Charlie StrossYou're naive. Poverty is relative: the very wealthy WANT the vast majority to be poor because it justifies their assumption of personal superiority. If they only wanted "poor" to mean "have one euro less in their wallet", that'd be tolerable: but it seems to be necessary for their egos to see starvation, misery, and death on all sides.
Sam 
@cstross @nathanael @ploum Also, I think they genuinely believe poor people are lesser beings. They know the world is heading towards a big crunch. They want to be standing in the ashes. The poor demand resources. The poor could rise up and present a threat — there are so many more of them. I wish I could believe the email meant "how do we tackle poverty," but that's not what they said.
People who want to alleviate poverty don't talk about putting explosive collars on a private security team.
cyocum@ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum I grew up poor in the USA. Poverty there is framed as a moral condition by the entire society in the USA. You are lesser because you are poor and, in some cases, not considered human. I speak in general terms so exceptions, etc. Many give to charity to feel morally superior to the poor. It's brutal and pervasive so getting to "how do we get rid of poor people" is not surprising in the least.
@26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael @ploum To some extent that's an inevitable side-effect of a social hierarchy constructed on a foundation of chattel slavery. Slaves are property, they can't own anything, so to be poor is to be closer to that state of immiseration.
Slavery: the original sin of the colonizers of the Americas. (That, with a side-order of genocide-by-plague, but slavery left the biggest mark on the present day.)
And as Pratchet said: evil is treating people as things.
ploum@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael : you are right. This is also something very different from Europe, which never had slaves but is still rooted in aristocracy.
And, with all its problems, aristocracy has one advantages over slavery: aristocrats had responsibility. they were educated to be responsible. It didn’t always work but this was the norm. Honor and reputation were more important than "raw power" or "money"
@ploum @cstross @ravenbait @nathanael Europe had slaves. The Vikings were prolific slavers, for instance, and it went on for a long, long time. Europe just choses not to engage with that past.
⁂ Fish Id Wardrobe@26aafa19 @ploum @cstross @ravenbait @nathanael for that matter, Africa had slaves, too. but both of these things are sort of beside the point. three wrongs don't make a right.
Colman Reilly@26aafa19 @ploum @cstross @ravenbait @nathanael American black slavery was almost uniquely bad, formed the basis of the modern institutions and “but what about a millennia ago” is not a strong argument.
Moz@Colman @26aafa19 @ploum @cstross @ravenbait @nathanael Eh, Australia officially never had slavery, it just offered US slavers a new place to run sugar plantations using captive black labour.
Oh, and forced labour by arguably-human aboriginal "work gangs" who walked about in chains and whose deaths were expected.
But we definitely never had slavery in Australia.
So arguably the USA was one step above Australia in that they admitted to keeping slaves.
Gerbrand van Dieyen@26aafa19 @ploum @cstross @ravenbait @nathanael Christian Western Europe in medieval time had to certain extent abolished slavery*
The original sin of Western colonizers of was to use racism to justify taking part if the slave trade that already existed in Africa and Middle East.
They needed very cheap labor in the colonies. You can't buy any equal human, so they make themselves believe some people are less than human.
*the peasant system wasn't free but at least you could (afaik) not be sold
LillyLyle/Count Melancholia@gerbrand
"Unlike slaves, serfs could not be bought, sold, or traded individually, though they could, depending on the area, be sold together with land."
The children of the wealthy were also treated like possessions or unfree employees. Daughters married off to some family in exchange for land, or influence or cattle. Sons forced into marrying wealth, to increase the father's holdings and influence.
@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael : which was the cause of the French revolution.
Aristocrats took huge loans to preserve their honor (and sometimes to be responsible of their servants). The new "bourgeoisie" class took advantage of that and, as they were refused the honor, they simply took down the aristocracy because they had enough money and there was a famine that only their money could solve.
It never was about the poor. And the guillotine was mostly used between rival bourgeois
Darwin Woodka@ploum @cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael
That's how we're gonna make it look again too....
mojala@ploum @cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael Besides, I’d argue serfs were slaves even though in some places and times had distinctions to slaves.
