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The productivity increases of the modern times led to a corporate class. These oligarchs have eschewed the progressive initiatives, in eager pursuit of even gre

The productivity increases of the modern times led to a corporate class. These oligarchs have eschewed the progressive initiatives, in eager pursuit of even greater wealth, supported by the wholly owned media and a bribed political class. What has been more evenly distributed globally is the ever-growing poverty, pollution and apathy against these powers. To be fair, some improvements have been made, even at the feet of these giants, driven by government action and populist initiatives. This has been at the cost of concentration and increases in pollution and poverty in the poorest nations. The future looks bleak today, as the divide grows and progressive progress has all but halted.

ryandrake 2y ago
We're all so pessimistic about the future not because we think it's going to be captured by the plutocrats and oligarchs, but because we know the future has already been preemptively captured by them. They're all doing the work now to cement their positions in the future, and there's nothing the rest of us can do about it. I don't know what great inventions and technological leaps we are going to see in 2030, 2040, or 2050, but what I do know is that the benefits and wealth from them will be captured by the same class that is capturing everything today.
- deadbabe 2y ago
  That’s what they want us to believe. But at the end of the day, we can always fight. There’s little they can do to stop a massive violent uprising.
  - TOGoS 2y ago
    Or a massive not-violent one. Just stop working. The ruling class will bring the violence soon enough.
    - vouaobrasil 2y ago
      > Or a massive not-violent one. Just stop working. Can't happen. As soon as significantly many people stop working, the remaining will be offered larger salaries to keep working. That is why revolution against the modern power structure is so hard: because there are economic incentives against revolution for the working class.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - downWidOutaFite 2y ago
    There's plenty they can do. For one, control all your media (for example banning of tiktok, since chinese oligarchs are not aligned with our oligarchs), with control over media they can prevent your message from getting out (e.g. Luigi Mangione's manifesto being disappeared), or if the message does get out they can spread propaganda to turn the population against you (see, BLM and many other movements). Also they can remove all your privacy so that any subversive action has a high social cost such as losing your job. Also they can overspend on a stifling police state even as surveillance and control tools get better and cheaper. Really, they're getting better and better at this, they have tons of practice and their population control tools are getting better.
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    > That’s what they want us to believe. But at the end of the day, we can always fight. There’s little they can do to stop a massive violent uprising. The problem with revolution in today's society is that it will be a revolution against a system that provides little trivial comforts, rather than a revolution against a system causing starvation. Thus, it will take much more work to revolt, as it is a revolution against technology itself.
  - ThrowawayR2 2y ago
    As a HN reader most likely making 2x, 3x, 4x or more the median wage, _you_ are part of the overpaid techbros they will be leveling the "massive violent uprising"(sic) against. The working class and poor know darned well we aren't part of the proletariat.
    - hackable_sand 2y ago
      You sure about that class strata? I'm a software developer but I work in a factory making minimum wage now. I can barely afford rent. I certainly don't feel like bourgeois.
- dsign 2y ago
  > I don't know what great inventions and technological leaps we are going to see in 2030, 2040, or 2050, but what I do know is that the benefits and wealth from them will be captured by the same class that is capturing everything today. I have good news and bad news. The world doesn't stand still. There are some iterations that destroy the structure of society, after which a new structure must be built. The oligarchies of today will meet their end at some point. And, no amount of preemptive effort can prevent that. That's as the good news go, in as much as they are good news. These are not my ideas exclusively. If you want to hear them from people that has dedicated a fair amount of time at exploring this subject and gathering data, I recommend these books: - Capital in the Twenty-First Century, for an overview of historical change. You will find that the author agrees with you in many accounts. - The Collapse of Complex Societies, by Josph A. Tainter. - Principles for dealing with the changing world order. The bad news is that the most likely iteration coming around the corner is human's lost of control of our societies in favor of machine intelligence. It's not going to be as "peaceful" as the rise of the post WWII world order, but I hope that we survive.
- shadowerm 2y ago
