Somewhere, somehow, those bunkers will need air intakes. Some potatoes to plug tubes, or mustard gas packets down the hatches … the problem is, bunkers make excellent prisons and/or tombs.
CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de
on 09 Nov 02:00
nextcollapse
ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 03:49
nextcollapse
The ultra wealthy also don’t do shit in their own and will be expecting at least a small team of other people to cater to them while they weather the storm. There is no future where the ultra wealthy get to keep all the things they have collected.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 03:52
nextcollapse
Weird jump after defending a multi billionaire govenor that won’t defend his citizens and just wants to make sound bites…
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 06:51
nextcollapse
wasnt there are article about zuckerberg/bezos compound they dont know what to do with the HUMAN waste they produced,a nd they wanted to dumped in some random area to pollute. since you dont pay for public services.
anomnom@sh.itjust.works
on 09 Nov 08:24
nextcollapse
A healthy and well designed septic system will handle a free humans for decades if you treat it right.
There’s a whole rich people Island neighborhood (I didn’t think they were bunkers) that wanted to pipe their waste back to the mainland because they didn’t think anything through when building it
BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk
on 10 Nov 13:40
collapse
I like shitting on billionaires as much as the next person, but presumably they didn’t design any of this themselves. Most likely story is they just don’t want to pay their fair share as usual.
They didn’t want it near them and assumed they’d be able to pay their way to dumping it on the poors. Don’t give them an out.
BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk
on 10 Nov 23:00
collapse
In what way am I giving anyone an out? Are we both talking about the Indian Creek/Surfside thing? If we are the whole shit storm is over the fact the billionaires don’t want to pay have a link..
Inaminate_Carbon_Rod@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 11:01
nextcollapse
I bet those servant’s quarters accomodations for staff are real nice so that they stay loyal.
Rooster326@programming.dev
on 09 Nov 13:16
collapse
They will, in all likelihood, involve counter measures like explosive collars.
Or the one from Horizon. Surgically implanted “Off” switches that kil function implanted into sterilized individuals. Literally had the surgery center at the entrance to the bunker.
What if an enemy did a mass triggering of switches?
Rooster326@programming.dev
on 10 Nov 05:20
collapse
In horizon the device was in your head from the moment you entered the bunker.
Would installing such devices make the news?
If you have to enter the bunker then the world has gone to shit. There is no more “news”.
What if an enemy did a mass triggering of switches?
Then everyone below the billionaire would be kill.
PissingIntoTheWind@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 20:23
collapse
You don’t realize how far gone some “house slaves” are gone down the rabbit hole. They have their chosen special ones. Who will do anything they want.
Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 09 Nov 03:50
collapse
Water is one of the most destructive things on the planet. Find where water is pumped out, plug it, flood it (or just let them sit in their own filth unable to flush a toilet)
peoplebeproblems@midwest.social
on 09 Nov 01:56
nextcollapse
I’m more of a proponent on getting these criminals out of their bunkers, giving them a trial, then permanently sealing the bunkers after removing luxuries.
And unless there is something I dont know about the construction of these bunkers, they are never impossible to break into.
Bbbbbbbbbbb@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 02:20
nextcollapse
We could seal them in and let them rot inside? I personally feel like indefinite imprisonment in a vault of their creation could be plenty punishment. Could also cut electricity. Maybe they desire to come out on their own, we wouldnt need to break in.
Either is fine for me if these guys get what they wrought
peoplebeproblems@midwest.social
on 09 Nov 02:26
collapse
See that’s the thing with me.
To me, justice isn’t served until the institutions they tried to destroy are the ones used to punish them. It’s like the penultimate form of justice.
Yes. It’s for show. The end result is the same. But to the people, we can witness it, and remind ourselves that these institutions of justice and government are meant to serve the many, and not the few.
But part of me also really just wants to use thermite to cut through a big steel bunker door
You just gotta know where they are, and many of them are doing it right out in the open. Crews of construction workers, locals, they know where to find the bunkers.
survirtual@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 08:46
nextcollapse
I propose this plan: billionaire brawl.
A reality TV show akin to the gladiator arenas of old.
They don’t respect the institutions of law and have danced around them/dismantled them, so they do not deserve it.
Instead, they turned our public institutions into theater. That is what they deserve.
For our entertainment, a new billionaire brawl occurs every day. There are thousands of them so we could have years of entertainment. They fight to the death with all sorts of strange instruments and situations.
I should mention, in Billionaire Brawl, the strange Instruments they use to survive? Yes you guessed it, they must buy them, and they are not cheap. Each piece of equipment costs billions to buy. A sword? A billion. A shield? Another billion. Clothes? Yes, a billion. A helmet? Billion. The proceeds from Billionaire Brawl go to the workers of the industries they pillaged from, and to the environments they destroyed for their riches, and to the people they brainwashed for their riches.
The great thing about this is that it would catalogue exactly what happened here. Future generations would have a historical goldmine. Millions of people who were abused, starved, exploited, and lied to would be able to watch their billionaire brawl and feel a sense of justice.
They feast while they poison our air and waters. They live in luxury while making us beg to give 1/2 of our income to a slum. The moment AI became seemingly advanced enough, they tossed us aside like nuisances.
Billionaire Brawl. Don’t let them escape to bunkers. Pull them out. Let them fight to the death for freedom, like they’ve made us fight for generations.
They almost always need some access to the outside, for air or water. Regardless, it’s only so strong. Even if it’s self-sustaining, a few guys with pickaxes could get through whatever wall they have in probably a few months, at most. Assuming everything doesn’t collapse, heavy machinery or explosives would make quick work of them. A bunker is only useful if there’s nothing on the outside actively trying to open it up.
An easy way to avoid anything like the French Revolution … or any kind of revolution … is to just feed people.
You can do whatever you want, abuse people, jail people, arrest people, even start a war, build concentration camps and for the most part people will go along with it all, as long as you keep them fed. You don’t even have to feed them much … just keep them fed enough to keep them from rioting and revolting.
ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 09 Nov 05:41
nextcollapse
Find the bunker and then cause a mini Chernobyl on top of it so that the radiation half life doesn’t occur until all the bunker people’s lifespan is over. We’ll trap them there forever.
bitMasque@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 01:28
nextcollapse
Don’t threaten me with a good time
finitebanjo@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 01:41
nextcollapse
Please don’t encourage the accelerationists, they might try to find somebody worse than Trump if they think this somehow helps them.
WhatGodIsMadeOf@feddit.org
on 09 Nov 04:02
collapse
Right. People need to understand that and build plans to figure out the best path forward.
You are correct… And if people don’t understand that that honestly means the people can’t be trusted either. Leaders need to view everything from all angles. They literally have focus groups to learn how to manipulate us.
People should be seeing it now, but it’s surreal even if it happens to you…that you learn to understand American isn’t for your wellbeing. We are kind of cattle animals being worked for their wellbeing.
Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org
on 09 Nov 01:50
nextcollapse
Gee, I almost hope he's right - but I'm truly afraid of the horrors we'll unleash in the meantime and after.
peoplebeproblems@midwest.social
on 09 Nov 01:54
nextcollapse
Yes. It very well could. In fact a lot of people are preparing for that. And what makes me chuckle at that is that the billionaires think they can survive in their super fancy bunkers.
butwhyishischinabook@piefed.social
on 09 Nov 02:02
nextcollapse
Seems like a good place to drop this very timely link from one of my favorite youtubers:
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
on 09 Nov 09:04
collapse
You’re 99.99% correct.
edit: I can’t do math for shit.
luciferofastora@feddit.org
on 09 Nov 09:27
collapse
99.9%. The difference is 999 million, or 0.999 billion.
But also, at that point, less than a tenth of a percent isn’t a significant difference any more. Point is, a million is nothing to a billionaire. Let alone a multi-billionaire. Let alone a double digits billionaire, and it gets worse from there.
SoloCritical@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 04:12
nextcollapse
If you were to count 1 second, every second, until you reached one million. It will have taken you roughly 11 days.
If you were to count 1 second, every second, until you reached one billion. It will have taken you over 33 years.
I like this one because it helps establish a relative analogy we can all kind of feel and puts things into perspective. We all know what 11 days feels like, and almost all of us know what 33 years feels like. Either because we may have lived it directly or we’ve lived enough of a portion of it to extrapolate that experience.
One trillion seconds is almost 32,000 years. The analogy is broken again as 32K years is already becoming a nonsensical number that none of us can meaningfully interpret. It’s longer than all of recorded human history
Bob_Robertson_IX@discuss.tchncs.de
on 09 Nov 04:57
nextcollapse
The crazy thing is millionaires have more on common with us normal workers than they do with billionaires.
I get what you’re saying, that they are millionaires are closer to being broke than to being a billionaire, but they still have more in common with billionaires than normal workers. Once you reach the mid to high single digit millionaire you can pretty much choose your own adventure.
Lemmy is seriously underestimating the number of comfortable millionaires. Got $1M? You can retire and live modestly. Got $3M? That’s a new way of life, not radical, but much better. Got $10M? You’re well set for whatever happens.
In the US, 1 million is not enough to retire comfortably unless you are already retirement age and can collect social security and Medicare. It’s not like you can retire early on 1 million dollars. That doesn’t even buy you a house where I live.
lepinkainen@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 08:01
nextcollapse
I have a friend who made it big young (well earned IMO, they started working at 15) and they have about 2M in investments.
They make 4k/month after taxes just from the stock dividends every year.
That’s well enough for a comfortable life over here, as their house and cars are paid for - and the money keeps growing in investments.
I’m not quite at that level, but I’m getting there. My main concern would be health care. And that my house isn’t fully paid off. And with Trump manipulating the market, idk I get nervous. 2 million might work. But I know 1 million is for sure not enough, at least in the US.
This question always depends heavily on where someone lives and someone’s expected standard of living.
Someone who lives on that much already thinks it would be enough for them until they die, but they might not have ever had open market insurance, and likely not a catastrophic illness while on it. That kind of thing makes you realize how financially vulnerable you really are. It’s not about steady state while healthy, it’s about contingency planning.
I’m in a situation where I could probably relatively safely retire with $2 million, but like you I would be nervous about $1 million.
WoodScientist@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 05:20
collapse
We’re aiming for $2.5-$3 million in investment income. That’s based on two things:
The median household incomes in the US is about $80,000.
The safe indefinite withdraw rate in stock index funds is about 3%.
(2) is based on the 3% rule, a common retirement planning tool. People have crunched the numbers on historic market returns, factoring in inflation, dividends, etc. 3% is about the amount you can safely withdraw each year while the principal will still remain steady through time, even after adjusting for inflation and crashes. It is the amount you use if you want to be reasonably certain you will not outlive your retirement income.
1 million is ‘not enough’ when you want a passive income that is higher than what half of working people earn.
WoodScientist@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 05:13
collapse
That’s literally the definition of retirement though. The ability to live without working. And no, $1 million is really not enough to retire on. You’re vastly overestimating the amount of passive income that can safely be earned on $1 million.
You know what a million is worth? $30,000 a year. That’s based on the 3% rule. That really is the safest amount you can rely on in a stock market account while still factoring in the risk of market drops. In retirement planning, that is a number you can use if you want to be reasonably sure you will not outlive your retirement savings. If you do a whole bunch of math on historic returns, inflation rates, and market bubbles and crashes, historically a 3% withdraw rate would be safe to keep your principal constant over time.
Can you live on $30,000 a year? Maybe, but the median household income in the US is $80,000. Half of households earn more than $80k, half less. Some couples do survive on $30k/year. But not many people would be willing to retire on that lifestyle. A couple with a million in retirement savings can safely earn $30k/year from that investment. That’s it. And this is investing in the stock market. If you invest in inflation-indexed treasury bonds, your safe annual income would be more like $10k per year on a $1 million asset.
In 2025, if you want to retire with retirement income (w/o considering social security) equal to the median US household income? Using the 3% rule, that would require approximately $2.7 million in an investment portfolio.
I know this because this is how we’re handling our own retirement planning. We’re probably going to need $2.5-$3 million in retirement assets. We’re lucky enough that unless things go catastrophically wrong in the US economy, we’ll be able to do it. And our wants aren’t incredible. We would like to have a retirement income right around where the average US household income is. And that will take $2.5-$3 million in retirement savings.
So a few things. Since we’re in the weeds at this point I want to remind us both that the original point was that a millionaire and a billionaire both have the same general relationship to living and labor which is ‘they don’t have to worry about selling their labor to have their basic needs met’. This is still true. I was also talking in terms of individual wealth not household wealth but the figures aren’t really that different because housing is such a large share of expenses.
The retirement scenario you’re describing is a very comfortable one. 3% is a conservative drawdown, 3.5% is considered safe, and higher is typical if you can be flexible in spending. Retired households do not have the expenses associated with commuting and most do not have the expenses of childcare. Being able to afford living near employment centers is a luxury for a retired household, not a need. So a retired household with the income of a median working age household is doing quite well.
That’s fine to want to retire moderately well off but once your income is based on rents from capital your class interests are not aligned with the working class.
frog_brawler@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 07:02
nextcollapse
3M invested is a nice retirement, not a new way of life. That’s a barely 6-figure a year payout. Of course, a chunk of a3m networth is likely your house.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 06:56
collapse
i think is when you reach 10s of millions in wealth is when things becomes very seperate from the plebs.
What’s the difference between a million and a billion? About a billion
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 06:55
nextcollapse
under 5millions ish, but once you reach 10s millions in worth, the psycopathy starts to show. hasan probably a poor example, as hes comes from a very wealth turkey family but acts like lefty tankie, but hes really just a resistance grifter, he pretends likes hes poor. but his fans are calling him out he never had an actual job before, the one that wasnt due to nepotism, one given by his uncle cenk ughyr, hes part of the bourgeois.
nforminvasion@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 07:03
collapse
Many leftist have been those from high class families who had the education and means to make a difference. Guevara and Engels being two examples among many. FDR, though absolutely not anywhere close to a leftist, betrayed his own upper class and championed the new deal.
I am not defending wealth. I am a dyed in the red and black commie, but I do think we should recognize that sometimes it’s actually those with enough material means to make a difference who do so.
BTW. Hasan’s a internet personality who abuses his dog, so… This comment was more about people coming from wealthier families being able to do good things.
Comparing a million dollars to a billion dollars is like comparing one dollar to a thousand dollars.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 09:11
nextcollapse
Yeah a billionaire buys a million dollar house as easily as a millionaire buys an expensive TV or pretty good gaming pc as easily as a person with only a thousand dollars buys a cheap soda
While that is absolutely true, the millionaire still has the biggest things in common with a billionaire. They will never have to worry about a lack of money. They will never have to choose between clothes or food. And they will never be forced to keep a job, because without it they will literally die due to lack of medical insurance.
The millionaire isn’t your friend either, they’re just a wannebe billionaire.
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
on 09 Nov 10:37
collapse
Dude, someone who has a freehold home and a retirement portfolio is a multimillionaire in many places.
There will absolutely be people with large assets and low income struggling to make ends meet.
Boohoo the millionaire can’t afford all the luxuries they want. How will they make the payments on their BMW this month, they might have to switch to weekly tennis lessons instead of 3x weekly.
A million is easily enough to live a comfortable life and never work again. If they ‘struggle to make ends meet’ they are bad at budgeting. They are not working class, they do not need to work. Maybe they work because they want to live in a HCOL area and have extra luxuries but anybody with a million dollars worth of assets can stop working any time they feel like it.
Especially any multi-millionaire is distinctly bourgeois.
This is not true. A million dollars buys you a house, so basically cancels rent. But it does not feed you for life and lets you live without working.
There is a big difference between people who own a millon dollars in money and assets and those who have a million dollars in their checkings account.
spacesatan@leminal.space
on 09 Nov 13:29
nextcollapse
Then sell the house.
