By now we’ve all seen the ‘files’, if you’re like me you’ve used various AI to cross-reference them with other things like financial crashes, who else might be a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th degree connections, where do they work, etc etc etc and at the end of it you see the web of parasitic elites running our society.
How do we just go back to ‘normal’??
Panama Papers!!!
This shit is old news.
Nothing was done then.
Nothing will be done now.
Nothing short of Luigi’ng all of them will make things better
weve known for centuries. marx was saying it in the 1800s.
vanguardism, mutual aid, unionism are 3 of the ways. what matters is organize with your fellow workers on a revolutionary org.
we shouldnt want to go back to shitty exploitative “normal”. we need power to the people instead for any hope to fix this.
Nothing will happen! We already knew about this in 2013 thanks to Daphne Caruana Galizia. Who was killed by the global elites for putting their business out there.
This is normal, the billionaire class has always ruled over hordes of proles.
In the beginning, we just knew about our own territory, a few hundred years ago, we wouldn’t know what’s going on beyond a few days travel from our home. Today, we can read news from across the globe.
A few centuries ago, we could at least daydream that things are better somewhere. Ignorance is bliss
The problem is, as people gain power, it rots their mind and ruins their perceptions, so we have this recurring theme running throughout our history.
That’s why it’s so important to have short terms and total transparency.
But, once they gain power, politicians always fight tooth and nail to keep and expand on that power, and since they make the rules, here we are. Again
II would put it the other way around: as long as representative systems exist, it will always be more likely that egoists and narcissists will establish themselves in leadership positions, even if they only make up a small part of the population. Today, this is encouraged by the fact that we reward these character traits, which are actually harmful to the community, with fame, money and prestige.
Personally, I think the internet is both a blessing and a curse: while it is currently being used to sow discord and spread lies, it will also enable us to do without representatives and the corruption that goes with them in the foreseeable future. I believe that internet- and open-source-based direct democracy is the model of government of the future.
Solution anonymous leaders? Or leaders as groups/institutions rather than individuals.
My problem with anonymous leaders is that we’d completely lose track of who’s to be made responsible. It would basically create a shortcut for elites to rule without having to hide their corruption/influence.
A group/institution would probably also face the same problem as we have today with single persons: Big money would simply buy influence in these new organizations instead of bribing single individuals.
A direct democracy would mean you have to bribe a big part of the population to cover your ideas… the worse your idea is and the more support you need to buy for it the more translates from bribery to paying a majority to accept your idea. At some point the amount of bribes extends the gains to be made by your manipulation and it becomes uneconomical… we’d basically use capitalism against bribery.
What to do then?
Create an open source platform where everyone can vote on every matter. Matter to be voted on are chosen by petitions. If a petition indicates societal need for change (x supporters in y time frame) anyone can propose a solution. Then a vote is taken. The solution with the most votes is implemented. If there is a new petition on the same topic, the fun starts all over again.
Advantages from my point of view:
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No potentially corrupt representatives
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No deflection of one’s own bad voting decisions (aka. it’s the fault of those at the top)
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Citizens once again have a motivation to inform themselves about issues more than just once every four years.
Will everyone always be able to vote on everything? Certainly not, as individuals’ time and resources are limited. Therefore, those who vote on a decision are likely to be affected by it themselves, or at least feel that they are. In this way, people who have informed themselves beforehand, or at least would do so, tend to vote more.
We would use the real-time communication possibilities that the internet has given us for something positive instead of slop and brain rot.
I like this, but how do you avoid people making bad decisions because they think it will benefit society but then it makes things worse? Like the kind of questions experts are better suited to know. For example rent control is repeatedly proven to be a bad policy, but people tend to think its good cause logic shows that “prices high, lets make them less directly”. Experts would maybe look at the underlying causes of prevention of construction, height restrictions, land speculation, and expansions of credit supply as a cause of housing unaffordability.
My argument would be that people definitely would make bad decisions in the beginning. But that wouldn’t be that far off of the status quo, would it?
