While I am too old to advocate for violence, this line hit me pretty hard:
"Violence never solved anything" is a statement uttered by cowards and predators."I’m of the opinion both violent and nonviolent means are probably necessary and there’s plenty of nonviolent means of engagement. no war has been fought without support from somewhere, whether that’s a national war machine or the supporting element of an insurgency. there’s always logistics, resources, and well organization that has to occur.
I’m in no condition to fight myself, but over the coming decades I’m gonna have to be thinking about how much violence I’m comfortable being around and how much we can support people in the thick of it. violence is definitely present already in day to day life, but it’s more of an orphan-crushing-machine kind of violence that feels more normal.
This is a silly ad hominem argument though, an indication that what he’s arguing against is too valid to refute on its own merits.
Violence solves things. But by the powerless? No, historically speaking that just leads to military action, often followed by mass executions. Fighting fascism with violence is like fighting fire with gasoline. They feed off that shit. Maybe you can argue it worked in Haiti, albeit with a lot of help from yellow fever. But have you been to Haiti?
He’s right that peaceful protests never solve anything. But organizing and acting as a bloc solves a lot. General strikes, civil disobedience, boycotts, even voting as a group has a strong track record of changing things.
Fighting fascism with violence is like fighting fire with gasoline.
Remind me again how Hitler’s Germany remained Fascist and in control of all of continental Europe over the last 75 years…
I want to believe that peaceful organization like civil disobedience leads to change, but I can’t recall seeing that work in recent history…
How recent is recent? Tunisia, Egypt (well until the population turned out to be too dumb for democracy anyway) are examples.
It hasn’t worked in the US because it’s been too half-assed and the existence of democratic options lowers incentives. Contrast the successful civil disobedience during the civil rights era, where the right to participate in elections was one of the things being denied. But with the increasing signs that democracy is being controlled by a few billionaires, it may see a comeback.
well until the population turned out to be too dumb for democracy anyway
Liberals when
and the existence of democratic options lowers incentives.
Those don’t exist anymore. Not in any real capacity, at least. More like utterly useless window dressing and decorative veneer, much like how North Korea is “democratic” simply because they put that word into the country’s name.
Corporations own nearly all the politicians short of ones like Bernie Sanders and OAC. Corporations write the laws and tell the politicians what to vote for. Corporations own and control EVERYTHING, and you have weapons-grade child-like naïvité if you think the working class has any real political power left in America.
The unionized working class has plenty of power. Both parties catered to unions during the campaigns. Why? Because every politician is afraid of a bunch of people who could go either way deciding to vote as one. If there were one overarching union representing everyone in the working class, regardless of race, location, or position, the minimum wage would be $100k/year.
The online fundraiser for him has already raised about 19K. Seems to have just started today.
The one time I resorted to violence, it 100% solved my problem. I slapped my bully in class so hard people’s ears rang. We ended up becoming friends later on lol.
I had a guy trying to bully me a long time ago, i got fed up with him pretty quickly.
I turned around, grabbed him by the throat and pushed him up against the wall after which i punched him.
Never bothered me again, his and my own parents both agreed: “he had it coming”.
Now that i’m more mature, i actually feel bad for him because even his own parents didn’t try to defend him. Seeing how he behaved, this was definitely part of the cause.
He needed his parents to be there for him, but they just gave up on him from the start.
Violence is the supreme authority from which all other authority is derived.
classic defeat means friendship trope
Remember when in the french revolution everyone just asked the nobles pretty please?
Ted was spot on and I believe most of his predication became true.
Wow. This seems highly suspect to me. I seriously doubt Luigi wrote this. It’s too perfect. Right? It spells out motive. Desire and intent.
It reads like it’s his manifesto.
It also reads like it could have been written after the murder.
This seems fake
The second they found him with a 2 page manifesto, the clothes, and the gun days after the shooting; I knew there were going to be Epstein level theories. That is just super convenient, and maybe the cops got really lucky. Or maybe they found the first guy that looked like him and didn’t have an alibi.
It’s consistent with his actions.
he’s just quoting stuff from a take he found online (its all written in the posted image)
So you’re saying it’s fake just because it matches what the guy did? That’s some mental gymnastics right there. I don’t know if it’s real or not, but I’m not just making shit up to support my imaginary conclusion
I honestly don’t know if Americans have what it takes to change the path we’re headed down. I haven’t really got much faith left in our society. We’re pretty pathetic.
Hope I’m wrong.
