## The left has changed the channel

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  "content": "## The left has changed the channel\n\nFor a while, alternative media was entirely dominated by the right, as the left was in power and had taken control of the legacy media channels. Then Americans upended the government, and the left began escaping to the same alternative media. And now, the economic debate is getting played out on a more level playing field.\n\nAnd the left is winning.\n\nEconomic normies, such as I, are increasingly exposed to their economic arguments, which are often surprisingly logical and sensible. And—even more surprisingly and alarmingly—the right has _absolutely no viable counterarguments_. There is a gaping hole where right-wing economic arguments should be.\n\nhttps://c.tenor.com/GxujnpVRVdIAAAAC/tenor.gif\n\nIf you call down into that intellectual hole, it will only echo back their tired, pseudo-religious rhetoric about\n\n* taxes are theft (as opposed to the rampant grift, graft, bailouts, and corruption we have witnessed for decades, which was \"private enterprise\"),\n\n* everyone poor is stupid and lazy,\n* anarchy will lead to equality... on a long enough timeline,\n\n* divine right of the rich,\n\n* kicking out foreigners fixes this,\n\n* buy crypto and wait for the moon,\n\n* just work harder and save better,\n\n* pull yourself up by your bootstraps,\n\n* bomb other countries and take their stuff,\n\n* it's too hard to tax the rich, so why try,\n\n* etc., etc., etc.\n\nWhich just makes them sound a bit irrational and out of touch. And incredibly passive and lacking in actionable ideas. They are proving to be incapable of adjusting to their environment and changing their solutions to solve the problems _currently at hand_. Which is another way of saying they are not very intelligent.\n\nI am worried. This is not an economic debate; it's a rout.\n\nBut, in a more general way, we can see that only a group under intense (political) pressure has the energy and motivation required to adapt. Everyone else will quickly become lazy, indifferent, and lethargic. And the speed at which this happens is shockingly rapid.\n\n## Let the misanthropy be with you\n\nThe loudest call, presently, is for wealth taxes. These are taxes that are extremely popular among the sovereign (the voters, remember them?), but unpopular with elected politicians (as they are all rich and would personally pay such taxes).\n\nWhenever right-wing (or even centrist) intellectuals think about wealth taxes, they cringe. But they are also generally reluctant to admit that economic inequality is a real problem that is destroying democracy and fertility and grinding the real economy (as opposed to the stock market, which is completely dominated by a few high-tech companies) into the ground. And that same inequality is **destroying the potential hope, happiness, personal freedom, and economic security for our progeny**.\n\nhttps://media.tenor.com/nwoJ4BS0XHYAAAAC/oh-no-anyway.gif\n\nAn economy with high wealth inequality is one in which the cost of living will skyrocket and eventually become completely detached from earned income. It will also crush demand, as a tiny handful of the very wealthy consume fewer services and material goods than the remaining 99.9% combined. Inequality undermines democracy, as we have become a passive viewership to the spectacle of the very rich determining what will happen next. And there is the teeny, tiny, almost insignificant issue of central planning: giving all resources to a small subset of the population and letting them decide their allocation was supposed to be something the right rejected, but nevermind that.\n\nWe are rapidly nearing an economic state where oligarchs happily exchange stock market and crypto trading cards on a sinking economic Titanic. Some countries are already halfway sunk.\n\nThey have no solutions. More so, they pretend that there is no problem.\n\nThey either claim that this is not happening because of statistics and more statistics and some numbers mumble mumble…, or they are more honest and wax ecstatic about their favorite form of economic Armageddon and voice their sincere prayers that this End comes quickly. They know that might kill most people off, but they are very sure they will personally profit and can finally LARP as the hero from a Western novel. So, it sounds pretty cool to them, and they have their private arsenal, woodpile, Bitcoin wallet, and canned pickles all ready to go.\n\nhttps://media.tenor.com/VDghtldcMbsAAAAC/cowboy.gif\n\nAnd then there are the idiotic people telling the young that they just need to work harder and they can also be rich. And then they would also need to pay wealth taxes! Oh, the horror. These people apparently aren't aware that all workers are already paying debilitating taxes on their earned income. We aren't the ones for whom “paying taxes” is a new, terrifying concept. Talk about projection…\n\nBesides, the young and poor cannot become rich, and they know it. Maybe you should stop lying to them and admit that they're going to stay poor and that you think they should just get over that.\n\nBecause that is where the right is currently at. It's palpable. The right knows it. The young know it. The right knows they know it. The young know the right knows it… and the young have changed the channel.\n\nhttps://media.tenor.com/2X4tNYoIZIEAAAAC/remote-black-guy-turning-off-tv.gif",
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