At the risk of sounding like a class reductionist (I’m not), even things like racism and LGBTphobia are exacerbated by this, because the only reason we don’t just eat those ten guys is we’re always hating each other. The reason there’s so much racism in the US, for example, has a lot to do with slavery – and guess who benefitted from slavery? Guess who benefitted from the genocide against Native Americans? Who benefits most from calling refugees and undocumented workers “illegal immigrants”?
It’s not me. If you’re reading this, it’s probably not you. It hurts us. It hurts our communities, while these ten people keep brainwashing us into actually defending them and their system while hating each other.
(Ok now I’m going to have my coffee, and I wish to the gods that I could disable inbox notifications after posting this.)
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” – Lyndon Johnson
I live in the Bible belt and people 100% think a trans kid socially transitioning with a new haircut and different pronoun is a more direct threat to their livelihood than their boss giving them a 1% raise in a 5% inflation environment.
Same. We are surrounded by abject poverty and massive social problems. We could work to address those issues… But no. Bullying and maligning librarians for bullshit reasons is more important.
Why do you fear that lol?
Divide and conquer is a thing older than a sum of this thread’s ages. If there’s no constant infights and smaller issues, we’d figure things out and switch to them. When a poor white guy covers himself in blankets and burn crosses, they laught and applaud, because hating other poor guys is what would occupy him for life. They fund hatred for it lets them stay in power, it brings them easy wins against ‘the mysterious other’ people fear or don’t understand. It props them up alright.
Take insanely long copyright holders and LLMs from the thread I’ve read previously. We start to take sides and defend overwhelmingy rich companies from which none of them would probably suffer, and both of these suck ass. That’d hold us from regulating each at the same time, if anywhen.
Even coke and pepsi sold and sell us their rivalry as a way to up loyalty to their brand. Generating unrest is a good tool in their box. And I don’t think it’s a controversial opinion. Especially in economics and politics.
It may not be as bad here, but there are a shit ton of people who defend inherently destructive systems like capitalism, or who excuse systemic racism or transphobia. I’ve encountered them a lot, even here in the fediverse.
And now I understand you. I’ve seen persons fanboying for my fucking state, and I’m still open to switch places with them. They aren’t so enthusiastic about it after I propose that.
Either way, I wasn’t disagreeing with you at all.
Yeah, I get it. Personally, I live in the US, but we’re not so great either.
Personally, I think all states and hierarchies are destructive, but I’m willing to talk to people online who at least agree that oppressive systems like capitalism and authoritarianism are bad, as a baseline. In real life, I’m more open to conversing with people and debating ideologies, but being online is my escape from this fascist hellscape where I live.
Same here. It seeds some hope when you doubt either you or everyone gone insane.
Wishing the best to you. I keep trying to make things better, and maybe at some point after I’m gone, they will. I like what I’m seeing and hearing from a lot of younger people, so at least there’s that.
True to you. Best of luck too.
That hate propaganda is, in my opinion, more continually perpetuated by them, and in some cases created by them, because it offers, as you say, and I agree, a distraction from the pure evil they are for this planet and all life on it. The super villains have convinced us they’re not the villains. Where’s superman when you need him.
Probably working for a billionaire.
Exactly it’s not our fault for fighting against bigoted poor people, it’s bigots fault for being swayed to fight poor people and not join us against the rich
Yes, I fully agree. Some people act like we need to tolerate bigotry for the sake of unity, which is absurd. That’s why I often lead by saying I am not a class reductionist.
Seriously, why does Lenny not have the ability to disable notifications on posts?
I guess to encourage engagement, but it honestly has the opposite effect for me since it makes me squint at my inbox while hitting read all so I don’t have to see the debatelords and their hot takes lol
Try to mention that the majority of landlords who go around fixing shit all day are struggling just as much you will get you hung around here.
Mention that the uberrich are the ones behind those firms buying up houses and they want you blaming that 70 year old still fixing shit instead of them.
People are blind to so much shit sometimes and the pendulum swing in other directions like ACAB suddenly being pushed by a bunch of people who couldn’t speak English is the cherry on top to realizing so many people on the left are just as easily swayed as the people being grifted the right.
E: I’d like to see what people think are acceptable amounts of property ownership. Each person gets to own a single property? So I can own two properties and rent one if me and my partner each own, right? I wonder how far housing Co-ops can work.
Anyone in a committed relationship should be able to rent a single property. Nothing guarantees that we won’t break up, so they will need to keep something just in case. It’s also emergency funds for if we lose everything in the stock and people realize the Stock Market doesn’t work without the very thing people thing are arguing against. Unsustainable capitalism. What else do people do then? Go full Ron Swanson and put it all into shiny metal and bury it lol?
