8 billion people vs. 3000 billionaires: Who would win?
8 billion people vs. 3000 billionaires: Who would win?
Elaborate and explain
155 comments
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I mean... Look around? Maybe billionaire is a new thing, but it is just modern royalty. We still have kings, they just got better PR.
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Seems like the billionaires are winning 🤷🏼♀️ ?!
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Nobody is winning, except that demon capital. The billionaires are just losing less.
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Stop being so rational!!
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The billionaires, by convincing people the rich have a monopoly on violence.
But if anything sparks collective violence, the rich are overthrown within a month.
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Trick question, we all lose
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Assuming the 8b were all of the same mind, they would win. But we all know there are quite a few that the billionaires could buy to fight for them
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so basically the billionares
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Tje billionaires are winning now and the reasons are obvious.
The 8 billion are unable to think clearly, identify problems and organize. The billionaires are focused on their goals and super influential. They're able to buy loyality of the key less fortunate people and enforce loyality of others. They can also buy media to influence thinking of the masses.
If it was just about numbers, the billionaires would lose. But it's not.
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The billionaires are already winning, with no signs of that changing.
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That’s because—for many reasons—there are way too many non-billionaires on team billionaire.
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I worked with a guy that proudly proclaimed that he voted for the right because they looked after the rich.
He was not rich, but he purchased lottery tickets weekly and stated he'd rather get screwed while poor than pay more tax if he, some day, became rich.
And that was the day I realised that we're fucked.
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Hey, don't look at me. I'm on team "unexpected astroid hitting the earth to end it all".
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They think they're on team billionaire but are willful idiots.
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They will just cook the planet killing us all
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With pessimism like that, we won't get far.
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Just stop believing that those 3000 are billionaires. If 8 billion people say "No, you are not rich" those fuckers become poor. Money is a religion.
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Except that doesn't stop the exchange of goods and services.
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Nature seems to be helping out recently as well.
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So 8 billion + nature team up?
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The game is rigged.
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Billionaires, because we are too dumb to not fall for their tricks
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But AI isn’t. They’re creating their own downfall as we speak
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Over 1 million Russians killed and how many tens of thousands in Gaza. 3000 would be quite easy compared to the innocent.
Yes markets would be in shit but so what, take their wealth and distribute it. The entire financial system is made out of thin air now, everyone will be all worried to justify why not to do it but we need to do it for our civilization to grow beyond having the Poor's do all the work for the greedy pigs.
The entire system needs to change and they won't go easy, it will be tough and bloody.
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The hard part isnt the toppeling of the system, it is creating a stable new one, economicly and politicly. Think about the millions of indoctrinated people in all corners of the world that are fuled by hate towards a none existing enemy. Getting those in, will be hard. Especially if they are deep into conspiricy
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Unfortunately that is not how the figures really are. Way too many of those 8 billions will willingly simp and fight the rest of us in the name of those billionaires.
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8 billion temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
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If we decide money no longer matters it'd be petty easy to eliminate them all. If we continue to let money run our lives then it'll continue to be pretty easy for the people with money to keep all their power.
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If we decide money no longer matters it’d be petty easy to eliminate them all
Okay, but then where will I get my passive income? I worked 40 years in the shit and rusty needles mine to build up a big enough nest egg to get passive income. Now I'm too full of staff infections and lacerated limbs and shit lung to work anymore.
I can't afford not to make the next guy work himself to death in the shit rust needle mine.
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I mean... money does matter. It matters to the individual because it is how they pay their bills, and it matters to all of humanity because it is how we are able to take coordinated action despite the lack of any central organizer.
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Taking money out of the picture would also take bills out of the picture. And humanity absolutely has the ability to coordinate action without money at least as well (if not better) than how it is now, the only difference is it would be harder for individuals to be the sole coordinator. Money, and who has it, is our current central organizer and will continue to burn the planet if we fail to take away its power.
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It’s funny cause no one seems to realize that the billionaires are human beings. They have a house, they shit, they piss, they bleed, etc. And yet, everyone is somehow convinced that becoming a billionaire makes you somehow invulnerable.
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An individual with a net worth of “just” $1b can afford to spend upwards of $50m per year on privacy and security, all while continuing to live a lavish lifestyle of excess and see their net worth continue to grow.
That’s more than the annual US household income being spent on a daily basis.
Now consider that the top 10 billionaires have more than 140x that amount.