With all the uneducated, divisive disinformation, and faith-based worldviews out there it’s hard to even get people to agree that a problem exists, and therefore even harder to convince the electorate how to appropriately address it. Public medicine would fix this problem like it has in the rest of the world yet still many Americans believe it’s Marxism for some stupid reason.
Public medicine would fix this problem like it has in the rest of the world yet still many Americans believe it’s Marxism
for some stupid reason.…because a group of politicians who need campaign funding to stay elected tell them “government bad” at every opportunity.
There is one party to blame here. Republicans. They made up the death panels bullshit. They made it so Lieberman could filibuster for the big insurance companies and keep them rich. They made it a goal to “own the libs.”
Democrats deserve criticism for their Neo Liberal bullshit too, but this wouldn’t have been pushed this far without the Republican propaganda and lies.
I think at this point it’s clear that there are problems to most people. The difficulty is more about agreeing on a) what the problems are and b) why they are problems, and c) how to fix them.
With the added difficulty that a decent portion of people have taken the “it’s hard to prove anything definitively” stance and for some reason decided that means they should believe alternative sources rather than the more logical “be skeptical of everything but also be rational about it”. If someone is able to get disinformation into official sources, they’ll have an even easier time getting it into alternative sources.
The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.
Yeah there’s 350 million of us but only one of these incidents in the decade+ since Occupy Wall Street?
We don’t have the guts.
Remember who the big spokesperson for Occupy Wall Street was? Tim Pool remembers.
All we can do it keep moving forward and try to take care of each other as we go.
By donating to each others GoFundMes for hospital bills.
Are you shooting down CEOs? No? Then you’re part of the problem with being pathetically weak.
Friendly reminder that killing CEOs isn’t the only answer. Sometimes it’s throwing tea in a harbor. Or tarring and feathering a tax collector.
Just do your part.
Those lead to violence though
All those things are from a past where democracy wasn’t a thing and indeed you needed to uprise to an oppressive power.
This is still the case for the majority of the planet.
It is not the case in the developed nations. And even in the US Trump has won the popular vote.
You feathering a tax collector is an act against the will of the majority. This is not a revolutionary act, because you’re not acting brave and sacrificing yourself to voice a majority’s opinion.
Contrary, your actions are radical activism. You represent a minority, and yet you so firmly believe in your own righteousness that you justify violence.
I went through your comment history to see if you are a gun owner, and I think you are not. So this makes you part of the problem you just posed in your comment here, since you have no means to commit to peaceful but aggressive armed protesting.
That’s not the right way to encourage people to arm themselves.
I don’t have anydesire to encourage people to do anything.
There are people out there who will always be useless bitches that passively complain all day other people aren’t doing things when they themselves don’t bother to make any effort themselves to try to change shit.
I’m the audience you’re talking too. I’m 32 and just got my first rifle. It was awkward for me at first, and attitudes like yours contributed to that.
So fuck you man.
Good stuff. Be sure to regularly train with it, or you might as well wrap a bow on it and give it to the people who will be trying to take it away from you.
You’re such a jackass dude
He is 100% a jackass but in this particular point he is right. Please learn and practice with your rifle. Untrained gun owners are a huge danger to themselves and others and they usually don’t realize it. And owning a gun doesn’t do you any good if it gets taken out of your hands in the first 5 seconds of an altercation.
For your safety and others this is actually legitimately good advice.
… or maybe they’re not reveling every aspect of their lives on a public forum for personal safety reasons.
Armed protesting, by definition, is not peaceful.
I am not a gun owner.
I have never fired a gun in my life. I have terrible hand-eye coordination. I know from just playing video games with guns and carnival “shoot the target with BBs” things how bad my aim is.
Also, I’m a coward and I know I could never kill anyone.
I would be of no benefit of you in the glorious revolution with a gun in my hands. You would be more likely to be shot by me accidentally.
This is really important knowledge to know about yourself. I wish more people were this self aware.
But a war requires a lot more than just soldiers. Even if we end up in a hot shooting Civil War 2 there are still many things you and other nonviolent folks could do for your fellows to keep them safe. Safe shelter and food mean even more than guns and bullets in a conflict like that.
I hope with every bit of my heart that we don’t have to go there. But if we do, you are not useless. Soldiers may fight a war, but logistics wins one. And in this hypothetical situation a lot of us are going to be very charged up with hot tempers and someone with a cooler head and an aversion to violence will be important to keep things from falling to chaos.
Don’t sell yourself short, Squid. A coward with a good head on them is a good person to have on your side in a fight. A coward knows how to prevent that fight that might not have been otherwise necessary.
I’m not selling myself short. I said, “I would be of no benefit of you in the glorious revolution with a gun in my hands.” I agree, there are other things that need doing.