  As if all us peasants are using rotary phones while the plutocrats and oligarchs have these expensive iphones. What is actually interesting is while the plutocrats and oligarchs have more leg room and better food on their private jet, the airplane itself doesn't move that much faster than me in coach. You simply underestimate the financial mass of the mass market. These plutocrats and oligarchs only exist as part of a system with an even bigger mass market. This time is not different.
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    > As if all us peasants are using rotary phones while the plutocrats and oligarchs have these expensive iphones. What is interesting is that expensive iPhones are really not that great for society in the first place. It is not that they have iPhones and we don't. Rather, it is that we have iPhones and that is how we are controlled and the return isn't worht it.
  - throwawayqqq11 2y ago
    They are working on automation to replace the bigger system, they rely on. China just rolled out a police drone, even though china has more than enough people to train for that job. This is where my dystopian nightmare begins. Autonomous weapon systems, so targeted and unlimited in reach and capability, that no number of civilians thrown into the frey will make a difference. A single machine gun could have stopped the french revolution, and yes, i think humans are very much capable of pressing that button.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  > I don't know what great inventions and technological leaps we are going to see in 2030, 2040, or 2050, but what I do know is that the benefits and wealth from them will be captured by the same class that is capturing everything today. Due to the laws of diminishing returns, the inventions aren't going to be that great and in fact actively destructive as we are basically running the world on innovation, rather than creating innovation for the world.
JKCalhoun 2y ago
"Soylent Green" seems more and more prescient. I'm not talking about turning people into food — not even the over-population fracas depicted in the film (that seems to have been a distinctly 70's-era fear). Seeing the film again I notice the way it portrays the untouchable wealthy classes (briefly) and then the rest of us. (I should read the book [1] because I was intrigued by little scenes like the one with the old people in the library — if you even remember that bit.) [1] "Make Room! Make Room!" by Harry Harrison
android521 2y ago
without the so called "corporate class" or capitalists and their relentless effort to pursue wealth, everyone would be worse off today. Billons died from communist wet stream in the 20 century but the lessons are still not learned. Yes, government regulation is important but capitalism is the reason why millions of people are not starving today unlike any other periods in time.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > Billons died from communist wet stream in the 20 century but the lessons are still not learned Billions didn't. USSR census population in 1989 was only 286 million total, while the Holodomor and the Cambodian genocide combined were between 4.4-8 million. And the Holodomor (and broader famine in the rest of the USSR) looks suspiciously similar to the failure mode of the British government with the Irish potato famine and the Indian famines under British rule, each of which played a part in those people wanting independence, as does the Chinese great leap forward's 15-55 million. Even with those, and the Chinese famine happened so soon into a transition away from agrarian society that to me it seems more like a tragedy than a consequence, it's still not billions. No, what saved billions from starvation is fertiliser, and policies of subsidising over-production so that the bad harvest years food is merely expensive rather than insufficient. If it was "capitalism", then the Lassiez faire British empire wouldn't have had the Irish potato famine nor would the East India Company have been in charge for so many famines in India.
  - daveit2 2y ago
    20 million white Christians were exterminated and this was not an accident. Get your figures right.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      I've not seen any sources claiming such a large number; hundreds of thousands targeted specifically due to their religion and over all races combined, but not millions. 20 million targeted by both race and religion would have been a bigger thing than the actual literal holocaust.
kiba 2y ago
It's so easy to blame it all on the feet of oligarchs, but it is ultimately our collective responsibility. The democrats lost the popular vote. Think about that. Progress, or even the status quo as it is today is rejected by half of the population.
- mandmandam 2y ago
  As if Democrats aren't owned by oligarchs. Look at who funds them. Look what they do, instead of what they say.
  - kiba 2y ago
    I don't see how that matter. There was a meaningful choice.
    - mandmandam 2y ago
