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this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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No Stupid Questions
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It's a tough pill to swallow
But 150 years ago, folks were being given swaths of land, not knowing dick about that land, just for like... Fighting in wars.
Now, they let veterans starve and kill themselves.
Just saw a sad gif of a long line at the Costco rotisserie chicken stand.
People won't say enough is enough until they're hungry.
We're close.
The most lucrative positions are experiencing enormous layoffs.
2025-2030 is going to be WWIII and the greatest class war.of all time.
I just hope shit turns out okay for 2030 and beyond. Global warming ain't making that likely.
Sorry for doomer. But we either have a Renaissance era and burn or have an enslavement era and burn. I'm not loving the odds.
I am not a historian, but I get a sense that perhaps the intellectuals at least seemed to think that democracy (in the USA specifically, but also perhaps everywhere?) were just waiting to see how this grand "experiment" turns out. So there has practically always (since 1776 when the fire of democracy was re-ignited in the world after its long hiatus) been this expectation that we might someday fail, and each time something highly challenging comes around they likely re-visited that thought that perhaps it would be soon?
The difference is that this time, it's for real. Even if there were solves already in-place for both globalization and automation, how would climate change be dealt with? I am not saying that it's a 100% certainty - nothing ever truly is, until it has already happened - but I am agreeing with you that there seems less room for hope than ever before, that our way of life will survive intact.
I predict, for instance, that people will start demanding that their employers offer them housing. They might even start demanding longer-term contracts. In essence, they WANT slavery, as opposed to what is coming: anarchy & lawlessness. What good is "freedom" when you have no home, no job, no food, and can't do what you want anyway? This whole "government = bad" idea will cause many people to take refuge in the only other thing that offers even a glimpse of a good(-ish) life: enslavement to corporations. In return they will house, feed, and clothe you - if only barely - and you will in turn commit your very soul to looking after their needs rather than your own, including devoting every waking moment of... oh my, we are already there! (except without the "taking care of you part")
Your dystopia doesn't account for automation. Corporations don't even want your labour.
A social crisis seems inevitable on our current trajectory.
Then for WHO are the corporations creating products for? There isn't a growing pool of rich people. It's shrinking.
They won't be at that point. Their extraction of all the wealth will be complete, and all of their needs met. As for us? Well who knows?
Well I did say that people would demand it... which as you correctly point out, is by no means a guarantee that corporations would want to accept.
When I was a kid all the churches said that globalization was a sure sign that we're in the end times. I think it's interesting that you now quote that as one of the signs that we are.
This is defeatism. It's surrender. There was a group of men 247 years ago who demanded death if not given liberty. They would rather die than live under monarchial rule any longer. We have fallen quite far if a return to corporate servitude is considered a viable option a mere hundred years after defeating its last ugly resurgence during the industrial revolution. You do not reward your oppressors with capitulation, you reward them with combat.
Tbf, I was accepting that there is a situation in front of us that needs to be dealt with, i.e. accepting that there WILL be a crisis - any question on that front seems in the past. But I never said who I thought will win:-) Honestly I don't know the latter, though in either case yes I do think that a lot of people will give up rather than fight.
The REALLY odd part about all of this, imho, is that the type of person who previously fought on the side of freedom, now is mislead to be acting on behalf of the oppressors. Those who grabbed their muskets and fought to the DEATH against the external British overlords, are now the ones voting for increased corporate power, and increased non-aggression or even thoughts of aid towards the expansionist Russia, which will only be friendly in return for a few decades until it decides that it wants us as well. Yes, this side has "guns", but what good are even fully automatic machine-gun rifles when pitted against TRULY modern weapons like weaponized viruses, nukes deployable from fucking orbit, and perhaps most dangerous of all, the ability to control all flow of all money, which puts a strangle-hold on all supply lines such that failure to comply means starvation.
In short, you are correct that I do not put much stock in the mere words that people are throwing around, no matter how "tough" or "inspiring" they sound. Instead I am looking at the trajectory of actions, such as USA Republican obstructionism, UK Brexit, Russian expansionism, and the like. And to me, it seems like fascism is winning. People BLED and DIED to fight against it as recently as WWII - but that was then, while now they would be turning over in their graves to find that their children's generation (Boomers) are just handing the world meekly over to it within their/our home countries. McCarthism is back, book burning is back, and everything old it seems we are trying over again, like it was for the first time. Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.