Owning a house in a HCOL area is one of the luxuries I was talking about. Any million dollar asset is a luxury.
There is a fundamental difference between working to survive and working because you don’t want to move out of your NYC brownstone or further from lake como or whatever the fuck.
or a decent infrastructure and income elsewhere in the US.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 09 Nov 16:10
collapse
I wouldn’t say a house is a luxury. It is a necessity.
Depends on the house.
Really the whole concept of renting is exploitative.
Yes, commodifying necessities like housing (food, water, etc) is a fundamental means of exploiting people. Rent is just one aspect of a much larger pyramid scheme based on human deprivation.
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
on 09 Nov 20:37
collapse
Oh now that you bring that up you’re right. Not wanting to take a 1 hour transit trip or drive for 30 minutes a few times a week is actually the same as needing to sell your labor in order to have food and healthcare.
ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 09 Nov 13:39
collapse
Of course, afaik almost no billionaire’s money is liquid either, it’s in properties and businesses and shit.
Like I’m sure bezos has plenty liquid, but most of his billions is just a valuation of amazon/aws/whatever other shit he owns.
Like, if we wanted to take all his money we’d have to completely liquidate amazon and aws, and his house etc, selling the assets off to whoever can afford it, it’s not just breaking into his Scrooge McDuck vault full gold coins.
Not that it’s impossible, it just seems that many people don’t realize this and think it is just the Scrooge McDuck vault.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 09 Nov 16:06
collapse
Yes rich people don’t just sit on piles of cash whether a millionaire or a billionaire.
Neither really has to worry about keeping their homes.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 13:41
nextcollapse
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars.
To a billionaire, a mere millionaire is as much a pauper as any homeless person. When the Psychopathic Oligarchs demand a reduction in population, being a millionaire won’t save them.
In fact, the Psychopathic Oligarch’s Capital Hoarding OCD will kick in even bigger over a millionaire, because he actually has the money that they covet so badly. The rest are just drains on society, but a millionaire has something that the mentally-ill financial hoarders actually want - more wealth.
It will be for different reasons, but they’re going to kill the millionaires, too.
WoodScientist@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 04:40
collapse
It will be for different reasons, but they’re going to kill the millionaires, too.
I want to try to imagine what that actually looks like.
The billionaires have been raiding the federal budget and debt. Eventually we will hit a wall, and then it will be time for some good old-fashioned crisis austerity! And the president will get on the podium and somberly tell the American people. (Imagine this as someone (of either party) after Trump or feel free to translate this to Trump drivel.):
My fellow Americans. After generations of reckless spending, we have finally reached the end. We have tried to balance the budget, but the opposition party has spent years bleeding the budget dry. You know all they have done. Ultimately this is their fault. But unfortunately, we now are incapable of borrowing the amount of money we need to keep the light on, and tough choices have to be made. We will all need to tighten our belts. Taxes will go up, and reforms will be made to retirement programs…
And then out of nowhere a “must pass” reform package will appear. It will be a thousand pages long. Despite the crisis only appearing this week, the bill have clearly taken years to write. They clearly had this thing written beforehand. And the part that will hit the millionaires the hardest? Severe restrictions on the tax-advantaged provisions of IRAs, 401ks, and home ownership. That’s how ordinary people who amass a few million of their working careers usually manage to do it. That and home equity is where most of the wealth of single digit millionaires is kept.
For 401ks and IRAs, look to see that minimum withdraw range rise higher. Make it so you have to be age 70 to access the funds in your 401k without an early withdrawal penalty. Or apply penalties to social security benefits for those with large 401k and IRA balances. If they were really cynical, the billionaires might even cynically sell this as “taxing the millionaires.”
Look for curtailments to the tax advantages to home ownership. It’s very rare for ordinary people to pay capital gains taxes on any increase in their home’s value when they sell it. When a couples sells a home, they are exempt from the first $500k of home appreciation. Plus there’s the mortgage increase and property tax income tax deductions. Etc.
This is how you effectively steal what remains of the wealth of the middle class. The billionaires use both parties to raid the nation’s credit until it is maxed out. Then they keep the grift going by removing all the tax advantages the middle class has earned for itself over the generations. Then at some point, when that is not enough, taxes will simply be raised, but in forms that fall lightest on the wealthy. There is a reason these guys love tariffs.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
on 10 Nov 11:53
collapse
Excellent speculation. Add to that their out-of-control health care costs, which have been deliberately engineered to strip their wealth, and bankrupt families.
I truly believe that one of their objectives is to kill middle class inheritances. Back in the days when it was possible for the average person to actually build wealth through savings program, pensions, and Social Security. People would then inherit the result of their parents’ saving efforts, hopefully two inheritances for a couple, and somewhere in the 50s or so, between decent jobs, a decent savings account, and an inheritance or two, and a person might be able to retire early, or quit and start their own business, which a company isn’t going to like if if it’s competition. Even if it’s NOT competition, they don’t want to lose a highly experienced worker who might hold an important role. They want to fire them when they gets older, at THEIR discretion, not the workers.
Today, pensions barely exist, financial corporations manage retirement programs to benefit the firm over the investor, and savings accounts don’t have any significant interest. By the time someone dies, they have little or nothing left to pass on to their kids. If they died of a prolonged illness, they may even pass on debts.
So future middle-aged couples can’t look forward to a decent inheritance from their parents to boost their lives into retirement.
And future generations will also die with student loans still to be paid, which will have suppressed any savings opportunities for their entire life, as the career they spent tens of thousands to pursue, is now mostly poorly-handled by AI. I wouldn’t be surprised when the student loan generation starts to die, that the permanent MAGA government will force their heirs to pay off the loans, and saddle the next generation with the previous generation’s debt, too.
The overall objective is to keep prices high (which rich people can always afford), and keep us economically enslaved with several low-wage jobs per multi-generational household in order to stay alive, leaving little time to plot a Revolution.
Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 09 Nov 14:32
nextcollapse
Hasan Piker mention? In MY lemmy.world post? Without immediate ridicule?
Based
WoodScientist@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 04:02
collapse
I like the idea of setting a wealth cap at 1000x the median household income. That would be somewhere around $80 million today. The reason for this is that this is really the upper limit of wealth that can be achieved through individual direct effort. This is the kind of fortune that a couple could make if they:
were both neurosurgeons
both had long careers
never had kids
lived like absolute paupers, saving every penny
invested it all in the stock market
In other words, it’s the kind of money that people who get their fortune through actual work could acquire if they absolutely maximize their lifestyle to have the biggest wad of cash at death. Or, perhaps said differently, the highest fortune achievable through the work of your own hands. The highest fortune achievable through ordinary wage labor. I believe 1000x the median household income is a nice round number around that level.
You can certainly earn a fortune larger than this. Again, we’re talking over about $80 million here. Fortunes orders of magnitude larger than this exist. But the only way to earn more than this is not through labor, but through things other than your own work. Being a high level corporate CEO. Inheriting it. Founding a company that makes it big and combines the work of thousands of employees. All of these involve making money primarily through means other than through the work of your own hand and mind.
TASchwitters@lemmings.world
on 09 Nov 03:40
nextcollapse
Telling us something we’ve known for a decade is why he makes the big bucks.
FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca
on 09 Nov 03:42
nextcollapse
Good
snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 03:46
nextcollapse
Trump is counting on it to declare martial law and never have another election.
CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 09 Nov 04:55
nextcollapse
You say that…like that changes anything.
He’s already declared martial law by sending in military units to cities. He’s already done it.
Exactly as I’m seeing it. And I armed and practicing. Not saying, “I have a bunch of guns and ammo so I’m a tough guy!”
Anyway, went to camp today and sent some .556 armor-piercing down range. Sight is good enough for me, good enough for 100’. Did you know that green-tips drill holes in 1/4" steel? I didn’t! Walked down to look at my target and it looked like I took a drill press to it!
Anyway, unidentified, warrantless, masked men are targets in my book. Police patches? LOL, anyone can buy those on Amazon. Want a link?
They’re not here yet, but I have eyes on.
Yes, I’ll almost certainly die. No, I’m not letting them take my brown, legal wife.
Learned about it from this episode of the Team Human podcast
But what is happening in Hong Kong is they come up with a slogan, which is translated as Do Not Split, which is, we know that some people are willing to be confrontational with riot police.
And when they are, that’s going to cost the state in terms of not only resources, but it’s going to cost the state in terms of political capital and support. And we know that there are some people who are not willing to do that. And we are going to abide by the protocol of Do Not Split, which means that we’re not going to criticize them openly, and they’re not going to criticize us openly.
If we’re the pacifists, we’re not going to have them criticize us for being sort of like, I don’t know, limpid or flaccid or not courageous or whatever. And we’re not going to criticize them for being more confrontational. And the thing is that the support is also tacit.
It’s not like they have to come out and tell the media, oh, we approve of our more sort of confrontational colleagues. They just keep quiet. They just keep quiet.
Understanding that a range of tactics is probably going to be necessary. Nobody really knows what’s going to work. But if everybody’s pushing back against a particularly violent state, then everybody’s really on the same side.
AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net
on 09 Nov 06:33
collapse
Your comment fills me with a deep dread that causes me to feel like saying something to discourage you from this path. Alas, it’s not your preparation that is causing that feeling, but the grim circumstances that necessitate this kind of planning.
It’s difficult being on the other side of the world and completely unable to do anything than just watch as America descends deeper into fascism. However, I’m glad that I am not in the impossible position of making the decisions you’re making. I’m sorry that you are.
Good luck, I hope you don’t die. And I hope that people like you are able to claw back democracy from the fascists
“My friends and fellow Californians, this is not a secession from the United states of America because the United states of America no longer exists.
…
Because while Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes, our country has suffered a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evincing a Design to reduce us under absolute Despotism, and thus it is our Right, it is our Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for our future Security.”
arcterus@piefed.blahaj.zone
on 09 Nov 03:49
nextcollapse
Apparently even the venture capitalists are like “maybe there’s a bit of a problem” now.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 06:49
nextcollapse
At the very least all billionaires want Trump, not only Musk, Thiel and Bezos.
So what is the plan behind this lunacy?
WhatGodIsMadeOf@feddit.org
on 09 Nov 19:24
collapse
Surveillance, control, power, money.
Basically their existential crisis and the way they try to escape it has become a lifestyle. But I think a root cause is that they fear reality. Eventually the way they try to control that fear became a standard marketed life path. Now 1st world nations basically live off that ideology as a base. We actually reward people for it. …and people hardly know what it truly means to be a genuine human.
It’s really no different than drug/alcohol/sex abuse.
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
on 09 Nov 09:03
collapse
Is this from some movie? Is it Alfred Hitchcock?
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 13:33
collapse
Almost certainly from his TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents…, which was one of those shows that came out after the success of The Twilight Zone. Outer Limits was another one. Hitchcock had a really great, dark sense of humor, and he would display it during the commercial bumpers with little clips like this, as he was telling the audience that "We’ll be back after a word from our sponsors.’
The others shows specialized in SF with a touch of irony, while Hitchcock’s show was more horror and thrillers, with a touch of irony. All great shows, which hold up well today.
If you want to experience the very best of Hitchcock (and trust me, you do), and see some of the best movies ever made, watch his films from the 40s and 50s. Nearly all of them are truly great, but my favorites are Lifeboat, Strangers in on a Train, Rebecca, Notorious, Dial M for Murder, The Wrong Man, North By Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, Psycho, and my favorite movie of all time, Rear Window, an example of a perfect movie.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 14:18
collapse
These are his best, but even the others are great. Hitchcock doesn’t really have a bad film, but some of those old B&Was from the 30s, before he came to Hollywood, are a bit creaky. Still some good ones, like the 39 Steps.
His movies from the 60s and 70s aren’t so hot. I saw his last, Family Plot, in the theater when I was young, knowing it would probably be his last film, so at least I could say I got to see one Hitchcock film in the theater during its initial run, like I just did.
Many people think Hitchcock films are going to scary or boring, but the word that describes them best is FUN. Once you get Hitchcock-Hooked, you are in for an exciting ride.
I wish I could see them all for the first time, again.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 09 Nov 14:18
nextcollapse
Rear Window is really good
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 14:24
collapse
In Rear Window, Grace Kelly is the most beautiful woman on-screen than in any other film in history. Peak feminine pulchritude.
Vertigo was also great, but something about the way Jimmy Stewart acts when he’s trying to be romantic or whatever felt so unbelievable to me, that it immediately convinced me that he was probably gay. Could be wrong though, it just seemed so unnatural for him to act sexy with a lady lol
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 14:51
collapse
MANY people think Vertigo is his best, including my son, who is an encyclopedic film connoisseur. I think it’s great, but it’s not even close to my favorite. I find it too perfect looking, almost sanitized. I’m also not thrilled with Kim Novak in it. Grace Kelly would have been much better. Hitch probably thought so, too.
Frankly, of the films on my list, that might be my least favorite, but I get it. It’s a beautiful looking film, and I love how he slow burns through the story until he finally reveals all in the very final scene. If you quit even a little bit too early, you won’t get it. You have to stick around to The End, or Finis, or whatever he does, I don’t remember.
It’s not so much that I don’t like it, it’s just that I like all those others more. Vertigo is still an 8/10 for me. It’s just that most of the others are 9s and 10s.
As for Jimmy Stewart’s manliness, he was considered a really hot dude in his day. There’s a famous scene in Rear Window when Grace Kelly reveals the negligee she intends to wear that evening, and his eyes nearly pop out. Unfortunately, we never got to see her in that get up.
I found him a little more convincing in Rear Window… Maybe he just had better chemistry with Grace Kelly.
I just remember laughing out loud the first time he tries to act sexy in Vertigo. I had to rewind and watch it again
Edit: it might also have to do with the fact that I can’t hear him speak anymore without thinking of Dana Carvey"s hysterical impression of him being his version of “kinky” where he’s like “ok now look at it… Ok n-n-now look away”
If you haven’t heard it you need to look it up it’s so good.
Edited to add a link if you can’t find it. He does it a couple times on various episodes of Conan’s podcast.
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
on 09 Nov 16:53
collapse
Almost certainly from his TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents… had a really great, dark sense of humor, and he would display it during the commercial bumpers with little clips like this, as he was telling the audience that "We’ll be back after a word from our sponsors.’
Pass, although I agree with the idea of it. Joined SRA in 2022 and they took my $35, sent me an invite to a discord channel and never contacted me ever again.
As someone that doesn’t like using discord… I’m not doing that again.
MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 14:34
nextcollapse
Oof, that sounds terrible I’m sorry to hear that, and it’s good to know. I really hate the trend of lazy reliance on Discord as the sole means of communication. :(
Same vibe as when some community solely operates out of a Facebook group. Yuck.
Signing up for anything socialist costs a lot. I dont know if you ever thought you’d have use for an elevated government security clearance, but your signing up for that association will be the subject of any security clearance interviews now, and the interviewer will lean toward disqualifying you for it.
I guess public service as a career choice isn’t on a lot of peoples minds these days. Which, speaking as a member of the public, is too bad.
HopeOfTheGunblade@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 09 Nov 21:18
collapse
“I refuse to go where young people are, and never see any young people!”
Absolutely live the life of your choice, but if you opt out of going where a set of people are, you are less likely to encounter that set.
Not saying the SRA couldn’t have done better here, because they absolutely could’ve, but our ass is 40-mumble-mumble, and we talk to leftist gun folks of youth online every day.
How do you think an unarmed mob of people can fight the most militarised nation on earth? There are nations like Egypt with more corruption and repression than the US that have successfully prevented any kind of insurrection due to its strong military.
