The debate that RationalWiki's leftists/socialists lost very badly

LeftyGreenMario (LGM) is a RationalWiki moderator.

RationalWiki is a politically left-leaning website that skews towards atheism/agnosticism in terms of its worldview. RationalWiki has a small fraction of the web traffic it had before October 2019 (see: RationalWiki and web traffic).

From July 31, 2022 to August 1, 2022, a debate/discussion occurred about the merits of capitalism vs. socialism at RationalWiki's forum which is called their Saloon Bar. The discussion thread that sparked this debate/discussion was entitled US is officially facing a recession

Debate summary: A member of RationalMedia Foundation's board of directors became furious when User: Conservative (User: Lipsen) pointed out that: the conservative Margaret Thatcher was the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century and in the 1980s, Britain's economy under Thatcher grew faster than any other economy - except for Spain. In addition, the squalid conditions of the UK when various manufacturing companies were nationalized and the public sector enlarged was pointed out. Furthermore, it was pointed out that abusive language is not a substitution for sound arguments. There were so many other sound arguments made during the debate that the politically left-leaning RationalWiki website is in the midst of creating a "Criticism of socialism" article.

LeftyGreenMario, a lady board member of the RationalMedia Foundation and a moderator of RationalWiki, became so angry that RationalWiki's leftists/socialists lost the debate, that she accused the capitalist User: Lipsen of spending his school years "munching on history book binding" while using coarse language and misspelling the word sanctimonious (She spelled it "sacrimonious"). See also: Atheism and profanity

LeftyGreenMario then banned User: Lipsen on August 1, 2022. Most atheists lean politically to the left and many atheists are intolerant. See also: Atheism and politics and Atheism and intolerance.

As can be seen via its block log, RationalWiki has a low edits to blocked editor accounts ratio at a wiki which measures the close-mindedness/intolerance and groupthink of a wiki. See also: Atheism and groupthink and Atheism and dogmatism and Atheism and open-mindedness

User: Conservative, an Admin at Conservapedia, was posting to RationalWiki using the RationalWiki account User: Lipsen.

The debate/discussion that RationalWiki's leftists/socialists lost badly inspired RationalWiki's Admin User: GeeJayK to start a draft of the article "Criticism of socialism"

RationalWiki's Admin User: GeeJayK was so inspired by the debate/discussion that RationalWiki's leftists/socialists lost badly that he started creating a draft of the upcoming RationalWiki article "Criticism of socialism" (See graphic below). Upon creating his RationalWiki draft article "Criticisms of socialism", RationalWiki admin User: GeeJayK wrote: "Discussion on the bar gave me some incentives to write this." (See second graphic below). The bar refers to RationalWiki's Saloon Bar which is their discussion forum. RationalWiki User: GeeJayK is a supporter of capitalism at the politically left-leaning website RationalWiki (see third graphic below).

The RationalWiki website was launched largely in response to User: Conservative's articles on evolution and atheism. User: Conservative continues to have an influence on RationalWikians through his periodic posts at RationalWiki's discussion forum and his posts at Conservapedia. According to SimilarWeb.com, one of the top web traffic sources to Conservapedia is RationalWiki (see fourth graphic below). Conservapedia's atheism related articles continue to receive hundreds of thousands of views each year (see: Conservapedia:Atheism articles statistics).

RationalWiki's Admin User: GeeJayK was so inspired by the debate/discussion that RationalWiki's leftists/socialists lost badly that he started creating a draft of the upcoming RationalWiki article "Criticism of socialism".

Upon creating his RationalWiki draft article "Criticisms of socialism", RationalWiki admin User: GeeJayK wrote: "Discussion on the bar gave me some incentives to write this." The bar refers to RationalWiki's Saloon Bar which is their discussion forum.

RationalWiki's Admin User: GeeJayK is a supporter of capitalism according to his user page. Most of the political content at RationalWiki is politically left-leaning.

According to SimilarWeb.com of the top traffic sources to Conservapedia is RationalWiki.

Conservapedia's atheism articles continue to receive hundreds of thousands of views each year (see: Conservapedia:Atheism articles statistics).

Key points that User: Conservative (User: Lipsen) made during the debate

Socialism-lite/socialism in the UK vs. the economic policies of the conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Socialists used abusive language instead of sound arguments

The conservative Margaret Thatcher was longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century.

