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’??

  • ragingHungryPanda@piefed.keyboardvagabond.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    5 hours ago

    the thing is, normal was always heading in this direction. Capitalism consolidates power into the hands of a few and it keeps consolidating. It will always yield toward more poverty, though for some at home they can wealthier off the exploitation of others.

    I get what you mean, but going back to normal will get you right back here in a few years or decades.

    I think that the answer is socialism. But for sure, pretty much nobody believes that anyone should have the wealth and power that our capitalists do.

  • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 hours ago

    We need more Luigi’s. Make it culturally acceptable to kill rich people. If they feel fear, they behave.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      4 hours ago

      As cool as Luigi is, as long as capitalists dominate the economy, they will just develop ever-more draconian security measures to protect themselves. What we need is organization, so that we can replace the system they draw their dominance from with socialism, putting the people in power.

      • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 hours ago

        The power structure that currently exists prevents such representation. It can’t be reasoned with. It must be removed forcibly first.

        The real problem is ensuring what fills such a power vacuum isn’t worse.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          2 hours ago

          All states represent a given class in society. In capitalism, that’s the big capitalists. In socialism, that’s the working classes. Successful revolution requires creating a mass, working-class organization, and ensuring it’s linked to the broader working classes and earns their trust and support. Without the working-class organization, we are reduced to directionless protesting, and without the backing of the people, a working-class party can do nothing. Socialism works.

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    5 hours ago

    The capitalist world has always been run by capitalists. We do what leftists have been trying to do for centuries, organize the working classes to institute socialism. There is no way to “go back to normal,” there has never been a time in capitalism where the people have been in charge. Rather than letting a tiny subsections of society, the most ruthless plunderers and scoundrels run society, the people should be able to run society for the benefit of all.

    Join a worker-run party! Educate yourself on theory, agitate among the people, and get organized!

    If you want a place to start with theory, I wrote a basic course on Marxism-Leninism you can check out.

  • greenbit@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    edit-2
    11 hours ago

    We’ve never known normal. This runs back to the beginning of “civilization”. I don’t know what’s next but some things probably need to happen; connecting with others, stopping following the old rules, removal of the toxic members perpetuating this, building something new with different principles

  • Asofon@discuss.online
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    26
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    5 hours ago

    Post about it on the internet built upon tech enabled by the said class in today’s world, from devices sold to us by the said class in today’s world, in our homes with comforts the existence of which wouldn’t be possible without the said class in today’s world. Then go to work using infrastructure and means we wouldn’t have without the said class in today’s world, likely doing work we wouldn’t have without the said class in today’s world. Perhaps go buy some food the likes of which we couldn’t dream of having access to without the said class in today’s world. Maybe indulge in a hobby - a leisurely distraction, the kind that only exists because the said class engineered today’s world where you have time and resources to waste on frivolity, while they decide what those resources are.

    Anyone who wants to hold on to the comforts of modern life will have next to no power to make a change happen. Most of the money you spend goes into their pockets. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

    Option is to reduce spending, start exchanging favors without money (or develop your own currency with your friends) and if you have to spend money, prefer local goods and small services. Learn to fix things instead of buying new stuff. Offer community, food and fun to people with as little money investment as possible.

    Make it work for you and people immediately around you. Get it to spread. This goes triple for you tankies out there. If you can’t get this to work at a small level, you will not bring about systematic change. The game is theirs, it’s rigged against you and bless your sweet honey heart, you somehow think you can win.

    Not saying this is what I think everyone must do. I’ll be dead soon enough and I don’t have kids. But I am saying that if YOU want to see a change in the system, you need to start playing a different game that isn’t built on money.

    • Hadriscus@jlai.lu
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      12 hours ago

      I like your encouragements but I don’t see how any of what you list is made impossible by the absence of the ruling class? if anything the class struggle is vastly slowing down progress

      • Asofon@discuss.online
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        8 hours ago

        I might be misunderstanding you but there seems to be an assumption that I’m making the claim that the kind of modern life we have can’t be possible without capitalism. I am not. It’s completely irrelevant to me (and my point).

        If people want to insist that a world like ours can be possible while resources are shared equally, great. I have nothing against making the attempt at that, please do. But that’s not the world we live in right now. The world we currently find ourselves is the one where capitalism has made all the luxuries etc. possible, and we are very habituated to it. To the point that many people are reluctant to let any of that go, while simultaneously demanding for a systematic change. Hence the “can’t have your cake and eat it too”. People are demanding revolution but precious few have any actually actionable suggestions on how to bring that about. I’m suggesting things that anyone can do by themselves, as much as is possible for them. Doing those things doesn’t require that everyone agrees with you, because you start with yourself. It doesn’t require a massive systematic change, because again, you start with yourself.

