And make sure to turn off all the lights and appliances you're not using to save power for the AI. This future is trash.
And reduce your water usage because it's a drought. While we grow water heavy crops like almonds in those drought stricken regions and foreign investors from arid countries grow water heavy crops like alfalfa solely for export back home.
No, your notion of morality is accurate, there's no reason to race to the bottom because someone else sucks more.
No one suggested that we need to do worse than the billionaires.
Just finding out? Haha, no, we've known about this ring for the better part of a decade now. The wealthy and powerful probably a lot longer than that.
Even the next part:
world’s richest man does a Nazi salute at a political rally,
Don't get me wrong, horrible and completely unacceptable.
But sure as shit is nowhere near the line of what's happened with the last 100 years:
The Business Plot, also called the Wall Street Putsch[1] and the White House Putsch, was a political conspiracy in 1933 in the United States to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install Smedley Butler as dictator.[2][3] Butler, a retired Marine Corps major general, testified under oath that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans' organization with him as its leader and use it in a coup d'état to overthrow Roosevelt. In 1934, Butler testified under oath before the United States House of Representatives Special Committee on Un-American Activities (the "McCormack–Dickstein Committee") on these revelations.[4] Although no one was prosecuted, the congressional committee final report said, "there is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
In case anyone's eyes glazed over instead of reading, two key points:
wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans' organization with him as its leader and use it in a coup d'état to overthrow Roosevelt.
And even more importantly:
Although no one was prosecuted, the congressional committee final report said, "there is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient."
Shit didn't just get bad, it's been bad.
And the way to fight it is an opposition party like FDR.
Everyone acting like these are the worst times ever, makes me wonder about their history education. Yeah, America's taken a steep dive this century. Yeah, that's normal for empires to fall. Usually to greed.
I'm hoping we crash hard, Great Depression hard. That clusterfuck ushered in liberal politics dominating until the 90s. We had conservatives, Reagan comes to mind, but they didn't have unchecked power like today.
Only exception I got is global warming. We've never played this particular game before.
False premise. I never said it was the worst time ever, or even that I was surprised.
This is just about the relativity of my morality and what society is willing to tolerate
(this to the above two smart comments as well - although I don’t fundamentally disagree)
A fairly wide range of problems in modern society can be traced to the judiciary's reluctance to both prosecute and sentence the rich with the same rigor they apply to the poor.
Oh yeah Musks grandparents were part of that
The Business Plot never ended, they just regrouped. All those fuckers involved should have been hung.
The way to fight it isn't a FDR-style party that will just give concessions to staunch the momentum of the working class, which was rallying behind communist ideology through unionization efforts, that was threatening the capitalist status quo at the time. That status quo is the entire root of the problem. The only way to fight it is to dismantle the system that gives them their power and build something new, not to continue enabling the very systems that keep us on our knees.
Given this past decade, I'd say I we've known about it for the worst part of the decade.
Capitalism rewards the most heartless greedy pieces of shit. Simple as. It is, in fact, not the best type of economy for any kind of moral society.
Maxwell's father worked for various intelligence agencies. This appears to be a blackmail operation by the Mossad and/or the CIA. The former Israeli Prime Minister visited Epstein's home several times.
You know I didn't really think about that.
I know of the connection between Maxwell and Mossad.
Obviously Mossad needs a way to influence billionaires more than just money. The AIPAC (or whatever) has no real ability to sway them.
The sudden acceptance by western countries acknowledging Gaza a state? Could be that Mossad and AIPAC lost their influence.
The billionaires want Maxwell free because she gets them things they cant normally buy, plus other kickbacks from Israel I presume.
I don't think it's blackmailing the billionaires, it's just out right not giving them what they want.
Trump wouldn't act that guilty if it was.
Why would he not act guilty? He was, at the very least, an unwitting asset.
The uncle of the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Kashoggi had extensive business dealings with Epstein and Israel and the current Saudi ruler MBS was a "friend" of Epstein according to Epstein. Kashoggi was murdered about 10 month prior to Epstein being murderes.
A lot of the evil of the world right now has been involved with Epstein in one way or another.
I think we have three major bad acts at play going on in the US, that I've been able to link to specific actors, at least. We have FBI and intelligence confirmed Russian misinformation campaigns exploiting our right to free speech. We have Chinese narcotic warfare (see Opium war), as posited by the DEA - fentanyl precursors are mostly Chinese. And we have the Epstein honeypot operation conducted by CIA/Mossad/Organized crime influencing policy for decades. See these two volumes.
Her father’s funeral was attended by multiple former Mossad chiefs. It’s believed he gave israel the bomb.
I’d definitely look in that direction.
It’s believed he gave israel the bomb.
I don't think the timelines on this match up one bit. In fact I wonder what you're trying to do by linking them. I'll buy the mossad, their fingers are everywhere, but the israeli nuclear program predates epstein by decades. It would take them ages to get to the point where they could test their work - probably the Vela incident - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_incident - and at this time epstein was teaching teens math and science then went on to banking.
so I don't understand how you conflate these things.
You're just finding out maybe.
The thing is:
The little things do matter. They shape who you are. They shape the lives of the people around you. They're important.
But this is like a death-penalty-on-the-table-murder-trial being interrupted by a nuclear bomb. And that shit always happens.
Yes this other shit happens more, yes it's a priority, and yes none of your everyday decency will influence it in the slightest, but it still matters.
You just also have to fix that other shit.
While people in power are absolute evil most of the time, this is not an excuse to change your own morals for the worse.
Small acts of kindness, when taken in decent quantity, change the world no less than massive fraud and sex trafficking.
That said, one of the most moral things to do is to be on the lookout for powerful people doing nasty things and do everything in your capacity to prevent or at least retaliate. This makes abuse less common, and goes a long way to restore democracy and responsibility for everyone.
On a related note, the latest Trump administration cabinent picks and antics unironically cured my impostor syndrome.
If these gaggle of fucking demented backstabbing morons are good enough to run this country...
And they can show that about half the country is actually so stupid and or intentionally blind and or evil to somehow not realize their cult leader just obviously is a huge rapist and pedoohile...
Then I am better than this country.
Better qualified, more empathetic, more competent.
Turns out it was just angry clowns gaslighting us the whole time.
Well uh fuck em, this is all so stupid that I now actually have the correct amount of self-confidence and self-respect, it is indeed this entire society that is a joke, not that I am somehow fundamentally inadequate.
Just finding out? Hasn't all of this been known for almost a decade now?
It’s like that with most big ticket items, we run about worrying about recycling while the big polluters continue as usual. Not to say we shouldn’t recycle or not take action if we can but finding ways to make the billionaires pull their heads in would be better.
I've learned paedophiles seem to be naturally skilled with grabbing power throughout history and the present is no differnt. I'm more aware of that fact now.
I've also learmed a large percentage of humans actually are fine with their leaders raping children. One might think they're fine with it in general.
Morality and laws are for the plebs. If you’re rich or powerful enough, you get to do whatever you want, so long as you don’t harm another rich or powerful person.
Don't expect the world to reward your good behavior. You will find your own internal motivation, or maybe not. But judging others never ends well. Just focus on your own actions. Nobody says being a good human being is easy...
Keep being a decent human bean still is the way to go, though. Otherwise it's a race to the bottom, Marquis de Sade-style. Fuck these psychopaths, you're better than them!
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.