Plutonomy: A Leaked Citibank Memo

[Triple Zero]

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.

[LMNO]

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.

[Captain Utopia]

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?

[Cramulus]

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)

[Doktor Howl]

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.

[Cain]

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.

[Doktor Howl]

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.

[Cain]

Working from a truthful model of the world will not, however, necessarily improve your spelling.

deceived   

[Doktor Howl]

Working from a truthful model of the world will not, however, necessarily improve your spelling.

deceived   

Somewhere, the Queen is crying.   

[Requia ☣]

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.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

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.

[Captain Utopia]

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.

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".

[Bruno]

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.

[Doktor Howl]

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.

[Cain]

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.