      There were some 'meaningful' differences (mostly in their rhetoric, but still) on some important issues. However, when both 'choices' are openly supporting a live-streamed genocide, then any 'meaning' in the choice is only for people willing to endorse Nazi-level crimes. ... Not Godwinning here, that's just a simple fact; backed up by basically every human rights organization, and the UN, and billions in unguided bombs, etc. That's why turnout for the Dems was so much lower, as polls and protests had unambiguously promised would be the case. That and the economy, which Democrats insisted is great even as people struggle to survive. Dumb strategy, but the strategists still got paid so... Democrats used to say, "Not everyone who votes for Trump is a racist - but they all decided it wasn't a dealbreaker"... Well, genocide is quite a bit worse than racism - even if you try to relabel it as 'sparkling ethnic cleansing lite', or 'deserved', or whatever. And here we are wondering why the future feels fucked up... Smh
      - kiba 2y ago
        I am not really going to argue on the issue of Palestine since that is apparently what you refer to, only to say that I still think there's a meaningful difference. That's why turnout for the Dems was so much lower, as polls and protests had unambiguously promised would be the case. That and the economy, which Democrats insisted is great even as people struggle to survive. Dumb strategy, but the strategists still got paid so... Regardless of the Democrat's strategic mistakes, you can't avoid the responsibility of voters, who are supposed to be well informed, well educated, and difficult to fool. Democratic shooting ourselves in the foot is a collective sin.
lkbm 2y ago
> This has been at the cost of concentration and increases in pollution and poverty in the poorest nations. Poverty is way down globally. Poor nations are far from where they need to be, but we've lifted a billion or so people out of abject poverty in my lifetime. Don't let a determination to believe everything is bad force you to ignore when things get better.
- circlefavshape 2y ago
  Just an illustration of this https://www.statista.com/statistics/1341003/poverty-rate-world/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1341003/poverty-rate-wor... "nearly 38 percent of the world's population lived on less than 2.15 U.S. dollars in terms of 2017 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in 1990, this had fallen to 8.7 percent in 2022"
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  > Don't let a determination to believe everything is bad force you to ignore when things get better. A decrease in poverty in this case though is traded by an increased addiction to what the oligarch provides. Is an entire society in a dystopia that provides the basic physical comforts but strips us of meaning in life a good end? I think not.
slibhb 2y ago
This attitude is so common. It's obviously wrong. Humanity is richer and freer than ever. Here's a theory of why people spend so much time railing against modernity, capitalism, and "the corporate class": Humans used to have to labor all to avoid starvation. There were few choices and most of us we died in the town where we were born. Compare to today -- now, we have incredible freedom, cheap and delicious food, cheap ubiquitous entertainment, are more or less immune to the elements, and have tons of free time. But all of this freedom and plenty has forced us to make choices, and it turns out people aren't good at making choices. We struggle to not gorge ourselves on food or waste years of our lives on insipid entertainment. We would like to exercise, eat right, read books, learn things, contribute meaningfully to our areas of interest -- but most of us don't. Worse, we have no excuse for our choices because we are almost completely free. This dynamic leads to a situation where people hate modernity. Partly because making choices is hard and partly because our freedom makes it clear that our bad choices are our own fault. And so people long for a return to un-freedom. Many of us would rather be poor and starving than to have to make choices and face our own inadequacies.
- Teever 2y ago
  No, people hate modern society because they understand that although things are better than they were they aren't nearly as good as they could be if it wasn't for rampant and unchecked corruption. What's worse is that people know that whole ecosystems and stable climate patterns are slipping away and will likely never come back.
  - circlefavshape 2y ago
    > people hate modern society because they understand that although things are better than they were they aren't nearly as good as they could be How do you know how good things "could be"? Just because you can imagine something doesn't mean it's possible
    - Teever 2y ago
      That's just another way of saying that the way things are is optimal, and that we as a society have reached perfection, that we're doing our best. That is blatantly wrong. Better is always possible and the people who steal and cheat the system are the ones who deny that better world for us all. The Hitlers, the Putins, the Kochs and Epsteins and Madoffs of the world have made the world far worse than it needs to be for the absolutely worst personal reasons.
gessha 2y ago
“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.” Ursula Le Guin https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ursulakleguinnationalbookawardspeech.htm https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ursulakleguinnatio...