I think there's some American mythology causing you to see things this way. In short, the American revolution was fueled by Washington recruiting a lot of drunks and fuck ups, and after they won the war they wanted Washington to be king. Similar to Scotland and the movie Braveheart, the mythology has gotten so popular that people start to think the majority or even all of the fighting force was ideologically aligned to some idea of freedom and inalienable rights or something. It wasn't.
Tbf, they did not desire taxation without representation, and a local king would have met the goal for them to feel "represented". At least more so than the remote one in England, who had to spend tons of money on far-away matters such as dealing with France, Spain, Portugal, etc. A local King would instead spend money on local matters, such as dealing with the indigenous peoples present in the Americas. Still taxation, but they would benefit from it more.
Democracy hadn't been a thing since ancient Greece, after which it languished under Turkish rule for several hundreds of years, and I wonder how much most uneducated people at the time knew even about that. Though some French philosophers such as Voltaire, and the English Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (I had to look him up: he was Genevan:-) were popular reading at the time, among the elites, and possibly they shared some of that as stories at the local pubs or whatnot. So anyway, it makes total sense to me that they wanted him to be a King: that was all that they really knew about, at the time, to meet their goal?
But now I am saying that the situation is reversed: the ones pushing for the RADICAL changes, especially using VIOLENT means to overthrow the government, are not trying to throw off the shackles in order to return America to a more pristine state of "democracy" - the so-called "conservative" Republicans want to overthrow democracy, and instill Trump as their emperor. That's moving backwards, towards fascism and away from democracy (VERY unlike the case with Washington, where they intended a more sideways move, not fully knowing that more was even possible).
Likewise, the UK wanted to exist within the scope of the EU but also not at the same time so... bye-bye I guess. Now they are shocked, Shocked I tell you, SHOCKED that they are "out". Even they seem to think now they have moved backwards, and many report wishing that they could undo what was done. They can do as they please yes, but they seemed not to realize that others have that same privilege as well. Especially the ones living in other countries, now shocked to find that they may be expected to pay taxes in those sovereign nations - what did they THINK was going to happen!?
Americans I presume would eventually be the same - not enjoying life under Trump's boot heels, but like Brexit, the ability to return would have been lost. The ones pushing for that WANT the democracy gone, and for it to be replaced with a more useful (to them) fascism, bc with globalization and automation, they do not have need of a large educated workforce, such as doctors and scientists, and they seem to be wanting to "streamline" the population, much as companies are currently streamlining their direct employees. An example is Trump's COVID policy of "just let them ~~eat cake~~ die". Fewer resources taken up by worthless people - like Oxygen consumption and smaller populations being less susceptible to pandemics - leave more for the rich to have whatever they want.
I think you've (perhaps inadvertantly) hit the nail on the head by drawing a comparison to revolutionary groups. Even plagued by the encroaching mythology and rhetoric it's easy to see why the same group of revolutionary boosters are today's reactionary retrogrades:
In revolutionary times, monied interests and industry desired to evade England's taxes, and today those same groups seek to continue perpetually evading the taxes of America's government.
In other words, the rich fucks think they'll be able to fair better under Trump as dictator than they would facing the occasional failed attempt at tax reform by Democrats.
The gravy seals are partially led by the nose by the exact same group of affluent pig fuckers as the minutemen and, in other cases, they aren't being led as they simply are the same rich group.
Among the other elements present at the January 6th insurrection were sizable numbers of the American landlord class, some even chartering private flights to attend and participate.
That's what I was saying yes: a tool is just a tool, the intent lies in the hand of those who would wield it. Though in this case, the BLAME lies in both those who hollow themselves out to be willing to become such a tool, and those who would use them: case in point those who showed up on January 6 to "defend the Constitution" - how many now have the good sense to be horrified at what they were involved in? Regardless, it is up to those who are cognizant to do something about it, or else just sit back and watch it all happen.
But one thing I want to make clear: this is not just the one-dimensional Rich vs. the Poors. This is some Rich folk who don't really give a damn either way - b/c they've bought both sides - vs. some different set of Rich folk who do, and the latter making use of the Tools at their disposal to get their way. Among the former are probably people like Bill Gates who literally cannot spend enough in his entire lifetime to ever get rid of even a fraction of it, plus Warren Buffet who literally advocates for politicians to raise taxes (it's not like they ever will ofc, no matter what he says:-D). Then in the second category I would expect to find people like Jeff Bezos who tracks his workers time in the bathrooms, making them choose between washing their hands vs. getting back to work on time so as not to get fired, regardless if they are pregnant or whatever; and ofc Elon Musk.
