It is beyond capitalism now, it is corporatism turning into neo-feudalism. Some may argue that capitalism inevitably has to follow this path. I am not sure about that, but unregulated capitalism combined with large scale centralized representative democracy probably does.

More importantly they know how a guillotine looks and works.

NO!

(that’ll be $1.25 please)

“Paging Dr Guillotin, code crimson on ward 1”

I am suggesting both

The only renaming that needs to happen is from White House to Shite House.

So, GrapheneOS should have a function that replaces the content of the phone with a vanilla set of apps and a clean account, instead of wiping it, on receiving the distress code.

He needed the press coverage of the French riots like his diapers need changing.

I would love a world where people can change just like that: realize that they were wrong, admit that, and ideally make up for any possible damage they made.

This is not that world. Expect more butthurt, ulterior, sometimes open more often covert undermining activity from them and their handlers.

That won’t change until a few of them are in prison.

if they are taking a bottle of water and a sandwich because they are exhausted, that’s fine. If they are taking expensive electronics and brand clothes, they are low-life scum deliberately allowed to behave like this by the oppressive class, to taint the protests. It’s hard to see which is happening on this video, but I am assuming the latter.

The productive class is choked from the two sides of the parasite class: the billionaire parasites and the low-life parasites. Time to fight back on both. Words will not fix this.

beholden to Russian interests

The year is 2032. The crowd is gathering for God Emperor Trump’s birthday parede. Not voluntarily, but at least they get beer and a desiccated burger. The organizers are doing their best again to make the Emperor presentable. The orange makeup covers a lot, and the smell has been gone for a couple of years now. Still, their hearts tremble when the handwaving mechanism kicks in. People need to see Dear Leader strong, to forget the war that has been ravaging the Mid-Western states. The parede ends well, no body parts have been flung this year. People shuffle back to their buses, savoring the rare taste of beer in their mouth. Many of them take the burger in their pockets back to their kids in the barrack. It will be a good day for them too! Long live the Emperor!

Marsupial law. With deep pouches to put the bribes in. It’s already in place by the way.

The checks they cashed in and now giddily look at their account balances.

Billionaires aren’t compatible with life. They are economic black holes who increase scarcity, uncertainty, entropy, and isolation. In a different verbiage, they are demons.

Who profits from whom is non-sequitur in determining which culture is built on better principles. The argument that “better quality of life will make the world a better place and allow cultures to work together in harmony” (that is, globalization) was proven wrong by the rise of China. They are the strongest economy, yet still have a terrible human rights problem, which they export everywhere they go. The “arabs” are rich nations too, look at the Gulf states and Saudis. They still did 9/11. Somehow it wasn’t a white thrash trailer park boy who flew a plane into the Kaaba stone.

Some societies are not built on individual rights at which point they are inferior. The individual is the only real thing that exists. Nations, clans, religions, even families are just abstractions in our heads. If those are presented as more important than the individuals rights and responsibilities then it’s in the interest of the presenter to deceive their audience. Somehow the “interest of the clan” always aligns with the interest of the clan leader. You can see that transformation in real time in the US with Trump.

You are arguing with yourself not with me. I never said liberal democracies don’t place property before humans. All I originally said was that other societies placed property before humans, not just liberal democracies. To which you said my example of ancient Greece was wrong, because the state owned some silver mines. To which I said that’s not a good argument, because they still used slaves. Like some lib democracies used to too, I am aware. As a clue, they abolished slavery, which very few other societies did, but it’s kind of beside my main point, see above. If you want to argue, argue with that, not with stuff I never said.

EDIT: I am not even saying that liberal democracy is good. I think it is better than a lot of other systems. It’s still very flawed, and partly because it cannot synthetize property rights with human rights. At least it keeps trying .

We are not arguing about who owns property in various societies, or what societies had more private property vs state owned property. We talk about which societies placed human rights above property rights. You can be sure the ancient Athenians sent slaves to work those silver mines. Not very humane if you ask me.

You may be surprised but I agree with you. The millenia old social contract to have to “earn” your livelihood is a bad one. We should not need to have jobs. With more automation this could be possible. However, it won’t work if oligarchs own all of it. Also won’t work with 8 billion+ people on Earth. The idea of UBI would in practice mean living in barracks and eating slop, if it’s up to the oligarchs to dole out. So, yes, down with jobs. But I also understand why people don’t want to starve waiting for the automation utopia to come.