If only there was a solution!
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Kill their families.
This is normal, the billionaire class has always ruled over hordes of proles.
In the beginning, we just knew about our own territory, a few hundred years ago, we wouldn't know what's going on beyond a few days travel from our home. Today, we can read news from across the globe.
A few centuries ago, we could at least daydream that things are better somewhere. Ignorance is bliss
The problem is, as people gain power, it rots their mind and ruins their perceptions, so we have this recurring theme running throughout our history.
That's why it's so important to have short terms and total transparency.
But, once they gain power, politicians always fight tooth and nail to keep and expand on that power, and since they make the rules, here we are. Again
II would put it the other way around: as long as representative systems exist, it will always be more likely that egoists and narcissists will establish themselves in leadership positions, even if they only make up a small part of the population. Today, this is encouraged by the fact that we reward these character traits, which are actually harmful to the community, with fame, money and prestige.
Personally, I think the internet is both a blessing and a curse: while it is currently being used to sow discord and spread lies, it will also enable us to do without representatives and the corruption that goes with them in the foreseeable future. I believe that internet- and open-source-based direct democracy is the model of government of the future.
How do we just go back to ‘normal’??
This is normal. Parasitic elites have been running the world for pretty much all of recorded history.
How do we learn from history so we can stop repeating it?
Maybe by advancing our democracies in the same way the technology to divide and rule us is advancing.
Personally, I think the internet is both a blessing and a curse: while it is currently being used to sow discord and spread lies, it will also enable us to do without representatives and the corruption that goes with them in the foreseeable future. I believe that internet- and open-source-based direct democracy is the model of government of the future.
Not sure if going "back to normal" actually is a good thing. Insanity is the new normal .. deal with it. Wich involves finding a balance between staying informed and staying sane. Where the priority definitively is on the sane aspect
We need more Luigi’s. Make it culturally acceptable to kill rich people. If they feel fear, they behave.
This is the only solution and things will continue to get worse until we enact it.
I don't want rich people to behave.
I want them to pay back the money that they stole, so that there will be no rich people.
I agree. If they won't return what was stolen, we should take it by force.
This is part of good behavior.
the thing is, normal was always heading in this direction. Capitalism consolidates power into the hands of a few and it keeps consolidating. It will always yield toward more poverty, though for some at home they can wealthier off the exploitation of others.
I get what you mean, but going back to normal will get you right back here in a few years or decades.
I think that the answer is socialism. But for sure, pretty much nobody believes that anyone should have the wealth and power that our capitalists do.
AI will tell you what you want to hear, that's not really a good source.
We've never known normal. This runs back to the beginning of "civilization". I don't know what's next but some things probably need to happen; connecting with others, stopping following the old rules, removal of the toxic members perpetuating this, building something new with different principles
You mean blissfully ignorant to this information. It’s a can of worms.
Post about it on the internet built upon tech enabled by the said class in today's world, from devices sold to us by the said class in today's world, in our homes with comforts the existence of which wouldn't be possible without the said class in today's world. Then go to work using infrastructure and means we wouldn't have without the said class in today's world, likely doing work we wouldn't have without the said class in today's world. Perhaps go buy some food the likes of which we couldn't dream of having access to without the said class in today's world. Maybe indulge in a hobby - a leisurely distraction, the kind that only exists because the said class engineered today's world where you have time and resources to waste on frivolity, while they decide what those resources are.
Anyone who wants to hold on to the comforts of modern life will have next to no power to make a change happen. Most of the money you spend goes into their pockets. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Option is to reduce spending, start exchanging favors without money (or develop your own currency with your friends) and if you have to spend money, prefer local goods and small services. Learn to fix things instead of buying new stuff. Offer community, food and fun to people with as little money investment as possible.
Make it work for you and people immediately around you. Get it to spread. This goes triple for you tankies out there. If you can't get this to work at a small level, you will not bring about systematic change. The game is theirs, it's rigged against you and bless your sweet honey heart, you somehow think you can win.
Not saying this is what I think everyone must do. I'll be dead soon enough and I don't have kids. But I am saying that if YOU want to see a change in the system, you need to start playing a different game that isn't built on money.
I like your encouragements but I don't see how any of what you list is made impossible by the absence of the ruling class? if anything the class struggle is vastly slowing down progress
I might be misunderstanding you but there seems to be an assumption that I'm making the claim that the kind of modern life we have can't be possible without capitalism. I am not. It's completely irrelevant to me (and my point).
