Elaborate and explain
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The billionaires have already won.
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.
Seems like the billionaires are winning 🤷🏼♀️ ?!
Nobody is winning, except that demon capital. The billionaires are just losing less.
Stop being so rational!!
I belive the billionaires is currently winning
But only because the other 8 billion let them
Yeah, and?
REVOLT!
The billionaires are already winning, with no signs of that changing.
That’s because—for many reasons—there are way too many non-billionaires on team billionaire.
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.
What an absolute moron.
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.
Republican?
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.
Ah, see, what you should have done was…stabbed him in the eye.
Just remember, when we go vote, his is worth just as much as yours.
Hey, don’t look at me. I’m on team “unexpected astroid hitting the earth to end it all”.
I was devastated when my candidate never showed up again and again…
They think they’re on team billionaire but are willful idiots.
They will just cook the planet killing us all
With pessimism like that, we won’t get far.
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.
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
so basically the billionares
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.
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.
Except that doesn’t stop the exchange of goods and services.
If we decide money no longer matters it’d be petty easy to eliminate them all. If we continue to let money run our lives then it’ll continue to be pretty easy for the people with money to keep all their power.
If we decide money no longer matters it’d be petty easy to eliminate them all
Okay, but then where will I get my passive income? I worked 40 years in the shit and rusty needles mine to build up a big enough nest egg to get passive income. Now I’m too full of staff infections and lacerated limbs and shit lung to work anymore.
I can’t afford not to make the next guy work himself to death in the shit rust needle mine.
*Staph.
His people are infected. I think he might be a billionaire in disguise.
No one needs to work in a shit rust needle mine. Without money you would have community helping & taking care of you based on your needs & listening to your ideas. You would take as much as you need but as little as you can to live happily & work to contribute back.
It doesn’t take long for that system to collapse.
I mean… money does matter. It matters to the individual because it is how they pay their bills, and it matters to all of humanity because it is how we are able to take coordinated action despite the lack of any central organizer.
Taking money out of the picture would also take bills out of the picture. And humanity absolutely has the ability to coordinate action without money at least as well (if not better) than how it is now, the only difference is it would be harder for individuals to be the sole coordinator. Money, and who has it, is our current central organizer and will continue to burn the planet if we fail to take away its power.
humanity absolutely has the ability to coordinate action without money at least as well (if not better) than how it is now
That’s a huge claim, you need to support that.
Not that huge of a claim, especially when now is so chaotic and dysfunctional. Here’s a nonexhaustive list of moneyless economies (obviously with varying degrees of feasibility)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-monetary_economy
~edit: wording~
The huge claim is the present tense, “has the ability”. It’s not a huge claim to say that humanity has the potential to one day transcend money, but that wasn’t the claim. Humanity has a long road before that’s possible, it does not presently have the ability to continue to function if we just snapped our fingers tomorrow and eliminated money.
An “ability” is not a vague notion bolstered by historical curiosities. An “ability” involves a detailed, immediately actionable plan that can be implemented in the modern economic landscape without destroying crucial productivity.
Resources have to be allocated. People need to accept the resource allocation method in order to contribute their labor to do things that must be done. Money is an imperfect solution. Eliminating money leads to reinventing it (e.g. “energy credits”), reverting to less efficient models (e.g. barter), developing a central planning body that replaces wealth corruption with administrative corruption, or widespread social loafing where nothing gets done.
Without an actual plan of implementation that gains the trust of the workers, there is no “ability”, merely aspiration.
I disagree with a few points you bring up, but beyond those, it sounds like your biggest problem with my statement is in the semantics. I don’t find that to be very useful when obviously the logistics of such a system are complicated enough to warrant a whole doctorate degree. Comments on social media between strangers with no verifiable education isn’t really the place to harp on precise wording and definitions. I think it’s possible for humanity to coordinate without money. Is that better? Or do you still disagree?
Semantics are how we communicate ideas. If you change the semantic content, you change the idea.
I think it’s possible for humanity to coordinate without money.
Depends on what you mean by possible. At some point in the remote future? Sure, I agree. At the present time? I disagree. We’re not there yet, and you can’t just snap your fingers and change the fundamental beliefs, and logistics administration, of 8 billion people overnight. Best case scenario that’s a multi-generational endeavor.
We can get there one day, we can’t outlaw money tomorrow.
And humanity absolutely has the ability to coordinate action without money
Please provide a non-authoritatian answer that has scaled and has produced advanced technology like modern medical devices and telecommunications devices.
While you’re correct that there are no examples of such a society*, that isn’t because money is crucial to development. It’s because the time of technological breakthroughs happened in a global capitalist economy. Just because that’s the way history played out doesn’t mean that was the only way it could’ve. Money didn’t invent those things, people did. They had the time and resources to make that stuff happen. And yes, they got those resources via a moneyed economy, but that doesn’t mean those same people couldn’t have gotten the same time and resources had they existed within say a library economy.
