… and be quick about it. Many of us cannot afford to wait. Indeed, most life on Earth is imperiled by the Capitalism that creates and sustains billionaires and, soon, trillionaires.
I was just thinking about this kind of thing earlier today. What is capitalism doing for us and the world? What's the point? Is there any room for authentic connection and any kind of real meaning?
Well said Ms. Van Eyk. If anything, the system benefits the wealthy oligarchs by continuing to give them further wealth, influence and power. For the rest of us, it is an exploitative system that ties our self-worth to our careers and how much we our net worth is, tries to get us to believe that buying things we don't need beyond our budgets is a good thing, and that AI generated chatbots are a substitute for human interaction. It's frankly pretty grim, I'd have to say
No problem, and agreed. It's one of the saddest aspects of our current world. I hope you're right, and that search for meaningful relationships, connection and unity can help us through this in the end
Capitalism is literally empowering a very few people to destroy all life on Earth at an accelerating rate. Capitalism is a religion that demands perpetual sacrifices.
And people don't have to be stupid to fall for its lies. Many are just gullible, naive, indoctrinated, brainwashed and unaware that there might be alternatives to the lies they're being told about the world, their societies and themselves.
Some humans are congenitally stupid. However, millions more are merely ignorant.
Ignorance can be cured via education. That’s why the billionaires strive to set the agenda for public education and propaganda.
The current and previous Secretaries of Education are two blatant examples of billionaires setting the perverse agenda, but historically it was illegal to teach slaves to be literate, and many indentured servants were also illiterate in English.
Actually, “we” are keeping more humans alive than the Earth can sustain, indefinitely. Capitalism is based upon the notion of perpetual growth in a realm of unlimited resources.
Sociopaths will do what they do, I fear. And armed with the enormous power of enormous money, nothing short of complete societal upheaval will do any good. Energize the masses from below? Skepticism. Sorry.
But we use their money and seem quite happy to keep on doing so. Therefore we are feeding them. When do we hear of someone speaking about getting off their money? I talk about it ceaselessly but everyone just wants to stay the same. We can change right now, those of us who recognize the darkness.
Elon Musk is a bald faced liar when he says he is constantly "working." He probably puts in an honest 2 hours max per day. This idiot leech wants us to believe that it's simultaneously possible to shitpost & play video games literally 24/7, be a father, the head of multiple businesses when literally all he does is shitpost and either play videogames or pay someone else to play video games after which Musk takes personal credit for the player's achievements. Which, come to think of it is exactly how he functions as the leader of his companies: He steals ideas/companies (Tesla), he gets bailed out by the USG on his failing space companies (their first attempt was using old Soviet rocketry), and otherwise relies on the vastly underappreciated (or denied) ideas, accomplishments, and ...... well, WORK of others so he can concurrently destroy the planet, get filthy rich, destroy democratic norms and help wreck the rule of law and frame up all of that as exactly 180 degrees opposite of what he's doing.
Very well said Tom. He definitely has a lot of time to post on X for someone "working" almost every hour of everyday. And it's disappointing that many don't know how he came to be the Tesla CEO, it wasn't him that came up with the idea for the cars, not to mention the significant government assistance he's received to get to where he is.
The Starlink contracts (no-bid, I'm sure) for Ukraine have been VERY profitable for him. And that leads me to "polluting near space with his junk satellites..."
And he can get government assistance at the snap of his fingers,but regular people have to jump through hoops of fire to get any government aid,and having even over a few $$$ too much always results in an automatic "NO!"But he has more money than GOD and can get all the money in the world handed to him on a silver platter!
Oh yeah, for sure. A rich psyop but a definite psyop of some kind. Let's call it the Mogul Psyop - "Look kiddies you can be a trillionaire too if you work hard enough, and taking giant government "defense" (that's been fixed now at least) contracts is just a normal thing that free marketeer capitalists do!"
If only we could transform people like Musk into an AI so he can live out his happy life with his AI "love" in a nanosecond, and then we pull the plug on him. Forever.
I say we just plug him into neuralink now and let the chips fall where they may. Like he and his team did/does to the monkeys. I'm all out of Fs to give for these monsters.
Yes. The danger is the distraction. This is probably a good time to continue with vigor the work of creating an alternative World that we can love, or at least be proud of.
To change the world, we must change the human species, and to change the human species, we must transition from its competitive hierarchical structure to a cooperative conarchical structure, in which each person must give and do according to their abilities and receive according to their needs, without excess. To do this, we must create a "break" in the chain of events and replace the broken link with a new link. This new link replaces the initial conditions that gave rise to the current structure with new initial conditions that give rise to a new process, in which production meets the vital needs of all through free associations of workers and entrepreneurs equipped with the necessary means of production, within the limits of nature's sustainability. It is not a question of bringing about a revolution, which would only change the dominant forces, but rather a phase transition that radically alters all human relationships and behaviors. It is possible and will be done.
