StoneToss: Episode 51

Comic Name: Bait

Description: One thousand leagues (per month) under the sea.

Mouseover: Thar be treasure in Davy Jone's Locker.

Originally Published: 3/12/2019

What The Comic Is: A vessel christened the S. S. Society sails on the open sea. On its deck, the captain warns his cabin boy about the dangers of the siren's song. They spot a siren wearing a Yang hat and holding out a 1,000 dollar check invitingly. The ship crashes into the siren's rocks.

What StoneToss Actually Thinks: UBI is bad, at worst it's akin to a "Siren's Song" that will destroy society.

Why It's Fucking Stupid: It took StoneToss longer than I ever thought it would've to make a comic about UBI, or Universal Basic Income. If you somehow don't already know what a UBI is, it's essentially free income that everyone receives on a regular basis (usually monthly). Politician and hopeful presidential candidate Andrew Yang is (in)famous for his strong backing of a 1,000 dollar monthly UBI. 

While UBI seemed like a vague and unobtainable goal even just a couple of years ago, it seems more and more likely that a form of UBI will end up as a reality in at least some part of the modern world in the imminent future. Most normal people are happy and anticipant of this, though bigots like StoneToss would rather spitefully forgo a UBI because it means brown people get to have it, too.

UBI has its detractors, but few of the arguments against it are very good. Most aren't even valid. This is not to ay that UBI wouldn't have issues or any valid arguments against it. However, criticizing UBI in a valid way requires knowing about a deep and somewhat convoluted issue, or at least reading a few online articles about it. StoneToss is not capable of learning anything about UBI, because doing so would require too much effort.

While StoneToss is known for his often times convoluted statements on different topics, he can only muster a weak, unfunny "UBI will SINK the BOAT of SOCIETY on the ROCKS of MONEY" comic. This is because, like with green energy, his Church doesn't offer enough sermons about UBI. Because of this, there isn't much to discuss about the comic itself; StoneToss wasn't smart enough or had enough knowledge on UBI to make proper commentary on it. Let's pretend StoneToss puts as much effort into learning as he does into blind hatred and imagine he made some points worth refuting. Like these common bad arguments against UBI such as...

"UBI will lead to inflation and soon the extra money won't matter, anyways": 

Inflation is the devaluation of individual marks of currency that occurs, most commonly, when the currency is over produced. If a country only has 400 coins across its entire economy, those individual coins are going to have a lot of value and buying power. An entire mansion estate might only cost a single coin, for instance. Now, if we suddenly inject 1 million new coins into the economy and bring the number of coins up to 1,000,400, the individual buying power of those coins goes down, and the cost of goods goes up (or 'inflates'). Now that mansion estate, worth only 1 coin before, might be worth fifteen thousand coins or some other inflated value.

Inflation can also occur in a currency when the value standard that supports the currency is changed. In post-WW1 Germany, for instance, the German currency was based heavily on the value of the loan money it was receiving from the USA. When the USA recalled their loans in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, German money became highly devalued and prices inflated to compensate (made into a hyperinflation crisis when the German government began wildly printing off new money in order to pay striking workers).

UBI does not normally call for printing new money, it's more like a redistribution of money via rising taxes on the wealthy. Redistributing money does not lead to inflation, as new money is not being made; existing money is just being moved around. It also stimulates the economy by giving people more money to spend. Models of UBI have already proven it does not increase inflation by significant margins.

"People will quit their job and spend the UBI on drugs, the labor force with vanish and there will be no more tax revenue":

Most people can't outright live off of something like 12,000 dollars a year. The tiny few who are able to live in rent controlled housing and receive other welfare benefits like food stamps are able to live a meager life, but most people will require a bit more than just 1,000 dollars a month to achieve a preferable standard of living. So, just like the models show, people do not tend to quit their jobs en masse just because half their rent money is brought in through UBI. Instead, they tend to continue working and do stuff like, oh I dunno, buy houses or live without worrying so much about rent and mortgages. They take more investment risks, save better for retirement and in general enjoy a better and more liberated quality of living. Also, models show they don't spend a noticeable uptick in vices such as drugs or lottery tickets.

