Image Description: A digital meme divided into two main panels: a mathematical whiteboard explanation at the top and a reaction image at the bottom. Top Panel (The Whiteboard): Titled “P-ADIC FINANCE where p = profit.” It explains a fictional financial system using real advanced mathematics. Left text: “In this metric, a number’s size is how little profit divides it. The more profitable the crime, the closer its penalty sits to zero. String together ever-bigger crimes and the fines don’t blow up, they converge.” A sequence shows: “p, p^2, p^3, … arrow pointing to 0.” Right chart: A table titled “Crime, Profit, Fine, Fine Size in P-Adic Metric.” It lists crimes: Outsource pollution: Profit = p, Fine = $1M, P-adic size = 1/p (small). Fake the numbers: Profit = p^2, Fine = $10M, P-adic size = 1/p^2 (smaller). Fix the market: Profit = p^3, Fine = $100M, P-adic size = 1/p^3 (tinier). Ruin a country: Profit = p^4, Fine = $1B, P-adic size = 1/p^4 (minuscule). Repeat infinitely: Profit = p^n, Fine = p^n (lol), P-adic size = 1/p^n which approaches 0. Below the chart: A number line showing 0 on the far left (labeled “Where your fines live”) and numbers increasing to the right (labeled “Big in absolute world”). A final box states: “The true crime in a corporate environment is not choosing p.” Bottom Panel (The Reaction): A sepia-toned photograph of a group of wealthy white men in suits, including former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, laughing uproariously together at a gathering. Edited comic speech bubbles are assigned to them: One asks, “Why’d we even need lawyers?” Another laughs, “We just changed the metric lmfao.” A third says, “Fines are for poors.” A man in the foreground laughs, “Infinite money glitch found boys.” In the bottom right corner, a modern internet meme character (a crying, angry “Wojak” in a suit wearing a badge that reads “REGULATORS”) has a thought bubble that reads: “They took us for absolute fools.” Bottom Caption: Superimposed across the bottom in large, bold, white Impact font: “THEY TOOK US FOR ABSOLUTE FOOLS”—a pun on the word “absolute” referring to both being deeply tricked and the standard mathematical “absolute metric.”
You made it sound poetic. In theory I’m totally on your side here. But in reality?
What if you live e.g. in the USA, are poor, your kid and you are superhappy, because you don’t value monetary things as high, your kid ignores being bullied not to have the latest iphone (or whatever kids demand to own nowadays) and everything is great. Then your kiddo gets really sick and …well. Debts pile up, you get the cheapest and worst treatment and then it’s over. Would you still say “reproduction is the necessity of letting a society explore its potential…and this potential went poof” or “some hope that wants to reserve a place in Pandora’s futures.” Or less dramatic, your kid dreams of being <insert job here> but you lack the funds to send it to the right university. Or the needed tools, or…or…or…
And the US isn’t even the worst example of possibilities where one might have been popped in from oblivion into existence. I couldn’t look my child in the eyes with dignity when it would be just one of twelve, in the hopes at least 3 survive to care for my ass when i’m old…
The trick in the meme is simpler than it looks: they didn’t break the rules, they changed the yardstick. Make the ruler long enough and a billion-dollar fine measures out as pocket change. That’s the whole con — not cheating the game, just quietly redefining the units it’s scored in.
Here’s the part nobody says out loud: you can change the yardstick too, in the honest direction. That “embarrassing old phone,” an ordinary passport, a skill you don’t think twice about — none of those have a fixed value. It depends entirely on where you’re standing. Take them somewhere they’re rare and they’re suddenly worth a lot. You didn’t break a rule; you just stopped measuring yourself with someone else’s ruler.
The difference between you and the guys laughing in that photo is one thing, and it’s the whole thing: a line you won’t cross even when you easily could. They deleted theirs. That’s not freedom — it’s how you end up unable to tell a small wrong from an enormous one, because you threw out the ruler that measures wrongs in the first place.
And here’s the catch they forgot: you can shrink the fine, but you can’t shrink the damage. The real bill gets kept somewhere their accounting can’t reach, and it always comes due. They look like they’re winning. They’re just early.
(And the clock’s ticking on that — the rest of the world is starting to look at that particular country through a very particular set of shades.)
