We live in a capitalist dystopia

[CoffeeHorse]

There is actually nothing in capitalism that requires companies to behave like this. Wall Street is the problem. We could have industries that behave because stability is good enough. But we don't have industries anymore. Everything is just an investment fund now. Companies must have growth at all costs because growth is what they're selling. Shareholder returns are their actual product. What companies do to make their money is just a macguffin.

 

[Pocket]

Nah, I get where Pale Rider is coming from. It's not like greed didn't exist before the advent of the stock market, and it's fundamentally stupid that our well-being is ultimately dependent on self-interested people.

But also, I don't know what alternative there is. No matter what system you set up, there's always going to be the question of who watches the watchmen who watch the watchmen who watch the watchmen etc. It's fallible and self-interested humans all the way down, and all the way up; pitting them against one another to keep any of them from getting too powerful seems like the best option anyone has come up with so far. And I consider regulations made by elected leaders to be part of "pitting them against one another."

Worth noting, the Bolsheviks called themselves "communists" not after the system they put in place (which they called "socialism" actually), but after the system they believed would eventually replace it. Their long term goal was for people to be so thoroughly conditioned into doing everything out of a natural desire for the common good that the all-powerful state controlling everything would no longer be necessary and would just sort of magically dissolve. Which would be good. It's good to want that. But obviously it didn't work out that way, and it's important to keep in mind that that was their motivation. They did not envision the soviet state being eternal, or a permanent solution.

 

[Pale Rider]

Greed and power games are human constants, and no system's perfect since it's all fallible people. But the "pitting against each other" via regs and elections often fails because industries capture the watchmen (like FDA revolving door where ex-regulators jump to Big Pharma jobs and influence lingers).

Nordic countries show a better balance: they keep capitalism but add strong unions, higher taxes for universal stuff (healthcare, education) and policies that cut extraction. That results in way lower inequality and better social mobility than the US, without needing a revolution or assuming everyone's suddenly altruistic.

It's not utopia, just smarter checks that actually work more than our light-touch version.

 

[wonko the sane?]

There is an argument to be made for a light touch version: but that requires a system fundamentally built on the good faith of everyone involved, and all it takes it one sociopath to lie about operating in good faith to completely destroy the balance of good faith.

 

[Pocket]

Nordic countries show a better balance: they keep capitalism but add strong unions, higher taxes for universal stuff (healthcare, education) and policies that cut extraction. That results in way lower inequality and better social mobility than the US, without needing a revolution or assuming everyone's suddenly altruistic.

It also doesn't treat capitalism as some kind of demon that must needs be slain, the way Facebook Bro was doing. But I don't know why I keep bothering to try having a discussion with someone who's not here.

 

[Pale Rider]

Facebook Bro is Canadian, so I think he's less about slaying capitalism and more about reining it in before Weyland-Yutani and Umbrella run the show completely.

 

[Rhinox]

Capitalism is, like every other human invention, a flawed system. But what really cranks the evil to 11 is the Shareholder Supremacy rules. That a company must do everything it can to enhance shareholder value. This has been codified in law and through SCOTUS rulings. Companies and those running them, even if they weren't pieces of jive, are bound to do everything they can to extract the most money for the company and the shareholders.
Nothing can nor will be done until that specific keystone is addressed.

 

[Pale Rider]

FB friend:

There are people in this world so stinking rich that they could literally buy a new car every time they wanted to drive somewhere, and they contribute zero labour to the economy in return. They make more money from passive income in a day than you make from working all year.

Meanwhile, they want us to think that the immigrants who work their asses off for jive wages are a drain on the economy, and that they're taking jobs from local workers. However, those things cannot both be true at the same time: immigrants cannot simultaneously be providing cheap labour AND draining the economy. If they are in fact contributing such cheap labour that they're outcompeting local workers for jobs, then they're actually contributing cheap labour to the economy: that increases productivity and profitability.

The harsh reality is that it's quite possible for something to be good for "the economy" but bad for the people you care about. That's the nature of capitalism, and if you conservatives love capitalism as much as you say you do, then you should be fine with this.