In the US, the police, military and other armed forces (ICE) all mainly consist of literal nazi’s. I think you don’t realise how bad things will get if the liberal opposition keeps making the bad choices that have made them as weak as they are now.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 13:23
nextcollapse
America and France both liberated their nations against two of the most powerful military nations in the world, with governments that were far more hostile toward their people.
Firepower is not the most dangerous weapon in a Revolution, ideas are, because they can’t be killed. MAGA will never win, because the more oppressive they are, the more support they’ll lose, even among their own followers, and even among the military. America is too large a country, and if MAGA pushes us to the breaking point, which getting closer everyday, they will be overwhelmed quickly.
A nation this large, unleashed in a national riot against the wealthy, sabotaging, destroying, burning, looting, killing, would be very, very bad for them. The mayhem would be everywhere, and military and law enforcement couldn’t handle it all. Law enforcement would be overrun within a week, and be ineffective, possibly worse.
The Sociopathic Oligarchs would run to their bunkers. We’ll deal with them later. First we have to deal with all the run-of-the-mill Oligarch wannabes, who are finding out that they aren’t rich enough to be invited to a bunker somewhere, but they are still considered the problem, and they will be dealt with harshly, as examples. Thought a little money made you better than regular humans? You will be reminded that you are not.
If you are a regular millionaire, you better start supporting Democrats and start fighting MAGA, because MAGA is going to get you and your family killed.
Don’t blind yourself with the idea that the US is somehow different than all other nations with oppressive regimes. There is a real possibility that the US moves further and further into fascism and not taking that risk seriously will ensure it becoming a reality.
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
on 09 Nov 20:37
collapse
Allow me to introduce you to the concept of a general strike.
Besides, militaries are far more likely to side with the people than the government in a situation like this.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 13:09
nextcollapse
That just means old guys have all the guns, but they can only hold one of them at a time.
They are old. Push them over, and take their guns.
All those guns out there? We’re going to take them away, and use them. And the supply is endless.
This may come as a shocker to some people, but you actually need to practice shooting in order to to be effective.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 14:40
collapse
I’ve been shooting all my life, it’s not that hard. I’ve never understood the challenge. You got sights, line them up, hold your breath, and squeeze between heartbeats. Do it few times, and you get the hang pretty quick.
All my friends are amazed at my shooting, and I have terrible eyesight. I occasionally will put a round through a previous hole in the target. It’s not that hard, I’ve taught it to lots of people with great results. Even people who think they already know how to shoot have improved. It’s shocking how many people don’t know to hold their breath while shooting. I think it’s because a lot of people start breathing harder when they have a gun in their hand, heartbeat goes up, etc.
Keeping your cool while rounds are coming at you at the same time? That’s a bit more challenging. But hitting a static target can be picked up in a single session. You might not make consistent head shots, but body mass shots will be good enough.
Well on the topic of anecdotal stories, the first time I shot a rifle, when I was 38 (just like a lot of people who haven’t been shooting their entire lives) I missed paper at 25 yards. I didn’t know how to zero the sights, even though I had watched YouTube videos explaining it. I needed to get some help from someone else that was at the range.
Second time I went shooting, I found out that somehow my BCG was re-installed wrong after I cleaned it, consistent failure to eject.
Noob mistakes. There’s a lot of people that are completely noobs. You’ve shot your whole life; but you need to realize a lot people that you and I likely agree with have probably never even held a rifle, let alone shot one.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 15:01
collapse
Valid, and to clarify, nearly all of target shooting has been handguns. I’m not a hunter, so I haven’t had that much experience with long guns, which are much more complicated. Handguns are generally just point and shoot. The safety is the only real complication.
I got a lot of my experience in a buddy’s basement. He was jeweler, and his workbench was in this enormous basement of his ranch house. It was so long, that he actually set up a shooting gallery in it, firing at targets taped onto a big box of old phone books. He’d work on jewelry, and I’d shoot until I got bored, and then I’d go dig through his box of loose jewels, and look for the prettiest ones. I love rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. I think I’m off topic here, nice talking to you.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 09 Nov 16:03
collapse
SabinStargem@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 08:59
nextcollapse
The ‘elite’ of America has willfully lead my nation to dark and stupid places. They can watch the people, from a basket.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 09:06
nextcollapse
Hey the french revolution was also about the fact that the government was a scandal ridden shitshow of petty internal politics and stupid interpersonal games.
…oh no, Bastille day approaches huh?
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
on 09 Nov 16:20
collapse
Hey the french revolution was also about the fact that the government was a scandal ridden shitshow of petty internal politics and stupid interpersonal games.
tbf, most of nobility for centuries before that was a scandal ridden shitshow of petty internal politics and stupid interpersonal games. i quote 13th century italy as a nice example.
yet that didn’t lead to revolution.
so, in 18th century france, where’s the difference?
Let it lead, we had enough with their stupid.
I guess they will vote to make change lol.
IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 10:57
nextcollapse
So you are saying there is hope
cley_faye@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 12:14
nextcollapse
Anyone with two brain cells would have understood long ago that “the mass” are more numerous than “the limited top moneybags”, and that authority and power built on the mass bending over (including police and military) are a liability.
Unfortunately for us, some of the richest people think they can buy everything. Unfortunately for them, they can’t bribe people that can’t eat anymore with their shining prestige.
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 13:32
collapse
No.
6stringringer@lemmy.zip
on 09 Nov 11:23
nextcollapse
In other “No Shit?” news, what else is happening in your neighborhood?
I can see things going to shit if the mid terms are called off or the results are not respected
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 13:04
nextcollapse
That’s a nice long neck you got there, Poindexter.
Hey, that reminds me, I have to sharpen my guillotine.
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 13:36
nextcollapse
People, you’ve gotta stop waiting for a revolution.
Any “solution” that starts with “you first” and involves fighting against forces that vastly out gun you, with people you absolutely would not agree to fight with is a complete non starter.
You have to realize that even if such a revolution happened, after it happened, they’d just pick the same systems that lead to that result.
You want a hail mary but you will not get it.
The practical buckleys tagline solution you all hate but is the only one that works is supporting the fuck out of the democrats in not only the short term (to stop so many people from being harmed), but in the long term too, this way they can’t just use the right as an excuse to go to the right. All that time, youll need to replace the old guard with more progressive members through overwhelming support in primaries, and being active in state and local politics.
Thats the only way forward where you can win, and its a lot more feasible and less painful than any revolution fantasies. In any of those fantasies, its more likely your head rolls than any of the ghouls we all hate.
When Elon Musk and all the other now-mainstream-weirdos started calling for a civil war, it should have been a wakeup to progressives - this is not in your best interest.
Taking back the average middle-class voter will require changing hearts and minds. That’s what the Republicans did to them. We, on the other hand, have been hitting them over the head with their own racism and stupidity, ignoring the reasons they’re doing what they’re doing - and how we’re playing into Republican hands by doing this over and over.
Now is the time to build the progressive party as a big tent - if you hold one progressive tenant, you’re a democrat, goddamn it - and start inviting voters into it, with solutions to their problems and acceptance of their ass-backward views until we can soften and change them.
Now is the time to build the progressive party as a big tent
is this the Democrats or a new party you are proposing?
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 14:42
nextcollapse
That’s what the Republicans did to them.
I don’t think this part is true. I agree with the part before this, but not this.
The republicans caused a surge in their hate. They appealed to the heartburn in their esophagus’s, not their hearts and minds.
I think the voter apathy is really what has them winning. The fact that people can recognize that the DNC seeks to do nothing, and somehow have been tricked into thinking this means their votes mean nothing, or that they can’t be changed.
We, on the other hand, have been hitting them over the head with their own racism and stupidity, ignoring the reasons they’re doing what they’re doing - and how we’re playing into Republican hands by doing this over and over.
I don’t think its this at all. In fact, when we stopped doing this is when their votes went up. People largely respond to democrats actually fighting for something instead of saying “at least we arent that other guy”.
The democrats currently, as a group, come across as “We’ll change nothing” and thats the problem. Its a problem that can be fixed though.
Now is the time to build the progressive party as a big tent - if you hold one progressive tenant, you’re a democrat, goddamn it - and start inviting voters into it, with solutions to their problems and acceptance of their ass-backward views until we can soften and change them.
This mentality I actually believe is part of the problem. This speaks as if we’re all a part of the DNC, and we’re not.
Our levers to control this are as I described. Slow change through primaries, state and local politics.
We would all love if tommorow the Democrats turned around and started talking like Mamdani about practical solutions, but they don’t want to do that due to their donors, and the fact a shit ton of the old guard are just rich conservatives.
All these “we need to do X” that start with the DNC magically changing their incentive structure are in similar fairy tale land to a revolution. They misunderstand where the actual roadblocks are, and treat the DNC as if it weren’t currently antagonistic to their goals.
Yes its complex to say that the DNC is antagonistic to your goals but you need to support the Democrats anyways with a full chest, but the world is complex, and this is the reality of a winner takes all/first past the post system. There are 2 major parties, eventually, always under these systems, and you pick the least bad one, and force it to change slowly.
We both agree the party has to be changed from within. We agree on basically everything. I do not hope everyone starts talking like Mamdani tomorrow. I’m in Arkansas, formerly blue and now red (like my home state of Iowa). Absolutely zero people here, within either the Dem party or the progressive coalitions working outside of it, would say “what works in NYC will work here.” People are not there yet. We have to meet them where they are so we can change their hearts and minds.
What will work here is the simple message “we know you’re at or beyond financial ruin, we have the only solution.”
What won’t work is "let’s divide ourselves as progressives vs. establishment, pro vs tepid trans support, split every hair and make ourselves look like the weak navel-gazers they paint us as. Stop dithering about who is “DNC” and who isn’t. That’s the problem right there. We are all DNC. We are all progressive. We are all one.
Unity. It’s what the Republicans started with the Southern strategy, which I know is real because I saw it flip two states, starting way back in the 80s when AM radio was quietly taken over. AM radio was in fact a brilliant way to reach the rural folks and start a populist campaign, which the bore fruit in the 90s and 00s as the party began evolving away from old ideals. They had one message - “those city folks want to destroy your good, wholesome, Christian way of life.” From there the party itself reinvented itself (multiple times over) not at the ballot box, but by powerful people within the party who knew how to crack whips and enact reform. We need to identify and empower these people within the Democratic party, and that might mean putting side differences to build the big tent coalition we need.
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 16:10
collapse
I do not hope everyone starts talking like Mamdani tomorrow.
Mamdani talked for NYC and its problems. My hypothetical Mamdani would just be quick witted, and talk about active solutions for the people, but on the federal scale. I by no means think people would magically agree to everything Mamdani is talking about. It was about a shift in messaging to being about pragmatic change for the people. not fighting progressives within the party etc.
What won’t work is "let’s divide ourselves as progressives vs. establishment, pro vs tepid trans support, split every hair and make ourselves look like the weak navel-gazers they paint us as. Stop dithering about **who is “DNC” and who isn’t. **
Im not sure I follow that last part. The DNC is a very real organization with very real leaders and goals. Its not something that is disputed, its a factual, existing organization.
We need to identify and empower these people within the Democratic party, and that might mean putting side differences to build the big tent coalition we need.
Part of the problem, is that you need a draw, and if you can’t use hate, you have to use appealing to the common person with change. The idea that its about a bigger tent, is something that needs change within the DNC/Old gaurd too.
They don’t seem to want to accept the progressive elements, and Im not talking about the people online who say nonsense about third parties or revolutions, I mean people like AOC, Bernie, Mamdani. They fight them tooth and nail, and thats part of the problem. Of course, as I mentioned, we can’t solve that though, as we’re not part of the DNC, hence the solution I recommend.
We, on the other hand, have been hitting them over the head with their own racism and stupidity
Why in my part of the world, in the Philippines the center-left movement failed in toppling Duterte because in their blind obsession with purity and hubris of self-proclaimed intelligence, they mostly blamed the lower-class voter base for their supposed ignorance.
The practical buckleys tagline solution you all hate but is the only one that works is supporting the fuck out of the democrats
where is the evidence that this “works”?
were the democrats not in charge after the first trump term an utterly failed to do anything? and I don’t mean they tried but failed, they didn’t even triy
same as Obama, he could/should have prosecuted Bush for any of the many war crimes but instead immediately let them all of the hook with the “let bygones be bygones” crap
I absolutely agree a civil war would be awful but I think you are waaaaaay past fixing this by voting… much less voting for the same party that has shown to love the status quo so much
Democracy works when you actually take part in it. The people have become so apathetic and think that voting is doing everything they need to do. It’s actually the least they need to do. Most of the decisions and the candidates have already been chosen by the time you vote on it. The real work happens between elections, not during them.
Change the party. Change the ideas. Get active. Change the people. It’s the only way you’ll have someone worth voting for.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 09 Nov 16:00
nextcollapse
Democracy works when you actually take part in it.
It’s like believing in fairies. Come on, kids! Do you believe?!?! Let’s save Tinkerbell!!! smh.
If everyone took part in the society they wanted to create the world would be a different place. The people in power stay in power because people like you give up before you even try.
If you don’t want to help then get out of the way for those who do.
I’m not saying democracy does not work, I’m saying the Democrats will not fix this problem
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 15:58
collapse
were the democrats not in charge after the first trump term an utterly failed to do anything?
Like passing a huge infastructure package, buying a shit ton more vaccines, attempting to and partially succeeding at college debt relief for a large number of people, imposing a minimum corporate tax rate and more?
They didn’t do nothing, they just didn’t provide you the world in one term. You were never getting that, and even if magically your perfect government was voted in tommorow, they wouldn’t be able to give you that without a super majority, and even then it would still probably take more than one term.
More than all of that though, your comment completely misses the rest of my comment to use one part of it out of context to pretend I said changing nothing about the democratic party would be the solution. Thats very bad faith of you.
no, I’m referring about stopping fascism and protecting democracy and the rule of law
all else is secondary if everything is destroyed every other turn
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 19:06
collapse
Are you denying that if people had voted for the democrats just a few percent more this year project 2025 would not have been stopped, as trump likely would be dead when it came time for the next event?
If people stayed sharp, they would be kept down.
Of course the DNC could do more. The question is could you, the people, do any less to secure your democracy.
The DNC is far from perfect, but what they do is out of our control except in the ways I literally covered at the start of this chain.
I don’t get how people act like there should just be this sudden moment where once and for all fascists will disappear. It will and has always been a continuous fight.
Are you denying that if people had voted for the democrats just a few percent more this year project 2025 would not have been stopped, as trump likely would be dead when it came time for the next event?
we can’t know the alternative timeline where the democrats would have won; but if their past behaviour is any indication they would have acted over confident and let the republicans walk all over them as before
what we can do is look at the present and easily see that the fascist grab of power is basically complete and there is zero chance they will give up power (last time they literally led an insurrection to avoid giving up power)
Of course the DNC could do more. The question is could you, the people, do any less to secure your democracy.
I’m canadian but your are making my point, Americans are too gaslit, selfish and uninformed to even vote rationaly
I don’t get how people act like there should just be this sudden moment where once and for all fascists will disappear. It will and has always been a continuous fight.
do you think the magas would be this enboldened if any republican had been accountable?
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 22:53
collapse
we can’t know the alternative timeline where the democrats would have won; but if their past behaviour is any indication they would have acted over confident and let the republicans walk all over them as before
In what universe does this make any sense. The republicans wouldn’t have the political power to do that.
what we can do is look at the present and easily see that the fascist grab of power is basically complete and there is zero chance they will give up power
And until that happens, there is no point in try to get people not to participate.
I’m canadian but your are making my point, Americans are too gaslit, selfish and uninformed to even vote rationaly
And you only help that with your encouragement of voter apathy.
do you think the magas would be this enboldened if any republican had been accountable?