Yes, they are made of flesh & blood, and are susceptible to all of the same maladies as you or I — but especially post Luigi, they are shoring up their defences to the point that even a motivated individual would have just as much chance of becoming a billionaire as they are to getting to one.
I would hope to be proven wrong, and to see a true working class uprising against them in my lifetime - but alas, I think they are too effective at keeping us arguing against ourselves to ever pose a serious risk to their hegemony.
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Its not that. Its the fact that these people hsve entire services dedicated to protecting their lifestyle and security.
And the public security is also geared to disproportionately protect them as well.
Short answer. The elite have private security of their own. And they are allied with rich politicians who control the police and military. They've got a shitload of guns at their disposal.
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Yet they can still be taken out by a 3D printed gun on a nice morning walk to the office.
You're not wrong, but if Luigi taught us anything its that they're not as impermeable as they like to appear. It just might take a few martyrs on our end.
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they shit, they piss, they bleed
Sometimes more than one of those things simultaneously!
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It's not the billionaires but the antisocial, amoral whores who will sell their souls for money and do their bidding that are the problem (police, army, etc.), and those who would quietly acquiesce. And of those there are way too many in some societies for change to be easy/possible.
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I'd want to say "8 billion people", but right now 3000 billionaires lead on.
After all, they maintain their position by masterfully playing people off each other and setting things up to be on top. They have all the resources to extend their influence.
If 8 billion people could turn billionaires voices off for anything larger than a day, then yeah, 8 billion all the way, and 3000 will run out FAST.
But the latter know this, and will never let this happen. We should.
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3000 billionaires because you can't convince everybody to ditch school. You can't change people. Pharaoh, Hammurabi. Those are thousands of years of genetic obedience.
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I don't know if I like assuming that obedience is a genetically heritable trait. I've heard racists use this assumption to argue that racially Chinese people are more likely to be sneaky servile backstabbers because that's what their genetics are selected for due to their political past.
Controversial statement incoming: I also don't want to preemptively rule out the possibility of obedience, or anything else, being genetically heritable - even if it could lead to these uncomfortable conclusions. I think scientific studies should be done about such things to answer the questions of whether these personality traits are heritable, come what may of that knowledge. But to my relief, from the studies I've seen, personality traits heritability is on very shaky ground in most cases.
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This is happening right now and the billionaires are winning.
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Is it, though? Because if the billionaires had all that money but only themselves and their billionaire friends on team billionaire, how powerful would they actually be (in comparison to, say, now) if they didn't have any non billionaires on their side?
I think they're this powerful right now because there are a lot of non-billionaires who are dumb enough to do whatever they're told by them even if it's not in their own best interest (or the rest of the world's) at all.
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I think they’re this powerful right now because there are a lot of non-billionaires who are dumb enough to do whatever they’re told by them even if it’s not in their own best interest (or the rest of the world’s) at all.
And they always will be. The thing about one's own best interest is that it's self-interest, always at least parochial, if not outright selfish (as in the US). If the people comprising a billionaire's private security force can obtain a better standard of living, more power, more perks, for themselves and their families than they could by cooperating with the rest of the proles in a (let's be honest) speculative venture, even if it did pay off? Well, some people will take the billionaire's offer, at least enough people to comprise a private security force.
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Eh. most of the pull and wealth is people that are just kind-of rich.
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All evidence points to a regime change (in the physics sense, not the political) being the necessary condition for things to go from our current state to something new.
We currently have people paying poorer people a very small amount of their own net worth to protect the wealthy person's status and position. This is similar to how kings and queens paid the army and policing forces to control the peasants.
Before the French Revolution I am sure it seemed impossible that the peasants would revolt, but the years leading up to the revolution things were getting worse and worse for the average peasant. There is a tipping point where the average person does not think the current system is delivering on the promise that of you do what you are told you can have a good life. I think we are approaching that point now.
If the rich try to hire someone and underpay them for security, stiff contractors for services, flaunt laws and generally behave obnoxiously at some point people will have had enough. Whether that ends with guillotine action or people just divesting from those systems depends on how much freedom people think they have.
If people thought they could go and homestead, live off the land, and get by without the massive companies these billionaires own then they would have that outlet and choose that peaceful option. The fact that we have taxation creates a pressure to pay in currency which demands earning in that currency. Same with paying rent, you have to earn money simply to live. No amount of growing all of your food gets rid of your financial obligations, so there is no out from the system. If that system is unreasonable it begins to feel less like participation and more like coercive control. Wage slavery is not the same as slavery, but both involve coercion and require the legal system to support them. Both lead to revolutions. Both lead to violence.
