(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t106/OnlyObvious/The_Wall/wealthgap.gif)
I'd like to share a document which was referenced in Capitalism: A Love Story.
if you want a good eye-opener as to how things work, take a look at how the top 1% talk about the world.
Here's a leaked memo that citibank sent to its top investors in 2005. (https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BzgUudifBc68ZGUyNzA0MzAtZDZkZC00ZmZjLTkwY2ItNzBlZWRmNjI1ZTNm&hl=en)
EDIT: doc removed from scribd - link now points to google docs. If it disappears from there, hunt for the filename "Citigroup-Oct-16-2005-Plutonomy-Report-Part-1.pdf"
According to this memo, America is no longer a democracy, it's a plutonomy - a country which is controlled by the richest 1%.
They openly acknowledge that our current system produces gigantic inequality of wealth. Their advice to the rich is to not worry about the bottom 95%, they have a really fractional effect on the country anyway. The wealthy alone drive the economy and everybody else can suck it.
The rich admit that they are responsible for the low savings rate in american households (see top of p20). On p22, they say straight out that financial inequality is desirable, and that their investors will lose power if the government begins taxing or regulating them like it used to. They point out how in france, the introduction of the 35 hour work week really hurt the mega-rich. (the memo proposes that the solution to this is to outsource labor to countries with less protections for workers)
Luckily, they say, the current US government seems to be friendly towards the plutonomy - and has protected the richest's interests at nearly every turn.
The memo identifies a few threats to the plutonomy. One of them is social backlash - the lower and middle class may revolt if they figure out that there really is no way to the top. (p25) Equality is not desirable to the rich, and ironically, one of the best weapons against it is to frame discussions about weath in terms of "fairness".
it really makes you laugh or scream
Quote from: Cramulus on May 11, 2010, 05:10:20 PM
it really makes you laugh or scream
It makes me laugh. But then, if I didn't think that the coming insurrection will be peaceful and bloodless, I'd probably be screaming.
It makes me laugh.
I mean, everyone LIKES this system, right?
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 25, 2010, 10:45:53 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on May 11, 2010, 05:10:20 PM
it really makes you laugh or scream
It makes me laugh. But then, if I didn't think that the coming insurrection will be peaceful and bloodless, I'd probably be screaming.
how do you think the coming insurrection is going to go?
Quote from: Cramulus on June 25, 2010, 11:58:24 PM
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 25, 2010, 10:45:53 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on May 11, 2010, 05:10:20 PM
it really makes you laugh or scream
It makes me laugh. But then, if I didn't think that the coming insurrection will be peaceful and bloodless, I'd probably be screaming.
how do you think the coming insurrection is going to go?
Revolt? Okay, right after
American Idol! But wait! Tonight is Trevor's soccer game, and Dakota has the flu. Maybe tomorrow, ok?
\
:nigel::sadbanana::sadbanana:
Quote from: Cramulus on June 25, 2010, 11:58:24 PM
how do you think the coming insurrection is going to go?
I've probably used this example before, but it's apt. Compare the US elections in 2004 and 2008, specifically the effect of a smear campaign like Swiftboat veterans for Truth vs Kerry, and everything which was thrown at Obama. How come lies and disinformation were so sticky in 2004, but not so much in 2008? I think a large part of this was due to YouTube, which only launched in 2005.
It's already hard for me to remember, but if you wanted to get video online pre-YouTube, it was a major pain-in-the-ass. If you had something explosive or interesting, then you could link your friends, sure.. but if it became popular your website would crash. So in that environment, when you have disinformation placed into television adverts, the only rebuttal which can develop spontaneously is a chain-letter or blog post -- neither have the persuasive power of video. During 2008, user-generated video played a massive role... from cellphone video, to rebuttals, to montage clips of Sarah Palins idiocy. Blogs with scoops were regularly splashed on the news networks as each tried to demonstrate how "with it" they were. If blogs/citizen journalism were producing similar scoops in 2004, I certainly wasn't aware of it.
I'm stressing the point here, because I think it is a major one -- for the first time in recent (perhaps all) history, truth and facts were trumping fiction in politics. The Dok has a point of course -- we've slipped backwards since then as participation and excitement in the political process has waned.
But amazing things did happen, especially because it was all unplanned and uncoordinated - it was pretty much just emergent from simply being able to spread video easily.
I think with a little design we can do a lot better. We can make it easier to participate and we can amplify the effect of that action. At no point in our history has it been easier to form a group, and to have that group collectively reach towards a goal. Every step technology takes makes this even easier.
It's an inevitability from our change from a one-to-many to a many-to-many communication species.
With projects like Metagovernment (http://metagovernment.org), we will create parallel shadow-governments. Leaderless experiments in collaborative decision-making. We will demonstrate the superiority of this approach by documenting all decisions we make, and comparing them against the failures inflicted upon us by our barely elected leaders. Hindsight is 20/20, and we'll make sure to promote those instances when we made a hard choice in the past which now is seen as the obvious should-have-done. We'll make pretty fucking graphs. When we fail we'll tweak the algorithm until our success rate improves. When we succeed, we'll tweak our methods to see if we can do better. We'll have "Click here to register your vote" on major issues on every Facebook profile, and we will, in the process, demonstrate that the old apathy of non-participation can be safely consigned to a dark age of our history. We'll get adherents to our cause voted into lower levels of Government, and if they turn their backs on us, we'll vote them the fuck out. We'll maintain scrupulous lists of demonstrated falsehoods by politicians, and we'll petition any remaining news organisations to confront those in the lower 33rd percentile. The news-cycle will be dominated by what the people give a shit about, not by what the heads of a few media empires decide we should be thinking about. No-one will be in power. Everyone will be empowered.
What will the coming insurrection be like? Fucking glorious.
Hee hee! They're so cute when they still believe.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 26, 2010, 12:06:51 AM
Revolt? Okay, right after American Idol! But wait! Tonight is Trevor's soccer game, and Dakota has the flu. Maybe tomorrow, ok?
\
:nigel::sadbanana::sadbanana:
:lulz: that says it all, really
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 26, 2010, 03:33:59 AM
Quote from: Cramulus on June 25, 2010, 11:58:24 PM
how do you think the coming insurrection is going to go?
I've probably used this example before, but it's apt. Compare the US elections in 2004 and 2008, specifically the effect of a smear campaign like Swiftboat veterans for Truth vs Kerry, and everything which was thrown at Obama. How come lies and disinformation were so sticky in 2004, but not so much in 2008? I think a large part of this was due to YouTube, which only launched in 2005.
It's already hard for me to remember, but if you wanted to get video online pre-YouTube, it was a major pain-in-the-ass. If you had something explosive or interesting, then you could link your friends, sure.. but if it became popular your website would crash. So in that environment, when you have disinformation placed into television adverts, the only rebuttal which can develop spontaneously is a chain-letter or blog post -- neither have the persuasive power of video. During 2008, user-generated video played a massive role... from cellphone video, to rebuttals, to montage clips of Sarah Palins idiocy. Blogs with scoops were regularly splashed on the news networks as each tried to demonstrate how "with it" they were. If blogs/citizen journalism were producing similar scoops in 2004, I certainly wasn't aware of it.
I'm stressing the point here, because I think it is a major one -- for the first time in recent (perhaps all) history, truth and facts were trumping fiction in politics. The Dok has a point of course -- we've slipped backwards since then as participation and excitement in the political process has waned.
But amazing things did happen, especially because it was all unplanned and uncoordinated - it was pretty much just emergent from simply being able to spread video easily.
I think with a little design we can do a lot better. We can make it easier to participate and we can amplify the effect of that action. At no point in our history has it been easier to form a group, and to have that group collectively reach towards a goal. Every step technology takes makes this even easier.
It's an inevitability from our change from a one-to-many to a many-to-many communication species.
With projects like Metagovernment (http://metagovernment.org), we will create parallel shadow-governments. Leaderless experiments in collaborative decision-making. We will demonstrate the superiority of this approach by documenting all decisions we make, and comparing them against the failures inflicted upon us by our barely elected leaders. Hindsight is 20/20, and we'll make sure to promote those instances when we made a hard choice in the past which now is seen as the obvious should-have-done. We'll make pretty fucking graphs. When we fail we'll tweak the algorithm until our success rate improves. When we succeed, we'll tweak our methods to see if we can do better. We'll have "Click here to register your vote" on major issues on every Facebook profile, and we will, in the process, demonstrate that the old apathy of non-participation can be safely consigned to a dark age of our history. We'll get adherents to our cause voted into lower levels of Government, and if they turn their backs on us, we'll vote them the fuck out. We'll maintain scrupulous lists of demonstrated falsehoods by politicians, and we'll petition any remaining news organisations to confront those in the lower 33rd percentile. The news-cycle will be dominated by what the people give a shit about, not by what the heads of a few media empires decide we should be thinking about. No-one will be in power. Everyone will be empowered.
What will the coming insurrection be like? Fucking glorious.
Well, if you wait until the next US elections, the whole "free" video reporting stuff will be co-opted by Big Marketing.
And what about the youtube comments? And reactions to your average Glenn Beck fart?
I mean, yes what you describe helped a little, but it needs to be amplified way beyond that before it turns into something that can cause an insurrection. And I don't believe that will happen all by itself the next coming elections, because that time, Big Marketing is ready for it and guide that shit to serve them.
Regardless, it sounds like a good cause to push. But how?
Regardless of the actual impact that video/youtube played in those elections, the effects were pretty much one-sided. Conservative institutions don't adapt quickly to use new and unestablished methods enabled by technology! :lol: So I think you're right - they had their ass handed to them, and they'll have little hesitation to hire Big Marketing people they trust to perform "internet voodoo" for them next time.
I don't see youtube comments as being that significant, although with their new "vote comments to the top" system, disinformation will be freep'd up. But even Glenn Beck would find it difficult to rail against a system which allows his supporters to fairly express themselves and "gives a voice to the little guy". Towards that end, for the last 3 years I've been designing/coding/redesigning my own ideas, not really ready to make those public, but feel free to PM if you're curious.
Things you could do now to push the cause? Either start your own sub-project or join one. Metagovernment (http://megagovernment.org) is an umbrella organisation that supports and discusses all forms of collaborative/leaderless governance, and it's where different projects come together to share ideas. The mailing list is active, but not overly busy.. it's not uncommon for a newcomer to chip in with a good point which gains consensus, so I give them credit for staying true to their core ideals.
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 26, 2010, 03:59:26 PM
Regardless of the actual impact that video/youtube played in those elections, the effects were pretty much one-sided. Conservative institutions don't adapt quickly to use new and unestablished methods enabled by technology!
Tell that to Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul.
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 26, 2010, 03:59:26 PM
But even Glenn Beck would find it difficult to rail against a system which allows his supporters to fairly express themselves and "gives a voice to the little guy".
:lulz:
He'd do it in a red hot minute.
Glenn Beck believes the inherent unfairness and waste of the state capitalist/plutocratic economy is proof of it's morality and goodness. Beck has not once argued that capitalism is good because it creates the greatest amount of wealth for the greatest amount of people, the usual centre-right talking point, but instead has commanded his legion of idiots to support the current status quo because inequality is good (so long as brown people, liberal Jews, progressives, Muslims, atheists and other out groups) are the losers in any such system.
IOW, conservatism. You may get shit on by your aristocratic betters, but here is a whole bunch of untermenschen to take out your rage on! And with that approach, you can justify pretty much anything you want, no matter how unfair or wicked.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 26, 2010, 06:44:09 PM
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 26, 2010, 03:59:26 PM
Regardless of the actual impact that video/youtube played in those elections, the effects were pretty much one-sided. Conservative institutions don't adapt quickly to use new and unestablished methods enabled by technology!
