Pin The Tail On The Hypocrite

[justsomeantifas]

if a union will destroy your company then your company should be destroyed.

[housetohalf]

Spicy opinion: this includes theatre companies.

[wiccan-lesbionage]

Spicier opinion: this includes non-profits

[hollowboobtheory]

[zizygy]

crying because its so spicy opinion: video game companies too

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

You all must realize that a union who’s mission statement is to get as much money for their workers as possible isn’t the same as employees NEEDING to be paid more.

Like unions these days are no different that a greedy company trying to maximize coorperate profits?

[overpricedvodka]

This would never happen to a white woman.

A Virginia mother who placed a recording device in her 9-year-old daughter’s backpack to help prove to school officials that she was being bullied has been charged by police with a felony.

Local news station WAVY reports that Norfolk resident Sarah Sims grew fed up with her local elementary school’s failure to take action to prevent her daughter from being bullied. To put the school’s feet to the fire, she planted a recorder in her daughter’s backpack to show them direct evidence that she was a victim of a bullying campaign.

However, when the school found the recorder and then moved her daughter to a different classroom.

What surprised her even more, says tells WAVY, is that she was subsequently charged with a felony.Specifically, WAVY says police charged Sims with “use of device to intercept oral communication and misdemeanor contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” which could carry up to five years in prison.

(cont.)

1) Little Black girls are two to five times more likely to be suspended from school that white girls. (https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2017-05-09/black-girls-are-twice-as-likely-to-be-suspended-in-every-state) Claims of bullying are taken less seriously from kids you believe are already problem children. 

2) Black girls are perceived as older and less innocent than white girls and that disparity in perception begins as early as five years old. (http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/28/health/black-girls-adultification-racial-bias-study/index.html) So your Black daughter should be able to take care of herself better than her white counterparts if she’s indeed being bullied. 

3) Black people are assumed to be less trustworthy than white people. (http://www.pnas.org/content/108/19/7710.full) Therefore, a white child who reports bullying is more likely to be taken at their word. The same is true for the parents who report bullying to the school. 

4) Black people are more likely to be punished and more severely. (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/17/opinion/sunday/unequal-sentences-for-blacks-and-whites.html) At every level of the criminal justice system, there’s a disparity between white consequences and Black consequences and in any given situation, there’s a higher probability of someone seeking legal recourse against a Black person than a white one. 

5) White women get to be protected and coddled and Black women do not. I don’t need a link for that because we all have eyes and ears.

[babydontlikeitt]

UPDATE: THE CHARGES HAVE BEEN DROPPED!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/11/29/mom-recording-device-felony-dropped/907092001/

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

“Amanda Howie, spokeswoman for the attorney's office, told CNN that the office decided against prosecuting the case despite having evidence to support the charges.”

Huh, it’s almost like the exact opposite of the original post and all its links said. Where instead of being an example of an unfair justice system punishing black people without evidence, this is an example of a law being broken and DESPITE THAT EVIDENCE no charges being filed.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the laws about recording conversations and I think the mom was acting in her child’s best interests and I’m glad the charges were dropped. But that being said, this just doesn’t demonstrait half the linked examples the original post claims, and it’s actually a really specific counter example to many of them.

And as far as the schools being shitty about the bullying? I’m less certain it’s a race thing and believe it’s more to do with different treatment of good/bad students. It’s very common that if a well behaved student has a problem the school, for some reason, tends to believe the trouble makers more often. (Personally I think it’s because the trouble makers interact more often with the person in athourity and form a relationship with them, where the good student is basically a stranger)

[captainsnoop-deactivated2020041]

i have to say one of the best things i’ve seen come out of this battlefront 2 fiasco is an infographic being spread around facebook that specifically targeted “facebook mom moral outrage” trashing the game

like it said “like and share if you think DISNEY should be ASHAMED for putting GAMBLING in a STAR WARS KIDS GAME”

and the infographic was like, way too well done to be something that a facebook mom actually made, but facebook moms were still sharing it and getting outraged

like, if it weren’t for a good cause, i would use the word “insidious” to describe how clever every aspect of the infographic was. specifically targeting facebook moms, framing lootcrates as gambling in terms that facebook moms could understand, and blaming Disney instead of EA. it was absolutely perfect.

you all heard, right? that evidently the head of EA Games received a very angry phonecall from disney’s head of marketing? and the next day EA completely removed the microtransactions from battlefront? i imagine that happened because that facebook mom infographic wound up on the desk of someone at Disney. 

people found a demographic that would spread the outrage quickly and efficiently, shifted the blame to someone that actually cares about their public image, and it got shit done. that shit’s downright nasty. 

