Elaborate and explain

  • MTK@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    I mean… Look around? Maybe billionaire is a new thing, but it is just modern royalty. We still have kings, they just got better PR.

    • Zachariah@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      That’s because—for many reasons—there are way too many non-billionaires on team billionaire.

      • SkaraBrae@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        I worked with a guy that proudly proclaimed that he voted for the right because they looked after the rich.

        He was not rich, but he purchased lottery tickets weekly and stated he’d rather get screwed while poor than pay more tax if he, some day, became rich.

        And that was the day I realised that we’re fucked.

          • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            I don’t, I feel like moron / stupid just doesn’t cut it for idiots like this. I honestly don’t know of an adjective the fully encapsulates the stupidty, childishness, and naivite of a regular person aligning with the super rich.

            • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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              6 days ago

              Corporate brainwashed, delusional, desperate, uneducated, lazy, close-minded, coping human?

              The media is pushing “answer a few questions, or spin a wheel, and get rich”, and “sing in your car, then get famous on Idol” and getting huge ratings. Same way we got this fucking President. Corporate brainwashing.

        • Asafum@feddit.nl
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          6 days ago

          I was devastated when my candidate never showed up again and again…

  • surph_ninja@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    The billionaires, by convincing people the rich have a monopoly on violence.

    But if anything sparks collective violence, the rich are overthrown within a month.

  • Sam_Bass@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Assuming the 8b were all of the same mind, they would win. But we all know there are quite a few that the billionaires could buy to fight for them

  • angrystego@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Tje billionaires are winning now and the reasons are obvious.

    The 8 billion are unable to think clearly, identify problems and organize. The billionaires are focused on their goals and super influential. They’re able to buy loyality of the key less fortunate people and enforce loyality of others. They can also buy media to influence thinking of the masses.

    If it was just about numbers, the billionaires would lose. But it’s not.

  • breecher@sh.itjust.works
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    6 days ago

    Unfortunately that is not how the figures really are. Way too many of those 8 billions will willingly simp and fight the rest of us in the name of those billionaires.

  • YappyMonotheist@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    It’s not the billionaires but the antisocial, amoral whores who will sell their souls for money and do their bidding that are the problem (police, army, etc.), and those who would quietly acquiesce. And of those there are way too many in some societies for change to be easy/possible.

  • rowinxavier@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    All evidence points to a regime change (in the physics sense, not the political) being the necessary condition for things to go from our current state to something new.

    We currently have people paying poorer people a very small amount of their own net worth to protect the wealthy person’s status and position. This is similar to how kings and queens paid the army and policing forces to control the peasants.

    Before the French Revolution I am sure it seemed impossible that the peasants would revolt, but the years leading up to the revolution things were getting worse and worse for the average peasant. There is a tipping point where the average person does not think the current system is delivering on the promise that of you do what you are told you can have a good life. I think we are approaching that point now.

    If the rich try to hire someone and underpay them for security, stiff contractors for services, flaunt laws and generally behave obnoxiously at some point people will have had enough. Whether that ends with guillotine action or people just divesting from those systems depends on how much freedom people think they have.

    If people thought they could go and homestead, live off the land, and get by without the massive companies these billionaires own then they would have that outlet and choose that peaceful option. The fact that we have taxation creates a pressure to pay in currency which demands earning in that currency. Same with paying rent, you have to earn money simply to live. No amount of growing all of your food gets rid of your financial obligations, so there is no out from the system. If that system is unreasonable it begins to feel less like participation and more like coercive control. Wage slavery is not the same as slavery, but both involve coercion and require the legal system to support them. Both lead to revolutions. Both lead to violence.

    I guess the billionaires have to decide if they really want to paint that big a target on their backs by flaunting their wealth. At this point I think they feel untouchable.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Mostly all agreed, but the populace isn’t starving, not even close. I’m not arguing that we’re not suffering, only that we’re nowhere near suffering enough for a revolt. But damned do I like what you’ve written!

    • Kevo@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      The biggest ruse in American history is the modern billionaire convincing the working class Americans that the immigrants, homeless, people of color, and LGBT+ people are the real enemy and the reason you’re unhappy. Capitalism is the only functioning system of government, don’t pay attention to the fact that almost every other developed country has universal healthcare.

  • Emil_Zatopek1982@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Just stop believing that those 3000 are billionaires. If 8 billion people say “No, you are not rich” those fuckers become poor. Money is a religion.

  • vane@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    3000 billionaires because you can’t convince everybody to ditch school. You can’t change people. Pharaoh, Hammurabi. Those are thousands of years of genetic obedience.

    • mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de
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      5 days ago

      I don’t know if I like assuming that obedience is a genetically heritable trait. I’ve heard racists use this assumption to argue that racially Chinese people are more likely to be sneaky servile backstabbers because that’s what their genetics are selected for due to their political past.

      Controversial statement incoming: I also don’t want to preemptively rule out the possibility of obedience, or anything else, being genetically heritable - even if it could lead to these uncomfortable conclusions. I think scientific studies should be done about such things to answer the questions of whether these personality traits are heritable, come what may of that knowledge. But to my relief, from the studies I’ve seen, personality traits heritability is on very shaky ground in most cases.