Yep. We do that right now with tuberculosis drugs, and everything else, including food. Great, ain’t it.
I always wondered what it would be like to live in a dystopia. Then I realized I already know.
Yep :(
Isn’t the movie kind of a metaphor about wealthy vs poor countries?
Yes heal everything machines do not exist, but wealthy countries certainly withhold medical treatment from others.
The entire cyberpunk genre is a metaphor about wealthy vs poor.
Also a metaphor for if the Japanese economy overtook America it would be the worst timeline
Some wealthy countries withhold medical treatment from their own Citizens, no matter how much they need it. 8 years old and need a kidney transplant? Kidney is ready to go, but if a parent doesn’t have health insurance, the kidney goes to the rich guy, and the poor kid dies.
I wonder which country would do that? Surely not the richest, most powerful nation on the planet.
There’s no war but the class war.
I say, I say!
THERE IS NO WAR BUT CLASS WAR!
Surely not the richest, most powerful nation on the planet.
So… this doesn’t really appear to be true any more. Not in any meaningful way at least.
The US might have the largest GDP, but eye-watering debt levels and diminishing quality of life.
We are still the richest, and most powerful, nation in the planet. Those things don’t benefit the vast majority of Citizens, but it is still very true.
That’s what I’m getting at though: it’s a question of semantics.
The US is presently the richest by GDP (although not for long given historic trajectories), but if you measure by purchasing power China overtook the US in 2014:
Nominal GDP measures economic output at current market exchange rates. By this measure, the U.S. is clearly ahead — its $28.8 trillion economy is about 62% larger than China’s $17.8 trillion.
Purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP adjusts for differences in domestic price levels — a haircut in Shanghai costs far less than a haircut in San Francisco, even though both deliver the same service. PPP attempts to capture the real volume of goods and services an economy produces, not just their dollar value at exchange rates. On this PPP-adjusted basis, China overtook the U.S. around 2014 and is now ~22% larger.
https://statspanda.com/blog/usa-vs-china-gdp-2026
Similarly if you count military might by the number of planes and soldiers then the US has the largest and most expensive military. However, given the already over-stressed bonds market, does the US really have the capability to flex that military might in a drawn out conflict?
There was immense soft power in the past, but Trump has really burned through that. He hasn’t been able to overcome resistance from much smaller neighboring economies.
The US is still a global super power but a mere shadow of it’s former self.
Valid
It’s not that simple. Corporations (including those producing and distributing drugs) are interested in spreading on as much markets as possible. In many poor countries it’s more convenient for dictators to slow down or completely stop progress to subdue poor masses (only loyal heads from army, militia, intelligence and their families get all most modern medical treatment, while others can even starve or shit to death for example). Moreover, in many cases, spread on other markets not really depends on regime types much. Usually it’s enough for regime to just give a permission to certain corp to sell on it’s territory’s market, so corp just fills it with it’s products at regular or region-specific prices (usually lower than in developed countries). So it may be a totalitarian regime, even waging occupative war, but with almost all the goodies (all the essential ones and almost all fancy unnecessary ones) etc., simply because drugs and cosmetics aren’t parts for shahed drones for example. Tho if you’ll grow big in such market, dicktator will just throw you (franchise owner, or official representative of some corp) out of the window and replace you with some loyal puppet to just cut the buzz (even if they suck as managers and whole business will eventually die — they are more interested in quick money, not long lasting investment plans with sophisticated profit calculations). And loyal members are assured that it’s the only way of existence and generally one step aside from party’s line and your dead, so they are just calmly nod their heads to all the bullshit and oppression. Profit on the first place, even for so called “communists”. It’s an extreme (ultra?) radicalised inhumane form of capitalism, progress and welfare are completely forgotten at this point and it’s no longer an adequate capitalism or not capitalism at all. imo…
I might have read this if it wasn’t a single monolithic paragraph spanning 31 lines on a phone
Corporates are our gods we love them, i live in a denial bubble, poor children being cut out of modern medicine is not our concern because its CoMpLeX because dictators because yada yada yada yada….
Man its just neoliberal crap, just saving everyone’s time.
That movie had much potential to deliver a radical message about inequalities but it turned to a centrist crap
Why do you think it was centrist? I thought it died due to its over the top messaging, like this meme suggests.
The film starts within a revolution of marginalized and low class societies, but that is not how the movie evolved , instead in the second part it switched to be another cringy hacking action hollywood crap with ending morals of rich and poor can now be doing brunches togather.
rich and poor can now be doing brunches togather.
Really? I didn’t get that at all. I was wondering, after that ending, when would the committees form and the executions begin a la 1917.
I mean even liberals came with the same conclusion as many class consciousness critics
That should tells you something about how bad the movie went.
I read your link, and all it talks about, in its two paragraphs, is ‘Matt Damon is white’ (white looking Mexicans don’t exist apparently) and that ‘it didn’t rouse people up sufficiently, therefore it’s bad propaganda’.
Matt is white and the movie is not good as a movie.
I mentioned in my reply that even liberals came with a conclusion about the no point of the movie and it is swinging towards cringe holywood narratives.
The guy writing the article shifted to identity politics which is something i really dont care about, but he is true about the end message being “no message” except centric dogma that everything is fine and
“robots will save us humans, yay lets have brunch together “
What centrist dogma? That the proletariat should rise and capture the means of power?
Again, the ending had no brunches, it was basically the start of a violent retribution against the bourgeoisie.
Isn’t there a whole qanon-adjacent right-wing mindrot conspiracy about “med beds”?
HIV is a death sentence in Africa.
The machines are fairly expensive. Once you get rid of democracy, or have our current state of fascist disinformation regarding how collapse is winning, there is a profit maximization formula through scarcity.
The machines could be priced the same as an F35 ($120m) not because manufacturing is that expensive, but the goal of the program is to funnel money to establishment, to support the political system back. At $1500/hour surgery cost to make $12m+/year (10% yield/10 year payback) each machine is 2-5x cheaper than current OR costs/billing, but its cost for diagnotics/drug delivery would be higher than current hospital services, and pricing surgery 2-3x higher might be needed.
Radial woke marxists that hate America might prefer policies that create abundant magic healing machines, instead of a new oligarchist support program, but that’s why elections need to be set up as a final battle to exterminate them (the left, of course) all.
Radial
as opposed to ulnar?
a final battle to exterminate them (the left, of course)
ah nevermind