I guess the billionaires have to decide if they really want to paint that big a target on their backs by flaunting their wealth. At this point I think they feel untouchable.
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Mostly all agreed, but the populace isn't starving, not even close. I'm not arguing that we're not suffering, only that we're nowhere near suffering enough for a revolt. But damned do I like what you've written!
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The biggest ruse in American history is the modern billionaire convincing the working class Americans that the immigrants, homeless, people of color, and LGBT+ people are the real enemy and the reason you're unhappy. Capitalism is the only functioning system of government, don't pay attention to the fact that almost every other developed country has universal healthcare.
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Depends on the situation.
If we were all put into an arena with zero weaponry, the 8 billion. Under no circumstances would the 3000 win because the 8 billion would most likely end up murdering them, even if by accident.
Under the current world conditions, not looking good.
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Why you think they're tossing so much money to develope ai and humanoid robots?
When shit will hit the fan they want their own private army to watch their ass, but at the same time they don't want highly trained human mercenary inside their golden castel getting strange ideas.
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Omg you are right on this. They see most of as disposable once they're able to consistently get away with it.
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Which is now. They just need something safe to keep "that" up in the eventuality that civilization/economy collapse.
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If the people were all invested in taking out the billionaires, then the people would win, hands down.
But if, as in the current situation, the people have higher priorities, in which 50% do not find billionaires to be an existential threat, and at least 300 million think they are simply temporarily embarrassed billionaires themselves, then the billionaires win, that is, until the Earth inevitably cannot support them any longer.
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The billionaires spend a small fraction to some idiots to betray their fellow non-billionaires. It's probably about a million people versus the masses.
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Ok, let’s look at this…
IF billionaires were removed from the picture, what would be the result?
There would be investment assets in various holding entities that would then be what, up for grabs? Sold off? Put in probate? Trillions in stock alone would suddenly be ownerless. How would that affect the market and the regular person’s investments?
Multiple BoD positions and CEO positions opening up. How would those be compensated? Just make more people rich?
Material possessions originally worth absurd sums now up for grabs to nobody who could realistically afford to use or maintain them (yachts, palatial homes, etc). Manufacturers of luxury goods would vanish (stupidly expensive watches, clothes, cars).
How would you prevent some other greedy, power-hungry f_cks from taking up the reins and putting us right back where we started? There is no point in civilization’s history where greedy f_cks haven’t existed, so how do you prevent their grubby fingers from tipping the scales right back in favor of piling all the money and power in their corner?
What are the unintended consequences?
(This is NOT an argument implying we should keep billionaires, just asking realistically and pragmatically what the result would be should they no longer exist)
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The implication that they would all be killed or completely stripped of assets is the problem you’re trying to solve, however, that doesn’t have to be the action taken. Perhaps instead, the 8 billion people of the world decide to enact a society that insists that such accumulation of wealth is obscene and should be curtailed. Perhaps systems could be introduced to make the wealthy more accurately contribute to the society they profit off.
Billionaires become billionaires through exploitation. Exploitation of workers, financial systems, and political power for personal gain. Make them pay for all these things.
Pay for education of the people they use to build their companies. Pay for the healthcare of the entire population, which they degrade with their business practices. Pay for the infrastructure that enables them to do business. The roads, the safety nets, the national parks, the air quality, the water supply, the land they use. Make them pay to replace and repair, fully, any damage their business causes. Polute the stream, pay to fix it. Dig the ground for ore, repair the ground so it can be used again. Make them replace what they take from society for little or no cost because their goods are only affordable because they do not reflect the true cost of production. Make their businesses pay for all these things, and the cost of production will rise to include the true cost of production. At the moment, the shortfall is paid for by we, the people, which enables them to become billionaires. Exploitation.
We don’t have to kill anyone, or strip anyone of all their assets in some revolutionary action. We just have to make them pay the true cost of their exploitation.
Tax the rich. Use those taxes to repay their exploitation. Increase the cost of doing business to include the cost of repairing the impact.
People can still become very wealthy. But society will also become much stronger through the use of the extra revenue to benefit all.
To make this happen will take a revolution, but it doesn’t need to include guillotines, it just needs people to become aware. Sadly, the politicians and media are also owned by the billionaires, making the final step of collective uprising extremely difficult. But humans have done it many times before in the face of adversity, perhaps it can happen again.