*
Not exactly a perfect society (what is) but the Incas developed cutting edge technology for the time within a moneyless society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_technology
I apologize for not being clear in what I was asking for. I didnt mean that I wanted an example of a society that, say, developed MRI technology outside the capitalist framework. I simply wanted an example of a society which could produce and use an MRI without the use of money or authoritatian force. They can have access to all the underlying science and technological know-how. But they need to get someone to mine the iron ore that will be smelted to be turned into streel which will become a tool which will be used in the manufacture of an MRI machine… without paying them.
Problem being - no one wants to mine iron ore. There are limits on how much prestige a society can distribute, and little will go to iron ore miners. The actual benefit of the labor is so far removed that the likelihood for personal gratitude from a beneficiary is vanishingly small - for example, someone who has a torn meniscus diagnosed with an MRI is unlikely to send the iron ore miner a personal thank you card. Of course, we could pay our miner in clothes and food and housing - but then we’ve just reinvented money but less efficient. Seeing no personal benefit to breaking his back every day in a dark hole, out miner would want to find something else to do with his time, resilting in no iron ore, and thus, no MRIs.
But I mean, prove me wrong.
I would again point to the Incas as a decent example. Though I kind of want to pick at your use of “money or authoritarian forces”.
Money is currently used as an authoritarian force. It’s given those with money restrictive control over our daily lives. Look at all the censorship by those who control the major websites and payment processors on the internet. Look at the who lobbied the creation of infrastructure that forces most every person in the states to own and maintain a car. Look at how they’re working on dismantling our public education system. Our police and military exist to protect those with money. This is how capitalism works. Despite some lofty ideas of peace liberty and democracy for all, when the system is based around money everything else will get compromised.
I read up on the Inca. Interesting. But I’m still doubtful they could build an MRI - I want a modern example.
And I’m certainly no fan of the current system - it sounds like you’re describing America, and yes, America is a bit of a shit show at the moment. But we should also remember that Sweden’s strong social safety nets, Finland’s excellent education system, and the Netherlands’ transportation infrastructure all exist in societies which use money.
Meanwhile, I don’t think eliminating money would really solve the problems you are looking to solve. Power-hungry people will seek power regardless of the system they find themselves in. If they don’t become capitalists, they become high-ranking bureaucrats and politicians.
Billionaires, because we are too dumb to not fall for their tricks
But AI isn’t. They’re creating their own downfall as we speak
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.
It’s funny cause no one seems to realize that the billionaires are human beings. They have a house, they shit, they piss, they bleed, etc. And yet, everyone is somehow convinced that becoming a billionaire makes you somehow invulnerable.
An individual with a net worth of “just” $1b can afford to spend upwards of $50m per year on privacy and security, all while continuing to live a lavish lifestyle of excess and see their net worth continue to grow.
That’s more than the annual US household income being spent on a daily basis.
Now consider that the top 10 billionaires have more than 140x that amount.
Yes, they are made of flesh & blood, and are susceptible to all of the same maladies as you or I — but especially post Luigi, they are shoring up their defences to the point that even a motivated individual would have just as much chance of becoming a billionaire as they are to getting to one.
I would hope to be proven wrong, and to see a true working class uprising against them in my lifetime - but alas, I think they are too effective at keeping us arguing against ourselves to ever pose a serious risk to their hegemony.
Hear me out:
zombie movie, but it’s the poors storming down the megarich bunkers.
And poor people are theoretically smarter than zombies. Even conservatards occasionally. https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1518107286215389
they win because they throw money at enough ppl to build a wall of ppl to protect them
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And yet, the poor and stupid people queue up to join the ICE and MAGA organisations.
They would be as upset as they should be, if they were smarter. They wouldn’t be “poor and stupid” if they were smarter.
That’s not a koinkidoink. USA has spent a very long time deliberately creating this situation. And by USA I mean those in power.
The people joining ICE may not be who you think they are. No journalism has scared me quite so much as this article:
my uncle knows im looking for work and hella enthused was like why dont you just work for ice they have a great signing bonus, like bro im gonna send you to el salvador first if I somehow decide thats what I want to do with my life
That wall ain’t 8 billion High though.
and you assume those 8 billion all fight, id sit on my ass and watch
Its not that. Its the fact that these people hsve entire services dedicated to protecting their lifestyle and security.
And the public security is also geared to disproportionately protect them as well.
Short answer. The elite have private security of their own. And they are allied with rich politicians who control the police and military. They’ve got a shitload of guns at their disposal.
Yet they can still be taken out by a 3D printed gun on a nice morning walk to the office.
You’re not wrong, but if Luigi taught us anything its that they’re not as impermeable as they like to appear. It just might take a few martyrs on our end.
they shit, they piss, they bleed
Sometimes more than one of those things simultaneously!
Trick question, we all lose
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.