@mojala @cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael : they were, indeed, but it was very different in the sense that they could not be sold. It was not "institutionalized" slavery with people whipping them and selling them.
They had the duty to give food to their master but how they did it was their own responsibility. I’m not arguing it is "better", just that it allows to subtly gain more rights because you are not "an object to be sold"
Token Sane Person@ploum @mojala @cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael "Slavery has often existed where slaves could not be bought or sold, only inherited."
"Slavery means having someone to call Master and no hope of changing it."
Citizen of the Galaxy, Robert Heinlein.
ggdupont@ploum
@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael
(nitpicking but we had our share of slaves in Europe - likely for longer than the US - and we did export that approach for society)
@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael
(nitpicking but we had our share of slaves in Europe - likely for longer than the US - and we did export that approach for society)
@ploum Under feudal theocracies Europe had serfs - slaves in all but name.
Becca 🌳🚀🛀@ploum
Europe has had plenty of forms of slavery. Alongside various forms of servitude that were so close to slavery, you'd have a hard time distinguishing the two. And the people doing slavery at scale - albeit largely in colonies rather than at home - were Europeans. It wasn't the native Americans that owned the cotton, sugar and whatnot plantations.
@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael
Europe has had plenty of forms of slavery. Alongside various forms of servitude that were so close to slavery, you'd have a hard time distinguishing the two. And the people doing slavery at scale - albeit largely in colonies rather than at home - were Europeans. It wasn't the native Americans that owned the cotton, sugar and whatnot plantations.
@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael
Chuckles@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael @ploum there's a real right-wing push to encourage tipping culture here in Spain. The dynamics are gross.
dr_barnowl@cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael @ploum
The propaganda campaign at the other end too ; the illusion that people are rich because they are worthy creators of wealth.
Whereas the truth is that they are rich ... because of the rest. As Nick Hanauer puts it, without industrial civilzation, the most entrepreneurial guy in the world still just sells fruit at the side of the road.
They see the "poor" as their stepping stones and drool at the prospect of replacing us with silicon and steel.
@dr_barnowl @cstross @26aafa19 @ravenbait @nathanael @ploum
You become rich because you make enough money and from there your money makes more money. My money makes enough money to outlive me at this point yet I still can't get my stupid hubby to retire. He doesn't get it. I tell him it's fine as long as he's having fun.
RRB@26aafa19 @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum South Carolina politician discussing giving children lunches at school makes your point
https://www.politico.com/story/2010/01/sc-lt-gov-poor-like-stray-animals-031959
DressToKILT@rrb @26aafa19 @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum I love how they will say something despicable and then claim "you're taking my words out of context!" but then you read their entire remarks and the quote sounds *even worse* in context.
An example of a quote taken out of context is "you didn't build that" from Barack Obama. This chud calling the poor "stray animals" sounds way worse when you add "because they breed."
@rrb @26aafa19 @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum see also every bigoted Charlie Kirk quote that we were told was taken out of context. The "context" was just him further justifying his bigotry. The context was him saying the bigoted quote and then *standing by it*. You didn't need the "context," he agreed with the original quote. He spent his last seven words dehumanizing not one but *two* unrelated minorities.
Ambulocetus@dresstokilt @rrb @26aafa19 @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum
The Dead Kennedys saw it coming- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4yTGTCsTO4
The Dead Kennedys saw it coming- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4yTGTCsTO4
Dead Kennedys-Kill the Poor
Dean L. Surkin@26aafa19 There is a teaching in Judaism about charitable giving - a hierarchy: lowest level, the donor gives openly to the donee; next the donee is anonymous; next the donor is anonymous; and highest level, both are anonymous. The highest level is supposed to eliminate that feeling of moral superiority you mention.
Nate@26aafa19
Even as someone who hasn't historically been "poor" by most standards, getting anyone in America to discuss ways we might alleviate suffering are usually swamped by discussions of how we stop having to see the poors.
Because it's seen as a moral failing.
Our puritan culture is most visible to those who've left the church. The myriad ways in which we preach the gospel that benefits billionaires.
