Brainsploosh

A fetus does indeed have 100% human DNA, but a tape worm has about 70% human DNA.

An 8 week fetus is about 20 g, an 8 week tape worm can become up to 30 ft, weighing several pounds. 70 % of a pound is more than 20 g.

And with the new slave mother laws, the fetus isn't more than a handful of grams at the cut off date, making it all the more poignant.

If you don't want to have an abortion, no one's ever been forcing you.

Why you think it's appropriate to force others is weird.

I've already covered this earlier in the thread

Profit, price pressures, inflation are not necessarily meaningful terms in a different system.

What exactly do you mean by that?

In a circular or planned economy, those aren't really significant measures, neither in a subsistence living context. Which are strategies that have housed all of humanity until the last few hundred years.

In a post-capitalist economy, we might be able to provide the human necessities without exploitation. I don't know how, but I know it's not through more capitalism.

Homes have been built for many thousands of years longer than we’ve had those as concepts.

If you include cedar bark as a major construction material then sure. Not knocking cedar bark here - it's great. But not quite the same investment in time or durability.

As mentioned in the last reply, the Palace of Knossos, as well as the Petra were marvels of craftsmanship and engineering, staggering investments, and have stood for over 2000 years. Would probably have survived longer if maintained properly.

The pyramids, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassos, the Taj Mahal, all are landmark (literally) feats for the contemporary technology and societies.

You comparing them with modern construction methods necessitated by capitalism, and with modern technology seems an unfair comparison, as well as circular reasoning.

Profit, price pressures, inflation are not necessarily meaningful terms in a different system.

Homes have been built for many thousands of years longer than we've had those as concepts.

Agreed.

But also in groundbreakingly advanced multiresidential complexes, condos, and palaces for thousands of people.

The world will indeed be different if we have different priorities. Capitalism requires high density to sustain the economic engine, other systems might not.

Under capitalism, capitalisming harder is indeed the only solution. I don't know how to get you to be able to imagine something without assuming capitalism, but humanity and society did indeed thrive even without it.

My point is, if you read "aunt" as "landlord", my comment is not about the landlords as much as the system.

Without landlords, we'd not have a housing crisis. There would be enough housing for everyone, we have plenty of resources and land to build them. The US, not to mention the world, is still big enough for everyone to have their own plot of land and housing.

How did people live before Capitalism? I've read that housing existed before even banking was invented. Somehow there wasn't a housing crisis back then, until/unless we had exploitation.

You're not wrong in what you're saying though. The basic difference of perspective between you and I, I believe, is that you're viewing this from inside the capitalist system, where landlords do indeed provide a function. But if we'd not have capitalism, we'd still have housing, and with less value extraction/parasitism.

As for the obscure anecdote, let's instead use the simile of marketing. They add no value to you as a consumer, and if there weren't so many marketers finding what you need would be easier and cheaper (as there would be no marketing cost). For the capitalist they add value, for the rest of us they're an ever increasing drain on resources - a parasite.

I don't know if I'm leftist, but the US spectrum is well right of most of the world.

The question is multi-layered. Your aunt may or may not be a bad person, I don't know her. Them renting out property may or may not be for good reason, even if they're doing it to "survive" in the capitalistic economy.

The real issue is that capitalism itself is exploitative, and (depending on where you draw the line) participating may fall under being complicit.

My understanding of parasitism is extracting resources for their own benefit, with little to no benefit for the exploited/system.

The first hint of parasitism is amassing resources they aren't using for living. Your aunt and husband made surplus money to be able to afford buying the properties. Unless they did that by extracting resources, refining them, working them and making provisions for them to be recycled and ecologically compensated - others will have had to pay the cost. Either by working harder than them, or suffering more than them, for example due to an imbalance of ecology. This is one form of parasitism.

Another perspective of parasitism is inserting themselves as a middle party. Your aunt almost certainly isn't providing the housing at cost, where rent barely covers their labor and property upkeep. That means they are keeping someone from a home, unless they pay extra to your aunt. Just like a bully.