My hope would be that this system gives an incentive to ACTUALLY get informed about the matter you vote on since you’re actively choosing to get involved instead of voting on every topic (also the ones you have 0.0 interest in) every 4 years. Another point, which may be a bit far fetched idk, could be that you theoretically could use LLMs to summarize the various proposed solutions and their justifications. In the system I have in mind, the experts you mentioned would also submit proposed solutions.
Based on your example:
Problem formulated for the petition: “Rents are too high.”
If the petition goes through, anyone could propose solutions. For example, “rent control” (proposed by someone on the left), “foreigners out” (proposed by someone on the right), “revise building standards and invest in public housing” (an expert).
The population might follow the populists at first… However, if the problem is not solved after 10 years, you can’t blame “those at the top” for the solution not working, and hopefully there will be a rethink.
Maybe this is just a utopian fantasy of mine. But I have the feeling that our democratic systems are not up to the challenges of the digitalized 21st century and growing inequality… this is the best solution I have come up with so far.
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The problem is, as people gain power, it rots their mind and ruins their perceptions, so we have this recurring theme running throughout our history.
This isn’t actually observable, though. Having managerial positions, administration, etc doesn’t cause cognitive deficiency nor a “turning evil” in a religious, supernatural sense. What actually happens is classes act in their class interest. The proletariat as manager isn’t seeking to establish itself as an entrenched, permanent ruling class, but instead to abolish itself as a class. Capitalists, monarchs, etc. all seek to maintain their individual privledges.
What is natural for human behavior is detetmined by the conditions of our social existence, ie how we produce and distribute. This means the idea of a static, fixed, unchanging “human nature” that cannot handle organizing at scale is false. The reason these myths persist is because they discourage action against unjustifiable systems today.
How do we just go back to ‘normal’??
This is normal. Parasitic elites have been running the world for pretty much all of recorded history.
How do we learn from history so we can stop repeating it?
Maybe by advancing our democracies in the same way the technology to divide and rule us is advancing.
Personally, I think the internet is both a blessing and a curse: while it is currently being used to sow discord and spread lies, it will also enable us to do without representatives and the corruption that goes with them in the foreseeable future. I believe that internet- and open-source-based direct democracy is the model of government of the future.
Eat anyone who has more than 1 billion dollars.
By applying dialectical materialism, as opposed to metaphysics and idealism.
The 3 major assertions of idealism are as follows:
- Idealism asserts that the material world is dependent on the spiritual
- Idealism asserts that spirit, or mind, or idea, can and does exist in separation from matter. (The most extreme form of this assertion is subjective idealism, which asserts that matter does not exist at all but is pure illusion.)
- Idealism asserts that there exists a realm of the mysterious and unknowable, “above,” or “beyond,” or “behind” what can be ascertained and known by perception, experience, and science.
The 3 basic teachings of materialism as counterposed to idealism are:
- Materialism teaches that the world is by its very nature material, that everything which exists comes into being on the basis of material causes, arises and develops in accordance with the laws of motion of matter.
- Materialism teaches that matter is objective reality existing outside and independent of the mind; and that far from the mental existing in separation from the material, everything mental or spiritual is a product of material processes.
- Materialism teaches that the world and its laws are fully knowable, and that while much may not be known there is nothing which is by nature unknowable.
Mechanistic materialism makes certain dogmatic assumptions:
- That the world consists of permanent and stable things or particles, with definite, fixed properties;
- That the particles of matter are by nature inert and no change ever happens except by the action of some external cause;
- That all motion, all change can be reduced to the mechanical interaction of the separate particles of matter;
- That each particle has its own fixed nature independent of everything else, and that the relationships between separate things are merely external relationships.
Dialectical materialism holds instead:
- The world is not a complex of things but of processes;
- That matter is inseperable from motion;
- That the motion of matter comprehends an infinite diversity of forms which arise one from another and pass into one another;
- That things exist not as separate individual units but in essential relation and interconnection.
Putting it all together, we get the following:
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Dialectical materialism understands the world, not as a complex of ready-made things, but as a complex of processes, in which all things go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away.