Tell that to Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul.
Institutions, rather than individuals or small groups. For example, Chuck DeFeo (http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=202754&rel_no=1), the "eCampaign manager" for Bush'04 seemed to know his shit. So yeah, it's not as if there's a clean and unbroken divide.
That said, Republicans in general do seem to either not know or care that it is now extremely trivial to document and publish hypocritical and contradictory behaviour. Or maybe they're just playing by different rules. Regardless, I believe we can push the rules in the direction where being a lying sack of self-serving shit actually starts having a negative impact on chances of staying in office. Of course, if we can't, then we're completely fucked.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 26, 2010, 06:44:47 PM
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 26, 2010, 03:59:26 PM
But even Glenn Beck would find it difficult to rail against a system which allows his supporters to fairly express themselves and "gives a voice to the little guy".
:lulz:
He'd do it in a red hot minute.
Yup, I agree. And he'll get away with it too, if we meddling kids don't manage to create a system which impacts the standard narrative.
Get your meddling kid posse to care enough, and we'll talk. I think they're fast realizing, though, that tho they helped put Obama in power, he ain't doin' NOTHIN' to show for it so far, other than tap dance.
My agenda: Death to money.
The wallet is evil. It must be punished.
Quote from: Jenne on June 26, 2010, 10:52:35 PM
Get your meddling kid posse to care enough, and we'll talk. I think they're fast realizing, though, that tho they helped put Obama in power, he ain't doin' NOTHIN' to show for it so far, other than tap dance.
:) I'm not talking about left vs. right though, I'm talking a different system of governance. More accurately though, until there's a viable solution in the form of working code, I'm just talking vaporware.
Quote from: Sigmatic on June 26, 2010, 10:57:00 PM
My agenda: Death to money.
The wallet is evil. It must be punished.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but would that be a communist viewpoint? The abolition of capital?
Quote from: Cosine 5 on June 27, 2010, 02:04:11 AM
Quote from: Sigmatic on June 26, 2010, 10:57:00 PM
My agenda: Death to money.
The wallet is evil. It must be punished.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but would that be a communist viewpoint? The abolition of capital?
/
/
/
:mullet:
ETA: im not implying that i think that the abolition of capital CAN be done or SHOULD be done, just the kind of people that would phrase it that way...
Quote from: Jenne on June 26, 2010, 10:52:35 PM
Get your meddling kid posse to care enough, and we'll talk. I think they're fast realizing, though, that tho they helped put Obama in power, he ain't doin' NOTHIN' to show for it so far, other than tap dance.
I worry that if Obama goes out with the perception of not getting much accomplished, then the younger generation that helped vote him into power in the first place will feel that all the energy and enthusiasm that they put into that campaign was wasted, and that getting involved with politics at all is a waste of time. We might not see such high turnout again for a long time if his presidency bombs - and without an engaged citizenship,
nothing will change for the better.
Well the irony is that they voted him in expecting him to take care of everything by himself. If there was a progressive arm with the energy and commitment of The Tea Party, then they would have likely hit all their agenda items already. Of course, it might have split the country apart, but you can't have everything. But you know, the long-haul ain't sexy, and it might well be invisible to those with a short attention span.
But if shit like the OP can't mobilise the apathetic, then what can? Remember when Petitions had some gravitas? When it was difficult and noteworthy to get a substantial number of signatures - not so much because of a lack of general support amongst the population - but because it was difficult for that tiny top% of people (who would actually get off their ass and get organised and sacrifice a shitload of time for a good cause) to meet each other. So when a politician received a heavy petition, they knew they should really do something - it was a fairly clean signal that "general support amongst the population" was higher than previously thought.
Then there is Petitiononline.com (http://www.petitiononline.com/): "more than 87 million signatures collected — tens of thousands of active petitions!" -- wowee, that's now impressively meaningless. Well done.
Back to the Obama Youth - what are they doing now? Fuckin flashmobs and g20 protests about whatever. I just remember something which seemed to really piss off the right during the 2008 election. It was the crowds which Obama drew. They even tried to attack and dismiss it with the "celebrity" meme. So it's kind of funny now that they're busy creating crowds of their own. But perhaps it's the other side of the coin? That like petitions, the internet makes it really easy to create a crowd if you have a good cause. It's also really easy for that crowd to disperse once it's reached what it considers its goal. And perhaps, like petitions, being able to create impressively large crowds will lose its political gravitas?
To that end, what about ridiculous anti-protest protests, to demonstrate the political invalidity of protests? Now if only I could get several thousand to march for the "Prime Minister Harper stop humping Llamas NOW" cause, I might go some way towards proving that point.
I don't actually think people are as apathetic as everyone says. They care, they want to change things, but they are confused, misinformed, and trained to hate each other. There's a lot of shit that's gone sour with our system, and every one of those things that have gone bad has a few thousand people who are pissed off about it. But everybody picks one thing that's gone wrong, and they blame everything else on that, instead of seeing everything that's gone wrong and use all those things to deduce what's Really Going On.
The Tea Partiers are assholes but they have a few good points. The ACLU are crazy but they have a few good points. Everybody has a piece of the puzzle but they'd all rather lose the whole country than admit they don't know everything, and they sure as hell don't want to end up cooperating with the enemy, which is of course other people who are suffering like they are, not the elites pulling the strings. We've been divided and conquered.
I don't think it's impossible to fix the system. That's the genius of our system. It's always possible to fix it -- it just never happens. It never happens because there are always a thousand ways to try to make it happen, and we're always going down those dead-end roads because the next protest might fix it, the next election might fix it, the next ballot measure might fix it, the next upstart political party might fix it... of course, none of those things ever make the slightest difference, but we're Americans, damn it, and Americans don't just give up.
Quote from: Cosine 5 on June 27, 2010, 02:04:11 AM
Quote from: Sigmatic on June 26, 2010, 10:57:00 PM
My agenda: Death to money.
The wallet is evil. It must be punished.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but would that be a communist viewpoint? The abolition of capital?
You've mistaken me for someone who wishes to replace it with something that's supposed to work.
Quote from: Sigmatic on June 27, 2010, 04:53:06 PM
Quote from: Cosine 5 on June 27, 2010, 02:04:11 AM
Quote from: Sigmatic on June 26, 2010, 10:57:00 PM
My agenda: Death to money.
The wallet is evil. It must be punished.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but would that be a communist viewpoint? The abolition of capital?
You've mistaken me for someone who wishes to replace it with something that's supposed to work.
So capitalism without the capital, basically?
You keep trying to frame what I'm saying. It's not making me want to explain myself.
But I'll try.
I'm in support of any kind of change that absolutely fucks the entire lives of the top ten thousand richest people on earth. Anything but an all-out destructive hate erection for them is basically a failure of realism, in my eyes.
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 27, 2010, 06:27:13 AM
Well the irony is that they voted him in expecting him to take care of everything by himself. If there was a progressive arm with the energy and commitment of The Tea Party,
Un, the Tea Party fizzled this spring...About the time the media got sick of them, and they learned the horrible truth that the liberals took 35 years to learn.
i wonder what the constitution would have been like if it had been written by discordians.
It would say, in shaky handwriting, YOUR handwriting: "Don't mess with time travel".
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 27, 2010, 08:18:58 PM
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 27, 2010, 06:27:13 AM
Well the irony is that they voted him in expecting him to take care of everything by himself. If there was a progressive arm with the energy and commitment of The Tea Party,
Un, the Tea Party fizzled this spring...About the time the media got sick of them, and they learned the horrible truth that the liberals took 35 years to learn.
The only point I was trying to make is that in our current environment, where it has never been easier to form groups, it also devalues the assumed meaning we have historically granted large organised movements. The Tea Party is the perfect example of this, regardless of their current political fortunes. In the same way that the first few large internet petitions may well have carried more weight, before the system adapted to the new political reality which technology enabled.
Which Horrible Truth are you thinking of?
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 27, 2010, 11:23:55 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 27, 2010, 08:18:58 PM
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 27, 2010, 06:27:13 AM
Well the irony is that they voted him in expecting him to take care of everything by himself. If there was a progressive arm with the energy and commitment of The Tea Party,
Un, the Tea Party fizzled this spring...About the time the media got sick of them, and they learned the horrible truth that the liberals took 35 years to learn.
The only point I was trying to make is that in our current environment, where it has never been easier to form groups, it also devalues the assumed meaning we have historically granted large organised movements. The Tea Party is the perfect example of this, regardless of their current political fortunes. In the same way that the first few large internet petitions may well have carried more weight, before the system adapted to the new political reality which technology enabled.
Which Horrible Truth are you thinking of?
1. It's so easy to form groups now that the groups are all small and ineffective. And silly. Factionalism is a funny thing.
2. The fact that protesting doesn't work anymore, because nobody's paying attention. After a while, they realize that they're the only ones buying the hype. Did you see the numbers for the last teabagger rally? Likewise, the Gay Pride day I witnessed on Boston Common was exuberant and well organized...but SMALL. And there were many signs being held that showed that even a relatively small group as that couldn't stay on message.
Maybe there's a massive unconscious realization that the system has chosen its course and nothing is going to stop it from running that course. Maybe everyone, whether they think so or not, is just waiting for the inevitable collapse so they can start over.
If I were completely cynical, if I had given up completely on the thought of a real change for the better, I'd say Obama's purpose was exactly to show off just how powerless and meaningless a huge movement for change really is these days. Good thing I'm not that cynical.
The "huge movement for change" died with Obamas inauguration, did it not?
Anyone who thinks the current status quo will simply fizzle away without any form of violence is UTTERLY INSANE and historically unaware. But mostly the former.
FFS, even the Saddam loyalists in Iraq took to the street with car bombs and RPGs, and Saddam ruled a dusty patch of earth with a river running through it. What do you think happens when TRILLIONS AND TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS and global hegemony is at stake? Yeah, I'm sure Goldman Sachs, Xe, Dyncorp, BP and the rest will roll over and play dead. It's not like they've deposed regimes or run death squads before, right?
Quote from: Sigmatic on June 27, 2010, 11:01:07 PM
It would say, in shaky handwriting, YOUR handwriting: "Don't mess with time travel".
:lulz:
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 27, 2010, 11:30:18 PM
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 27, 2010, 11:23:55 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 27, 2010, 08:18:58 PM
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 27, 2010, 06:27:13 AM
Well the irony is that they voted him in expecting him to take care of everything by himself. If there was a progressive arm with the energy and commitment of The Tea Party,
Un, the Tea Party fizzled this spring...About the time the media got sick of them, and they learned the horrible truth that the liberals took 35 years to learn.
The only point I was trying to make is that in our current environment, where it has never been easier to form groups, it also devalues the assumed meaning we have historically granted large organised movements. The Tea Party is the perfect example of this, regardless of their current political fortunes. In the same way that the first few large internet petitions may well have carried more weight, before the system adapted to the new political reality which technology enabled.
Which Horrible Truth are you thinking of?
1. It's so easy to form groups now that the groups are all small and ineffective. And silly. Factionalism is a funny thing.
2. The fact that protesting doesn't work anymore, because nobody's paying attention. After a while, they realize that they're the only ones buying the hype. Did you see the numbers for the last teabagger rally? Likewise, the Gay Pride day I witnessed on Boston Common was exuberant and well organized...but SMALL. And there were many signs being held that showed that even a relatively small group as that couldn't stay on message.
The main gathering occurred after you had headed back to Providence, and was quite large outside City Hall.
Edit: By which I mean, it occurred the next day.
Quote from: vexati0n on June 27, 2010, 10:58:18 PM
i wonder what the constitution would have been like if it had been written by discordians.
