Disney launches its fifth cruise ship, The Wish

ApolloAndy:

It doesn't make them immoral, because everyone is trying to do #3

I don't think everyone is an Ayn Rand acolyte. I don't know anyone on this board personally but based on posts I don't think many here would subscribe to benefiting themselves at the expense of the community. If you are referring to corporate behavior then yes there are PLENTY of examples of bad behavior (Sacklers, Pharma Bro, Madoff, etc.) but I don't think every corporation is inherently evil. I'd venture that most small business are great community members.

Money definitely buys influence. Don't believe me? Ask Joe Manchin!

I don’t think I made my point clearly, because I really did not think it would be controversial.

When it comes to legislation, zoning, public resources, taxation, grants, contracts, etc. in which there is some zero-sum component, even if not the entire thing is zero-sum, the corporations and ultra rich individuals (and everyone else including me and including my church’s national denomination) will do their darndest to have the decision go their way. The entire lobbying industry is entirely based on this premise.

We could play semantics about whether that’s “leveraging their power to benefit themselves at the expense of the community as a whole,” but the point still stands that ultra-rich entities have a very large impact on the decisions made affecting the broad community.

2) There are issues that are zero-sum.

Far fewer than many people claim.

3) Ultra rich individuals and corporations will always leverage their power to do things that benefit them at the expense of the community a whole.

Disagree with this as a premise. And the "community as a whole" isn't some monolithic creature that is unified in all views. Someone actually needs to determine what is in the best interests of the community as a whole. And no matter what is decided, it won't be universally supported.

It doesn't make them immoral, because everyone is trying to do #3.

So if everyone does something, it can't be wrong? Not what my mother told me when I was growing up. Always talked about people jumping off bridges.

The ultra rich and big corporations do.

Yes. So do the just really rich. And rich. And large groups of people such as unions. And lobbying groups. Need to figure out which groups you want to exclude from the influence process.

True, American history is ripe with people standing up for the little guy that were every but as immoral as the alleged soulless corporation.

In a world where the real value of currency is not constant and it can be created by making new things, it's not mathematically possible for it to be zero-sum.

I feel like I’m on the wrong end of some asinine semantics game (which I am usually the instagator of) or strawman arguments or something. Zero-sum is just a shorthand here for “some people want X and other people want Y.” In a supposed democracy, often a larger number of people who want X is outweighed by a smaller number of richer people who want Y.

I am genuinely surprised by how much resistance that idea is getting. What am I missing? This seems like super basic civics.

I’m not suggesting we exclude anyone, nor am I making a moral argument. It’s just a description of how things work. The lobbying industry exists.

Its a representative democracy. Not a direct one.

Andy: You've said in plain terms that, "Ultra rich individuals and corporations will always leverage their power to do things that benefit them at the expense of the community a whole," which is demonstrably not true, and that, "There is some zero-sum component," and as we've pointed out, that's not possible either. That doesn't seem like semantics to me.

So put aside the moral argument for a moment, and consider your suggestion that corporations and consumers are opposing forces. That's also not correct. Those forces are complimentary and symbiotic. You can't have one without the other. If your argument is that one has all of the power and the other doesn't, that's a poor generalization as well. And if you really want to dive into civics, Americans suck at civic engagement. Corporations lobby and win because consumers usually don't. Maybe this is changing with the rise of small-dollar campaign contributions. Sometimes they avoid products of the worse, most exploitive companies. But where is the civic pressure to address climate change? Healthcare? Equal rights? We keep voting in the same assholes who take all of the corporate money and then blame the system.

Andy, I think I am with you and also think that people are being a tad pedantic. It's not hard to look around and find examples of what you're talking about. People currently blame the president for high gas prices rather than the oil companies because the oil lobby spreads misinformation that gets amplified by cable news because people watch and they make money.

Jeff:

But where is the civic pressure to address climate change? Healthcare? Equal rights? We keep voting in the same assholes who take all of the corporate money and then blame the system.

