SatanLucy

A lot of people think Karl Marx was some lazy philosopher who just didn't want to work.

But they didn't see what Marx saw. In an unregulated capitalism, children as young as 4 were working 12 hours a day in a factory. Bosses were regularly sexually exploiting female workers. Capitalists intentionally reduced wages to force families to send their children to work as well. Working conditions were so horrible that you were lucky to merely survive a job without losing hand or finger.

That's what Marx saw, and just because after hundreds of years of government regulations, these types of exploitations reduced, it doesn't mean they wouldn't happen again if capitalism was less regulated, because it still happens again today in each country where capitalism is left to itself.

Maybe some exploitation is unavoidable, but government pretty much had to intervene to reduce exploitation for countless times in past few hundred years, because when left to itself, capitalism maximizes exploitation.

Altruistic transaction is demanding person to do something but paying way more than its worth. So person learns work ethics and it isnt just free money.

How many examples can you think of where exploiters in first world countries are creating problems just to sell the solution?

Wars, housing, healthcare, products designed to break down to increase sales rate, lobbying, pollution, obesity, depression, addiction-based design of products to increase sales rate.... Really, how many examples do you need?

Technology has improved and people are richer now than most earlier times in history

Some people are richer now, yes. The homeless arent.

Transactional relationships with people can also be altruistic.

For example, paying a poor person 1000$ to wash your car. Surely, thats transactional, but it benefits poor person much more and person pays a lot more than he has to for car washing.

Most big companies are inventing new products rather than causing problems to create a need.

I appreciate the opinion. I just disagree with it.

Some people being exploited is better than no one being exploited.

Not really.

I don't see how you can just blame capitalists for all the pre-existing issues in society.

Its not the capitalists I am blaming, but exploiters, who as I said before also create new ways of exploitation.

The conditions exist whether the capitalist helps or does nothing.

Its not help if its exploitation. Exploitation is conditional help with aim of getting most personal benefit out of it.

So either that involves active harm (which people have incentives to do anyway)

Way more incentive when you can profit greatly from it by exploitation later.

How does a sum of positive numbers equal a negative number?

Because total system doesnt include just positive numbers. What you see as positive exchange also includes elements outside that exchange: degradation of human relationships, those who arent helped because they cant be exploited good, and so on.

If all doctors were exploitative and only working for money, and you were sick without money, no doctor would help you. You would die from sickness, resulting in a negative number.

Also, exploitative conditions themselves harm health and mental health, so not all so positive in this capitalist exploitation utopia.

If exploitation didn't help the people being exploited, they wouldn't agree to it.

It helps them, true.

So, stealing?

No, creating conditions where people end up in situation where they are easier to exploit.

Both sides gain value or neither side would agree. It's a positive-sum game.

Individually, yes. Long term, no.

Inflation benefits the rich, so rich would actually seek higher inflation. Poor people benefit the rich as cheap work force, so rich would actually prefer more poor people. Poorly educated people are likewise more likely to be exploited.

Exploitation is based on someone being in a bad situation, so exploiters would seek to create society with plenty of people in bad situations which they can exploit, and plenty of bad situations they can exploit.

Same applies to politicians who exploit bad situations for political gain.

Exploitation only happens when exploiter takes greater value for him than what he gives, so long term it leads to concentration of power and wealth in few hands because exploiters always gain more than the exploited, enabling even more exploitation because increased wealth and power enable more of it.

I think this is another special case

There are bunch of such cases where exploiters are actually making situation worse long run, because they profit from bad situations so they seek to create more of them.

I think system based on exploitation rewards exploiters the most, and causes more exploitation in the long run, because exploiters will also seek to create exploiting situations, not just exploit when such chance appears on its own.

System based on goodness and helping others will always yield better society in the long run. Exploiting system in long run ruins mentality of people.

This is simply because human relationships are greatly formed by helping others, where hate and resentment is formed from exploitation.

Man might say to a homeless woman: "I will give you shelter for one day if you have sex with me.", and she might even agree because she has no other options, but she will still hate him for it.