I’m not arguing against that, Im pointing out that its a constant fight, not one battle.
In what universe does this make any sense. The republicans wouldn’t have the political power to do that.
They had no legal power to block Obama’s SCOTUS nomination, yet they did. They had no legal power nor justification to claim trump’s reelection had been stolen, yet they forced an insurrection. trump currently does not have any legal power to do half the stuff he is gleefully doing.
You seem to think MAGAs act within the boundaries of the law… must be nice to be so innocent
And until that happens, there is no point in try to get people not to participate.
First of, I have ever said people should not vote. I am simply stating the fact that it will not be enough, not anymore.
Second, you keep the “until that happens” as if that make any sense… You are the one moving the goal post here to justify inaction. You do not want to sacrifice anything to get your country out of the hole you allow it to get… and news flash, once the power grab is complete (you are 98% there) there will be no option left… every minute you allow to pass doing fuck all, is a minute you are closer to having NO OPTIONS LEFT
And you only help that with your encouragement of voter apathy.
Read above… and try to make an effort this time
I’m not arguing against that, Im pointing out that its a constant fight, not one battle.
Yet your “strategy” here is to do nothing an wait 19 months to cast a ballot… where did I say it was one battle?
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 16:02
collapse
Yup.
You seem to think MAGAs act within the boundaries of the law… must be nice to be so innocent
In no universe could anything I said be reasonably summarized as this. Its actually pretty ridiculous this is the conclusion you came to.
First of, I have ever said people should not vote.
Because implications don’t exist right?
I am simply stating the fact that it will not be enough, not anymore.
Which just encourages people not to vote if you’re saying it doesnt help.
Second, you keep the “until that happens” as if that make any sense… You are the one moving the goal post here to justify inaction.
Im sorry bud, what actions are there exactly that you’re so willing to step up to take?
As far as I understand it, any action that I’m advocating for is apparently justifying inaction, but actions further than that would mean you couldn’t be talking to me right now.
You do not want to sacrifice anything to get your country out of the hole you allow it to get… and news flash, once the power grab is complete (you are 98% there) there will be no option left… every minute you allow to pass doing fuck all, is a minute you are closer to having NO OPTIONS LEFT
Once again, what are you doing buddy?
Yet your “strategy” here is to do nothing an wait 19 months to cast a ballot… where did I say it was one battle?
You really like to imply a shit ton from nothing so that you can argue against strawmen dont you.
TheMinister@sh.itjust.works
on 09 Nov 15:54
nextcollapse
No one is coming to save us. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 09 Nov 15:58
nextcollapse
supporting the fuck out of the democrats
lmao. Started strong then ended in complete fail. Dems are half of the two-“party” problem.
Thats the only way forward where you can win,
So Biden took us “forward” and had us “winning”? How’s that working out for ya?
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 16:04
collapse
Its interesting that both comments that push the nonsense of voter apathy and non participation in the only political system you have needed to completely take a singular part of a multi stage solution out of context to attempt to ridicule it.
If I had just said supporting the democrats and left it at there you might have had a point, actually no, you still wouldn’t as the “light it all on fire mentality” is just anti human. Instead though, you have a very poorly constructed strawman argument, and the response to the other person with a similar style of comment is just as applicable here, but even more so since you are so blatant in your misrepresentation.
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 03:07
collapse
Literally what part of that changes a single thing I’ve said here?
WoodScientist@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 03:09
nextcollapse
Can you show any examples in other countries where rallying around the controlled opposition party was sufficient to reverse the tide of fascism?
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 03:34
collapse
The question starts out with a strawman argument. The full comment included “All that time, youll need to replace the old guard with more progressive members through overwhelming support in primaries, and being active in state and local politics.”
There also aren’t many countries that have the same political situations as the USA. What other countries are democratic republics with extremely slow constitutional and political inertia, top class military and insane intelligence capabilities.
The question doesnt make sense. This is a one of one.
People, you’ve gotta stop waiting for a revolution.
Economic collapse is getting uncomfortably closer, however, due to what is clearly unrestrained greed and abuse. It’s not just the continental US that would be affected but also would pull down a lot of countries economically dependent on it in varying degrees.
In addition to whole governments traditionally allied with the US, this includes minorities who usually remit a portion of their earnings to relatives in their home countries.
To anyone thinking the that a revolution will end with “their” side winning:
its a revolution, everyone loses something
Unless it’s a civil war, them everyone will lose nearly everything
And even if “your” side “wins”, I guarantee you that someone will end up in charge that is a hundred times worse than what you started with. The Russian Revolution was to get rid of the tsars and make everything fair for everyone and instead they ended up with Stalin oppressing the shot out of everyone, as a semi random example
If and when this goes south for the US, everyone will regret it. There is nothing as bad as a war that puts neighbor against neighbors, and sons against their fathers.
MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 14:32
nextcollapse
People really lionize the French Revolution. I get that the grievances behind it were very real but it also led to years of mass slaughter and ended up a dictatorship and then monarchy again anyway.
It worked in the US due to the distance from the main political power center and the existence of local governing institutions that had already been around for a while. A revolution in your home turf, that shared with the political power base, is a different ballgame.
lunaluster@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 14:43
nextcollapse
This is a garbage liberal take. The Russian Revolution yielded tremendous victories for oppressed people in Russia. It is dishonest, ahistorical nonsense at best to omit the horror that was the Tsarist empire in contrast. That you can point out contradictions within that society in the 20th century explains nothing about what happened to it.
I guess people should just do nothing?
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 09 Nov 15:56
nextcollapse
Not to mention the Civil War in USA.
These libs will literally endorse slavery if it maintains their own personal privilege.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
on 09 Nov 15:51
nextcollapse
The Russian Revolution was to get rid of the tsars and make everything fair for everyone and instead they ended up with Stalin oppressing the shot out of everyone
I believe that if you allow people to get power who have killed lots of people to get there (i.e. killing all the nobility), then you’ve essentially made murderers your new rulers. That’s a big part of why Russia ended up with Stalinist terror.
Transfer of power needs to be peaceful. There must be no bloodshed during the next revolution.
There are reasons why you sometimes during a revolution or at the end of a war need to end the lives of a few people, certain ring leaders. See the Neurenberg trials for example.
But yeah, the Soviet Union went way way over the edge and started killing people indiscriminately just because terror. Something similar happened (and in some way still happens) in china. It’s the main reason why I’m veryuch against communism
Tangent that is required because I hear the tankies furiously tying: Give me socialism supported by a very well clamped down capitalist system that simply puts hard limits in how much anyone can own. Anything over (for example) 10 million in net worth goes 100% to tax. Companies cannot be worth more than 1 billion, the rest goes 100% to tax. Gives the government a huge tax income to pay for a socialist system that can pay for free healthcare, free education, free housing, hell, universal basic income even. Companies cannot get too powerful, people cannot get too powerful but at the same time it leaves the rest as-is, so we retain all our freedoms
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 09 Nov 15:57
collapse
Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 09 Nov 14:30
nextcollapse
Good. We’re tired of billionaires hoarding OUR wealth, the wealth WE created, as well as the politicians paid by and for those same billionaires rigging the system on their behalf.
As any Marxist-Leninist knows though, the best time to strike the revolution is after you’ve gained the support of the public and elucidated class consciousness. We need more Leftists in political power first spreading the message of class warfare before we get there.
Because otherwise this “revolution” will be entirely selfish and unorganized and will make it harder to get anything accomplished.
thefrozenorth@sh.itjust.works
on 09 Nov 14:58
nextcollapse
The US govt shutdown is a distraction. The real story is the generals being fired by Hegseth. When they are replaced by Trump loyalists, the real civil war will begin. The goal of Project 2025 is to install a white supremacist evangelical ruling class in power. They have already published everything they want to do, all you have to do is look.
For there to be any kind of real “civil war” there would need to be a very clear distinction between sides and goals alongside states declaring their intent for sovereignty, as well and would need some form of oppositional army with organization.
The USA is far, far from a real civil war. We’re talking a generation or more and that’s in the worst case timeline.
The terms people need to recognize and understand are “militarized police state” and “civil unrest.”
These conditions may lead to a civil war at some point, but so far the bickering between states that don’t want Trump to do this and that are nothing remotely close to the conditions that start a civil war.
I get it, we want something to happen. We want retribution and justice and some kind of satisfying pushback. But I don’t think it’s helpful for any of us to “Tim Pool” the situation and try to pound the war-drums so we normalize violence. The current situation can and most likely will start facing mitigation during the mid-terms if there’s no authoritarian takeover. Right now, even if that happens, you would see rioting and possibly even a coup long, LONG before you would see a civil war.
For there to be any kind of real “civil war” there would need to be a very clear distinction between sides and goals alongside states declaring
That’s how the US Civil War happened, but frequently a national Civil War does not have such clear boundaries and sides. See Syria for a very messy conflict where about the only thing defining one ‘side’ was ‘not Assad’ and very little agreement other than that.
Civil war would be the worst possible outcome to be sure, but a messy situation can just as easily feed a civil war.
I’m not saying it has to be the same conditions as our “last” civil war, that might as well have taken place on another planet compared to today’s political and information landscape.
I’m saying here and now, today, we would need far different political and geographic lines for there to be anything resembling a “civil war” and really what we’re talking about is civil unrest and groups who may rise up in the coming years or decades willing to commit acts of violence. Even then that’s not a “civil war” and many nations have come back from that kind of disturbance. Even the US has had more internal revolts, coups and domestic terror groups than we have now. (Look up the original anarchist movement in the US for a wild ride through history.)
I personally take issue with people talking about “civil war” because it doesn’t help anything, if anything it removes us further from reality and reinforces the idea that “something is going to happen” by itself, that “someone is coming” to do something and create a big change. Literally, this is the same narrative the Christian right uses but theirs involves Jesus. It prevents people from investing in anything, from taking part in their community, from starting grassroots movements to change our political foundations.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 09 Nov 15:54
nextcollapse
The goal of Project 2025 is to install a white supremacist evangelical ruling class in power.
Except most of the Founding Fathers were Deists. The churches of the time were mostly semi-Puritanical, and to an Evangelical, would be an absolute horror. A church that held so strictly to doctrine that they punished everyone for anything sinful, actually cared for the poor and sick (if only to bring them into the fold), and preached damnation and punishment in Hell. Stark contrast to the newer Prosperity Gospel (aka Grift), philandering, do what I want to whom I want and ask forgiveness at the end Evangelicals. The Founding Fathers were against religious control because they knew they wouldn’t be able to do much, or lose their power, as it would be seen as sinful. Now the Church has become so damn corrupt it now gives politicians a pass so long as it brings the Church more money. At this point I’m waiting on a holy war or two and a schism of power to eliminate the Church’s power again…
There were nearly ~150 years in colonial america (1630-1776) wherein the puritan crown did exactly what you describe as evangelical. My 8th great grandfather was arrested for baptizing too late into the day on a Sunday and spent many months incarcerated in Boston as a result.
The witch trials were really the puritans of Massachussets attempting to annex Maine. History may not repeat, but it sure does rhyme.
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 19:47
nextcollapse
Nothing is just a distraction. They’re all just similarly evil parts of the plan, that they have fully documented, and that people just kinda keep ignoring.
The French Revolution was also supported by the outspoken writings and speeches of an intellectual élite that came to shape most of what European culture has evolved to since.
This élite demanded education for the masses, freedom of the press, derived a non-religious base for social order from the natural laws discovered and popularized by the Enlightenment.
Now… the USA… intellectual élite… rich people spending to educate the masses… naah, don’t see it.
This guy may actually be among the best they can recruit.
Author of the article could have picked a punchier subject line. Not that I disagree with the premise, but “millionaire” is pretty common these days. Like 20% of the population. Journalism is in the toilet these days.
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today
on 09 Nov 22:53
collapse
Seriously. I’m pretty sure my mom is a millionaire if not very close, and she’s a teacher!
Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
on 09 Nov 23:14
nextcollapse
Millionaire CEO? Who is this broke bitch?
Pacattack57@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 00:26
nextcollapse
Lmao I’m thinking the same! Like damn he’s struggling with us normal folks in the trenches!
meep_launcher@sh.itjust.works
on 10 Nov 01:11
nextcollapse
I mean the millionaire class is a grey area between those who are so rich they are completely out of touch with working class realities, and those who were working class who got a break and played a good hand right.
Personally I don’t really have a problem with millionaires, that’s an amount you can make playing by the rules and not bending them to your own will.
Plus it just means “homeowner” in way too many cities.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
on 10 Nov 04:21
nextcollapse
depends on how they got the money, did the guy come from wealth? if so he might be so detached from everyone else, even as a millionaire. or did he build up his wealth from the ground up, without the help of NEPTOTISM.
TronBronson@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 13:14
nextcollapse
And there lies the real problem, the handing down of large sums of money. Entrenched wealth and power of an aristocracy. It destroys the meritocracy and the desire to progress society. My grandpa taught me a valuable lesson by giving all his money away. He paid for school, camp, life skills and that was it. True believer in the American dream having secured it for himself. I often wonder what he would think about the current state of the economy. As well as how I would interpret the state of the economy, if I wasn’t living in utter fucking poverty. I would not have the same attachment to social issues if I wasn’t front lines on the war against the poor.
meep_launcher@sh.itjust.works
on 10 Nov 15:08
collapse
“I will have you know I am a self made man! Just like my father and his father before him!”
It’s also just not a huge wealth disparity. Like having 5-10x more than the average is more tolerable than having 10,000x more than the average. if someone drove a car that was worth 10x more than mine, it would be a new Honda. If they had a house 5x larger it would be a large family home. This actually adjusts to the needs of society.
If your parents left you a home, you’re probably a millionaire too. Many blue collar working folk are millionaires, except if they tried to spend those millions they’d become homeless.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
on 10 Nov 04:20
nextcollapse
VC usually has 100s of millions or billions. hes probably the one that uses funds from billionaires into his company?
themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 10 Nov 07:04
collapse
I know right he only has an estimated 1/10th of a billion.
Observer of history states historical observances.
RedFrank24@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 00:19
nextcollapse
Venture capitalist Bradley Tusk told LBC: “If Elon Musk says he needs a trillion dollars because he’s going to solve global hunger or something like that, great, have at it. But I don’t know what you could possibly buy with a trillion dollars that you couldn’t buy with a hundred billion, or probably even $10 billion.”
Well at least he’s aware of how much money a trillion dollars is and how easy it would be to solve world hunger.
ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online
on 10 Nov 11:13
collapse
He once said that if there was a concrete plan to solve world hunger he would do it. Then a representative of an actual plan to solve world hunger showed up on his Twitter feed and provided him with information and he was like ‘nah’.
And the plan would only cost a small amount of his fortune. He bought Twitter for much, much more.
A huge number on its own, but in this context it’s nothing.
ricecake@sh.itjust.works
on 10 Nov 15:05
nextcollapse
Yup. The actual sources of world hunger aren’t material but systemic. So it’s not as easy as just “giving everyone food”, but the more complicated “give everyone access to a robust agriculture supply chain”.
Fortunately, giving 1-2% of people fertilizer and some work animals might be a bit more complicated, it’s significantly cheaper.
ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online
on 10 Nov 15:10
collapse
He paid 44 billion for Twitter and it took him a few days to raise that much money. He could have been the man to write the cheque to end world hunger and be honored by millions for generations to come (despite all his other bullshit), but he chose not to.
The world starves not because we cannot feed the hungry, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca
on 10 Nov 00:32
nextcollapse
Wow, thank you captain obvious
MourningDove@lemmy.zip
on 10 Nov 00:37
nextcollapse
Fingers crossed that if it does, people will see it as what happens when you let the clowns control the circus and the Terrorist Party never sees themselves in a position of authority ever again.
orioler25@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 05:09
nextcollapse
libre_warrior@lemmy.ml
on 10 Nov 13:28
nextcollapse
Lets hope he is right.
