MolochAlter

Ok, I know this will be a bit of a read, but:

Capitalism vs Croney Capitalism

In an ideal scenario, a “free market” is a market that may be regulated but not in such a way that the state uses its institutional powers to play favourites.

Either a good or service can be provided on the market, which means that within the limits of the law any group or individual can provide that service, or the service is banned, meaning it won’t be allowed for anyone to provide.

Depending on who you ask, even simple barriers such as licenses to operate and OSHA guidelines are forms of interference with the free market; the reality is that in practice perfect information does not exist and society at large prefers limiting the ability of the incompetent to do harm accidentally or through negligence, rather than having them punished after the fact.

Croney capitalism is when these barriers are not only present but erected (typically by the government, but it could also be done by other regulatory bodies) in such a way that they deliberately privilege certain preferred entities (the aforementioned cronies) over others.

This, much like redlining was discriminatory to black people despite mentioning them explicitly, does not have to be an explicit bias, it can be as simple as tuning requirements to make them prohibitive to companies not already established in the market to prevent new competition from coming into existence.

The US definitely has a big issue with this at multiple scales.

What is the best solution

I find the best approach to markets is to look at their elasticity.

An example of a highly elastic market could be videogames. Nobody needs videogames to survive, nobody needs a specific videogame to exist, it’s entirely driven by preference and unnecessary voluntary spending, you have full access to the entire market regardless of where you are provided you can pay the price of admission.

Perfect field to build a market around, the client will naturally gravitate to whatever offer they find provides the best value for money, companies will read the signals and adapt, etc.

A highly inelastic market is, for instance, emergency healthcare. Whenever you are in the market for it, you definitionally have an urgent, time sensitive, geographically limited need for the product. You can’t shop around beyond that range and failure to find the product usually means permanent consequences potentially as severe as death.

In that case, a market is a terrible solution to the problem, as markets have no incentive to capillarise at a loss, and want to price their goods and services based on the value to the client, which in this case would be infinite.

A market handling healthcare without a non-profit option competing with it is a recipe for disaster, while flanked by one it becomes extremely beneficial.

Italy and France, 2 of the best healthcare systems in the world in terms of cost per capita and outcomes, are mixed systems where you can go to the state healthcare system for anything and pay a nominal amount (to deter timewasters) or you can get private insurance or pay out of pocket for private alternatives that have to follow the same standards as the public sector at minimum. This helps treating niche conditions or skipping the line on severe common conditions, meaning those who can afford private treatment will lessen the load on the public sector, reducing queues for those who can’t afford it.

In short: The best approach is looking at each market category and making tailored solutions that best fit the kind of good/service being dealt with.

Some markets, like security, are better left in the hands of a few strictly regulated entities, other are better served by a fully free approach (like luxury goods), most important things fall somewhere in the middle, where some state interference/mediation objectively leads to the best outcomes.

Very fair lol

Their games have been reheated bongwater broth for more than a decade now, more predictable than even Sony and far less competent in execution, did you need more reasons?

I mean, I’d bet dollars to donuts Ubisoft would win it handily if it gets to a class action or whatever equivalent.

For one, they’re basically on the verge of falling over so the economic motivation is a no-brainer.

For two, it’s a massive multinational company headquartered in France (a country with stronger labour laws than Canada) with plenty of legal advice available on these matters. I highly doubt they’d do it this blatantly if they were not confident this is an easy sell, instead of waiting something like 6 months to separate the 2 events enough for plausible deniability.

For three, good luck holding a foreign company accountable, in general.

All great mechanic driven games do this to an extent.

I had this with Portal and Minecraft back in the day, it’s just because they’re games that force you to think with their mechanics.

Except ubisoft is hemorrhaging money so it’s an extremely easy sell to say “the studio is not profitable and we’re in dire need to cut waste” and indeed can the lot.

My answer to those is always “i code for money, I don’t code in my free time”

Well, now you are talking much more with a sense.

No, now you no longer assume I am your enemy. The fact that you assumed disagreement with you meant supporting everything you disagree with is indicative of a few things, but then again so was your post.

Still, I believe that mocking right-wingers is one of the most efficient way to counter the right wing propaganda

You’re free to believe that, even if it were true you’re doing a terrible job of this.

“Why are MAGA never geniuses” is not mockery of the right; it’s just sad, ignorant, stupid elitism, and anyone who isn’t even stupider will immediately see it for what it is.

Moreover, to have any effect on the right you should probably not do it on hands down the most left leaning alternative social media, hence why this comes across as masturbatory self-aggrandizing.

