Presidential Debate Debating Thread

[John Dule]

Thank you, Thumbo. I'm honored to be here; I'll try to keep this short. The case for my candidacy is simple: I am the only conscious being in the world that exists.

It's true. The rest of you people may claim to be sentient beings with the capacity for self-awareness, but I know the truth-- you're all just complex simulations designed to give the illusion of consciousness. There is not another single soul in this universe capable of perceiving stimulus and then consciously synthesizing that information into a course of action. You automatons are incapable of proving the existence of your own sentience to me-- so don't even try.

All of human history and the physical world is nothing more than a fleeting daydream created by my awesomely powerful imagination-- aka the only thing that ever has existed or will ever exist in the universe. As such, you soulless holograms exist only to serve me. None of you are real. You are mere side characters in the grand narrative of my all-encompassing psyche. My anima is a boundless energy that extends beyond the farthest reaches of the universe. I alone am capable of thought, emotion, pain, happiness, or higher-order forms of contemplation.

You will vote for me because you owe the very illusion of your existence to the limitless capacity of my mind.

[John Dule]

This era of peace, progress, stability and growth would not be guaranteed without my glorious hands at the helm of this massive ship.

Woah! Cool it with the egotism there, pal.

[John Dule]

> In 2018, 38 million Atlasians lived in poverty. How can this be addressed?

Simple. Write the name, state, town, street, unit number, and ZIP code of the recipient on the envelope, with your own information in the upper left hand corner. How you're going to lick 38 million envelopes though, I have no idea. I think there are better ways to handle poverty.

There are three schools of thought in dealing with the poor. The first is to provide them with money or services that they would otherwise not be able to obtain for themselves-- but where's the logic in that? My liberal opponents will say that they respect the environment, but this idea of giving free money to people flies in the very face of nature itself. There is no animal alive that doesn't have to work for its survival. Everything, from the lowly tiger to the mighty pigbutt worm, must hunt prey, evade predators, locate food sources, and exert itself in order to ensure its continued existence. If you wanted to just sit idle and consume resources, you should've been born a plant.

Redistribution can try to rectify this, but it unfailingly runs up against a painful reality-- there are limited resources in the world, and some are better at obtaining them than others. As such, its results are a scourge upon the Earth. The feeling of independent achievement, accomplished without the assistance of others, is the greatest feeling known to mankind. But there are those who seek to take this from you, and to replace with it the cold, emotionless malaise of collective achievement-- in which no one can claim credit and none can take blame. Since the dawn of the great mistake that was civilization, man's independence has died a slow, miserable death. Dependence upon others must be considered a great shame if our species is to ever perceive truth or beauty again. All of us must take this pledge: I WOULD RATHER DIE ALONE AND FREEZING IN THE WOODS AFTER EATING THE WRONG TYPE OF MUSHROOMS THAN ASK ANOTHER MAN FOR DIRECTIONS AT A GAS STATION.

There is a second way of handling the poor-- a better way. The problem is that the plebeians have no money. It can be solved either by giving them money... or by making the money they already have more valuable. What need do we have for a minimum wage when electricity is cheaper than air? What care do we have for wealth inequality when a large family can be fed on $5 a day? For the past three decades, the prices of innumerable consumer goods have plummeted. My plan is to kick this trend into overdrive.

We will eliminate zoning laws and homeowner's associations, tear down single-family homes, and build skyscraper apartments that pierce the clouds! Families shall live in small pods tucked into the walls, and consume processed insect cubes for every meal of the day! Occupational licensing will disappear, and the prices of medical procedures will subsequently plummet! Online education will become available to every person in the country for one-time low, low prices! Student debt will be a thing of the past! Uber drivers will also specialize in hip replacements as part of their side hustles!

Thus, with the power of innovation and innovation alone, we will have eliminated the three greatest obstacles for the poor-- rent, medical bills, and educational debt.

(The third option is to eat the poor, but due to decades of leeching off the government's teat, they have become fatty and thus not a very healthy alternative to most meats currently on the market.)

[John Dule]

> What changes, if any, would you like to see to the tax code?