Until people start unionizing to the point where people don’t require their work to put into their retirement and get paid enough to actually save so they can’t generate money from hoarding, then you’ll need stock. You’ll need diverse portfolios which include property ownership.
the majority of landlords who go around fixing shit all day are struggling just as much you
Nah, this ain’t it, chief. They’re not struggling like me, and they’re exploiting a resource that should be a basic human right for profit. For every landlord who’s tRyInG tO pAy MoM’s NuRsInG hOmE fEeS, there are multiple tenants who can’t because they’re being sucked dry by these vampires.
People can fix shit without exploiting housing.
Edit: YIKES I just saw your username. Blocked, blocked, BLOCKED! Holy fucking shit!
I scrolled up wondering how bad could a username be really ffffuck me that’s tasteless
As I’ve said, the death of nuance lol.
You’re welcome to google the name and find out blankets with smallpox was never a thing though!
E: You’re also welcome to read any number of my well sourced comments or discussions about landlords and class warfare elsewhere.
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Yes indeed. I have multiple references to that one instance at Fort Pitt in my thread which historians believe to be bullshit. To be clear, this is the one verified attempt we can point to since dude replaced a couple of blankets and a scarf later which came from the smallpox ward. As you said, there’s no possibility he was able to spread it that way. It’s just not how smallpox works. Any smallpox already in the native population was due to contracting it conventionally exacerbated by the closeness of combat in warfare.
Blankets with smallpox was never a thing that decimated swaths of natives. Smallpox was able to do that all on it’s own. People weren’t handing them out left and right trying to kill natives. The US government did that all on their own through widespread genocide and cultural erasure.
Blankets with smallpox, was never a thing to deserve it’s cult childish joking status like everyone likes to pretend it did. People repeat it because it sounds plausible and it’s essentially a historical ear worm.
Settlers weren’t handing them out trying to kill people. The US government didn’t have a policy to use them to trick natives. None of it was a thing.
E: Clarity.
instance at Fort Pitt in my thread which historians believe to be bullshit.
I scanned your links and there was refutation of Churchill’s claim about Plains indians and blankets but there was no refutation of Pitt. Your links only showed corroborating evidence that Pitt happened.
The attempt was made, that’s verified. The actual ability to give someone smallpox via blankets is bullshit. I might have made that more clear. Apologies.
You keep YIKES-ing that hard, you’re going to give yourself a hernia. It’s just a username.
For fixing shit, there are plumbers and electricians and carpenters. They are workers.
Landlord earns money not from fixing, but from renting out a house first and foremost. And this is a passive income, or, to put otherwise, exploiting a resource and dragging money from something that doesn’t produce anything for society.
Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the slumlords!!!
Landlords are not a special case. If you don’t like your job you can quit. Sell the property if it is such a burden.
That’s the point, they often can’t because unlike you and the other people putting money into the magic money making machine which requires unsustainable growth based GDP to work, aka the stock market, they put theirs into equity.
Selling 1-2 houses for $150,000 isn’t going to let them retire lol. They also bought houses for generational income so they can gift them to their children or grandchildren.
And just like the reactionary fun both of you are going with, you pretend like it’s still not a class issue lol.
This is very class reductionist. Rich people are still hurt by bigotry, especially celebrities. Not every rich person is a cis, hetero, white, man.
These issues predate capitalism. Not making full use of minorities and oppressed people actually hurts the capitalist economy especially in terms of innovation. It would be much more efficient for the rich if everyone were giving their best.
These divisions are far from the only reason people don’t turn on the rich. People just don’t support socialism and I can see why. Things like the USSR and China are what happened when marxism was tried. We need to come up with better economic and political systems that actually work if we want to get anywhere. We then need to remove the stains these previous systems caused. I don’t think that’s gonna happen with the current crop of leftists as they are idealists still using 100s of years old ideologies.
Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the rich???
You don’t understand what I am saying do you? These issues predate the rich people we have now, and even hurt some of them. Billionaires are still bad people, but they aren’t the only problematic people in societies.
They have a vested interest in keeping the working class divided amongst itself.
Obviously other problematic people exist. But the wealthy are literally spending money to make sure we care more about being mad at each other than being mad at them.
I hear this said a lot. To me it sounds like different billionaires support different causes because of what they believe and what’s in their best interest. Obviously they are against the working class; I am not trying to deny that. That doesn’t automatically mean they support bigots.