I know how the world works, and I get the meme. Nothing has a fixed value, I also know that.
But where here is an argument for having children while being poor, no matter where you are. Also poor is very relative, yes. But depending on where you are, geographcially, there surely are fixed prices on things you, or especially your hypothetical kid, needs, wants or craves. Period. No amount of poetic well phrased ideology is changing that. Unless a certain percentage of people think exactly alike. And that percentage needs to higher than It will ever even approximate to in both our lifetimes.
HM. Enlighten me, where are the parking-tickets ever coming due for me? I just park a bit more expensive. Also, even if those get to me mentally or karma-wise (if you believe in such nonsense), it would to the poor too. On top of a fine being hurting already.
Besides. Haven’t even tried to discuss your meme to begin with (nothing wrong with it, depending if you’re pro or contra LLM), just asked why kids are always the excuse/reason for everything. If you were forced into procreation and abortion was not allowed/available/whatever and you’re still trying to be your best dad: Kudos to you. Bad parents are legion. Still wouldn’t really change my point. I would not want to be in a dilemma where I have to decide working for or with the devil or not feeding my kids. Hence I remain free of such burdens and also keep my freedom to make my own moral and ethical rules and apply to them. Bending those morals because I have a child, puts me into responsibility, not the kids (“who would feed them, if…”). I did that.
Not implying you were a bad person, parent, whatever. No offence meant at all.
Why are you concerning yourself with your kids’ needs? Your impression of a parent’s responsibility towards their progeny is what’s wrong in that equation. I was born in a “lower class” neighbourhood, worse than a rural village even because it’s surrounded by heavy industry and zoning laws weren’t even a thing back then. I paid the price for someone else’s mistake with my own well-being. My dad couldn’t get me everything I wanted, and my late mom had to leave her career as a teacher early to raise me and my siblings when it became obvious she couldn’t do both at the same time. That was a sacrifice she made, but not a compromise. I am both an excellent and terrible example regarding this issue, because I am very difficult to convince of anything. What she tried to deliberately instil in me rarely ever stuck, but what I learnt was the meta-process; because I challenged her at every point. That’s what I am instilling in my own children, now that I have my own. I don’t lecture them or force them to do things, I spend my time raising their capabilities to fish, not to eat the fish I bring home.
Karma? No. I won’t call it that because that’s a human term for an observation we have no reference frame to measure, and it lives at the fringe of equiprobable crossroads.
Thank you.I have two kids, the eldest is my stepdaughter and the youngest involved less steps. No forcing was involved. :P
That’s your subjective projection, based on your current situation and every experience you’ve ever been through. While mine are different, I can’t force you to accept or even fully recognise them. Both our views aren’t antagonistic in nature, because they’re viewing the problem from different perspectives and seeing different aspects of it.
None taken! Discussions like these are a delight for me!
Because it’s (would be) simply MY responsibility because I made this life? This life was never asked if it wanted to exist. I just forced it from a comfy nothingness to a harsh life in something. The harshness surely varies from “no worry in the world” to “why can’t I just die already?”
Do you not feel responsible? Or is it more like in other species? Here you are, enjoy life or not, that’s 100% up to you, but I gave you the chance.
Sorry that your life wasn’t easy. But kudos to that attitude and kudos for paying it forward to your kid. The same attitude that made me what I am. Challenge everything until I am convinced or the other. Never just gulp down indoctrination or propaganda or marketing.
That is a very healthy and solid attitude for teaching kids. That’s what I would too, I guess.
For perspective: I grew up pretty spoiled. What I wanted I got. I got my own fucking large flat when I was 14 or so. Half of the rooms were empty because I didn’t know what to do with them. So financially golden, but that was all, they never thought me anything useful.
When I wanted money to make my dream-buisiness and be self employed, they denied that and tried to convince me how stupid that was. So I had to start with a damn credit. And when it was super successful half a year later they wanted to be part of it (because they made me and made it hence possible at all) and I employed them for doing nothing. And my father actually stole money from me because he had a business-mayor and I do not l, so I let him do the finances. That’s why i didn’t notice quickly. When I did he already stole a non trivial six-figuress sum (that I know of). Gave the business up, and made another one. Never had contact with them again and they cut me out of their will.