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Dialectical materialism considers that matter is always in motion, that motion is the mode of existence of matter, so that there can no more be matter without motion than motion without matter. Motion does not have to be impressed upon matter by some outside force, but above all it is necessary to look for the inner impulses of development, the self-motion, inherent in all processes.
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Dialectical materialism understands the motion of matter as comprehending all changes and processes in the universe, from mere changes of place right to thinking. It recognizes, therefore, the infinite diversity of the forms of motion of matter from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher.
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Dialectical materialism considers that, in the manifold processes taking place in the universe, things come into being, change and pass out of being, not as separate individual units, but in essential relation and interconnection, so that they cannot be understood each separately and by itself but only in their relation and interconnection.
Karl Marx created dialectical materialism by turning Hegel’s idealist dialectic into a materialist one. Then, he applied it to the progression of society, creating historical matetialism. By analyzing social structures and progress as a dialectical process based in materialism, we can learn from history and analyze where it’s going. This is scientific socialism in progress.
We need more Luigi’s. Make it culturally acceptable to kill rich people. If they feel fear, they behave.
I don’t want rich people to behave.
I want them to pay back the money that they stole, so that there will be no rich people.
I agree. If they won’t return what was stolen, we should take it by force.
This is part of good behavior.
As cool as Luigi is, as long as capitalists dominate the economy, they will just develop ever-more draconian security measures to protect themselves. What we need is organization, so that we can replace the system they draw their dominance from with socialism, putting the people in power.
The power structure that currently exists prevents such representation. It can’t be reasoned with. It must be removed forcibly first.
The real problem is ensuring what fills such a power vacuum isn’t worse.
All states represent a given class in society. In capitalism, that’s the big capitalists. In socialism, that’s the working classes. Successful revolution requires creating a mass, working-class organization, and ensuring it’s linked to the broader working classes and earns their trust and support. Without the working-class organization, we are reduced to directionless protesting, and without the backing of the people, a working-class party can do nothing. Socialism works.
This is the only solution and things will continue to get worse until we enact it.
Revolt
the thing is, normal was always heading in this direction. Capitalism consolidates power into the hands of a few and it keeps consolidating. It will always yield toward more poverty, though for some at home they can wealthier off the exploitation of others.
I get what you mean, but going back to normal will get you right back here in a few years or decades.
I think that the answer is socialism. But for sure, pretty much nobody believes that anyone should have the wealth and power that our capitalists do.
This isn’t new information to the majority of people who care. The trick is mobilizing society to do something about it (like general strike). You may be newly awakened, but the majority still are not.
…guillotines are antiquated and obsolescent; we have industrial shredders…
if you’re like me you’ve used various AI
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Stop using the fucking “ai” that those same billionaires are burning the planet down to use to shove misinformation down your throat for fucks sake
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Start paying attention to what people who didn’t just figure this out have been saying for generations about this.
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Stop using AI.
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Seriously, stop using AI, it already sounds like its leading you down some crazy conspiracy rabbit hole that ends up blaming anyone except the billionaires who own the AIs and are actually the problem.
Oh, what performative purity. You’re typing that on a device built by slave labor, powered by a grid they own, through an internet they control. But sure, AI is where you draw the line, how very principled of you. You still think you’re not part of the machine just because you’re picking which cog to hate today. Congrats, you’ve mastered the art of feeling superior while changing nothing.
Oh wow.
I never thought I’d see a real one of these:
AI really does just recycle past zeitgeists doesn’t it?
Are you concerned that reliance on AI will perpetually put you months or even years behind the rest of humanity?
Or is it like people who don’t watch a show till all the episodes or even seasons are out?
The system loves you. Just angry enough to post, just lazy enough to obey.
Cringe. I never thought I’d see anyone seriously post that meme anymore.
It’s very telling. He fancies himself to be on the same level as a medieval peasant doing manual labor. While there are actually people out there living under such conditions (and worse), and we actively benefit from it. Peak bourgeois slacktivist meme.
That’s more surprising to you then someone authentically saying it?
I guess someone pointing it out that it’s exactly like the meme, can only happen after someone does.
