this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 194 points 8 months ago (40 children)

At the risk of sounding like a class reductionist (I'm not), even things like racism and LGBTphobia are exacerbated by this, because the only reason we don't just eat those ten guys is we're always hating each other. The reason there's so much racism in the US, for example, has a lot to do with slavery -- and guess who benefitted from slavery? Guess who benefitted from the genocide against Native Americans? Who benefits most from calling refugees and undocumented workers "illegal immigrants"?

It's not me. If you're reading this, it's probably not you. It hurts us. It hurts our communities, while these ten people keep brainwashing us into actually defending them and their system while hating each other.

(Ok now I'm going to have my coffee, and I wish to the gods that I could disable inbox notifications after posting this.)

[–] [email protected] 32 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Why do you fear that lol?

Divide and conquer is a thing older than a sum of this thread's ages. If there's no constant infights and smaller issues, we'd figure things out and switch to them. When a poor white guy covers himself in blankets and burn crosses, they laught and applaud, because hating other poor guys is what would occupy him for life. They fund hatred for it lets them stay in power, it brings them easy wins against 'the mysterious other' people fear or don't understand. It props them up alright.

Take insanely long copyright holders and LLMs from the thread I've read previously. We start to take sides and defend overwhelmingy rich companies from which none of them would probably suffer, and both of these suck ass. That'd hold us from regulating each at the same time, if anywhen.

Even coke and pepsi sold and sell us their rivalry as a way to up loyalty to their brand. Generating unrest is a good tool in their box. And I don't think it's a controversial opinion. Especially in economics and politics.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It may not be as bad here, but there are a shit ton of people who defend inherently destructive systems like capitalism, or who excuse systemic racism or transphobia. I've encountered them a lot, even here in the fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

And now I understand you. I've seen persons fanboying for my fucking state, and I'm still open to switch places with them. They aren't so enthusiastic about it after I propose that.

Either way, I wasn't disagreeing with you at all.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I get it. Personally, I live in the US, but we're not so great either.

Personally, I think all states and hierarchies are destructive, but I'm willing to talk to people online who at least agree that oppressive systems like capitalism and authoritarianism are bad, as a baseline. In real life, I'm more open to conversing with people and debating ideologies, but being online is my escape from this fascist hellscape where I live.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Same here. It seeds some hope when you doubt either you or everyone gone insane.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Wishing the best to you. I keep trying to make things better, and maybe at some point after I'm gone, they will. I like what I'm seeing and hearing from a lot of younger people, so at least there's that.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago (1 children)

"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." -- Lyndon Johnson

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I live in the Bible belt and people 100% think a trans kid socially transitioning with a new haircut and different pronoun is a more direct threat to their livelihood than their boss giving them a 1% raise in a 5% inflation environment.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

Same. We are surrounded by abject poverty and massive social problems. We could work to address those issues... But no. Bullying and maligning librarians for bullshit reasons is more important.

[–] LavaPlanet 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That hate propaganda is, in my opinion, more continually perpetuated by them, and in some cases created by them, because it offers, as you say, and I agree, a distraction from the pure evil they are for this planet and all life on it. The super villains have convinced us they're not the villains. Where's superman when you need him.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

Probably working for a billionaire.

[–] feedum_sneedson 12 points 8 months ago

I am very much a class reductionist. Or a class-first leftist, as I prefer to call it. It is absolutely the most important issue, by a colossal margin.

[–] captainlezbian 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Exactly it’s not our fault for fighting against bigoted poor people, it’s bigots fault for being swayed to fight poor people and not join us against the rich

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[–] Pollo_Jack 84 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Sort of true. The rich also expand their dynasties. For example, Walmart now supports 10 billionaires instead of 1 as they are the children of the founder. I am sure we have all noticed the lowering of quality in our purchased goods.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 51 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Walmart now supports 10 billionaires instead of 1

The Waltons own 20x as much as they did a generation ago and split it among 10 people.

I am sure we have all noticed the lowering of quality in our purchased goods.

Their products were always shit. That was the Walmart gambit. Sell someone a $1 plastic piece of crap for $8 rather than a durable piece of $8 metal for $10. Pocket the difference and claim you saved people money.

