• BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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    23 hours ago

    They want us to die penniless. First they strap young people with tens of thousands in student loan debt, suppress wages, raise taxes and prices higher and higher, heavily promote video games and turn citizens into Dopamine junkies, then transition them to rigged gambling and prediction market apps, do massive targeted advertising timed precisely to the consumers’ personal aspirations, making them irresistible, etc, over an entire lifetime.

    It’s all designed to extract every last penny out of our pockets by the time we’re old. And just in case you had enough money to put aside into a safe retirement fund, so that you’d have a nest egg, even if you burned through everything else, now they want to get their mitts on that, and steal that, too.

    • Steve@communick.news
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      20 hours ago

      They aren’t moustached villains, actively plotting people’s misery for their joy.

      They’re simply making choices that are good for them personally, as anyone would. They aren’t thinking of any broader externalities and effects on people they’ve never met.

      • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        14 hours ago

        Few are cartoon villains; few are thinking of externalities. But the people pushing for this change know what they’re doing. They are actively plotting wealth transfer from the working class to the capitalist class.

        Those who suffer from conspiracy phobia are fond of saying: “Do you actually think there’s a group of people sitting around in a room plotting things?” For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers. But where else would people of power get together – on park benches or carousels? Indeed, they meet in rooms: corporate boardrooms, Pentagon command rooms, at the Bohemian Grove, in the choice dining rooms at the best restaurants, resorts, hotels, and estates, in the many conference rooms at the White House, the NSA, the CIA, or wherever. And, yes, they consciously plot – though they call it “planning” and “strategizing” – and they do so in great secrecy, often resisting all efforts at public disclosure. No one confabulates and plans more than political and corporate elites and their hired specialists. To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people.

        — Michael Parenti

        • Steve@communick.news
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          20 hours ago

          Well it is, just like greed is a made up thing.

          In a proper world, altruism wouldn’t exist.
          It only does because nature is uncairing, and society can be cruel.

          But being made up doesn’t matter to my point. People can create a problem with one hand, while trying to fix it with another, having never noticed the connection.

          • AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world
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            19 hours ago

            I would’ve been fine with your comment if you hadn’t included that. I don’t doubt these people are trying to act in their own self interests.

            But when you say “as anyone would” it implies everyone is horribly selfish and never takes other people into account when making decisions ever and this is just accepted common knowledge, which it isn’t.

          • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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            19 hours ago

            Animals are altruistic. Just search for _____ saves person. You will find lots of instances of animals saving humans. Not just dogs and cats either. Ravens, crows, pigeons, elephants dolphins, beluga, and humpbacks are all well documented displaying protective behaviors when predators are around humans that they know.

            • Steve@communick.news
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              18 hours ago

              Of course they do. Altruism was made up by all social species. A few others even copied it.