4 ms·
It’s more that the Internet can enable the kind of coordination that a mass movement to revoke power needs.
by ggg9990 9y ago
It’s more that the Internet can enable the kind of coordination that a mass movement to revoke power needs.
- killjoywashere 9y agoOil could have enabled that kind of coordiation too, how'd that work out? For a mass movement, you need lots of leaders (of people) to band together and agree to steer the ship in a specific direction.
- ggg9990 9y agoHm? Oil isn’t a communications medium.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y agoNot with that attitude its not.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- confounded 9y agoAnd centralized surveillance, censorship, and control, too.
- jstarfish 9y agoIt can, but it doesn't. If anything it drives divisiveness on a scale we've never seen before. Before the internet it used to take 10-20 years to foment discord against a particular group. Now we have a new boogeyman every 18 months and it's always other plebes or pariahs-- never the ruling elite.
- saget 9y agoMartin Shkreli, Harvey Weinstein, Wall Street protests, and probably others that I forget were aided by the Internet. Hopefully it will become a bigger trend in the future.
- glenneroo 9y agoDon't forget Wikileaks, et al., e.g. Snowden, Manning, Panama Papers, etc. Arab Spring and resulting unrest in Middle East countries is also notable (related I suppose to Wall street protests?). Thankfully we still have privacy tools like Signal, TOR, Wikileaks, etc. to facilitate these things.
- jstarfish 9y agoThat's my point though-- throw the occasional unsympathetic high-profile lamb under the bus so the bourgies act like they police their own. These individuals are distractions, nothing more. Shkreli literally launched a sortie against the plebes by means of his obscene price gouging (which isn't even what put him in jail-- if not for his crimes against the elite, he'd be a free man!), and prolific sex offenders like Weinstein simply cannot be defended-- like Roman Polanski and Bill Cosby, he's just beyond redemption. Meanwhile: * All the internet attention in the world (or the Wall Street protests) didn't result in anyone responsible for the 2008 economic meltdowns seeing the inside of a courtroom for anything more than a deposition. * The Wells Fargo C-level who encouraged half the company to commit fraud walked away with a severance package. * The Equifax CEO walked away with a severance package after the largest consumer data breach in US history. * Mitt Romney made a personal fortune bankrupting companies and decimating the retirement plans of their associated employees. Then he ran for president. * Snowden released a bunch of documents confirming what a lot of us already believed, which caused some commotion and pit half the country against itself in a philosophical war over whether his actions were heroic or traitorous. Meanwhile while that pointless debate raged, life at the NSA continued under new project names and tighter controls. Of all of the damage these individuals caused, only Snowden, a commoner, has a warrant out for his arrest. Of all of these, only Snowden's actions had no impact on the average American. We squabble on Facebook about his pointless actions while we're actively being fleeced by the other four guys. Plenty of attention has been drawn to these matters. But nothing changes. Internet outrage is cheap and divisive.
- ggg9990 9y agoShkreli’s crime was raising the price tenfold at once, and boasting about it, instead of the good old boy’s method of 20% per year and keeping quiet.