A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
VIEWED: 755368
PAGE 708 of 725
More Intellectualism from Intellectuals who don't know shit about anything because they've never faced any adversity or had to work a single day in their lives.
*yawn*
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:One of your big flaws is your reading comprehension. It sucks, big time.
Originally posted by second:Quote:My goodness, Signym. Are you feeling bitter about your misfortunes? Scientific American came to different conclusions than you about who deserves what:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
. . . Interestingly, physicists and mathematicians have also taken on the subject of wealth inequality. They have developed mathematical models of wealth distribution now known as the “yard sale model.” Proponents of this model claim that under very simple assumptions, “wealth condensation” (transition from more even wealth distribution to wealth concentration in the hands of a few) is inevitable unless remedial action is taken. They claim that this model remarkably matches the actual state of wealth inequality in the world. What is intriguing is that under the model, by an unbiased random process, a small group or even a single individual will randomly end up holding all the wealth. It’s not a matter of the survival of the fittest or the best getting more than the rest—it’s a matter of the luckiest. Who is lucky is random. The fact that there will be a winner taking it all is not random, it’s almost inevitable.
So... wealthy people ... such as yourself ... don't get wealthy bc of anything they did, specifically. Has nothing to do with self restraint, intelligence, or upright moral character.
Conversely, poor people aren't poor bc of anything they did or didn't do.
There is one thing inevitably associated with wealth: Rich people think they're better than everybody else. They totally underestimate how much luck played a part in their wealth.
It's the same with singers or actors who become viral sensations v equally talented singer it actors. The stars really think they're hot shit, don't they?
Luck plays a much more important role than it is usually accorded, so that the virtue commonly attributed to wealth in modern society—and, likewise, the stigma attributed to poverty—is completely unjustified.
Moreover, only a carefully designed mechanism for redistribution can compensate for the natural tendency of wealth to flow from the poor to the rich in a market economy. Redistribution is often confused with taxes, but the two concepts ought to be kept quite separate. Taxes flow from people to their governments to finance those governments' activities. Redistribution, in contrast, may be implemented by governments, but it is best thought of as a flow of wealth from people to people to compensate for the unfairness inherent in market economics. In a flat redistribution scheme, all those possessing wealth below the mean would receive net funds, whereas those above the mean would pay. And precisely because current levels of inequality are so extreme, far more people would receive than would pay.
Given how complicated real economies are, we find it gratifying that a simple analytical approach developed by physicists and mathematicians describes the actual wealth distributions of multiple nations with unprecedented precision and accuracy. Also rather curious is that these distributions display subtle but key features of complex physical systems. Most important, however, the fact that a sketch of the free market as simple and plausible as the affine wealth model gives rise to economies that are anything but free and fair should be both a cause for alarm and a call for action.
More at Is Inequality Inevitable?
Wealth naturally trickles up in free-market economies, model suggests
By Bruce M. Boghosian | November 1, 2019
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-inevitable/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
All I did was reiterate your post about the source of wealth inequality (Luck, not merit. I even highlighted that part for you)
THAT PART HAS BEEN PUBLISHED FOR Y
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Quote:I ALWAYS factor in the Trumptards' delusions of superiority. I KNOW for a fact that their delusions make it impossible for them to understand simple things. But for the record:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
One of your big flaws is your reading comprehension. It sucks, big time.
All I did was reiterate your post about the source of wealth inequality (Luck, not merit. I even highlighted that part for you)
THAT PART HAS BEEN PUBLISHED FOR YEARS.
I combined it with other studies which say that successful people ... the wealthy or famous ... credit their success to themselves and overlook luck's presumably greater contribution.
You constantly self-aggrandize, crediting yourself instead of good luck. And you constantly blame “Trumptards" for their lowly status, also not crediting BAD luck.
You're the only one I know, except THUGR, who can so totally misread their own posts, and then so totally misread someone else's.
What's wrong with you, old man? Got dementia? Or just a psychotic liar?
*****
Also, I don't totally believe the study.
And I don't believe in your "solution", which is direct wealth redistibution as the answer.