[foxfondue]

Here’s the infographic, or one of them at least

[captainsnoop-deactivated2020041]

yeah, this is the exact infographic! now you all can see what i mean! 

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

To be fair, Disney has good reason to try to shut this down and people have good reason to call Disney out for this problem. In an episode of StarWars Rebles, that 3D animated cartoon aimed at younger kids, they basically framed the entire conflict of the episode around how gambling is bad.

StarWars, as a Disney property, has previously made it publicly clear that it is against gambling.

Regardelss of how you feel about the loot crates, by letting this game vary the StarWars label it has betrayed those “Facebook moms” who have children who watch Disney shows like rebels.

This isn’t an example of people targeting the weakest most easily convinced demographic, they targeted moms specifically because they and their children are the ones this damages the most.

[whatareyoureallyafraidof]

[feminismandmedia]

Advances in medicine only help if people have access to them.

[latining]

There’s an HIV epidemic in Saskatchewan and part of the cause is people not being able to afford or access retrovirals.

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

I feel for these people, i really do. And I want to solve the problem, but no one talks about how to realistically do it. Like you can say “they need to have access to healthcare” and I agree, but saying that doesn’t make it so. Someone needs to make a real plan that takes into acount the real world.

So if you care deeply about this kind of problem get education on economics. Invest your time into learning how to build a balanced budget for a state or country and figure out how much resources we have available and how to use them in an efficient way, because medicine isn’t free, it’s going to cost someone something.

If you want to solve this problem we have then start to research ways to automate the processes that produce resources and value, invest your time into producing stronger and better artificial intelegence and machienery so that we can repurpose the money and value spent on human labor and give it instead to the people who need it.

If you want to see a future where we have a minimum income no matter your position or employment situation work to develop new technologies to make more efficient power so that we can use that new cheap effficient power to run the new automated jobs for fractions of what it used to cost.

This problem we all empathize with just isn’t going to be solved by pointing out that it shouldn’t be the case. The reality is that no process or material or product is created without investing resources into it. The only way to solve that problem is to find a way to balance the worlds checkbook with what we have available, or find new means to make new value that we can spend on human rights and health.

If you don’t have a desire to work toward those three things, then you aren’t actually helping the problem. Just pointing it out isn’t enough. Tons of people do that every day effectively “for free.” Speech is the cheapest resource we have, and it only counts for so much.

[apricops]

hey writers if you want to make a metaphor for racism, please maybe remember that racism is literally based on nothing. Africans weren’t enslaved en masse because the Robo-Musa threatened to destroy the world, they were enslaved because it was economically rewarding and politically convenient. If at any point your allegory for racism includes “so <oppressed group> did this major catastrophe and” then you have not only missed the point but you are literally reinforcing the ideas that racism have let racism self-perpetuate (that e.g. black people are naturally dangerous and violent and must be contained or begrudgingly accepted by the Nice White People)

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

Isn’t that the whole point though? Like if the fictional history reads as “oppressed group did this significant thing, then racism” is that not EXACTLY what would happen if, true to life, there were false narratives that the oppressed group is naturally violent and troublesome and all that? Like if that’s what a REAL person or REAL history would try and tell you is true, then wouldn’t you expect the fictional analogy to do the same?

(OBVIOSULY you could ask the author if it’s true or not but in some cases it might be subtle)

[hymnsofheresy]

american nationalism is its own religion.

[hymnsofheresy]

the constitution is comparable to the Bible. read as if it was written by God, and is oftentimes considered indisputable 

the flag is an idol in which people literally pledge their allegiance to

patriotic anthems = hymns

the military itself is a treated like a priest class; the “laypeople” are expected to display the utmost respect for their pure existence.

indoctrination of children

displays of patriotism determines how “faithful” the individual is

presence of nationalism at different events (such as sports games, festivals, schools etc…) eerily resembles a theocracy

when someone chooses not to partake in a patriotic ritual, they are considered a heretic

[rainandpathos]

SAY THIS AGAIN FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK

[benevolent-falcon]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

Just need to clarify first: just because a concept or belief is held by these people doesn’t mean it’s bad, this isn’t a reason to double down on communism, don’t jump the gun.