If people want to insist that a world like ours can be possible while resources are shared equally, great. I have nothing against making the attempt at that, please do. But that's not the world we live in right now. The world we currently find ourselves is the one where capitalism has made all the luxuries etc. possible, and we are very habituated to it. To the point that many people are reluctant to let any of that go, while simultaneously demanding for a systematic change. Hence the "can't have your cake and eat it too". People are demanding revolution but precious few have any actually actionable suggestions on how to bring that about. I'm suggesting things that anyone can do by themselves, as much as is possible for them. Doing those things doesn't require that everyone agrees with you, because you start with yourself. It doesn't require a massive systematic change, because again, you start with yourself.
If anyone has suggestions on concrete actions to take to bring about massive systematic change, please let me know. Let everyone know. But keep in mind you'd have to persuade people that it's going to work and it's a better system. Revolution is very easy on paper.
So, capitalism exists and most modern progress has been made under it ? that's certainly an observation
I’m not entirely sure what you’re getting at with the sarcasm. You asked, I answered. My point was never that capitalism is good or necessary, but that it’s the system we’re currently stuck in and I suggested relatively low bar action individuals can take.
I'm not interested in discussing hypothetical worlds that woulda been, clouda been or shoulda been if not for them darn capitalists. I'm sure we could live in a completely egalitarian utopia if not for this, that and the other thing.
But we don't.
If you have something constructive to contribute, feel free to do so.
Well fucking said. Everyone’s ready to bitch about the system, until you ask them to live anywhere near like the people who are actually getting crushed by it. The performative outrage in this thread is a bad joke to the people who build our phones, sew our clothes, and mine our lithium. To them, we’re not revolutionaries. We’re the elite’s pampered pets, barking at the leash but gladly gobbling up all the treats they throw at us. People are getting mad about AI: guess fucking what, the outrage itself is a treat. The Epstein files are a treat. Anything that keeps you glued to the screen, ignoring everything that is actually around you is a treat. It's your programmed Two Minutes of Hate.
Revolutions happen with real people willing to make sacrifices, working together and giving others real, tangible reasons to want to support them. Not by bitching online about how very awful it is. You want a revolution? Try going a week without buying anything. Try getting relationships instead of likes. But no, it’s easier to scream into the void and call it resistance, isn’t it? The system thanks you for your compliance.
What? Someone actually gives reasonably actionable suggestions here?
Counterpoint: we throw them in wood chippers and confiscate all the factories and such.
wouldn’t be possible without the said class.
This is complete and utter bullshit. Like technology and infrastructure is impossible without billionaires. They are leeches and are not structurally significant for any reason than that we let them be.
Great, all the better. Please do start building it again from scratch.
Are you not aware of how, for example, car lobbies destroyed public infrastructure in an attempt to make everything car dependant to sell more cars? Claiming any of these things only exist because of billionaires is absurd. They take over and destroy.
Claiming any of these things only exist because of billionaires is absurd. They take over and destroy.
But if they ‘took over,’ then by definition, the things that exist now - including the infrastructure you’re using to complain about them - exist because they allowed it. What you (and !Feyd@programming.dev ) have actually described is a world where billionaires are both all-powerful and completely irrelevant. That’s not a critique. That’s a paradox. And it’s a useful one because it lets you feel angry without actually taking any concrete action.
After all the Quanon stuff and the general population increasing their awareness of how conspiratorial thinking works, it's weird to see "my side" use the same rhetorical tactics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Definitions_of_fascism&useskin=vector#Umberto_Eco
"Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak". On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will."
This isn't new information to the majority of people who care. The trick is mobilizing society to do something about it (like general strike). You may be newly awakened, but the majority still are not.
Shocked anyone is surprised.
Fuck this particular kind of smug defeatism btw
We already have known this for decades. Why would this change anything?
if you’re like me you’ve used various AI
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Stop using the fucking "ai" that those same billionaires are burning the planet down to use to shove misinformation down your throat for fucks sake
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Start paying attention to what people who didn't just figure this out have been saying for generations about this.
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Stop using AI.
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Seriously, stop using AI, it already sounds like its leading you down some crazy conspiracy rabbit hole that ends up blaming anyone except the billionaires who own the AIs and are actually the problem.
It is a men eat men world. Animal world.
Live with the consequences of being enablers?
Will you join in our crusade, will you be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade is there a world you longed to see?
Then JOIN IN THE FIGHT, that will GIVE YOU THE RIGHT to be FREE!
(legal disclaimer: just quoting song lyrics, it's not illegal right? Hello Mr. FBI Agent watching me 😏)
We will do our very best to create the most fire memes this world has ever seen. Nothing will surpass them until WW3 starts.