The issue is concentration of power. Wealth inequality is just one way destructive levels of power concentration can happen. We need low wealth inequality along with truly democratic government.
Maybe they aren't and never will be capable enough to do this, but if there's even a 1% chance that they are, then it's very important to consider the consequences and take the necessary precautions before it's too late.
> In other words, the economic surplus did not go exclusively or primarily to the richest. That was in large part due of strong leftist movements and states that forced the capitalists to share the increasing wealth.…
The new people voted in are likely to be corporate stooges as well, as they have good and well funded infrastructure behind them for getting elected.
> You may hate it but you don't matter. We all do it no matter what. I've seen you say "you don't matter" in many of your comments. Why do you think like this? Sure, we don't matter much most of the time, but this kind…
Bezos didn't create that wealth alone. He had help from thousands upon thousands of people. It's impossible to calculate how much of the value of Amazon was actually created by the work Bezos did, how much by other…
This will be the reality until we come up with a way to make good decisions using direct democracy, and make that decision-making process so fast and easy that it can be used for any kind of group decision.…
There's value in that only if assessments made by people using the prediction for something aren't better than crowd wisdom. I would guess that a large part of prediction market participants are simple gamblers whose…
There will be no point, and the stuff that normal people use will become more expensive as resources are more and more directed to megaprojects that the capital class is interested in. More modern equivalents of…
Why couldn't China be better? It can't get much worse than what the US is currently doing. It's getting dangerously close to 30s Germany levels of madness. China at least at the moment seems like a better run country,…
Yes. The bigger the gap becomes, the more the economy will be geared towards serving the needs of the wealthy instead of regular people. If a trillionaire wants a mansion on Pluto or an AI to serve him, a large…
Those meals would most likely help a lot of kids become healthy productive members of society. That money would be saved by the families of those kids and used in other parts of the economy. A lot of the cost would…
> The diversity of perspective and opinion I don't think this is what social media provides. With social media people are able to choose one perspective and seem to just immerse themselves in a bubble so that they only…
I wish it was just psychos with power that are causing these issues. It's worse than that I think. It's the competition based systems of human organization that will result in what you're describing. Even if people in…
> Europe faced a worse Russian threat during the Cold War without giving up national sovereignty. That's because Europe could rely on the power of the US back then. If the US was just a patchwork of small independent…
I don't think so, because it's not only the truly weak that get exploited and abused in an "every man for himself" system. It'll also destroy the lives of many who could become strong in an environment that protects…
> allow natural selection to take its course while improving treatment of symptoms. I have a feeling natural selection will take its course at the level of nations, with nations that do protect their weak surviving and…
It's not enough to only look at elections. The topics that the media discusses, and therefore the options that people are aware of and the issues people base their vote on are decided by mostly privately owned and…
> (who does not pay me) You're answering a comment saying money is power by saying that it isn't if it's not used? Even if the billionaire doesn't pay you, they can pay someone else to force you to do what they want.
Why does management turn efficiency gains into higher output quotas? Because competition forced them to. This is a feature of free market capitalism. A single participant can't decide to keep output as is when…
Even more detrimental to society is corruption, which this is. Who gives money to the leaders of your country and why should definitely be everyone's business.
> A well behaved market is much more efficient than a government I wouldn't be so sure about this. A lot of what markets do is unnecessary overhead needed to make markets work. Maintaining enough competition means…
The government "just mocking people" is already disgusting behavior that belongs to failed states, but it's not even that, it was clearly just propaganda to make the opposition look weak. If it was a "meme" they…
> The logical fallacy here is the relationship between regime change in Ukraine and Russia. These are two distinct countries. It's like saying someone wanted to influence the outcome of the election in the USA to cause…
There's plenty of propaganda on our side as well. Let's, for the sake of argument, say that the west was orchestrating regime change in Ukraine with the end goal of regime change in Russia, knowing it would lead to war.…
The issue is concentration of power. Wealth inequality is just one way destructive levels of power concentration can happen. We need low wealth inequality along with truly democratic government.