But yeah, this is pretty real, some patriots are definitely patriots for the sake of being patriotic, it’s rediculus.

[once-a-polecat]

Note to Millennials from GenX:

So you know those news stories about how Millennials don’t buy enough breakfast cereal or paperback books or homes or whatever the hell that Boomers are complaining that “kids these days” don’t spend money on?  And y’all are like “LOL, no cash my pal”?  

I think there’s something more insidious going on.  You see, they thought they had you.  Forget the Saturday morning cartoons of my childhood, they had Disney Channel and Nickelodeon feeding you ads all day long.  Your generation got advertising in your schools.  Your parents took you to prosperity doctrine spewing MegaChurches (it’s Mega so it’s gotta impress the kids, right?).  

They thought you were going to be their generation of super-consumers.  

You are generations distant from the great depression, and the 1979 energy crisis.  Boomers want to pretend that the 2008 housing bubble wouldn’t affect the little kids.  And plus, we had grown past the era of Yankee thrift and hippie DIY frugality.  Right?  And there was no mopey Kurt Cobain glamorizing thrift-store flannel shirts.  You guys were going to out-consume the Boomer generation.  They were sure of it.

Those think pieces?  They’re Boomer disappointment that you have found value in something other than your place as a mindless consumer.

And yeah, I’m not going to pretend that y’all have more cash than you do.  It was fucking idiotic to think they were going to raise a consumer generation without having to pay them the money they would need to buy even life’s necessities.  And I could write a book about how my generation was complicit in destroying the old values around work and loyalty that left your generation screwed.  Really, I’m genuinely sorry for the mistakes we made.

But you guys have given a big middle finger to the generation who thought that they could manipulate you from birth into manipulable-money-spending-machines.  And I’m way fucking proud of you for that.    

[saqriphrx]

always reblog the post about how millenials fucking killed capitalism

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

We didn’t “kill capitalism” we just control a large enough share of the economy to force change in the way other capitalists are able to use the system.

It’s called the invisible hand.

It’s why unions work.

It’s why capitalism works.

[reverseracism]

Without Neo-Nazis, Antifa wouldn’t be a topic of discussion. Without Antifa, there’d be a lot more bold ass Neo-Nazis out there.

Cant remember where I saw this articulated but Antifa isn’t and will never be as bad as Nazis.

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

Hate to break it to you, but antifa started getting violent at prostests YEARS before the neo-nazis joined together and started marching themselves.

Look up the history of Germany BEFORE the nazi party took over. The nazis were able to take power because they recruited people who didn’t agree with the radical violent socialist movement that had already been growing.

History shows that neo-nazis and radical right wing groups form IN RESPONSE TO radical left wing groups.

[reverseracism]

Article Link: http://www.okayplayer.com/culture/slaves-daughter-helped-obama-open-african-american-history-museum-dies-100.html

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

It’s far enough away that they don’t exist anymore. But I guess that’s not far enough away for you is it.

[pyreo]

You grow up and you realise A Bug’s Life was the revolutionary Leftist masterpiece of our childhoods

[pyreo]

I’m not even slightly kidding

Ants are the workforce doing the labour needed to survive, and they have to do it twice over to provide for both themselves and for a group of parasites who do nothing but consume the labour of others

The ants work themselves near to death trying to stay afloat

The grasshoppers don’t even need any food. They have tons to spare but still insist on taking the food the ants worked for because they ‘deserve’ it, despite actually contributing nothing of value. The only reason this works is by threatening ants with force and degrading them so they feel weak and worthless, and insisting that the grasshoppers deserve a cut for some vague service they claim to provide to society

In reality Hopper is desperate to stop the ants from thinking for themselves, keeping them ignorant of the fact that he has subjugated ants through threats of power while the ants actually overpower the grasshoppers through sheer numbers.