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Trillions in stock alone would suddenly be ownerless
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The correct answer is to redistribute their wealth.
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The same removal mechanism will need to keep new rich people from getting too rich. In general everything could stay the same in terms of assets if they are divided more equally. Even a billion dollar yacht could be divided and rented out. Who's paying for a billion dollar yacht vacation when there is no ultra rich? Divide that shit again into 500 admissions for a boat party until it doesn't make sense to upkeep.
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Nationalize the assets
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Pretty simple and effective.
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The same issues arise whenever billionaires pass from old age or sickness. The world will be fine.
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I have no doubt the world will be fine, but the hypothetical we're discussing isn't just one or two rich bastards knocking off a year with their legal estate already taken care of in a will...we're suggesting more direct action assisting their departure en masse - which isn't going to happen without a lot of other upheaval causing all kinds of economic turmoil that we're ignoring for the sake of this argument.
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The billionaires. People dumb AF. Billionaires have money to manipulate people to think they are doing good while they are fucking humanity.
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Don't worry, the entire system is collapsing from mismanagement.
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Don't put us on the same list with the rest of the world and 8 billion pretty much win.
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If organized, the billionaires lose. It's really that simple and that difficult.
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Okay, then go start organizing?
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Don't tell me what to do!
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What are we measuring. Like just a braw? A unanimouse revolution?
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With modern drones and AI tech?
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I was just yesterday talking to someone about how AI drones, specifically exactly AI drones, will be a pivotal piece of technology in a way I think even beyond nukes in some sense. With a decent AI drone swarm, it's not hard to imagine a SINGLE person dominating an entire population. The dictator's purest dream - none of those pesky military generals getting uppity.
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The most successful method the wealthy have used to subvert social movements is infiltration. When a drone swarm can do that, then drone swarms will be what I worry about.
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Cash me outside
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We're already seeing the results of the fight, so no need to elaborate on who would win and how
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Their divide and conquer strategy is busting our asses.
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The billionaires. There are many reasons, but my favorite is the Matthew effect.
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Matthew effect.
For anyone wondering, the effect describes the uncanny ability for rich people to put on red outfits and act like blind devils whilst bending the law in their favor as they bask in their own self-proclaimed peity
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No. It's about you, me and everyone else throwing money at people who have more than we do. And at the same time we all take from those who have less than we have. This helps us with securing our position in social hierarchy (to some degree) which also stabilizes the hierarchy. This is how we work as human beings, it's our very nature.
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While arriving for the competition, all 8 billion got wedged into the doors of the arena Three Stooges style and were unable to compete.
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What kind of battle are we taking about? Violence? Then 8 billion people would win because the combined force of knowledge.
This question also really depend on strategy. You know a billion worth doesn't need to be all in cash. Before cash was a thing, we traded items.. but it's rare to trade items that are exactly worth the same, so money is a nice way to compensate that.
The billion worth can all be spent on defense, it can all be spent on pleasing the 8 billion people. It can be spent to create harmony instead of hatred.
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Huh, it's up to 3000 now.
If it's actually clearly and openly defined as a fight with two sides, 8 billion people. IRL billionaires are just kind of the visible tip of a giant inequality iceberg, so it's not so simple.
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I chose to believe that the working class will eventuall prevail, that people will no longer have nationalism, and work together towards a common future.
It may take years, it may take decades, perhaps even a century, but we will get there. We must get there. Life is too short, life is too miserable. We cannot give up on trying to build a better future.
Because the moment I lose that last bit of hope, I will literally kill myself. So I cannt give up on humanity. I have to have faith that there are good people out there trying to fix problems, because that's what gives me he motivation to live.
Humans have been living under absolute monarchies, communities have been destroyed by imperialism and colonialism, slavery was rampart, the concept of human rights didnt even exist. But we have come so far, humanity have come so far, a lot of the problems we faced in the past had been fixed or at leased inproved. And yes we eill face a lot more problems in the future, and eventually we will find those solutions just as we did for the past problems; we cannot give up now.
Yes, climate change will destroy so many thing, lives and livelihood, but we must find the strength to perservere. Because life is a miracle, Earth even being capable of sustaining life is a miracle.
I remember there was a kid in class that asked: "If humans mess up the Earth, why don't we just move to Mars?", the teacher who's field is related to environment (can't remember the exact subject), told the class that, humans can use up all the fossil fuels and melt all polar ice caps, and Earth would still be 100 times more habitable than Mars.
