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You willingly put up with the ‘global elite’ though.

by euroPoor 7y ago

mortivore 7y ago
Define "willingly".
hummusoiler 7y ago
"willingly" is a bit of a stretch considering the difficulty of doing so, and gives off a different connontation.
- euroPoor 7y ago
  Of course it’s difficult, but we all have the means to build social movements, companies or sue if we feel that there’s something terrible going on. But we all like our flights, our cars, our cheaper and cheaper phones, stable policy in the West and perceived security. It’s hard but you can go against it. Just always saying ‘it’s the elite’ and then sitting it out seems really easy to me. Everyone has a conception of injustice, it just depends on how badly you crave that justice.
  - hummusoiler 7y ago
    There is a tremendous amount of intertia that needs to be overcome when starting a competing company or a movement to replace any of those. A lot of the competing companies have a large vertical integration in their field, and can refuse your supply for any of it
    - euroPoor 7y ago
      Of course, that’s the whole point. But you can build inertia. Take a look at Europe where there’s tremendous protesting going on regarding Climate Change, and we slowly see some change in for one, public opinion and two in policy making. It’s slow and painful and frustrating but you gotta work and not always blame the ‘global elite’. I know it’s hard to build inertia, I failed in court, I failed at building companies. But we all have to try and not put the blame on someone without doing anything.
      - hummusoiler 7y ago
        You can try and build inertia whilst blaming the global elite too. They also did not hint about their activity in any way. It can also in many ways to be literally impossible to compete for example due to some direct-or-not regulation. I think it's not fair to roll the fault on the commenter either, even if it's easier to not think about it that way
      - blunte 7y ago
        Unfortunately, Europe is moving quite westward in terms of politics and ignorance. (I'll just be direct and use the word, karma be damned). So what has happened in the US is happening elsewhere, on a delay. Fortunately, what is not on a delay is the age of the people doing the self-serving, future-burning deeds. Those people will all die within 15 years of each other. Hopefully those who are left will have a bit more sanity.
        euroPoor 7y ago
        How much more apocalyptic can you get? Do you think painting an apocalyptic picture and then blaming some parts of the population on the bad parts of your picture will do anything good?
      - anigbrowl 7y ago
        You build momentum to overcome inertia. Inertia is the tendency of things that are at rest to stay put.
  - blunte 7y ago
    Indeed. This expanded version of your previous comment is accurate. As long as people are still comfortable enough, there will be no change. Unfortunately, it takes great discomfort to motivate people to actually fight for change. (I'm like everyone, so I'm not fighting... yet?) I do believe the internet and global communication does speed up the process, at least when people get near the tipping point. Knowing that you are not alone in your frustration does help steel people and enable connection and shared-effort. So yes, it's fucked right now, but I think it will improve measurably in the next 20 years. (It does indeed help that many of the most powerful people will die of old age within those 20 years).
    - euroPoor 7y ago
      Thank you. Apparently everyone on HN loves a contrarian until they see one in the wild. You should get to work, there’s a lot of stuff to do. Of course we need to protect our precious peace and prosperity, but we also need public opinion to reflect on certain issues. And we need policy makers to implement solutions on said certain issues. We’ll get there but it’ll be really damn tiring and exhausting.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    we all have the means to build social movements, companies or sue if we feel that there’s something terrible going on That's nonsensical. We all have the potential to do such things at some point in our lives, but that is not at all the same as having the means. Just always saying ‘it’s the elite’ and then sitting it out seems really easy to me. So there are some people trying to build an anti-elite social movement of the sort you just said anyone had the means to build, yet you're saying they don't crave justice badly enough. I'm getting the impression that you're just saying you don't want to get onboard with anything unless it's already at the threshold of success.
    - euroPoor 7y ago
      Look I’m trying to build alternatives and help struggling social movements. I just don’t agree that the analysis of “it’s the elite, dumbass” is sufficiently clear eyed.
asdfman123 7y ago
Yeah, but I'm putting off "taking down the global elite and reworking our entire system" for next Tuesday because I've got some other things on my to-do list.
- gameswithgo 7y ago
  and we might fear for our lives and the lives of our children.
dr_dshiv 7y ago
I don't understand anti-elitism, given the alternative.
- tasty_freeze 7y ago
  Please state what you think the alternative is, since you used the singular. To me, there is a range of alternatives, so it is hard to understand your objection because I don't understand what you are imagining. One alternative is a French Revolution, part 2. Another alternative is a system of wealth, income, and inheritance taxes that helps prevent concentration of power in a few families. Another is more aggressive antitrust enforcement to reduce political power of any one company. Another is strengthening of unions. There are many others, and there are many combinations of them.
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    Yeah. People are scared. There are alternatives to another French Revolution, which no one wants. (Well, no one other than the tyrants waiting in the wings who want to be the global elite.) Why are people too scared to challenge the global élites? Because they don't acknowledge those alternatives. In my experience, it boils down to being fearful of being ruled by the people who want to be the global élites. Which would be even worse. And, hey, if I'm being honest, they're probably right about that. Thing is, that fear is blinding them to the other completely reasonable alternatives that people are putting forth. We just need to make more noise about these other, really very low risk options. Options like taxes. Options like strengthening unions. Even out of the box options like thinking about coop type business structures. Etc. There's more than one way to skin a cat, but we're in the happy position of not even having to skin the cat to get what we want. We just have to get people past that fear of, "Woah! look at those looneys who want to replace the élites! Better the Devil we know!".
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      Incrementalist low risk solutions have their place, but they are not the whole story. If you found a fire in the kitchen of your home you wouldn't just make a mental note to purchase a new fire extinguisher. Incrementalism works great in periods of relative stability. In other contexts it can be dangerous and inhibit necessary action.

