Comment by giwook

3 hours ago

I think this is an unfortunate consequence of the state of politics in the US (and in many other countries tbh).

Collectively we should really be getting angry with wealth inequality but those with wealth stir up any number of other issues (e.g. race, religion, gender, etc) in order to divert attention from them continuing to get richer at our collective expense.

Those "distractions" would be brought up regardless of any wealth inequality. They're entirely unrelated.

Depending on who you ask, those same topics are considered distractions from any other topic including each other.

What you're really describing is the attention bottleneck in a western democratic society where everybody wants the world to see things their way. That's the wrong mindset for democracy to work. If you want people to believe something it's simple: don't be wrong. Don't be vague and don't be misleading. Stop assuming the opposing side is stupid. Just speak clearly.

We really should blame ourselves for coming to every discussion with trivially incorrect arguments. People are so lazy these days. Slacktivism and terrorism used to be the extremes reserved for the ignorant. We used to shame and mock those people.

> Collectively we should really be getting angry with wealth inequality

But individually we're unable to abandon YouTube, iPhones and Windows 11. America's biggest B2C companies can do whatever they want and we'll all lap it up.

  • You’re not going to believe this but I’m a windows, YouTube and iPhone user, and am still pretty angry at the state of things.

    You can be a customer of large companies and still be angry that large capital holders are tremendously advantaged in many ways.

    • Sure, but as a user don't expect to be able to change anything though, because companies know you won't switch away from their products.

    • Absolutely, I'm highlighting that you're a captive audience and every single FAANG exec knows it when they kiss the Trumpian ring.

      Microsoft, Google and Apple all decided to side with the fed. Your outrage is inconsequential to them, and with the sum they spend on lobbying it's doubtful that your vote even matters to them either.