You are wrong.
You just have to realize it.
We’re pretty pathetic.
I’m not some flag saluting, Lee Greenwood asshole, but you couldn’t be more wrong. You are on Earth and the truth is 5 billion light years from you wondering about your existence. Americans may not all have the best education. They may be apathetic at the polls due to distrust in the system. However, Americans are NOT pathetic. The media may have you convinced that we are divided on the left and the right, but we are divided up and down. You start to take away things and I’m sure you will find out how strong they can be. Americans have fought and will fight tooth and nail for what they believe in.
Americans are NOT pathetic
Buddy, we just RE-ELECTED a convicted felon and rapist who instigated an insurrection and illegally attempted to overturn an election AFTER we already fired him for massively failing, including in regards to the biggest crisis America has experienced since WW2. A guy that has openly stated he is anti-union and worker rights. We can’t even get on the same page about healthcare, despite having examples from other first world countries across the globe showing what we could do to better our situation. We targeted black people (still are), then gay people (still are), and now we’ve moved on to targeting trans people. Wealth disparity is increasing by the year. Billionaires OWN our politics top to bottom.
We’re categorically fucking pathetic.
I don’t think this speaks to how pathetic Americans are, but instead to how much the rich have us under their thumb.
We need to start working against atomization if we want things to get better, and I think this is/was a really good way to bring people together. Talk to the uninformed people in your life, be the healthy opposition to their beliefs that many people dont have. Make them understand who their real enemies are.
It is in the upper classes best interest that we close ourselves off, entering echochambers as we talk about how evil it is for someone to disagree with our own beliefs.
US politics are a ship. They don’t turn on a dime. We are headed in a better direction in the grand scheme. Short downturns happen. When Bush was president everyone thought the government was going to become a Christofacist regime. The end of times are not near. If you truly believe there is no hope, then why aren’t you taking to the streets with violence? I think THAT’S pathetic. You think the end is coming and you just sit and bitch online and do nothing.
You watched the news even once in the last ten years? What the fuck do you think the BLM and Antifa movements were about, planting daisies?
So we are in agreement, right? America isn’t full of pathetic do-nothings.
You are on Earth and the truth is 5 billion light years from you wondering about your existence.
Quote is crazy hard but I disagree with you so much lol
You can’t act like the Civil War didn’t happen. We put men on the moon. We developed the Atomic bomb. We have 11 aircraft carriers. Whether it fits your argument or not Americans have grit and we will take back our power.
I find it interesting that nothing you listed is contemporary. Even the aircraft carriers. We’ve have a lot of aircraft carriers for a long time.
You’re reaching pretty far back to find anything of significance Americans have done that’s positive. And some of what you listed is decidedly not positive.
Maybe you’re thinking about what Americans USED to be.
And you are just as easily invalidating things they’ve done because it fits your narrative.
You’re doing the country equivalent “I’m not pathetic, look at how big my muscles are”. Doesn’t matter if you have shitty public education, shitty public transportation, shitty worker rights, shitty health care and a shitty political system that makes change impossible, you can beat the shit out of anyone calling you pathetic.
Such a simplistic view I can absolutely believe you’re American.
“I don’t like the things republicans do, so all of America are shitty wimps.”
-You.
Assuming all of those things are inflicted by republicans, how can they get away with it? You’re supposed to have grit and take back power, but somehow you’re letting republicans run wild? How doesn’t this rub of on all Americans?
No, fucker, WE didn’t do any of that. WE are shitposting on Lemmy. I know for a fact you didn’t build any aircraft carriers yourself. So can “WE” stop talking credit for things less pathetic Americans have done?
Ugh…Yeah…we did. My fucking neighbor welds submarines. I work in manufacturing assisting in building cars, tanks, radar systems, military vehicles. You name it. You might be some tech nerd like most people on Lemmy, but most of us out here in the real world are doing hard shit.
Pretty bold of you to claim us nerds don’t do hard shit. I’m only going to speak to my experience, but I’m only one small slice of the nerd demographic. My background is in network design, security, availability, and global network design. I started out life in a car parts factory, graduated to being on the line crew here, before going inside to work on computers.
How much of your logistics would crumble without us? Exchange of knowledge around the globe? Sales and interfacing with other corporations and customers? Security to keep personal information somewhat protected?
I’ve contracted with several fortune 100 companies in all sorts of different industries all over the world, from manufacturing to attorneys.
You sound a lot like my family. Only hard labour is virtuous, if you aren’t sweating you aren’t working. Do you look down on people who do what you consider menial labour? I doubt you’ll admit it, but I’m pretty confident you do.