Wonder what it would have been like if it hadn't been written by Discordians!
We can't possibly beat the plutonomy. There is no way I as an individual can wrench that control away, even by voting; the plutocrats have a xanatos gambit on party politics.
Instead, I think of this more like a tribe in the forest, with the assholes at the top supplying the dangers all around. How do I survive in a dangerous forest of plutocracy?
1. Cultivate cohesive community, on the small scale. None of this anarchist/libertarian "every man for himself" bullshit. A community of like minded individuals who help each other in need and are aware of the dangers can survive where an individual would be ground to bits.
2. Think for yourself. Yes, as Discordians we should be doing that anyway. New situations require new techniques and new tools. And as the plutocrats want to push me into a box/herd and guide me along a path that gives them the highest payout, I should (to my benefit) limit the messages that prime my mind into their want. Not watching television, for example. So much out there is a trap. How do we avoid traps?
3. Learn skills. How do you survive in /this/ forest? What skills will get me out of danger? And I'm not talking about how to interview or balance a checkbook, but the skills we need to manipulate the hell out of the system from day to day. And stay the hell out of trouble in the process. AND, we should be teaching these to each other.
4. Cultivate self control. Probably the most important thing. Without self control, resetting priorities is impossible. A person without self control will endlessly fall back into old habits.
Quote from: Template on June 28, 2010, 05:00:43 PM
Quote from: vexati0n on June 27, 2010, 10:58:18 PM
i wonder what the constitution would have been like if it had been written by discordians.
Wonder what it would have been like if it hadn't been written by Discordians!
THIS. That whole crowd was a pack of freaks.
Quote from: Kai on June 28, 2010, 06:28:17 PM
We can't possibly beat the plutonomy. There is no way I as an individual can wrench that control away, even by voting; the plutocrats have a xanatos gambit on party politics.
Instead, I think of this more like a tribe in the forest, with the assholes at the top supplying the dangers all around. How do I survive in a dangerous forest of plutocracy?
1. Cultivate cohesive community, on the small scale. None of this anarchist/libertarian "every man for himself" bullshit. A community of like minded individuals who help each other in need and are aware of the dangers can survive where an individual would be ground to bits.
2. Think for yourself. Yes, as Discordians we should be doing that anyway. New situations require new techniques and new tools. And as the plutocrats want to push me into a box/herd and guide me along a path that gives them the highest payout, I should (to my benefit) limit the messages that prime my mind into their want. Not watching television, for example. So much out there is a trap. How do we avoid traps?
3. Learn skills. How do you survive in /this/ forest? What skills will get me out of danger? And I'm not talking about how to interview or balance a checkbook, but the skills we need to manipulate the hell out of the system from day to day. And stay the hell out of trouble in the process. AND, we should be teaching these to each other.
4. Cultivate self control. Probably the most important thing. Without self control, resetting priorities is impossible. A person without self control will endlessly fall back into old habits.
1. Set up a group of people. Hold regular meetings, say, once or twice a week. At these meetings, share stories of personal experience within this dangerous "forest," both good and bad, to keep others aware of the dangers and to give them the motivation to meet the challenges they face.
2. Draw from the experiences of other people in your group and look for patterns in the methods used to trap and punish people who buck the system. Keep a running log of events, and convene a group of people who draw on these data to offer advice and guidance to those seeking it.
3. Compile a list of behaviors that are known to help. Include stern warnings for failing to adhere to the list. Educate young people in these behaviors. Help the entire group to stay vigilant by having them admit when they have failed. Share new knowledge with the group.
4. Establish a set of easy-to-remember poems or anagrams that might help to both focus on the goal of staying out of the system and divert attention from the system. Have a few people on the lookout for traps set up by the system and proactively help people in the group from falling into them.
(http://heavenrules.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/church1.jpg)
sorry, i know i'm being counterproductive... just ignore me :(
There are evolutionary reasons for religion. Just saying.
Quote from: Kai on June 28, 2010, 06:49:10 PM
There are evolutionary reasons for religion. Just saying.
Yeah. Poor old flat-footed, short-sighted Oog hardly gets anything to eat because he can't hunt worth a damn, and can't get laid because he isn't big and virile like that bastard Alley Oop, so he thinks to himself, old Gronk is due to recover from her cold any day now, so I'll just use some...um...MAGIC STONES to "cure" her. Presto, he's a shaman, gets the pick of the grub, and gets to mate after all.
Which explains where Pentacostals come from.
And that, boys and girls, is also how the "priest meme" first began, only backwards.
Religion is also the closest thing (in the West, that I'm aware of) to a complete economic model that exists alongside but is not completely dependent on the mainstream economy. These are groups of people that (at least have to potential to) assist one another regardless of each other's standing in the mainstream economy, who have developed (atrophied) systems for communal wealth and labor, and who would be among the most able to persevere in the event of a complete economic collapse (or an absolute plutocratic dictatorship).
Sometimes it is so damn frustrating interacting with you people.
Quote from: Kai on June 28, 2010, 07:07:28 PM
Sometimes it is so damn frustrating interacting with you people.
Um, wut? :sad:
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 28, 2010, 07:09:09 PM
Quote from: Kai on June 28, 2010, 07:07:28 PM
Sometimes it is so damn frustrating interacting with you people.
Um, wut? :sad:
So our human intelligence evolved as a direct result of selection on 2C scheming. Does that mean that our intelligence is bad? The same thing for religion; it evolved via group selection because it had some survival benefits and added to group cohesiveness. There are bad aspects to it, but that doesn't mean that religion in essence is bad, no more than intelligence is bad.
Can't we talk seriously about this stuff? I'm not trying to rag on you or vex, I am just frustrated, wanting to change at least my life and help the lives of those I care about.
Quote from: Kai on June 28, 2010, 07:18:26 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 28, 2010, 07:09:09 PM
Quote from: Kai on June 28, 2010, 07:07:28 PM
Sometimes it is so damn frustrating interacting with you people.
Um, wut? :sad:
So our human intelligence evolved as a direct result of selection on 2C scheming. Does that mean that our intelligence is bad? The same thing for religion; it evolved via group selection because it had some survival benefits and added to group cohesiveness. There are bad aspects to it, but that doesn't mean that religion in essence is bad, no more than intelligence is bad.
Can't we talk seriously about this stuff? I'm not trying to rag on you or vex, I am just frustrated, wanting to change at least my life and help the lives of those I care about.
I was being serious.
My last comment was a serious conversation point. There are aspects of religious groups that could help them weather a storm like this. Some elements of their model might be worth adopting. Or infiltrating!
Leaving this thread. I'm not getting into an argument over this.
I hope I didn't offend you, Kai.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 28, 2010, 07:33:58 PM
Leaving this thread. I'm not getting into an argument over this.
I hope I didn't offend you, Kai.
No, you didn't.
Quote from: Kai on June 28, 2010, 06:28:17 PM
We can't possibly beat the plutonomy. There is no way I as an individual can wrench that control away, even by voting; the plutocrats have a xanatos gambit on party politics.
We can absolutely beat the plutonomy. I expect, no less, to see it within my lifetime. But I completely agree that we can't do so by the simple cast of a vote in a pre-rigged game.
This is where Cognitive Surplus comes in. This is about our recent shift from a
species which could only filter ideas through a one-to-many broadcast network to a species which can develop exponentially with dynamic many-to-many communication patterns. This is about creating a fertile environment for emergence to solve what will be a trivial problem in hindsight.
It's the beginning of a revolution. And if we aren't receptive to the new concepts it brings, then it will simply route around us as it will every other obstacle in its path.
Quote from: Kai on June 28, 2010, 06:28:17 PM
2. Think for yourself. Yes, as Discordians we should be doing that anyway. New situations require new techniques and new tools. And as the plutocrats want to push me into a box/herd and guide me along a path that gives them the highest payout, I should (to my benefit) limit the messages that prime my mind into their want. Not watching television, for example. So much out there is a trap. How do we avoid traps?
I dunno. Not watching TV is easy, cause it sucks so badly. The small amount of stuff worth watching, I download, so I can get entertainment [which is important] but more efficiently, and without the ads.
What's much, much harder for me is how to avoid burning my mind on the infinite firehose of information that is the Internet. Not so much the priming, I choose that myself [like avoiding articles on iPhones and iPads], but the mere volume of information I find damaging.
Quote3. Learn skills. How do you survive in /this/ forest? What skills will get me out of danger? And I'm not talking about how to interview or balance a checkbook, but the skills we need to manipulate the hell out of the system from day to day. And stay the hell out of trouble in the process. AND, we should be teaching these to each other.
Yes. Also because if you see the Plutonomy as supplying all the dangers in our modern jungle, you have to take care. Because if you make a self-reliant community, one that withstands the dangers, subverts and manipulates the system, you may catch the Machine's attention. And it can provide a lot more dangers if it knows where you are.
What this means is that the skills you're talking about cannot be too explicit about how to subvert the system on anything more than a rather small scale.
So, on the one part, it consists of skills that are simply accepted as common sense by the cogs of the Machine. A lot of them aren't unusually unreasonable, and you can use them just about as much as you want without drawing any attention. Balancing a checkbook is in fact a good example of this. Simple common sense education that doesn't worry the Machine too much goes a real long way.
Then there's the little "cheat codes" [I will start a thread on that in O:MF, check it], some are small and efficient, and the Machine will like because it likes efficiency, and others are a bit more subversive, and the Machine may not notice, until a lot of people start doing it. And then it gets angry, either at the cheating people, or if the behaviour is noticed too late and has "grown in", it will (somewhat randomly) lash out at something else.
I'm not entirely clear on how to balance between common sense "proper" skills and the slightly more subversive "cheating" skills that the Machine would not like if it would notice. And KYFMS works a good deal against the Machine noticing, but if you say teach it to others, it will notice that
something is going on even if everybody Keeps their Fucking Mouth Shut. Roger's next chapter in "Discordian Manual" was going to touch a littlebit on that subject, IIRC.
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 30, 2010, 06:56:56 AM
Quote from: Kai on June 28, 2010, 06:28:17 PM
We can't possibly beat the plutonomy. There is no way I as an individual can wrench that control away, even by voting; the plutocrats have a xanatos gambit on party politics.
We can absolutely beat the plutonomy. I expect, no less, to see it within my lifetime. But I completely agree that we can't do so by the simple cast of a vote in a pre-rigged game.
This is where Cognitive Surplus comes in. This is about our recent shift from a species which could only filter ideas through a one-to-many broadcast network to a species which can develop exponentially with dynamic many-to-many communication patterns. This is about creating a fertile environment for emergence to solve what will be a trivial problem in hindsight.
It's the beginning of a revolution. And if we aren't receptive to the new concepts it brings, then it will simply route around us as it will every other obstacle in its path.
:? are we talking about the same thing?
How is cognitive surplus going to change the fact that the top 2% control the majority of the economic resources? Do you really think we can crowdsource capital out of the mega-rich's pockets and restore the middle class?
Quote from: Triple Zero on June 30, 2010, 09:08:51 AM
Yes. Also because if you see the Plutonomy as supplying all the dangers in our modern jungle, you have to take care. Because if you make a self-reliant community, one that withstands the dangers, subverts and manipulates the system, you may catch the Machine's attention. And it can provide a lot more dangers if it knows where you are.
This too, I'm not sure you're talking about plutonomy / plutocracy.