But the broader consequence of Walmart and its "Buy up / shut down the competition" model is that everyone who sells to Walmart is obligated to produce crap. Because if you can't sell to them at $.50, they're not buying. And if they're not buying, you lose access to millions of customers.

I think it was either Catepiller or John Deere that had a knock-down drag out fight with Walmart, where they wouldn't budge on their wholesale price and Walmart began kicking them out of all their stores as a result, that effectively broke the back of the union-lead opposition to price cuts.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

This comment makes me wanna rewatch the walmart south park episode :)

[–] pigup 23 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Dude, they have fucked up batteries so bad. I have batteries that are 2 years old, new in packaging that are leaking. Almost every time batteries die in a remote, it's because they exploded.

[–] Blue_Morpho 18 points 8 months ago

There are definitely two classes of batteries now.

The batteries sold to oems to go in a product last forever just like they did 20 years ago when they came with "no leak warranties". Because Roku doesn't want leaking batteries in their box that sat unsold on a store shelf for a year before the consumer bought it.

[–] KpntAutismus 57 points 8 months ago (4 children)

SUPPORT. SMALL. BUSINESSES.

you might not get very price competitive products, but these companies often still have the consumer in mind.

small online shops, phone companies like fairphone (or even nokia), video streaming platforms like floatplane (dankpods is hilarious).

voting with our wallets is pretty much all we can do.

[–] jopepa 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Before you the only time I had heard people “say vote with your wallet”, were from right leaning family members who are now upset about “cancel culture”

Even entertaining that cancel culture is a thing and not just a reductionist view of accountability in general, then what they’d be describing is voting with your dollar on a larger more organized scale.

Pardon my tangent and I completely agree with you.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (2 children)

In addition to this, try to support co-operatives, unionized workplaces, and FOSS development! Even go out of your way to try to reject corporations as much as you can, reduce consumerism, and focus on local organization.

All of these help Workers have more power and build up your community.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (2 children)

TIL Nokia still makes phones

[–] FlyingSquid 22 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Yeah, although I'm not sure why they're calling Nokia a small business. They're a publicly traded corporation and my searching tells me their revenue last year was $25 billion.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (7 children)

I was a bit surprised by that statement as well. When someone says "small business," the first thing I think of is a mom and pop shop.

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[–] RoyaltyInTraining 45 points 8 months ago (4 children)

I love how the capitalists apologist brain rot gets downvoted like crazy in this comment section

[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago

It does in general on Lemmy, given that Lemmy is structured along leftist principles and there's already a Capitalist, centralized Lemmy called Reddit.

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[–] unreasonabro 42 points 8 months ago

but laws

oh they bought those

oh

[–] badbytes 37 points 8 months ago

Eat the rich. They are full of fiber.

[–] recapitated 21 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I have a question. Is this figure accurate?

[–] FlyingSquid 84 points 8 months ago (6 children)

No. It's an exaggeration. But the truth is still obscene:

A 2021 Oxfam report found that collectively, the 10 richest men in the world owned more than the combined wealth of the bottom 3.1 billion people, almost half of the entire world population. Their combined wealth doubled during the pandemic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I do not understand why not a single politician has talked about THIS. Not in the US, not in Europe, I don't hear any politicians about this. If they do, they're whispering because this should be top 5 news next to climate change every day.

[–] return2ozma 13 points 8 months ago

Bernie Sanders has entered the chat

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[–] snekerpimp 16 points 8 months ago (15 children)

Tyler Durden had the right idea. Project Mayhem is what we need.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I'll be out of debt by the end of this year. I'll outright own everything that I've been calling mine. So given my luck this will happen just after I pay off everything.

And I'll still celebrate for the same reason I'd celebrate if everyone's student loans in the US were forgiven even though I paid mine off a while ago. Because it's the best thing for all of us.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Tyler Durden's plan would have only been a reset. The system still remains.

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[–] TodaviaTyler 11 points 8 months ago (3 children)

1 billing USD (in one-dollar-bills) weighs 2,204,622 pounds. How much fiber does that add up to???

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