As elaborated on in the first question, I believe ultimately that taxes on the wealthy must be increased to reflect our pre-reset (2016) levels, with that revenue being focused predominantly on the poor and working class. Unfortunately, the GM department (the one aspect of the “cabinet” that I do not unilaterally have power to appoint or dismiss) has been silent in responding to multiple members of the administration, Congress and beyond, including fellow candidates in this race.

Until we can resolve the do-nothing situation in this area, it would be irresponsible of me to pledge specific policies without cost estimates. After all and as mentioned above, I have pledged to eliminate these wild deficits: a pledge I intend to honor. However, I will state that my general guiding principle in the short-term (post-budget) is that for every $1 we generate via the top earners, $0.50 should be allocated via tax cuts and/or credits to those earning less than $50k per year and $0.50 should be invested into programs that directly benefit these individuals.

Sorry Griff, but this isn't good enough. I propose an even more progressive form of taxation.

As we all know, taxing stuff fixes everything. We're all Democrats here. We get that. The taxes we've levied on cigarettes and big sodas have discouraged people from consuming those things forever-- now it's time to take our nanny-state social engineering to the next level.

I propose a tax on poverty. Yes, think about it-- if we raise taxes on everyone making under $30,000 a year, they will be forced to make more money. Otherwise they'll starve to death so that we can continue paying pensions to government workers. It's their choice. I believe this will motivate millions of Atlasians to step up and start earning the big bucks, because we will have disincentivized poverty to the point that it no longer becomes a viable life choice.

This is called forward thinking, people.

[John Dule]

Also, abortion should be mandatory in all cases. The sooner we stop people from having babies, the sooner the human race will die off-- and then maybe all this misery will finally end.

[John Dule]

In closing, I would just like to say that I don't believe in democracy, and if you support me, you should show solidarity by not voting in this election.

Democracy is a collectivist tool for the weak-willed. It is a layer of simplification that is used to mediate between the limitless complexities of the real world and the limited comprehension of the human mind. In doing this, it oversimplifies everything it attempts to solve. Nuanced issues are reduced to talking points. Varied opinions are reduced to a bipolar dichotomy. The supremely ordered natural world that we all inhabit is reduced to a structure of generalized laws and institutions. If you think that this is desirable, then you are incapable of looking at the awesome chaos of reality without the blinders of ideology. Only the truly worthy can accept the complexity of the world for what it is. Those who can't will always resort to overly simplistic modes of thinking, so as to not strain their flaccid minds.

51%. I want you to remember that number, for that is the true number of the beast. Democracy can only function based on the precondition that 51 = 100-- that if a slim majority wants something, it is somehow transmuted into "the will of the people," granting a mandate to the "winner." This is a lie. Democracy is merely a mechanism for forcing the will of the majority on the oppressed minority, whether that minority is racial, ethnic, religious, or ideological. Democracy is not the greatest good. It is not an inherent virtue. It is a utilitarian structure that is only as good as those who comprise it. The system we strive to create must be good regardless of context. If 51 or 66 or 75 or 99 percent of my fellow citizens are vicious Neo-Nazis, then I want to live under a system in which that does not affect me one iota. No system that can allow these types of people to exercise their will over others can possibly be called "moral."

Worse still, democracy functions to disperse responsibility and blame throughout the entire populace. Thus, when something goes wrong-- when an elected official commits a crime of heinous proportions, for example-- the individual feels no guilt in participating in this vile system. They assign the moral failing to the politician (even though they could very well have done the same thing, were they in the same position), and they ignore their own role in propping up democracy by lending it the legitimacy afforded to it by mass participation. Such is the great ill of collectivism-- without clear lines of responsibility and blame, decisions are made with no thought given to the consequences. Leaders are chosen based on who people would like to have a beer with. Wars are waged because the public reads biased headlines in newspaper articles. Voters are fickle, their minds easily warped, their opinions ill-conceived and weak.

If this sounds familiar-- if this is reprehensible to you-- then abstain from this election. Save your soul from the corrosion of mass opinion. The aggregate of many men does not average them out. Rather, it pollutes the best with the worst, and gives the worst undue benefits by piggybacking off of the best. The greatest inequality is to pretend that the unequal is equal. I have no patience for it. You shouldn't either.