And should the ants ever realise that the grasshoppers take from them while providing nothing and that revolution is possible, the class system they’ve installed will be finished.

tl;dr feed the 1% to birds

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

This allegory can be applied identically to “The 1%” AND Communism AND any other system with any kind of power structure where someone at the top has abused it OR where the people at the bottom have ALLOWED it to happen. This isn’t Left vs Right by any stretch, this lesson can be applied to capitalism, socialism, communism, fascism, literally any of it. This story is a fundamental description of WHY CAPITALISM IS GOOD, because (as this movie points out at the end) the 1% only get away with it if most of the ants don’t realize they have a responsibility to help maintain balance by NOT ENABLING SHIT COMPANIES. You could take this movie to be anti-capitalist and pro-socialist, but I see it as something slightly different. Idk if it’s pro-socialist but it's not anti-capitalist. It’s pro-union. The reality is that in dictatorial communist states you see the same power disparities as in capitalist countries with greedy corporate power structures. the powerful few control the weak and poor rest of society. Whether it's google or Stalin, it doesn't really matter, the power struggle is there. The difference is the reason the power disparity is there. In most socialist/communist systems where this power struggle pops up, it is because a leader has consolidated military power against the public and formed a police state. (Sound familiar? It should because Hopper uses violence to subdue the ants.) In the case of capitalist systems that end up with this class system, it is more often than not because the public has grown content and complacent. Google is slowly starting to manipulate people but not because it owns a private army, it isn’t harassing you into giving it your money or time or information. It provides a service that it has convinced you that you want or NEED and that you can’t get anywhere else. Google knows that its consumers are important and you’d bet your ass google or any other company you may not like would make some changes FAST if all of its consumers just stopped giving it money. The point I'm making is that if anything, this movie is indifferent to capitalism or #The1Percent and it is actually about militant dictatorships (which, spoiler alert, often rise from socialist states. Not always, but often.) and not only that, but when you consider the differences in the two systems, this shows why capitalism may be a better system. The ants are lucky that Pixar let them off the hook without a real fight because in the real world hopper wouldn’t just up and leave like he did. He’d bomb them into submission like countries have done before. tl;dr If you don’t like the 1% just don’t pay them. Starting a socialist state might make you worse off in the end.

[weavemama]

i love how trump and other whites think they’re delivering a gotcha moment by saying “if robert e. lee is so bad then should we tear down statue of george washington too?????? and of thomas jefferson????”……..,, like yes??????? we don’t like any of those mfs?????? we don’t claim any of those mfs????? tear it all down the founding fathers are trash 

[extantserendipity-deactivated20]

That’s what I was thinking when they said that. That’s literally recognizing that this country was created on the genocide and enslavement of minorities… that’s why I can’t denounce someone not signing the national anthem, or outing their hand on their heart or whatever else…

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

The supposed gotcha moment isn’t them “well is George Washington next??” And expecting you to say no.

The Gotcha moment is because they KNOW YOU WILL SAY YES. It’s important to keep history present and it’s important to not define people by the single worst thing they have ever done.

Just for fun go ahead and google Germany’s history right before the war and right before the creation of the nazi party. You might be surprised how similar if not IDENTICAL that period was compared to antifa and the neo-nazis today.

And once you e done that realize that maybe if people had been taught the WHOLE story it wouldn’t be happening again. Think about that the next time you want to get rid of something that symbolizes a historical event you don’t like. I don’t like it either, but I fucking want people to remember it because that’s the only way it doesn’t happen again.

Keep the statues.

[reverseracism]

BLM did not kill anyone in Dallas

Combat that lie that’s being spread around to deflect from nazism festering in the US.

The event was created by the community, the law enforcement and the organization itself. That’s always left out of the narrative when the “alt-light” and their neo-nazi counterparts mention the incident.

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

While it is true that BLM was not involved with the shooting and does not endorse the shooting that DOESN’T negate the fact that several other known hate groups WERE involved in his motivations. BLM may not have been one of them but these black separatist/black nationalist/black supremacist/anti-white groups DO exist and they are just as despicable and deplorable as the KKK, neo-nazis, and other white supremacist groups.

No one is deflecting attention away from the nazis any more than this post is deflecting attention away groups like the new black panther party or Nation of Islam or Black Riders Liberation Army. Don’t act like this is a one sided problem. Don’t act like just because YOU aren’t a racial supremacist and YOU happen to be left of center that everyone ELSE who is left of center as well are also saints. Just like how people who lean right and happen to be white aren’t fucking nazis JUST BECAUSE there are OTHER ACTUAL nazis who lean far far right.