ryandrake 2y ago

We're all so pessimistic about the future not because we think it's going to be captured by the plutocrats and oligarchs, but because we know the future has already been preemptively captured by them. They're all doing the work now to cement their positions in the future, and there's nothing the rest of us can do about it. I don't know what great inventions and technological leaps we are going to see in 2030, 2040, or 2050, but what I do know is that the benefits and wealth from them will be captured by the same class that is capturing everything today.

deadbabe 2y ago
That’s what they want us to believe. But at the end of the day, we can always fight. There’s little they can do to stop a massive violent uprising.
- TOGoS 2y ago
  Or a massive not-violent one. Just stop working. The ruling class will bring the violence soon enough.
  - vouaobrasil 2y ago
    > Or a massive not-violent one. Just stop working. Can't happen. As soon as significantly many people stop working, the remaining will be offered larger salaries to keep working. That is why revolution against the modern power structure is so hard: because there are economic incentives against revolution for the working class.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- downWidOutaFite 2y ago
  There's plenty they can do. For one, control all your media (for example banning of tiktok, since chinese oligarchs are not aligned with our oligarchs), with control over media they can prevent your message from getting out (e.g. Luigi Mangione's manifesto being disappeared), or if the message does get out they can spread propaganda to turn the population against you (see, BLM and many other movements). Also they can remove all your privacy so that any subversive action has a high social cost such as losing your job. Also they can overspend on a stifling police state even as surveillance and control tools get better and cheaper. Really, they're getting better and better at this, they have tons of practice and their population control tools are getting better.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  > That’s what they want us to believe. But at the end of the day, we can always fight. There’s little they can do to stop a massive violent uprising. The problem with revolution in today's society is that it will be a revolution against a system that provides little trivial comforts, rather than a revolution against a system causing starvation. Thus, it will take much more work to revolt, as it is a revolution against technology itself.
- ThrowawayR2 2y ago
  As a HN reader most likely making 2x, 3x, 4x or more the median wage, _you_ are part of the overpaid techbros they will be leveling the "massive violent uprising"(sic) against. The working class and poor know darned well we aren't part of the proletariat.
  - hackable_sand 2y ago
    You sure about that class strata? I'm a software developer but I work in a factory making minimum wage now. I can barely afford rent. I certainly don't feel like bourgeois.
dsign 2y ago
> I don't know what great inventions and technological leaps we are going to see in 2030, 2040, or 2050, but what I do know is that the benefits and wealth from them will be captured by the same class that is capturing everything today. I have good news and bad news. The world doesn't stand still. There are some iterations that destroy the structure of society, after which a new structure must be built. The oligarchies of today will meet their end at some point. And, no amount of preemptive effort can prevent that. That's as the good news go, in as much as they are good news. These are not my ideas exclusively. If you want to hear them from people that has dedicated a fair amount of time at exploring this subject and gathering data, I recommend these books: - Capital in the Twenty-First Century, for an overview of historical change. You will find that the author agrees with you in many accounts. - The Collapse of Complex Societies, by Josph A. Tainter. - Principles for dealing with the changing world order. The bad news is that the most likely iteration coming around the corner is human's lost of control of our societies in favor of machine intelligence. It's not going to be as "peaceful" as the rise of the post WWII world order, but I hope that we survive.
shadowerm 2y ago
As if all us peasants are using rotary phones while the plutocrats and oligarchs have these expensive iphones. What is actually interesting is while the plutocrats and oligarchs have more leg room and better food on their private jet, the airplane itself doesn't move that much faster than me in coach. You simply underestimate the financial mass of the mass market. These plutocrats and oligarchs only exist as part of a system with an even bigger mass market. This time is not different.
- vouaobrasil 2y ago
  > As if all us peasants are using rotary phones while the plutocrats and oligarchs have these expensive iphones. What is interesting is that expensive iPhones are really not that great for society in the first place. It is not that they have iPhones and we don't. Rather, it is that we have iPhones and that is how we are controlled and the return isn't worht it.
- throwawayqqq11 2y ago
  They are working on automation to replace the bigger system, they rely on. China just rolled out a police drone, even though china has more than enough people to train for that job. This is where my dystopian nightmare begins. Autonomous weapon systems, so targeted and unlimited in reach and capability, that no number of civilians thrown into the frey will make a difference. A single machine gun could have stopped the french revolution, and yes, i think humans are very much capable of pressing that button.
vouaobrasil 2y ago
> I don't know what great inventions and technological leaps we are going to see in 2030, 2040, or 2050, but what I do know is that the benefits and wealth from them will be captured by the same class that is capturing everything today. Due to the laws of diminishing returns, the inventions aren't going to be that great and in fact actively destructive as we are basically running the world on innovation, rather than creating innovation for the world.