Plutonomy, as it's described in the OP, describes the imbalance between the mega-rich and everybody else. If you're not raking in billions per year, you're a blip on the radar, a fly on the windshield. Neither the mega-rich nor the system that created them are threatened by self reliant communities. According to plutonomy theory, the entire lower class could be nuked and it would have no bearing on the economy. Citibanks advice to its investors was "don't worry about social inequality -- 1. the data shows that only the top 2%'s choices matter, so don't sweat the lower 98%, 2. the government is in
full support of us hoarding all the resources - it's the American Dream!"
I guess this does create a situation where it's good to know some community building and survival skills, but this is also true in non-plutonomy countries.
a bit more about plutonomies: (http://www.zcommunications.org/implications-of-plutonomy-by-girish-mishra.pdf)
"Ajay Kapur and his associates assert that world is getting divided into two blocs, namely, the Plutonomy and the rest. The term 'Plutonomy' is derived from, Plutus, the Greek god of wealth. America, Britain and Canada are the key Plutonomies, powered mainly by the wealthy. In Plutonomies, the rich dominate the economy as they account for most of the consumption expenditures, savings, current account deficits, etc. Obviously, in the Plutonomies, economic growth is powered by the wealthy. The rest of the population does not have much of a role in the economy.
Kapur and his associates claim: "Plutonomies have occurred before in sixteenth century Spain, in seventeenth century Holland, the Gilded Ages and Roaring Twenties in the U.S." Common drivers of Plutonomy in each case have been "Disruptive technology-driven productivity gains, creative financial innovation, capitalist-friendly cooperative governments, an international dimension of immigrants and overseas conquests invigorating wealth creation, the rule of law, and patenting inventions." These conditions benefit the rich and educated of the time because only they are in a position to exploit them. Income inequality has been a prominent feature of Plutonomy. In the present day world Plutonomies are given birth to and sustained by revolution in information and communications technology, financialization, globalization and friendly governments and their policies."
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 30, 2010, 06:56:56 AM
Quote from: Kai on June 28, 2010, 06:28:17 PM
We can't possibly beat the plutonomy. There is no way I as an individual can wrench that control away, even by voting; the plutocrats have a xanatos gambit on party politics.
We can absolutely beat the plutonomy. I expect, no less, to see it within my lifetime. But I completely agree that we can't do so by the simple cast of a vote in a pre-rigged game.
This is where Cognitive Surplus comes in. This is about our recent shift from a species which could only filter ideas through a one-to-many broadcast network to a species which can develop exponentially with dynamic many-to-many communication patterns. This is about creating a fertile environment for emergence to solve what will be a trivial problem in hindsight.
It's the beginning of a revolution. And if we aren't receptive to the new concepts it brings, then it will simply route around us as it will every other obstacle in its path.
Wait.
The age of Aquarius is going to dawn, and we'll all shit rainbows until the plutocrats self-reform?
Quote from: Cramulus on June 30, 2010, 02:44:13 PM
Kapur and his associates claim: "Plutonomies have occurred before in sixteenth century Spain, in seventeenth century Holland, the Gilded Ages and Roaring Twenties in the U.S." Common drivers of Plutonomy in each case have been "Disruptive technology-driven productivity gains...
Remember when computer technology had its widespread introduction into the workplace? Claims abound that the increase in productivity would mean we'd all need work only one day per week! Of course, we worked the same amount of time at this higher rate of productivity and created exponentially more shit to fill our homes with. We used the broadcast network spiders to instill new reasons to consume more, and this worked quite well for a while.
During this time those at the top needed to do very little,
but acquire other successful enterprises, as their wealth naturally increased with the exponential rise in production. For every 10 people making $1,000,000 in 1970, by 1980 you'd have 1 person making $10,000,000 (multiplied by the consumption increase). And so on.
Where we are now, I think, is the place where the acceleration of our consumption has leveled off. We still have more shit than we need, but we haven't really started looking at how to reduce. Each household is a separate state of duplication, maintained by a lack of community/a limitation of the available communication technology.
Where is the plutonomy vulnerable? In the blind assumption that its short-term financial success is indicative of long-term survival due to intrinsic qualities. In other words, that bottom 98% is more agile than the top 2% which believes its own intelligence is unassailable and will stubbornly continue to believe the lies it has created to explain its own short term success.
Quote from: Cramulus on June 30, 2010, 02:44:13 PM
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 30, 2010, 06:56:56 AM
Quote from: Kai on June 28, 2010, 06:28:17 PM
We can't possibly beat the plutonomy. There is no way I as an individual can wrench that control away, even by voting; the plutocrats have a xanatos gambit on party politics.
We can absolutely beat the plutonomy. I expect, no less, to see it within my lifetime. But I completely agree that we can't do so by the simple cast of a vote in a pre-rigged game.
This is where Cognitive Surplus comes in. This is about our recent shift from a species which could only filter ideas through a one-to-many broadcast network to a species which can develop exponentially with dynamic many-to-many communication patterns. This is about creating a fertile environment for emergence to solve what will be a trivial problem in hindsight.
It's the beginning of a revolution. And if we aren't receptive to the new concepts it brings, then it will simply route around us as it will every other obstacle in its path.
:? are we talking about the same thing?
How is cognitive surplus going to change the fact that the top 2% control the majority of the economic resources? Do you really think we can crowdsource capital out of the mega-rich's pockets and restore the middle class?
Crowdsourcing is probably the simplest possible application of having a Cognitive Surplus. In the same way that an integrated circuit can do so much more than create increasingly sophisticated digital watches (http://www.ledwatches.net/articles/Hamilton%20Announces%20PULSAR.htm). Crowdsourcing is a reflection of the one-to-many pattern - it still relies on a common hub. There aren't yet many ready examples of individual groups working towards the same goals in a many-to-many pattern. I think this is due to a technical limitation that without a central resource, connections are ad-hoc, and for now ad-hoc means temporary - forgotten when a server goes down or a thread is pruned.
I often think that there's probably some skeptics forum out there which shares 70% or so of our discussion topics and style. They're probably further ahead than us in some respects, and undoubtedly there are some things we could teach them too. There is an undeniable benefit to stepping out of our comfort zones and experience new approaches to existing issues. Isn't this the singular genius of the safari concept? Right now we have to forge and maintain these connections manually. We're moving rapidly towards a future where the job of finding the needle in the hay can be automated.
We have all the data we need in order to make better decisions - those informed by our personal preferences and desires - but while accessing it remains a burden, it may as well not be there at all. Imagine replacing the hard-drive in your computer with a tape-drive and you'll see what I mean.
Remember that iPhone app which caused a stir because it was able to perform a marvelous feat like recognise a song playing in the background and automatically enable you to purchase it? Okay - now imagine an Open Source app which, when you point your camera-phone at a can of beans in the supermarket will tell you of all the horrors of the Heinz corporation, and advise you to pick the store brand instead. Or if you care more about the environment than child-labour abuses, then you indicate that in your personal settings, and your dollars will go towards corporations which support your goals. The corporations which try to game it will be discovered, and the third most virulent offenders will be black-listed. There'll even be a little "facebook app" which tracks how many dollars (or percentages for the modest) of your purchases go towards particular causes. It'll fuck farmville in the face. Corporations can then look at the data and see quite clearly the impact that their particular business decisions has on revenue.
Hey, there's a local bakery who decide to donate a percentage of their profits towards the local library system - I fuckin' love libraries - would that bread taste even better because of that? You can bet it would. I'll just take a quick shot of the QR Code (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code) printed on my receipt, and I've both updated my stats and enabled any of my friends who love libraries to check out that store, too.
Even that example is just an extension of one-to-many crowd-sourcing. Would moving it to a many-to-many model improve things? What would that even look like? Greenpeace and other groups ducking it out to provide an authority on environmental issues? What if you recurse the selection process, and make it such that the individual gets to vote who they want as an authority on particular issues? They could cast their environmental vote for Greenpeace, or it could be BP, or it could be my friend Sue who reads all the blogs attends all the rallies and seems to really give a shit about this stuff - more than I do, anyway. But they could change it any time and as frequently as they wanted.
This, actually, is the basis for the Votorola (http://zelea.com/project/votorola/d/theory.xht) method of proxy voting:
(http://zelea.com/project/votorola/d/theory/power/shift-1.png) (http://zelea.com/project/votorola/d/theory.xht)
The Cognitive Surplus, when applied to civic matters - perhaps in this way, perhaps in another - will change the rules of the game. It will enable us to take apart the system, piece by piece, or just change the motivational structures such that The Machine
tm isn't such a dick any more.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 30, 2010, 02:47:44 PM
Wait.
The age of Aquarius is going to dawn, and we'll all shit rainbows until the plutocrats self-reform?
No. We will follow the money, and make that data accessible in a way that is easily integrated into our daily routines, and in of itself, provides a motivation for individuals to participate. We will wean large corporations away from large profits, and support businesses which actually live up to their responsibilities. We will force accountability into a system which was able to act with near anonymity with the old one-to-many communication technologies.
We will take advantage of the latent anger which bubbles under the surface of a society which for too long has been fucked over, with no way to do anything about it.
Because we will have tools more powerful than guns, lies, and riot police.
Quote from: Cain on June 28, 2010, 06:53:37 AM
Anyone who thinks the current status quo will simply fizzle away without any form of violence is UTTERLY INSANE and historically unaware. But mostly the former.
Yeah maybe. But I'm willing to work towards an alternative on the off-chance that you are wrong, and the future we're entering is unlike anything we can fully imagine at this moment in time.
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 30, 2010, 07:10:11 PM
No. We will follow the money, and make that data accessible in a way that is easily integrated into our daily routines, and in of itself, provides a motivation for individuals to participate. We will wean large corporations away from large profits, and support businesses which actually live up to their responsibilities. We will force accountability into a system which was able to act with near anonymity with the old one-to-many communication technologies.
How?
I detail that in the tl;dr above your comment :)
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 30, 2010, 07:21:05 PM
I detail that in the tl;dr above your comment :)
So you're going to attempt to network an apathetic public and do...what, exactly? Perhaps I am simply too stupid to understand it as written.
I suspect that even all made the "right" consumer choices, it still wouldn't decrease financial inequality.
I think this can be illustrated by the green movement --
1. There was a lot of buzz about how the environment was going to shit.
2. This created a demand for "green" products and industry
3. Companies redesigned themselves and "went green" in order to maximize profits
I guess the trick would be to start or participate in advocacy groups that attack the building blocks of plutonomy - like outsourcing. I can see "made in the USA" products as having a competitive advantage if outsourced goods were branded the right way.
Still, we'd have to all be on the same page for this to work. We'd have to get most americans to buy Local Brand instead of Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic... being that mega-corporations have done a great job of mixing branding with identity politics (ie "What kind of computer is for individuals? What brands of shoes do athletes wear?"), and being that outsourced products tend to be cheaper, it's going to be a giant struggle.
Wait. I think I understand.
Everyone's going to start acting rationally at the same time?
:lulz:
I think what he's saying is that everybody will be hooked into these "many : many" communication services which will create structures to encourage good consumer choices.
for example, when you're walking around at the supermarket, your iPhone will tell you what products to buy based on what causes you support. If you hate breast cancer, it'll tell you which products donate to breast cancer foundations. And that by doing this, you'll earn some kind of score you can use to compete with others.
--is that right, captain?
Quote from: Cramulus on June 30, 2010, 07:40:06 PM
I think what he's saying is that everybody will be hooked into these "many : many" communication services which will create structures to encourage good consumer choices.
Like the television and the internet have done? :lol:
Won't the people who run those structures be selling advertizements as fast as they can?
Quote from: Cramulus on June 30, 2010, 07:40:06 PM
for example, when you're walking around at the supermarket, your iPhone will tell you what products to buy based on what causes you support. If you hate breast cancer, it'll tell you which products donate to breast cancer foundations. And that by doing this, you'll earn some kind of score you can use to compete with others.