Civilization doesn’t work if we think like you. Every single person in my life, from the guys picking up my trash to the surgeon that saved my life are important and necessary to making modern life what it is.
Trying to be divisive between blue and white collar in the working glass is definitely a suspicious fucking take in this climate.
So you agree then? America is not a bunch of pathetic people who are going to bend over to fascism?
A.) I don’t believe you. B.) I don’t care.
Top quality comment. Do you feel good about yourself for commenting that?
There are a lot of points in history I’d bring up to show the grit of Americans before those specific ones. The Civil War was fought to keep the wealth-generating plantations under the federal tax jurisdiction, the moon landing was a cool thing that happened 50 years ago and produced no real tangible benefits at a point of time where those resources could’ve been put to much better use, the A-bomb was a war crime and our aircraft carriers are used to support illegal wars to kill brown people protect the interests of oil companies.
You are saying that these things are bad things. I’m not saying they aren’t. I’m saying Americans achieve things. Americans are fucking tough. Also, I will argue that you couldn’t pop a pimple of truth on this statement: “he moon landing was a cool thing that happened 50 years ago and produced no real tangible benefits”.
Oh, by golly, are you wrong.
These lists are completely disingenuous. Just because something was the first use case doesn’t mean it was the only use case for a thing.
For example. Freeze dried food. It’s completely impossible to say we would not have freeze dried food without the space program.
The atomic bombs and iarcraft carriers are for “Americans (people)”
the truth is 5 billion light years from you wondering about your existence
What?
Yeah, no idea what they were getting at with this.
No fucking clue what they’re on about there.
Far from the truth.
deleted by creator
Dang, sounds like Luigi might have had a few oil CEOs in him as well ❤️🩹
There’s a world out there in the multiverse where he still does.
That looks like something that could have been written on here or reddit a week ago and would have been met with at least modest approval in regards to the oligarchy.
Yeah, still really dumb though.
Keep bootlicking lol
Dude, read the bhagavad gita. It’s all about inner peace during violence. A soldier not wanting to fight his kin on a battlefield. When you recognize that sometimes the cost of peace is enslavement you can take extreme action without any attachment to the outcome and remain in peace in your heart. I used to abhorrent violence still do, but I will act without attaching and face rip any monkey that is hoarding and hurting my fellows. MFRA… monkey face rip association… even Buddha has stories stating no karma is incurred for some situations of violence. You might be stuck in good vs evil dichtomous thinking. There is no good and evil in nature just nature. We make the definitions and than we suffer them. Cast off your definitions and cultured personality and see the real that exist in many many sahdes.
You’re making a lot of assumptions about where I’m coming from here, so let me clarify a bit why I think it’s dumb: the OP essay inherits the flaws of the Unabomber Manifesto it is signal boosting. It’s hand waving rhetoric and rationalization, right wing extremist flavored. Its only argument that violence will be useful is to bake in an assumption that of course it will, criticize other, independent options, frame the debate as a moral one about whether saving the world justifies violence, and make that argument with name calling.
I recognize that many people respect this type of argument, but they are wrong, it’s bad and stupid.
What’s the alternative? The health insurers are actively killing people by denying claims. I’m curious.
An absence of a clear alternative isn’t a substitute for an argument that slaughtering corporate leaders will help the problem. There are practical differences between the circumstance of a wild animal literally fighting for its survival, and a member of a population being abstractly squeezed to death by systemic problems, in that killing is a clear immediate solution in the former but extremely questionable in the latter. Not bothering to acknowledge this makes it a bad argument. Also, all the other reasons I mentioned why it’s a bad argument. Kind of reads like edgy highschooler cringe bait too, though that’s subjective.
Maybe a better argument could be made, idk. But this one is dumb.
I hear what you’re saying. My issue with your position is that Thompson is not a mere bystander or segment of the ‘machine’ that is killing - or in your words “squeezing” - other humans. Thompson, by his own admission, was actively pursuing mechanisms by which denial of care and ultimately death are effected. Why does he get a pass, I’m curious?
My criticism is of the writing in the OP, and of Kaczynski’s writing, which while contextually relevant, isn’t actually about Thompson or even specifically health insurance.
To answer your question though, I don’t think he gets a pass, ethically. But I also don’t think justice trumps striving for better outcomes in society, and in fact it’s the other way around. This isn’t exactly being contested; the rhetorical focus is on means and results.
