this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
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the_dunk_tank

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It's the dunk tank.

This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.

Rule 1: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.

Rule 2: If your source is a reactionary website, please use archive.is instead of linking directly.

Rule 3: No sectarianism.

Rule 4: TERF/SWERFs Not Welcome

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Rule 6: Do not post fellow hexbears.

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Rule 8: The subject of a post cannot be low hanging fruit, that is comments/posts made by a private person that have low amount of upvotes/likes/views. Comments/Posts made on other instances that are accessible from hexbear are an exception to this. Posts that do not meet this requirement can be posted to !shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml

Rule 9: if you post ironic rage bait im going to make a personal visit to your house to make sure you never make this mistake again

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[–] kristina@hexbear.net 94 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Priest of capitalism has a take on reality

[–] borlax@hexbear.net 51 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Holy shit, I have never heard an economist referred to like that. Very apt.

[–] culpritus@hexbear.net 32 points 11 months ago

If you want to deep dive of capitalist occult analysis: https://ianwrightsite.wordpress.com/

[–] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 28 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Oh man you never heard any of my rants about capitalism as cosmic horror, economists and bourgeoisie and all their followers being priests and acolytes to capital. A death cult devoted to a machine god that is actively consuming their followers, and all life on earth, their own included.

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[–] 7bicycles@hexbear.net 88 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Really feeling the "high priests of capitalism" on this one

[–] Ram_The_Manparts@hexbear.net 44 points 11 months ago

Biblically accurate economists

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[–] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 81 points 11 months ago

"For some reason people who study human society almost invariably develop empathy for others instead of worshiping the almighty Economy like any sensible person should. This is clearly the fault of those evil commies."

[–] Ram_The_Manparts@hexbear.net 78 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (5 children)

Ok, so this guy's account history is fucking amazing, just look at this absolute banger:

Orthodox economic practices have existed for millennia, but the concept of "capitalism" was invented in the 1840s by the same people who claimed to have invented a viable alternative.

Think of it like the word "cisgender" that was invented by people advocating something abnormal, without wanting to acknowledge that the alternative is the norm.

galaxy-brain

[–] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 40 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Millenia? Really? This guy just thinks capitalism is the exchange of goods

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[–] PaulSmackage@hexbear.net 40 points 11 months ago (1 children)

"Why do so many Russians grow their own food?"

Also, half of his posts seem to be about anti-semitism, but then he asks if people in Russia have conspiracy theories specifically about Jews, so i'm thinking projection

[–] Ram_The_Manparts@hexbear.net 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You need to understand that everything bad that has ever happened was because of Russia

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[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 24 points 11 months ago

Orthodox economic practices have existed for millennia

Like what, hunting-gathering and primitive communism? Considering humanity exist for hundreds of millenias, and thousands if you include pre-humans, it's hard to find more orthodox economic practice.

[–] davel@hexbear.net 22 points 11 months ago

Never go full Dunning–Kruger.

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[–] FuckyWucky@hexbear.net 76 points 11 months ago (2 children)

yea classical econ is clearly not pseudoscience with recessions happening every couple of years

[–] Egon@hexbear.net 60 points 11 months ago

Economists have successfully predicted 9 out of the last 5 recessions

[–] DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml 43 points 11 months ago

Hey! It takes years to learn to predict recessions via the flight of birds and analysing animal entrails! It's complicated stuff, you would never be able to comprehend it! You should be thanking the economists!

[–] Self_Hating_Moid@hexbear.net 67 points 11 months ago (2 children)

econ major

So a dumbass, then?

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[–] oregoncom@hexbear.net 60 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Half of all economics experiments can not be replicated. If you go to their forums like ejmr you will realize these people are the dumbest dipshits alive. Even they themselves don't believe the bullshit they're peddling.

[–] TheCaconym@hexbear.net 51 points 11 months ago (2 children)

If you go to their forums like ejmr

I went and checked this place out quickly and in roughly two minutes I managed to come across antisemitism, racism, support for genocide, and some sort of fake university grifters. Amazing.

