• AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    “You don’t need a formal conspiracy when interests converge. These people went to the same universities, they’re on the same boards of directors, they’re in the same country clubs. They have like interests, they don’t need to call a meeting. They know what’s good for them.”

    -George Carlin, from an episode of Politically Incorrect

    https://youtu.be/VAFd4FdbJxs?si=BZOXSSkui3_FbyCd

    There are powerful classes of people that oppress you, but not because they go to secret meetings where they plan to, power/capital simply tends to corrupt.

    And from our perspective it feels coordinated because the capitalist’s punches all come from the same direction: downward from above.

    The truth is, they’ve bled us dry and have begun to turn on and eat one another having conquered the board with little room left to grow/metastasize. That’s why entire economic sectors are turning into TimeWarnerHBODiscoveryParamountSoonEtc…

    • lledrtx@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I think the ruling class “controls/exploits some things” and they are “in control” is the difference? Like yes they have bled us dry with their grip but as WikiLeaks, Epstein, Panama papers etc suggests, they weren’t really “in control”. Right now, there’s a decent chance that Pakistan falls to the Taliban and their nukes will be in their hands - is actually anyone “in control” of this situation?

  • Obinice@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Actually, it’s the Crows that are in control.

    Don’t believe me? Look outside. There’s a crow out there, isn’t there? What do you think they’re doing, just chillin? Nah. Crows are always up to something.

  • RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    “Alan… this is why no one comes to your parties anymore.”

    “It’s not because they can’t get in my house because of the size of my beard?”

    “That is a related, yet ancillary, issue.”

  • Seraph@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    The universe doesn’t care about us. It will continue regardless of our actions.

    I find it both terrifying and comforting.

    • Obinice@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It will end regardless of us, too.

      Even if we somehow survive all odds throughout the future, eventually everything will die when the universe slowly dies out. It cannot be reversed or avoided.

    • Emptiness@beehaw.org
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      9 months ago

      How would a universe care? A hug from a distant comet? 😊

      Is the eqanimous silence really absence of caring?

      Look closer into that comforting silence, you might be surprised.

  • Asafum@feddit.nl
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    9 months ago

    We only have one rudder and it’s the capitalists at the helm.

    The only direction that boat can go is “more profit!” even if the waters that leads us to are literally boiling. :/

    • Janet@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 months ago

      there is no water, just people carrying other people… all the way on top are a couple few sitting on their machines sucking out the lives of those who are carrying them while throwing out trinkets in hope to direct the masses… or something… a nightmarish spike of steel and flesh, a spring fountain of value next to a smokestack of death, all the way down beneath the machinery: on all fours, crushed backs, hands desperately scratching up dirt to feed the machine in hopes for a smidgen of anything and the bottom of the machinery would be a boot…

    • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      No. Capitalists aren’t an individual. You can’t apply individual logic to them because they fundamentally behave differently. They go for “more profit” because of simple motivations and fundamental limits of perception.

      Saying they’re at the rudder is like saying maggots purposefully decompose a carcass. They do decompose it, but little intelligence or coordination was involved, other organisms also contribute, and they’re all just living life. The actions that send us into boiling water weren’t done to move the ship.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        9 months ago

        It’s the plural of a capitalist, or “they.” They act as a collective and their singular drive of “more profit” collectively are what “hold the rudder” (lobbying, bribing, funding fraudulent scientific studies, etc…) like the collective action of the maggots decompose the body. Maybe one maggot isn’t trying to decay the whole thing, but it is the result of their collective action.

        • TotallynotJessica@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          The result might look similar to steering, but not only is there no single steering rudder, capitalists don’t monopolize all of them. The result being the same might incentivize ignoring the truth, but it does matter. If the model has deficiencies, extrapolated inferences can lead you astray. In this situation it’s accurate, but in other situations it might not be.

          The net effect of capitalist behavior moves us one way, but other forces are at play. With the move away from neoliberalism and the rise of nationalism, capitalism might not be the net force in the near future.

          Fascism doesn’t primarily serve capitalist interests, but capitalists believe it serves them better than social democracy. However, capitalists are dead wrong because they are human, just like everyone else. Nationalism, religion, and culture are essential to the equation. Capitalists can exploit social phenomenon, but they don’t control them, no matter how much lobbying or propaganda they use.

          They don’t hold the rudder. They push it, but don’t monopolize it.

  • rekabis@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    I think that there are probably quite a large number of groups that are trying to control things.

    The thing is, stochastic chaos and multiple groups working in concert, in the same general direction, and even at cross-purposes greatly affects their ability to create lasting change that matters (even if only for them).

    As such, for any one issue that is “progressing”, there is likely one or more groups working successfully in that direction combined with other groups that are either inadvertently affecting the results, or succeeding or failing to oppose that direction to various degrees.

    There are likely vanishingly few examples of a single group attempting to affect a significant issue unopposed.

  • modifier@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    Yeah I had a similar epiphany that I find to be simultaneously comforting on an individual level and unsettling at a macro level.

    Nobody knows what they are doing.

    • colin@lemmy.uninsane.org
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      9 months ago

      “nothing matters” is the tool i use when it’s the weekend and i’m struggling to enjoy it because i’m busy worrying about my job come Monday. but then i walk anyone else through the logic and they tell me it’s depressing and that i shouldn’t tell anyone else what i just told them. so, cheers to the enlightened few 🥂

  • ZOSTED@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    Have you heard of synarchy? An actually secret society controls the world via so-called secret societies (the ones you’ve probably heard of), even those with seemingly contradictory goals. Of course they’re so secretive that you’ve never heard of them.

    Just kidding I’m paraphrasing a conspiracy nut from Foucault’s Pendulum (good read, but very Noun heavy).___