JKCalhoun 2y ago

"Soylent Green" seems more and more prescient. I'm not talking about turning people into food — not even the over-population fracas depicted in the film (that seems to have been a distinctly 70's-era fear). Seeing the film again I notice the way it portrays the untouchable wealthy classes (briefly) and then the rest of us. (I should read the book [1] because I was intrigued by little scenes like the one with the old people in the library — if you even remember that bit.) [1] "Make Room! Make Room!" by Harry Harrison

android521 2y ago

without the so called "corporate class" or capitalists and their relentless effort to pursue wealth, everyone would be worse off today. Billons died from communist wet stream in the 20 century but the lessons are still not learned. Yes, government regulation is important but capitalism is the reason why millions of people are not starving today unlike any other periods in time.

ben_w 2y ago
> Billons died from communist wet stream in the 20 century but the lessons are still not learned Billions didn't. USSR census population in 1989 was only 286 million total, while the Holodomor and the Cambodian genocide combined were between 4.4-8 million. And the Holodomor (and broader famine in the rest of the USSR) looks suspiciously similar to the failure mode of the British government with the Irish potato famine and the Indian famines under British rule, each of which played a part in those people wanting independence, as does the Chinese great leap forward's 15-55 million. Even with those, and the Chinese famine happened so soon into a transition away from agrarian society that to me it seems more like a tragedy than a consequence, it's still not billions. No, what saved billions from starvation is fertiliser, and policies of subsidising over-production so that the bad harvest years food is merely expensive rather than insufficient. If it was "capitalism", then the Lassiez faire British empire wouldn't have had the Irish potato famine nor would the East India Company have been in charge for so many famines in India.
- daveit2 2y ago
  20 million white Christians were exterminated and this was not an accident. Get your figures right.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    I've not seen any sources claiming such a large number; hundreds of thousands targeted specifically due to their religion and over all races combined, but not millions. 20 million targeted by both race and religion would have been a bigger thing than the actual literal holocaust.

kiba 2y ago

It's so easy to blame it all on the feet of oligarchs, but it is ultimately our collective responsibility. The democrats lost the popular vote. Think about that. Progress, or even the status quo as it is today is rejected by half of the population.

