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The French Revolution is no longer possible. The surveillance state plus wealth mobility means the wealthy will be in New Zealand before anyone erects a guillot

by avidiax 4mo ago

The French Revolution is no longer possible. The surveillance state plus wealth mobility means the wealthy will be in New Zealand before anyone erects a guillotine, and the people that would foment a revolution are heavily surveilled and infiltrated.

c1sc0 4mo ago
Are you sure about that? Tech cuts both ways & asymmetric drone warfare has become cheaper than ever … how hard it is it to sink some yachts or down some jets?
- Henchman21 4mo ago
  Or take some data centers offline.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- hparadiz 4mo ago
  I could only relate to this stuff in my 20s but now I just don't care. Maybe it's cause I went from < 200k net worth to over 1M in that time. I've seen the country I was born in collapse in my lifetime. I saw my grandparents give their entire life to that country only to be left destitute. I saw my parents come to America with literally $0 and after thirty years I watched them become millionares by simply getting up and working hard. This idea that people will rise up and replace what we've got now with better is part of the problem. You literally do not know how lucky you are to live in this time because you are living in the middle of a golden age and don't even realize it. Because when you're in the middle of a golden age it feels normal. And for some reason there's an entire population of folks like you that wanna FAFO while they are living in literally the best time ever to be a human being. I'd sigh but I'm not surprised.
  - Nursie 4mo ago
    > I watched them become millionares by simply getting up and working hard. If it was that easy, every office cleaner or bank clerk would be a millionaire. > living in literally the best time ever to be a human being Sure, but we're also watching the rise of a new oligarchy, and their latest innovation appears poised to put a lot of people out of work, making their lives materially worse.
    - hparadiz 4mo ago
      It literally is. People just have no discipline or skills with money. Go on the fire subreddit. 25k saved per year is a million after twenty years with a modest very conservative amount. And if you can double that with a spouse you're looking at a million in only ten years. People who stretch that to 20-25 years end up with 3-5 million.
      - Nursie 4mo ago
        Median net wage in 2023 the US is $43,222 as per https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html You're talking about median earners putting away more than half of their pay. If we look at full time workers that may go up to about $1200 per week or (after federal income tax) about $57k per year - https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf So you're still looking at 43% of every pay packet. And 50% of full-time workers will be paid less than that. This is beyond discipline and much more than simply getting up and working hard, and more like living in self-imposed poverty, putting on hold anything resembling building a life, buying a house etc. The fact is putting away $25k a year is the reserve of the privileged, not something achievable just by getting up and working hard for most people.
        hparadiz 4mo ago
        The average household income in the US is $83,730 and the median is $121,000. It's also irrelevant. The average is weighed down by students and retirees. If you look at only people in their peak earning years (40-50) then the median jumps further. But thank you for the comment. It perfectly exemplifies the attitude of most Americans. Born on third base and feeling entitled to blow their entire paycheck every month and then still asking for hand outs.
- zzgo 4mo ago