Do you have evidence that most billionaires support bigots? If not your words are nothing but conjecture.
It’s not about supporting bigots, and I didn’t say that. It’s almost as if you’re deliberately obfuscating the point with bullshit.
I’m saying they’re paying for messaging with the goal of manipulating the working class in to fighting amongst itself. It’s literally the reason outlets like Fox News exist in the state they currently do.
What percentage of billionaires support fox news or similar organizations?
How am I obfuscating anything? You made a claim that billionaires support people who divide the working class based on things like race, gender, sexuality and so on as many others gave claimed. I asked for evidence as is my right. That seems simple enough to me.
If you can provide the evidence then I will accept what you are saying. Until then I am not gonna take you seriously. I see no reason why billionaires wouldn’t also be divided on political lines since everyone else seems to be.
They literally are, not because they are firsthand committing moral atrocities like murder, but because they intentionally keep structures in place that bring about moral atrocity, despite being the only people capable of changing them.
So serial killers are not problematic then? Good to know.
You don’t seem to know what you’re talking about since if anything there’s been a wealth of leftist literature within the past couple of decades, and if anything ideologies such as anarcho-communism and anarcho-primitivism are experiencing a renaissance.
I also find it highly suspect that your first go-to example of leftism is a failed authoritarian state like the Soviet Union rather than groups like the Zapatistas, the anti-fascist movement in the US, Food Not Bombs, many horizontally structured local coalitions, or other much better examples of leftism manifesting in helpful and vibrant ways.
Class reductionism is harmful, though – I’ll agree with you there.
You don’t seem to know what you’re talking about since if anything there’s been a wealth of leftist literature within the past couple of decades, and if anything ideologies such as anarcho-communism and anarcho-primitivism are experiencing a renaissance.
Anarcho-communism comes from Krapotkin, right? He wrote the book on it. He died over 100 years ago. Sure there might have been newer literature but it’s still based on 100+ year old ideology.
Anarchism is better in many ways than Marxism. The issue I have is that they get steam rolled by more organized regimes in places like Kronstadt in the USSR, or what happened to anarchist communes in Spain and Ukraine. I don’t think they can stand up against a well organized army. I would love to be proven wrong obviously. As long as regimes like fascism, marxism, capitalism are still around it will be difficult to make communes stick without some external force to defend them.
I choose the USSR as Marxism is far more popular in the UK (and I think the US too) than Anarchism. It’s the most obvious example of a failed Marxist regime.
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Don’t give a fuck about rich people regardless of race, sex, or anything else. Just because a group of rich people can also inadvertently harm themselves doesn’t mean they are not effectively 100% to blame.
I want evidence rich people caused this mess. It’s said all the time that they are at fault for rascism, sexism, homophobia, etc but never proven. These ideologies go back to slave times, long before the world of capitalism and billionaires. It’s possible some are exploiting existing divisions to suit their own ends, but that’s different from being the sole cause of a problem.
The USSR was what happened when dictators pretended to be socialist and victimized their subjects. This has little to do with Marx’ economic theories.
Then why did it happen in almost every country with a socialist revolution lead by marxists? The USSR is only one example, you could look at China or North Korea for example.
I agree with you here. I’ve started to see the left/right spectrum as not very useful, and the authoritarian/anarchist spectrum more appropriate. If peace, stability, and sustainability are ever achieved, it won’t be at the point of a gun or the order of an authoritarian.
Anarchism is great until a well organized army comes around and invades them. If someone can find a way to build a commune without it getting invaded by tankies or fascists or the USA then I am all ears.
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If you make a serious claim the least you can do is provide some evidence. Otherwise why should I take anything you say seriously?
I’ve often wondered if anarchism is actually more just. How do you deal with things like criminals without resorting to vigilantism? You must have a solution to this if you want to build stable communes. I don’t read much anarchist literature as I don’t care for 100 year old books, so there might be a solution there.
Dismissing the practicality of an idea as being unimportant is not great. If you support something you know won’t work you aren’t helping anyone.
Edit: also I don’t know how you can call me an apologist for the rich. I am all for eating billionaires for breakfast, I just want it to be for the right reasons not something people have made up.
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You know like a study or financial documents proving the majority of the bourgeoisie or even just billionaires support or fund rascist, sexist, homophobic or other kinds of organizations that attempt to divide people.
Even then I expect there to be exceptions like Bill Gates who are known for their philanthropy. Exceptions aren’t a reason to keep around billionaires of course as no individual should have that much power, money, or influence.
