this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
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Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Internet and associated technology has become the dominant force in our world and we have next to know regulation on it and the stuff we have is targeted at individuals rather than corporations like it should be. I hat to through youtube links around but this guy has a pretty good one on price fixing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdWSUIdtu6E

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

we can have the patriot act but for like online. That's wicked. People so smart.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Congress is an organ of the ruling class and always has been. When they (rarely) do something seemingly against ruling class interests, it is still a strategem to best keep the capitalism boat afloat (it tries to sink every 5-10 years).

Sure, Congress is corrupt, but it always has been. The system is working more or less as designed. And if you want to oppose this design, the system is also designed to fight you to the death. And funneling all of your capacity into sheepdog voting is how your masters tell you you should oppose them. So if you want to oppose this system, you must become informed as to how it functions and join up with like-minded individuals to develop actually effective means of resistance.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Just because you are in the minority doesn't make the system corrupt.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

That's true! I'm glad I didn't say anything like, "the system is corrupt because I'm in the minority".

PS, the ruling class is a minority.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

This is a whole lot of conspiracy bs with no sources provided. But it includes the usual keywords "the system", "design", and "ruling class" so you can get your upvotes from like-minded fellows in your bubble.

Have you considered that politics and economics is a little bit more complicated and a lot of gears make the machine? But "the elite pulling the strings" is much easier to understand and you conveniently get an enemy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

This is a whole lot of conspiracy bs with no sources provided.

It's not a conspiracy, it's out in the open. I don't know what claims you would want sources for. Feel free to ask.

But it includes the usual keywords "the system", "design", and "ruling class" so you can get your upvotes from like-minded fellows in your bubble.

You might notice that this is a public community on a non-socialist instance. So, the opposite of what you are saying. Personally, I expected a mix of responses.

Have you considered that politics and economics is a little bit more complicated and a lot of gears make the machine?

Complexity vs. simplicity means nothing in this topic. What matters is identifying dominant powers and the mechanisms by which they function. Many of those mechanisms are somewhat complex, though not that complex that anyone can't read about them and understand them if they actually want to.

Have you read any socialist theory?

But "the elite pulling the strings" is much easier to understand and you conveniently get an enemy.

Class conflict is actually something that emerges from base social interactions that constitute the primary economic system: how and why we work. The dominant class does have more realized power, by definition, but it is still subordinate to the mechanisms of the economic system itself.

For example, you cannot simply choose to be a nice business owner that pays everyone as much as they deserve. You will, eventually, get outcompeted by the business owners that will keep pay lower and profits higher. While small businesses are still commonly owned by petty tyrants, their loss to big box stores is an example of how a larger mass of profits can be leveraged to destroy the competition (initial low prices), then using monopoly status to earn even more profit by cutting wages and increasing prices.

The political class is just the functionaries of the state that serves the dominant class's interests. You can call them elite because they personally get a bigger piece of the pie and have power on paper, but they are several rings lower on the hierarchy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

84% of Americans want something they are unwilling to vote nor do anything for, but they sure as hell will complain about it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

They want comprehensive legislation that everyone agrees on. It isn't asking much.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I also want a dragon.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

"I want"

does nothing for it

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Voting will fix it, it's worked so far. /s

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Decisions are made by those who show up.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

No they're made by those who possess economic power. That's a tiny sliver of the US population.

It's elections are nothing than political theatre, with a side goal of creating the illusion of democracy, and building consent for the dictatorship.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's defeatism. You especially should believe in the collective. We are not just innocent little playtoys of powers beyond our comprehension. If that were the case and we had no free will, then what's the point of living? If you truly believe you control nothing in your life, then why still walk this earth?

A single ant cannot destroy a tree. It's the work of countless ants that achieve that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Why would the capitalists let you vote away their wealth or power? What incentive do they have to do that?

That's defeatism.

No, it's a historical reality that voting is not an effective method to undo class society. Even the ancient greeks knew (before the Marxists rediscovered this and dealt their own death blows to representative government in the 1800s) that voting in an aristocracy is nothing more than theatre, because only the rich and entrenched families have the resources to fund campaigns, and get themselves elected (or appoint political puppets to do their bidding).

Political power is a reflex of economic power, and the rich will not allow you to use the system they control, to undo it.

single ant cannot destroy a tree. It's the work of countless ants that achieve that.

Many socialist / communist parties did just that, and they weren't deluded enough to try to accomplish it via voting in a system controlled by the ruling classes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

So you're completely ignoring the rise of fascism due to voting? The second world war happened because a bunch of nazis stormed the German parliament and took control of it by force? What do you think populism does?

Of course you can change the system from within. Le Pen, Höcke, Meloni, Wilders, Trump, and so on, they aren't "part of the establishment". They latched onto a populist narratives, got financial aid from the radicals in their countries, and gathered votes to get themselves into offices .

The left-wing parties in France united to pose a unified front against the national assembly (le RN) in France. And it worked. They got the relative majority to vote for them, but as soon as they won, they were beset by infighting. Such is the common reality of left wing parties - they are their own greatest enemy.

Either you chose to ignore it or you were unaware, but the latter is much less probable, so I'm going to say you chose to in order to fit your narrative of "voting doesn't matter" and imagine that class warfare (or how Marx would put it "Klassenkampf") is the only way out.