When Texas passes a law during a heated election year that limits the number of ballot drop off locations to 1 per county I'd say the system is at least partially to blame. When one Senator can block the President's agenda I'd say the system is at least partially to blame. When Washington DC has no Senators but rural Wyoming does, I'd say the system is partially to blame. You can't convince me that we can civic engage our way out of this.

How did a conversation about a dopey cruise ship — who may I add has their own lobby and marketing to convince you that cruise ships are not harming anyone — turn into this? And I swear if one person responds to inform me that cruise ships are fine for the environment I am done. lol. I say this as someone who enjoys cruising so save it.

Well, the voting thing is the system, sure, but we keep voting in the assholes who limit voting rights too. I guess there's a civic misunderstanding that for all of the ways that "the system" can be manipulated in negative ways, it can be manipulated in positive ways as well.

Re: gas prices, it's not the oil companies you should blame either, but rather the supply/demand problem and the dynamic of global commodity trading. I suppose you might be able to blame them for not meeting a certain level of production, but as is the case with everything right now, post-Covid, production is hard. Inflation is too complex to pin on one thing. (John Oliver had a good piece about this last week.)

And cruise ships... you don't think that LNG and fuel cells completely change the environmental impact? The sulfur and nitrogen oxides mostly go away and CO2 is not gone, but greatly reduced. It's massively different than diesel. Everything has some environmental impact, but that doesn't mean there aren't better outcomes.

People currently blame the president for high gas prices rather than the oil companies because the oil lobby spreads misinformation that gets amplified by cable news because people watch and they make money.

Its all the oil lobby? Politicians don't take credit for everything good under the sun in terms of the economy and deflect blame for anything negative in terms of the economy when they are in office (and take the opposite tack when the other party is in office)? Biden took credit for reductions in gas prices (expectation is a recession is coming which will result in decreased demand for oil reducing prices) but deflected blame for increasing prices. His has been a master at it recently splitting and dicing to take credit for job growth, vaccines, etc. but blame someone/thing else for inflation, negative GDP, etc. Political scientists could base classes on it.

Big issue is too many people suck at economics. Better understanding would help them live better/more economically secure lives and significantly limit B.S. from politicians.

When Texas passes a law during a heated election year that limits the number of ballot drop off locations to 1 per county I'd say the system is at least partially to blame.

Someone has to determine the number of ballot boxes. Under the system its representatives. Nothing they do will please everyone.

But in terms of voting, I look back at when I first started voting (and at least 10 years thereafter). You pretty much could vote one day. In person. Absentee ballots were incredibly limited (I could never qualify). Don't recall anyone raising issues of voter suppression. Fast forward to today and voting opportunities are significantly increased. Its not even close. Yet narrow those opportunities ever so slightly and there are cries of voter suppression as if we are going back to days of women not being able to vote.

When one Senator can block the President's agenda I'd say the system is at least partially to blame.

Its not one Senator. Its 51 of 100. So its a majority. But even if it is one, how many should it be? 2? 3? 5? Lines need to be drawn somewhere. And the system that was created was designed to be slow.

In terms of politics, the filibuster is all about politics. 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. But 50/51 votes to change the filibuster rule. Any supermajority requirement that is real also requires the same supermajority vote (or a higher vote) to change the supermajority rule. More political B.S.

Its a lot easier to support any of a given number of concepts. But often another to actually support what needs to happen to get there.

eightdotthree:

And I swear if one person responds to inform me that cruise ships are fine for the environment I am done. lol. I say this as someone who enjoys cruising so save it.

Ooh ooh! Let's do private jets now!

You know that feeling when you haven't opened a thread since it started and you had no idea where the conversation was going?

And...

The $5000 drink comes with a 4-person pass to visit Skywalker Ranch?

That changes everything.

Which means it costs less to visit Skywalker Ranch than it does to see Springsteen in Ohio.

Jeff:

we keep voting in the assholes who limit voting rights too.