--is that right, captain?
That's honestly the most horrible vision of the future I've had this month, and I've had a few.
*sigh*
I said it once, but apparently it hasn't sunk in yet.
YOU WILL ONLY DEFEAT THE PLUTOCRATS THROUGH VIOLENCE. THEY SURE AS FUCK WILL USE VIOLENCE AGAINST YOU, AND IN FACT HAVE ALREADY FOR DECADES, YOU'RE JUST TOO STUPID TO RECOGNIZE IT FOR WHAT IT IS. AS SOON AS A SYSTEM WHICH CREATES TRILLIONS FOR ITS BENEFICIARIES IS GENUINELY THREATENED, THEY WILL HIRE PEOPLE WHOSE JOB IT IS TO KILL YOU. AND THEY WILL, BECAUSE YOUR LILY-WHITE SUBURBAN ASS IS NO MATCH FOR A FORMER SAS/DELTA FORCE/FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION/INSERT SPECIAL FORCES MEMBER HERE TYPE.
Ultimately, all political power derives from the barrel of a gun. You can either accept that, or end up as another statistic.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 30, 2010, 07:27:22 PM
So you're going to attempt to network an apathetic public and do...what, exactly? Perhaps I am simply too stupid to understand it as written.
Nah, I'm a god-awful writer who has trouble expressing even what the current weather is like, without causing confusion. The sentence structure of mine generally sucks :-/ But I am practicing.
- This will happen with or without my involvement. There is a little coin to be made by being involved, which means it'll probably happen sooner rather than later.
- I think the public are apathetic because they have no meaningful way to impact the system. Give them the tools, and make it easy, and let them do whatever they want. That's always going to be better than what they currently do - a passive nothing.
Quote from: Cramulus on June 30, 2010, 07:28:33 PM
I suspect that even all made the "right" consumer choices, it still wouldn't decrease financial inequality.
I think this can be illustrated by the green movement --
1. There was a lot of buzz about how the environment was going to shit.
2. This created a demand for "green" products and industry
3. Companies redesigned themselves and "went green" in order to maximize profits
At point #3 - this happened quite early on, and there was no easy way for a person who had the all the facts that this was happening, to communicate it to any audience. The system I describe will change that dramatically.
Thing is -- people will always try to game the system, you can't design it to be fool-proof. But you can design it such that it can detect and respond quickly to threats upon its integrity. If a corporation finds a loop-hole, and no blogger or citizen-journalist discovers what they are doing, and no whistle-blower comes out against them... then yes, that situation will persist. That is what we have now -- the difference is that once it is discovered, not only can you negate it, you can impose penalties.. and you can do that quickly enough to be a dangerous blip on the short-term corporate radar.
Quote from: Cramulus on June 30, 2010, 07:28:33 PM
I guess the trick would be to start or participate in advocacy groups that attack the building blocks of plutonomy - like outsourcing. I can see "made in the USA" products as having a competitive advantage if outsourced goods were branded the right way.
Sure. It's a last-mile problem though, when you're in-store, you need a quick and reliable way to access the crowd-sourced repository of knowledge. This is where mobile-technology makes this thing actually workable -- if it's a hassle, and if there are no
personal benefits to using it, no one will.
Quote from: Cramulus on June 30, 2010, 07:28:33 PM
Still, we'd have to all be on the same page for this to work. We'd have to get most americans to buy Local Brand instead of Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic... being that mega-corporations have done a great job of mixing branding with identity politics (ie "What kind of computer is for individuals? What brands of shoes do athletes wear?"), and being that outsourced products tend to be cheaper, it's going to be a giant struggle.
I think it's unlikely that you'd get most of any group to all follow the same buying habits, because most members of a group may share a few core values, but vary wildly on other issues. Our current frameworks only support the reliable communication of big issues/core values.
So you create an ecosystem of micro-motivations. You get a few of thousand people to "like" the idea of boycotting Nike over some shitty sweatshop practices and all of a sudden, the manager of the sweatshop decides it's worth spending a few more dollars a day to supply the workers with water and longer breaks. It's the sort of issue not large enough to get the attention of the CEO's to issue a top-down decision, but which can be decided and validated at lower levels. The corporations which don't encourage their decision-makers to be more flexible will suffer. And the longer a company ignores a dissatisfied public, the more negative publicity will be generated.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 30, 2010, 07:29:47 PM
Wait. I think I understand.
Everyone's going to start acting rationally at the same time?
:lulz:
No, not at all. You give people who want to act
slightly more rationally, the tools which enable them to further their individual interests. They are automatically linked with people who share those interests. In doing so, the effect on rationality is incremental.
Goddamn, you stupid fucking hippies who haven't even studied a successful revolution are starting to do my head in.
Quote from: Cain on June 30, 2010, 08:18:21 PM
*sigh*
I said it once, but apparently it hasn't sunk in yet.
YOU WILL ONLY DEFEAT THE PLUTOCRATS THROUGH VIOLENCE. THEY SURE AS FUCK WILL USE VIOLENCE AGAINST YOU, AND IN FACT HAVE ALREADY FOR DECADES, YOU'RE JUST TOO STUPID TO RECOGNIZE IT FOR WHAT IT IS. AS SOON AS A SYSTEM WHICH CREATES TRILLIONS FOR ITS BENEFICIARIES IS GENUINELY THREATENED, THEY WILL HIRE PEOPLE WHOSE JOB IT IS TO KILL YOU. AND THEY WILL, BECAUSE YOUR LILY-WHITE SUBURBAN ASS IS NO MATCH FOR A FORMER SAS/DELTA FORCE/FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION/INSERT SPECIAL FORCES MEMBER HERE TYPE.
Ultimately, all political power derives from the barrel of a gun. You can either accept that, or end up as another statistic.
No, I get it. That's why I'm prejudiced against rich people.
Quote from: Sigmatic on June 30, 2010, 08:22:43 PM
Quote from: Cain on June 30, 2010, 08:18:21 PM
*sigh*
I said it once, but apparently it hasn't sunk in yet.
YOU WILL ONLY DEFEAT THE PLUTOCRATS THROUGH VIOLENCE. THEY SURE AS FUCK WILL USE VIOLENCE AGAINST YOU, AND IN FACT HAVE ALREADY FOR DECADES, YOU'RE JUST TOO STUPID TO RECOGNIZE IT FOR WHAT IT IS. AS SOON AS A SYSTEM WHICH CREATES TRILLIONS FOR ITS BENEFICIARIES IS GENUINELY THREATENED, THEY WILL HIRE PEOPLE WHOSE JOB IT IS TO KILL YOU. AND THEY WILL, BECAUSE YOUR LILY-WHITE SUBURBAN ASS IS NO MATCH FOR A FORMER SAS/DELTA FORCE/FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION/INSERT SPECIAL FORCES MEMBER HERE TYPE.
Ultimately, all political power derives from the barrel of a gun. You can either accept that, or end up as another statistic.
No, I get it. That's why I'm prejudiced against rich people.
Oh I know you, and a few others here do.
It's just some people posting ITT seem determined to end up as Darwin Award material. Although I'm sure there is a downside, since eventually the only revolutionaries left will be the smart and vicious ones.
Well, he's not "Captain Utopia" for nothing. :lulz:
I'm with Cain on this one. There's no way the Plutocrats will allow a shakeup like thatg to happen without intervention. but I don't think they will need violence, not for this, anyway. A cutesie app to tell people which brands to buy based on causes will be commercialized in a heartbeat. Not to mention that the off-brand products are all made by big-brand corporations anyway. In fact they probably get a tax break for doing it.
No fundamental change is possible without revolution. The last time somebody tried to set up a system to supercede the system, we got the Constitution. And that's worked out swimmingly, don't you think?
The Plutocrats will not be collapsing anytime soon. Even if the world blows up in nuclear war, your cross-country radproof dune buggy will probably have a Halliburton stamp on the back bumper.
Quote from: Cramulus on June 30, 2010, 07:40:06 PM
I think what he's saying is that everybody will be hooked into these "many : many" communication services which will create structures to encourage good consumer choices.
for example, when you're walking around at the supermarket, your iPhone will tell you what products to buy based on what causes you support. If you hate breast cancer, it'll tell you which products donate to breast cancer foundations. And that by doing this, you'll earn some kind of score you can use to compete with others.
--is that right, captain?
Pretty much, except that there would be long-term causes you'd have linked to products.. and the only time you'd whip out your camera phone is if you didn't know, or were simply curious about the current status.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 30, 2010, 07:45:20 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on June 30, 2010, 07:40:06 PM
I think what he's saying is that everybody will be hooked into these "many : many" communication services which will create structures to encourage good consumer choices.
Like the television and the internet have done? :lol:
Won't the people who run those structures be selling advertizements as fast as they can?
Television is definitely a one : many communication device. It broadcasts, it's not a conversation.
The internet is still incredibly young and we are only beginning to scratch the surface of its potential.
If you run it as an open source project, then no, you need not assume that the structure will be filled with advertisements.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 30, 2010, 07:45:20 PM
That's honestly the most horrible vision of the future I've had this month, and I've had a few.
How so?
I simply decided to become a rich person. Problem solved.
Quote from: Cain on June 30, 2010, 08:18:21 PM
*sigh*
I said it once, but apparently it hasn't sunk in yet.
YOU WILL ONLY DEFEAT THE PLUTOCRATS THROUGH VIOLENCE. THEY SURE AS FUCK WILL USE VIOLENCE AGAINST YOU, AND IN FACT HAVE ALREADY FOR DECADES, YOU'RE JUST TOO STUPID TO RECOGNIZE IT FOR WHAT IT IS. AS SOON AS A SYSTEM WHICH CREATES TRILLIONS FOR ITS BENEFICIARIES IS GENUINELY THREATENED, THEY WILL HIRE PEOPLE WHOSE JOB IT IS TO KILL YOU. AND THEY WILL, BECAUSE YOUR LILY-WHITE SUBURBAN ASS IS NO MATCH FOR A FORMER SAS/DELTA FORCE/FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION/INSERT SPECIAL FORCES MEMBER HERE TYPE.
Ultimately, all political power derives from the barrel of a gun. You can either accept that, or end up as another statistic.
Have you spent much time studying how open source/internet projects work? Once an idea is established, variations will flourish. The only tricky part would be to define a common information-exchange protocol from the get-go.
Besides, the core question here is whether such a system
could develop/expand and become a genuine threat. Because I don't expect they will recognise it as a threat until such time as it is much too late to stop the actual concept. At that point, they're fucked.
But I'm not going to spend much more time trying to convince anyone that it is a threat, I'm just going to go ahead and do it if someone doesn't get it done first.
Quote from: Cain on June 30, 2010, 08:18:21 PM
*sigh*
I said it once, but apparently it hasn't sunk in yet.
YOU WILL ONLY DEFEAT THE PLUTOCRATS THROUGH VIOLENCE. THEY SURE AS FUCK WILL USE VIOLENCE AGAINST YOU, AND IN FACT HAVE ALREADY FOR DECADES, YOU'RE JUST TOO STUPID TO RECOGNIZE IT FOR WHAT IT IS. AS SOON AS A SYSTEM WHICH CREATES TRILLIONS FOR ITS BENEFICIARIES IS GENUINELY THREATENED, THEY WILL HIRE PEOPLE WHOSE JOB IT IS TO KILL YOU. AND THEY WILL, BECAUSE YOUR LILY-WHITE SUBURBAN ASS IS NO MATCH FOR A FORMER SAS/DELTA FORCE/FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION/INSERT SPECIAL FORCES MEMBER HERE TYPE.