mandmandam 2y ago
As if Democrats aren't owned by oligarchs. Look at who funds them. Look what they do, instead of what they say.
- kiba 2y ago
  I don't see how that matter. There was a meaningful choice.
  - mandmandam 2y ago
    There were some 'meaningful' differences (mostly in their rhetoric, but still) on some important issues. However, when both 'choices' are openly supporting a live-streamed genocide, then any 'meaning' in the choice is only for people willing to endorse Nazi-level crimes. ... Not Godwinning here, that's just a simple fact; backed up by basically every human rights organization, and the UN, and billions in unguided bombs, etc. That's why turnout for the Dems was so much lower, as polls and protests had unambiguously promised would be the case. That and the economy, which Democrats insisted is great even as people struggle to survive. Dumb strategy, but the strategists still got paid so... Democrats used to say, "Not everyone who votes for Trump is a racist - but they all decided it wasn't a dealbreaker"... Well, genocide is quite a bit worse than racism - even if you try to relabel it as 'sparkling ethnic cleansing lite', or 'deserved', or whatever. And here we are wondering why the future feels fucked up... Smh
    - kiba 2y ago
      I am not really going to argue on the issue of Palestine since that is apparently what you refer to, only to say that I still think there's a meaningful difference. That's why turnout for the Dems was so much lower, as polls and protests had unambiguously promised would be the case. That and the economy, which Democrats insisted is great even as people struggle to survive. Dumb strategy, but the strategists still got paid so... Regardless of the Democrat's strategic mistakes, you can't avoid the responsibility of voters, who are supposed to be well informed, well educated, and difficult to fool. Democratic shooting ourselves in the foot is a collective sin.

lkbm 2y ago

> This has been at the cost of concentration and increases in pollution and poverty in the poorest nations. Poverty is way down globally. Poor nations are far from where they need to be, but we've lifted a billion or so people out of abject poverty in my lifetime. Don't let a determination to believe everything is bad force you to ignore when things get better.

circlefavshape 2y ago
Just an illustration of this https://www.statista.com/statistics/1341003/poverty-rate-world/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1341003/poverty-rate-wor... "nearly 38 percent of the world's population lived on less than 2.15 U.S. dollars in terms of 2017 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in 1990, this had fallen to 8.7 percent in 2022"
vouaobrasil 2y ago
> Don't let a determination to believe everything is bad force you to ignore when things get better. A decrease in poverty in this case though is traded by an increased addiction to what the oligarch provides. Is an entire society in a dystopia that provides the basic physical comforts but strips us of meaning in life a good end? I think not.

slibhb 2y ago

This attitude is so common. It's obviously wrong. Humanity is richer and freer than ever. Here's a theory of why people spend so much time railing against modernity, capitalism, and "the corporate class": Humans used to have to labor all to avoid starvation. There were few choices and most of us we died in the town where we were born. Compare to today -- now, we have incredible freedom, cheap and delicious food, cheap ubiquitous entertainment, are more or less immune to the elements, and have tons of free time. But all of this freedom and plenty has forced us to make choices, and it turns out people aren't good at making choices. We struggle to not gorge ourselves on food or waste years of our lives on insipid entertainment. We would like to exercise, eat right, read books, learn things, contribute meaningfully to our areas of interest -- but most of us don't. Worse, we have no excuse for our choices because we are almost completely free. This dynamic leads to a situation where people hate modernity. Partly because making choices is hard and partly because our freedom makes it clear that our bad choices are our own fault. And so people long for a return to un-freedom. Many of us would rather be poor and starving than to have to make choices and face our own inadequacies.

Teever 2y ago
No, people hate modern society because they understand that although things are better than they were they aren't nearly as good as they could be if it wasn't for rampant and unchecked corruption. What's worse is that people know that whole ecosystems and stable climate patterns are slipping away and will likely never come back.
- circlefavshape 2y ago
  > people hate modern society because they understand that although things are better than they were they aren't nearly as good as they could be How do you know how good things "could be"? Just because you can imagine something doesn't mean it's possible
  - Teever 2y ago
    That's just another way of saying that the way things are is optimal, and that we as a society have reached perfection, that we're doing our best. That is blatantly wrong. Better is always possible and the people who steal and cheat the system are the ones who deny that better world for us all. The Hitlers, the Putins, the Kochs and Epsteins and Madoffs of the world have made the world far worse than it needs to be for the absolutely worst personal reasons.

gessha 2y ago

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.” Ursula Le Guin https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ursulakleguinnationalbookawardspeech.htm https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ursulakleguinnatio...