6 ms·

That cuts both ways, so to speak. Drones and even more advanced technology can replace guillotines as easily as it can be used to have a smaller police force of

by sidlls 6y ago

That cuts both ways, so to speak. Drones and even more advanced technology can replace guillotines as easily as it can be used to have a smaller police force of the kind you mention. I think some people don't quite understand what people are capable of when they are truly desperate. Right now, in most of the western world, people aren't at that point. But when they get there, billionaires' ability to hide on islands or yachts or whatever won't stop the inevitable. Any violent revolution is going to be very bad, even for the very wealthy who think they're insulated/protected.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
Seems very difficult to evade location and transaction tracking, both which governments have very easy access to, but the rank and file do not.
- freehunter 6y ago
  That’s assuming a French Revolution style uprising, which is probably unrealistic. What is very realistic, however, is an increase in “lone wolf” terrorist attacks targeted at rich and/or powerful people. You don’t need a thousand people rolling a guillotine down the street when one person with an off-the-shelf drone could inflict just as much damage. Sure the police would find them quick, but one thing the American military is really bad at is fighting an enemy that doesn’t dress in military gear and shoot back with military weapons in military formation. We’ve seen it recently, where a single man shut down CNN and I think some other news stations just mailing poorly-made bombs to the media and politicians. We’ve seen it decades ago with Oklahoma City. Could a Western population stand up against their government in a real fight? No. Could they inflect the same amount of damage without actually having to stand and fight? We’ve seen it before.
  - dsfyu404ed 6y ago
    Nobody ever won a war of occupation without local support. I have no doubt the US population could stand up to it's government but with the current levels of polarization I don't think that's a realistic scenario.
  - magicsmoke 6y ago
    Individual assassinations don't change the system. How many rich people do you think have to be assassinated for the economic system that allows accumulated wealth inequality of this scale to change? Would killing Bill Gates or Warren Buffet somehow magically reconfigure how American society works? It's much harder to kill a system than it is to kill individual people. Like you hinted at, the American military has had a grand old time trying to kill off radical islam.
    - pmiller2 6y ago
      How many rich people need to be assassinated to change the balance? Looks like it's about 3: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/11/08/billionaires-compared-rest-us-numbers/844720001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/11/08/billionaires... In any case, assassination is probably not the most effective means of wealth redistribution.
      - mcv 6y ago
        Just reverting the tax cuts for the wealthy would already do a lot of good. I also think a steep inheritance tax for inheritances over a certain amount (1 million? 10 million?, 100 million?) to preventing these concentrations of wealth from creating a new aristocracy. But 3 billionaires owning more than the bottom half of the country doesn't have to mean if the bottom half owns nothing: >> "Their $264.1 billion in holdings outstrips the combined net worth of an estimated 160 million people" Simply redistributing that would mean that everybody in the bottom half gets $1600. That's not going to fix poverty. It only underscores just how little that bottom half really has.
        jusssi 6y ago
        The problem with high inheritance tax is that it only hurts the rich when it catches them off guard. In otherwise free economy there are so many legal ways to circumvent inheritance tax for the lowest rate tax that is available.
        6y ago
  - Natsu 6y ago
    > We’ve seen it recently, where a single man shut down CNN and I think some other news stations just mailing poorly-made bombs to the media and politicians. That case always struck me as really odd. That guy was under surveillance the whole time and was caught in a sting operation. I think they even helped him build the devices. For what reason did they actually let him mail them? Surely, given that they were in on the entire plot, they could have simply arrested him before the devices were actually mailed. He only has to take some material step forward in terms of the plot to get arrested for conspiracy as far as the law goes. Letting those reach the mailbox seems like a major failure on their part.
    - crucialfelix 6y ago
      They were rewarded with promotions, published news items celebrating the arrest and increased budgets.
  - tomatotomato37 6y ago
    Don't forget this is also the country where multiple right-wing militias came out of the woodworks and engaged in a standoff against rangers for multiple days over a herd of fucking cattle. And then proceeded to do the whole thing over again in a month long siege over some cabin in a national park. My point being in any destabiliztion event these groups are certainly going to be active, and being that they also have the exact opposite political ethos to the average gulliotine advocate, I'm willing to bet any uprising is not going to be so simple. Think less French Revolution, and more Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia
  - godzillabrennus 6y ago
    History repeats itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing
ajuc 6y ago
System controls internet, phone network, electricity, food and oil delivery. IF you want to stop a revolution in 21st century just shutdown everything and blockade roads. How long till people start dying? A week? What are the rebels gonna do? Assauls tanks and machine guns? Or starve/freeze/cook to death without electricity/oil/food? The American delusion of aremd citizens defending constitution is just that - a delusion. In real life army mops the floor with small minority of suicidal rebels, and the rest begrudgingly return to their usual jobs because it's much better than starving and fearing for life every day.
- Datsundere 6y ago
  Army would at least make things so that us isn’t a laughing joke to the world unlike what the current administration is doing
- orestarod 6y ago
  On the other hand, you have seen the mighty US army not being able to suppress a few guys wearing flip flops in Middle East. So, if things get real nasty you won't have people "begrudgingly returning to their jobs". If that thing is possible to happen, there would BE no revolution in the first place, as the conditions would be not harsh enough.
- neutronicus 6y ago
  This "delusion" is also mostly a straw man in my opinion. Most people who talk seriously about armed rebellion in connection with the second amendment are not talking about attempting a coup, marching on the capital, engaging the military. They're talking about holing up in scattered rural dwellings and ignoring the law, with maybe the occasional terror attack mixed in. The Taliban has made a decent go of such a strategy so I don't it's an altogether risible position as you're implying.
  - ajuc 6y ago
    The Taliban live in a failed state with barely any civilization for decades already. What's to lose? I highly doubt average American will be OK with that.