I love how the capitalists apologist brain rot gets downvoted like crazy in this comment section
It does in general on Lemmy, given that Lemmy is structured along leftist principles and there’s already a Capitalist, centralized Lemmy called Reddit.
If downvotes were bullets, this would be a very difficult fight.
Yeah but that has nothing to do with wanting rational discussion and everything to donwith wanting to keep the circlejerk going. Completely fine, just be honest about it.
bran rot
but laws
oh they bought those
oh
Eat the rich. They are full of fiber.
1 billing USD (in one-dollar-bills) weighs 2,204,622 pounds. How much fiber does that add up to???
About 2,204,622 lbs of fiber.
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How much ground money can you add to bread before people notice
In ancient Greece. The concept of beauty was so ingrained in the hearts of people. That no matter how poor you were - no matter how long the seigh of a city lasted. No one stole the gold that was on the statues located around town. Because to the Greek, beauty WAS life.
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Seems like a real good reason to get independent and start doing things for passion instead of for money.
Only issue is you can’t eat passion or use it to protect you from the elements. The idea of doing something for passion while tangentially making just enough money to support yourself is and always was a lie under a capitalist system. If we want to do that, we need to change the system first.
You can’t eat money either. You can use passion to create food, though.
Also I’m totally living that lie. Might be a crapshoot to try it, but it’s working for me. It’d probably work for a lot of miserable 9-5ers.
Doing the math, if you took the wealth of the top 10 people and divided it up among the world’s population, everyone would get 153 dollars.
Oh, well then that justifies their massive wealth hoarding. Thanks for letting us know.
Hey, that is a month’s salary for most of the people employed by the people on that list.
So potentially life-changing amounts of wealth for the vast majority of humanity that doesn’t live in a first world country, and a nice bump for those who do. Sounds like a good thing then.
Yeah, for most of us on this website, that amount isn’t life changing, but for a vast part of people on this planet, it would be highly significant.
For me, I read that comment as being sort of a counter-argument, but in my view, it only goes to show how faulty things are.
Lol, can’t give the people here facts, how dare you!
Put a cleaning robot in a public space, and count the number of hours until it’s been vandalized.
Those kinds of people are a major contributor too.
The top 10 billionaires vandalize robots in public spaces? What? That makes no sense.
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Sees everyone shouting about needing a stronger democracy, all the research about wealth inequality causing problems, and all the economic theory on how to improve people’s lives.
“We’ve tried nothing and I’m out of ideas. Let’s go back to Kings. That was cool. There were swords!”
Even a tepid, liberal political system like Social Democracy would be a step in the right direction. As the post correctly states, massive wealth inequality is at the core of many societal problems. If we simply taxed the rich to make wealth more equally distributed, limiting the effects of labor exploitation somewhat, that would be a “relevant working alternative” as long as you concede that the current system “works” - which it only does by exploiting labor in the global south.
I know. But “if we simply” won’t ever do it. Noone will manage to eradicate the ultra-rich (or just taxing them a lil) , hence it’s just stupid political talk that leads to absolutely nowhere. Never said I like it.
Even if… If they’re suddenly being taxed, they would just move to where they ain’t.
It’s a simple and efficient idea, yet it won’t happen. Those who have the money already, make the rules. Or bend them just enough.
Democracy is pretty good, Dictatorships themselves suck. That’s why Democracy should be extended to the work place, and shouldn’t be mini-dictatorships.
That’s why Democracy should be extended to the work place, and shouldn’t be mini-dictatorships.
You could do that. You could even distribute ownership, profits and risk among the workers. Literally nothing prevents someone from starting a business using that model. But then being paid a share of profits instead of a fixed salary is…probably not desirable for most people.
Dictatorships only suck because every dictator ever sucked. Because getting to this position requires the worst traits of humanity. Imagine a just dictator that couldn’t be bribed. Even the thought sounds funny. Democracy might be nice, but where is it really? It’s capitalism that really rules the world. Even if democracy is slapped upon as a label.
The Americans are the best (worst) example.
Dictatorships suck because there’s no accountability. A just dictator that can’t be bribed is still an unjust hierarchy that removes freedom and choice.
Democratically accountable Capitalism isn’t Capitalism. If production is democratically owned and controlled, it’s Socialism.
Yeah sure. Great. And now? Socialism (one that actually works for the good of all people, not just the leading ones) will never happen.
Said just dictatorship might be wrong, but it might actually work. The same kind of unrealistic ideology that will also never happen. I’d be all for either. Even if I’d be the loosing one in socialism.