  LOL, what are you going to do? Sit at the end of Northrop field and fly a swarm of drones into the engines of a G6 traveling down the runway at over 100MPH? No way a handful of drones are going to get sucked into a jet engine at that speed. Or do you mean engage a PJ in a dogfight at 40000 feet? I suspect if drones could down a jet, we would have heard about it coming out of Ukraine by now. The reason we don't do these things is because the jets would come crashing down onto someone's home or place of work. That UPS jet that crashed last year when the engine detached on takeoff killed a dozen on the ground. Nobody is going to drone attack a private jet because the innocent would get killed by the dozen.
  - cherry_tree 4mo ago
    A quick google shows news articles and even videos of Ukrainian drones destroying Russian planes.
    - zzgo 4mo ago
      The original comment was made in relation to guillotines, popping unoccupied jets on the ground isn't what the commenter I was replying to was referring to. Taking down an occupied jet without using a sidewinder missile is a different capability.
- simbosambo 4mo ago
  [dead]
Retric 4mo ago
New Zealand is zero defense vs a large populist uprising, especially one taking place in New Zealand. That’s the thing social structures like money and nations only mean something when the masses decide they mean something. Billionaires only get a vote by convincing other people what to believe.
mvdtnz 4mo ago
[flagged]
- defrost 4mo ago
  Hey, don't leave out the New Zealand Navy having an entire two frigates and an oiler. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xUYbI64QHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xUYbI64QHI
  - mvdtnz 4mo ago
    [flagged]
    - defrost 4mo ago
      > Your theory is that .. That'd be _your_ strawman that _you_ typed. In the factual world, how many non NZ born billionaires already have residences in New Zealand?
      - mvdtnz 4mo ago
        What exactly are you arguing?
- ProllyInfamous 4mo ago
  We just need to make enough crowdsourced guillotines as if to make global escape impossible. My workingclass neighborhood is already getting pretty hungry.
gamerslexus 4mo ago
It's kind of true: > ... federal intelligence agencies and domestic law enforcement are circulating reports with a new domestic target in mind: anti-technology extremists. > This new effort follows President Donald Trump's National Security Presidential Memo 7, which instructs the Department of Justice to target anyone holding “anti-American,” “anti-Christian,” and "anti-capitalism” beliefs. https://www.wired.com/story/us-law-enforcement-warns-of-anti-tech-extremism/ https://www.wired.com/story/us-law-enforcement-warns-of-anti... To be fair though in the times of French Revolution the surveillance capability was really basic compared to today, the tech capability to organize protests was lower too. Which one prevails? We know that in PRC and maybe Russia it's surveillance, but what about US?
- fragmede 4mo ago
  It's laundered through data brokers and 3rd parties, but with ICE subpoenaing reddit et Al for people that shit post about ICE online, do you really think we're that far off? Especially if the person shit posting is in the US on a visa?
  - gamerslexus 4mo ago
    I know what you mean, just saying relative to French revolution, they not only had no such surveillance tech but also no such tech for organizing protests and stuff. Which one tops which in US?
ProllyInfamous 4mo ago
My attorney's advice to me was: >>"PL, don't build a guillotine" PL> "I'm going to build a guillotine; be my lawyer and give me advice as if it's going to be built." >>"... don't make it entirely functional." PL> "It's going to be built functional." >>"... hmm ... use a bicycle cable lock to add a safety to it – lock&key. But remember that my original advice was not to build it in the first place." ---- Exhibit Z