by sidlls 6y ago

lotsofpulp 6y ago

Seems very difficult to evade location and transaction tracking, both which governments have very easy access to, but the rank and file do not.

freehunter 6y ago
That’s assuming a French Revolution style uprising, which is probably unrealistic. What is very realistic, however, is an increase in “lone wolf” terrorist attacks targeted at rich and/or powerful people. You don’t need a thousand people rolling a guillotine down the street when one person with an off-the-shelf drone could inflict just as much damage. Sure the police would find them quick, but one thing the American military is really bad at is fighting an enemy that doesn’t dress in military gear and shoot back with military weapons in military formation. We’ve seen it recently, where a single man shut down CNN and I think some other news stations just mailing poorly-made bombs to the media and politicians. We’ve seen it decades ago with Oklahoma City. Could a Western population stand up against their government in a real fight? No. Could they inflect the same amount of damage without actually having to stand and fight? We’ve seen it before.
- dsfyu404ed 6y ago
  Nobody ever won a war of occupation without local support. I have no doubt the US population could stand up to it's government but with the current levels of polarization I don't think that's a realistic scenario.
- magicsmoke 6y ago
  Individual assassinations don't change the system. How many rich people do you think have to be assassinated for the economic system that allows accumulated wealth inequality of this scale to change? Would killing Bill Gates or Warren Buffet somehow magically reconfigure how American society works? It's much harder to kill a system than it is to kill individual people. Like you hinted at, the American military has had a grand old time trying to kill off radical islam.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    How many rich people need to be assassinated to change the balance? Looks like it's about 3: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/11/08/billionaires-compared-rest-us-numbers/844720001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/11/08/billionaires... In any case, assassination is probably not the most effective means of wealth redistribution.
    - mcv 6y ago
      Just reverting the tax cuts for the wealthy would already do a lot of good. I also think a steep inheritance tax for inheritances over a certain amount (1 million? 10 million?, 100 million?) to preventing these concentrations of wealth from creating a new aristocracy. But 3 billionaires owning more than the bottom half of the country doesn't have to mean if the bottom half owns nothing: >> "Their $264.1 billion in holdings outstrips the combined net worth of an estimated 160 million people" Simply redistributing that would mean that everybody in the bottom half gets $1600. That's not going to fix poverty. It only underscores just how little that bottom half really has.
      - jusssi 6y ago
        The problem with high inheritance tax is that it only hurts the rich when it catches them off guard. In otherwise free economy there are so many legal ways to circumvent inheritance tax for the lowest rate tax that is available.
        6y ago
- Natsu 6y ago
  > We’ve seen it recently, where a single man shut down CNN and I think some other news stations just mailing poorly-made bombs to the media and politicians. That case always struck me as really odd. That guy was under surveillance the whole time and was caught in a sting operation. I think they even helped him build the devices. For what reason did they actually let him mail them? Surely, given that they were in on the entire plot, they could have simply arrested him before the devices were actually mailed. He only has to take some material step forward in terms of the plot to get arrested for conspiracy as far as the law goes. Letting those reach the mailbox seems like a major failure on their part.
  - crucialfelix 6y ago
    They were rewarded with promotions, published news items celebrating the arrest and increased budgets.
- tomatotomato37 6y ago
  Don't forget this is also the country where multiple right-wing militias came out of the woodworks and engaged in a standoff against rangers for multiple days over a herd of fucking cattle. And then proceeded to do the whole thing over again in a month long siege over some cabin in a national park. My point being in any destabiliztion event these groups are certainly going to be active, and being that they also have the exact opposite political ethos to the average gulliotine advocate, I'm willing to bet any uprising is not going to be so simple. Think less French Revolution, and more Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia
- godzillabrennus 6y ago
  History repeats itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_bombing

ajuc 6y ago

System controls internet, phone network, electricity, food and oil delivery. IF you want to stop a revolution in 21st century just shutdown everything and blockade roads. How long till people start dying? A week? What are the rebels gonna do? Assauls tanks and machine guns? Or starve/freeze/cook to death without electricity/oil/food? The American delusion of aremd citizens defending constitution is just that - a delusion. In real life army mops the floor with small minority of suicidal rebels, and the rest begrudgingly return to their usual jobs because it's much better than starving and fearing for life every day.

Datsundere 6y ago
Army would at least make things so that us isn’t a laughing joke to the world unlike what the current administration is doing
orestarod 6y ago
On the other hand, you have seen the mighty US army not being able to suppress a few guys wearing flip flops in Middle East. So, if things get real nasty you won't have people "begrudgingly returning to their jobs". If that thing is possible to happen, there would BE no revolution in the first place, as the conditions would be not harsh enough.
neutronicus 6y ago
This "delusion" is also mostly a straw man in my opinion. Most people who talk seriously about armed rebellion in connection with the second amendment are not talking about attempting a coup, marching on the capital, engaging the military. They're talking about holing up in scattered rural dwellings and ignoring the law, with maybe the occasional terror attack mixed in. The Taliban has made a decent go of such a strategy so I don't it's an altogether risible position as you're implying.
- ajuc 6y ago
  The Taliban live in a failed state with barely any civilization for decades already. What's to lose? I highly doubt average American will be OK with that.