I’ve always said this but got chased out of the room (downvoted to hell), peaceful protest is a bunch of bullshit and won’t do shit. It never will. It’s always just ignored. Rioting and violence IS the only option when protesting peacefully is ignored. I mean look at the George Floyd protests and how they actually made change. Look at the French and their protests…etc. Peaceful protesting is quite literally a bunch of people kidding themselves.
People love to use examples like MLK and Gandhi as the poster children for peaceful protest achieving results, and years ago I’d have naively agreed.
But the reality of it is that they could not have succeeded without the threat of violence from more militant alternatives, such as Malcolm X/The Black Panthers or the Ghadar revolutionaries/Babbar Akali Sikhs.
It’s the carrot-and-stick metaphor. The powers that be will ignore any nonviolent attempts for reform until a violent movement makes the nonviolent alternative more appealing.
Capitalism has long asserted that there are checks in place to protect people. Consumer protection laws, industry regulations, collective bargaining, and voting with your wallet are some of the myths that capitalism says are supposed to stop bad businesses from hurting people. But when we see these systems failing en masse, and the powers that be refuse to do anything about it, what recourse is left?
Both are necessary. The first creates public support. The second “creates government support”
A little direct action can be surprisingly effective
The peaceful protest has a purpose. It is the purpose of due diligence. It is to show an escalation. A point at which other avenues were tried and ignored leaving one with no choice but to try others that are more militant. You try all the avenues. And leave the last resort as a last resort. But historically we know that more often than not real change happens when there is either the threat of violence or the actuality of violence.
People as a whole don’t seem to be invested until it impacts them. It’s hard to impact people enough with peaceful protest to change their minds. That’s why blocking highways or major thoroughfares were threatened with violence. Because the point of protest is twofold. It is to educate. But more importantly it is to inconvenience people. Because without the inconvenience, they do not get invested.
Exactly. It is reaching that point where a lot of people are realizing that peace doesn’t work anymore.
If the political pressure was high enough, political powers would buckle. But see who got voted for president? Its clear that the people chose this themselves sadly
People don’t understand that more than protecting people, social policies such as housing, welfare, and medical aid programs protect the capitalist system itself.
If you take a look at europe, there is plenty of countries who score way better on these issues, and the underlying system is still capitalism. It might not be perfect but if you include a social aspect and regulate in the interest of the population I believe it is the best system we have.
social policies such as housing, welfare, and medical aid programs protect the capitalist system itself.
It was not always like this but yes over as 40 years the money has been looted and used against the working class.
It took wage slaves all this time but I think it is finally registering:
How is everybody working so hard, we are working more and we are more productive but nobody but few have any more money
The money is being extracted via complex legal, social and propaganda mechanisms and we are letting it happen by being obedient dogs fighting rich man’s fake news stories.
You live in a country that couldn’t elect Bernie as a president. There’s no peaceful protest happening. And yet you claim violence is the only option.
In reality, half of your country simply disagrees with you. Start your violence, get a civil war, and maybe you’ll finally settle things somewhere somehow.
But don’t bullshit about effectiveness of peaceful protest.
Trump won a majority vote in the most recent election. Peacefully, your country chose corpos over moderate middle (there’s no left in your politics). Their peaceful protest works flawlessly. You’re just not on the winning side of the protest so you call for violence. You will lose this fight too.
I understand why people are upset but its a sad reality, that you just don’t have the masses on your side. I think your point is the crux to all of this. If a majority doesn’t get behind your conviction then violence will not solve your problem.
It’s a point that’s impossible to get across in this echo chamber. But it’s also why this echo chamber will never achieve anything.
Via democracy or violence, for a regime change you first need to figure out a way to get the majority to agree with you.
I mean look at the George Floyd protests and how they actually made change
Did they really, though?
Yeah, I agree with their point but I really don’t think this is the example to use
Organized labor can also take some non violent action like general strikes. The important thing is the organization part, once you’re organized you’ve got power whether it’s violent or not.
A smaller less organized population can definitely use violence effectively, but it still takes critical mass to affect permanent change.
Join or create community groups and labour unions
If peaceful protesting worked to affect change, it would be illegal
That reminds me of another quote.
Thank you!!!
and how they actually made change
Uh…
He’s right tho.
Right… But in all fairness a dude wound that tight probably would have had terrible time on acid too though
So if you read into Kaczynski a bit, in a way he’s kinda history’s first incel too. He went off into the woods because he was upset about getting rejected by a girl and went super nice guy™ on not just her but life too. He blamed technology on his inability to read into a woman and he was too insecure to learn from it.
