Comment by paxys
5 hours ago
It isn't even just about money. It's more apparent than ever that freedom, democracy, justice, human rights in this country are increasily reserved for those with the right political alignments.
5 hours ago
It isn't even just about money. It's more apparent than ever that freedom, democracy, justice, human rights in this country are increasily reserved for those with the right political alignments.
The messed up thing is that despite what they think, these dudes will not thrive in the chaotic world they are trying to bring forth.
Why not? They hold all the cards and have aligned one of the most powerful governments in the world with them, while wielding enough money to make almost any nation, let alone individual, more inclined toward doing what they need. They will only become more powerful.
Because they'll turn on each other.
In an authoritarian regime, it's all competition, no co-operation. Whoever the big dog is gets to say what happens, right up until a bunch of the little dogs drag him down and then fight each other to replace him. If he's lucky and skillful he'll have worked this out and kept the little dogs at each other's throats so they don't gang up on him.
The whole operation of government becomes about "who's the boss?" and the boss gets to run the government to favour himself and his cronies, acquiring more power and wealth.
Any pause to consider the ordinary folks caught up in this is a weakness, that will be taken advantage of by the other wannabe bosses.
It's not a utopia for any of them because of the constant paranoia and fighting. Try to rest on your laurels and enjoy the spoils of what you got for a second, and boom; you get thrown out of a window.
Authoritarian regimes don’t run on facts. They run on the primacy of Authority. Cameras record factual information. Facts are inconvenient for Authority. You know, 1984 Department of Truth style.
7 replies →
Because
"When the last tree has fallen
and the rivers are poisoned
you cannot eat money, on no."
-- Aurora, The Seed
Money and power doesn’t make you smarter, in fact it usually makes you dumber. You can have every anti social belief and the intentions of the antichrist, but if you’re smart and run your system well everyone will still benefit.
Yes, that if, the most powerful government stays intact. But as it turns out, tech CEOs want to dissolve the nation state and its government to implement their vision of a utopia. The same nation state, the same government that protect their interests and assets, and make lawfare possible in the first place.
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> Why not? They hold all the cards...
Cards that only work because of the current system that they are hacking away at. Revolutions tend to eat their young, wannabe American oligarchs should check on how things turned out for the majority of post-soviet Russian oligarchs.
The imperial boomerang will ensure they self-destruct.
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Cards can always be taken with violence. Chaos is progression to a state of all versus all, where the most important thing is having the biggest wrench: https://xkcd.com/538/.
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Yes the rich have "all the cards" but the thing about societal reorganization is things get completely flip-flopped and the fact society recognizes you as owning a mansion and a screw factory today doesn't mean that they won't recognize Castro's lieutenant as controlling it tomorrow.
Possessions that are "yours" are only yours insofar as you can either defend it or others recognize it as yours. Thus you end up with situations like "Barbeque" in Haiti owning the streets and much of the rich's land/assets are now magically in the hands of barbeque or his crew and whatever money that one thought they could use to resist that turned out to not be their money anymore. The "rich" thus still hold all the cards but who is rich and who isn't isn't the same as when it started.
Why not? We have examples from history to look at.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_So...
> Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov (Russian: Николай Иванович Ежов, IPA: [nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ (j)ɪˈʐof]; 1 May 1895 – 4 February 1940), also spelt Ezhov, was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938, at the height of the Great Purge. Yezhov organized mass arrests, torture, and executions during the Great Purge, but he fell out of favour with Stalin and was arrested, subsequently admitting in a confession to a range of anti-Soviet activity including "unfounded arrests" during the Purge. He was executed in 1940 along with others who were blamed for the Purge.
This guy was head of the secret police, didn’t help him out when he was purged aka murdered.
No, just the right amount of wealth.
Which also tends to lean on a political set. But poor people will be deprived of their liberties be them left or right. For those useful to power it will take just a little bit longer to notice.
Same as it's ever been. When the founders of this country cried about freedom, they meant for themselves to not pay taxes that would cover their debts, not freedom for their slaves or lower-class Americans. After all if you are at the top, then you are literally free to do as you wish
It’s not so much about political alignment as much as it’s about your bank account.
Apple has more cash reserves on hand than most countries do and yet its CEO had to scramble to stand behind Trump during the inauguration and offer a million-dollar tribute to stay in his good graces. Power > money.
He didn't have to do a single damn thing. He did the cost-benefit analysis and chose to cozy up to a corrupt administration.
Given how much the typical Apple consumer skews left and has extreme brand loyalty, if Apple got tariffed simply because Tim failed to bow down, Apple would be in a stronger position to fight it than any other tech company. They could have stood up, but chose not to.
And worst of all he had to watch "Melania"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melania_(film)#Release
Not really.