854
Over half of Americans say they're not even close to financial freedom
(scrippsnews.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
854 points (98.1% liked)
News
23266 readers
3906 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
We could, it's kind of the the Gene Roddenberry vision, use our burgeoning automation/robotics/AI to do the labor so that Humankind could pursue our passions for everyone's benefit, but of course those technologies will be patented and used for the exclusive further profit of the non-laboring owner's club at everyone else's further expense, exploding our population of homeless peasants with nothing, and "our" government will continue to defend their ability to get away with it at gun point.
It's like so many things. Human kind should have been united in celebration when we split the atom and harnessed it's awesome energy generation, a warm light for all mankind, instead our first monkey ass impulse was to use it to incinerate a rival monkey tribe.
Humanity: Juuuust smart enough to be a belligerent threat to ourselves and others, yet too impulsive, short sighted, selfish, and stupid as a species to be anything more.
In the mid to late 1960s economists were predicting 20 hour work weeks and month-long vacations. So it was perfectly reasonable for Gene to imagine a future where nobody had to work.
It wasn't a falsehood. It was stolen by Reagan and the owner class. Reagan gave away the store and shifted all societal power to the oligarchs, while corporate America, led by GE, shifted from the correct "customers first, employees (who were valued!) second, investors third" model to the "investors first, second, and only" rigged market profiteering dystopia we all suffer today.
The citizen's of happiest developed nations of the world, not our gold plated cesspool to be clear, as a rule get months off a year, in addition to innumerable social supports. It's a proven lie that this is how it has to be. This is just how the greediest/most sociopathic people want it to be, and since those traits are what our society rewards, and punishes their opposites, they have all the power.
So what do we do about it? What's the answer?
Long term, the only faint hope I see the Ranked Choice voting compact between states, some of which have passed in some states, but hasn't reached critical mass yet. Unlike the Federal government, the oligarchs haven't been able to fully or reliably capture all state governments.
If we keep being presented candidates from the only 2 relevant already purchased parties, there is no hope. Neoliberal Democrats and Fascist Republicans screech over social issues, but are largely the same on economic policy, ie give everything to the owner class and maybe they'll piss on you one day herp derp.
The only other way this ends is overdue revolution, as even the framers admitted would be necessary at some point. The problem is, our people suffer, but they are also hopelessly addicted to opiates both literal and metaphorical: social media, fast food, literal opiates, etc, and aren't willing to risk losing those small comforts even to save their larger situation.
So either ranked choice voting or the eventual, inevitable painful collapse are the only 2 possible salvations. Revolution would be preferable to waiting possibly generations of suffering peope for collapse, but I don't see the will, we're too intentionally divided by our common enemy the oligarch owner class to see straight enough to agree they are our common enemy and the source of our failing society. Too many gullible Americans will blame a political party, or anyone who says something is wrong, or darkly hilariously homeless people and people with nothing, as if our society's many, many victims have any power whatsoever.