I just read a pm from one of the people I have jousted with here and I appreciated it. Before this I had a few days to mull over this thread and found a few interesting anomalies, or what I wish were anomalies but which I see common both the right and the left when it comes to these issues:
- Barabarianhorde, because I have creative work, labels me privileged and therefore should shut up. IOW since I have decent work, I have no right to complain about capitalism, since I am its beneficiary. He further says I was playing victim. Before I unpack the assumptions in this ludicrous act of his, let me point out the irony.
• One of the things the left often does is tell people to shut up because they are privileged. A white guy like me, doing adequately economically and not even gay, needs to shut up since I am privileged. Now I can expect this argument from the right also.
• Assumption 1 – if I am the doing well in a system that is semi-capitalist, then I cannot complain about how current capitalism is carried out and what it is leading to. This strikes me as not just confused but dangerous. The people who are scrabbling to survive in any system – under communism, fascism, oligarchies like ours, whatever - have less time an energy to notice what is going on, analyze what is going on, articulate that analysis. If the ‘priviledged’ should shut the fuck up, you are cutting off one of ways we can get good feedback about what is happening. It’s also the kind of thing I expect from the left. If I am in category X, then I should shut up.
• Assumption 2 – the only thing I should be concerned about is my paycheck. If there is a totalitarian coup, but they still want the products of my creative work, well, If I complain, I am a privileged person playing victim. (And frankly there is a good chance I would do alright under a totalitarian regime, at least economically. Again, not that I make much, but I get by on work I actually care about) But the implication that I am doing fine, so I should not be concerned about the rise of the panopticon, the already begun systematic behavior modification by social media, and their plans to control us, or really let their clients control us using the mass data collection, illegal data collection, and already used modification tech. that is happening right now. No, if my paycheck is fine, I should just shut up.
• Assumption 3 – it doesn’t matter if I am right. IOW at least in their first round of responses, I was the issue. It doesn’t matter if something is happening that would be problematic to them. The only issue is to get me shut up. I can get this from the Left if I point out the problems of transpersons with male bodies beating all the born as women in sporting events, when they will say I am racist, white and privileged. Or if I talk about Brexit and the problems with centralizing power in the EU. The actual problems, don’t matter. It is making clear who gets to speak and making clear that we never have to look at any problems with ‘our’ system. Shut the fuck up. Go ad hom. Shut them down. I can also get this from religious conservatives if anything challenges their religions
• Assumption 4 – pedro’s response was that I should amass enough material wealth to stop the monopolies. Note the jump. It does not matter if what I am saying is a problem. He would not care or it doesn’t even matter if he would, he doesn’t even bother to look at that. Jakob seemed to be bothered by some of fb’s actions, but it is non-issue for Pedro. The answer to any problem with modern capitalism in real life is amassing wealth and then using this wealth to control the policies of supposedly democratic nations. That is the way we control things. Become right, control society. A tacit acceptance of oligarchies. I am sure he is rooting for the oligarchy to intervene openly, like with ground troops in his beloved Venezuela. To bring back capitalism. He might want to look at the last 6 or 7 counties the US intervened openly in, those in northern Africa, to see how well that goes down for the people. Because those in power do not care about countries or people. They used to give a shit about the citizens in their own counties, but they don’t have countries anymore. FB and Google are happy to help communist regimes with their massive data collection. They are also happy to turn their info over to ‘our’ governments. If you think the capitalists as a rule are for capitalism or freedom or against communism, you’re missing what is going on. Maybe the invisible hand should have prevented this, but it didn’t and it’s not going to.
Right now these people are making products that take in sound and images from your homes. They are making smart cities, so even if you keep your homes clear, they will have enough data to know your personality, politics, likely whereabouts at any time. They have machines now, that will be working on doing behavior modification on you, that you will not consciously register. They do not care who else has this information. It will go to government, other corporations and will also get hacked and spread because they do not care about your security, privacy, rights, identity.
Me, I don’t see that as a right vs. left issue. I do see it as a product of capitalisms concentrations of power in a few hands, and conservatives should be concerned about 1) how this goes against the constitution 2) has already reduced, even more, democracy 3) goes against the views of corporations that originally were in place 4) might as well be communist
It is not better if there is huge power in the hands of corporations rather than governments, because they are just the new governments. This doesn’t mean I want to have the state control the means of production or send dissenters to gulags.
Everything is so binary, very few people seem able to think outside of binary boxes.
I see religious ideologues on the right and left.
Upon meeting a new person, they quickly determine their categories. Once you know the categories, classify them as on my team or not on my team.
From that moment forward try to shut them down.
If we are going to get anywhere, we need to be able to deal with cognitive dissonance. We need to be able to look at what is actually happening in the name of or even directly because of beliefs we hold dear. That’s true on the right and the left.
If we react simply as I am on TEAM A, that seems to be an attack on TEAM A, smash the attack by all means
Well,
The people with real power will be laughing at us.