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 13:32
nextcollapse
Americans can’t even bother to get their asses off the couch to vote against fascism. The only Revolution they’re gonna take part in is the one at the Olive Garden when they run out of breadsticks
He isn’t wrong. All it takes is the right amount of people to be pissed and revolution explodes. If the oligarchs think they have it rough now, wait until they are being lynched in the street by people who haven’t eaten a decent meal in recent memory. Look up 1918 Russia if you don’t believe me.
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 20:07
collapse
I somehow feel things have changed. Maybe it’s the internet, lack of education, consumerism, whatever. I hate to say this, bit I feel like a lot of people, when they get hungry, would steal from their neighbours. Far too many folk don’t understand that the wealthy are the author of their suffering and won’t know where to target their anger. Not to mention that oligarchs are hard to catch, whereas your neighbour with a slightly newer car is right there, and may be of a different race. People don’t understand who they should be angry with.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works
on 10 Nov 20:16
collapse
If there is still food to be stolen from your neighbours then things haven’t reached the point of revolt.
If there is still enough energy to be expended on hating your neighbor, then you haven’t reached the true point of revolt
When things are truly at their worst, your neighbor has no food to take. Your neighbor has no goods worth stealing. Harming them brings you no food, no money and less energy.
When things have reached that point, that is when the only option left is revolt and it does not matter what consumerism what gifts are given what lies are said. The only thing left to do is revolt or die. And no group of people will simply choose to die.
PissingIntoTheWind@lemmy.world
on 10 Nov 20:22
nextcollapse
threaded - newest
<img alt="" src="https://startrek.website/pictrs/image/a30edc08-c807-448d-a7ad-7d00e8f26677.gif">
A repeat of the French Revolution is the real reason behind the bunkers of the ultra wealthy.
I hope they enjoy staying in that bunker forever instead of the surface world
Somewhere, somehow, those bunkers will need air intakes. Some potatoes to plug tubes, or mustard gas packets down the hatches … the problem is, bunkers make excellent prisons and/or tombs.
My toilet needs to flush
somehowsomewhereEdit I can’t type
Press the buttons on the top.
The ultra wealthy also don’t do shit in their own and will be expecting at least a small team of other people to cater to them while they weather the storm. There is no future where the ultra wealthy get to keep all the things they have collected.
Weird jump after defending a multi billionaire govenor that won’t defend his citizens and just wants to make sound bites…
Fair, but in this case, they’re not wrong.
wasnt there are article about zuckerberg/bezos compound they dont know what to do with the HUMAN waste they produced,a nd they wanted to dumped in some random area to pollute. since you dont pay for public services.
A healthy and well designed septic system will handle a free humans for decades if you treat it right.
That shouldn’t be the hard part.
There’s a whole rich people Island neighborhood (I didn’t think they were bunkers) that wanted to pipe their waste back to the mainland because they didn’t think anything through when building it
I like shitting on billionaires as much as the next person, but presumably they didn’t design any of this themselves. Most likely story is they just don’t want to pay their fair share as usual.
They didn’t want it near them and assumed they’d be able to pay their way to dumping it on the poors. Don’t give them an out.
In what way am I giving anyone an out? Are we both talking about the Indian Creek/Surfside thing? If we are the whole shit storm is over the fact the billionaires don’t want to pay have a link..
I bet those
servant’s quartersaccomodations for staff are real nice so that they stay loyal.They will, in all likelihood, involve counter measures like explosive collars.
Or the one from Horizon. Surgically implanted “Off” switches that kil function implanted into sterilized individuals. Literally had the surgery center at the entrance to the bunker.
What part of the device will do the killing?
Would installing such devices make the news?
What if an enemy did a mass triggering of switches?
In horizon the device was in your head from the moment you entered the bunker.
If you have to enter the bunker then the world has gone to shit. There is no more “news”.
Then everyone below the billionaire would be kill.
You don’t realize how far gone some “house slaves” are gone down the rabbit hole. They have their chosen special ones. Who will do anything they want.
Water is one of the most destructive things on the planet. Find where water is pumped out, plug it, flood it (or just let them sit in their own filth unable to flush a toilet)
I’m more of a proponent on getting these criminals out of their bunkers, giving them a trial, then permanently sealing the bunkers after removing luxuries.
And unless there is something I dont know about the construction of these bunkers, they are never impossible to break into.
We could seal them in and let them rot inside? I personally feel like indefinite imprisonment in a vault of their creation could be plenty punishment. Could also cut electricity. Maybe they desire to come out on their own, we wouldnt need to break in.
Either is fine for me if these guys get what they wrought
See that’s the thing with me.
To me, justice isn’t served until the institutions they tried to destroy are the ones used to punish them. It’s like the penultimate form of justice.
Yes. It’s for show. The end result is the same. But to the people, we can witness it, and remind ourselves that these institutions of justice and government are meant to serve the many, and not the few.
But part of me also really just wants to use thermite to cut through a big steel bunker door
The problem is that the rich own all the lawyers. And judges. And congresspeople.
More eggs to break. The people are getting hungry
if they have been collaborating they should be there with the billionaires.
What’s the ultimate form then?
Fixing all the damage they caused. Since they can’t do that, it’s the penultimate.
Giant blender, everyone gets a sip. Or minimum wage servitor.
Now I’m curious how many rich people we would need to blend up to give everyone else on earth a sip of bougiejuice…
You just gotta know where they are, and many of them are doing it right out in the open. Crews of construction workers, locals, they know where to find the bunkers.
I propose this plan: billionaire brawl.
A reality TV show akin to the gladiator arenas of old.
They don’t respect the institutions of law and have danced around them/dismantled them, so they do not deserve it.
Instead, they turned our public institutions into theater. That is what they deserve.
For our entertainment, a new billionaire brawl occurs every day. There are thousands of them so we could have years of entertainment. They fight to the death with all sorts of strange instruments and situations.
I should mention, in Billionaire Brawl, the strange Instruments they use to survive? Yes you guessed it, they must buy them, and they are not cheap. Each piece of equipment costs billions to buy. A sword? A billion. A shield? Another billion. Clothes? Yes, a billion. A helmet? Billion. The proceeds from Billionaire Brawl go to the workers of the industries they pillaged from, and to the environments they destroyed for their riches, and to the people they brainwashed for their riches.
The great thing about this is that it would catalogue exactly what happened here. Future generations would have a historical goldmine. Millions of people who were abused, starved, exploited, and lied to would be able to watch their billionaire brawl and feel a sense of justice.
They feast while they poison our air and waters. They live in luxury while making us beg to give 1/2 of our income to a slum. The moment AI became seemingly advanced enough, they tossed us aside like nuisances.
Billionaire Brawl. Don’t let them escape to bunkers. Pull them out. Let them fight to the death for freedom, like they’ve made us fight for generations.
Almost like an inverted Hunger Games. Nice!
Truthfully if it gets to the point the mega wealthy are hiding in bunkers the people will have access to military arsenals.
The US has spent a lot of money researching and purchasing munitions designed to bust underground bunkers
Couldn’t we just plug up their vents? Or maybe fart a little bit in them?
we can seal them in with concrete.
They almost always need some access to the outside, for air or water. Regardless, it’s only so strong. Even if it’s self-sustaining, a few guys with pickaxes could get through whatever wall they have in probably a few months, at most. Assuming everything doesn’t collapse, heavy machinery or explosives would make quick work of them. A bunker is only useful if there’s nothing on the outside actively trying to open it up.
An easy way to avoid anything like the French Revolution … or any kind of revolution … is to just feed people.
You can do whatever you want, abuse people, jail people, arrest people, even start a war, build concentration camps and for the most part people will go along with it all, as long as you keep them fed. You don’t even have to feed them much … just keep them fed enough to keep them from rioting and revolting.
TBF some of us are already fairly revolting.
YES! Commented many times that our masters won’t let us starve. Well…
They’re deliberately starving people right now.…
Find the bunker and then cause a mini Chernobyl on top of it so that the radiation half life doesn’t occur until all the bunker people’s lifespan is over. We’ll trap them there forever.
Lots of lead shielding and warning signs to anyone coming from any direction other than the bunker door.
One very large and just-subcritical block of something with a long half life and just seconds of fatal exposure, between that and the door.
apparently Thiels compound construction was denied by the NZ government so he abandoned that country, hes probably shopping elsewhere.
Millionaire? Wow, Newsweek is really slumming it these days.
10 years from now: Homeowner CEO says …
I paid my rent AMA
what did you eat today
Ouch…
Vegetables, I bet.
The more the money, the more the genious.
…libsyn.com/ep-228-billionaires-as-insta-experts-…
Don’t threaten me with a good time
Please don’t encourage the accelerationists, they might try to find somebody worse than Trump if they think this somehow helps them.
Right. People need to understand that and build plans to figure out the best path forward.
You are correct… And if people don’t understand that that honestly means the people can’t be trusted either. Leaders need to view everything from all angles. They literally have focus groups to learn how to manipulate us.
People should be seeing it now, but it’s surreal even if it happens to you…that you learn to understand American isn’t for your wellbeing. We are kind of cattle animals being worked for their wellbeing.
Gee, I almost hope he's right - but I'm truly afraid of the horrors we'll unleash in the meantime and after.
Yes. It very well could. In fact a lot of people are preparing for that. And what makes me chuckle at that is that the billionaires think they can survive in their super fancy bunkers.
Seems like a good place to drop this very timely link from one of my favorite youtubers:
https://youtu.be/h6E4_Bcmscg?si=wfEEE0IoHFDjkwlD
Fixed your headline
I’m not convinced they couldn’t use one right about now. Not like the current govt appears able to sort out the problems on it’s own, after all.
The crazy thing is millionaires have more on common with us normal workers than they do with billionaires.
Hasan Piker was listing all kinds of "a million _____ is _____ but a BILLION ______ is [some ufathomably larger thing].
People don’t understand multiplication very well…
The difference between a million and a billion is about a billion.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/b5659328-723b-42f0-8f0a-d083b4bb04a0.gif">
You’re 99.99% correct.
edit: I can’t do math for shit.
99.9%. The difference is 999 million, or 0.999 billion.
But also, at that point, less than a tenth of a percent isn’t a significant difference any more. Point is, a million is nothing to a billionaire. Let alone a multi-billionaire. Let alone a double digits billionaire, and it gets worse from there.
If you were to count 1 second, every second, until you reached one million. It will have taken you roughly 11 days.
If you were to count 1 second, every second, until you reached one billion. It will have taken you over 33 years.
I like this one because it helps establish a relative analogy we can all kind of feel and puts things into perspective. We all know what 11 days feels like, and almost all of us know what 33 years feels like. Either because we may have lived it directly or we’ve lived enough of a portion of it to extrapolate that experience.
One trillion seconds is almost 32,000 years. The analogy is broken again as 32K years is already becoming a nonsensical number that none of us can meaningfully interpret. It’s longer than all of recorded human history
Anyways, apnews.com/…/musk-tesla-electric-trillion-pay-sto…
I get what you’re saying, that they are millionaires are closer to being broke than to being a billionaire, but they still have more in common with billionaires than normal workers. Once you reach the mid to high single digit millionaire you can pretty much choose your own adventure.
Lemmy is seriously underestimating the number of comfortable millionaires. Got $1M? You can retire and live modestly. Got $3M? That’s a new way of life, not radical, but much better. Got $10M? You’re well set for whatever happens.
In the US, 1 million is not enough to retire comfortably unless you are already retirement age and can collect social security and Medicare. It’s not like you can retire early on 1 million dollars. That doesn’t even buy you a house where I live.
I have a friend who made it big young (well earned IMO, they started working at 15) and they have about 2M in investments.
They make 4k/month after taxes just from the stock dividends every year.
That’s well enough for a comfortable life over here, as their house and cars are paid for - and the money keeps growing in investments.
I’m not quite at that level, but I’m getting there. My main concern would be health care. And that my house isn’t fully paid off. And with Trump manipulating the market, idk I get nervous. 2 million might work. But I know 1 million is for sure not enough, at least in the US.
This question always depends heavily on where someone lives and someone’s expected standard of living.
Someone who lives on that much already thinks it would be enough for them until they die, but they might not have ever had open market insurance, and likely not a catastrophic illness while on it. That kind of thing makes you realize how financially vulnerable you really are. It’s not about steady state while healthy, it’s about contingency planning.
I’m in a situation where I could probably relatively safely retire with $2 million, but like you I would be nervous about $1 million.
We’re aiming for $2.5-$3 million in investment income. That’s based on two things:
(2) is based on the 3% rule, a common retirement planning tool. People have crunched the numbers on historic market returns, factoring in inflation, dividends, etc. 3% is about the amount you can safely withdraw each year while the principal will still remain steady through time, even after adjusting for inflation and crashes. It is the amount you use if you want to be reasonably certain you will not outlive your retirement income.
1 million is ‘not enough’ when you want a passive income that is higher than what half of working people earn.
That’s literally the definition of retirement though. The ability to live without working. And no, $1 million is really not enough to retire on. You’re vastly overestimating the amount of passive income that can safely be earned on $1 million.
You know what a million is worth? $30,000 a year. That’s based on the 3% rule. That really is the safest amount you can rely on in a stock market account while still factoring in the risk of market drops. In retirement planning, that is a number you can use if you want to be reasonably sure you will not outlive your retirement savings. If you do a whole bunch of math on historic returns, inflation rates, and market bubbles and crashes, historically a 3% withdraw rate would be safe to keep your principal constant over time.
Can you live on $30,000 a year? Maybe, but the median household income in the US is $80,000. Half of households earn more than $80k, half less. Some couples do survive on $30k/year. But not many people would be willing to retire on that lifestyle. A couple with a million in retirement savings can safely earn $30k/year from that investment. That’s it. And this is investing in the stock market. If you invest in inflation-indexed treasury bonds, your safe annual income would be more like $10k per year on a $1 million asset.
In 2025, if you want to retire with retirement income (w/o considering social security) equal to the median US household income? Using the 3% rule, that would require approximately $2.7 million in an investment portfolio.
I know this because this is how we’re handling our own retirement planning. We’re probably going to need $2.5-$3 million in retirement assets. We’re lucky enough that unless things go catastrophically wrong in the US economy, we’ll be able to do it. And our wants aren’t incredible. We would like to have a retirement income right around where the average US household income is. And that will take $2.5-$3 million in retirement savings.
So a few things. Since we’re in the weeds at this point I want to remind us both that the original point was that a millionaire and a billionaire both have the same general relationship to living and labor which is ‘they don’t have to worry about selling their labor to have their basic needs met’. This is still true. I was also talking in terms of individual wealth not household wealth but the figures aren’t really that different because housing is such a large share of expenses.
The retirement scenario you’re describing is a very comfortable one. 3% is a conservative drawdown, 3.5% is considered safe, and higher is typical if you can be flexible in spending. Retired households do not have the expenses associated with commuting and most do not have the expenses of childcare. Being able to afford living near employment centers is a luxury for a retired household, not a need. So a retired household with the income of a median working age household is doing quite well.
That’s fine to want to retire moderately well off but once your income is based on rents from capital your class interests are not aligned with the working class.
Your math is a bit off
3M invested is a nice retirement, not a new way of life. That’s a barely 6-figure a year payout. Of course, a chunk of a3m networth is likely your house.
i think is when you reach 10s of millions in wealth is when things becomes very seperate from the plebs.
What’s the difference between a million and a billion? About a billion
under 5millions ish, but once you reach 10s millions in worth, the psycopathy starts to show. hasan probably a poor example, as hes comes from a very wealth turkey family but acts like lefty tankie, but hes really just a resistance grifter, he pretends likes hes poor. but his fans are calling him out he never had an actual job before, the one that wasnt due to nepotism, one given by his uncle cenk ughyr, hes part of the bourgeois.
