Malloon
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Learning from history is difficult when your education has been sabotaged, but *please* do your best to do it anyway. Do the smart thing, not the cathartic thing. Try to make something better based on facts, evidence, reason, academic analysis, experience, and nuance. *Just* destroying the current system is likely to create something even worse. You need builders, communities and a plan if you actually want to create a better future.
wadenelson
EXACTLY WHAT A BILLIONAIRE WOULD SAY!
widiwi
KR1570F
that's why I support giant meteor impact. No icky moral questions and no sad and slow rebuilding while trying to avoid the exact same evils as before.
animatronicChristmasChickens
Remember folks, if the sentiment is unpopular, it's correct use of the meme, so it deserves an upvote
zanaria
Except that when it comes to that point, every other option has been exhausted. People have tried to change things, but those very same billionaires use their money to prevent any change to their power...
friendsofsandwiches
This is reasonable and well thought out. Too bad no one listens.
Malloon
Thank you.
shmoogeeoogee
Historically speaking, why do you think guillotine is the symbol we choose for taking down those who hold abusive power over everything?
Malloon
Because of a violent revolution that ended in failure.
morrochbeniothe
sounds like someone tryin to defend the system to me. Lets face it, the only thing allot of rich assholes actually care about is themselves. So historically in allot of cases the only times anything has actually changed is when their lives were put at risk. Through riots, through revolutions. Our current system is the system we got through polite means and trying to rely on the rich assholes in government to leash their friends and donors.
Malloon
I wanted to answer you, but everything I could say was just a restatement of what I've already said - I'm not categorically against riots or revolutions. What I do need to say is that we need to be able to talk about solutions without criticism and care being stamped as "defending the system", otherwise only the loudest and most violent voices will reign supreme. And those won't build a better future.
Telleryn
I think the hypothetical idea is to kill enough of them that the ones left realise that they should stop hoarding resources in order to avoid the same fate
Malloon
If you have the power to do that, you don't need to rely on fear to force them to do that. If that's the only potential route you have, you're going to fail, because the power disparity is such that they will simply spend a little more on protecting themselves.
Telleryn
historically once the killing actually starts it's hard to get it to stop, it starts with the wealthiest, then the 2nd wealthiest and so on, then the people who support them (or just object to the murder), then the people who might maybe support them, just in case (looking at you, French revolutionaries, a lot of good mathematicians and physicists were killed for being in the 'just in case' column)
Malloon
Yep. It's that exact scenario which makes me wary of executions after the fact, even if (a big if, since I'm against the death penalty myself) it would actually be justice at first.
TheMeatIncident
YouMealyMouthedCrotchPheasant
You've clearly learnt nothing from history. The people you wish to get out of power control all the viable legal routes in which they could be taken out of power. Revolution works, appeasement does not. Asking politely for a Nazi to not be a Nazi and waving a flag to complain if they refuse will only encourage other Nazis. The only answer to a Nazi is a swift punch to the face. The same goes for billionaires.
Malloon
Who said anything about Nazis? Fuck Nazis. Any revolution is better than having Nazis in power. But I was talking about capitalism and billionaires. Pretending that all non-violent action, even all none-execution action, is appeasement, is violently dishonest. In those systems where they do control every route, revolution might well be the only option - which is why I didn't disavow it, but simply emphasised that it's a solution with horrible consequences, even it is necessary.
YouMealyMouthedCrotchPheasant
"I wasn't talking about nazis, I was meaning billionaires" .. * insert pam meme * .. Corporate wants you to tell the difference between these two pictures.
TeamSpicyTacos
Poor white people versus rich white people
Malloon
You can't tell the difference? That's concerning.
YouMealyMouthedCrotchPheasant
The concern here is that people don't realise we are quite some way down this path. The time for a calm, measured approach was decades ago, since then the money and the power has significantly tilted towards a very few select people. In that sense, billionaires are the equivalent to Nazis as they erode the cohesion of a "fair society". Late Stage Capitalism is insidious and prevalent, it cannot be shifted by peaceful protest any more. Radical measures are needed.
Malloon
I completely agree. No qualifications - everything you've just said, I stand by. Hell, I've made those exact arguments myself. But "radical measures" encompasses a hell of a lot more than "kill billionaires", and many measures you could call radical are nevertheless idiotic, counterproductive or unhelpful. Stealing all of a city's milk and drowning everybody with blue eyes in it would be highly radical, but nobody in their right mind would think it could be an effective solution to societal /1
ElRigs83
I can't speak for the rest of the world but gun violence is the number 1 cause of death for minors so how do you explain to grieving families that we can't regulate guns but we can ban abortions and books?
YouMealyMouthedCrotchPheasant
Tim Burchett deserves (yes, deserves) to be assassinated. After a school shooting in his district he said "we aren't going to do anything about this", and asked if he was not worried for his own child in a school shooting he said "no, my daughter is home schooled". What an absolute massive cunt. He absolutely deserves a bullet to the brain. Funnily enough, when it comes to supporting Trump and peddling lies and misinformation there is suddenly "lots he can do", just not about dead kids.
Malloon
How is any of that relevant to what I said?
ElRigs83
None of these mass shootings are happening in private schools.
Malloon
That's not true. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/school-shooting-tennessee-leaves-multiple-injured-shooter-dead-officia-rcna76841 But even if it was, you'd be talking about a class disparity which is propped up the ruling class, which needs to be changed, torn down, yes. And how do we do that? That's what my post is about.
YouMealyMouthedCrotchPheasant
It's the same billionaire class that you are railing against that are the ones controlling the political agenda, that agenda includes loosening gun control, restricting health access, banning books, etc. It's billionaire money driving astroturfed bullshit like "Moms for Liberty". Got a quote for you OP, you'll like it, it's from Gramsci. It's Italian, but the rough english translation is "the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear."
Malloon
I repeat, how is that relevant? I know about all that. All of that is part of the reason they're so terrible and need to be torn down. My point was on what methods are effective at doing that - a vigilante shooting a billionaire dead out of revenge may feel cathartic, but it doesn't actually solve anything.
YouMealyMouthedCrotchPheasant
If you know all about that, then the "how is it relevant" question answers itself. I get it, you are doing the unpopular opinion thing, but in doing so you should expect pushback. In an ideal world your point would be totally valid, but we aren't in an ideal world and we don't have generations to slowly pull the system in the right direction.
Malloon
I am expecting pushback. And in providing pushback, you yourself should expect pushback. As heated as this may be, this is a dialogue. I'm not arguing from an idealist point of view, but - I hope - from a pragmatist one. I'm trying to argue for solutions I think actually work, and against ones that don't. We talked about needing radical change in the other comment chain, which I agree with, but my point is that just gunning for billionaires is not actually a solution, short or long term.