The right-wing cheap tricks and vulgar propaganda work, the left-wingers over-intellectualism is lost in a mass of Internet garbage.

See above, also different types of propaganda work on different audiences.

This would not work on the average right-winger because it shows blatant hypocrisy to your own values, offers nothing they value, and confirms their existing opinion of leftists.

Leftists (socialists, communists, etc) are not supposed to believe in natural hierarchies; saying “this inherently superior person (child prodigy) agrees with an ideology that rejects the notion of inherent superiority (socialism)” is fucking moronic, and shows you are essentially just unthinkingly partisan to the point of revealing you don’t actually believe your own principles.

If you did, the fact that someone was considered a child prodigy would not matter to you.

All a right-winger would see when coming across this post is a smarmy, arrogant, not-as-smart-as-they-think, hypocritical left-winger showing their true colors and, despite not being right-wing myself, I would agree.

To add some constructive criticism: Right-wingers already see you/us as the outgroup.

You won’t reach them by mocking them, you might reach them by creating a different outgroup they also despise and leveraging that.

If even Margery Taylor Greene, the most unhinged political figure to come out of the MAGA movement broke rank over the Epstein files redaction and the revelation that Trump is not “on her side,” that seems to be the only effective way to split their political power.

Mock their idols, mock their ideas carefully, don’t mock them.

Nobody would come to the side of people who openly despise them, but they might join you in despising someone else. If you mock a right-winger directly it better be in such a way that 5 others see it and join in.

Bold of you to assume I’m a MAGA supporter and not just someone who finds your argument and attitude distasteful, especially since it makes my own position worse by association with you.

I.e.: you’re acting like a jagoff and making us look worse by conforming to the right’s stereotype of their opposition, and you’re making a terrible point because some random “child prodigy” having an opinion that agrees with you is a shit argument.

Get over yourself.

Honestly the idea itself, as insane and barely disguised a fetish as it is, isn’t even that bad, to me.

It’s the planned aftermath that is pretty horrendous?

The idea that they would need that for their relationship to evolve in a positive direction when they’re already basically a couple by Shindig is genuinely sad, if they wanted that grim a story beat they should probably place it after they’re already an established couple and Mal has gotten over his shit about companions, then there’s some good meat on the bone in terms of character dynamics to explore.

~ Man who never did drugs, 2025

Right, I should’ve said “accidental byproduct of non-consensual experimentation on the population” but yeah, still beyond the pale.

• Given how Serenity turned out, firefly’s cancellation was probably for the best, making the reavers the intentional by-product of alliance experiments completely destroyed the nuances of the factions in the war of independence.

• Inuyasha ran out of ideas 10-15 tankobon in, and Takahashi just kept milking it for the money.

• Every fandom that accepts the “x is for everyone” motto is accepting enshittification and casualization with open arms. Air and water are for everyone, even bread has people who dislike it, for something to be unique it necessarily will have haters. The right word is anyone.

• Archer had a bit of a dip when Adam Reed left the writing team but it recovered and had one of the best endings possible for a series that long lived.

Oh a typo isn’t; self defeating arrogance and lack of self awareness are very funny though.

Not to mention “child genius thinks thing” is also a fucking horrendous argument.

Child prodigies are the epitome of “book smart street stupid”, as expected of someone good at absorbing information but lacking practical experience, so obviously they’ll gravitate to shit that sounds good on paper but consistently fails in practice.

I was a huge Bakunin fan, then i studied, then I started a co-op, and I’m not anywhere close to an anarchist or a marxist anymore.

Oh no for sure, intelligent people make typos all the time too, they can also laugh at themselves, are typically humble, and don’t feel the need to post masturbatory “aren’t I great, aren’t my enemies doodooheads” shit like this, though.

So yeah, funny shit, that.

genises

LMAO misspelling genius while dunking on someone else’s intelligence is just perfect.

Because it does not fit the definition.

It would probably fit reckless endangerment, but murder requires the intent to cause death specifically.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Dallas_ICE_facility_shooting

I dunno where the others are but they better be at the range, cause this guy did the opposite of helping.

Of course it was Santa Ragione.

Met one of the founders years ago, acted like he had discovered the wheel and hot water himself when all he did was come up with Mirrormoon, which while good is anything but the smash hit he was pretending it was, it just happened to be the most successful italian indie game at the time of, like maybe 3 of them?

These guys are pathologically auteur, and from everything I’ve seen of them, think they’re way smarter than they actually are.