Well, that's part of it. There are other bits.

The senate (and, to a lesser extent, the EC) allows for the possibility of minority rule because senators (and the EC votes apportioned to them) are allocated by-State rather than by-population. Minority rule has happened in the Presidency twice in modern times, when GW Bush beat Gore in the EC but lost the popular vote in 2000, and Trump did likewise over H Clinton in 2016.

There has also been a good bit of gerrymandering on both sides, though my casual observation suggests that the GOP has been more effective at it. That too can create minority-rule situations. That's partly why Michigan has both senators and almost the entire executive branch D-affiliated, yet the state legislature is heavily R-tilted. The former are statewide elections (popular vote), while the latter is by-district, and those districts have been drawn with "care" to make sure to dilute or isolate as many D votes as possible. Gerrymandering is not destiny: The Federal House delegation is split 7-7, though two of those D House members won in districts that are nominally R.

The kicker is that in most states, the districts are drawn by the party in (legislative) power. Because computers are tailor made to come up with maximum-gerrymandered districts, it's pretty easy to build in a long-term structural advantage once you have control, and that's hard to overcome. Michigan's maps were so tilted that the D's essentially gave up trying to win and redistrict in their own favor, and instead installed a non-partisan redistricting board via statewide referendum. They figured that more-or-less-fair was as good as they would ever get.

(The use of statewide referendums has been an increasingly popular progressive end-run around the gerrymandered districts for legislating in Michigan. There will be a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion access this upcoming cycle; there is no chance in hell that would pass the legislature. It's also the mechanism that was used to legalize weed---medical in '08 and recreational in '18. There are ways for the legislature to co-opt that process, but doing so is fraught when people are passionate about the topic. They did it with a statewide minimum wage referendum, for example.)

Finally, there have been a number of efforts in R-controlled settings to make it harder for eligible citizens to vote, as well as a number of efforts in D-controlled settings to make it easier. (This is not about allowing or preventing voting by non-citizens or other illegitimate votes; that's a boogeyman that almost never happens.) The theory (which I will assume is true given the effort expended) is that making it harder tilts in favor of R voters, making it easier the opposite. And again, because Rs can often be in power even when they do not have majority support, this can be used to further entrench such minority rule.

All of that. Additionally, Mitch McConnell blocked a large amount of judicial appointments during the Obama administration which allowed Trump to fill a huge amount of positions in the judiciary, not just on the Supreme Court. What’s greatly concerning is the Supreme Court’s decision to hear an appeal from the North Carolina legislature to overrule a state Supreme Court decision related to gerrymandered maps. At stake is whether has complete control over state elections. And oh yeah it’s on the shadow docket.

I’m interested to find out the impact of the Forward political party that was announced today. I’m old enough to have actually voted for a third party candidate and watched as nothing changed. Since this group is targeting moderates on both sides of the aisle I’m curious if it may pull the parties towards the center.

Congress was set up with House with proportional representation and Senate with equal representation. No only that, they inserted this into Article V: that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

Referendums have their limits. Better for simpler issues.

Lord Gonchar:

Which means it costs less to visit Skywalker Ranch than it does to see Springsteen in Ohio.

That’s for front row, no?

GoBucks89:

Congress was set up with House with proportional representation and Senate with equal representation. No only that, they inserted this into Article V: that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

That The Founders (tm) built in the mechanism to allow for minority rule doesn't change the fact that it is a mechanism that allows for minority rule, nor that one might take issue with that fact. The Constitution is a great document, and truly revolutionary in both senses of the word. It's also the result of an awful lot of sausage-making, and one can start with the 3/5 "compromise" to see it.

I think the filibuster is a bigger mechanism allowing minority rule. There are several instances in the early 20th century where the filibuster was used to prevent civil rights legislation from passing the Senate.

Mulfinator:

That’s for front row, no?

So is Skywalker Ranch.

First row behind a GA "pit". It'd be about row 10 normally.