Many leftist have been those from high class families who had the education and means to make a difference. Guevara and Engels being two examples among many. FDR, though absolutely not anywhere close to a leftist, betrayed his own upper class and championed the new deal.
I am not defending wealth. I am a dyed in the red and black commie, but I do think we should recognize that sometimes it’s actually those with enough material means to make a difference who do so.
BTW. Hasan’s a internet personality who abuses his dog, so… This comment was more about people coming from wealthier families being able to do good things.
Comparing a million dollars to a billion dollars is like comparing one dollar to a thousand dollars.
Yeah a billionaire buys a million dollar house as easily as a millionaire buys an expensive TV or pretty good gaming pc as easily as a person with only a thousand dollars buys a cheap soda
Also most millionaires are just homeowners.
As if that isn’t an extreme privilege based on depriving others…
Owning your own home should be the norm, not the exception. It is not like a home is some kind of luxury item. A home is a bare necessity.
And yes, that is quite different once you have more than one home.
While that is absolutely true, the millionaire still has the biggest things in common with a billionaire. They will never have to worry about a lack of money. They will never have to choose between clothes or food. And they will never be forced to keep a job, because without it they will literally die due to lack of medical insurance.
The millionaire isn’t your friend either, they’re just a wannebe billionaire.
Dude, someone who has a freehold home and a retirement portfolio is a multimillionaire in many places.
There will absolutely be people with large assets and low income struggling to make ends meet.
Boohoo the millionaire can’t afford all the luxuries they want. How will they make the payments on their BMW this month, they might have to switch to weekly tennis lessons instead of 3x weekly.
A million is easily enough to live a comfortable life and never work again. If they ‘struggle to make ends meet’ they are bad at budgeting. They are not working class, they do not need to work. Maybe they work because they want to live in a HCOL area and have extra luxuries but anybody with a million dollars worth of assets can stop working any time they feel like it.
Especially any multi-millionaire is distinctly bourgeois.
This is not true. A million dollars buys you a house, so basically cancels rent. But it does not feed you for life and lets you live without working.
There is a big difference between people who own a millon dollars in money and assets and those who have a million dollars in their checkings account.
Then sell the house.
Owning a house in a HCOL area is one of the luxuries I was talking about. Any million dollar asset is a luxury.
There is a fundamental difference between working to survive and working because you don’t want to move out of your NYC brownstone or further from lake como or whatever the fuck.
I wouldn’t say a house is a luxury. It is a necessity.
Really the whole concept of renting is exploitative.
A house is a necessity, yes, but not a house in the middle of San Francisco or New York.
That actual solution is making housing affordable in San Francisco or New York or any other city.
or a decent infrastructure and income elsewhere in the US.
Depends on the house.
Yes, commodifying necessities like housing (food, water, etc) is a fundamental means of exploiting people. Rent is just one aspect of a much larger pyramid scheme based on human deprivation.
And live where, genius?
A bit further outside the HCOL area or a smaller dwelling, genius.
So, move away from your friends, family, support circle etc?
Oh now that you bring that up you’re right. Not wanting to take a 1 hour transit trip or drive for 30 minutes a few times a week is actually the same as needing to sell your labor in order to have food and healthcare.
Of course, afaik almost no billionaire’s money is liquid either, it’s in properties and businesses and shit.
Like I’m sure bezos has plenty liquid, but most of his billions is just a valuation of amazon/aws/whatever other shit he owns.
Like, if we wanted to take all his money we’d have to completely liquidate amazon and aws, and his house etc, selling the assets off to whoever can afford it, it’s not just breaking into his Scrooge McDuck vault full gold coins.
Not that it’s impossible, it just seems that many people don’t realize this and think it is just the Scrooge McDuck vault.
Yes rich people don’t just sit on piles of cash whether a millionaire or a billionaire.
That’s kind of like saying that comparing a billion dollars to a triillion dollars is like comparing one dollar to a thousand dollars.
Yes?
If you’re a low end millionaire you can buy a nice house.
If you’re a low end billionaire you can buy an entire town of nice houses.
Neither really has to worry about keeping their homes.
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars.
To a billionaire, a mere millionaire is as much a pauper as any homeless person. When the Psychopathic Oligarchs demand a reduction in population, being a millionaire won’t save them.
In fact, the Psychopathic Oligarch’s Capital Hoarding OCD will kick in even bigger over a millionaire, because he actually has the money that they covet so badly. The rest are just drains on society, but a millionaire has something that the mentally-ill financial hoarders actually want - more wealth.
It will be for different reasons, but they’re going to kill the millionaires, too.
I want to try to imagine what that actually looks like.
The billionaires have been raiding the federal budget and debt. Eventually we will hit a wall, and then it will be time for some good old-fashioned crisis austerity! And the president will get on the podium and somberly tell the American people. (Imagine this as someone (of either party) after Trump or feel free to translate this to Trump drivel.):
My fellow Americans. After generations of reckless spending, we have finally reached the end. We have tried to balance the budget, but the opposition party has spent years bleeding the budget dry. You know all they have done. Ultimately this is their fault. But unfortunately, we now are incapable of borrowing the amount of money we need to keep the light on, and tough choices have to be made. We will all need to tighten our belts. Taxes will go up, and reforms will be made to retirement programs…
And then out of nowhere a “must pass” reform package will appear. It will be a thousand pages long. Despite the crisis only appearing this week, the bill have clearly taken years to write. They clearly had this thing written beforehand. And the part that will hit the millionaires the hardest? Severe restrictions on the tax-advantaged provisions of IRAs, 401ks, and home ownership. That’s how ordinary people who amass a few million of their working careers usually manage to do it. That and home equity is where most of the wealth of single digit millionaires is kept.
For 401ks and IRAs, look to see that minimum withdraw range rise higher. Make it so you have to be age 70 to access the funds in your 401k without an early withdrawal penalty. Or apply penalties to social security benefits for those with large 401k and IRA balances. If they were really cynical, the billionaires might even cynically sell this as “taxing the millionaires.”
Look for curtailments to the tax advantages to home ownership. It’s very rare for ordinary people to pay capital gains taxes on any increase in their home’s value when they sell it. When a couples sells a home, they are exempt from the first $500k of home appreciation. Plus there’s the mortgage increase and property tax income tax deductions. Etc.
This is how you effectively steal what remains of the wealth of the middle class. The billionaires use both parties to raid the nation’s credit until it is maxed out. Then they keep the grift going by removing all the tax advantages the middle class has earned for itself over the generations. Then at some point, when that is not enough, taxes will simply be raised, but in forms that fall lightest on the wealthy. There is a reason these guys love tariffs.
Excellent speculation. Add to that their out-of-control health care costs, which have been deliberately engineered to strip their wealth, and bankrupt families.
I truly believe that one of their objectives is to kill middle class inheritances. Back in the days when it was possible for the average person to actually build wealth through savings program, pensions, and Social Security. People would then inherit the result of their parents’ saving efforts, hopefully two inheritances for a couple, and somewhere in the 50s or so, between decent jobs, a decent savings account, and an inheritance or two, and a person might be able to retire early, or quit and start their own business, which a company isn’t going to like if if it’s competition. Even if it’s NOT competition, they don’t want to lose a highly experienced worker who might hold an important role. They want to fire them when they gets older, at THEIR discretion, not the workers.
Today, pensions barely exist, financial corporations manage retirement programs to benefit the firm over the investor, and savings accounts don’t have any significant interest. By the time someone dies, they have little or nothing left to pass on to their kids. If they died of a prolonged illness, they may even pass on debts.
So future middle-aged couples can’t look forward to a decent inheritance from their parents to boost their lives into retirement.
And future generations will also die with student loans still to be paid, which will have suppressed any savings opportunities for their entire life, as the career they spent tens of thousands to pursue, is now mostly poorly-handled by AI. I wouldn’t be surprised when the student loan generation starts to die, that the permanent MAGA government will force their heirs to pay off the loans, and saddle the next generation with the previous generation’s debt, too.
The overall objective is to keep prices high (which rich people can always afford), and keep us economically enslaved with several low-wage jobs per multi-generational household in order to stay alive, leaving little time to plot a Revolution.
Hasan Piker mention? In MY lemmy.world post? Without immediate ridicule?
Based
I like the idea of setting a wealth cap at 1000x the median household income. That would be somewhere around $80 million today. The reason for this is that this is really the upper limit of wealth that can be achieved through individual direct effort. This is the kind of fortune that a couple could make if they:
You can certainly earn a fortune larger than this. Again, we’re talking over about $80 million here. Fortunes orders of magnitude larger than this exist. But the only way to earn more than this is not through labor, but through things other than your own work. Being a high level corporate CEO. Inheriting it. Founding a company that makes it big and combines the work of thousands of employees. All of these involve making money primarily through means other than through the work of your own hand and mind.
Telling us something we’ve known for a decade is why he makes the big bucks.
Good
Trump is counting on it to declare martial law and never have another election.
You say that…like that changes anything.
He’s already declared martial law by sending in military units to cities. He’s already done it.
What the fuck do we have to lose?
Exactly as I’m seeing it. And I armed and practicing. Not saying, “I have a bunch of guns and ammo so I’m a tough guy!”
Anyway, went to camp today and sent some .556 armor-piercing down range. Sight is good enough for me, good enough for 100’. Did you know that green-tips drill holes in 1/4" steel? I didn’t! Walked down to look at my target and it looked like I took a drill press to it!
Anyway, unidentified, warrantless, masked men are targets in my book. Police patches? LOL, anyone can buy those on Amazon. Want a link?
They’re not here yet, but I have eyes on.
Yes, I’ll almost certainly die. No, I’m not letting them take my brown, legal wife.
you wont last long. your best bet is to lay down those arms and come out with your hands up.
The alternative is die slow. 🤷
…said the Nazi to the Jew.
.world really letting fucking mask-off nazis on there now huh
“Do Not Split”
Learned about it from this episode of the Team Human podcast
Your comment fills me with a deep dread that causes me to feel like saying something to discourage you from this path. Alas, it’s not your preparation that is causing that feeling, but the grim circumstances that necessitate this kind of planning.
It’s difficult being on the other side of the world and completely unable to do anything than just watch as America descends deeper into fascism. However, I’m glad that I am not in the impossible position of making the decisions you’re making. I’m sorry that you are.
Good luck, I hope you don’t die. And I hope that people like you are able to claw back democracy from the fascists
What if some states secede?
“My friends and fellow Californians, this is not a secession from the United states of America because the United states of America no longer exists.
…
Because while Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes, our country has suffered a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evincing a Design to reduce us under absolute Despotism, and thus it is our Right, it is our Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for our future Security.”
Apparently even the venture capitalists are like “maybe there’s a bit of a problem” now.
maybe they shouldnt have funded the AI bubble.
You spelt vulture incorrectly.
No shit. It might even be what the world’s elite want to happen …and knowing that makes things so much more fucked up.
At the very least all billionaires want Trump, not only Musk, Thiel and Bezos.
So what is the plan behind this lunacy?
Surveillance, control, power, money.
Basically their existential crisis and the way they try to escape it has become a lifestyle. But I think a root cause is that they fear reality. Eventually the way they try to control that fear became a standard marketed life path. Now 1st world nations basically live off that ideology as a base. We actually reward people for it. …and people hardly know what it truly means to be a genuine human.
It’s really no different than drug/alcohol/sex abuse.
How can people know again?
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8eb00fb7-55e6-4549-87c4-f7ee413d36b6.gif">
<img alt="" src="https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExMnJxYmxtbGtscXJvOG53OHFpZ2d1MWo3bTEwd2s4NG9rcGhveXM4OSZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/12gxeCI1BGKAj6/giphy.gif">
Is this from some movie? Is it Alfred Hitchcock?
Almost certainly from his TV show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents…, which was one of those shows that came out after the success of The Twilight Zone. Outer Limits was another one. Hitchcock had a really great, dark sense of humor, and he would display it during the commercial bumpers with little clips like this, as he was telling the audience that "We’ll be back after a word from our sponsors.’
The others shows specialized in SF with a touch of irony, while Hitchcock’s show was more horror and thrillers, with a touch of irony. All great shows, which hold up well today.
If you want to experience the very best of Hitchcock (and trust me, you do), and see some of the best movies ever made, watch his films from the 40s and 50s. Nearly all of them are truly great, but my favorites are Lifeboat, Strangers in on a Train, Rebecca, Notorious, Dial M for Murder, The Wrong Man, North By Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, Psycho, and my favorite movie of all time, Rear Window, an example of a perfect movie.
That is a solid list of must see films.
These are his best, but even the others are great. Hitchcock doesn’t really have a bad film, but some of those old B&Was from the 30s, before he came to Hollywood, are a bit creaky. Still some good ones, like the 39 Steps.
His movies from the 60s and 70s aren’t so hot. I saw his last, Family Plot, in the theater when I was young, knowing it would probably be his last film, so at least I could say I got to see one Hitchcock film in the theater during its initial run, like I just did.
Many people think Hitchcock films are going to scary or boring, but the word that describes them best is FUN. Once you get Hitchcock-Hooked, you are in for an exciting ride.
I wish I could see them all for the first time, again.
Rear Window is really good
In Rear Window, Grace Kelly is the most beautiful woman on-screen than in any other film in history. Peak feminine pulchritude.
Vertigo was also great, but something about the way Jimmy Stewart acts when he’s trying to be romantic or whatever felt so unbelievable to me, that it immediately convinced me that he was probably gay. Could be wrong though, it just seemed so unnatural for him to act sexy with a lady lol
MANY people think Vertigo is his best, including my son, who is an encyclopedic film connoisseur. I think it’s great, but it’s not even close to my favorite. I find it too perfect looking, almost sanitized. I’m also not thrilled with Kim Novak in it. Grace Kelly would have been much better. Hitch probably thought so, too.
Frankly, of the films on my list, that might be my least favorite, but I get it. It’s a beautiful looking film, and I love how he slow burns through the story until he finally reveals all in the very final scene. If you quit even a little bit too early, you won’t get it. You have to stick around to The End, or Finis, or whatever he does, I don’t remember.
It’s not so much that I don’t like it, it’s just that I like all those others more. Vertigo is still an 8/10 for me. It’s just that most of the others are 9s and 10s.
As for Jimmy Stewart’s manliness, he was considered a really hot dude in his day. There’s a famous scene in Rear Window when Grace Kelly reveals the negligee she intends to wear that evening, and his eyes nearly pop out. Unfortunately, we never got to see her in that get up.
I found him a little more convincing in Rear Window… Maybe he just had better chemistry with Grace Kelly.
I just remember laughing out loud the first time he tries to act sexy in Vertigo. I had to rewind and watch it again
Edit: it might also have to do with the fact that I can’t hear him speak anymore without thinking of Dana Carvey"s hysterical impression of him being his version of “kinky” where he’s like “ok now look at it… Ok n-n-now look away”
If you haven’t heard it you need to look it up it’s so good.
Edit 2: teamcoco.com/video/dana-carvey-1-pt-4-06-23-21
I’m on it.
Edited to add a link if you can’t find it. He does it a couple times on various episodes of Conan’s podcast.
nice, thanks!
Shhhhh don’t warn the other rich. There’s already gonna be a lot of bunkers to break into.
Rich? He is lacking almost as many millions to be a billionaire as you.
A real pauper, that one.
$100mil is still too much.
But fiiiiiiine, I guess he’s one of the better ones after a cursory Wikipedia look. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Tusk
If he shares his bunker as a base of operations, anyways.
It wont. Every time I go to the range, I’m still the youngest dude there as a 42 year old.