On the other hand, man who offers shelter but asks for nothing in return, she will be grateful to him and consider him a great friend. She might even fall in love.

Exploitation doesn't work in the long run. It merely makes person who does it be despised by all creatures.

It is only one step above doing nothing, and in some cases, not even that, because people will usually hate more the one who exploits them than the one who does nothing.

"To the self-serving, nothing shines forth. To the self-promoting, nothing is distinguished. From the viewpoint of Tao, this self-indulgence is like rotting food and painful growths on the body. All creatures despise it."

- Tao Te Ching

Definitely great game.

Doctors profit off of human suffering, so arguably they are exploiting people, but I haven't seen anyone argue that this makes them evil

Let's imagine you were very sick and had no money to pay doctor. You meet first doctor, and he refuses to help you because he can't exploit you for money. Then you meet a second doctor who says "I don't care for money. My goal is to help people.", and he helps you.

Which doctor will you like more?

The answer would of course be the second one.

Because system of exploitation harms poor the most, and those who can't give anything are not helped at all.

I follow principle of best action, and society where everyone helps everyone is far better than society in which everyone exploits everyone.

In fact, one could argue that helping people is long term bigger benefit than exploiting them. When you exploit people, you increase number of people who hate you, so you make human relationships worse.

There is no love and friendship in a system based on exploitation. No, such only exists in a system where one person helps another expecting nothing in return.

But anyway, the question up for discussion is this: is exploitation, in fact, worse than taking no action to help in the face of human suffering?

Exploitation is not worse, but it's not good either. If you think it's better to help people than to exploit them, I don't see why you would settle for exploitation.

it would include a man who offered a homeless woman the chance to spend the below-zero winter night inside his warm house in exchange for having sex with him once

I mean, is that better than him not offering any help at all? I guess if it was better, woman would not agree at all.

However, your argument is comparison fallacy. Just because one thing is better than another, doesn't make either option good.

I would say that capitalists who buy bunch of homes to increase home prices are pretty bad to begin with.

The problem with your theory is that it creates society where everyone exploits whoever they can, and long term that creates more issues than it solves, because it sets a principle.

Who are the Demons?

I am demon, I don't know about others tho.

So after finally getting a laptop which can play games made after 2010, I decided to do game reviews on this site for each game I play.

First one is gonna be Bloodlines 2.

Bloodlines 2 is a sequel to Vampire the masquerade bloodlines. For those who don't know, Vampire masquerade bloodlines was quite fascinating game in it's time. It had huge replay value because you pretty much had to play game multiple times to experience playing as each vampire. I admit some vampires were a lot less interesting than others, but game pretty much included all sorts of vampire powers, including but not limited to: time slowing which enabled dodging bullets, and was pretty much overpowered because it worked against everything in the game, and there were bunch of other vampire powers usually unique to each vampire, hence the replay value. Game felt entirely different with each vampire, and some mods later added more vampire powers.

So after a two decade long wait, finally, we get Bloodlines 2.

Now, there is a lot of hate directed towards this game. First, the game lacks experience point system previous game had. Previous game wasn't just about vampire powers. You could also invest point in fists, weapons, guns, finances, or if you wanna be really tanky, then all points in defense. Vampire powers were optional. You could play game entirely as a first person shooter, sword wielder, or even just fists.

New game entirely lacks that. Other than points in vampire powers, new game lacks any other point spending.

Another hated thing about new game is apparently that it lacks any big inventory. Previous game had inventory where you had not just money, but also could store guns, blood packs, even jewelry to sell later for money, and even books you could learn from.

New game doesn't actually let you even wield guns properly, and the only weapon you can wield are knives and similar, but there is even issue there because you don't have inventory, so it only works when you pick up a knife and stops working once you drop it. No inventory whatsoever to cycle between weapons.

But now when we are done with all the reasons people hate the new game, let's focus on why the game is actually good.