You willingly put up with the ‘global elite’ though.

mortivore 7y ago

Define "willingly".

hummusoiler 7y ago

"willingly" is a bit of a stretch considering the difficulty of doing so, and gives off a different connontation.

euroPoor 7y ago
Of course it’s difficult, but we all have the means to build social movements, companies or sue if we feel that there’s something terrible going on. But we all like our flights, our cars, our cheaper and cheaper phones, stable policy in the West and perceived security. It’s hard but you can go against it. Just always saying ‘it’s the elite’ and then sitting it out seems really easy to me. Everyone has a conception of injustice, it just depends on how badly you crave that justice.
- hummusoiler 7y ago
  There is a tremendous amount of intertia that needs to be overcome when starting a competing company or a movement to replace any of those. A lot of the competing companies have a large vertical integration in their field, and can refuse your supply for any of it
  - euroPoor 7y ago
    Of course, that’s the whole point. But you can build inertia. Take a look at Europe where there’s tremendous protesting going on regarding Climate Change, and we slowly see some change in for one, public opinion and two in policy making. It’s slow and painful and frustrating but you gotta work and not always blame the ‘global elite’. I know it’s hard to build inertia, I failed in court, I failed at building companies. But we all have to try and not put the blame on someone without doing anything.
    - hummusoiler 7y ago
      You can try and build inertia whilst blaming the global elite too. They also did not hint about their activity in any way. It can also in many ways to be literally impossible to compete for example due to some direct-or-not regulation. I think it's not fair to roll the fault on the commenter either, even if it's easier to not think about it that way
    - blunte 7y ago
      Unfortunately, Europe is moving quite westward in terms of politics and ignorance. (I'll just be direct and use the word, karma be damned). So what has happened in the US is happening elsewhere, on a delay. Fortunately, what is not on a delay is the age of the people doing the self-serving, future-burning deeds. Those people will all die within 15 years of each other. Hopefully those who are left will have a bit more sanity.
      - euroPoor 7y ago
        How much more apocalyptic can you get? Do you think painting an apocalyptic picture and then blaming some parts of the population on the bad parts of your picture will do anything good?
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      You build momentum to overcome inertia. Inertia is the tendency of things that are at rest to stay put.
- blunte 7y ago
  Indeed. This expanded version of your previous comment is accurate. As long as people are still comfortable enough, there will be no change. Unfortunately, it takes great discomfort to motivate people to actually fight for change. (I'm like everyone, so I'm not fighting... yet?) I do believe the internet and global communication does speed up the process, at least when people get near the tipping point. Knowing that you are not alone in your frustration does help steel people and enable connection and shared-effort. So yes, it's fucked right now, but I think it will improve measurably in the next 20 years. (It does indeed help that many of the most powerful people will die of old age within those 20 years).
  - euroPoor 7y ago
    Thank you. Apparently everyone on HN loves a contrarian until they see one in the wild. You should get to work, there’s a lot of stuff to do. Of course we need to protect our precious peace and prosperity, but we also need public opinion to reflect on certain issues. And we need policy makers to implement solutions on said certain issues. We’ll get there but it’ll be really damn tiring and exhausting.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  we all have the means to build social movements, companies or sue if we feel that there’s something terrible going on That's nonsensical. We all have the potential to do such things at some point in our lives, but that is not at all the same as having the means. Just always saying ‘it’s the elite’ and then sitting it out seems really easy to me. So there are some people trying to build an anti-elite social movement of the sort you just said anyone had the means to build, yet you're saying they don't crave justice badly enough. I'm getting the impression that you're just saying you don't want to get onboard with anything unless it's already at the threshold of success.
  - euroPoor 7y ago
    Look I’m trying to build alternatives and help struggling social movements. I just don’t agree that the analysis of “it’s the elite, dumbass” is sufficiently clear eyed.

asdfman123 7y ago

Yeah, but I'm putting off "taking down the global elite and reworking our entire system" for next Tuesday because I've got some other things on my to-do list.

gameswithgo 7y ago
and we might fear for our lives and the lives of our children.

dr_dshiv 7y ago

I don't understand anti-elitism, given the alternative.

tasty_freeze 7y ago
Please state what you think the alternative is, since you used the singular. To me, there is a range of alternatives, so it is hard to understand your objection because I don't understand what you are imagining. One alternative is a French Revolution, part 2. Another alternative is a system of wealth, income, and inheritance taxes that helps prevent concentration of power in a few families. Another is more aggressive antitrust enforcement to reduce political power of any one company. Another is strengthening of unions. There are many others, and there are many combinations of them.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  Yeah. People are scared. There are alternatives to another French Revolution, which no one wants. (Well, no one other than the tyrants waiting in the wings who want to be the global elite.) Why are people too scared to challenge the global élites? Because they don't acknowledge those alternatives. In my experience, it boils down to being fearful of being ruled by the people who want to be the global élites. Which would be even worse. And, hey, if I'm being honest, they're probably right about that. Thing is, that fear is blinding them to the other completely reasonable alternatives that people are putting forth. We just need to make more noise about these other, really very low risk options. Options like taxes. Options like strengthening unions. Even out of the box options like thinking about coop type business structures. Etc. There's more than one way to skin a cat, but we're in the happy position of not even having to skin the cat to get what we want. We just have to get people past that fear of, "Woah! look at those looneys who want to replace the élites! Better the Devil we know!".
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    Incrementalist low risk solutions have their place, but they are not the whole story. If you found a fire in the kitchen of your home you wouldn't just make a mental note to purchase a new fire extinguisher. Incrementalism works great in periods of relative stability. In other contexts it can be dangerous and inhibit necessary action.