This is so easy to do now that we have digital tech. We don't need banks, we don't need chaperones (government) Money is only a transference of numbers and we can do that directly from one account to the other.
Mass action is probably the only solution, but that has been rendered virtually impossible in the United States. I suppose if enough people in other countries could mobilize and wrest control away from billionaires and unelected bureacrat puppets of the billionaires, we might have a chance. But it's looking bleak and they're always building new systems of torture and control (battle tested on Palestinians and Slavs for the time being - coming home soon in earnest via the Capitalist-Imperialist boomerang).
Once you take away their power what's the plan to do next? Forget about stripping anyone of power, forget about taking anything down because that only feeds the dark energies. Instead be creative - what can we start doing? Don't let anything stop you from doing it even if the rest of the world doesn't move. Because if everyone said there's nothing we can do, then nothing will be done. Whereas there are a few people around who want to change the world and will do anything to see it through. Find them.
Yes! We need to talk about good things, about our powers, our ability to choose. And find like-minded others. We also need to log our transactions without banks.
There is plenty of resources (and energy) to be harvested from our own solar system, and it does not require human transportation capabilities. What is required is advances in robotics and remote explorer/gathering tools that can leave earth and return with an almost unlimited amount of resources and energy. For example, the sun itself generates 386 billion million gigawatts - compared to a nuclear reactor of 1 gigawatt.
So - I wouldn't write off space exploration and technology completely.
The real problem we are facing right now is a psychological one, and is self-created by the species. We currently have a Social system where power and resources are being pooled and controlled by a relatively few individuals - and then directed toward their own personal ends (or personal fantasies like Elon Musk) - which clearly do not coincide with a healthy future for the rest of the human race, or the planet. This is the real obstacle the human race is facing right now - it isn't AI, and it isn't technology - it's the Social construction and Capitalistic system that is being imposed upon us all that is the problem. And it's becoming a very dire one indeed. There really is nothing wrong with a *loving* (well regulated) technology, however. A lot of good can come from technology and has come from technology.
Is there any hope? I think there is. With every force there comes an equal and opposite reaction. There seems to be an odd balance of forces throughout human history, that leads to an admittedly donkey slow growth to human knowledge and enlightenment, but growth nevertheless. There will be opposition to the Elon Musks of the world, there will be resistance - and with that resistance there will come hope and new opportunities.
It's really kind of fucked up when you think about the fact that virtually every negative thing ever concocted by authors of sci-fi dating back to the 19th century is becoming or has become material and devolutionary fact.
That's because they pictured dystopia and not a beautiful world. What movies can you think of that paints the world in a beautiful way? La Belle Verde is one of the only movies I can think of that came close.
If Musk's trillion bucks isn't buying him happiness, that's great. I hope he's the most miserable fucker on the planet. He's certainly made millions of others miserable. Pathetic individual.
Thank you Caitlin. Yes, I agree 💯. I have one thought to share. Slogans and labels are tools of mass propaganda. Perhaps we should stop using terms like "Rulers" and "Elite" when discussing what these Capitalist monsters are doing. This just elevates them above us in the discussion. Perhaps we are applying propaganda to ourselves by doing so?
Basically Elon Musk's idea of his own wet dream.No one will ever love him. Please...send him now to Mars together with Bezos and wife.
>>"Please...send him now to Mars together with Bezos and wife."
...and EVERY billionaire on the planet.
… and be quick about it. Many of us cannot afford to wait. Indeed, most life on Earth is imperiled by the Capitalism that creates and sustains billionaires and, soon, trillionaires.
And all corrupt politicians.
With a few more of their billionaire buddies,and also Shitler and his worthless spawn.
I was just thinking about this kind of thing earlier today. What is capitalism doing for us and the world? What's the point? Is there any room for authentic connection and any kind of real meaning?
Well said Ms. Van Eyk. If anything, the system benefits the wealthy oligarchs by continuing to give them further wealth, influence and power. For the rest of us, it is an exploitative system that ties our self-worth to our careers and how much we our net worth is, tries to get us to believe that buying things we don't need beyond our budgets is a good thing, and that AI generated chatbots are a substitute for human interaction. It's frankly pretty grim, I'd have to say
Thanks Aamir. It's very sad. Maybe our search for meaning and connection in the western world is what will save us.