But that would be like hearing someone say “look a Sasquatch” and you bragging about how rare it is to hear someone say that after actually seeing a sasquatch.
No, I’m surprised to see someone post the meme thinking they are the clever one in the exchange lol
And rather than drawing a line you’re just going to be a useless piece of shit who actively undermines other people doing what they can. Go find a hole to hide in so the rest of us don’t have to be distracted by your bullshit.
You being distracted by my bullshit sounds awful lot like a you problem.
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Post about it on the internet built upon tech enabled by the said class in today’s world, from devices sold to us by the said class in today’s world, in our homes with comforts the existence of which wouldn’t be possible without the said class in today’s world. Then go to work using infrastructure and means we wouldn’t have without the said class in today’s world, likely doing work we wouldn’t have without the said class in today’s world. Perhaps go buy some food the likes of which we couldn’t dream of having access to without the said class in today’s world. Maybe indulge in a hobby - a leisurely distraction, the kind that only exists because the said class engineered today’s world where you have time and resources to waste on frivolity, while they decide what those resources are.
Anyone who wants to hold on to the comforts of modern life will have next to no power to make a change happen. Most of the money you spend goes into their pockets. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Option is to reduce spending, start exchanging favors without money (or develop your own currency with your friends) and if you have to spend money, prefer local goods and small services. Learn to fix things instead of buying new stuff. Offer community, food and fun to people with as little money investment as possible.
Make it work for you and people immediately around you. Get it to spread. This goes triple for you tankies out there. If you can’t get this to work at a small level, you will not bring about systematic change. The game is theirs, it’s rigged against you and bless your sweet honey heart, you somehow think you can win.
Not saying this is what I think everyone must do. I’ll be dead soon enough and I don’t have kids. But I am saying that if YOU want to see a change in the system, you need to start playing a different game that isn’t built on money.
Well fucking said. Everyone’s ready to bitch about the system, until you ask them to live anywhere near like the people who are actually getting crushed by it. The performative outrage in this thread is a bad joke to the people who build our phones, sew our clothes, and mine our lithium. To them, we’re not revolutionaries. We’re the elite’s pampered pets, barking at the leash but gladly gobbling up all the treats they throw at us. People are getting mad about AI: guess fucking what, the outrage itself is a treat. The Epstein files are a treat. Anything that keeps you glued to the screen, ignoring everything that is actually around you is a treat. It’s your programmed Two Minutes of Hate.
Revolutions happen with real people willing to make sacrifices, working together and giving others real, tangible reasons to want to support them. Not by bitching online about how very awful it is. You want a revolution? Try going a week without buying anything. Try getting relationships instead of likes. But no, it’s easier to scream into the void and call it resistance, isn’t it? The system thanks you for your compliance.
I like your encouragements but I don’t see how any of what you list is made impossible by the absence of the ruling class? if anything the class struggle is vastly slowing down progress
I might be misunderstanding you but there seems to be an assumption that I’m making the claim that the kind of modern life we have can’t be possible without capitalism. I am not. It’s completely irrelevant to me (and my point).
If people want to insist that a world like ours can be possible while resources are shared equally, great. I have nothing against making the attempt at that, please do. But that’s not the world we live in right now. The world we currently find ourselves is the one where capitalism has made all the luxuries etc. possible, and we are very habituated to it. To the point that many people are reluctant to let any of that go, while simultaneously demanding for a systematic change. Hence the “can’t have your cake and eat it too”. People are demanding revolution but precious few have any actually actionable suggestions on how to bring that about. I’m suggesting things that anyone can do by themselves, as much as is possible for them. Doing those things doesn’t require that everyone agrees with you, because you start with yourself. It doesn’t require a massive systematic change, because again, you start with yourself.
If anyone has suggestions on concrete actions to take to bring about massive systematic change, please let me know. Let everyone know. But keep in mind you’d have to persuade people that it’s going to work and it’s a better system. Revolution is very easy on paper.
So, capitalism exists and most modern progress has been made under it ? that’s certainly an observation
I’m not entirely sure what you’re getting at with the sarcasm. You asked, I answered. My point was never that capitalism is good or necessary, but that it’s the system we’re currently stuck in and I suggested relatively low bar action individuals can take.