Ultimately, all political power derives from the barrel of a gun. You can either accept that, or end up as another statistic.
Indeed. So it's time to learn to survive stealthily in the jungle rather than be hunted.
Quote from: Sigmatic on June 30, 2010, 08:26:15 PM
Well, he's not "Captain Utopia" for nothing. :lulz:
Bingo!
I enjoy the "we're all fucked, but we may as well enjoy the ride/THE MACHINE WILL SHOOT YOU" narrative, as much as anyone else, but that doesn't make it True.
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 30, 2010, 08:52:13 PM
Quote from: Sigmatic on June 30, 2010, 08:26:15 PM
Well, he's not "Captain Utopia" for nothing. :lulz:
Bingo!
I enjoy the "we're all fucked, but we may as well enjoy the ride/THE MACHINE WILL SHOOT YOU" narrative, as much as anyone else, but that doesn't make it True.
Human moral progress doesn't happen.
Just saying.
Quote from: Kai on June 30, 2010, 08:54:55 PM
Human moral progress doesn't happen.
Just saying.
Because we all still support child brides/slavery/domestic abuse/rape in our society?
I'd say human moral progress is doing quite well considering that it's had very little in way of motivating forces to improve.
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 30, 2010, 08:52:13 PM
Quote from: Sigmatic on June 30, 2010, 08:26:15 PM
Well, he's not "Captain Utopia" for nothing. :lulz:
Bingo!
I enjoy the "we're all fucked, but we may as well enjoy the ride/THE MACHINE WILL SHOOT YOU" narrative, as much as anyone else, but that doesn't make it True.
You're really very good at inferring arguments that a person hasn't actually made.
And, as it happens, in the Really Existing World of Actual Government As Practiced By the Sociopaths In Charge, my arguments about how an enriched elite under an existing threat act have real merit. How do I know? Because
I worked for the fuckers. I was trained to be one of their useful, thinking, intelligent guard dogs, the kind who see the long term and complex threats, and then crush them. I know how they think because I went to the same schools as them, studied the same thinkers and had the same professors.
But I'm sure fart-arsing around on Slashdot has given you a far greater insight into the power mechanisms of the 21st century than, oh, actually studying how nations and political elites came by power and lost them, so go ahead and please explain how your pie in the sky utopianism will operate when Blackwater-esque mercs kidnap those close to you and start cutting off their extremities until you turn yourself in.
Quote from: Kai on June 30, 2010, 08:54:55 PM
Human moral progress doesn't happen.
Just saying.
Would you mind going into more detail on this?
Not that I disagree, I'm interested in your point of view here.
There are a few problems with the open-source model, though. Whether you're talking about operating systems, applications and other software, crowd-sourcing, spontaneous political movements, or anything else open source, there are barriers that would need to be overcome.
- It's nearly always running a few years behind commercial equivalents in terms of quality, stability, and performance.
- Nobody takes it seriously. It has no marketing department, and it always comes off as "something some dweeb made in his basement."
- It's always assumed that anything open-source is a sub-standard attempt to copy something "real" and you're better off going with the proprietary version, regardless of how unique it is or how unmatched its function is by anything produced commercially.
Ultimately, open-source is so invested in potential that it almost leaves out actual completely.
I would like to think that a system of punishing corporations for their bad behaviors could grow (from an open-source community or anything else) but it won't happen for the same reason that alternatives in general are failing all the time: in order to compete with the Big Guys, you have to look, feel, act, and respond like a Big Guy yourself. That just gets your foot in the door. And from that point on, you're just one equivalent choice among many, so why would anyone pick your system over the one they're already comfortable with?
Ideologies are products like anything else. The "down with Plutocracy" ideology sounds great, until you realize that in order to sell it, you have to market it. And if you sell it, you have to deliver something. Unfortunately for the future of humanity, the only thing a moral upgrade like that can deliver is harder choices, more expensive products, fewer luxuries, and expulsion from your comfort zone. Find a slogan to sell that to a mainstream audience and I'm all ears. I'd support it fully, but at least half of me hopes it never happens, and I'm one of the good guys.
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 30, 2010, 08:43:32 PM
Quote from: Cain on June 30, 2010, 08:18:21 PM
*sigh*
I said it once, but apparently it hasn't sunk in yet.
YOU WILL ONLY DEFEAT THE PLUTOCRATS THROUGH VIOLENCE. THEY SURE AS FUCK WILL USE VIOLENCE AGAINST YOU, AND IN FACT HAVE ALREADY FOR DECADES, YOU'RE JUST TOO STUPID TO RECOGNIZE IT FOR WHAT IT IS. AS SOON AS A SYSTEM WHICH CREATES TRILLIONS FOR ITS BENEFICIARIES IS GENUINELY THREATENED, THEY WILL HIRE PEOPLE WHOSE JOB IT IS TO KILL YOU. AND THEY WILL, BECAUSE YOUR LILY-WHITE SUBURBAN ASS IS NO MATCH FOR A FORMER SAS/DELTA FORCE/FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION/INSERT SPECIAL FORCES MEMBER HERE TYPE.
Ultimately, all political power derives from the barrel of a gun. You can either accept that, or end up as another statistic.
Have you spent much time studying how open source/internet projects work? Once an idea is established, variations will flourish. The only tricky part would be to define a common information-exchange protocol from the get-go.
Besides, the core question here is whether such a system could develop/expand and become a genuine threat. Because I don't expect they will recognise it as a threat until such time as it is much too late to stop the actual concept. At that point, they're fucked.
But I'm not going to spend much more time trying to convince anyone that it is a threat, I'm just going to go ahead and do it if someone doesn't get it done first.
Oh, dear.
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 30, 2010, 08:43:32 PM
Quote from: Cain on June 30, 2010, 08:18:21 PM
*sigh*
I said it once, but apparently it hasn't sunk in yet.
YOU WILL ONLY DEFEAT THE PLUTOCRATS THROUGH VIOLENCE. THEY SURE AS FUCK WILL USE VIOLENCE AGAINST YOU, AND IN FACT HAVE ALREADY FOR DECADES, YOU'RE JUST TOO STUPID TO RECOGNIZE IT FOR WHAT IT IS. AS SOON AS A SYSTEM WHICH CREATES TRILLIONS FOR ITS BENEFICIARIES IS GENUINELY THREATENED, THEY WILL HIRE PEOPLE WHOSE JOB IT IS TO KILL YOU. AND THEY WILL, BECAUSE YOUR LILY-WHITE SUBURBAN ASS IS NO MATCH FOR A FORMER SAS/DELTA FORCE/FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION/INSERT SPECIAL FORCES MEMBER HERE TYPE.
Ultimately, all political power derives from the barrel of a gun. You can either accept that, or end up as another statistic.
Have you spent much time studying how open source/internet projects work? Once an idea is established, variations will flourish. The only tricky part would be to define a common information-exchange protocol from the get-go.
Besides, the core question here is whether such a system could develop/expand and become a genuine threat. Because I don't expect they will recognise it as a threat until such time as it is much too late to stop the actual concept. At that point, they're fucked.
But I'm not going to spend much more time trying to convince anyone that it is a threat, I'm just going to go ahead and do it if someone doesn't get it done first.
I studied open source models for insurgencies back in 2005. You know what happens? There is a lot of variation, and then a lot of dead insurgents, because not every idea is a good one. And by the time a good one does come along, the associated levels of violence normally mean there isn't the man power left to use it effectively.
You massively underestimate who you are going up against. These people use drugs, death squads, mercenaries, investment banks, dirty loans, arms deals and favours to buy up pretty much anyone they want. They are paranoid to a fault and as such they see threats everywhere, even where there are none.
Your idea isn't dangerous, and even if it was, you wouldn't be able to utlilize it effectively, because you have no grasp of the sort of opposition you are going to run into. They would eat you alive for breakfast, and spit out your bones. That is the simple truth. They have not held onto power for so long by being stupid (except in a particular kind of way which actually, in certain ways, helps them) or by letting real threats go unchecked for too long.
They probably wont even have to use violence. A few competent hackers and some select, out of context quotes would make you a pariah in no time, an untrustworthy fringe lunatic who cannot be worked with or believed. And that's amateur work, even for the uninspiring bunch that currently make up the CIA and other such bodies.
I would really appreciate it if we could discuss the issues civilly and without resorting to one-sided personal attacks.
Quote from: Cain on June 30, 2010, 09:06:00 PM
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 30, 2010, 08:52:13 PM
Quote from: Sigmatic on June 30, 2010, 08:26:15 PM
Well, he's not "Captain Utopia" for nothing. :lulz:
Bingo!
I enjoy the "we're all fucked, but we may as well enjoy the ride/THE MACHINE WILL SHOOT YOU" narrative, as much as anyone else, but that doesn't make it True.
You're really very good at inferring arguments that a person hasn't actually made.
Er, which inference did I get it wrong?
Quote from: Cain on June 30, 2010, 09:06:00 PM
And, as it happens, in the Really Existing World of Actual Government As Practiced By the Sociopaths In Charge, my arguments about how an enriched elite under an existing threat act have real merit. How do I know? Because I worked for the fuckers. I was trained to be one of their useful, thinking, intelligent guard dogs, the kind who see the long term and complex threats, and then crush them. I know how they think because I went to the same schools as them, studied the same thinkers and had the same professors.
But I'm sure fart-arsing around on Slashdot has given you a far greater insight into the power mechanisms of the 21st century than, oh, actually studying how nations and political elites came by power and lost them, so go ahead and please explain how your pie in the sky utopianism will operate when Blackwater-esque mercs kidnap those close to you and start cutting off their extremities until you turn yourself in.
What have I got to do with anything? It's the concept which, if anything, is dangerous. If I get hit by a truck tomorrow (driven by a Blackwater merc, naturally), then the idea will spring up independently elsewhere, as it's simply an extrapolation of current trends.
Captain Utopia,
I think the real weakness in your plan is not in the theory itself, but in the fundamental assumption made that there can be some kind of chain reaction set off that can somehow be self-sustaining to a predetermined end with little or no sustained conscious active involvement by a person (or people) with a plan. It is this kind of thing that renders the entire open-source movement utterly inconsequential to the larger schemes at play in the world.
You cannot have a revolution that just somehow takes care of itself by planting a few seeds and watching them sprout. If they do sprout, they will be crushed. If they survive, they will be co-opted. If they germinate and spread a kernel of the original intention to somewhere else, then the process will be repeated. It is not that open-source can't work in theory, it's that its potential is never realized because people keep expecting a spontaneous network of equally well-informed and well-meaning people to show up on a battlefield out of the goodness of their hearts, and then keep showing up, no matter the costs or how many bodies of their fallen comrades they have to stand on top of to make their voices heard. People do not, in fact, have all that much goodness in their hearts. And for good reason. Going into a mine field to start planting flowers gets you out of the gene pool pretty fast.
Quote from: Cain on June 30, 2010, 09:23:27 PM
I studied open source models for insurgencies back in 2005. You know what happens? There is a lot of variation, and then a lot of dead insurgents, because not every idea is a good one. And by the time a good one does come along, the associated levels of violence normally mean there isn't the man power left to use it effectively.
Sure, I can buy that. But I was talking about actual open source projects, not things which incorrectly appropriate the "open source" moniker.
I agree with you, to the extent that if there was some Dark Force actively working to stamp out an idea even before it was implemented, then they could succeed. Once that idea has been implemented once though, and it becomes global, it's a different story. You'd literally have to wipe out everyone and anyone who had ever heard of it.
Quote from: vexati0n on June 30, 2010, 09:13:50 PM
There are a few problems with the open-source model, though. Whether you're talking about operating systems, applications and other software, crowd-sourcing, spontaneous political movements, or anything else open source, there are barriers that would need to be overcome.
