By now we’ve all seen the ‘files’, if you’re like me you’ve used various AI to cross-reference them with other things like financial crashes, who else might be a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th degree connections, where do they work, etc etc etc and at the end of it you see the web of parasitic elites running our society.

How do we just go back to ‘normal’??

  • my_hat_stinks@programming.dev
    35·
    14 hours ago

    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.

    • Asofon@discuss.online
      62·
      13 hours ago

      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.

      • my_hat_stinks@programming.dev
        25·
        13 hours ago

        No, I’m arguing against direct quotes from you. Unless you yourself are a strawman.

        Post about it on the internet built upon tech enabled by the said class

        Built by academics to share research, expanded by hobbyists and enthusiasts, and taken over by megacorps. Not “enabled” by billionaires.

        , from devices sold to us by the said class

        Technically true, but only in that billionaires own the workers.

        , in our homes with comforts the existence of which wouldn’t be possible without the said class.

        Untrue. People can live in comfort without the existence of billionaires.

        Then go to work using infrastructure and means we wouldn’t have without the said class,

        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.

        likely doing work we wouldn’t have without the said class.

        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.

        Perhaps go buy some food the likes of which we couldn’t dream of having access to without the said class.

        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?

        Maybe indulge in a hobby - a leisurely distraction, the kind that only exists because the said class engineered a world where you have time and resources to waste on frivolity, while they decide what those resources are.

        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.

          • my_hat_stinks@programming.dev
            23·
            11 hours ago

            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?

            • Asofon@discuss.online
              62·
              10 hours ago

              Noted, you have successfully got me to edit my first post. I await the results of this revolution.

                • Asofon@discuss.online
                  31·
                  9 hours ago

                  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.

                • my_hat_stinks@programming.dev
                  12·
                  8 hours ago

                  No, that’s just the objectionable part because that’s the part pretending billionaires are responsible for everything good.