A lot of people probably already knew this, but it’s useful to have studies like this to shove in the face of the “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” crowd. It’s frustrating because we can change this, we don’t have to accept a society that simply revolves around “Whoever makes the most money gets to make the rules”.
I, personally, would like a society that cherishes camaraderie and compassion while also rewarding innovation and talent. There are too many people who believe in this zero-sum game that seems to pit everyone against everyone in this race to gather the most wealth; this is why we’re all struggling, because rich people have gathered the most wealth, and they are trying to protect it at all costs by using the wealth to control the rules that control how they gained the wealth to begin with. It’s all awful and we need to change it now.
I would challenge that any society which has any significant amount of wealth disparity wouldn’t eventually devolve into “whoever makes the most money gets to make the rules”. Money is an abstraction of human value, so if one person has significantly more abstract-value than most people, their power and influence will always be more than people who have less even if it isn’t as direct as our system via eg lobbying. On top of that, any economic system which has even the slightest asymptotic behavior towards wealth consolidation will eventually have wealth disparity.
Personally I like economic systems that use money as a price signal because of how decentralized it can be, but I’m not sure how you would avoid these tendencies without some major overhaul in the fundamental principles. Market socialism is at least better, since no one solely owns the means of production so it’s harder to accumulate wealth but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it isn’t possible at all.
Maybe a change in ethos like you said, competition can inspire innovation but it can also lead to tremendous waste as competitors reinvent their own wheels. Encouraging cooperation in tandem with competition could produce a more well-rounded society, but there will always be sociopaths who want power for its own sake and will naturally rise to the top and ruin whatever good thing we have going on. Maybe something like radical anarchism, which rejects (unjustified) hierarchy and makes it exceptionally difficult for anyone to gain coercive power? Fat chance ever implementing something like that, though.
We could get by with our current system we have, simply change the tax system to tax profit way more, so that it’s impossible to become a billionaire. And all that money is used to keep everyone housed, fed, and healthy. The people that want to abuse people for profit won’t have anyone to abuse anymore because people won’t be forced to work in unfair jobs with unfair wages. Wages will rise to natural level to meet what people think those jobs are worth doing. Some companies will find this unsustainable and will go away, and good riddance.
I knew he was an ass, but this takes it to an entirely new level. Almost every expert in the matter was telling Stockton Rush that the Titan would implode and he ignored them for over 6 years. Not only that, he actively sued a whistleblower and essentially threatened him with bankruptcy to prevent him from going public with the very legitimate safety concerns. And he also organized the dives and payments in such away as to avoid any kind of regulation or penalty whatsoever.
When it’s a mayor getting his house burnt down by far right extremists, no one cares. But when it’s a guy who supports police violence and wants to put the whole country under a totalitarian system, now this is a “milestone in ignominy”.
Not all public discourse is like that, even if some large medias companies lack nuance and focus exclusively on rioters.
An judges union published a press release calling on a political answer to police violence, including repeal of a preemptive self-defense law provision often used to justify such shootings, and making police oversight a more independent process.
Lots of us wanted neither, we juqt settled for 5 more years of “Macron the dipshit that is covertly racist” to avoid 5 years of “Le Pen the dipshit that is overtly racist”. And we hate every minute of it.
I feel that’s a lot of countries right now. USA didn’t want Biden, but it was better than Trump. The UK is facing an election where we’ll have to chose between Starmer or Sunak(?).
Is this a scheme to get some VC? They call it automobile but it drives ~25mph. They say it can fly but the weight limit is ~200pounds. Who is going to use this thing? Kids? I wonder if we will ever see one in real life…
Lol, at first I thought this meant Riot Games. I think most players of League or Valorant are too busy throwing slurs at each other to leave the house and protest anyway.
And blaming video games again?
This is France. A nation that can barely go a decade without a major protest.
I’m now imagining Louis XVI weakly flailing his hands about, complaining that the Jacobins were driven to their cause because of all the violence they were exposed to while hosting LAN parties.
Maybe the real disagreements between Robespierre and Danton later on were regarding which machine was best, the Station de Jeu or the Fboîte. Some stragglers saying neither and it was something called “Ordinateur”.
(Apologies for my poor translations, French friends. Apologies also for making light of the situation. I know it’s serious. I hope you’re all safe.)
The police murdered a young student electrician for ‘refusing to comply’ with a checkpoint set up outside an Algerian ghetto. His capital crime he was likely trying to avoid arrest? Driving without a license.
This riot wasn’t caused by social media, or Nahel’s murder for that matter. It was caused by systemic racism in France. Macron is trying to scapegoat and shut down social media because the kind of peace we wants can be destroyed by truth.
I’ve always wanted to try psychedelics but I won’t until I have a chain of custody to prove it ain’t laced with something nasty. Hopefully something like this comes to California soon!
Check out dark net markets on TOR. There’s a whole marketplace with ebay style reviews so you can know who to trust. I always buy from people with thousands of 5 star reviews to put my mind at ease. Probably done about 5 dozen or more trips and the only time I’ve gotten fake/the wrong/laced drugs is when Ive gotten them in person.
It’s so sad that the war on drugs people Keep making their rediculous arguments against it now there are so many places where it’s legal and nothing has happened beside increased tax revenue and lives no longer being ruined by the police.
Maryland started selling recreational a few days ago and if you weren’t looking for it you’d barely notice, certain shops now sell good quality, fairly priced weed to anyone over 21, society hasn’t collapsed.
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