Time to start your very own chapter of the Socialist Rifle Association? :D
Pass, although I agree with the idea of it. Joined SRA in 2022 and they took my $35, sent me an invite to a discord channel and never contacted me ever again.
As someone that doesn’t like using discord… I’m not doing that again.
Oof, that sounds terrible I’m sorry to hear that, and it’s good to know. I really hate the trend of lazy reliance on Discord as the sole means of communication. :(
Same vibe as when some community solely operates out of a Facebook group. Yuck.
Signing up for anything socialist costs a lot. I dont know if you ever thought you’d have use for an elevated government security clearance, but your signing up for that association will be the subject of any security clearance interviews now, and the interviewer will lean toward disqualifying you for it.
I guess public service as a career choice isn’t on a lot of peoples minds these days. Which, speaking as a member of the public, is too bad.
“I refuse to go where young people are, and never see any young people!”
Absolutely live the life of your choice, but if you opt out of going where a set of people are, you are less likely to encounter that set.
Not saying the SRA couldn’t have done better here, because they absolutely could’ve, but our ass is 40-mumble-mumble, and we talk to leftist gun folks of youth online every day.
That is because all the younger people are at schools
Not on Saturday, but it also wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume they cannot afford it. That shit adds up.
Governments have been toppled without the use of firearms before, have some faith.
Portugal has joined the chat
How do you think an unarmed mob of people can fight the most militarised nation on earth? There are nations like Egypt with more corruption and repression than the US that have successfully prevented any kind of insurrection due to its strong military.
In the US, the police, military and other armed forces (ICE) all mainly consist of literal nazi’s. I think you don’t realise how bad things will get if the liberal opposition keeps making the bad choices that have made them as weak as they are now.
America and France both liberated their nations against two of the most powerful military nations in the world, with governments that were far more hostile toward their people.
Firepower is not the most dangerous weapon in a Revolution, ideas are, because they can’t be killed. MAGA will never win, because the more oppressive they are, the more support they’ll lose, even among their own followers, and even among the military. America is too large a country, and if MAGA pushes us to the breaking point, which getting closer everyday, they will be overwhelmed quickly.
A nation this large, unleashed in a national riot against the wealthy, sabotaging, destroying, burning, looting, killing, would be very, very bad for them. The mayhem would be everywhere, and military and law enforcement couldn’t handle it all. Law enforcement would be overrun within a week, and be ineffective, possibly worse.
The Sociopathic Oligarchs would run to their bunkers. We’ll deal with them later. First we have to deal with all the run-of-the-mill Oligarch wannabes, who are finding out that they aren’t rich enough to be invited to a bunker somewhere, but they are still considered the problem, and they will be dealt with harshly, as examples. Thought a little money made you better than regular humans? You will be reminded that you are not.
If you are a regular millionaire, you better start supporting Democrats and start fighting MAGA, because MAGA is going to get you and your family killed.
Don’t blind yourself with the idea that the US is somehow different than all other nations with oppressive regimes. There is a real possibility that the US moves further and further into fascism and not taking that risk seriously will ensure it becoming a reality.
Allow me to introduce you to the concept of a general strike.
Besides, militaries are far more likely to side with the people than the government in a situation like this.
That just means old guys have all the guns, but they can only hold one of them at a time.
They are old. Push them over, and take their guns.
All those guns out there? We’re going to take them away, and use them. And the supply is endless.
This may come as a shocker to some people, but you actually need to practice shooting in order to to be effective.
I’ve been shooting all my life, it’s not that hard. I’ve never understood the challenge. You got sights, line them up, hold your breath, and squeeze between heartbeats. Do it few times, and you get the hang pretty quick.
All my friends are amazed at my shooting, and I have terrible eyesight. I occasionally will put a round through a previous hole in the target. It’s not that hard, I’ve taught it to lots of people with great results. Even people who think they already know how to shoot have improved. It’s shocking how many people don’t know to hold their breath while shooting. I think it’s because a lot of people start breathing harder when they have a gun in their hand, heartbeat goes up, etc.
Keeping your cool while rounds are coming at you at the same time? That’s a bit more challenging. But hitting a static target can be picked up in a single session. You might not make consistent head shots, but body mass shots will be good enough.
Well on the topic of anecdotal stories, the first time I shot a rifle, when I was 38 (just like a lot of people who haven’t been shooting their entire lives) I missed paper at 25 yards. I didn’t know how to zero the sights, even though I had watched YouTube videos explaining it. I needed to get some help from someone else that was at the range.
Second time I went shooting, I found out that somehow my BCG was re-installed wrong after I cleaned it, consistent failure to eject.
Noob mistakes. There’s a lot of people that are completely noobs. You’ve shot your whole life; but you need to realize a lot people that you and I likely agree with have probably never even held a rifle, let alone shot one.
Valid, and to clarify, nearly all of target shooting has been handguns. I’m not a hunter, so I haven’t had that much experience with long guns, which are much more complicated. Handguns are generally just point and shoot. The safety is the only real complication.
I got a lot of my experience in a buddy’s basement. He was jeweler, and his workbench was in this enormous basement of his ranch house. It was so long, that he actually set up a shooting gallery in it, firing at targets taped onto a big box of old phone books. He’d work on jewelry, and I’d shoot until I got bored, and then I’d go dig through his box of loose jewels, and look for the prettiest ones. I love rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. I think I’m off topic here, nice talking to you.
Thankfully boomers gonna die soon.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/6f16c630-73e2-4e50-88d2-82f8ce4dad56.mp4">
🎶 It’s peanut butter guillo-tine!
Peanut butter guillo-tine!🎶
The ‘elite’ of America has willfully lead my nation to dark and stupid places. They can watch the people, from a basket.
Hey the french revolution was also about the fact that the government was a scandal ridden shitshow of petty internal politics and stupid interpersonal games.
…oh no, Bastille day approaches huh?
tbf, most of nobility for centuries before that was a scandal ridden shitshow of petty internal politics and stupid interpersonal games. i quote 13th century italy as a nice example.
yet that didn’t lead to revolution.
so, in 18th century france, where’s the difference?
Let it lead, we had enough with their stupid.
I guess they will vote to make change lol.
So you are saying there is hope
Anyone with two brain cells would have understood long ago that “the mass” are more numerous than “the limited top moneybags”, and that authority and power built on the mass bending over (including police and military) are a liability.
Unfortunately for us, some of the richest people think they can buy everything. Unfortunately for them, they can’t bribe people that can’t eat anymore with their shining prestige.
No.
In other “No Shit?” news, what else is happening in your neighborhood?
I can see things going to shit if the mid terms are called off or the results are not respected
That’s a nice long neck you got there, Poindexter.
Hey, that reminds me, I have to sharpen my guillotine.
People, you’ve gotta stop waiting for a revolution.
Any “solution” that starts with “you first” and involves fighting against forces that vastly out gun you, with people you absolutely would not agree to fight with is a complete non starter.
You have to realize that even if such a revolution happened, after it happened, they’d just pick the same systems that lead to that result.
You want a hail mary but you will not get it.
The practical buckleys tagline solution you all hate but is the only one that works is supporting the fuck out of the democrats in not only the short term (to stop so many people from being harmed), but in the long term too, this way they can’t just use the right as an excuse to go to the right. All that time, youll need to replace the old guard with more progressive members through overwhelming support in primaries, and being active in state and local politics.
Thats the only way forward where you can win, and its a lot more feasible and less painful than any revolution fantasies. In any of those fantasies, its more likely your head rolls than any of the ghouls we all hate.
When Elon Musk and all the other now-mainstream-weirdos started calling for a civil war, it should have been a wakeup to progressives - this is not in your best interest.
Taking back the average middle-class voter will require changing hearts and minds. That’s what the Republicans did to them. We, on the other hand, have been hitting them over the head with their own racism and stupidity, ignoring the reasons they’re doing what they’re doing - and how we’re playing into Republican hands by doing this over and over.
Now is the time to build the progressive party as a big tent - if you hold one progressive tenant, you’re a democrat, goddamn it - and start inviting voters into it, with solutions to their problems and acceptance of their ass-backward views until we can soften and change them.
I believe this is the only path forward.
is this the Democrats or a new party you are proposing?
I don’t think this part is true. I agree with the part before this, but not this.
The republicans caused a surge in their hate. They appealed to the heartburn in their esophagus’s, not their hearts and minds.
I think the voter apathy is really what has them winning. The fact that people can recognize that the DNC seeks to do nothing, and somehow have been tricked into thinking this means their votes mean nothing, or that they can’t be changed.
I don’t think its this at all. In fact, when we stopped doing this is when their votes went up. People largely respond to democrats actually fighting for something instead of saying “at least we arent that other guy”.
The democrats currently, as a group, come across as “We’ll change nothing” and thats the problem. Its a problem that can be fixed though.
This mentality I actually believe is part of the problem. This speaks as if we’re all a part of the DNC, and we’re not.
Our levers to control this are as I described. Slow change through primaries, state and local politics.
We would all love if tommorow the Democrats turned around and started talking like Mamdani about practical solutions, but they don’t want to do that due to their donors, and the fact a shit ton of the old guard are just rich conservatives.
All these “we need to do X” that start with the DNC magically changing their incentive structure are in similar fairy tale land to a revolution. They misunderstand where the actual roadblocks are, and treat the DNC as if it weren’t currently antagonistic to their goals.
Yes its complex to say that the DNC is antagonistic to your goals but you need to support the Democrats anyways with a full chest, but the world is complex, and this is the reality of a winner takes all/first past the post system. There are 2 major parties, eventually, always under these systems, and you pick the least bad one, and force it to change slowly.
We both agree the party has to be changed from within. We agree on basically everything. I do not hope everyone starts talking like Mamdani tomorrow. I’m in Arkansas, formerly blue and now red (like my home state of Iowa). Absolutely zero people here, within either the Dem party or the progressive coalitions working outside of it, would say “what works in NYC will work here.” People are not there yet. We have to meet them where they are so we can change their hearts and minds.
What will work here is the simple message “we know you’re at or beyond financial ruin, we have the only solution.”
What won’t work is "let’s divide ourselves as progressives vs. establishment, pro vs tepid trans support, split every hair and make ourselves look like the weak navel-gazers they paint us as. Stop dithering about who is “DNC” and who isn’t. That’s the problem right there. We are all DNC. We are all progressive. We are all one.
Unity. It’s what the Republicans started with the Southern strategy, which I know is real because I saw it flip two states, starting way back in the 80s when AM radio was quietly taken over. AM radio was in fact a brilliant way to reach the rural folks and start a populist campaign, which the bore fruit in the 90s and 00s as the party began evolving away from old ideals. They had one message - “those city folks want to destroy your good, wholesome, Christian way of life.” From there the party itself reinvented itself (multiple times over) not at the ballot box, but by powerful people within the party who knew how to crack whips and enact reform. We need to identify and empower these people within the Democratic party, and that might mean putting side differences to build the big tent coalition we need.
Mamdani talked for NYC and its problems. My hypothetical Mamdani would just be quick witted, and talk about active solutions for the people, but on the federal scale. I by no means think people would magically agree to everything Mamdani is talking about. It was about a shift in messaging to being about pragmatic change for the people. not fighting progressives within the party etc.
Im not sure I follow that last part. The DNC is a very real organization with very real leaders and goals. Its not something that is disputed, its a factual, existing organization.
Part of the problem, is that you need a draw, and if you can’t use hate, you have to use appealing to the common person with change. The idea that its about a bigger tent, is something that needs change within the DNC/Old gaurd too.
They don’t seem to want to accept the progressive elements, and Im not talking about the people online who say nonsense about third parties or revolutions, I mean people like AOC, Bernie, Mamdani. They fight them tooth and nail, and thats part of the problem. Of course, as I mentioned, we can’t solve that though, as we’re not part of the DNC, hence the solution I recommend.
Why in my part of the world, in the Philippines the center-left movement failed in toppling Duterte because in their blind obsession with purity and hubris of self-proclaimed intelligence, they mostly blamed the lower-class voter base for their supposed ignorance.
where is the evidence that this “works”?
were the democrats not in charge after the first trump term an utterly failed to do anything? and I don’t mean they tried but failed, they didn’t even triy
same as Obama, he could/should have prosecuted Bush for any of the many war crimes but instead immediately let them all of the hook with the “let bygones be bygones” crap
I absolutely agree a civil war would be awful but I think you are waaaaaay past fixing this by voting… much less voting for the same party that has shown to love the status quo so much
Democracy works when you actually take part in it. The people have become so apathetic and think that voting is doing everything they need to do. It’s actually the least they need to do. Most of the decisions and the candidates have already been chosen by the time you vote on it. The real work happens between elections, not during them.
Change the party. Change the ideas. Get active. Change the people. It’s the only way you’ll have someone worth voting for.
It’s like believing in fairies. Come on, kids! Do you believe?!?! Let’s save Tinkerbell!!! smh.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion
If everyone took part in the society they wanted to create the world would be a different place. The people in power stay in power because people like you give up before you even try.
If you don’t want to help then get out of the way for those who do.
I’m not saying democracy does not work, I’m saying the Democrats will not fix this problem
Like passing a huge infastructure package, buying a shit ton more vaccines, attempting to and partially succeeding at college debt relief for a large number of people, imposing a minimum corporate tax rate and more?
They didn’t do nothing, they just didn’t provide you the world in one term. You were never getting that, and even if magically your perfect government was voted in tommorow, they wouldn’t be able to give you that without a super majority, and even then it would still probably take more than one term.
More than all of that though, your comment completely misses the rest of my comment to use one part of it out of context to pretend I said changing nothing about the democratic party would be the solution. Thats very bad faith of you.
no, I’m referring about stopping fascism and protecting democracy and the rule of law
all else is secondary if everything is destroyed every other turn
Are you denying that if people had voted for the democrats just a few percent more this year project 2025 would not have been stopped, as trump likely would be dead when it came time for the next event?
If people stayed sharp, they would be kept down.
Of course the DNC could do more. The question is could you, the people, do any less to secure your democracy.
The DNC is far from perfect, but what they do is out of our control except in the ways I literally covered at the start of this chain.
I don’t get how people act like there should just be this sudden moment where once and for all fascists will disappear. It will and has always been a continuous fight.
we can’t know the alternative timeline where the democrats would have won; but if their past behaviour is any indication they would have acted over confident and let the republicans walk all over them as before
what we can do is look at the present and easily see that the fascist grab of power is basically complete and there is zero chance they will give up power (last time they literally led an insurrection to avoid giving up power)
I’m canadian but your are making my point, Americans are too gaslit, selfish and uninformed to even vote rationaly
do you think the magas would be this enboldened if any republican had been accountable?
In what universe does this make any sense. The republicans wouldn’t have the political power to do that.
And until that happens, there is no point in try to get people not to participate.
And you only help that with your encouragement of voter apathy.
I’m not arguing against that, Im pointing out that its a constant fight, not one battle.
They had no legal power to block Obama’s SCOTUS nomination, yet they did. They had no legal power nor justification to claim trump’s reelection had been stolen, yet they forced an insurrection. trump currently does not have any legal power to do half the stuff he is gleefully doing.
You seem to think MAGAs act within the boundaries of the law… must be nice to be so innocent
First of, I have ever said people should not vote. I am simply stating the fact that it will not be enough, not anymore.
Second, you keep the “until that happens” as if that make any sense… You are the one moving the goal post here to justify inaction. You do not want to sacrifice anything to get your country out of the hole you allow it to get… and news flash, once the power grab is complete (you are 98% there) there will be no option left… every minute you allow to pass doing fuck all, is a minute you are closer to having NO OPTIONS LEFT
Read above… and try to make an effort this time
Yet your “strategy” here is to do nothing an wait 19 months to cast a ballot… where did I say it was one battle?
