The whole point of the original design of Monopoly was to make everyone not the richest player miserable while the rich guy slowly bleeds away everyone else’s wealth, until they each go bankrupt The game is a demonsration of why capitalism fails at it core and falls into feudalism.
Perhaps we should regulate capitalism so as to prevent monopolies? Great idea! Only the rich guys are Secret Hitlers and will lobby and eventually capture regulatory departments until they’re neutered, or even serve the monopolies they are meant to prevent. Go back to square one.
In 2023, were in late-stage capitalism. Most of us are miserable while the upper class shrinks while our tiny class of billionaires grows. All the money flows upwards like air bubbles in water.
Changing this is a matter of the public realizing peaceful protests don’t work, and protests that do work (even if by inconveniencinh the elite) will be criminalized. We will have to break the law to affect change since law serves the establishment elite, not the good of the public.
And then we [REDACTED] until the air is thick with smoke and ash, since the elites would rather die than give up their power, even if they were assured not merely survival but comfort.
“Changing this is a matter of the public realizing peaceful protests don’t work, and protests that do work (even if by inconveniencinh the elite) will be criminalized. We will have to break the law to affect change”
That’s where I disagree. You’re assuming the general public can organize itself to protest, which it never did since the start of capitalism and the society of conformity it created.
We wouldn’t need a violent revolt to change things. It’d be as easy as stop giving money to millionaires. Stop giving money to big corporations. Stop giving money to mafias. Stop feeding the powerful.
The only problem is… the powerful have been making sure that you can’t beat the system. They made it so it’s more convenient not to beat the system. And people don’t care about dethroning the rich, because we’re being fed just the right amount so we don’t go ravenous.
And even if you actively try to rebel, the net of capitalism is so complicated that you never know where your money will end up. Even if you don’t support rich people, if the people that you buy things from do, it’s the same effect.
The violent alternative that you propose… I don’t see it working as more than a reset, even if it works. New people will gain power and accumulate it. It’s a problem with human nature, and I don’t see a solution.
As the civil rights movement showed us it’s not the protesters on the left that initiate violence, rather law enforcement on the right. We saw it again in the Ferguson unrest in 2014 and the George Floyd protests in 2020, the police always shoot first. Peaceful acts that can be ignored, are. Peaceful acts that cannot be ignored are criminalized and responded to with violence.
I’m not saying it’s good or works, and finding a method to affect change is well beyond my pay grade.
But CIA analysts say we’re headed towards civil war.
The GOP is now a mask-off white power movement, using fascist methods and the authority of Protestant Evangelist ministries to neuter democracy. They’re already engaged in genocidal action.
The transnational white power movement has already secured the US Supreme Court. Dobbs was the first step that made national headlines but they’ve been cutting away at the forth and fifth amendments since the aughts amd the PATRIOT act.
The US is bigger and more complex than Italy or Germany, and we can slow the process down, maybe for a decade or so. But without restoring power to the voting public (or otherwise a miracle of sociology and probability) civil war is inevitable, and will be instigated by the right, no longer able to confine their hate to internet squabbles.
Hate crimes, rampage killings and police officer involved homicide have been rising since 2015, when Trump took over the Republican party.
Even if Trump dies or is jailed, someone else is going to become the next Secret Hitler, even as the OGs try to restor Nixon-Reagan Republicanism. That won’t fly anymore.
I’m not saying any of this is good, just that it’s the way the wind is blowing. And going the other way will involve a lot of tacking.
- downpunxx ( @downpunxx@kbin.social ) 6•11 months ago
you put bill gates, whose dedicated his post Microsoft life, and a great deal of his fortune in the effort to rid the world of malaria in the graphic? you put warren buffet who along with gates signed a pledge to give away his entire fortune to charity when he dies on this graphic too? garbage post, garbage poster.
👅🥾
lol!
Philanthropy is a pr scam for billionaires.
It let’s them doge taxes while feeling like they are doing good in the world, while using their money to cause more problems. That article is about Gates screwing up education systems while trying to ‘fix’ them, because he has billions of dollars while the people who actually have a clue on how to fix things do not. Look into the other actions his foundation takes and you will see similar patterns, from funding destructive agriculture to sourcing their funds from private prisons.
For the claim that Buffett is doing any good to the world, in his own words:
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
lol. lmao
Imagine posting on 196 to simp for billionaires
Also I didn’t make the graphic lolol
yeah because there’s no such thing as a good billionaire.
Not saying you’re wrong. I don’t know the man personally.
But I recommend you do some research on the selfish and awful things that the BMGates foundation has done, both in direct action and through monetary manipulation.
Billionaire philanthropy is a farce to launder money tax free and exercise their desires however they see fit.
I want to say magnismedia has a video briefly touching on it, if YouTube is your thing.
That’s sure totally ignoring all the good things done with the money simply to say " but look over there" and not address what was said
Ignoring the bad is equally invalid 🤔
And they’re not saying ignore the good, they pretty explicitly said there is good and bad and that the situation has a lot more nuance than you guys seem to think
No such thing as ethical billionaire.
No one gets this filthy rich through benevolence, but now that they are this rich and the damage is done, I can at least appreciate it when some of that money goes towards good causes.
Causes that probably wouldn’t need the help if billionaires weren’t a thing to begin with, but here we are.
That wealth is still sitting in Buffets bank account, not being used to help people, and has been for decades. Buffet is in many of the anti-labor actions in many companies around the country and world, including BNSF and their treatment of the rail workers recently.
Gates is a similar story, but it would take much longer to explain and my smoke break is ending.
Philanthropy is nice but the money they have still came from exploiting the labor of others.
A sane economic structure would not create billionaires at all. Philanthropy is not necessary to solve problems. If you tax the rich and use the money to build a robust social safety net and invest in science, technology and healthcare that benefits everyone.
Isn’t that better than relying on whatever scraps the billionaires leave us out of the goodness of their hearts?
Sheldon Adelson nowhere to be found in post 😒
If nobody is buying in Monopoly everyone is getting richer and nobody looses.
Prisoners Dilemma is what that reminds me of. Only takes one person to screw out up for everyone. If we stop playing the game at all though, we can remake it in a way that doesn’t constant leave 99% of the players vulnerable to the exploitation of 1% of players in the first place.
+1 for Buddyhead memes. You can find more from Buddyhead here. He posts memes like this daily on Instagram.
ty for source!