So, that probably fuels your argument, as coming from money can even be worse than growing up poor.
So…it’s just random events me might, or might not accredit to karma or a higher power, if we’d be inclined to do so.
Lol, that was eloquently put. Involved less step s 😁
Fair point. Then let me generalize my point somehow: How is the ability to feeding ones offspring be a reason for doing amoral stuff? It’s there because of a decision I made (or failed to make or whatever). Simple survival first?
Dito. As long AS respectful and fruitful for one or both. So in that spirit, I rather think you’re one of the cool dads where money isn’t that important, but your love and dedication.
But. In tendency - you probably wouldn’t try to argue here - there’s a clear correlation between wealth and misery in regard of kids.
As anecdotal argument: I work, for free in my sparetime, in a shelter/helpcenter for abused or otherwise damaged adults. The correlation is very very strong here. The poorer the more fucked up the parents were, the more brutal the abuse, the more broken the adults…
Oh, I feel accountable for the deeds of my children, but only up to the point whence they learn to say no.
Actually it reframes it in much better terms: value is subjective based on need, a bottle of mineral water you’d walk into a 7/11 to buy on your way to buy a PlayStation is more valuable than its weight in gold to someone trapped in a gold mine. I’ve seen people who go around gathering cardboard and aluminium soda cans from garbage piles they then sell and exchange for their daily bread. That’s a closed trade loop of sorts, and it’s more honest than banking. A parent’s job is to provide what’s needed, not fulfil wishes. A child needs a phone for communication, they don’t need the latest iPhone with an AI chip to do that. A child needs nutrition, not snacks. Coddling is just as bad as apathy, and both are just as bad as being toxic towards the child.
If every genome capable of spontaneously developing a sophisticated moral framework that recognises what’s wrong with its upbringing refused to pass along those genes, what’s going to have a better chance to reproduce?
Thank you. And yeah, there’s always a correlation, just not where we often think it is. :P
I commend your efforts. And trust me, those people need you and people like you.
Of course. A very basic one, at best without apps. But the point is that there’s no universal rule to help a kid survive (high)school, which often can be very damaging to kids. One wrong step taken, one wrong decision made, one silly error at the wrong time…At my disgusting (in hindsight) highschool the poor got bullied. So everyone tried their best to appear “middle class”. Stupid as fuck, but i heard worse stories from other schools.
Thanks. And yes they do need help. And it’s incredible how many people need help in such a “civilized” nation.
As for your other points: My points made sense, yours made more sense. Hence i retract my initial statement and stand corrected.
I remember being bullied and being called “the genius”, sometimes genuinely by adults, and most of the time sarcastically by other kids. To clarify, the exact alias used was “عبقرينو” (which is the Arabic name for the Disney character Gyro Gearloose), and I used to hate it. It affected my behaviour because I had to mask and adjust my image in order to avoid the moment where I answer questions so thoroughly or ask for clarifications that demonstrate genuine insight that caused my teachers to point me out as an exemplar amongst my classes, because that’s what starts the bullying cycle.
Now here one could argue that bullying is a purely negative experience that should never ever be allowed to happen; or look at this thread and realise how much I’ve been shaped by that experience and see me smiling at this very moment as I reminisce on those days. Both views are valid, and both evoke a different perspective separated by 3 decades. But only the latter considers how life itself can be a teacher, and how it pressed an intelligent vessel into the required shape to hold wisdom.
I do not regret or resent those experiences now. I used to, but not anymore.
I actually experienced the very same. I often deliberately try to act stupid or give wrong answers, just to somehow fit in. Masking is a thing you learn quickly :) The only thing people fear even more than the strange and unknown, is people being smarter than themselves. “Gyro Gearloose” I would’ve taken as a compliment though. Today. Probably not back then, obviously.
Good you took it well, but also this is very anecdotal. We might’ve overcome this, but others break and stay broken. Might it be due to lacking help, lacking reference-frame, lacking whatever. So I wouldn’t really want that for my kid. Not that one has any influence on it, as school is a mighty force parents often cannot barely compete with. It’s 4 decades ago, but I still remember this one guy we bullied hardcore. all day long. all year long. Just because he had poor parents. He basically had the same clothes all year long. What a stupid metric to judge people, but stupid is always majority.