1. I said about post WWII UK that: a significant portion of the UK's manufacturing base was taken over by the government, it's tax rate was jacked up, its public sector of the economy greatly increased partly due to its labor unions donating to the Labour Party. The public sector labor unions went on strike causing mountains of trash, corpses and rats to fill the streets.

If you want to call that socialism-lite instead of full-blown socialism that's fine. But socialism doesn't have a good track record either - unless you want to make the lame, utopian argument that socialism has never really been tried (Soviet Union, Chinese socialism with Chinese characteristics, Cuba, etc.).

2. WWII ended in 1945 and the German bombing campaign commonly called the Blitz caused much damage to Britain. The website History.com points out that "The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II. It was enacted in 1948 and provided more than $15 billion to help finance rebuilding efforts on the continent." In the 20th century, the USA/UK had what is often called a "special relationship" and still continues to this day although it was damaged by the Iraq War, etc. So the UK received a decent size portion of the Marshall Plan money.

3. Socialism-lite/socialism had 30 years to prove its worth in the UK and it failed in the eyes of the UK public which is why Margaret Thatcher was elected in 1979.

4. Although AMG wrote that I said "Thatcherism fixed everything", I never said this. But I did point out that Margaret Thatcher privatized formerly nationalized companies and "In the 1980s, Britain's economy grew faster than any other economy - except for Spain."

5. Margaret Thatcher was in power from 1979 to 1990 and was the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century. Much of the British public thought she did a good job or she wouldn't have served for so long (The UK is a Western democracy with free and fair elections so Thatcher would have been thrown out before she became the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century).

6. When I have participated in online discussions at websites that have civil discourse or watch public figures debate, I don't see individuals calling people imbeciles. If RationalWiki contributors want to stoop to using abusive language rather than making strong arguments, RationalWiki is free to do so, but it will pay a price. It will be much harder (or impossible) to attract new contributors who make quality contributions. Lipsen (talk) 18:14, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Nordic countries are capitalist and not socialist utopias. Excessive big government debt is a drag on the economy

I pointed out in my short recap of how socialism adversely affected the UK/Britain that the government took over some manufacturing companies. I did this because KarmaPolice's user page indicates that he is a socialist. As far as the Nordic countries, Foreignpolicy.com's article [https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/27/nordic-countries-not-socialist-denmark-norway-sweden-centrist/ Nordic Countries Aren’t Actually Socialist says: "Denmark, Norway, and Sweden shouldn’t be held up as socialist utopias." With that being said, each country is going to have to decide how big the public sector is. I am not an anarchist who believes in no government, but more of a limited/small government proponent with local government doing a lot of the "government lifting" - except for obvious exceptions such as the military. Local governments are often more responsive to the people. In somewhat recent economic history, there are non-socialist countries that have large amounts of federal government debt which is not healthy for an economy once it gets over a certain percentage of GNP. That is one of the main reasons that I think the federal government should not get too big.

Socialistic policies in the UK, India and Israel failed. The notion of a government controlling wages and prices via supercomuters and governmental workers better than the people working in the actual industries/markets/niches everyday is an example of failed socialist thinking

KarmaPolice, I just looked at your profile and it says you are a socialist. Israel, India, and the UK all adopted socialism as an economic model following World War II and it failed in each case. The reason you resorted to the illogical argumentation of the ad hominem argument by calling me a "moron" when it comes to understanding economics is that you cannot defend the failure of a system called socialism. Your notion of a government controlling wages and prices via supercomuters and governmental workers better than the people working in the actual industries/markets/niches everyday is an example of failed socialist thinking.

Swiss economy has lower inflation than USA under the Biden administration which had excess money printing, big government spending, anti-fossil fuel public policy and funded a foreign war in Ukraine

It was recently [1] that the annual inflation rate in the USA accelerated to 9.1% in June of 2022. Reuters reported that Swiss inflation in June hits 29-year high of 3.4%. The Biden administration did a lot of money printing, a lot of federal government spending and it had very anti domestic fossil fuel policy plus it did not handle Covid-19 well. This largely explains why the USA has a higher inflation rate than Switzerland. In addition, the USA spends a lot on its military and funding the Ukrainian military during the war in Ukraine. Lipsen (talk) 14:34, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Update: August 22, 2022

Liz Truss rejects energy bill help as ‘Gordon Brown economics’.[2] Truss was caught on audio tape indicating that British workers lacked the "skill and application" of foreign nationals.[3] The Economist indicates that Britain’s productivity problem is long-standing and getting worse.[4]

Will the UK continue to stand with Ukraine as they see their energy bills rise?