First, there is the way better movement. Old game didn't really let you jump high or run fast. New game lets you jump and climb buildings, jump very high, glide, run extremely fast, dash while kicking into people during dashing.

New game also has improved masquerade breaking system. It's much easier to not break masquerade because there are no limits to how many times you can break it, as long as you don't over do it in one single time which is when you die.

Then we come to crucial element, which is the combat. Game combat system is pretty amazing. Your fists can send people flying 5 meters. Tremere gets some blood attack instead of fists later. You can also do kicks, stealth kills, attack by jumping from above, dash during combat, and you can even throw stuff at people.

And then comes probably the most important element of new game. Vampire abilities.

New game has way more vampire abilities than previous game. Not just that. Abilities use a different blood system where each ability gets its own blood pool instead of shared blood pool for all. Also, abilities are very amazing. I didn't yet try them all, but tremere blood strikes seem to be a bit overpowered so far. Also, abilities look way better than in previous game. What's also great about abilities in new game is that there seems to be a wide range of abilities which do some useful stuff, and vampire gets to have more of those abilities sooner in the game. Ability level up is pretty damn fast, you quickly reach the state of overpowered vampire.

Then there is final part. Graphics. The game has pretty good graphics and much more realistic NPC behavior than previous game.

How would I rate this game?

9/10

It would be 10/10 if it had experience point system of previous game, and if it had decent inventory system.

Context might change my reply. Cuz I have no idea what happens next to either of them.

Woman is insane. But insanity was never an excuse for horrible crime, because anyone who commits such horrible crime has to be insane to begin with, so the defense focusing on insanity part doesn't really understand that.

These tips work with any amount of money. Tho if person doesn't have any money, then person should get a job.

I don't understand story behind these two images, but 2 looks way worse.

Your bargaining tips are only useful to you because you depend on your parents for money

Nah, these tips are useful for everyone who has money.

Doesn't matter when it comes to personal economy, economy of business or economy of a country, I have never met even one person who knows more about economy than I do.

I mean, there are bunch of people out there who don't even know concept of "maximize income, minimize expenses" as foundation of wealth growth.

And that's just foundation, which most people seem to be utterly unaware of.

I see people with more income than me who are somehow still poorer than me, because income size doesn't really mean anything if you don't manage expenses.

You could give an average poor person 40000$, and in about a year, that poor person would be still poor, maybe even poorer than he was before he got 40000$.

Business likewise. Business which doesn't manage expenses, doesn't matter what it's income is.

Same applies to a country. A country which can't reduce expenses in a budget, but keeps increasing them, can only face debt.

Income rise itself is actually mostly irrelevant in the whole story, because most people increase their expenses as their income rises, so they are actually not being made richer.

Wealth growth = Income minus expenses

This is foundational equation.

If you keep increasing your expenses with your income, growth of your wealth won't rise.

Now, a lot of people make all sorts of different economical mistakes, few of them being:

- Not having large savings

- Not doing safe investments

- Buying things with negative value growth over time

- Doing bad spending

- Not trying to reduce costs maximally

- Not trying to increase income maximally

These are just some of foundational mistakes people make.

A classical mistake in investing, for example, is panic sell.

Panic sell is when, for example, person who bought silver, sees that silver is currently dropping in price, and person out of fear sells silver.

From a very short term point of view, panic sell seems to be a good choice. Long term its a pretty crappy choice because prices of all things go up and down many times over long time.

When price of silver goes down, that doesn't actually mean you are supposed to sell your silver. It means quite the opposite. You are supposed to buy more before price rises again.

Because we know that prices of all things go up and down many times over a long period, the goal is buying when price goes down.

Another classical mistake people generally make is not optimizing their shopping.

For example, chasing best prices in only one store is a pretty obvious example of narrow vision.

I can walk into one store unprepared, and then pick what I think is their best offer. But this isn't optimized shopping because some other store might have a better offer.

In fact, online stores and market places tend to pretty much beat local stores in prices.

Another mistake people make is wanting to buy new things.

