1871
This is Long but it will end with a BOOM

With no constitutional authority to do so, Congress created a separate form of government for the District of Columbia, a ten-mile square parcel of land (see, Acts of the Forty-first Congress,”

Section 34, Session III, chapters 61 and 62).
The act — passed when the country was weakened and financially depleted in the aftermath of the Civil War — was a strategic move by foreign interests (international bankers) who were intent upon gaining a stranglehold on the coffers

and neck of America.
Congress cut a deal with the international bankers (specifically Rothschilds of London) to incur a DEBT to said bankers. Because the bankers were not about to lend money to a floundering nation without serious stipulations, they devised a way to get their

foot in the door of the United States.
The Act of 1871 formed a corporation called THE UNITED STATES. The corporation, OWNED by foreign interests, moved in and shoved the original Constitution into a dustbin.

With the Act of 1871, the organic Constitution was defaced — in effect vandalized and sabotage — when the title was capitalized and the word “for” was changed to “of” in the title.
HISTORY
Erik Torenberg
Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg
1/ Here’s a list of conversational frameworks I’ve picked up that have been helpful.

Please add your own.

2/ The Magic Question: "What would need to be true for you


3/ On evaluating where someone’s head is at regarding a topic they are being wishy-washy about or delaying.

“Gun to the head—what would you decide now?”

“Fast forward 6 months after your sabbatical--how would you decide: what criteria is most important to you?”

4/ Other Q’s re: decisions:

“Putting aside a list of pros/cons, what’s the *one* reason you’re doing this?” “Why is that the most important reason?”

“What’s end-game here?”

“What does success look like in a world where you pick that path?”

5/ When listening, after empathizing, and wanting to help them make their own decisions without imposing your world view:

“What would the best version of yourself do”?
LIFE
Advertisement
Justin Jackson
Justin Jackson
@mijustin
A lot of bootstrappers think they have a marketing problem:

"I need to get better at marketing."

But, it's more likely that you have a product problem:

"Do customers really want this? Do they care enough about this to switch to a new solution?"

☝️ this is why most of my book, @marketingdevs, is about:

1. Choosing the right market
2. Building something they want

"If your product is remarkable, getting noticed is a lot easier." – @peldi


I was reminded of this concept again this morning while reading @pjrvs' book (Company of One):

"Sales increase when you honestly evaluate what someone needs and then teach them the value of what you're selling."


To succeed, your product has to offer an outcome that is highly desirable to a large group of customers.

The number of sales your product receives is a multiple of these two variables:

1. How big is the target market?
2. How desirable is the outcome you're offering them?
STARTUPS
TXgrlWatching\U0001f4bb\u2694\U0001f6e1
TXgrlWatching💻⚔🛡...
@VeritasTXgem
Thread A History lesson for the MOAB:
1. The United States of America is not and has never been a Democracy, we're a Federal Republic tied together by the capital Laws of the Constitution.

Everyone in the country is about to get a harsh lesson on what this really means...

2. In 1871, February 21: Congress Passes an Act to Provide a Government for the District of Columbia, also known as the Act of 1871.

With no constitutional authority to do so, Congress creates a separate form of
government for the District of Columbia.

3. A ten mile square parcel of land (see,
Acts of the Forty-first Congress,” Section 34, Session III, chapters 61 and

4. The act — passed when the country was weakened and financially depleted in
the aftermath of the Civil War — was a strategic move by foreign interests
(international bankers) who were intent upon gaining a stranglehold on the coffers and neck of America.

5. Congress cut a deal w/ the international bankers(Rothschilds of London) to incur a DEBT to said bankers. Because the bankers were not about to lend money to a floundering nation w/out serious stipulations, they devised a way to get their foot in the door of the United States.
HISTORYLESSON
\uc2e0\ub150\uc758\uc0ac\ub098\uc774
신념의사나이...
@Belposto_korea
The RV and the Redemption Funds.

ALL Exchanged Currencies as well as all Zim Redemption funds will be placed in the accounts they set up in the Quantum Financial System./1

Absolutely none of these funds will be placed in a Bank at the redemption appointment. Bank computers cannot be programmed to transfer Digital Gold Certificates./2

The QFS can and will transplant funds into a bank account as has been explained earlier,/3

so a person can transfer funds to their own bank account but the desirability will become less and less as the banks go into receivership and their customer’s deposits are confiscated to avoid the Bank’s demise./4

Which bank can compete with the QFS when the QFS is free, secure, private, and stable? One of the major problems in the transition will be the use of Debit Cards for merchant purchases. Will VISA or Mastercard be available?/5
FINANCE