I think it’s important to get the facts straight but I think it’s dishonest to be so hypocritical when you do it. Denounce extremists on both sides. It shouldn’t be hard.

[tonkatsu-slice]

Commies keep clinging on the same case of Orlando Figueroa to back up their point but don’t care about the hundreds probably thousands of people who have died as concequence of all the cuts and changes in Venezuela in the last few years. People don’t have food, hygienic products, or clean water. Basic services like roads, hospitals and sewer are pretty much in shambles and unusable.

They don’t even have means of production either because of the devaluation and hyperinflation of their money, dying telecoms, shortages, and all the walls the government has put in place to prevent people from substaining themselves.

If it’s true that Orlando Figueroa approached protesters to scream about Chavism (because that’s what the Venezuelan government claims, they are now using this guy as flag) that was basically poking wasps. If someone comes to scream at people in support of a regime that has killed their friends and family, just how many would have reacted the same? He wasn’t attacked just for fun or for being black. Just shows how Americentric you are if you think it’s anti-blackness when racism and discrimination in Latinamerica is a lot more complicated than that.

Because let’s ignore witnesses who claim that he was lynched for being a thieve. Lynching of criminals in Venezuela are common as people people grow tired of the lack of action from government officials, but nobody cared until the guy happened to be black so now he can be paraded around as a token and “proof” the opposition is racist.

Ironically this is the same people who complain about the deaths as concequence of Capitalism. I wouldn’t believe them if they claim they have never celebrated violence against an oppositor.

But hey, I’m just a Mexican who grew up in Yucatan. You know, the first place Cubans come risking their lives in inflatable boats just to tell everyone how amazing they had it back in Cuba, some who were my own teachers. We are also full of Chinese and in recent years there’s an increase of Venezuelans for the same reasons.

Don’t strawman me saying “durr hurr stupid brainwashed Capitalist”. Neither Capitalism, Socialism or Communism work in their pure forms. Mexico and many countries in Latinamerica are a result of a combination of Capitalism and Socialism ideals, we have health care and other government services (that are far from perfect thanks to corruption, but they are an available option). Yucatan owes a lot to Felipe Carrillo Puerto and the Partido Socialista del Sureste. So fuck off with your strawmanning bullshit somewhere else.

Rather than following some enlightened American Communist Chinese Revolutionary Marxism Stalin 12 year old with a Che and Castro blog on the internet whose first reaction to anything that happens in Latinamerica is “mmmm how can I make this about the US and Capitalism?” when we have a long story of corruption and dictatorships and overall shitty politicians all internally you could actually sit and listen what the people who have escaped and survived have to say.

[eaudebla]

The reason why people attack the capitalist system that has defined the US, is because they refuse to acknowledge the problems the system created.

It’s this “it’s the best we have, so we just have to settle for it” mentality that really grinds my shit. I mean, yeah capitalism really is GREAT, no question about it.

But how can we make it even better so that more of us can benefit from such a system? And there lies the problem. The ones who are so blinded by Adam Smith’s ideas  won’t even have the audacity to admit that the system they admire so much has a myriad of problems. They’ll just call you a cultural Marxist or whatever buzzword they saw on 4chan.

At this point, no one I know today actually advocate for 100% communism as proposed by Karl Marx. Marx himself knew his idea wasn’t perfect Who did? It was a trial and error process

But you have to realise this, without the communist movement,  stuff like unions and other welfare plans that keep people alive wouldn’t exist. Things have gotten better for workers worldwide, and it certainly wasn’t because of charitable corporations. The people rose up, rebelled against the status quo and demanded their rights. 

Die hard communists and capitalists showed us that the answer to many of the problems nations face today, isn’t one or the other, it’s a bit of both. 

I want to live in a society that rewards hard work, but also one that doesn’t leave struggling individuals in the mud. I personally believe this is is the golden standard that any human society should aim for.

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

I understand what you say about wanting “to live in a society that rewards hard work, but also one that doesn’t leave struggling individuals in the mud.” but I think you should ask: How can you reward hard work if you are unwilling to also “reward” poor work?

I suspect this is an “Equality of Outcome” vs “Equality of Opportunity” conflict.

