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I disagree. They do care. They just feel powerless to do anything about it. People across the world are devoting a full third of their waking lives to create we

I disagree. They do care. They just feel powerless to do anything about it. People across the world are devoting a full third of their waking lives to create wealth for those who spend their time and resources devising ways to maintain their positions atop the system.

markus_zhang 5y ago
If one does care but do nothing then he/she doesn't really care. I actually think people are getting used to it bit refuses to admit. BTW I don't blame anyone. I myself feel powerless and know I don't care enough to make real actions.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  > If one does care but do nothing then he/she doesn't really care. I actually think people are getting used to it bit refuses to admit. That makes no sense. "Getting used to it" is a coping mechanism for powerlessness. Of course people care, but they also care about living out the rest of their lives and not sacrificing themselves to a thankless hopeless political cause with unclear solutions.
- crtfvgybh 5y ago
  Is there something you'd suggest they do? If someone feels powerless and cares deeply, but has no actions available to them it feels pretty bad to say, "they don't really care." Like, what are the options? Running for office themselves on a third party ticket? I can't think of anything that isn't a massive investment of time, money, and energy. Yes, they could get involved with organizations like the DSA and try to grow mutual aid networks and voting blocks. They could get involved with unions and push for more collective power. But those are also big time commitments.
robocat 5y ago
> People across the world are devoting a full third of their waking lives to create wealth for those I don’t know where you are living, but it is trivially obvious that the vast majority of my taxes are NOT going to some elite. They couldn’t hide one tenth of your figure without it being obvious - what they do skim is publically known. In New Zealand the vast majority of taxes gets spent on people working for the government and welfare payments to individuals (eg unemployment & pension). This is personally verifiable: I interact with teachers, nurses, retirees, welfare recipients. I see how much money gets spent on large projects, and I see many of the recipients of those funds. I charge government departments for my software. I can estimate the total tax base and I can estimate the total costs. I can read the government accounts, and I can do my own audit analysis estimates of parts of it. I can meet my members of parliament or local politicians. Furthermore: talking about time like that is a fallacy. You belong to an economy and taxes are more like an accounting entry. A teacher might have 100% of their working hours working for the government, while a Facebook employee works zero hours for the government. If you are from the US, your income comes from your economy, not your work as an individual. The government takes a cut, and most people in the world would love to pay the taxes so that they could earn the average US wage. Fuck all people can move between countries and “earn” the same amount - their income depends on the economy they belong to. If you are from the US, then you are the corrupt elite recipient of the taxes of the world poor. Your earnings come indirectly from Google, from unfair patent and copyright systems, from blowing up Afghanis. I am being facetious, but there is some underlying truth to why US citizens have a median income far higher than most others in the world.
- archduck 5y ago
  Forget taxes. The wealthy derive their wealth from capital - ownership of means of making more money. Their involvement with the tax system is chiefly to use their influence to prevent their wealth from being taxed as much as possible - not to profit from it. (Whenever possible, they will seek public investment into their own private projects, but that's not the same as surreptitously siphoning off tax money for their own coffers.)
  - robocat 5y ago
    Here’s a list of the richest people in the world: https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/ https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      Notably absent from the list is Vladmir Putin and the entire House of Saud, which calls into question whether the list contains the actually richest people in the world.
      - redis_mlc 5y ago
        [dead]

markus_zhang 5y ago

If one does care but do nothing then he/she doesn't really care. I actually think people are getting used to it bit refuses to admit. BTW I don't blame anyone. I myself feel powerless and know I don't care enough to make real actions.

nerdponx 5y ago
> If one does care but do nothing then he/she doesn't really care. I actually think people are getting used to it bit refuses to admit. That makes no sense. "Getting used to it" is a coping mechanism for powerlessness. Of course people care, but they also care about living out the rest of their lives and not sacrificing themselves to a thankless hopeless political cause with unclear solutions.
crtfvgybh 5y ago
Is there something you'd suggest they do? If someone feels powerless and cares deeply, but has no actions available to them it feels pretty bad to say, "they don't really care." Like, what are the options? Running for office themselves on a third party ticket? I can't think of anything that isn't a massive investment of time, money, and energy. Yes, they could get involved with organizations like the DSA and try to grow mutual aid networks and voting blocks. They could get involved with unions and push for more collective power. But those are also big time commitments.

robocat 5y ago

> People across the world are devoting a full third of their waking lives to create wealth for those I don’t know where you are living, but it is trivially obvious that the vast majority of my taxes are NOT going to some elite. They couldn’t hide one tenth of your figure without it being obvious - what they do skim is publically known. In New Zealand the vast majority of taxes gets spent on people working for the government and welfare payments to individuals (eg unemployment & pension). This is personally verifiable: I interact with teachers, nurses, retirees, welfare recipients. I see how much money gets spent on large projects, and I see many of the recipients of those funds. I charge government departments for my software. I can estimate the total tax base and I can estimate the total costs. I can read the government accounts, and I can do my own audit analysis estimates of parts of it. I can meet my members of parliament or local politicians. Furthermore: talking about time like that is a fallacy. You belong to an economy and taxes are more like an accounting entry. A teacher might have 100% of their working hours working for the government, while a Facebook employee works zero hours for the government. If you are from the US, your income comes from your economy, not your work as an individual. The government takes a cut, and most people in the world would love to pay the taxes so that they could earn the average US wage. Fuck all people can move between countries and “earn” the same amount - their income depends on the economy they belong to. If you are from the US, then you are the corrupt elite recipient of the taxes of the world poor. Your earnings come indirectly from Google, from unfair patent and copyright systems, from blowing up Afghanis. I am being facetious, but there is some underlying truth to why US citizens have a median income far higher than most others in the world.

archduck 5y ago
Forget taxes. The wealthy derive their wealth from capital - ownership of means of making more money. Their involvement with the tax system is chiefly to use their influence to prevent their wealth from being taxed as much as possible - not to profit from it. (Whenever possible, they will seek public investment into their own private projects, but that's not the same as surreptitously siphoning off tax money for their own coffers.)
- robocat 5y ago
  Here’s a list of the richest people in the world: https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/ https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Notably absent from the list is Vladmir Putin and the entire House of Saud, which calls into question whether the list contains the actually richest people in the world.
    - redis_mlc 5y ago
      [dead]