I agree with you about sentiment. Idk if actions will be taken but I feel like the CEO shooting did set a certain tone.
Now the question is, will that create further escalating tension or would it be repackage and sold to us as a media trope to show us that “hey, some oligarchs aren’t that bad.”
I want to believe that the working class will finally take back its power, the first step of which will be forming strong and effective unions. The second step is ensuring high taxes on the wealthy, coupled with accountability for how that tax revenue is spent
But I look at all the previous decades of failure, and I recommend that young people in particular should make alternative plans in case they have to fend in a hostile social, political and economic environments
1—do nothing else but learn some skill or trade (or several) which you can use to get paid
2—don’t excessively drink, don’t excessively do drugs, don’t excessively sleep around, and get and stay fit
3—create a network of friends and family, but don’t stress if you cannot. Get a hobby, try to get married, but don’t stress if you don’t. Cut out toxic people and family from your life
4—do whatever else you care about if you’ve done the above
Conventional wisdom still helps, don’t be fooled by people who say that it doesn’t work
What’s wrong with sleeping around?
And what’s the point of getting married?
I understand the sentiment, drugs, drinking, and sleeping around is a way to have an enjoyable time, but it’s not a way to create meaningful relationships.
None of those three things are, by themselves, bad. But if you do them to excess, it can replace a real, stable social network.
The point of getting married is that you legally tie yourself to another person in a way that is recognized by larger institutions. If you don’t have a spouse, or LEGAL family, then it can be difficult to make co-decisions. One of the major reasons why same sex marriage was such a huge deal, was that end of life support and care was almost impossible. You could live with someone for 30 years, but then when they’re in a coma in the hospital, you can’t legally visit them, or make medical decisions for them.
I want to believe that the working class will finally take back its power, the first step of which will be forming strong and effective unions. The second step is ensuring high taxes on the wealthy, coupled with accountability for how that tax revenue is spent
Here in Australia our centre left party, The Greens, support both of those things, and other imitatives like free dental care etc alas they don’t get the votes needed to advance their policies. We have a preferential voting system (ranked choice) but we still have centre right and far right domination of the political zeitgiest.
Don’t even need to take up the rifle and pitchfork, just need to put numbers on a ballot paper in a differnt order, alas that seems beyond us.
None of this matters in a ubiquitous surveillance state, which is either here now or a couple years off.
It’s been here for a while, smart phones were basically the nail in the coffin. Switching to GNU/Linux is not enough, there are proprietary backdoors in your BIOS firmware. Nearly everything we buy is bugged by default. Laws need to be in place and the education system needs to be required to teach about libre software. If we don’t do this, all hope is lost for privacy in the future.
They barely mix with us, peasants. They will probably follow this trend and live in inexpugnable, extremely well defended citadels. Apartheid, in a word.
I work in the municipal office of a tiny city that’s an enclave for the super rich. We’re entirely surrounded by a major city, but we’re a different jurisdiction.
Of course, I don’t get to live there. Literally every resident is a millionaire or better. The average new house being built there is about 8 million dollars, and we have a lot of housing churn.
That is, people will buy a 5 million dollar house and tear it down to build a 12 million dollar house.
All that to say that I interact with these people all the time. They almost invariably don’t realize how out of touch they are, because their neighbors are also millionaires.
You’d think it’s a super nice city, but other than the houses it’s fairly run down. They don’t want good roads or sidewalks because then people would use them. The city was essentially founded to prevent bus lines from the major city from having stops near the fancy district.
Over half the municipal employees are cops, and their main job is keeping homeless people away.
All this work goes into isolating the rich from the poor, and it’s worked so well that most of the rich don’t even realize it’s happening.
I hope so. I really really hope so. If not, then we’re headed for an incredibly terrible future of the kind that used to exist in dystopian fiction.