Maybe they aren't and never will be capable enough to do this, but if there's even a 1% chance that they are, then it's very important to consider the consequences and take the necessary precautions before it's too late.
> In other words, the economic surplus did not go exclusively or primarily to the richest. That was in large part due of strong leftist movements and states that forced the capitalists to share the increasing wealth.…
The new people voted in are likely to be corporate stooges as well, as they have good and well funded infrastructure behind them for getting elected.
> You may hate it but you don't matter. We all do it no matter what. I've seen you say "you don't matter" in many of your comments. Why do you think like this? Sure, we don't matter much most of the time, but this kind…
Bezos didn't create that wealth alone. He had help from thousands upon thousands of people. It's impossible to calculate how much of the value of Amazon was actually created by the work Bezos did, how much by other…
This will be the reality until we come up with a way to make good decisions using direct democracy, and make that decision-making process so fast and easy that it can be used for any kind of group decision.…
There's value in that only if assessments made by people using the prediction for something aren't better than crowd wisdom. I would guess that a large part of prediction market participants are simple gamblers whose…
There will be no point, and the stuff that normal people use will become more expensive as resources are more and more directed to megaprojects that the capital class is interested in. More modern equivalents of…
Why couldn't China be better? It can't get much worse than what the US is currently doing. It's getting dangerously close to 30s Germany levels of madness. China at least at the moment seems like a better run country,…
Yes. The bigger the gap becomes, the more the economy will be geared towards serving the needs of the wealthy instead of regular people. If a trillionaire wants a mansion on Pluto or an AI to serve him, a large…
Those meals would most likely help a lot of kids become healthy productive members of society. That money would be saved by the families of those kids and used in other parts of the economy. A lot of the cost would…
> The diversity of perspective and opinion I don't think this is what social media provides. With social media people are able to choose one perspective and seem to just immerse themselves in a bubble so that they only…
I wish it was just psychos with power that are causing these issues. It's worse than that I think. It's the competition based systems of human organization that will result in what you're describing. Even if people in…
> Europe faced a worse Russian threat during the Cold War without giving up national sovereignty. That's because Europe could rely on the power of the US back then. If the US was just a patchwork of small independent…
I don't think so, because it's not only the truly weak that get exploited and abused in an "every man for himself" system. It'll also destroy the lives of many who could become strong in an environment that protects…
> allow natural selection to take its course while improving treatment of symptoms. I have a feeling natural selection will take its course at the level of nations, with nations that do protect their weak surviving and…
It's not enough to only look at elections. The topics that the media discusses, and therefore the options that people are aware of and the issues people base their vote on are decided by mostly privately owned and…
> (who does not pay me) You're answering a comment saying money is power by saying that it isn't if it's not used? Even if the billionaire doesn't pay you, they can pay someone else to force you to do what they want.
Why does management turn efficiency gains into higher output quotas? Because competition forced them to. This is a feature of free market capitalism. A single participant can't decide to keep output as is when…
Even more detrimental to society is corruption, which this is. Who gives money to the leaders of your country and why should definitely be everyone's business.
> A well behaved market is much more efficient than a government I wouldn't be so sure about this. A lot of what markets do is unnecessary overhead needed to make markets work. Maintaining enough competition means…
The government "just mocking people" is already disgusting behavior that belongs to failed states, but it's not even that, it was clearly just propaganda to make the opposition look weak. If it was a "meme" they…
> The logical fallacy here is the relationship between regime change in Ukraine and Russia. These are two distinct countries. It's like saying someone wanted to influence the outcome of the election in the USA to cause…
There's plenty of propaganda on our side as well. Let's, for the sake of argument, say that the west was orchestrating regime change in Ukraine with the end goal of regime change in Russia, knowing it would lead to war.…