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The gym is exactly why communism doesn't work

Man of Wealth and Taste

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(Odds of this thread getting DT'd 3:2)

Communism is the small timer's system. That's a fact. It never works and the gym is a perfect allegory for why:

- No property rights: If it belongs to me, it's my problem. If it belongs to everybody, it's somebody else's problem. This is how you get morons breaking stuff left right and center. Breaking weights, busting treadmills, snapping cables, all acting like assholes, because it's communal property.

- No incentives: How often have you ever found a weight in the right goddamn spot? Never? Because people just throw it wherever, in the first empty spot they find. And that's if they even put **** back at all. You waste so much time trying to find the weight you need, and cleaning off the weight when somebody leaves it on the rack. Then there's the wasted time, you find a bench with weight on it, but nobody's around. So you're standing around, waiting to see if somebody claims it, all the while you could be gettin' swole.

- Inefficient resource allocation: So you're at the gym to do some squats. So you go to the one place you can do squats; the squat rack. In the very limited squat racks, there's some bro, doing his curls. So you can't use the rack for the very exercise it was named after, so some jackass can do an exercise that requires two feet of space in front of you. That's it. It could be done literally anywhere else in the gym, but this asshole has to use up the squat rack. Why? Because he gives no *****. It's to each according to the "need", and bro "needs" to do curls on an olympic bar with two five pound weights on each side. Communism just lets everyone grab whatever they want, regardless of where it would work best.

All of these are specialized cases of the real reason communism busts out: a failure to compensate for selfishness. People want what's best for them, end of story and communism ignores that. Selfishness is why people hoard piles of weights for their entire routine, come back after ignoring a bench for 30 minutes and say "Hey I was using that" and refuse to let you work in.

Every stress at the gym comes from the fact that people are selfish and gym policies idealize human behaviour and refuse to be realistic.

tl;dr - The gym is stupid because commies are stupid.
 

Harold falcon

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Thank you, 1998.
 

TheDarkKnight

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As an aside, and not wishing to calm your post-gym rage, but are there ever legit reasons for using an olympic bar and squat rack for curls?

Does balancing a longer bar recruit more fibres/ stabilising muscles?

I did once to isometric curls using the squat rack, to get past sticking points. My sticking point was at about 30 degrees ( arms hanging down holding the weight being 0, half way 90), so I set the pins at 40 degrees and did curls up to that level and then isometrics against the pins.

( I did this at a very quiet time though
wink.gif
)
 

ma1

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Yeah but you have cheap access to equipment that you clearly don't have. And you use it. So it actually works. You're the small timer.
 

coop86

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Originally Posted by ma1
Yeah but you have cheap access to equipment that you clearly don't have. And you use it. So it actually works. You're the small timer.
True, however: Communism: everyone is forced to pay for a low quality communal gym no one respects regardless if you choose to use the gym or not. Capitalism: choose to pay a little and go to a communal gym, pay a lot and buy your own gym/install a gym in your house, or choose to pay nothing and not go to the gym at all.
 

acidboy

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does this also mean its a bad idea to elect a bodybuilder into office?
 

Mr Herbert

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at my gym everyone looks after the plates, people encourage each other to work in and people dont even do curls.

after training everyone puts the plates and bars back in place and theres never a shortage of friendly banter.

your gym sounds crap.
 

rjmaiorano

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Originally Posted by Man of Wealth and Taste
(Odds of this thread getting DT'd 3:2)

All of these are specialized cases of the real reason communism busts out: a failure to compensate for selfishness. People want what's best for them, end of story and communism ignores that. Selfishness is why people hoard piles of weights for their entire routine, come back after ignoring a bench for 30 minutes and say "Hey I was using that" and refuse to let you work in.

Every stress at the gym comes from the fact that people are selfish and gym policies idealize human behaviour and refuse to be realistic.

tl;dr - The gym is stupid because commies are stupid.


There are some compensations for selfishness in Capitalism, this is very much capitalism as well. Capitalists are selfish as hell. And if we argue Post-Capitalist then selfishness is even more evident IMO.

For the record I rack my weight
smile.gif
 

pebblegrain

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all you need is a police state (big employee motherfucker enforcing rules)
 

Lane

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Originally Posted by Man of Wealth and Taste
Why? Because he gives no *****. It's to each according to the "need", and bro "needs" to do curls on an olympic bar with two five pound weights on each side.
holy **** this had me rolling
lol8[1].gif
 

DerekS

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Originally Posted by Lane
holy **** this had me rolling
lol8[1].gif


me too...specifically this...

"because he gives no *****..." classic. Ill definitely fit that into a conversation today.
 

celery

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At least you have access to the whole gym it seems. I go to a capitalist gym and 5% of the members have access to 90% of the gym while the rest of us have to share one broken treadmill and some loose plates.
 

nystyle86

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I guess you haven't been to a gym in China or Soviet Russia where people are more disciplined have respect for each other and don't act like spoiled 90s kids who feel they're entitled to everything and "me me me" comes first. And the gym that the OP describes sounds more like guido or ghetto dominated gym so that's not a surprise if it looks ransacked .
devil.gif
 

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