- It's nearly always running a few years behind commercial equivalents in terms of quality, stability, and performance.
There is no commercial system or equivalent. If there was then great - as long as it performs the basic task, I don't really care if someone makes a profit. If enough people did care, they could create their own.
What we are talking about isn't rocket science, it's about three months of work for me if I were to quit my job and start on it now. I'm not going to, not least because this is just a small part of a much broader plan that's been in the works for the last three years.
Quote from: vexati0n on June 30, 2010, 09:13:50 PM
- Nobody takes it seriously. It has no marketing department, and it always comes off as "something some dweeb made in his basement."
If it fulfills the specifications, then it'll provide value to the individuals who choose to use it. That's all the marketing it would need.
Quote from: vexati0n on June 30, 2010, 09:13:50 PM
- It's always assumed that anything open-source is a sub-standard attempt to copy something "real" and you're better off going with the proprietary version, regardless of how unique it is or how unmatched its function is by anything produced commercially.
Assumed by who? Again - if there is a proprietary system, and it gives its users a feeling of comfort which an open source version can't, then great. The end-game is just getting the idea implemented, not who seeks to control it.
Quote from: vexati0n on June 30, 2010, 09:13:50 PM
Ideologies are products like anything else. The "down with Plutocracy" ideology sounds great, until you realize that in order to sell it, you have to market it. And if you sell it, you have to deliver something. Unfortunately for the future of humanity, the only thing a moral upgrade like that can deliver is harder choices, more expensive products, fewer luxuries, and expulsion from your comfort zone. Find a slogan to sell that to a mainstream audience and I'm all ears. I'd support it fully, but at least half of me hopes it never happens, and I'm one of the good guys.
Can you explain why putting more control into the hands of consumers, guarantees "harder choices, more expensive products, fewer luxuries, and expulsion from your comfort zone".
Quote from: LMNO on June 30, 2010, 09:06:39 PM
Quote from: Kai on June 30, 2010, 08:54:55 PM
Human moral progress doesn't happen.
Just saying.
Would you mind going into more detail on this?
Not that I disagree, I'm interested in your point of view here.
IOW, human morality is cyclical. There is no ultimate utopian moral paradise at the end of the tunnel, and people who advocate it are willing to allow the ends to justify the means. People do "bad" things and "good" things, but people who do Good for the Greater Good are able to justify being assholes to get to paradise, whatever that paradise might be called.
Utopianism is dangerous. It gave us NAZI Germany, among other things. Religious crusades, genocide, do I need to go on? I wrote more about it in review of the book
I Don't Believe in Atheists, but I don't know where that went to.
I would describe a vast difference between pointing at a vision of utopia and saying, we can aim to get closer to this... and pointing at it and pretending that you can actually get there if only you're willing to make "certain" sacrifices.
Quote from: Captain Utopia on June 30, 2010, 10:48:49 PM
I would describe a vast difference between pointing at a vision of utopia and saying, we can aim to get closer to this... and pointing at it and pretending that you can actually get there if only you're willing to make "certain" sacrifices.
I don't trust your "vision of utopia".
:sadbanana:
Actually, I'm not sure what point you are making. Is it that some changes require full cooperation, and thus must be forced if there is no consensus?
Or are you referring to a specific case as it relates to the idea I put forth? That is an incremental change and doesn't fall into the category above because it doesn't require full cooperation of all the players.
I find it hard to believe that I'm the only person on PD.com who thinks that it might be possible to out-smart the plutonomy using non-violent methods.
Quote from: Captain Utopia on July 02, 2010, 05:28:56 AM
I find it hard to believe that I'm the only person on PD.com who thinks that it might be possible to out-smart the plutonomy using non-violent methods.
I don't think it's
impossible to outsmart the Plutonomy, but is it worth the time and effort? Human nature and society being what they are, another one will just step in to take its place anyway. I'm not saying we should give up, but wouldn't it make more sense to just step to the side of it? The plutonomy is like a freight train barreling toward us, and humanity is like the helpless victim tied to the tracks. Except we're not really tied to anything. Yes, in theory, we could come up with a master plan, derail the train or build an alternative track or something, but seriously... why not just get the fuck out the way?
So, if the richest 2% don't need us, then why are we still here?
Quote from: Jerry_Frankster on July 02, 2010, 09:52:28 AM
So, if the richest 2% don't need us, then why are we still here?
Obviously because they're better off
with us than without us.
Maybe they can do without us, but it's just more comfortable to have a slave army working for you?
Also, if Cain's right, they have nothing to fear except from eachother.
Oh and, of course, if you're the richest 2%, and you do away with the other 98%, you're no longer the richest 2%. It's an ego thing, I guess.
Quote from: Captain Utopia on July 02, 2010, 05:28:56 AM
I find it hard to believe that I'm the only person on PD.com who thinks that it might be possible to out-smart the plutonomy using non-violent methods.
It's possible, just not on the scale you're thinking of. As soon as you're noticed, they'll try to squash you, so you have to work in the cracks and in the shadows. You won't defeat them, but you can minimize their impact on your life.
That's one of the messages I got from the BIP. It just seems, to me, that anything less than aiming to defeat the motherfuckers is choosing a to live in a "loser script". I mean yes - living in the cracks gives us the freedom to keep breathing, and to have as much fun as we can get away with without attracting their attention - but if that is the extent of our ambition, don't we deserve this situation?
Quote from: Captain Utopia on July 02, 2010, 01:26:18 PM
That's one of the messages I got from the BIP. It just seems, to me, that anything less than aiming to defeat the motherfuckers is choosing a to live in a "loser script". I mean yes - living in the cracks gives us the freedom to keep breathing, and to have as much fun as we can get away with without attracting their attention - but if that is the extent of our ambition, don't we deserve this situation?
I'm 100% with you, I think we all have to do something about it in a small way
I'm just trying to figure out what will be effective.
An eye opener? Go over to revleft.com and check out their forum. Revleft is a community for communists and anarchists who want to destroy the system and build a new one. And reading their forum for anything more than 2 minutes causes me to break out into hives. Because the bigger and more world-changing your designs are, the more archons you want to slay and Parthenons you want to knock down, the greater likelihood that you're just having a power fantasy.
I
do want to change the system. But I don't want to be these guys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtuYWyjk4ZI (watch video till the end, it's
perfect)
Quote from: Captain Utopia on July 02, 2010, 01:26:18 PM
That's one of the messages I got from the BIP. It just seems, to me, that anything less than aiming to defeat the motherfuckers is choosing a to live in a "loser script". I mean yes - living in the cracks gives us the freedom to keep breathing, and to have as much fun as we can get away with without attracting their attention - but if that is the extent of our ambition, don't we deserve this situation?
*shrugs*
If people didn't want it, they wouldn't pay for it.
Some of us are aiming at nothing less than total victory.
However that doesn't mean we have to be delusional in our assessments as to what would happen the moment we became even theoretically capable of success. Strategy demands an accurate, truthful account of the world in which we live, to work from in order to make all paths lead to victory (anyone who relies on chance is also a sucker). Working from an unreal understanding of the world leads to faulty conclusions, an inability to accurately predict the moves ones enemies will make and allows for you to be decieved.
Quote from: Cain on July 02, 2010, 06:03:44 PM
Working from an unreal understanding of the world leads to faulty conclusions, an inability to accurately predict the moves ones enemies will make and allows for you to be decieved.
THIS.
Working from a truthful model of the world will not, however, necessarily improve your spelling.
deceived :argh!:
Quote from: Cain on July 02, 2010, 06:21:09 PM
Working from a truthful model of the world will not, however, necessarily improve your spelling.
deceived :argh!:
Somewhere, the Queen is crying. :cry:
I'll agree that some level of violence would be inherent in any change, even the hippies got shot and beaten to death. But how much violence is really going to be there? Labor organization was certainly bloody, but it wasn't exactly full scale civil war.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on July 02, 2010, 11:51:08 PM
I'll agree that some level of violence would be inherent in any change, even the hippies got shot and beaten to death. But how much violence is really going to be there? Labor organization was certainly bloody, but it wasn't exactly full scale civil war.
But the sexual revolution and labor organization were tweaks. Tweaks that are quickly losing ground today, by the way. But even if they ran their full course they would not amount the fundamental shift required in everything from moral values to the nature of Government required to dismantle the Plutonomy.
In the larger picture, the gains made by sexual revolutionaries and labor unions were inconveniences to the ruling elite at worst. They were not threats to their very existence. And it is their
existence which has become a threat to the viability not only of households, families, industries and nations, but of the entire Human genome.
Piecemeal "change" is great, if you enjoy the distraction of pushing and pulling on specific issues -- more or less petitioning the powerful elite to swoop in and set the rules in your favor, which they will do only if it's more efficient than to allow the other side to win or to simply allow the argument to continue. And their "fixes" come with more strings attached than a quadriplegic Pinocchio.
Personally I think the whole system is rigged. More than rigged, because even realizing the system is rigged, is part of the trap.
Quote from: Cramulus on July 02, 2010, 01:46:56 PM
Quote from: Captain Utopia on July 02, 2010, 01:26:18 PM
That's one of the messages I got from the BIP. It just seems, to me, that anything less than aiming to defeat the motherfuckers is choosing a to live in a "loser script". I mean yes - living in the cracks gives us the freedom to keep breathing, and to have as much fun as we can get away with without attracting their attention - but if that is the extent of our ambition, don't we deserve this situation?
I'm 100% with you, I think we all have to do something about it in a small way
I'm just trying to figure out what will be effective.
An eye opener? Go over to revleft.com and check out their forum. Revleft is a community for communists and anarchists who want to destroy the system and build a new one. And reading their forum for anything more than 2 minutes causes me to break out into hives. Because the bigger and more world-changing your designs are, the more archons you want to slay and Parthenons you want to knock down, the greater likelihood that you're just having a power fantasy.
I do want to change the system. But I don't want to be these guys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtuYWyjk4ZI (watch video till the end, it's perfect)
That clip is awesome. Revleft makes me angry in a way I can't properly articulate. Hmm. Am I engaging in a power fantasy? It's a good question. I really don't know. I'm probably the last person to ask. I don't have a grand plan of any sort. The "vote with your dollars" idea was one simple example, requested, with regards how a motivated group could
possibly attack the plutonomy by documenting - and throttling - its sources of income.
I do think, however, that the following things are fundamental:
- The ability to deliberate issues, taking into account all stakeholders, and arriving at plans/decisions which are representative of the majority.
- The ability to take those decisions, document and enforce them.
The metagovernment projects are making excellent progress towards the second point - I'll expand if anyone is curious.
On and off for the last three years I've been working on a project with regards the first point, because I think its impact is underestimated. For instance, forums are great at what they do but they don't scale nicely. If PD.com was 10x the size it is today, you wouldn't know who I was taking about if I mentioned that new Fujiwhatever guy. In fact most of us would have handles and personalities unrecognisable in the crowd. Whereas today we can have a discussion which evolves, taking into account the feelings of most of the individuals participating - somewhere between here and a PD.com 10x the size, vast swathes of the forum population do not feel represented. You can see this also in the hapless enthusiasm which fills pages of unread blog or political site comments. We want a connection, the tools available are failing, but we can build better tools.
Can you imagine using a forum to allow the members of a city to discuss and decide on the directions they want to take? A state? A country? The problem definition is simplified by necessity here. But this is the shit which keeps me awake at night. I've developed a group of algorithms which I think will tackle that problem, but until I have a working prototype I have a hard time convincing myself that I'm not just talking out of my ass.