Yup.
In no universe could anything I said be reasonably summarized as this. Its actually pretty ridiculous this is the conclusion you came to.
Because implications don’t exist right?
Which just encourages people not to vote if you’re saying it doesnt help.
Im sorry bud, what actions are there exactly that you’re so willing to step up to take?
As far as I understand it, any action that I’m advocating for is apparently justifying inaction, but actions further than that would mean you couldn’t be talking to me right now.
Once again, what are you doing buddy?
You really like to imply a shit ton from nothing so that you can argue against strawmen dont you.
No one is coming to save us. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
lmao. Started strong then ended in complete fail. Dems are half of the two-“party” problem.
So Biden took us “forward” and had us “winning”? How’s that working out for ya?
Its interesting that both comments that push the nonsense of voter apathy and non participation in the only political system you have needed to completely take a singular part of a multi stage solution out of context to attempt to ridicule it.
If I had just said supporting the democrats and left it at there you might have had a point, actually no, you still wouldn’t as the “light it all on fire mentality” is just anti human. Instead though, you have a very poorly constructed strawman argument, and the response to the other person with a similar style of comment is just as applicable here, but even more so since you are so blatant in your misrepresentation.
They're caving on the shutdown but sure. 🙄
Literally what part of that changes a single thing I’ve said here?
Can you show any examples in other countries where rallying around the controlled opposition party was sufficient to reverse the tide of fascism?
The question starts out with a strawman argument. The full comment included “All that time, youll need to replace the old guard with more progressive members through overwhelming support in primaries, and being active in state and local politics.”
There also aren’t many countries that have the same political situations as the USA. What other countries are democratic republics with extremely slow constitutional and political inertia, top class military and insane intelligence capabilities.
The question doesnt make sense. This is a one of one.
Economic collapse is getting uncomfortably closer, however, due to what is clearly unrestrained greed and abuse. It’s not just the continental US that would be affected but also would pull down a lot of countries economically dependent on it in varying degrees.
In addition to whole governments traditionally allied with the US, this includes minorities who usually remit a portion of their earnings to relatives in their home countries.
I think most citizenry think that. You don’t need a millionaire to know which way the wind is blowing.
It will have to to be rid of the evil charlatans tearing down our government on Putin’s orders
To anyone thinking the that a revolution will end with “their” side winning:
its a revolution, everyone loses something
Unless it’s a civil war, them everyone will lose nearly everything
And even if “your” side “wins”, I guarantee you that someone will end up in charge that is a hundred times worse than what you started with. The Russian Revolution was to get rid of the tsars and make everything fair for everyone and instead they ended up with Stalin oppressing the shot out of everyone, as a semi random example
If and when this goes south for the US, everyone will regret it. There is nothing as bad as a war that puts neighbor against neighbors, and sons against their fathers.
People really lionize the French Revolution. I get that the grievances behind it were very real but it also led to years of mass slaughter and ended up a dictatorship and then monarchy again anyway.
It worked in the US due to the distance from the main political power center and the existence of local governing institutions that had already been around for a while. A revolution in your home turf, that shared with the political power base, is a different ballgame.
This is a garbage liberal take. The Russian Revolution yielded tremendous victories for oppressed people in Russia. It is dishonest, ahistorical nonsense at best to omit the horror that was the Tsarist empire in contrast. That you can point out contradictions within that society in the 20th century explains nothing about what happened to it.
I guess people should just do nothing?
Not to mention the Civil War in USA.
These libs will literally endorse slavery if it maintains their own personal privilege.
That’s basically the whole history of USA.
The people should leave while they can.
I believe that if you allow people to get power who have killed lots of people to get there (i.e. killing all the nobility), then you’ve essentially made murderers your new rulers. That’s a big part of why Russia ended up with Stalinist terror.
Transfer of power needs to be peaceful. There must be no bloodshed during the next revolution.
I very much agree with you
There are reasons why you sometimes during a revolution or at the end of a war need to end the lives of a few people, certain ring leaders. See the Neurenberg trials for example.
But yeah, the Soviet Union went way way over the edge and started killing people indiscriminately just because terror. Something similar happened (and in some way still happens) in china. It’s the main reason why I’m veryuch against communism
Tangent that is required because I hear the tankies furiously tying: Give me socialism supported by a very well clamped down capitalist system that simply puts hard limits in how much anyone can own. Anything over (for example) 10 million in net worth goes 100% to tax. Companies cannot be worth more than 1 billion, the rest goes 100% to tax. Gives the government a huge tax income to pay for a socialist system that can pay for free healthcare, free education, free housing, hell, universal basic income even. Companies cannot get too powerful, people cannot get too powerful but at the same time it leaves the rest as-is, so we retain all our freedoms
Lincoln was a jackass, huh? \s
Peak lib privilege.
He wasn’t really a revolutionary.
Yes please
Good. We’re tired of billionaires hoarding OUR wealth, the wealth WE created, as well as the politicians paid by and for those same billionaires rigging the system on their behalf.
As any Marxist-Leninist knows though, the best time to strike the revolution is after you’ve gained the support of the public and elucidated class consciousness. We need more Leftists in political power first spreading the message of class warfare before we get there.
Because otherwise this “revolution” will be entirely selfish and unorganized and will make it harder to get anything accomplished.
The US govt shutdown is a distraction. The real story is the generals being fired by Hegseth. When they are replaced by Trump loyalists, the real civil war will begin. The goal of Project 2025 is to install a white supremacist evangelical ruling class in power. They have already published everything they want to do, all you have to do is look.
For there to be any kind of real “civil war” there would need to be a very clear distinction between sides and goals alongside states declaring their intent for sovereignty, as well and would need some form of oppositional army with organization.
The USA is far, far from a real civil war. We’re talking a generation or more and that’s in the worst case timeline.
The terms people need to recognize and understand are “militarized police state” and “civil unrest.”
These conditions may lead to a civil war at some point, but so far the bickering between states that don’t want Trump to do this and that are nothing remotely close to the conditions that start a civil war.
I get it, we want something to happen. We want retribution and justice and some kind of satisfying pushback. But I don’t think it’s helpful for any of us to “Tim Pool” the situation and try to pound the war-drums so we normalize violence. The current situation can and most likely will start facing mitigation during the mid-terms if there’s no authoritarian takeover. Right now, even if that happens, you would see rioting and possibly even a coup long, LONG before you would see a civil war.
That’s how the US Civil War happened, but frequently a national Civil War does not have such clear boundaries and sides. See Syria for a very messy conflict where about the only thing defining one ‘side’ was ‘not Assad’ and very little agreement other than that.
Civil war would be the worst possible outcome to be sure, but a messy situation can just as easily feed a civil war.
I’m not saying it has to be the same conditions as our “last” civil war, that might as well have taken place on another planet compared to today’s political and information landscape.
I’m saying here and now, today, we would need far different political and geographic lines for there to be anything resembling a “civil war” and really what we’re talking about is civil unrest and groups who may rise up in the coming years or decades willing to commit acts of violence. Even then that’s not a “civil war” and many nations have come back from that kind of disturbance. Even the US has had more internal revolts, coups and domestic terror groups than we have now. (Look up the original anarchist movement in the US for a wild ride through history.)
I personally take issue with people talking about “civil war” because it doesn’t help anything, if anything it removes us further from reality and reinforces the idea that “something is going to happen” by itself, that “someone is coming” to do something and create a big change. Literally, this is the same narrative the Christian right uses but theirs involves Jesus. It prevents people from investing in anything, from taking part in their community, from starting grassroots movements to change our political foundations.
Pretty sure that’s Project 1776.
Except most of the Founding Fathers were Deists. The churches of the time were mostly semi-Puritanical, and to an Evangelical, would be an absolute horror. A church that held so strictly to doctrine that they punished everyone for anything sinful, actually cared for the poor and sick (if only to bring them into the fold), and preached damnation and punishment in Hell. Stark contrast to the newer Prosperity Gospel (aka Grift), philandering, do what I want to whom I want and ask forgiveness at the end Evangelicals. The Founding Fathers were against religious control because they knew they wouldn’t be able to do much, or lose their power, as it would be seen as sinful. Now the Church has become so damn corrupt it now gives politicians a pass so long as it brings the Church more money. At this point I’m waiting on a holy war or two and a schism of power to eliminate the Church’s power again…
There were nearly ~150 years in colonial america (1630-1776) wherein the puritan crown did exactly what you describe as evangelical. My 8th great grandfather was arrested for baptizing too late into the day on a Sunday and spent many months incarcerated in Boston as a result.
The witch trials were really the puritans of Massachussets attempting to annex Maine. History may not repeat, but it sure does rhyme.
Nothing is just a distraction. They’re all just similarly evil parts of the plan, that they have fully documented, and that people just kinda keep ignoring.
Some of those fired generals might be taking their knowledge and experience with them, FWIW.
So just some guy saying stuff? This isn’t news. It’s capitalist propaganda.
Exactly this: …libsyn.com/ep-228-billionaires-as-insta-experts-…
Don’t threaten us with a good time…
Millionaire CEO? You have one of these for each successful business in the country. How is that a qualification to be an expert on revolutions?
The French Revolution was also supported by the outspoken writings and speeches of an intellectual élite that came to shape most of what European culture has evolved to since.
This élite demanded education for the masses, freedom of the press, derived a non-religious base for social order from the natural laws discovered and popularized by the Enlightenment.
Now… the USA… intellectual élite… rich people spending to educate the masses… naah, don’t see it.
This guy may actually be among the best they can recruit.
Author of the article could have picked a punchier subject line. Not that I disagree with the premise, but “millionaire” is pretty common these days. Like 20% of the population. Journalism is in the toilet these days.
Seriously. I’m pretty sure my mom is a millionaire if not very close, and she’s a teacher!
I’ve read that teachers are disproportionately likely to be millionaires!
We ain’t doing shit. Netflix still works.
Bread and a circus
Yea probably don’t need to listen to that guy….
Which part of this is world?
US OF world…/s
Unbelievable Sized Only Fans!
It will lead to civil war between the progressives that want to maintain the liberal order and conservatives who want to regress
One can hope.
Millionaire CEO? Who is this broke bitch?
Lmao I’m thinking the same! Like damn he’s struggling with us normal folks in the trenches!
I mean the millionaire class is a grey area between those who are so rich they are completely out of touch with working class realities, and those who were working class who got a break and played a good hand right.
Personally I don’t really have a problem with millionaires, that’s an amount you can make playing by the rules and not bending them to your own will.
Plus it just means “homeowner” in way too many cities.
depends on how they got the money, did the guy come from wealth? if so he might be so detached from everyone else, even as a millionaire. or did he build up his wealth from the ground up, without the help of NEPTOTISM.
And there lies the real problem, the handing down of large sums of money. Entrenched wealth and power of an aristocracy. It destroys the meritocracy and the desire to progress society. My grandpa taught me a valuable lesson by giving all his money away. He paid for school, camp, life skills and that was it. True believer in the American dream having secured it for himself. I often wonder what he would think about the current state of the economy. As well as how I would interpret the state of the economy, if I wasn’t living in utter fucking poverty. I would not have the same attachment to social issues if I wasn’t front lines on the war against the poor.
“I will have you know I am a self made man! Just like my father and his father before him!”
It’s also just not a huge wealth disparity. Like having 5-10x more than the average is more tolerable than having 10,000x more than the average. if someone drove a car that was worth 10x more than mine, it would be a new Honda. If they had a house 5x larger it would be a large family home. This actually adjusts to the needs of society.
If your parents left you a home, you’re probably a millionaire too. Many blue collar working folk are millionaires, except if they tried to spend those millions they’d become homeless.
VC usually has 100s of millions or billions. hes probably the one that uses funds from billionaires into his company?
I know right he only has an estimated 1/10th of a billion.
Not even close to that third comma, amateur.
Billionaire oligarchs are counting on it.
Well off working man warns the capitalist class the consequences of stiffing the working class.
Observer of history states historical observances.
Well at least he’s aware of how much money a trillion dollars is and how easy it would be to solve world hunger.
He once said that if there was a concrete plan to solve world hunger he would do it. Then a representative of an actual plan to solve world hunger showed up on his Twitter feed and provided him with information and he was like ‘nah’.
And the plan would only cost a small amount of his fortune. He bought Twitter for much, much more.
I think it was only like 6 billion, right?
A huge number on its own, but in this context it’s nothing.
Yup. The actual sources of world hunger aren’t material but systemic. So it’s not as easy as just “giving everyone food”, but the more complicated “give everyone access to a robust agriculture supply chain”.
Fortunately, giving 1-2% of people fertilizer and some work animals might be a bit more complicated, it’s significantly cheaper.
He paid 44 billion for Twitter and it took him a few days to raise that much money. He could have been the man to write the cheque to end world hunger and be honored by millions for generations to come (despite all his other bullshit), but he chose not to.
The world starves not because we cannot feed the hungry, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.
Wow, thank you captain obvious
Fingers crossed that if it does, people will see it as what happens when you let the clowns control the circus and the Terrorist Party never sees themselves in a position of authority ever again.
Damn, I wonder if anyone else has noticed this. 😳
I’ve been waiting for the pitchforks since 2008.
People are too divided for an Actual revolution, but I’d say let’s try
Internet echo chambers are literally “Divide and Conquer” at scale.
Wake me up when the masses give up their algorithmic app addictions.
This^. Most of us are part of the Machine. Any revolution must begin outside of it.
One of the most revolutionary actions people can take is put down their phones.
If the government bans social media, we will riot
Revolution led by CEOs, I presume?
Nono, “Revolution” tm, new AI product from his company.
How many subscriptions tiers does it have?
Lets hope he is right.
Americans can’t even bother to get their asses off the couch to vote against fascism. The only Revolution they’re gonna take part in is the one at the Olive Garden when they run out of breadsticks
That patently false. Millions of us got off of our asses to vote against fascism.
When? You guys have been terrorizing the world for decades and longer.
-a victim of your country’s terrorism
If he’s lucky, he might survive it, but if he keeps greeding unrepentantly, he might not
Eat the rich and use their money so there is no poverty in the world anymore.
and do something to prevent new people from taking their place so the problem doesnt just start again with different people
Maybe we just need the ever present threat of being eaten should one become too rich to achieve world peace.
Please.
At least hes just a millionaire and not a billionaire. We can trust him
He isn’t wrong. All it takes is the right amount of people to be pissed and revolution explodes. If the oligarchs think they have it rough now, wait until they are being lynched in the street by people who haven’t eaten a decent meal in recent memory. Look up 1918 Russia if you don’t believe me.
I somehow feel things have changed. Maybe it’s the internet, lack of education, consumerism, whatever. I hate to say this, bit I feel like a lot of people, when they get hungry, would steal from their neighbours. Far too many folk don’t understand that the wealthy are the author of their suffering and won’t know where to target their anger. Not to mention that oligarchs are hard to catch, whereas your neighbour with a slightly newer car is right there, and may be of a different race. People don’t understand who they should be angry with.
If there is still food to be stolen from your neighbours then things haven’t reached the point of revolt.
If there is still enough energy to be expended on hating your neighbor, then you haven’t reached the true point of revolt
When things are truly at their worst, your neighbor has no food to take. Your neighbor has no goods worth stealing. Harming them brings you no food, no money and less energy.
When things have reached that point, that is when the only option left is revolt and it does not matter what consumerism what gifts are given what lies are said. The only thing left to do is revolt or die. And no group of people will simply choose to die.
No shit. This is my retirement plan.
Please collapse in an orderly fashion, form a queue or something. But don’t come up here, we’re full.
Good.
Sure seems like the rich are doing everything they can to see what they can get away with before it pops off.