This guy is doing something else, he attacked the elite not because of technology and their relationship but because of their wealth and direct actions.
history’s first incel
What definition of incel are you using that eliminates the rest of history?
Well fair enough…I’d still call him one thought
He is ID’d the sources of issue more precisely.
Internet liberated the flow info enough for a smart person to connect the dots better.
Uncle Ted was working within the framework of the old world. A lot of shit that is common knowledge to a wage slave now, was reserved to the elites.
Ted’s thesis was not wrong but it was very crude.
This kid is from wealth. It seems very wealthy. Not country club money but country club owner kind of money. Its more likely for fame and getting in the history books
His upbringing doesnt diminish his activism. The consequences for him are the same as a poor person as well.
that remains to be seen. he has access to resources poor people don’t.
Yes he is from a rich background… So plebs should not respect the work he has done
i said only what i said, intending to imply only that his outcomes are not likely to be the same as someone poor.
I’d be shocked if his family helps him in any way.
yeah, that crossed my mind also. i could see it going either way.
Apparently about enough to be feel solidarity with the rest of the working class.
Except the problem is that humans are cognitively advanced than other animals. We should be able to find some way to reason out our differences, otherwise we’re always going to be stuck in a dark cave of our own making. What’s the fucking point of humanity then?
The problem is that there aren’t effective ways to curtail sociopathic behaviors which come to the surface because of our current economic tool of choice. Tbh, it will not matter what economic tool we use because the greed problem and self-preservation problem will remain. It always does!
We should be working towards developing safeguards and mechanisms to protect humanitarian ideals, and to curtail sociopathic behaviors. I think a big part of this is that people should elect better leaders. If you’re forced to choose “lesser of two evils”, then there should be a mechanism to organize an effective write-in choice.
If someone then comes to kill you for making democratic choices, as happens in autocratic regimes, then self-defense is valid and justified.
Ok but the CEOs are the sociopaths right? Because it appears to me that Luigi was applying irl solutions to the trolley problem
Sociopathic behaviours are always going to be a huge problem in large societies. They’re not even exclusive to humans anyway. Just look at all the parasites in nature.
All of our cognitive and social abilities break down when you get into large groups. We’re evolved to be able to work with extended family units where we have a reasonable ability to build personal relationships and trust networks among all of the people we interact with.
In large societies everyone becomes anonymous and we’re stuck with societal laws and norms which are constantly under attack. Our usual mechanisms for punishing betrayal through reputation damage and ostracism fall apart in an anonymous society. In more recent history we relied on societal institutions (democratic and judicial as well as private societies) and the media (newspapers, magazines, TV news) to cover some of this role but it was imperfect and only applied to the most infamous offenders.
Now we’ve lost even that limited media function due to the post truth revolution (thanks to the internet) and its acceleration of the breakdown of trust in societal institutions and the decline of the media.
All of our cognitive and social abilities break down when you get into large groups. We’re evolved to be able to work with extended family units where we have a reasonable ability to build personal relationships and trust networks among all of the people we interact with.
Our usual mechanisms for punishing betrayal through reputation damage and ostracism fall apart in an anonymous society. In more recent history we relied on societal institutions (democratic and judicial as well as private societies) and the media (newspapers, magazines, TV news) to cover some of this role but it was imperfect and only applied to the most infamous offenders.
Cool and agreed, but the original point holds up that greed and self-preservation always ruin things for groups of people trying to do anything together. Everything you mentioned is a symptom of corporate interests subverting democracies. Look, there’s nothing inherently wrong with corporations having an interest in their success, but govts. need to be able to curtail their worst tendencies because it makes sense to prioritize long-term benefits over short-term gains.
If people really give a fuck about monied interests and their control over democracies, then they should be pushing for higher taxes on the wealthy (like 250K or more per year) like it’s an existential crises. Because it is. Tbf, 250K is pretty normal in a HCOL, so higher taxes should take that into account.
I view governments with the same suspicion that most people around here view corporations. Look at history. The worst atrocities were committed by highly motivated and ideological governments.
When it comes down to it, it’s all just different ways of organizing groups of people and they’re all vulnerable to some of the same problems to do with anonymity, accountability (or lack thereof), and control.
It hasn’t been established that intelligence is a requisite for survival.
If we think of intelligence as goal-directed and adaptive behavior, then natural selection will select for competitive traits, and so whatever ended up losing was less intelligent in some sense, even if it’s a single-cell organism.
Actually, there’s a lot of evidence that points to intelligence being a sexually selected trait rather than naturally selected, so in that sense it may actually negatively correlate with survival. In other words, your big brain is the human equivalent of peacock features; it will get you laid but doesn’t do much good when a tiger comes around.
