We live in a capitalist dystopia

[Ceir]

I'm genuinely not sure what thread to toss this in, because it's just more of my naive "I don't understand" bitching, but it is money related. I just cannot comprehend how people can be so greedy and so angry about things like "someone else's health care doesn't destroy them financially" and "someone else's kids actually get to eat a meal at school" while sitting on more money than entire shapes on the map themselves.

 

[Pocket]

Being rich doesn't lead to greed; it's the other way around. Greed is the state someone is in to start with, and tends to make it much easier to do the horrible things that are necessary to amass that much wealth in the first place.

 

[Sjogre]

Put simply, people don't become billionaires unless they're already seriously obsessed with money.

 

[Rhinox]

Put simply, people don't become billionaires unless they're already seriously obsessed with money.

and are willing to do a lot of horrible things to acquire that much money.
You have to be a pretty horrible person to be a billionaire. Objectively.

 

[Dekafox]

Don't know if this is the best thread, but:

Tylenol, Kleenex, Band-Aid and more put under one roof in $48.7 billion consumer brands deal

Kimberly-Clark is buying Tylenol maker Kenvue in an approximately $48.7 billion cash-and-stock deal, creating a massive consumer health goods company.

apnews.com

Band-aid, tylenol, kleenex, Listerine, whole bunch all coming together there.

On the other hand, based on this slightly older article, a bunch of other companies are or have been splitting:

Kraft Heinz undoes blockbuster merger after a decade of changing tastes

Kraft Heinz is splitting into two companies a decade after they joined in a massive merger that created one of the biggest food companies on the planet.

apnews.com

 

[Pocket]

"Created one of the biggest food companies on the planet" is probably overselling it a bit considering Kraft just by itself used to be part of an even bigger one. I remember it was Kraft, Nabisco, Post Cereal, and like a dozen other things (which to be fair are all probably still part of one of those three) and it was all owned by Big Tobacco to boot.

I wonder if there's some website that's dedicated to keeping track of all this stuff, in the form of like live infographics. Kind of like those programs that tell you where all the free space on your hard drive went.

 

[Dekafox]

For I am CJ :screwattack: :black_sparkling_heart: :screwattack: (@[email protected])

You will own nothing.. and be 'forever' forced to 'rent' jive that people used to own outright Apparently a bunch of the changes that were buried in the >1100 page bill were... changes that not only denied rebates and tax credits to consumers/ home owners... but also transferred the ability to...

infosec.exchange

You will own nothing.. and be 'forever' forced to 'rent' jive that people used to own outright

Apparently a bunch of the changes that were buried in the >1100 page bill were... changes that not only denied rebates and tax credits to consumers/ home owners... but also transferred the ability to collect those credits to "businesses"

So, you will never own the solar panels or heat on your house, but will (forever) 'lease' them from the company that installs them

The loophole that could give clean heat a boost under Trump

The OBBBA killed tax credits for heat pumps, but kept them for commercially leased geothermal and thermal storage systems — a path to keep home clean heat…

www.canarymedia.com

 

[Pocket]

I had already resigned myself to all the green-upgrade rebate programs going away after this year anyway. Replacing them with something worse is just a different way of achieving that.

 

[Dekafox]

Not sure if this is good or bad. A settling of a 20 year court case with Visa and Mastercard over credit card fees and how they work with merchants: https://www.reuters.com/sustainabil...ipe-fee-settlement-with-merchants-2025-11-10/

 

[Rhinox]

More and more I see our future as the Shadowrun type dystopia where corporations run everything and wage private wars on each other.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Yeah, see: we the general public saw cyberpunk as a genre as something to avoid and learn from. The psychopaths saw it as a blueprint.

So... sorry chummer, but I'll see you in the sprawl.

 

[Ungnome]

Yarvinites WANT that to happen.... As long as they get to be the CEO lords anyway.

 

[Dekafox]

R.C. (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image · Content warning: Surveillance Capitalism, something a child should never see

infosec.exchange

 

[Ironbite4]

...Hesper's watching me?

 

[Ungnome]

Looks like one of those joke present boxes. At least that's what I HOPE it is.

 

[KidTDragon]

I don't see an Obvious Plant logo.

 

[Ungnome]

Not talking about those, I'm talking about the novelty gift boxes you can buy that have some fictional product printed on the outside, kind of like this:

 

[abates]

Looks like this is an actual product: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Home-Furniture-Secret-Flashing-Camera/dp/B089QD2NBG

 

[Pocket]

It was 50/50 whether that turned out to actually be a toy that's designed to indoctrinate kids into the idea of being under constant surveillance by a combination police/nanny state... or an actual surveillance camera pretending to be a toy. I guess it could hypothetically still be the second thing if the goal is to fool the parents as well and simply stream the footage directly to the manufacturers or their business partners, but that's approaching tinfoil-hat levels of paranoid imagining. For now at least.

 

[Ungnome]

Given their other products, I'm pretty sure it's either the former or a product meant as an ironic joke.