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Post about it on the internet built upon tech enabled by the said class in today's world, from devices sold to us by the said class in today's world, in our homes with comforts the existence of which wouldn't be possible without the said class in today's world. Then go to work using infrastructure and means we wouldn't have without the said class in today's world, likely doing work we wouldn't have without the said class in today's world. Perhaps go buy some food the likes of which we couldn't dream of having access to without the said class in today's world. Maybe indulge in a hobby - a leisurely distraction, the kind that only exists because the said class engineered today's world where you have time and resources to waste on frivolity, while they decide what those resources are.
Anyone who wants to hold on to the comforts of modern life will have next to no power to make a change happen. Most of the money you spend goes into their pockets. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Option is to reduce spending, start exchanging favors without money (or develop your own currency with your friends) and if you have to spend money, prefer local goods and small services. Learn to fix things instead of buying new stuff. Offer community, food and fun to people with as little money investment as possible.
Make it work for you and people immediately around you. Get it to spread. This goes triple for you tankies out there. If you can't get this to work at a small level, you will not bring about systematic change. The game is theirs, it's rigged against you and bless your sweet honey heart, you somehow think you can win.
Not saying this is what I think everyone must do. I'll be dead soon enough and I don't have kids. But I am saying that if YOU want to see a change in the system, you need to start playing a different game that isn't built on money.
I like your encouragements but I don't see how any of what you list is made impossible by the absence of the ruling class? if anything the class struggle is vastly slowing down progress
I might be misunderstanding you but there seems to be an assumption that I'm making the claim that the kind of modern life we have can't be possible without capitalism. I am not. It's completely irrelevant to me (and my point).
If people want to insist that a world like ours can be possible while resources are shared equally, great. I have nothing against making the attempt at that, please do. But that's not the world we live in right now. The world we currently find ourselves is the one where capitalism has made all the luxuries etc. possible, and we are very habituated to it. To the point that many people are reluctant to let any of that go, while simultaneously demanding for a systematic change. Hence the "can't have your cake and eat it too". People are demanding revolution but precious few have any actually actionable suggestions on how to bring that about. I'm suggesting things that anyone can do by themselves, as much as is possible for them. Doing those things doesn't require that everyone agrees with you, because you start with yourself. It doesn't require a massive systematic change, because again, you start with yourself.
If anyone has suggestions on concrete actions to take to bring about massive systematic change, please let me know. Let everyone know. But keep in mind you'd have to persuade people that it's going to work and it's a better system. Revolution is very easy on paper.
What? Someone actually gives reasonably actionable suggestions here?
Well fucking said. Everyone’s ready to bitch about the system, until you ask them to live anywhere near like the people who are actually getting crushed by it. The performative outrage in this thread is a bad joke to the people who build our phones, sew our clothes, and mine our lithium. To them, we’re not revolutionaries. We’re the elite’s pampered pets, barking at the leash but gladly gobbling up all the treats they throw at us. People are getting mad about AI: guess fucking what, the outrage itself is a treat. The Epstein files are a treat. Anything that keeps you glued to the screen, ignoring everything that is actually around you is a treat. It's your programmed Two Minutes of Hate.
Revolutions happen with real people willing to make sacrifices, working together and giving others real, tangible reasons to want to support them. Not by bitching online about how very awful it is. You want a revolution? Try going a week without buying anything. Try getting relationships instead of likes. But no, it’s easier to scream into the void and call it resistance, isn’t it? The system thanks you for your compliance.
Counterpoint: we throw them in wood chippers and confiscate all the factories and such.
Are you not aware of how, for example, car lobbies destroyed public infrastructure in an attempt to make everything car dependant to sell more cars? Claiming any of these things only exist because of billionaires is absurd. They take over and destroy.
But if they ‘took over,’ then by definition, the things that exist now - including the infrastructure you’re using to complain about them - exist because they allowed it. What you (and !Feyd@programming.dev ) have actually described is a world where billionaires are both all-powerful and completely irrelevant. That’s not a critique. That’s a paradox. And it’s a useful one because it lets you feel angry without actually taking any concrete action.
After all the Quanon stuff and the general population increasing their awareness of how conspiratorial thinking works, it's weird to see "my side" use the same rhetorical tactics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Definitions_of_fascism&useskin=vector#Umberto_Eco
"Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak". On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will."
There is no paradox. Thing exists. Billionaire takes over thing. Billionaire ruins thing. Billionaire did not cause thing to exist.
You said these things "wouldn't be possible" and "wouldn't exist" without billionaires. This is objectively untrue. Without billionaires these things would be significantly better. I specifically pointed out your mention of infrastructure because that one's so blatantly obvious unless you've only ever experienced car-centric infrastructure.
You’re arguing with a straw man. The point isn’t that billionaires are the sole reason these things exist in some abstract sense - it’s that, in the world we actually live in right now, they control the levers that determine whether you have access to them at all. Nothing that we have right now could be possible if not for everything that came before it. So unless you invent a time machine, you're arguing beside the point.
No, I'm arguing against direct quotes from you. Unless you yourself are a strawman.
Built by academics to share research, expanded by hobbyists and enthusiasts, and taken over by megacorps. Not "enabled" by billionaires.
Technically true, but only in that billionaires own the workers.
Untrue. People can live in comfort without the existence of billionaires.
Untrue. This is what your taxes pay for. Transit infrastructure exists without billionaires. Even in the US, notoriously a horrible place to travel, public transit infrastructure was good until billionaires lobbied against good infrastructure so they could sell more cars. Car infrastructure costs you more than public transit.
Possibly true in very specific cases where your work provides value only to billionaires. If your work provides value in any other way (eg providing services or goods), this is likely not true.
I am fully certain you don't really believe good food only exists because of billionaires. Has there ever been a civilization of any kind which hasn't had chefs of some description?
Hobbies have always existed. You have time and resources to spare because of unions, not billionaires.
You credited all of these things to billionaires. None of these things exist because of billionaires.
You are absolutely correct on all points. Now what do you propose we do about it?
Easy; don't give credit to billionaires for things they've only made worse. I'm not sure why you need my help to not spread misinformation?
Noted, you have successfully got me to edit my first post. I await the results of this revolution.
Pretty sure he didn't read your post beyond the first paragraph to begin with...
Well, that's exactly why I advocate for small actions on the level of the individual and branch out from there. I can't make other people do anything. Least of all use their brain beyond their capacity.
No, that's just the objectionable part because that's the part pretending billionaires are responsible for everything good.
lol you are being so willfully obtuse
This is complete and utter bullshit. Like technology and infrastructure is impossible without billionaires. They are leeches and are not structurally significant for any reason than that we let them be.
Great, all the better. Please do start building it again from scratch.