Now, this doesn't mean that your aunt has any malicious intent. The point is that the system itself is evil, like a pyramid scheme of bullies, where each layer extracts something from each underlying layer. This is useful for making ventures, but at the cost of ever increasing exploitation and misery. Especially when capitalists are allowed to avoid paying for restoring the exploited, or incentivised to do it more. I'm sure you've heard of enshittification.

Now, example time!

I'm sure you've thought that air is important for you to survive. And maybe you've ever worried that traffic or other pollution might make your air less good for you?

Enter the capitalist! For a small premium we'll offer your personalised air solution, a nifty little rebreather loaded with purified air you carry with you all day. The price is so reasonable as well, for only $1/day you can breathe your worries away!

Now, producing the apparatus means mining and logging upstream of your town, removing natural air filtering and permanently damaging your environment, but they only charge for the machines and labor. Restoration is Future You's problem. Selling and refilling the apparatus happens to also produce pollution, making the air worse for everyone. But that makes the apparatus more valuable! Price rises to $2/day.

Competitors arrive, some more successful than others, all leaving ecological devastation and pollution that can't be naturally filtered. Air gets worse. One brand rises to the top, air is more valuable and lack of competition makes it so that air is now $4/day.

Then an unethical capitalist figures that if we just make the air slightly worse, profits will go up! They don't want to be evil, but cutting corners when upgrading the production facility means the pollution gets worse. Other adjacent capitalists see that they also can pollute more without consequences. Air gets worse and price increases to 6$/day.

Air is starting to get expensive, rebreather sharing services, one-use air bottles, and home purifyers crop up, increasing pollution and raising costs, air is now $8/day for most people.

People start dying from poor air, new regulations on apparatus safety and mandatory insurance come up, driving prices further to $10/day. You now also need a spare apparatus and maintain it in case your main one breaks down.

Etc.

The point of the example is that through a series of innocuous steps, all making perfect sense within capitalism, you are now paying $300/month more to live than before capitalism, with little real benefit to you, and no real choice to opt out.

Each and every step is parasiting on your life, by requiring you to work harder for that money, and/or suffer more due to pollution and ravaged environment.

The only solution to not work/suffer into an early grave is to have others work on your behalf, perpetuating the parasitic pyramid scheme. This is where your aunt is, is she evil? Probably not. Is her being an active part of an evil system bad? Yes, yes it is. Capitalism bad.

Source on median income pls?

US Census seems to put it at ~42k/year

Iirc, it was also a newfangled, more effective/humane method, and a symbol of progress.

From your model, tariffs would be a heightened barrier, like a levee, against the outflow of wealth from the US.

Trouble is, the river is strong, and there are no offshoots yet, so the flow will have to continue over the levee, at higher cost.

Basically, it takes time to build up domestic production to competitive prices. Raising tariffs drastically means those who cannot do without the products just pay more.

If you have targeted tariffs, some of that demand can be soaked up by substitutes (maybe instead of buying a European car, some people get an e-bike or Chinese car). Also, targeted tariffs allow for targeted increase of production, meaning you only have to establish new car-manufacturers, rather than every industry which strains both private capital and subsidies, not to mention negotiations as everyone is scrambling.

If you have a staggered introduction of tariffs, consumers and producers can more easily adapt. Maybe a bike shop can start making e-bike conversions, or used car lots refurbish cars as they get upgraded by those rushing to buy before the tariffs get too high.

Modern production chains are more complex than in Prussian times, but over about 3-15 years, domestic production might have caught up to the domestic demand, assuming they trust that the tariffs will remain.

You can look at the chip manufacturing in the US for example. I think it was almost 6 years ago it was found Chinese chips are compromised, and a first factory is just about opened, and still not nearly at the required volumes.

Also, modern trade is a great carrier of diplomacy and influence, tariffs and other isolationist measures means you'll have less interaction, cultural exchange, and innovation. And as cultures drift apart, relations will be harder and harder.

See Japan, still a bit awkward internationally after their isolation, even though it's been 140 years since they rejoined the international community.

Bigly sad, so sad