Ask Lemmy

Because the slow decay of the capitalist order that has been occurring since the neoliberal turn has reached the point where it's effects are being felt in the global North

Wealth inequality caused by all the things mentioned here and more. It allows the wealthy to control narrative that is fed to the masses, control the amount of free time people have to think and control how much pressure is placed on your lives.

The free thinking world is gone.

But the '3 meals away from a revolution' is always true and the rich will always get more greedy. When everyone no longer has the ability to free themselves, that's when a lot of heads will roll.

You probably feel that way because this is what it feels like when evil wins.

Evil use to hide - but through Trump's no filter twitter postings, Musk's self-aggrandizing incompetence, and Russia's realization that they no longer have to hide their evil-doing, a lot of the evil these days is just out in the open.

Imagine a world where a competent president is hiding behind close doors planning a way to defund USAID and starve millions of people. Planning behind close doors cutting medicare by 1 trillion dollars, killing thousands of Americans, and using that money to fund a trillion dollar tax break for the mega rich. You wouldn't know any of that is happening.

Now it is front page news, and people are reacting by boycotting Amazon for one day on the 28th.

the hard answer: the voting populace is the single stupidest form of combined intelligence to ever exist, im pretty sure 3 children under the age of 7 in a room would have a higher average IQ than any state in america when measuring the voting populace.

Voting is a joke. People don't take it seriously, it's all vibes based, and those vibes are horrendously unreliable and meaningless.

the soft answer: it is, for now. It will change, just give it time. It's inevitable.

Because it is.

when evil is winning on your nation's scale it feels like it's winning globally. is evil winning in rojava? in southeast asia? is evil winning in the spanish speaking world?

for that matter, what's going on at your state level, or at your city level?

Because too many good people are doing nothing.

A ruling class of ultra wealthy lording over the vast majority of people who are left with crumbs is a common sign that an empire is in decline. With the US having more global influence than any previous empire, the whole world will be feeling the effects in one way or another.

Just an hour ago I heard EmiliaRoig.com talking on the EuropeansPodcast.com (minute 28) and she said something that at first sounded naïve to me. But in hindsight, it may be true.

She said that "times are changing for the better (i.e. referring to the last 10 years or more.) and what we are seeing nowadays is just a shout of despair to that, being done by right-wing extremists, and is loud."

I can recommend all that she said afterwards, be warned: talks fast ;p

I just talked to my superior about the most urgent thing EU countries are facing currently. I should add that he is 100% disabled but studied in CS and reads everything which is interesting to him and his world view.

When I said that social media dictates the discussions and the media, we agreed on the thought after a short period.

And if we could solve this issue we mostlikely would get awarded a noble price.

What I am trying to say: Social media is run by - at least - flawed people. And used by the evil ones to their maximum, putting the honest Ones into a position to explain.

We are loosing our discourse, we are mixing our cultures - or we split at our ethics.

Social media is a cancer with no current treatment. Civilians will be in favor of social media since it also benefits society directly. But we are diminishing other things with it.

Maybe there will be one more brilliant mind educated who may aid us in these times.

Unpopular opinion, but in the west particularly, folk have mistaken writing on the internet for action.

Tweeting resistance rather than performing it.

A lapse into inaction framed as radical rest and self care.

Online they are fierce warriors of justice, offline they go to work in Starbucks, use their apple devices to talk to their families and enjoy the treadmill of streaming services.

And this isn't to blame them. This is the point of consumerist capitalism. To trap you in a gilded cage.

The common version of the phrase...

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”

The actual version of the phrase...

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

Surprised to read so many answers talking about capitalism, social media and wealth concentration. But no one mentioned that we're at an unprecedented point in history of mankind. Ecological collapse, the lightening fast rise of AI. No example of past historical processes can be very useful in this very unique context.

And don't forget that with AI and, coming fast, robots, humans will not be needed for labor anymore. Most of you might feel this is rubbish about something you think is science fiction. I suggest you think again.

Think again and you will quickly realize that the future is not rosy for 99.5% of us.

Because the return of massive wealth disparity - similar to having kings again - has allowed those with money and power to bend the world in the direction of some form of dictatorship, whether it be fascism, oligarchy, whatever…. The New Kings are carving up society and want to increase control and profit, and an authoritarian governance is the way to do it. Just like how they treat their corporations. They are dictators, the little people are disposable production units to feed their machine.

My opinion on this generally boils down to that the system has been set up to reward evil/antisocial behavior, and this part of the system is so entrenched and well established and organized that it has not been effectively and completely toppled or eradicated in so long, it has been able to consolidate power and resources to a point where very few extremely evil people are personally in charge of so much of what happens that it seeps into everything. Actually "seeps" is the wrong word, it's injected into everything. It's like has been said many times in recent memory, the cruelty is the point.

For a simplified example, evil executives reward evil behavior by their managers, who in turn punish their employees, who lose control of so much of their lives to these companies and managers that they end up hurting their families and friends out of confusion and anger and other complex emotional reactions, and harm is perpetuated in every area of life.

It's self sustaining, and even worse it replicates itself. In some ways I think of these systems as viruses. Also as cults. We all buy in to some degree.