Think of it this way: to sit around doing math problems all day, you have to have the basic necessities for survival dealt with, which shows you’re a good mate within the current environment. Which is all well and good until times change, the going gets tough, and you need to kill something to put food on the table.
it will get you laid but doesn’t do much good when a tiger comes around.
This is categorically false, sorry
I stopped at “what’s the fucking point of humanity then?”
… Are you under the impression that there’s a point to living? Some grand plan or purpose that drives people?
The only reason I’m not in the ground already is because when I thought about it, my death would cause suffering to people I cared about, so I’d rather take on that suffering myself than put it on them. If everyone I cared about died, I’d petition for medical euthanasia, if that was denied, I’d go find the nearest bride and swan dive into pavement.
The only reason we exist is to have babies so they can exist and have babies. Human life, indeed all life, lives to procreate, and make more of itself. That’s it.
I’ve always questioned why we’re worthy of survival, but all the species we’ve killed off due to climate change, or hunting them to extinction, or destroying their habitat where they die off because they can’t survive in a different habitat, are not worthy of survival.
I’m not convinced that humans should continue to perpetuate themselves long term. Bluntly, I can’t point to anything genuinely good that we’ve done for any creature other than ourselves. We address environmental issues sure, but we caused them. The only thing we go out of our way to do, at all, and with significant disagreement and debate, is fix shit we fucked up. That’s it. Everything else has been a selfish pursuit of greed by humans.
What’s been happening, has not changed my mind on any of this.
I’m not crazy, and I’m not going to try to exterminate anyone because I don’t think humans should continue to exist. I’m still here to bring as much happiness and joy to the people I care about, and I don’t have the mental capacity to feel anything but contempt for everyone screwing everything up. I can’t spare the effort to hate anyone. It’s exhausting.
At this point, I just want everyone to leave me alone so I can live my tiny comfortable life with the people I actually care about, grow old and die… Hopefully in that order.
Sorry you had to write all that just to get downvoted. But what I meant to convey was that by some cosmic accident a cognitively advanced animal appeared, one that can seek to understand fundamental truths about the universe and its reality.
I just hold that cosmic accident in high regard, and think we have a duty as stewards of things we can understand using skills, talents and properties innate to us as a species. This is part of the reason that I think every human life wasted and not supported to its full potential is a failure of society.
Oh, I agree with much of what you say. I’m just not convinced that we as a society are valuable in any way that justifies our continued propagation.
Most of what I wrote was to qualify what I’m saying so that it’s understood. I expect downvotes because I’m basically calling humans as a species, not worthy of existing. Some people who are very ego driven proud homo erectus, can definitely take offense to my statements; so down votes are generally expected.
I suppose that some downvotes would also come from those that believe that humans were created by God, under that pretense, I would be insulting their God by saying we’re not worthy of existing. So yeah.
Between those two, I’m unmoved by the fact that some decided to down vote.
Well ours is the only species which can probe and understand why there is something instead of nothing. There may not be any intrinsic value in anything, but the act of discovery is meaningful.
I just want to point out that ours is the only species that we know of that can do those things.
It’s pure hubris to think that we’re the only ones in billions on billions of stars with potentially more than 10x that many planets in the universe that has sapience sufficient to ask the questions. Statistics says it’s extremely unlikely that humans are the only sapient life in the universe.
Oh there’s still plenty of ways short of violence against people to solve this. This guy 100% echo chambered himself into thinking there was no other way. The spectrum does not jump straight to killing people after peaceful protests are ignored.
There’s a pretty reasonable societal model (that scales beyond 10 people living in a cave) that has so far prevented sociopatic behavior.
We have laws and we have democracy to establish them. Whatever happens in your dumbfukistant, in western Europe it’s unimaginable to be able to use violence and physical power to claim territory or food. Even a drunken fight in a bar will get you in a lot of legal trouble. E.g. being a stronger ape gets you exactly nowhere in life if you use want your power to dominate. You could use it to create, and you’d be rewarded.
Very similarly the economic system could be trivially adjusted to conform the societal values and violations would be prosecuted. All this requires is a democratic choice.
The societies so far democratically have no chosen to abolish capitalism. Although a lot of western-european democracies have severely limited the potential for abuse from this system.
We don’t need to develop mechanisms, we don’t need violent protests, we don’t need vigilantes. We simply need for people to choose differently. And if they don’t, it’s their choice.
Ah, yes, you in your default country definitely need a better democratic system, although Trump did win the popular vote, so I wouldn’t hope for that much change tbh.