I am saying that the TRULY, generationally wealthy, likely don't even give a damn, and some seem to even want their taxes RAISED - obviously not so much as to lower their standard of living, but if it helps avoid revolts then they would be okay with that - while the "wannabe" Rich are the ones who seem to want their taxes kept low.
And yes, there are some Poors who truly do side with the Rich, I guess b/c they either hate themselves or think they are displaced millionaires, but either way they have bought into the pyramid/hierarchical thinking concept that the Rich are the ones who deserve their wealth.
So to bring this back to my original point several comments back: if I sound defeatist it is b/c originally the goals of the Rich and the Poor just happened to align in the Revolutionary War, and too in WWI, WWII, etc., whereas now, for perhaps the first time in a truly completionist way, they no longer align. What I mean by the latter point is that, for example having a ready-made source of young soldiers to fight wars for you, it used to be to the benefit of the Rich to keep the Poor vaguely happy. Whereas now, with automation bringing robots rather than humans to the battlefield (and everywhere else as well), they seem ready to throw off the shackles of needing to keep the Poor in any state whatsoever. So let them ~~eat cake~~ die already, it makes little difference to them anymore.
Can you take that last part, put it to a cool font, add some vaporwave and a filter, and make it the stylings of an Cyberpunk 80s movie?
With a bit of rewording, it would be rad for a pixel indie game or something. It goes hard.
And its uncomfortable so I want it in a more palatable form lol
Best I can offer is this:
I believe it is a self-portrait of Donald Trump's clone from 2040?
It's an interesting perspective. Wherein I see people deliberately destroying property of the "automated" on a scale of property damage the world has never seen.
Like it won't be kings heads rolling. It'll be their drones burning.
I mean sure, that too but... what would it accomplish really? There is an arms race, but look at Bill Gate's house... exactly (first, where is it, second, which one(s), third, they are on like entire HUGE islands, fourth they can move the whole thing at a moment's notice, fifth there are other defensive options too, etc. etc. etc.), plus there will always be the "collaborators" who will say "but no, they are the JOB creators" as if that justifies doing, or not doing, anything at all.
Anyway, tech has reached the point that we can put it inside of our very bodies, to hide & power it, plus with CRISPR the tech flat-out becomes our bodies. At least, if you are talking about the stuff available to ~~billionaires~~ trillionaires, whereas to us "normies" all we get are cellphones to mollify & pacify us, yay (and even that privilege comes at the cost of also tracking us, plus can be taken away if we do not cooperate fully or fast enough).
Anyway, tech is neither Good nor Evil, it simply is - and automation isn't the problem, though it could be part of the solution, e.g. if it were to solve climate change for us?
1835 73rd Ave NE, Medina, Washington, USA
You can drive right up to the front gate, but that's as far as you'll get. The entire property is built for security. 2/3rds of it is underground, one side of it is against a cliff, and the gate itself is solid steel, probably 10 inches thick. I've been there, and you can't see anything except for the gate and guardhouse from the street. Beyond the front gate are buildings on both sides before the second gate, like an old castle barbican, complete with kill zone.
It makes sense. It might also be the house of like his butler who delivers him food occasionally, while he himself lives in a plane flying around the earth that never sets down... or something. I am mostly joking here ofc:-).
Would you put your Buttler up in a 131 million dollar 48,160 sq ft mansion on Lake Washington, in the most expensive city in Washington?
I don't think what you or I would do is anywhere close to an accurate measure as to what to expect from one of the richest people on the planet... But if I were swimming in money, then yeah - I'd for sure share it with others. That must be the reason why I am not a trillionaire:-).
USA was never a democracy, though. It's a republic, and recent decades have shown it to become more and more the banana variant.
Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
I dunno, it is a plutocracy now, but why wasn't it a democracy when it started?
Democracy has it's own inherent issues, for one the majority has complete authority over any minority group. At its worst democracy is a mob that doesnt care about any minorities issues. As in if you cant get your issue/cause agreed to by more than half of the population, it's never going to happen. Democracy isnt inherently good,