Also, the tax burden in most UBI models is put on income brackets that are far higher than "I can quit my job because I'm making 12,000 a year for free".

It will take money away from the most needy: 

This argument holds literally no evidence and is basically just propaganda by those whose interests are opposed to a UBI. It is a way of scaring the poor into being against something that would benefit them. UBI might replace some people's Social Security or Welfare money, but their support is safe and they would not lose out on support just because others are now receiving a similar benefit. It is a flat out lie meant to incite class warfare among the poor. 

These are the three of the most common debunked "arguments" concerning UBI, but there are many others. It is a pretty complex topic, after all. I won't turn this entire post into a tl;dr about UBI, as there are better articles and videos out there that cover the topic in far more detail and nuance than I have the reasonable capability of doing. The point is that StoneToss once again signals his lack of understanding about something by making a comic that goes no further than a base, almost childish commentary. You could reduce this comic to its final panel, even. Just write "UBI" on the rocks that the S. S. Society crashes upon and you have yourself an old fashioned dumbass political cartoon.

StoneToss heard about UBI and instead of making a comic about inflation or something economically boring like that, he proclaimed "What?! Mexicans and Blacks would also get money?!" and made an exaggerative comic where UBI leads to the outright total collapse of society. What a fucking idiot.

Comic Name: Sacred Texts

Description: Reminder that Nazis making human-skin lampshades is completely false. Hmm, what other things might be incorrect?

Mouseover: More like the Jewy Decimal System, amiright?

Originally Published: 3/14/2019

What The Comic Is: A man in a fedora places the Bible in the "fiction" section of a book shelf, chuckling smugly as he does. Behind him, a man in a red hat puts the Quran in the same fiction section, chuckling smugly as the fedora man sweats in alarm. Behind the red hat, however, another man puts a book about the holocaust in the same section, chuckling smugly as now the red hat man sweats profusely in alarm.

What StoneToss Actually Thinks: Holocaust was fake, only the most BASED and CUMPILLED believe this. Also, holocaust denial is the same as bashing a religion. 

Why It's Fucking Stupid: Ah, here's something StoneToss puts at least a little bit of his time into; how much he hates Jews! Unlike UBI, which is strange and convoluted for StoneToss and his good Church boy brain, hatred of Jews is something he readily grasps. 

The comic is obviously making fun of "edge lord" fedora m'lady neckbeards, who think it's funny to insult Christianity. However, they are not as BASED as people in red hats who mock Islam (obviously a reference to the MAGA red hat, though StoneToss stops short of insulting MAGAts so blatantly, and opts to leave the MAGA text off of the hat, as if that's somehow fooling anyone), yet the red hats are not as BASED as holocause deniers. It's a hierarchy of edginess that StoneToss believes holds truth. It's also comparing the holocaust to religion, mocking those that think anything is too sacred to be derided or questioned.

Okay so, the holocaust is a clear and recently-occurred historical event with loads of evidence. Religion is, uh, something that has no evidence and is not historical. You see how they're different, then, yes? This means comparing religious belief to holocaust history is completely stupid and totally invalid, which is exactly why StoneToss is doing it. The Bible and the Quran might be 'sacred', but the holocaust is historical. 

StoneToss, as all unoriginal holocaust deniers do, leans again into the legends of human skin lampshades that have no evidence supporting that the items ever existed. Because one or two legends of the holocaust don't have evidence of their existence, or because they were just horror stories people thought were true at the time (in regards to the 'human soap' stories covered on this blog in past posts), bigots like StoneToss take this is as a green light to begin questioning anything or everything about the holocaust. It is dishonest and done in blatant bad faith.

StoneToss also depicts holocaust deniers as being the top of the food chain alpha based males who draw quiet fear from those below them. In reality, they're just loser assholes that no one likes.