I would rather aim for a structure where everyone has an equivalent starting position and has access to equivalent tools to use, but beyond that people who are struggling don’t need to be given extra help just because they did not work as hard with those equal resources.

This is effectively the foundation of capitalism. The only reason it's not working as intended is that we pass on value to our descendants who get to benefit from the work our parents did. I don’t know how to solve this problem short of confiscating the estate of anyone who reaches retirement age (assuming they don’t just “gift” it to their descendants before then?) or by taking newborns from their parents and raising them away from their families on equal footing with each other (which will have problems for the same reason that not every public school provides identical quality learning)

Not exactly elegant solutions.

If you have some moderate solutions inspired by other systems I’m interested to hear them, but until then capitalism does kinda seem to be the best we have right now.

[did-you-know]

In Finland, speeding tickets are calculated based on your income - causing some Finnish millionaires to pay fines of over $100,000. Source

[redbloodedamerica]

This is what “equality” looks like in that liberal fairy tale land of Finland.  They punish you proportionately to how successful you are.  Sounds really “fair.”

[tsukishima-tadashi]

Except… it is fair? Because it’s proportionate. I don’t get what’s difficult about that. An impoverished person paying $400 dollar fine isn’t the same as a millionaire paying the same amount. For the poor person, $400 dollars could mean starving. Would you really claim it would have the same consequence for a rich man? Would it even be noticeable to him, while the absence of food in their stomach would be glaring to a poorer man? Would it be fair for a man to starve for the same crime as a man that would be having a three course meal?

By taking income into account, it allows the impoverished able to still survive while paying any fines they may incur. And, ultimately, while $100,000 dollars would be noticeable to a millionaire, they would still get by. And, assuming the law is properly implemented, they would be paying the same equivalent of their yearly income that a poorer person would. That’s what makes it fair. They would be impacted the same way - but you are looking at the amount rather than the equation.

Also, it’s important to make sure that even the rich would pause at the cost of a fine. They need to fear the law just as a poor man does. 

[reproductivejusticeandliberty]

Oh no… rich people facing fines that might actually make them consider not doing illegal things because the punishments might actually hurt them… how unfair… -V

[lewmzi]

Finnish person here. Our speeding ticket system owns and only people who bitch about them are people who wanna break the laws - the loudest whiners are the rich people who think they can just pay their way out of trouble and that’s why we have laws like that.

[thespectacularspider-girl]

400 dollar ticket.

Person making 10 dollars an hour: “Fuck, I better slow down”

Millionaire driving a Jaguar: “LOL 400 DOLLARS, FUCK THAT, NYOOM”

Compared to a proportional ticket.

Person making 10 dollars an hour and must pay 400 dollar ticket: “Fuck, I better slow down.”

Millionaire who must pay 100,000 dollar ticket: “Fuck, I better slow down.”

[futureevilscientist]

Like wtf. Some people have been so brainwashed by capitalism and worship of the rich that they literally can’t tell the difference between fairness and unfairness anymore.

It IS fair. The fact that it flies in the status quo so much should make you think about that status quo.

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

While I think this system is a good idea because the goal isn’t to take dollars from the driver, it’s to apply a negative association with dangerous behavior, so the dollar amount literally doesn’t matter, the goal is to make both people feel the same effect of the punishment. So I’m all for this system I think.

BUT, that being said, I’m not sure it’s “fair” and this is why:

If it’s fair to charge people money based on income then why does a sandwich at subway cost 6 dollars no matter who you are. By this logic wouldn’t it be more FAIR if the man who makes 5 times more than his neighbor would have to pay $30 for the same sandwich?

What about education? Should a two people going to the same college have to pay the same amount of money for the same classes? Or should the richer kid have to pay more just because his parents happen to make a lot of money?

Like where is the line here. If you make this argument for tickets it seems like it should apply to all things. But then two things happen, first of all you can no longer value money because the same products are worth more or less bills based on who buys them, and if everything costs a percentage of your income no one would bother striving for higher income jobs. Hell if it were me I’d not work at all. If my income is zero then a speeding ticket and a sandwich are both still zero right? Lol

This system is only fair if the millionaire and the hourly Walmart associate are investing the same into their lives and working exactly as hard as each other. If that were true and the millionaire had an UNfairly high income then yes, this speeding ticket system would be fair. But it would be more productive and more “fair” across the board to fix the income, rather than the tickets, since the subway sandwiches still cost 6 dollars at the end of the day once you’ve paid your speeding ticket.