by avidiax 4mo ago

c1sc0 4mo ago

Are you sure about that? Tech cuts both ways & asymmetric drone warfare has become cheaper than ever … how hard it is it to sink some yachts or down some jets?

Henchman21 4mo ago
Or take some data centers offline.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
hparadiz 4mo ago
I could only relate to this stuff in my 20s but now I just don't care. Maybe it's cause I went from < 200k net worth to over 1M in that time. I've seen the country I was born in collapse in my lifetime. I saw my grandparents give their entire life to that country only to be left destitute. I saw my parents come to America with literally $0 and after thirty years I watched them become millionares by simply getting up and working hard. This idea that people will rise up and replace what we've got now with better is part of the problem. You literally do not know how lucky you are to live in this time because you are living in the middle of a golden age and don't even realize it. Because when you're in the middle of a golden age it feels normal. And for some reason there's an entire population of folks like you that wanna FAFO while they are living in literally the best time ever to be a human being. I'd sigh but I'm not surprised.
- Nursie 4mo ago
  > I watched them become millionares by simply getting up and working hard. If it was that easy, every office cleaner or bank clerk would be a millionaire. > living in literally the best time ever to be a human being Sure, but we're also watching the rise of a new oligarchy, and their latest innovation appears poised to put a lot of people out of work, making their lives materially worse.
  - hparadiz 4mo ago
    It literally is. People just have no discipline or skills with money. Go on the fire subreddit. 25k saved per year is a million after twenty years with a modest very conservative amount. And if you can double that with a spouse you're looking at a million in only ten years. People who stretch that to 20-25 years end up with 3-5 million.
    - Nursie 4mo ago
      Median net wage in 2023 the US is $43,222 as per https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html You're talking about median earners putting away more than half of their pay. If we look at full time workers that may go up to about $1200 per week or (after federal income tax) about $57k per year - https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf So you're still looking at 43% of every pay packet. And 50% of full-time workers will be paid less than that. This is beyond discipline and much more than simply getting up and working hard, and more like living in self-imposed poverty, putting on hold anything resembling building a life, buying a house etc. The fact is putting away $25k a year is the reserve of the privileged, not something achievable just by getting up and working hard for most people.
      - hparadiz 4mo ago
        The average household income in the US is $83,730 and the median is $121,000. It's also irrelevant. The average is weighed down by students and retirees. If you look at only people in their peak earning years (40-50) then the median jumps further. But thank you for the comment. It perfectly exemplifies the attitude of most Americans. Born on third base and feeling entitled to blow their entire paycheck every month and then still asking for hand outs.
zzgo 4mo ago
LOL, what are you going to do? Sit at the end of Northrop field and fly a swarm of drones into the engines of a G6 traveling down the runway at over 100MPH? No way a handful of drones are going to get sucked into a jet engine at that speed. Or do you mean engage a PJ in a dogfight at 40000 feet? I suspect if drones could down a jet, we would have heard about it coming out of Ukraine by now. The reason we don't do these things is because the jets would come crashing down onto someone's home or place of work. That UPS jet that crashed last year when the engine detached on takeoff killed a dozen on the ground. Nobody is going to drone attack a private jet because the innocent would get killed by the dozen.
- cherry_tree 4mo ago
  A quick google shows news articles and even videos of Ukrainian drones destroying Russian planes.
  - zzgo 4mo ago
    The original comment was made in relation to guillotines, popping unoccupied jets on the ground isn't what the commenter I was replying to was referring to. Taking down an occupied jet without using a sidewinder missile is a different capability.
simbosambo 4mo ago
[dead]

Retric 4mo ago

New Zealand is zero defense vs a large populist uprising, especially one taking place in New Zealand. That’s the thing social structures like money and nations only mean something when the masses decide they mean something. Billionaires only get a vote by convincing other people what to believe.

mvdtnz 4mo ago

[flagged]

defrost 4mo ago
Hey, don't leave out the New Zealand Navy having an entire two frigates and an oiler. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xUYbI64QHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xUYbI64QHI
- mvdtnz 4mo ago
  [flagged]
  - defrost 4mo ago
    > Your theory is that .. That'd be _your_ strawman that _you_ typed. In the factual world, how many non NZ born billionaires already have residences in New Zealand?
    - mvdtnz 4mo ago
      What exactly are you arguing?
ProllyInfamous 4mo ago
We just need to make enough crowdsourced guillotines as if to make global escape impossible. My workingclass neighborhood is already getting pretty hungry.

gamerslexus 4mo ago

It's kind of true: > ... federal intelligence agencies and domestic law enforcement are circulating reports with a new domestic target in mind: anti-technology extremists. > This new effort follows President Donald Trump's National Security Presidential Memo 7, which instructs the Department of Justice to target anyone holding “anti-American,” “anti-Christian,” and "anti-capitalism” beliefs. https://www.wired.com/story/us-law-enforcement-warns-of-anti-tech-extremism/ https://www.wired.com/story/us-law-enforcement-warns-of-anti... To be fair though in the times of French Revolution the surveillance capability was really basic compared to today, the tech capability to organize protests was lower too. Which one prevails? We know that in PRC and maybe Russia it's surveillance, but what about US?

fragmede 4mo ago
It's laundered through data brokers and 3rd parties, but with ICE subpoenaing reddit et Al for people that shit post about ICE online, do you really think we're that far off? Especially if the person shit posting is in the US on a visa?
- gamerslexus 4mo ago
  I know what you mean, just saying relative to French revolution, they not only had no such surveillance tech but also no such tech for organizing protests and stuff. Which one tops which in US?

ProllyInfamous 4mo ago

My attorney's advice to me was: >>"PL, don't build a guillotine" PL> "I'm going to build a guillotine; be my lawyer and give me advice as if it's going to be built." >>"... don't make it entirely functional." PL> "It's going to be built functional." >>"... hmm ... use a bicycle cable lock to add a safety to it – lock&key. But remember that my original advice was not to build it in the first place." ---- Exhibit Z