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The tax paying class of the world just have to watch all this horseshit go on, watch the institutions and the law enforcement agencies protect these people with

The tax paying class of the world just have to watch all this horseshit go on, watch the institutions and the law enforcement agencies protect these people with our hard earned money, meanwhile if we break a single law, there are consequences for us, sometimes massive. It's a bullshit world we're living in, but I guess it's always been the same? It seems for the wealthy, raping children is an acceptable pastime and we're just supposed to accept that it's ok?

standardUser 11mo ago
By most metrics, it's almost always been worse. But that doesn't make the modern era suck any less.
- stinkbeetle 11mo ago
  And would most of those metrics you allude to happen to have been brought to us by institutions like Harvard, or the US Treasury Department?
  - Maxatar 11mo ago
    Brought to you by Steven Pinker, another one of Epstein's associates.
  - standardUser 11mo ago
    I'm talking about disease prevention, maternal mortality, infant mortality, access to clean water, anesthetic(!!) and access to things like reading glasses and hearing aids and oh, I don't know, refrigeration. What does your precious Harvard and US Treasury Department have to say about that?
    - JKCalhoun 11mo ago
      I think the topic though was corrupt abuses of power, lack of justice or accountability for the wealthy—those kinds of things.
  - noduerme 11mo ago
    Taking a longer view of history... One metric of change would be that statutory (underage) rape wasn't a crime anywhere 200 years ago. In some countries, it still isn't. Mass rape and kidnapping is going on right now from Nigeria to Sudan. Wealthy old men can still marry 12 year olds across much of the Middle East. The fact that sex with minors has become relegated to something like a luxury designer drug for the elite hypocrites in the US and UK, and the fact that they're now being exposed for it, is in many ways an unexpected victory for humanity. The previous 5k years of recorded history, and probably the whole million years before that, were wall to wall with war, slavery and raping children. As well as the elites having such rights as prima nocta and simply executing anyone they wished. So I think we are making progress.
- wahnfrieden 11mo ago
  Not according to the metrics proposed by Graeber & Wengrow in the last chapter of Dawn of Everything > The three freedoms that most of our ancestors enjoyed, but which most modern humans lack are: > The freedom to leave. > The freedom to disobey an order. > The freedom to create new ways of relating to one another. https://drdevonprice.substack.com/p/the-three-fundamental-human-freedoms https://drdevonprice.substack.com/p/the-three-fundamental-hu...
  - colechristensen 11mo ago
    Eh, there's a tremendous amount of projecting a particular modern viewpoint onto the past in that work. It's a bit nonsense.
    - JKCalhoun 11mo ago
      Admittedly, I only read a brief review of the book, but it was suggesting the opposite. And example: we tend to inject too much of our modern viewpoint onto the old monarchies—that Henry VIII would not have thought himself ruler of the "state" of England although we talk about him in that regard from our modern perspective.
      - colechristensen 11mo ago
        That book is "rethinking" history but that rethinking curiously fits extremely well with a particular modern narrative. Some people eat it up. But separate a few decades in the future and it will seem like an extremely fad-driven interpretation of things.
        wahnfrieden 11mo ago
        The book makes a point of how historical analysis was already fit extremely well into particular contemporary fad narratives of the time. It does as much deconstruction of that (and of the idea that those contemporary fads were timeless elements of human nature) as it does construction of new ones. The former is a very interesting part of the book you’re not addressing. I don't know what you add to this conversation with such breezy dismissal...
hermitcrab 11mo ago
"The big thieves hang the little thieves"
vkou 11mo ago
> It's a bullshit world we're living in, but I guess it's always been the same? > It seems for the wealthy, raping children is an acceptable pastime and we're just supposed to accept that it's ok? This category of malcontent (about out-of-touch elites engaging in all sorts of depraved perversions while the poor starved) at Versailles eventually caused most of the former to lose their heads during the French Revolution. The smart ones know that they need to keep up appearances, the dumb ones behave like they will never face consequences.
- Loughla 11mo ago
  The smart ones are building bunkers to escape the hell that the US will become when the civil war actually starts. They're not hoping to survive the apocalypse, they're just hoping to ride out the 20 or 30 years of war and return as actual Lords for the serfs that are left after we kill each other.
  - nebula8804 11mo ago
    Yes I know of someone who willingly gave up their US citizenship for tax reasons but has EU, Israeli, and a bunch of other citizenships. They get to live a good life in the Netherlands + traveling the world while the US tears itself apart and then when it is time to retire in 30-40 years, the country will be ripe of the picking..they will buy their citizenship back through one of the multiple buy your way into the US visa programs...and retire in Montana.
- blendo 11mo ago
  And the US never revolted against our domestic aristocracy, as they never revolted against our clergy. Wonder how it would have turned out if the French revolution happened before the American Revolution? What could we have learned from them?
malfist 11mo ago
It's a big club, and we ain't in it.
- JKCalhoun 11mo ago
  (I know you're referencing Carlin, but) a big club it is not. You might even say it's just the "top 1%" or even less.
  - auggierose 11mo ago
    Top 0.1% is still a VERY big club, just in the US > 300.000.
    - TylerE 11mo ago
      This is the 0.1% of the 0.1%

standardUser 11mo ago

By most metrics, it's almost always been worse. But that doesn't make the modern era suck any less.