[eaudebla]

You make a very valid point, but I think the comparison between buying a sandwich or an education course to a speeding ticket aren’t the same.

One’s providing a product or service while the other is supposed to be a punitive measure.

People who earn more money gives them the right to get better things in life, not to be above the law.

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

I agree that they are different but some people in this thread are actually arguing about different things.

Like I said, "this system is a good idea because the goal isn’t to take dollars from the driver, it’s to apply a negative association with dangerous behavior, so the dollar amount literally doesn’t matter, the goal is to make both people feel the same effect of the punishment.“

But that being said, there are people in this thread saying things like this: “Like wtf. Some people have been so brainwashed by capitalism and worship of the rich that they literally can’t tell the difference between fairness and unfairness anymore.“

“Brainwashed by Capitalism.”

If you start thinking about this as an example of why capitalism as a system is wrong these are the troubles you run into.

So you absolutely are right, a speeding ticket and a sandwich are not the same and shouldn’t be compared because one is a function of a capitalist economy and the other is a function of negative reinforcement and safety. One is done correctly based on the value of a product and the other is often done incorrectly under the assumption that negative reinforcement can simply be assigned a dollar value.

[black-to-the-bones-deactivated2]

This is what you , a white person, can do to enlighten those who are ignorant.

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

I don’t know a lot about this show, this is the first I’ve heard of it, but unless this show is gonna be like “hey look, this is what it would be like if the confederacy won, WOULSNT THIS HAVE BEEN GREAT?? LOOK AT WHAT WE ARE MISSING OUT ON!!!” I don’t see how this is gonna be negative. Like I know the movie industry is probably the worst industry when it comes to racial issues but THAT seems unthinkable. And if it’s NOT that the only other thing it could be is to put it in the negative light it should be seen in and maybe get people to realize. It only that it’s bad but also that it’s not even that far away, like it hasn’t even been that long.

I’m just saying, I’ve seen people try and say that media like this shouldn’t be made and then in response people of color come back and say no, you can’t bury this, you guys did this you can’t ignore it, don’t act like it didn’t happen, pay for what your ancestors did.

So how exactly is this supposed to be treated? Seems to me like we aren’t aloud to talk about it but we also aren’t aloud to NOT talk about it. Idk, just seems kinda shitty.

[did-you-know]

In Finland, speeding tickets are calculated based on your income - causing some Finnish millionaires to pay fines of over $100,000. Source

[redbloodedamerica]

This is what “equality” looks like in that liberal fairy tale land of Finland.  They punish you proportionately to how successful you are.  Sounds really “fair.”

[tsukishima-tadashi]

Except… it is fair? Because it’s proportionate. I don’t get what’s difficult about that. An impoverished person paying $400 dollar fine isn’t the same as a millionaire paying the same amount. For the poor person, $400 dollars could mean starving. Would you really claim it would have the same consequence for a rich man? Would it even be noticeable to him, while the absence of food in their stomach would be glaring to a poorer man? Would it be fair for a man to starve for the same crime as a man that would be having a three course meal?

By taking income into account, it allows the impoverished able to still survive while paying any fines they may incur. And, ultimately, while $100,000 dollars would be noticeable to a millionaire, they would still get by. And, assuming the law is properly implemented, they would be paying the same equivalent of their yearly income that a poorer person would. That’s what makes it fair. They would be impacted the same way - but you are looking at the amount rather than the equation.

Also, it’s important to make sure that even the rich would pause at the cost of a fine. They need to fear the law just as a poor man does. 

[reproductivejusticeandliberty]

Oh no… rich people facing fines that might actually make them consider not doing illegal things because the punishments might actually hurt them… how unfair… -V

[lewmzi]

Finnish person here. Our speeding ticket system owns and only people who bitch about them are people who wanna break the laws - the loudest whiners are the rich people who think they can just pay their way out of trouble and that’s why we have laws like that.

[thespectacularspider-girl]

400 dollar ticket.

Person making 10 dollars an hour: “Fuck, I better slow down”

Millionaire driving a Jaguar: “LOL 400 DOLLARS, FUCK THAT, NYOOM”

Compared to a proportional ticket.