That said - if you did have the two bullet points above, then world-changing designs could be commonplace, you'd just have a hard time finding an individual or group with any "power" to disproportionately influence events.
Quote from: Cain on July 02, 2010, 06:03:44 PM
Some of us are aiming at nothing less than total victory.
However that doesn't mean we have to be delusional in our assessments as to what would happen the moment we became even theoretically capable of success. Strategy demands an accurate, truthful account of the world in which we live, to work from in order to make all paths lead to victory (anyone who relies on chance is also a sucker). Working from an unreal understanding of the world leads to faulty conclusions, an inability to accurately predict the moves ones enemies will make and allows for you to be deceived.
Okay cool. I'm not really sure that this is the proper venue to get into the specifics. Primarily though, I just felt compelled to challenge a message I incorrectly interpreted as "we can't win, so we might not even bother trying".
Quote from: Triple Zero on July 02, 2010, 12:15:21 PM
Quote from: Jerry_Frankster on July 02, 2010, 09:52:28 AM
So, if the richest 2% don't need us, then why are we still here?
Obviously because they're better off with us than without us.
Maybe they can do without us, but it's just more comfortable to have a slave army working for you?
Also, if Cain's right, they have nothing to fear except from eachother.
Oh and, of course, if you're the richest 2%, and you do away with the other 98%, you're no longer the richest 2%. It's an ego thing, I guess.
So basically, we are a part of their wealth.
Quote from: Jerry_Frankster on July 03, 2010, 06:13:47 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on July 02, 2010, 12:15:21 PM
Quote from: Jerry_Frankster on July 02, 2010, 09:52:28 AM
So, if the richest 2% don't need us, then why are we still here?
Obviously because they're better off with us than without us.
Maybe they can do without us, but it's just more comfortable to have a slave army working for you?
Also, if Cain's right, they have nothing to fear except from eachother.
Oh and, of course, if you're the richest 2%, and you do away with the other 98%, you're no longer the richest 2%. It's an ego thing, I guess.
So basically, we are a part of their wealth.
Um, obviously.
Well who pays the taxes which get turned into bailouts which help keep the banks afloat? Who pays the taxes for public services and publically owned companies, which are then sold off at bargain basement prices to various oligarchs who then turn the screws on those who rely on the aforementioned services? And so on and so forth.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 03, 2010, 06:40:33 PM
Quote from: Jerry_Frankster on July 03, 2010, 06:13:47 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on July 02, 2010, 12:15:21 PM
Quote from: Jerry_Frankster on July 02, 2010, 09:52:28 AM
So, if the richest 2% don't need us, then why are we still here?
Obviously because they're better off with us than without us.
Maybe they can do without us, but it's just more comfortable to have a slave army working for you?
Also, if Cain's right, they have nothing to fear except from eachother.
Oh and, of course, if you're the richest 2%, and you do away with the other 98%, you're no longer the richest 2%. It's an ego thing, I guess.
So basically, we are a part of their wealth.
Um, obviously.
Hi, I'm Captain Obvious's sidekick
Elementary Observation Boy. I'll be here all week.
Quote from: Cain on July 03, 2010, 06:54:09 PM
Well who pays the taxes which get turned into bailouts which help keep the banks afloat? Who pays the taxes for public services and publically owned companies, which are then sold off at bargain basement prices to various oligarchs who then turn the screws on those who rely on the aforementioned services? And so on and so forth.
Not the top 5% so much, seeing that taxes are mostly based on income, and the uberwealthy have a much lower ratio of income to wealth than everyone else. Source (http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/courses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm)
Quote from: Captain Utopia on July 03, 2010, 05:02:05 PM
Am I engaging in a power fantasy? It's a good question. I really don't know.
Dear FP,
I think your pattern of ideas/hypothetical actions is congruent with laïcité messianism. "I'm-here-to-save-you-all-mere-mortals-that-can't-save-yourselves-from-yourselves" style. Which is flawed in a number of ways including:
-Assuming your fellow monkey brethen are "lost and confused" and only need to be guided.
-Assuming (narcissistically) that you are the "guiding light" that will be able to guide them.
Happiness is more easily achieved individually than collectively.
Sincerely,
-Joh'Nyx
Quote from: Jerry_Frankster on July 03, 2010, 07:38:13 PM
Quote from: Cain on July 03, 2010, 06:54:09 PM
Well who pays the taxes which get turned into bailouts which help keep the banks afloat? Who pays the taxes for public services and publically owned companies, which are then sold off at bargain basement prices to various oligarchs who then turn the screws on those who rely on the aforementioned services? And so on and so forth.
Not the top 5% so much, seeing that taxes are mostly based on income, and the uberwealthy have a much lower ratio of income to wealth than everyone else. Source (http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/courses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm)
Which was exactly the point I was trying to make.
Especially in the case of privatization, the oligarchs show their true colours as
kleptocrats. Almost all "economic growth" for the past thirty years has been the product of some kind of fraud - the essential ponzi scheme of financialized capitalism - and to hold onto that wealth, the costs must be passed down onto everyone else, first in the form of TARP-style bailouts, and again in the form of "austerity measures" - government cost-cutting for the poorest, while continuing with crony corporate welfare.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on July 03, 2010, 08:13:25 PM
Quote from: Captain Utopia on July 03, 2010, 05:02:05 PM
Am I engaging in a power fantasy? It's a good question. I really don't know.
Dear FP,
I think your pattern of ideas/hypothetical actions is congruent with laïcité messianism. "I'm-here-to-save-you-all-mere-mortals-that-can't-save-yourselves-from-yourselves" style. Which is flawed in a number of ways including:
-Assuming your fellow monkey brethen are "lost and confused" and only need to be guided.
-Assuming (narcissistically) that you are the "guiding light" that will be able to guide them.
Happiness is more easily achieved individually than collectively.
Sincerely,
-Joh'Nyx
That's not what I got out of his posts. More like, "this is going to happen with or without my participation, but I would rather participate."
I don't think that he's engaging in narcissism. I think he's merely pitching ideas. I also don't think he's saying that the monkeys are lost and confused. I think he's saying that the monkeys want to do something but need to break out of their apathy and the internet will help with that.
I think that he's not too wrong. Remember what the printing press did to Europe?
I know its not what hes strictly saying, its what im reading into it - and i accept i maybe wrong in my interpretation.
Comparing the printing revolution to these new methods is very metaphorical, its not the same cultural conditions/context...
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on July 03, 2010, 09:50:20 PM
I know its not what hes strictly saying, its what im reading into it - and i accept i maybe wrong in my interpretation.
Comparing the printing revolution to these new methods is very metaphorical, its not the same cultural conditions/context...
Of course it's not the same. Printing gave us mass produced books. The internet gave us largely worthless memes and 4-chan, as well as a wide variety of cheap porn. But I drew the parallel to show the potential that the internet has to effect change, rather than reflecting the reality of it as basically a distraction for the masses.
I mean, hell, isn't that kind of the purpose of forums like this? Meaningful sharing of ideas and acting on them? There are lulz to be had, sure, but that's not the only reason to come here.
Im all up for the sharing of ideas and analysis of "what-is-going-on" in the world. But i personally dont think theres much to be acted upon.
Sure, the internet is a powerful information tool, but you cant force people to use it for "beneficial/productive" things. As far as i can tell, the internetz are used for youtube, email, porn, messenger and visiting shitty sites like ebaums world.
Its the people's discourse to say they want change (if you ask any american "¿Do you love liberty?" guess what will they say), but their actions show otherwise (¿is this same person gonna do something or even perceive civil liberties violations?) - and as long as people dont want change, there wont be change.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on July 03, 2010, 08:13:25 PM
Quote from: Captain Utopia on July 03, 2010, 05:02:05 PM
Am I engaging in a power fantasy? It's a good question. I really don't know.
Dear FP,
:|
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on July 03, 2010, 08:13:25 PM
I think your pattern of ideas/hypothetical actions is congruent with laïcité messianism. "I'm-here-to-save-you-all-mere-mortals-that-can't-save-yourselves-from-yourselves" style. Which is flawed in a number of ways including:
Yeah. But see, if that were true then I would have had my ass handed to me within an hour, and there would be nothing but a pile of bones left by the time you stumbled onto this thread.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on July 03, 2010, 08:13:25 PM
-Assuming your fellow monkey brethen are "lost and confused" and only need to be guided.
-Assuming (narcissistically) that you are the "guiding light" that will be able to guide them.
And exactly where do I assume any of this? Do you have quotes? No. I think I've been pretty clear all along that I think it's awesome that people have their own desires and goals, but less awesome that they often take no part in any political process because they lack the technology/tools to enable an expression in a way which would be meaningful to them.
I can bank online, I can file taxes and pay bills online... but I'm a narcissistic "guiding light" because I'm pointing out that there's a vast untouched potential with regards a population driving the political process more regularly then once every 4-5 years?
Riiiight.
Or are you talking about the fact that I mentioned that I'm working to complete some code which could help with the above effort? I'm a software engineer by profession. I have been for a long time. This is one way that I can help, and I certainly don't think that it falls outside of my abilities. Or that of any other competent software engineer who gives a damn.
I'm not boasting about that - shit, I still don't have a working prototype - but I'm certainly not going to be coy just in case it offends any of your self-deluded justifications for your comfortable apathy.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on July 03, 2010, 11:15:22 PM
Im all up for the sharing of ideas and analysis of "what-is-going-on" in the world. But i personally dont think theres much to be acted upon.
Sure, the internet is a powerful information tool, but you cant force people to use it for "beneficial/productive" things. As far as i can tell, the internetz are used for youtube, email, porn, messenger and visiting shitty sites like ebaums world.
Its the people's discourse to say they want change (if you ask any american "¿Do you love liberty?" guess what will they say), but their actions show otherwise (¿is this same person gonna do something or even perceive civil liberties violations?) - and as long as people dont want change, there wont be change.
Doesn't mean some people shouldn't try. Maybe more people want change than is readily apparent. I'm not necessarily going to bank on it, but doing something is better than doing nothing, in my opinion. It may not have a great overall impact, or it may catch on.
I always got the sense that the reason things stay the way they are is not due to lack of wanting something else, so much as, "eh, what are you going to do about it?"
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on July 03, 2010, 10:01:15 PM
Of course it's not the same. Printing gave us mass produced books. The internet gave us largely worthless memes and 4-chan, as well as a wide variety of cheap porn. But I drew the parallel to show the potential that the internet has to effect change, rather than reflecting the reality of it as basically a distraction for the masses.
One funny fact about the printing press, is that it was immediately used for the quick and profitable distribution of smut. One penny-novel at a time. It took 150 years for someone to create the first dictionary. It took a long time for society to figure out that might be a good idea to classify "fiction" and "non-fiction" as different types of book. Margins, indexes, glossaries, chapters. Many things we just take for granted, which sound really basic and obvious to us, were considered quite revolutionary.
So we look back and conflate that time period, with all the great stuff which came out of it but I think it's interesting to keep in perspective that the printing press did not instantly bestow enlightenment to those who witnessed its birth.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on July 03, 2010, 11:15:22 PM
Sure, the internet is a powerful information tool, but you cant force people to use it for "beneficial/productive" things. As far as i can tell, the internetz are used for youtube, email, porn, messenger and visiting shitty sites like ebaums world.
Who is talking about forcing anyone to do anything?
Create a tool which provides both a group and individual benefit to those who use it, and let it market itself.
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on July 03, 2010, 11:24:00 PM
I always got the sense that the reason things stay the way they are is not due to lack of wanting something else, so much as, "eh, what are you going to do about it?"
^THIS.
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
How did I ever miss this thread?!