I’m not interested in discussing hypothetical worlds that woulda been, clouda been or shoulda been if not for them darn capitalists. I’m sure we could live in a completely egalitarian utopia if not for this, that and the other thing.
But we don’t.
If you have something constructive to contribute, feel free to do so.
What? Someone actually gives reasonably actionable suggestions here?
Counterpoint: we throw them in wood chippers and confiscate all the factories and such.
wouldn’t be possible without the said class.
This is complete and utter bullshit. Like technology and infrastructure is impossible without billionaires. They are leeches and are not structurally significant for any reason than that we let them be.
Great, all the better. Please do start building it again from scratch.
Are you not aware of how, for example, car lobbies destroyed public infrastructure in an attempt to make everything car dependant to sell more cars? Claiming any of these things only exist because of billionaires is absurd. They take over and destroy.
Claiming any of these things only exist because of billionaires is absurd. They take over and destroy.
But if they ‘took over,’ then by definition, the things that exist now - including the infrastructure you’re using to complain about them - exist because they allowed it. What you (and !Feyd@programming.dev ) have actually described is a world where billionaires are both all-powerful and completely irrelevant. That’s not a critique. That’s a paradox. And it’s a useful one because it lets you feel angry without actually taking any concrete action.
After all the Quanon stuff and the general population increasing their awareness of how conspiratorial thinking works, it’s weird to see “my side” use the same rhetorical tactics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Definitions_of_fascism&useskin=vector#Umberto_Eco
“Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as “at the same time too strong and too weak”. On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.”
There is no paradox. Thing exists. Billionaire takes over thing. Billionaire ruins thing. Billionaire did not cause thing to exist.
You said these things “wouldn’t be possible” and “wouldn’t exist” without billionaires. This is objectively untrue. Without billionaires these things would be significantly better. I specifically pointed out your mention of infrastructure because that one’s so blatantly obvious unless you’ve only ever experienced car-centric infrastructure.
You’re arguing with a straw man. The point isn’t that billionaires are the sole reason these things exist in some abstract sense - it’s that, in the world we actually live in right now, they control the levers that determine whether you have access to them at all. Nothing that we have right now could be possible if not for everything that came before it. So unless you invent a time machine, you’re arguing beside the point.
No, I’m arguing against direct quotes from you. Unless you yourself are a strawman.
Post about it on the internet built upon tech enabled by the said class
Built by academics to share research, expanded by hobbyists and enthusiasts, and taken over by megacorps. Not “enabled” by billionaires.
, from devices sold to us by the said class
Technically true, but only in that billionaires own the workers.
, in our homes with comforts the existence of which wouldn’t be possible without the said class.
Untrue. People can live in comfort without the existence of billionaires.
Then go to work using infrastructure and means we wouldn’t have without the said class,
Untrue. This is what your taxes pay for. Transit infrastructure exists without billionaires. Even in the US, notoriously a horrible place to travel, public transit infrastructure was good until billionaires lobbied against good infrastructure so they could sell more cars. Car infrastructure costs you more than public transit.
likely doing work we wouldn’t have without the said class.
Possibly true in very specific cases where your work provides value only to billionaires. If your work provides value in any other way (eg providing services or goods), this is likely not true.
Perhaps go buy some food the likes of which we couldn’t dream of having access to without the said class.
I am fully certain you don’t really believe good food only exists because of billionaires. Has there ever been a civilization of any kind which hasn’t had chefs of some description?
Maybe indulge in a hobby - a leisurely distraction, the kind that only exists because the said class engineered a world where you have time and resources to waste on frivolity, while they decide what those resources are.
Hobbies have always existed. You have time and resources to spare because of unions, not billionaires.
You credited all of these things to billionaires. None of these things exist because of billionaires.
You are absolutely correct on all points. Now what do you propose we do about it?
Easy; don’t give credit to billionaires for things they’ve only made worse. I’m not sure why you need my help to not spread misinformation?
If only there was a solution!
