this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
322 points (95.2% liked)

Asklemmy

44151 readers
1741 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I would really rather that these were actual examples, and not conspiracy theories. We all have our own unsubstantiated ideas about what shadowy no-gooders are doing, but I'd rather hear about things that are actually happening.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] AllonzeeLV 77 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

"Your socioeconomic status is a measure of work ethic, sacrifice, and ability to make good decisions. Poor people deserve to be poor, and suffer, for making bad decisions."

Birth lottery which includes not just wealth but family connections is the biggest metric. We are way down the list of developed nations in terms of upward mobility. Only the outliers that prove to be of the greatest service to entrenched capital are granted entry. Most Americans, religious or not, have internalized the dogma of the prosperity gospel, itself an absolute parody of the dogma of Christianity it claims to be part of.

Go to any local fast food restaurant at rush hour, hell, go to any produce field at harvest, and tell me how much that studious hard work pays off. conversely, please regail me with tales of how hard it is to be a capital landlord, ~~making investments~~ gambling with insider information with capital gained from previous exploitations, and then merely expecting an endless steam of capital for NO labor into what generated it. It's like we were conquered by the traveling snake oil salesmen of old.

It's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

Also known as "prosperity gospel." The religious justification for obscene wealth. The basic idea is that if you are rich, it's because God has chosen you to BE rich because you are morally superior to everyone else. It's an absolute perversion of Jesus' teaching in the New Testament.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A while ago I read Bezos was posed a question about why he isn’t using his money and power to help impoverished people. IIRC he replied with something along the lines of “oh, we did a study and poverty is a moral failing, it can’t be solved, now if you’ll excuse me I have to go buy a dick-shaped rocket”

Ok, I made the rocket part up but you get the idea, Jeff Bezos is a pos

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Hey, he is supporting the massive FL mansion and mega yacht industries.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is that last sentence a quote from George Carlin? I've heard that one before.

[–] AllonzeeLV 12 points 1 year ago