Why do you believe its impossible for Workers to democratically own and control the Means of Production? Worker Co-ops already exist as proof of possibility, same with Lemmy and other FOSS software.
You would not be the losing one in Socialism unless you’re a landlord or a business owner, in which case I’m sorry but humanity shouldn’t hold back progression for your personal sake.
Oh you did get me wrong. I would loose in socialism, because I’m well off now. STILL I would prefer being worse off than now, if everyone would be equally good. I would loose a ton of moneyz, others would win. Only fair. I didn’t want this system, I just got lucky in it. But those unlucky in it far outweigh the lucky ones. And yeah, noone should be sorry for those loosing.
Yet, I don’t believe BIG changes are possible. Sure, some workers might unite and seize the means of production. But, it’s not always just that simple. And surely, the majority of people who would loose would strongly oppose every uprising. And have the means to successfully do so. And let’s say it’s a car-factory. You might seize the means of production, but who will buy from you? And which bank will not freeze your accounts this day? And which company will deliver you with power? Parts? None. Unless they aaaaaaaallll revolt. Which they won’t. As most regular Joes are happy with their few bucks, a TV and a beer. Why risk it all being homeless? What’s with your kid that wants food NOW not a hope tomorrow?
No, you would not lose in Socialism unless you are a landlord or business owner. If you’re an engineer, doctor, lawyer, or other skilled worker that makes good money, you would be better off in Socialism. Socialism is about worker ownership of the Means of Production. Again, unless you’re a landlord or a business owner, you stand to gain. It isn’t the bottom 50% against the top 50%, but closer to the bottom 99% against the top 1%.
If you’re asking about leftist strategy, Unionization is a big one, see Syndicalism. Anarchists and Marxists, reformers and revolutionary Socialists, there are plenty of strategies for enacting meaningful change.
Maybe not reward greed for a start
Sure. Great words. Won’t help at all. Won’t change a thing at all. Because people will always be greedy, and all societies reward the dark triad of human traits rather than the civilized and honorable ones.
A nice guy like you, who figured it out, doesn’t matter the slightest. No offence meant ofc.
“people will always be greedy” is such a lazy response. It’s the same as saying “there’s no point in trying to prevent violence and murder, because people will always be violent and murder others”.
And not all societies worked the way our society does.
A lazy response? So you actually disagree? Have you taken a look around in the world? Even if the majority wouldn’t be greedy at all, the minority is always more than enough to fuck up the system (for others)
And we’re not talking about homicides. Sure everyone not murdered is good. But do you think, that you and your perfect political ideology will ever change anything? Are you filthy rich? Then you might have a tiny chance. But if you were, we wouldn’t be talking here. You’re, like everyone else, a toothless cog-wheel.
The system itself heavily rewards greed.
For a metaphor, you cannot look at people growing up in a cheating and lying home and conclude that it’s human nature to lie and cheat all the time. We all grew up in capitalism, but there existed societies where things like greed wasn’t rewarded, but shunned, and they were different.
And your last paragraph, well, if change can never happen, why even bother voting? You’re just one vote in a million? Why form a union? Why do anything? Why do activism? It’s too pessimistic and not how the world works. Movements are very much possible.
Yeah sure. Just continue believing in it. No sarcasm here. I just don’t. We’re ruled by capital and that will never change as long as the regular Joe and Jane at least got their TV, beer and whatever else little they require to be “happy”.
“Optimism is just a lack of knowledge” someone once said. Anyhow I’m not pessimistic, but simply realistic. My WISH to change this world to the better, changes absolutely nothing to the fact that I can’t. By no means at all. You can’t really think, that, in our modern times, there would be big changes possible? Especially when those big changes would mostly be horrible to the big money-bags? We will probably even witness the birth of the first person to be a trillionaire(s). Nothing will stop this.
I’d love to be wrong here.
As you mentioned in another comment, you’re at least somewhat well off (I don’t fault you for that), which means you very likely have stable housing, food, access to healthcare, etc., great. But that means you aren’t experiencing the same pressure that the global average person is. I.e. there’s still a few necks between yours and the boot.
So it’s easy for you to say this, cry “there’s nothing that can be done”, to retain your conscience while living out your life in relative comfort.
I don’t mean to vilify you. Everyone does this to some degree. Life is short and scary, and it’s no single one of our faults for the current situation.
But please understand that rolling over on your back in apathy is exactly what those ten men want. And spreading it through social media even more so.
The world looked completely different 100 years ago, and 100 years before that, and that rate of change has not slowed. There is no reason to think it won’t be completely different 100 years from now, and what that will look like entirely depends on what we do now.