        If anyone has suggestions on concrete actions to take to bring about massive systematic change, please let me know. Let everyone know. But keep in mind you’d have to persuade people that it’s going to work and it’s a better system. Revolution is very easy on paper.

    • Pinetten@pawb.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      20 hours ago

      Well fucking said. Everyone’s ready to bitch about the system, until you ask them to live anywhere near like the people who are actually getting crushed by it. The performative outrage in this thread is a bad joke to the people who build our phones, sew our clothes, and mine our lithium. To them, we’re not revolutionaries. We’re the elite’s pampered pets, barking at the leash but gladly gobbling up all the treats they throw at us. People are getting mad about AI: guess fucking what, the outrage itself is a treat. The Epstein files are a treat. Anything that keeps you glued to the screen, ignoring everything that is actually around you is a treat. It’s your programmed Two Minutes of Hate.

      Revolutions happen with real people willing to make sacrifices, working together and giving others real, tangible reasons to want to support them. Not by bitching online about how very awful it is. You want a revolution? Try going a week without buying anything. Try getting relationships instead of likes. But no, it’s easier to scream into the void and call it resistance, isn’t it? The system thanks you for your compliance.

    • my_hat_stinks@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      12 hours ago

      Are you not aware of how, for example, car lobbies destroyed public infrastructure in an attempt to make everything car dependant to sell more cars? Claiming any of these things only exist because of billionaires is absurd. They take over and destroy.

      • Asofon@discuss.online
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        11 hours ago

        Claiming any of these things only exist because of billionaires is absurd. They take over and destroy.

        But if they ‘took over,’ then by definition, the things that exist now - including the infrastructure you’re using to complain about them - exist because they allowed it. What you (and !Feyd@programming.dev ) have actually described is a world where billionaires are both all-powerful and completely irrelevant. That’s not a critique. That’s a paradox. And it’s a useful one because it lets you feel angry without actually taking any concrete action.

        After all the Quanon stuff and the general population increasing their awareness of how conspiratorial thinking works, it’s weird to see “my side” use the same rhetorical tactics:

        https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Definitions_of_fascism&useskin=vector#Umberto_Eco

        “Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as “at the same time too strong and too weak”. On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.”

        • my_hat_stinks@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          9 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
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            8 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
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              5
              ·
              8 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
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  3
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  7 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?

    • Feyd@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      8
      ·
      18 hours ago

      wouldn’t be possible without the said class.

      This is complete and utter bullshit. Like technology and infrastructure is impossible without billionaires. They are leeches and are not structurally significant for any reason than that we let them be.

  • Feyd@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    33
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 day ago

    This isn’t new information to the majority of people who care. The trick is mobilizing society to do something about it (like general strike). You may be newly awakened, but the majority still are not.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    40
    arrow-down
    12
    ·
    1 day ago

    if you’re like me you’ve used various AI

    1. Stop using the fucking “ai” that those same billionaires are burning the planet down to use to shove misinformation down your throat for fucks sake

    2. Start paying attention to what people who didn’t just figure this out have been saying for generations about this.

    3. Stop using AI.

    4. Seriously, stop using AI, it already sounds like its leading you down some crazy conspiracy rabbit hole that ends up blaming anyone except the billionaires who own the AIs and are actually the problem.

    • Pinetten@pawb.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      14
      ·
      20 hours ago

      Oh, what performative purity. You’re typing that on a device built by slave labor, powered by a grid they own, through an internet they control. But sure, AI is where you draw the line, how very principled of you. You still think you’re not part of the machine just because you’re picking which cog to hate today. Congrats, you’ve mastered the art of feeling superior while changing nothing.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        20 hours ago

        Oh wow.

        I never thought I’d see a real one of these:

        https://thenib.imgix.net/usq/8688038d-f99b-4224-872b-b8dd626f868c/mister-gotcha-4-9faefa.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&cs=srgb&_=9faefab75c06b49cfcf18e1394c50376

        AI really does just recycle past zeitgeists doesn’t it?

        Are you concerned that reliance on AI will perpetually put you months or even years behind the rest of humanity?

        Or is it like people who don’t watch a show till all the episodes or even seasons are out?

          • Pinetten@pawb.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            19 hours ago

            It’s very telling. He fancies himself to be on the same level as a medieval peasant doing manual labor. While there are actually people out there living under such conditions (and worse), and we actively benefit from it. Peak bourgeois slacktivist meme.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            19 hours ago

            That’s more surprising to you then someone authentically saying it?

            I guess someone pointing it out that it’s exactly like the meme, can only happen after someone does.

            But that would be like hearing someone say “look a Sasquatch” and you bragging about how rare it is to hear someone say that after actually seeing a sasquatch.

            • PosiePoser@feddit.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              19 hours ago

              No, I’m surprised to see someone post the meme thinking they are the clever one in the exchange lol