Unless people are BORN with a disability or a predistibution to genetic diseases... something that is entirely a roll of the dice and out of their control ... work and self restraint DO play a roll in how well people do. And if you want to make society fair, make it fair by rewarding the behavior that you want to see, not by throwing money at people for nothing. That will probably involve limiting the potential rewards of things like speculation (luck) and excessive profit, breaking up monopolies etc..
And I'm sure you'll find a way to misstate this post too.
There is a real and measurable distribution of wealth. There is also a simplified model of real life called The Yard Sale that simulates the distribution of wealth. These two distributions match very closely, but The Yard Sale assumes humans have no individuality, no personality beyond being coin-flippers who can't stop gambling. The Yard Sale says nothing about individuals, but it does reveal something profound about how Capitalism works, because the model strips away all individuality and life spans. Capitalism treated as a simplified game gives the same wealth distribution as Real Life Capitalism:
Winners, Losers
The yard sale, a simple mathematical model developed by physicist Anirban Chakraborti, assumes that wealth moves from one person to another when the former makes a “mistake” in an economic exchange. If the amount paid for an object exactly equals what it is worth, no wealth changes hands. But if one person overpays or if the other accepts less than the item’s worth, some wealth is transferred between them. Because no one wants to go broke, Chakraborti assumed that the amount that can potentially be lost is some fraction of the wealth of the poorer person. He found that even if the outcome of every transaction is chosen by a fair coin flip, many such sales and purchases will inevitably result in all the wealth falling into the hands of a single person—leading to a situation of extreme inequality.
To extend the casino metaphor to the movement of wealth in an (exceedingly simplified) economy, let us imagine a system of 1,000 individuals who engage in pairwise exchanges with one another. Let each begin with some initial wealth, which could be exactly equal. Choose two agents at random and have them transact, then do the same with another two, and so on. In other words, this model assumes sequential transactions between randomly chosen pairs of agents. Our plan is to conduct millions or billions of such transactions in our population of 1,000 and see how the wealth ultimately gets distributed.
If you simulate this economy, a variant of the yard sale model, you will get a remarkable result: after a large number of transactions, one agent ends up as an “oligarch” holding practically all the wealth of the economy, and the o
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I read the study results, SECOND.
DID YOU??
There's no such thing as "It's Trumptards' own fault" in there. There's no such thing as "superior intelligence or moral character/ survival of the fittest" in it either. So if you really believe the results, you can stop mentioning "Trumptards" and you can stop thumping yourself on the back so hard, and accept that the fault is with THE SYSTEM, as I and SIX and others have said all along.
Not only that, but this study says what I've been saying in different words: Money behaves gravitationally ... the more you have, the more you get. That has been my primary argument against libertarians all along: A "free market" without any form of coercion will inevitably generate extreme inequality.
Try to stick that in your brain for more than six seconds, old man, m'kay?
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
THGR claims I have no morels, and he's absolutely right.
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Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI: Thursday, September 28, 2017 5:39 PM
I am an independent myself, but I figured too many would make the same claim that are actually far right nuts. To tell the truth they are the ones I expected to post here first. Glad it's you guys.
T
September 28th 2017, I declared myself as being an independent. Eight years ago. Some here would still deny that, but these same people still deny when they shit themselves. Too funny...
T
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When people don’t vote, Democrats win
Everyone needs to learn the new politics of turnout
By Matthew Yglesias | Aug 28, 2025
https://www.slowboring.com/p/when-people-dont-vote-democrats-win
Back on August 5, there were two special elections for state legislative seats.
Democrats won them both. In Delaware’s House District 20, the Democratic candidate narrowly won a seat that Kamala Harris carried by a 54-45 margin — a poor showing for Democrats, even though they won the seat. The other race was in Senate District 4 in Rhode Island, a 55-44 Harris district. And here, Democrats won by a whopping 83-16 in a massive overperformance.
We can’t learn much from any one special election race, since there are dozens of idiosyncratic factors at work. But special elections in the aggregate do convey some information about the national political climate.