How well is “western” Europe doing at curbing the global corporations ability to turn the earth into wasteland?
The majority of people in an average western European country want to drive their car and fly to their vacation destination. They also might heat their homes with gas.
Destruction of climate is not anti-democratic. There are green parties in every parliament and they get 15-30% of votes. E.g. only that many voters consider the issue of climate change to be pressing. The others believe things are fine, or that moderate measures are enough.
You keep preaching “evil corpos oppress us poor”. But this is simply not true. The majority of the population is pretty content with the status quo, and if they weren’t they could change it any election cycle.
You are making my point for me. They couldn’t do anything about the current system of they wanted to within the system. Consent has been manufactured, packaged, shipped, and bought.
They perfectly can. It requires them to make a collective choices that will require individual sacrifices in order to achieve collective gains (assuming people actually see it that way).
And that’s clearly not in anyone’s interest. And you’re one to tell them what’s wrong or right.
There’s no system. There are free individuals living their lifes as they see fit. But you somehow keep imagining an evil monster that suppresses everyone’s free will, while you, the hero, are unaffected.
If you actually believe there is no systemic oppression, and personal choice can change the world, I have no idea what to say except
We have laws and we have democracy to establish them. Whatever happens in your dumbfukistant, in western Europe it’s unimaginable to be able to use violence and physical power to claim territory or food.
Haha, read any historical account of western civilization. The west has always been great about backstabbing its non-west allies, or even each other.
People are people, don’t fall for some us vs. them bullshit, you’re just being a tool for someone else. It’s also pretty funny to me that half the countries some Americans look down on have had more women presidents or prime ministers, lol.
And you can’t seriously say democracy is working as intended when we don’t have campaign finance reforms, and have citizens united in the U.S.? You’re literally living in a world where a billionaire bought a country’s presidential election outcome! What a joke.
Sociopathic behaviour is not prevented, it is rewarded. Stepping on other people to claim more wealth is encouraged. A decent person has no money, in general, and most people are decent. Nobody chose this. Nobody voted for this, and there’s no vote which will put an end to it. We are, like it or not, in a situation where we cannot change the system to benefit us (us=the working/middle classes) by peaceful means. The ruling classes are extending their monopoly with every move, and will never willingly give power back. I’m terrified by the prospect, but looking at similar situations in history, I think violence is inevitable.
What are you on about? You can easily vote for far left in pretty much any of the functioning democracies in Europe. And if a radical left party were to win, they could easily implement a profit cap.
You’re talking about some “ruling class” as if we’re in a society where such bounds exist by birth right of some sort. Anyone can become a politician and be elected to be the main voice of the country’s legislative and executive branches. You don’t need violence to radically change everything, you need a majority’s approval. And, I’m telling you, your ideas are already out there and they’re not selling. They’re not selling even peacefully, but you somehow dream that someone will die for them?
Here’s my experience as a citizen of the United Kingdom.
A vote for a party which will benefit the majority of people (which you are calling the “far/radical left”) is ignored because of our first past the post political system and because of the mass media, which is rabidly pro-establishment. A lower rate of further education exacerbates this effect. They form an impenetrable system which disallows anything but the tiniest of incremental changes, while the climate and the wealth gap worsen exponentially and relentlessly.There is a ruling class, and it does largely depend on birthright. None of these billionaires are self made, look closely enough and you will find seed money in their mercurial rise, usually from a family member. You have your eyes shut if you think we’re not ruled by the wealthy. It’s a fact. If you want to argue this point with me you can, but you will lose.
In my country, it’s difficult to become a politician, you usually have to get a specific degree from one of three specific universities, which are much easier to get into if you are -you guessed it- rich.
Which ideas of mine are you talking about exactly? Without some specifics on what you think they are, your last two sentences just don’t land.
A vote for a party which will benefit the majority
We can stop the discussion right here. You clearly know better than the voters themselves what’s best for them. In my opinion, it would be the most efficient solution for us to nominate you to be a dictator for life, as you will achieve a better outcome for everyone than them thinking for themselves.
The rest of your argument continues with insults towards the voters disagreeing with your political views “uneducated, influenced by media, etc”. You, obviously, do see yourself as a superior being and thinker.
I don’t think debating democratic choices with you makes any sense. You’re anti-democratic.
You are caricaturing my arguments. It’s interesting, because you must understand them to a sufficient level to do this whilst not understanding then to a sufficient level to actually consider them. That’s quite a mental effort. Either that or you are for some reason understanding them properly, yet choosing to misrepresent them for some reason.
hmm interesting review.
