The billionaires have already won.
Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
I mean... Look around? Maybe billionaire is a new thing, but it is just modern royalty. We still have kings, they just got better PR.
Trick question, we all lose
Seems like the billionaires are winning 🤷🏼♀️ ?!
Nobody is winning, except that demon capital. The billionaires are just losing less.
Stop being so rational!!
The billionaires, by convincing people the rich have a monopoly on violence.
But if anything sparks collective violence, the rich are overthrown within a month.
I belive the billionaires is currently winning
But only because the other 8 billion let them
Yeah, and?
REVOLT!
Assuming the 8b were all of the same mind, they would win. But we all know there are quite a few that the billionaires could buy to fight for them
so basically the billionares
Tje billionaires are winning now and the reasons are obvious.
The 8 billion are unable to think clearly, identify problems and organize. The billionaires are focused on their goals and super influential. They're able to buy loyality of the key less fortunate people and enforce loyality of others. They can also buy media to influence thinking of the masses.
If it was just about numbers, the billionaires would lose. But it's not.
Just stop believing that those 3000 are billionaires. If 8 billion people say "No, you are not rich" those fuckers become poor. Money is a religion.
Except that doesn't stop the exchange of goods and services.
Nature seems to be helping out recently as well.
So 8 billion + nature team up?
The game is rigged.
The billionaires are already winning, with no signs of that changing.
That’s because—for many reasons—there are way too many non-billionaires on team billionaire.
I worked with a guy that proudly proclaimed that he voted for the right because they looked after the rich.
He was not rich, but he purchased lottery tickets weekly and stated he'd rather get screwed while poor than pay more tax if he, some day, became rich.
And that was the day I realised that we're fucked.
Over 1 million Russians killed and how many tens of thousands in Gaza. 3000 would be quite easy compared to the innocent.
Yes markets would be in shit but so what, take their wealth and distribute it. The entire financial system is made out of thin air now, everyone will be all worried to justify why not to do it but we need to do it for our civilization to grow beyond having the Poor's do all the work for the greedy pigs.
The entire system needs to change and they won't go easy, it will be tough and bloody.
The hard part isnt the toppeling of the system, it is creating a stable new one, economicly and politicly. Think about the millions of indoctrinated people in all corners of the world that are fuled by hate towards a none existing enemy. Getting those in, will be hard. Especially if they are deep into conspiricy
I'd want to say "8 billion people", but right now 3000 billionaires lead on.
After all, they maintain their position by masterfully playing people off each other and setting things up to be on top. They have all the resources to extend their influence.
If 8 billion people could turn billionaires voices off for anything larger than a day, then yeah, 8 billion all the way, and 3000 will run out FAST.
But the latter know this, and will never let this happen. We should.
Depends on the situation.
If we were all put into an arena with zero weaponry, the 8 billion. Under no circumstances would the 3000 win because the 8 billion would most likely end up murdering them, even if by accident.
Under the current world conditions, not looking good.
8 billion temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
Unfortunately that is not how the figures really are. Way too many of those 8 billions will willingly simp and fight the rest of us in the name of those billionaires.
3000 billionaires because you can't convince everybody to ditch school. You can't change people. Pharaoh, Hammurabi. Those are thousands of years of genetic obedience.
If we decide money no longer matters it'd be petty easy to eliminate them all. If we continue to let money run our lives then it'll continue to be pretty easy for the people with money to keep all their power.
It's not the billionaires but the antisocial, amoral whores who will sell their souls for money and do their bidding that are the problem (police, army, etc.), and those who would quietly acquiesce. And of those there are way too many in some societies for change to be easy/possible.
It’s funny cause no one seems to realize that the billionaires are human beings. They have a house, they shit, they piss, they bleed, etc. And yet, everyone is somehow convinced that becoming a billionaire makes you somehow invulnerable.
An individual with a net worth of “just” $1b can afford to spend upwards of $50m per year on privacy and security, all while continuing to live a lavish lifestyle of excess and see their net worth continue to grow.
That’s more than the annual US household income being spent on a daily basis.
Now consider that the top 10 billionaires have more than 140x that amount.
Yes, they are made of flesh & blood, and are susceptible to all of the same maladies as you or I — but especially post Luigi, they are shoring up their defences to the point that even a motivated individual would have just as much chance of becoming a billionaire as they are to getting to one.
I would hope to be proven wrong, and to see a true working class uprising against them in my lifetime - but alas, I think they are too effective at keeping us arguing against ourselves to ever pose a serious risk to their hegemony.
All evidence points to a regime change (in the physics sense, not the political) being the necessary condition for things to go from our current state to something new.
We currently have people paying poorer people a very small amount of their own net worth to protect the wealthy person's status and position. This is similar to how kings and queens paid the army and policing forces to control the peasants.
Before the French Revolution I am sure it seemed impossible that the peasants would revolt, but the years leading up to the revolution things were getting worse and worse for the average peasant. There is a tipping point where the average person does not think the current system is delivering on the promise that of you do what you are told you can have a good life. I think we are approaching that point now.
If the rich try to hire someone and underpay them for security, stiff contractors for services, flaunt laws and generally behave obnoxiously at some point people will have had enough. Whether that ends with guillotine action or people just divesting from those systems depends on how much freedom people think they have.
If people thought they could go and homestead, live off the land, and get by without the massive companies these billionaires own then they would have that outlet and choose that peaceful option. The fact that we have taxation creates a pressure to pay in currency which demands earning in that currency. Same with paying rent, you have to earn money simply to live. No amount of growing all of your food gets rid of your financial obligations, so there is no out from the system. If that system is unreasonable it begins to feel less like participation and more like coercive control. Wage slavery is not the same as slavery, but both involve coercion and require the legal system to support them. Both lead to revolutions. Both lead to violence.
I guess the billionaires have to decide if they really want to paint that big a target on their backs by flaunting their wealth. At this point I think they feel untouchable.
Why you think they're tossing so much money to develope ai and humanoid robots?
When shit will hit the fan they want their own private army to watch their ass, but at the same time they don't want highly trained human mercenary inside their golden castel getting strange ideas.