So far in 2025, Democratic candidates in special elections are running 15.5 points ahead of Kamala Harris and 11.1 points ahead of Joe Biden’s (much stronger on average) baseline from 2020.
This is telling us that the national political climate not only favors Democrats, as you would expect for the out-party under an unpopular president, but massively favors them. Slow Boring readers know I’ve been dooming about the upcoming Senate races, but if Dems can actually run nearly 16 points ahead of Harris, then Ohio, Texas, Iowa, Florida, Alaska, and potentially even Kansas are all on the map. And that’s exactly what the party needs to meaningfully contest for a Senate majority, check the MAGA-fication of the federal judiciary, and actually make policy change in 2028.
So is everything fine? Am I totally wrong about the need for ideological adjustments?
More at https://www.slowboring.com/p/when-people-dont-vote-democrats-win
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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What cash can and can’t do
My take on the ongoing Universal Basic Income wars
By Matthew Yglesias | Aug 27, 2025
https://www.slowboring.com/p/what-cash-can-and-cant-do
Poor people in Kenya are average people who happen to live in an extremely poor country. Basic habits of hard work, diligence, and thrift don’t necessarily pay off in an environment where everybody is so poor that hardly anyone can hire you or pay for anything you make. Dumping cash on people in these circumstances really lets them level-up. By contrast, the domestic poor are — unless they are recently arrived immigrants — often people who, for one reason or another, are struggling to get their lives together in a very wealthy country. If they were thrifty and diligent, they wouldn’t be poor in the first place. Putting money in their pockets doesn’t make them thrifty and diligent, so it doesn’t really alter their lives that much.
(My take on why Trumptards don't prosper in America is that they are stupid assholes with mental problems. Trump can give them tax cuts, but they will still be stupid assholes with mental problems. Expressed more poetically and abstractly: "Constant tragic undercurrent that concerns a people who are completely lost, who are lost within their families and lost within their nation, and lost within their time, and who only want some sort of direction or purpose or sense of community or love.")
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI: Thursday, September 28, 2017 5:39 PM
I am an independent myself, but I figured to many would make the same claim that are actually far right nuts. To tell the truth they are the ones I expected to post here first. Glad it's you guys.
And again, just to prove that every post Jack directed at me based on the premise I'm a democrat is wrong. I posted this 8 years ago. And it's why I refer to him as Gilligan. He's not too bright. It's the third post in this thread.
Gilligan, I'm falling over laughing again!
T
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI: Thursday, September 28, 2017 5:39 PM
I am an independent myself, but I figured to many would make the same claim that are actually far right nuts. To tell the truth they are the ones I expected to post here first. Glad it's you guys.
And again, just to prove that every post Jack directed at me based on the premise I'm a democrat is wrong. I posted this 8 years ago. And it's why I refer to him as Gilligan. He's not too bright. It's the third post in this thread.
Gilligan, I'm falling over laughing again!
You laugh all the time because you're a mindless hyena from The Lion King.
You may have once been independent before TDS rotted your brain.
In 8 years the only anti-Democrat Party stance you've ever actively voiced a negative opinion about is that they needed to take CRT out of schools. That is the ONLY single time you haven't either been in full lock-step with Democrats, or you just turned a blind eye to all the horrible shit they've done to Americans and America.
So if you're really Independent, here's your opportunity to list off all the things that YOU believe the Democrats did wrong that lead to the destruction of their party. Because make no mistake... The Democratic Brand is dead.
I'm all ears...
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Originally posted by Oonjerah:
I'm an actual, registered Democrat.
But I'm not sure what the topic is. Democrats can post in here,
and talk about themselves ... about why they are democrats ...
or what democrats believe in?
My parents were Republicans.
I was an adult in my 40's before I found out I was a democrat.
I didn't really know what the 2 parties stood for, so I asked a
friend who loves politics what I was.
Republicans tend to be conservative. Democrats tend to be liberal.
Can I even say what those words mean? Not very well.
Conservatives stand for law & order. i.e., Authority.
Democrats believe in human rights and equality. i.e., Freedom.
Anarchists believe in every man for himself?
... oooOO}{OOooo ...
Miss ya friend.
T
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