No problem, and agreed. It's one of the saddest aspects of our current world. I hope you're right, and that search for meaningful relationships, connection and unity can help us through this in the end
Yep. I tend to request a human in place of a bot 😁
Capitalism is literally empowering a very few people to destroy all life on Earth at an accelerating rate. Capitalism is a religion that demands perpetual sacrifices.
And people don't have to be stupid to fall for its lies. Many are just gullible, naive, indoctrinated, brainwashed and unaware that there might be alternatives to the lies they're being told about the world, their societies and themselves.
But capitalism to succeed requires masses of stupid humans to comply with it.
Some humans are congenitally stupid. However, millions more are merely ignorant.
Ignorance can be cured via education. That’s why the billionaires strive to set the agenda for public education and propaganda.
The current and previous Secretaries of Education are two blatant examples of billionaires setting the perverse agenda, but historically it was illegal to teach slaves to be literate, and many indentured servants were also illiterate in English.
Flesh and blood humans are now obsolete, but there'll always be a little corner for them: this blog, for example.
Great example, George.
Great?
Horrifying.
"We’re not meaningfully any closer to knowing how to keep humans alive completely separate from Earth’s biosphere."
Heck, we're currently having trouble keeping humans alive even within Earth's biosphere.
Actually, “we” are keeping more humans alive than the Earth can sustain, indefinitely. Capitalism is based upon the notion of perpetual growth in a realm of unlimited resources.
Well we're producing too many, in any event.
The Capitalist “system” requires more customers, serfs and cannon fodder.
Sociopaths will do what they do, I fear. And armed with the enormous power of enormous money, nothing short of complete societal upheaval will do any good. Energize the masses from below? Skepticism. Sorry.
But we use their money and seem quite happy to keep on doing so. Therefore we are feeding them. When do we hear of someone speaking about getting off their money? I talk about it ceaselessly but everyone just wants to stay the same. We can change right now, those of us who recognize the darkness.
And doing it before too many more people are created to use too many resources. (In other words, we need to stop fucking so much, also.)
agreed or some way to stop the further flow of wealth to these already insanely rich oligarchs, but I am not sure how to do so
Ask the Amish communities how they operate.
Have you sought to find out how you could be using a local currency or starting one up?
Elon Musk is a bald faced liar when he says he is constantly "working." He probably puts in an honest 2 hours max per day. This idiot leech wants us to believe that it's simultaneously possible to shitpost & play video games literally 24/7, be a father, the head of multiple businesses when literally all he does is shitpost and either play videogames or pay someone else to play video games after which Musk takes personal credit for the player's achievements. Which, come to think of it is exactly how he functions as the leader of his companies: He steals ideas/companies (Tesla), he gets bailed out by the USG on his failing space companies (their first attempt was using old Soviet rocketry), and otherwise relies on the vastly underappreciated (or denied) ideas, accomplishments, and ...... well, WORK of others so he can concurrently destroy the planet, get filthy rich, destroy democratic norms and help wreck the rule of law and frame up all of that as exactly 180 degrees opposite of what he's doing.
Very well said Tom. He definitely has a lot of time to post on X for someone "working" almost every hour of everyday. And it's disappointing that many don't know how he came to be the Tesla CEO, it wasn't him that came up with the idea for the cars, not to mention the significant government assistance he's received to get to where he is.
The Starlink contracts (no-bid, I'm sure) for Ukraine have been VERY profitable for him. And that leads me to "polluting near space with his junk satellites..."
And he can get government assistance at the snap of his fingers,but regular people have to jump through hoops of fire to get any government aid,and having even over a few $$$ too much always results in an automatic "NO!"But he has more money than GOD and can get all the money in the world handed to him on a silver platter!
It's total BULLSHIT!!
AB-SO-FUCKIN-LUTELY
God has not use for money.
All these guys are government psyops. No geniuses here. Look back, they puffed him up as the real life Tony Stark (Iron Man)
Oh yeah, for sure. A rich psyop but a definite psyop of some kind. Let's call it the Mogul Psyop - "Look kiddies you can be a trillionaire too if you work hard enough, and taking giant government "defense" (that's been fixed now at least) contracts is just a normal thing that free marketeer capitalists do!"
If only we could transform people like Musk into an AI so he can live out his happy life with his AI "love" in a nanosecond, and then we pull the plug on him. Forever.
Love the idea! Now, who's going to step up and make this a reality?
A great idea CA, maybe his neuralink system can reach that level eventually and he can become an AI and leave the rest of us alone?
I say we just plug him into neuralink now and let the chips fall where they may. Like he and his team did/does to the monkeys. I'm all out of Fs to give for these monsters.
One could only hope!
Any AI experts out there know how we can do this?