🥑 Yours Truly! Unruly 🇨🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦🌻@26aafa19 @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum
The ideological ethic of wealth as a virtue is a lie, a psychological trick to conserve a system of exploitation for accumulation of wealth of the insatiably greedy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism
HollieK@ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum In this context, the huge resource-demanding data centres make sense: they use all the resources for questionable outputs, and people have nothing left for themselves.
@HollieK72 @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum
See also large estates, yachts, private planes, etc, etc
@HollieK72 @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum
We actually have lawns as a sign of status because it was showing off that you were so rich you didn't need to grow food.
Isaac Ji Kuo@ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum "They know the world is heading towards a big crunch."
It's worse than that. They actively want to create that big crunch. The reality is that there's enough to go around. But they willfully want to disbelieve that.
The truth is, they want to kill people, and they willfully bend their beliefs to excuse that.
As for putting explosive collars on their security team - it's part of a bizarre obsession with figuring out how to prevent them from simply
@ravenbait @cstross @nathanael @ploum killing them and taking their bunkers for themselves when the apocalypse they so desperately want to cause happens.
A consultant suggested to them that they could be friends with their security personnel. That suggestion did not go well with the audience.
They're too psychopathic to even understand the idea of friendship, much less be friends with people who they will depend on for their lives.
@isaackuo @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael : the whole Epstein story show that they don’t have friends. They have "connections". They want to go around people that would look nice on a picture in a journal. They don’t trust any one.
Epstein managed to make a business out of that: "convincing famous people that other famous people would be at his parties".
I’m sure that at least some were not interested in the sex part but did it "to be part of the gang" (which is no excuse)
@ploum @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael Yeah, one thing no one ever told me when I was young was that you had to be constantly hustling and networking.
This idea of constantly viewing other people as nothing more than useful tools for getting ahead ... I didn't get that ingrained in me.
Was I lucky? Was I unlucky? Had I been indoctrinated into hustle culture, maybe I'd be more prosperous right now. But as it is, I can only imagine living that way as miserable. To me, at least.
@isaackuo @ploum @ravenbait @cstross @nathanael
"Games mother never taught you" as one of the getting ahead guides for women was titled.
@cstross @nathanael : but the worse is that they are becoming increasingly "stupid and crazy". To the point any great vilain in a novel would appear sane.
They believe in their own marketing shit: living like riches on Mars, without poors and with AI servants (that will somewhat program and maintain themselves).
That explains why their greatest fear is currently "robots rising and rebeling".
Yeah, they are that deep in their crazyness…
@cstross @nathanael : and if you ever doubt their stupidity, remember that they discuss all of that using a f***ing gmail account !
(but the worse is that it is not that stupid because all it takes for them to benefit is convincing 50,1% of the voters to vote for their candidate)
@ploum @cstross @nathanael Remember when Elon Musk thought he invented a clever way for people to "afford" going to Mars, and everyone replied that he just "invented" indentured servitude?
Yeah, they want their slave servants on Mars also.
@cstross @nathanael @ploum They're scared that if "poor" was to "have one euro less in their wallet," that the poor will overtake them, and they will become the poor. They don't want any more competitors in the rich stakes.
What gets me is that they seem to want to see starvation, misery, and death on all sides, but also want to be universally loved and worshipped. If they solved poverty, by giving up on a few of their billions, they would be hailed as saviours, but they can't do that.
BeelbeebubWithout disagreeing with your central point about the mega rich being crazy (clearly they are), there could be 2 constructions of the "get rid of the poor" phrase.
The phrase "I want to eliminate the homeless" could mean death camps or a massive house building program depending on who is saying it.
We see what we want to see - moustache twirling villain or visionary humanitarian.
All crazy bastards tho.
Anthony DavidWe know from history and current events that power is the underlying drive. The ultrawealthy are not content with the money, it is the access to and exercise of power that shows their true values. I know myself the attraction to power that an answer to "what would you do with access to $X".
"Afford top private healthcare", "afford private education for kids", "live in suburb X", "own new car Y" are all stepping stones for the above-average income person. They see themselves becoming ultrarich (mathematically impossible). They become more likely to support the aspirations of the rich plutocrats.
Even in my later working life, I declared an aspiration(unrealised) to pay $500k tax per year. It was still vanity wrapped up in virtue.