Person making 10 dollars an hour and must pay 400 dollar ticket: “Fuck, I better slow down.”

Millionaire who must pay 100,000 dollar ticket: “Fuck, I better slow down.”

[futureevilscientist]

Like wtf. Some people have been so brainwashed by capitalism and worship of the rich that they literally can’t tell the difference between fairness and unfairness anymore.

It IS fair. The fact that it flies in the status quo so much should make you think about that status quo.

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

While I think this system is a good idea because the goal isn’t to take dollars from the driver, it’s to apply a negative association with dangerous behavior, so the dollar amount literally doesn’t matter, the goal is to make both people feel the same effect of the punishment. So I’m all for this system I think.

BUT, that being said, I’m not sure it’s “fair” and this is why:

If it’s fair to charge people money based on income then why does a sandwich at subway cost 6 dollars no matter who you are. By this logic wouldn’t it be more FAIR if the man who makes 5 times more than his neighbor would have to pay $30 for the same sandwich?

What about education? Should a two people going to the same college have to pay the same amount of money for the same classes? Or should the richer kid have to pay more just because his parents happen to make a lot of money?

Like where is the line here. If you make this argument for tickets it seems like it should apply to all things. But then two things happen, first of all you can no longer value money because the same products are worth more or less bills based on who buys them, and if everything costs a percentage of your income no one would bother striving for higher income jobs. Hell if it were me I’d not work at all. If my income is zero then a speeding ticket and a sandwich are both still zero right? Lol

This system is only fair if the millionaire and the hourly Walmart associate are investing the same into their lives and working exactly as hard as each other. If that were true and the millionaire had an UNfairly high income then yes, this speeding ticket system would be fair. But it would be more productive and more “fair” across the board to fix the income, rather than the tickets, since the subway sandwiches still cost 6 dollars at the end of the day once you’ve paid your speeding ticket.

[pinthetailonthehypocrite]

Summer temperatures have shifted toward more extreme heat over the past several decades.

Articles like this really bother me. Not because it's about global warming, I’m not gonna sit here and write a big post about how global warming is a hoax and its all a big conspiracy, not even for a second. It’s because this article contains NO TEMPERATURE NUMBERS.

It’s nothing but a chart (admittedly a nice one) that is labeled “cold” “normal” and “hot.”

What exactly does that even mean? How many degrees are we talking? One? Three? 15? .25? These numbers make a difference! I mean sure, you could guess at the amount this chart drifts based on how much it FEELS like things are getting hotter, since the article even says “hey, you're right, it IS getting hotter.”

This is dangerous because instead of putting actual data in people’s hands it reinforces their own assumptions WITHOUT EVEN CHECKING WHAT THOSE ASSUMPTIONS ARE.

So at the very bottom of this article it links to a paper this “data” comes from, and for once it's not behind a pay wall which is nice, but I think it’s important to share what the actual numbers are. (spoiler, there's not much)

The only actual number stated in DEGREES about change was this: “The hot tail of the temperature anomaly distribution shifted by more than +1σ in response to the global warming of about 0.5 °C over the past three decades.“

That graph that shows such a significant change in average temperature ACTUALLY only represents half a degree Celcius. That's .9 of a degree Farenheight. That’s not nothing I guess but it's not what this article made it seem like.

Here’s another important quote from the paper: “Temperature anomalies are “noisy” for the United States because of the small area of the contiguous 48 states (less than 1.6% of the globe), yet we can discern that the long-term trend toward hot summers is not as pronounced in the United States as it is for hemispheric land as a whole. Indeed, the extreme summer heat of the 1930s, especially 1934 and 1936, is comparable to the United States temperature in the most extreme recent years.“

Yep, if you live in America this graph applies even less than you’d think lol.

Now to be fair, this exaggerated graph does show some interesting changes in the range of temperatures and they do cover that in the paper, but my beef here isn’t with the research, it's with news sites like nytime.com. An educated public should be the goal. I won’t stand by while people either talk down to the general public like they need to be spoon fed information or like they are trying to hide something from their viewers. Both options are unacceptable.

Tl;Dr I hope everyone fact checks things they see before just accepting stuff.

And just to be clear, I’m not saying I don’t believe in global warming, just that I would like to see more data. I think that's a fair thing to ask for.