[–] DragonBallZinn@hexbear.net 34 points 11 months ago (1 children)

A community full of money-grubbing gluttons that think ethics are for the weak and regularly plot how to sucker people into doing hard work for them, pay them nothing, so they never have to lift a finger in their lives.

Also thinks that all the environmental damage is worth it to respect 'property rights'

"Hey everyone, I just came up with a joke about how da jooz are greedy penny-pinchers!"

Do anglos not realize that they embody almost every antisemitic stereotype out there? /Pol/ is nothing but mental masturbation about how white people will dominate the earth just because they can.

[–] RollaD20@hexbear.net 25 points 11 months ago

Do anglos not realize that they embody almost every antisemitic stereotype out there?

Hilarious how even this is something Marx wrote about in 1844

[–] IzyaKatzmann@hexbear.net 23 points 11 months ago

It was so much worse than I imagined

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[–] DragonBallZinn@hexbear.net 57 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Reddit moment.

The right "fucking loves economics" the same way they say we "fucking love science".

[–] star_wraith@hexbear.net 54 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

They love it because even though neoclassical economics was discredited nearly a century ago during the Great Depression, it still lives on as conservatives’ understanding of what “economics” is. But all they do is argue from pseudo-psychological first principles like “people are always selfish” or “people always maximize their utility” and try and construct an entire reductive science around that, wholly unconstrained by empirical evidence. And that science conveniently fits in with their conservative political ideas like “giving poor people money will only be wasted”.

Meanwhile Marxian economics is the opposite. The idea isn’t to create “first principles” and try and determine everything from that. It’s overdeterministic. The point isn’t to be able to explain every aspect of the economy like why a basketball autographed by an NBA star is worth more a normal basketball when the socially necessary labor time of both is the same (we actually can, but that’s beside the point). Marxian economics tries to explain the broader trends like commodity production but is flexible enough and open to there being exceptions to the rules.

If you are involved with a real science like physics, you will understand why the first (conservative neoclassical economics) is not a science and the second (Marxian economics) is.

[–] davel@hexbear.net 32 points 11 months ago (1 children)

neoclassical economics was discredited nearly a century ago during the Great Depression

And they’ve replaced it with neoliberal economics, which is even wronger.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 23 points 11 months ago

Marx wrote in Capital that basically entire classical economy since John Stuart Mill junior was reactionary intellectual masturbation focused on denying the LTV. And fast forward 150 years and it's exactly right, pre-Marx proponents of LTV are almost entirely forgotten and Marx is painted as literal Satan and anathema to all that is good and proper in economy, because they weren't able to silence his writings.

[–] quarrk@hexbear.net 23 points 11 months ago

Weirdly enough I feel like physics and Marx should attract similar people. Physics is about discovering the fundamental laws underlying seemingly disparate phenomena. The average physicist gets a half chubb talking about the unification of electricity and magnetism as a single force. Why shouldn’t every physicist also read about commodity fetishism and the reproduction of an inverted ideology in which social relations between humans appear as relations among things? It’s beautifully elegant.

[–] Ram_The_Manparts@hexbear.net 55 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

This is the most reddit comment I've ever seen

Holy fuck, this part especially is just chefs-kiss

the entire subject of sociology is nothing more than a conduit for Kremlin propaganda

B you live like this?

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[–] CarmineCatboy@hexbear.net 55 points 11 months ago (2 children)

just to be clear. economy is a social science.

[–] usernamesaredifficul@hexbear.net 41 points 11 months ago (1 children)

except what he's doing isn't science

[–] CarmineCatboy@hexbear.net 33 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

and it's not economics either.

[–] usernamesaredifficul@hexbear.net 24 points 11 months ago

it's also anti-social

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[–] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 54 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It's basically social science infused with anti-western Marxist pseudoscience, minus economics because Marxist economic propaganda has been discredited beyond repair

Lol. Lmao even

[–] TraschcanOfIdeology@hexbear.net 37 points 11 months ago

Someone tell this to my sociology professor who used sociology as a proxy for market research.