New things are usually more expensive than used things, so their economical payoff isn't good unless "new" comes with some great extra quality, which usually isn't the case.

Rent is probably one of biggest mistakes a person makes. Living under rent long term is always more expensive than owning a home, so it's economically a dumb decision to make.

Another extremely dumb decision is going in debt.

Debt is by it's definition a net negative wealth, so in most cases it's a pretty dumb choice.

When it comes to investments, most people seem to be entirely clueless about them.

Most profitable investment is usually business with high predicted success rate. Having multiple different businesses is actually greater safety net.

Diversity of investments principle pretty much translates to diversity of businesses as well, also diversity of income, diversity of savings, and negative diversity of expenses. You are supposed to have less sources of expenses, as well as seeking to reduce each source which cannot be entirely removed.

So the foundational principle remains same:

"Maximize income, minimize expenses",

With a slight adding:

"Maximize diversity of income, minimize diversity of expenses."

Everyone likes to buy things, but investment is buying things which gain or hold value over time.

Expense is buying things which lose value over time.

So a basic equation for spending money would be:

"Maximize buying things which gain or hold value over time. Minimize buying things which lose value over time".

A classical example of buying things which lose value over time is food.

Food disappears once you eat it, so it loses all it's value. People make two economical mistakes when buying food.

Mistake number one when buying food is not having a food stockpile. Buying small quantities of food each time means that you have to go buying food more often, spending more money on transport. Further, because price of food rises over time, having a stockpile beats inflation better, where buying bit by bit is much more affected by inflation.

Mistake number two which people make when buying food is usually buying more than they need and eating more than they need. When you see a fat person struggling financially, you can probably conclude that the problem is in their belly. Another part of this mistake is diet. Some diets are way more expensive than others. Highly meat based diet is always way more expensive than vegetarian diet. Fast food and cooked food is likewise more expensive. Cheapest possible foods are foundational foods. They are foods more complicated food is made of. You will generally pay more for spinach pie than you would pay for spinach and oil used to make it. This is because person who makes the pie takes the cut beyond foundational costs of individual elements. So buying foundational is always cheaper than buying complex.

When shopping, the best price is always determined by comparing all options, their quality and price. This is why buying from only one shop is guaranteed to be losing money, and ignoring online buying likewise loses money any time online is cheaper.

Further, having savings in money form is usually useless because those savings lose value over time due to inflation. Good land, good property, gold, silver and objects or items which gain value over long time are always guaranteed to increase savings long term compared to their money form.

Another mistake people make is not negotiating price, or buying from places where price cannot be negotiated. There are even countless negotiating tactics, such as coming to buy with a limited amount of money, so seller is forced to accept your deal or you just walk away.

These are just some of countless examples of what average person is illiterate about. I could probably name a thousand more, but then we would already be getting into master area.

This is why I pointed out to issue of rated debates being basically dead.

I don't know the solution other than making voting a lot easier, cuz forum is alive and rated debates are dead, so the issue seems to be exclusive to rated debates.

Also, ultrarated have some issues too, but at least so far all ultrarated debates got at least 1 vote.

Rated debates, there is a bunch of them without any votes.

Also, I don't even need to say this, but it's difficult to find reason to vote on a debate. For most people, voting is a waste of time.

It's why I suggested to remove voting requirements from rated debates, because currently they are getting too few votes and it's absurd.

The main issue is a lot of people who used to debate a lot no longer do, and we didn't really get many new users to replace them.

A lot of members are sleepy. I am still waiting for 2 more votes on my debate, and it's been months.

Burn out from debating is real.

blamed government while my testosterone was vacant

Now these are some good lines.

Also, PC can emulate other platforms. Reverse is not true.

When it comes to gaming, I don't think anything beats PC.

I am sure in past playstation or Xbox were far better choices, due to having exclusive titles like God of war.

But right now, I don't think they outperform PC, because PC can download a lot of games way more easily. Downloading games without PC for any other platform is difficult.

Good news. Bloodlines 2 works perfectly.