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There is less than zero commonality between the situation today and those Swedish peasants. "Ordinary people" in the US are nowhere near desperate enough to sac

There is less than zero commonality between the situation today and those Swedish peasants. "Ordinary people" in the US are nowhere near desperate enough to sacrifice themselves in a rebellion - and who exactly would they even rebel against, much less how would they rebel? Pile into a bunch of minivans and storm the local State Farm branch office? Maybe try to capture the local police precinct a-la John Rambo?

salawat 2y ago
People are becoming more aware of the Shadow State that is the financial/mercantilist class. The people that the government outsources everything it can't do on paper to. I would not be surprised to see other forms of insurer come under increased scrutiny in the years to come.
- wrfrmers 2y ago
  It's not that much of a stretch to say that the US is a planned economy, given a sufficient understanding of how those systems operate writ large. Unelected bureaucrats would be a step up, elected officials two, from what we have, which is an unelected, private, distributed "death panel" for any economic decision the average person might want to make. Want to go to school, or start a business, or have housing, or buy enough food for the week? You're not beholden to your family, or your neighbors, or your community, but to some banker or credit bureau executive, and whoever they've delegated their powers to.
wrfrmers 2y ago
As illustrated by Luigi and the response to his actions, "ordinary people" in the US know exactly who to rebel against. It should be noted that his assassination attempt followed a year where no less than 3 people set themselves on fire in protest of another arm of America's industrial grinder. Which is to say that the most recent act doesn't represent a sudden escalation, but is instead emblematic of a progression from despair to anger. Several billionaires also predicted this progression, warning their peers to ease up on their behavior. They're not listening, and some "ordinary people" seem ready to make them.
impossiblefork 2y ago
I don't think the Swedish peasantry was very desperate. They were well-organized and quite wealthy. I'd put them as upper middle class. The equivalent of their level of military organization would probably not be minivans, it would be something like rolling out barbed wire, laying smoke, digging trenches with machines, mortar teams, snipers and ordinary riflemen. Something which in practice would be impossible to deal with and which would immediately necessitate negotiations. I'm not propagating for that though, but I do think there is a similarity to the learning process-- how the Swedish peasantry chose to develop this capacity and strengthened it until it was useful. Think of humans as these epsilon-greedy things, which with probability epsilon go and explore the payoff space. I think people see that things are being done to them that cross the line of screwing them over to something like crushing them, and this makes attempting to get back at those doing the crushing to get them to back off rational. Thus I think that it's reasonable to expect an exploration of violence to see where good payoffs can be had and where you can deterrence.

salawat 2y ago

People are becoming more aware of the Shadow State that is the financial/mercantilist class. The people that the government outsources everything it can't do on paper to. I would not be surprised to see other forms of insurer come under increased scrutiny in the years to come.

wrfrmers 2y ago
It's not that much of a stretch to say that the US is a planned economy, given a sufficient understanding of how those systems operate writ large. Unelected bureaucrats would be a step up, elected officials two, from what we have, which is an unelected, private, distributed "death panel" for any economic decision the average person might want to make. Want to go to school, or start a business, or have housing, or buy enough food for the week? You're not beholden to your family, or your neighbors, or your community, but to some banker or credit bureau executive, and whoever they've delegated their powers to.

wrfrmers 2y ago

As illustrated by Luigi and the response to his actions, "ordinary people" in the US know exactly who to rebel against. It should be noted that his assassination attempt followed a year where no less than 3 people set themselves on fire in protest of another arm of America's industrial grinder. Which is to say that the most recent act doesn't represent a sudden escalation, but is instead emblematic of a progression from despair to anger. Several billionaires also predicted this progression, warning their peers to ease up on their behavior. They're not listening, and some "ordinary people" seem ready to make them.

impossiblefork 2y ago

I don't think the Swedish peasantry was very desperate. They were well-organized and quite wealthy. I'd put them as upper middle class. The equivalent of their level of military organization would probably not be minivans, it would be something like rolling out barbed wire, laying smoke, digging trenches with machines, mortar teams, snipers and ordinary riflemen. Something which in practice would be impossible to deal with and which would immediately necessitate negotiations. I'm not propagating for that though, but I do think there is a similarity to the learning process-- how the Swedish peasantry chose to develop this capacity and strengthened it until it was useful. Think of humans as these epsilon-greedy things, which with probability epsilon go and explore the payoff space. I think people see that things are being done to them that cross the line of screwing them over to something like crushing them, and this makes attempting to get back at those doing the crushing to get them to back off rational. Thus I think that it's reasonable to expect an exploration of violence to see where good payoffs can be had and where you can deterrence.