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[–] mayo_cider@hexbear.net 49 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Funnily enough in my experience if you talk to anyone in academia outside of econ, it's the first field anyone makes fun of (because in it's current state it's not a serious field of study)

Even the STEM assholes I've met usually take sociology at least just as or more seriously than economics (at least as a major, they still believe in their own investment strategies)

[–] IzyaKatzmann@hexbear.net 27 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

It's the extreme rigour with which they perceive themselves, and the sentiment I've always seen of, "I know how the world works, it's money"

I don't see the need for the condescension. My background was in biology, I spoke to another friend about how competition is inefficient and cooperation is more fruitful from an ecological (read: natural science) standpoint. And he started to debate me, my claims are empirical, they don't rely on axioms on what human nature is as argued by philosophers of old (not hating on them, it's the superficial interpretation some econfolk seem to have which is what I find erroneous) and what it means to be rational. I did not bother to try and explain, the Um, akshully they came at me with was so off-putting.

[–] Xavienth@lemmygrad.ml 25 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Ah but you see, you failed to take into account my economic model that says you're wrong! Nevermind the fact that my model fails to represent reality in all but the most constructed tests, that's not important.

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[–] CannotSleep420@lemmygrad.ml 47 points 11 months ago

econ degree

Red flag

He doesn't live in a society marx-joker

[–] davel@hexbear.net 46 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

CMV: No one has morebrainworms than those with Western economics degrees.

[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 39 points 11 months ago

Suffer not a Chicago Boy to live! jesus-cleanse

[–] commiecapybara@hexbear.net 39 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I have an econ degree

Could have stopped right there

[–] Ram_The_Manparts@hexbear.net 27 points 11 months ago

Should have

[–] the_itsb@hexbear.net 36 points 11 months ago

from the snippet in the original post, emphasis mine:

In the first three weeks of the current operation, Swords of Iron, the civilian proportion of total deaths rose to 61%, in what Levy described as “unprecedented killing”. The ratio is significantly higher than the civilian toll in all the conflicts around the world during the 20th century, in which civilians accounted for about half the dead.

“The broad conclusion is that extensive killing of civilians not only contributes nothing to Israel’s security, but that it also contains the foundations for further undermining it,” Levy concluded. “The Gazans who will emerge from the ruins of their homes and the loss of their families will seek revenge that no security arrangements will be able to withstand.”

This reads to me less like, "so we should definitely stop bombing them ASAP to mitigate that threat!" and much more like, "so we would probably just go ahead and kill them all to eliminate that threat," especially considering it was published in Haaretz.

also, the dude we're supposed to be dunking on is a stinky poopoo head with pennies for brains and a shriveled little heart that resembles a dirty wad of crumpled cash

[–] Kultronx@lemmygrad.ml 31 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ah yes, the Kremlin, known solely for its nuanced and global influence on the field of sociology.

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[–] borlax@hexbear.net 27 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

My favorite part is that no one asked the car dealership owner with an econ degree to chime in. No one every asks them to chime in.

[–] Llituro@hexbear.net 27 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I know exactly one good person with an econ degree, and he does fraud watch for his state's tax office.

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[–] star_wraith@hexbear.net 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

This thread reminded me of a joke my old econ prof told me. He was libertarian and so much of what he taught me I later found out was crap. BUT, the dude had a decent, self-deprecating sense of humor.

A physicist, a chemist, and an economist are stuck on a desert island when they come across an unopened can of beans. They all have a discussion on how to open it.

The physicist says “I believe I can calculate the precise height from which we could drop the can where the force would be just enough to weaken it. From there, I can build a sort of tourniquet from vines that will gently pop open the top.”

The chemist then says “That may work. But I’ve been observing the various chemical reactions going on in that cave over there. I believe I could gather just the right mix of chemicals in there that would dissolve the can lid enough for us to get the beans out. Yet none of these chemicals would be toxic to us.”

Finally, the economist chimes in “Okay… assume we have a can opener…”

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