Will UK citizens work harder and more efficiently to pay for their energy bills? Will UK fellow family members, churches and other nonprofits help poor people pay for their energy bills?

Will the UK government trim other government programs to help poor people pay for their increased energy bills? Per capita, the UK has far more non-infrastructure government spending than Singapore whose educational attainment of their students is higher[5] and who also have a higher standard of living per capita.[6]

Socialist GrammarCommie's former influence on RationalWiki's discussion forum

GrammarCommie is known for his bullying.

Research on the dark triad of personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) indicate a correlation with bullying. See also: Atheism and narcissism and Atheism and psychopathy

Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli by Santi di Tito.

The socialist GrammarCommie (GC) is a RationalWikian who is largely a former administrator. He retired and vowed to never come back a few times (He came back a few times. His last post was July 13, 2022). In addition, he formerly served on the RationalWiki Foundation board of directors until he had a mental health crisis which consisted of him threatening to cut himself and commit suicide in order to get his way at RationalWiki (see screen captures below).

Because he is less active at RationalWiki, he no longer exerts a lot of influence on RationalWiki's Saloon Bar or website.

GrammarCommie is an atheist and leftist. He has himself thusly, "Deeply cynical and borderline misanthropic. Very much not Utopian. Unconventional left-winger. If you want more info engage me in a conversation. I'm an asshole, but I'm honest." GrammarCommmie is admin at RationalWiki, which is a wiki that intentionally lies about its web traffic statistics on its article about itself in that it greatly inflates its web traffic and global market share.

GrammarCommie has anger management issues which sometimes results in him angrily posting abusive posts in all caps laced with profanity (see also: Atheism and anger and Atheism and profanity). The RationalWiki admin who goes by the moniker CorruptUser wrote about GrammarCommie on March 25, 2021: "GC has this belief that there's a Certain Way you have to make arguments, and seeing anyone deviating from that Certain Way results in him losing control, and he has little ability to regain his composure. During this time he will write vicious screeds, make threats, or engage in blockwars including removal of rights." See also: Atheism and social/interpersonal intelligence

GrammarCommie frequently bans people which contributes to RationalWiki being a wiki that has a low edits to blocked editor accounts ratio at a wiki. He also frequently reverts other editors. A wiki with a low edit to block ratio tends to be a closed-minded wiki that is dogmatic and intolerant (see also: Atheism and dogmatism and Atheism and intolerance).

He is also known for his bullying. Research on the dark triad of personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) indicate a correlation with bullying. See also: Atheism and narcissism and Atheism and psychopathy

In June of 2022, GrammarCommie was banning and unbanning himself. Before banning himself initially, GrammarCommie said that RationalWiki was "half-dead" and filled with "twits". Specifically, he wrote: "You know what, fine. Take your half dead site, where most of you twits obsess over one or two articles and et the rest of the site rot, where I can't even perform basic category maintenance without someone getting on my ass, which by the way is why i haven't touched mainspace in ages, where trolls are humored as long as there's the barest minimum level of plausible deniability, and shove it right up your f**king *ss." In reply, the RationalWiki user 2friedeggs said: "This site is dying for a reason" and he indicated that GrammarCommie was chasing good faith editors away. On July 3, 2022, the RationalWiki Moderator LeftyGreenMario gave Grammarcommie an ultimatum. He could either unblock himself and "contribute to the community without taking swipes at other people" or he could stay blocked. In response, GrammarCommie replied: "@LeftyGreenMario What, exactly, am I supposed to contribute? I try to deal with trolls and asshats, I get burned. I try to clean up categories, I get burned. So. What, exactly, am I supposed to contribute?". After poor handling of a situation with administrator 2friedeggs, in July 13, 2022, moderator Bongolian revoked his sysop privileges after a vote of 63% support.

GrammarCommie often pontificates about politics and economics and sees himself as very knowledgeable about these areas despite describing himself as being lower middle class. On July 30, 2021, GrammarCommie wrote: "I asked for data, not random factoids. Just as we can't infer that every white person lives at the lower middle class level because I do...". He is also known for correcting people's grammar and being intolerant of people's grammatical errors.