What was thst thing people did when u happy with wages and conditions? Oh, that's it - they went on strike enmasse.
Yes. The danger is the distraction. This is probably a good time to continue with vigor the work of creating an alternative World that we can love, or at least be proud of.
To change the world, we must change the human species, and to change the human species, we must transition from its competitive hierarchical structure to a cooperative conarchical structure, in which each person must give and do according to their abilities and receive according to their needs, without excess. To do this, we must create a "break" in the chain of events and replace the broken link with a new link. This new link replaces the initial conditions that gave rise to the current structure with new initial conditions that give rise to a new process, in which production meets the vital needs of all through free associations of workers and entrepreneurs equipped with the necessary means of production, within the limits of nature's sustainability. It is not a question of bringing about a revolution, which would only change the dominant forces, but rather a phase transition that radically alters all human relationships and behaviors. It is possible and will be done.
I don't share your optimism. But I hope for it.
This is so easy to do now that we have digital tech. We don't need banks, we don't need chaperones (government) Money is only a transference of numbers and we can do that directly from one account to the other.
Yeah. www.dhana.org - www.ekabank.org
Interest free loans? Are you a member?
The merchant of venice
I established Dhana and EkaBank
Emptying of consciousness..
Discussion?
??
Nobody's interested. No surprise. Still asking for a discussion..
They get the sugar. We get the shit.
What does anyone propose to do about it?
Mass action is probably the only solution, but that has been rendered virtually impossible in the United States. I suppose if enough people in other countries could mobilize and wrest control away from billionaires and unelected bureacrat puppets of the billionaires, we might have a chance. But it's looking bleak and they're always building new systems of torture and control (battle tested on Palestinians and Slavs for the time being - coming home soon in earnest via the Capitalist-Imperialist boomerang).
Once you take away their power what's the plan to do next? Forget about stripping anyone of power, forget about taking anything down because that only feeds the dark energies. Instead be creative - what can we start doing? Don't let anything stop you from doing it even if the rest of the world doesn't move. Because if everyone said there's nothing we can do, then nothing will be done. Whereas there are a few people around who want to change the world and will do anything to see it through. Find them.
"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye, but pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?".
We have the world we have the consciousness for so the solution I think is to evolve our own individual consciousness, and help others to do the same.
Yes! We need to talk about good things, about our powers, our ability to choose. And find like-minded others. We also need to log our transactions without banks.
There is plenty of resources (and energy) to be harvested from our own solar system, and it does not require human transportation capabilities. What is required is advances in robotics and remote explorer/gathering tools that can leave earth and return with an almost unlimited amount of resources and energy. For example, the sun itself generates 386 billion million gigawatts - compared to a nuclear reactor of 1 gigawatt.
So - I wouldn't write off space exploration and technology completely.
The real problem we are facing right now is a psychological one, and is self-created by the species. We currently have a Social system where power and resources are being pooled and controlled by a relatively few individuals - and then directed toward their own personal ends (or personal fantasies like Elon Musk) - which clearly do not coincide with a healthy future for the rest of the human race, or the planet. This is the real obstacle the human race is facing right now - it isn't AI, and it isn't technology - it's the Social construction and Capitalistic system that is being imposed upon us all that is the problem. And it's becoming a very dire one indeed. There really is nothing wrong with a *loving* (well regulated) technology, however. A lot of good can come from technology and has come from technology.
Is there any hope? I think there is. With every force there comes an equal and opposite reaction. There seems to be an odd balance of forces throughout human history, that leads to an admittedly donkey slow growth to human knowledge and enlightenment, but growth nevertheless. There will be opposition to the Elon Musks of the world, there will be resistance - and with that resistance there will come hope and new opportunities.
This Cyberpunk Dystopia really is THAT pathetic, y'all.
It's really kind of fucked up when you think about the fact that virtually every negative thing ever concocted by authors of sci-fi dating back to the 19th century is becoming or has become material and devolutionary fact.
That's because they pictured dystopia and not a beautiful world. What movies can you think of that paints the world in a beautiful way? La Belle Verde is one of the only movies I can think of that came close.
Penny Arcade + Shyster =
Circus
If Musk's trillion bucks isn't buying him happiness, that's great. I hope he's the most miserable fucker on the planet. He's certainly made millions of others miserable. Pathetic individual.
Paper wealth. There’s nothing real behind it
Thank you Caitlin. Yes, I agree 💯. I have one thought to share. Slogans and labels are tools of mass propaganda. Perhaps we should stop using terms like "Rulers" and "Elite" when discussing what these Capitalist monsters are doing. This just elevates them above us in the discussion. Perhaps we are applying propaganda to ourselves by doing so?