stinkbeetle 11mo ago
And would most of those metrics you allude to happen to have been brought to us by institutions like Harvard, or the US Treasury Department?
- Maxatar 11mo ago
  Brought to you by Steven Pinker, another one of Epstein's associates.
- standardUser 11mo ago
  I'm talking about disease prevention, maternal mortality, infant mortality, access to clean water, anesthetic(!!) and access to things like reading glasses and hearing aids and oh, I don't know, refrigeration. What does your precious Harvard and US Treasury Department have to say about that?
  - JKCalhoun 11mo ago
    I think the topic though was corrupt abuses of power, lack of justice or accountability for the wealthy—those kinds of things.
- noduerme 11mo ago
  Taking a longer view of history... One metric of change would be that statutory (underage) rape wasn't a crime anywhere 200 years ago. In some countries, it still isn't. Mass rape and kidnapping is going on right now from Nigeria to Sudan. Wealthy old men can still marry 12 year olds across much of the Middle East. The fact that sex with minors has become relegated to something like a luxury designer drug for the elite hypocrites in the US and UK, and the fact that they're now being exposed for it, is in many ways an unexpected victory for humanity. The previous 5k years of recorded history, and probably the whole million years before that, were wall to wall with war, slavery and raping children. As well as the elites having such rights as prima nocta and simply executing anyone they wished. So I think we are making progress.
wahnfrieden 11mo ago
Not according to the metrics proposed by Graeber & Wengrow in the last chapter of Dawn of Everything > The three freedoms that most of our ancestors enjoyed, but which most modern humans lack are: > The freedom to leave. > The freedom to disobey an order. > The freedom to create new ways of relating to one another. https://drdevonprice.substack.com/p/the-three-fundamental-human-freedoms https://drdevonprice.substack.com/p/the-three-fundamental-hu...
- colechristensen 11mo ago
  Eh, there's a tremendous amount of projecting a particular modern viewpoint onto the past in that work. It's a bit nonsense.
  - JKCalhoun 11mo ago
    Admittedly, I only read a brief review of the book, but it was suggesting the opposite. And example: we tend to inject too much of our modern viewpoint onto the old monarchies—that Henry VIII would not have thought himself ruler of the "state" of England although we talk about him in that regard from our modern perspective.
    - colechristensen 11mo ago
      That book is "rethinking" history but that rethinking curiously fits extremely well with a particular modern narrative. Some people eat it up. But separate a few decades in the future and it will seem like an extremely fad-driven interpretation of things.
      - wahnfrieden 11mo ago
        The book makes a point of how historical analysis was already fit extremely well into particular contemporary fad narratives of the time. It does as much deconstruction of that (and of the idea that those contemporary fads were timeless elements of human nature) as it does construction of new ones. The former is a very interesting part of the book you’re not addressing. I don't know what you add to this conversation with such breezy dismissal...

hermitcrab 11mo ago

"The big thieves hang the little thieves"

vkou 11mo ago

> It's a bullshit world we're living in, but I guess it's always been the same? > It seems for the wealthy, raping children is an acceptable pastime and we're just supposed to accept that it's ok? This category of malcontent (about out-of-touch elites engaging in all sorts of depraved perversions while the poor starved) at Versailles eventually caused most of the former to lose their heads during the French Revolution. The smart ones know that they need to keep up appearances, the dumb ones behave like they will never face consequences.

Loughla 11mo ago
The smart ones are building bunkers to escape the hell that the US will become when the civil war actually starts. They're not hoping to survive the apocalypse, they're just hoping to ride out the 20 or 30 years of war and return as actual Lords for the serfs that are left after we kill each other.
- nebula8804 11mo ago
  Yes I know of someone who willingly gave up their US citizenship for tax reasons but has EU, Israeli, and a bunch of other citizenships. They get to live a good life in the Netherlands + traveling the world while the US tears itself apart and then when it is time to retire in 30-40 years, the country will be ripe of the picking..they will buy their citizenship back through one of the multiple buy your way into the US visa programs...and retire in Montana.
blendo 11mo ago
And the US never revolted against our domestic aristocracy, as they never revolted against our clergy. Wonder how it would have turned out if the French revolution happened before the American Revolution? What could we have learned from them?

malfist 11mo ago

It's a big club, and we ain't in it.

JKCalhoun 11mo ago
(I know you're referencing Carlin, but) a big club it is not. You might even say it's just the "top 1%" or even less.
- auggierose 11mo ago
  Top 0.1% is still a VERY big club, just in the US > 300.000.
  - TylerE 11mo ago
    This is the 0.1% of the 0.1%