Because no matter how bad it gets, its still still the most habitable planet that we know of.
Do not give up. (I know I'm being a hypocrite since I subconsciously always tell myself to give up, but don't do that, fight those thoughts)
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Right on! Humans have lived through horrors that make 2025 a cakewalk. We'll hang in, we'll survive. We're the toughest multipurpose animals this planet has ever produced, the AR-15s and Toyota Hiluxes and Swiss army knives of mammals. Not the best at any one thing, but we can do it all well enough.
Things are bad now, maybe especially for us Americans. Who among us thought we'd see fascism taking root?! Maybe I'm old and idealistic, but I didn't see Trump 2.0 coming, not again. But we'll survive, we'll live on. History is always two steps forward, one step back. We Americans are seeing the "one step back" for the first time.
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Billionaires win. They are winning in this world — imagine the world as an arena...
They first reach out to those primed to defect. The ones who think they are defending their own interests because, one day after much bootstrapping, they'll be rich too. That's 10% of the non-billionaire population and a large group of the young, able-bodied, entitled predominantly male population.
Another 10% opt to not fight. They'll wait and see who comes out on top or opt for pacifism — supporting those who fight without fighting themselves.
The next 20% are those who want a compromise — not having the foresight to admit they'll be screwed in the end by the shrewd and wily billionaire class.
That still leaves 4.8 billion people.
Well, another 10% of the planet is malnourished, living in extreme poverty, or are infirm and unable to fight. Take another 10% who lack the capacity to fight effectively, are children, or are exceedingly advanced in age.
We're down to 3.2 billion people.
Of those who remain, each billionaire will need to kill 1 000 000 people in order to win the day. This is achieved by a combination of attacks — nuclear, chemical, biological, conventional, and systemic. Supply lines are cut early, communication lines are jammed, and every possible similarity that could bind 3.2 billion people together is spun into a wedge to divide them. The billionaires are unified behind their purchasing power. Each victorious serves as a message to the remaining people of the fresh horrors to come.
After five or six days, there are 2700 remaining billionaires, who somehow got richer and only 1 billion fighters. Demoralized, decimated, defeated, the non-billionaires give in.
The one strategy that would — nay, could — turn the tables is to upend the tables. Make money worthless. In some minds, this is the Purge. This is the antithesis.
Instead, as a thesis: truly valuing life and living things, the fragile interdependence of ecology within an economic, social, and anthropological order would negate any power that the death-driven cult of profiteering offers. I'm not talking about sitting in a circle and singing kumbaya into eternity. I am talking about doing the work of eternity — stewardship for a planet we understand (not just its commodities) and community for all participants (not just the economically viable). We can learn from one another and grow with one another without exploiting or reinforcing one another's weaknesses.
Takers like to quote Adam Smith, Sun Tzu, or the 48 Laws of Power. The battles we do not fight will feed us. The fields we do not raze will house us. The oceans we do not destroy will connect us. The planet we treat like a home instead of a hole in the ground will support us.
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The likelihood we would have to have commanders with armies we could do an entire war with artillery, tank, infantry and air bombardment with jets they would be dead in days.
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Billionaires only have power because people do things for them in exchange for money
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Have the billionaires for lunch.
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4% of a bee hive vs all the billionaires.
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3000 multibillionaires and the trillionaires would win.
Elaborate and explain
I am not an LLM AI.
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The problem with your comment is that it is boring. It provides no insight, proposes no causitive mechanisms. Of course, we could follow up and ask you "why?", in order to understand your reasoning, and therefore have an interesting discussion. And in fact, we are so certain that what we actually care about is the reasoning behind the answer, that we may as well ask why in advance.
Almost as if we would like you to... hmm... there are two words...
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The problem with your comment is that it is boring.
Your problem with my comment is that you find or boring.
It provides no insight
Your problem is that you can't find any insight.
Of course, we could follow up and ask you "why?", in order to understand your reasoning
No, because my answer would be "because".
And in fact, we are so certain that what we actually care about is the reasoning behind the answer, that we may as well ask why in advance.
First off, what are you even trying say? Secondly, who are "we"? You and every single Lemmy user? You and the rest of the world?
Almost as if we would like you to... hmm... there are two words...
Lol, let me help you out since you are seemingly in a tough position. I'll block you and you'll experience the same effect as if I "hmm... there are two words..."
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Elaborate and explain
See what is happening in the world right now.
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155 comments
The billionaires have already won.