Conservatives put all the blame on immigrants every time the economy restructures in a way that's unpopular, because they are doctrinally prohibited from blaming capitalism itself.

 

[Dekafox]

Aris Adamantiadis :verified:💲Paid (@[email protected])

The Epstein files go much further than the pedophile ring on a private Island. It's the snapshot of an ultrarich guy's mailbox that shows the kind of discussions he has with other rich, influent people. And it's dirty, because it's mostly rich guys bragging of how they're trying to push extreme...

infosec.exchange

The Epstein files go much further than the pedophile ring on a private Island. It's the snapshot of an ultrarich guy's mailbox that shows the kind of discussions he has with other rich, influent people.
And it's dirty, because it's mostly rich guys bragging of how they're trying to push extreme right people and policies all around the world (E.g. Bannon) or in culture (video games).
It's not crazy to assume that a few of the political defining events of this century were directly caused by this particular group of billionaires.

 

[Pale Rider]

FB friend:

These malevolent sounding names are 100% intentional. Just as the SS put skulls on their uniforms, modern right-wingers like to intentionally present themselves as dark and malevolent forces because they think it looks bad-ass.

 

[The Mighty Mollusk]

Sure, but what's with the blank screenshot?

 

[abates]

But that would be using money to advantage people and not abuse immigrants.

 

[Dekafox]

https://www.npr.org/2025/10/26/nx-s1-5567995/why-the-996-schedule-is-capturing-the-interest-of-silicon-valley-leadership

 

[Pale Rider]

FB friend:

Only businessmen get to claim that we can just trust them to obey the law because it would be stupid for them to break it, as if they are incapable of doing stupid things.

Can you imagine a street level criminal saying "no, I couldn't have punched that officer during my arrest because that would be a stupid thing to do" and having anyone believe him? Of course not, because in the real world, people do things that inadvertently harm their own self-interest all the time. People do stupid, impulsive, poorly reasoned things all the time.

But we've been conditioned to believe that businessmen are immune to these human frailties, as if they are operating on a higher level than us mere mortals. I've literally seen people insist that businesses would never do something to harm their own customers, because that would be a bad business decision. As if we don't have concrete examples of businesses doing precisely that.

Businessmen make dumb decisions to save money all the time, sometimes leading to the total collapse of their business. Conservatives complain constantly about "red tape", but business NEEDS to be closely monitored, because a businessman WILL screw you, your community, his country, the environment, and maybe even inadvertently himself if he thinks he'll profit off it.

 

[Dekafox]

Not sure if this fits better here or the internet thread, but a good read:

I Verified My LinkedIn Identity. Here's What I Actually Handed Over.

I wanted a blue badge on LinkedIn. To get it, I gave a US company my passport, my face, and my biometric data. Then I read the fine print.

thelocalstack.eu

 

[NovaSaber]

Feels like a company named "Persona" should be about helping people shape their artificial identities, not stealing data that was not intentionally shared.

 

[Pale Rider]

FB friend:

Money means VERY different things to rich people and poor people. For rich people, money represents choice: every $1,000 is an asset you can use either for profit, or for fun. Should I spend $50,000 investing in stocks, or should I spend it on a lavish trip to a 5-star resort in Maui? Each time they spend it on an investment instead of fun, they pat themselves on the back for being so wise.

For everyone else, money represents time. Every $1,000 represents many hours of your life that you had to spend doing work instead of living. When the choice is between working a second job and not being able to pay rent, it's not really a choice at all. It's time, stolen from your life.

This is why rich people often have trouble understanding the problems of poor people. They think of money as a choice, so they think the solution is to just make better choices. Like they do.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Compounded by the fact that they undeservedly think they're smarter than everyone else, and refuse to actually listen to poor people about why it's different.

 

[The Mighty Mollusk]

"Money can't buy happiness" says the rich man.

 

[Rhinox]

They did a study on that and found that money does indeed buy happiness, but too much money brings misery. Like, if you're comfortable and don't have to worry about bills or jive like that, all gravy. But if you're Elon and Jeff all that money does is bring you more strife because you have to go out and defend having it, stress over keeping it, gotta grow the hoard, et al.