| ▲ | mandmandam 7 months ago |
| > the haves get their information from trustworthy sources through their in-group Then why are their actions more harmful than any other class? I see them: * Starting proxy wars, fueling climate doubt, lobbying/destroying governments to allow every kind of degradation of every commons. * Paying people 6 or 7 figures to confuse and divide the people earning 5 or 6 figures. * Apparently utterly ignorant of their legacy, which will be one of murderous self-interest and absurd delusion. Do all their "trustworthy sources" feed their biases and class interests, their self-delusions, their greed? It's astounding how people can have all the facts and teachers in the world, while dodging genuine understanding of everything most important. |
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| ▲ | pjc50 7 months ago | parent | next [-] |
| There's two things going on here: - things like the FT and the Bloomberg terminal continue to be reliable, because people are paying them to be reliable and are making decisions based on the news; but those are for the "financial middle class" who are still doing something that could be called a "job" - people like Musk pick news sources which confirm their biases, and are at risk of spiralling off into a Fox News hole of untruths, because they're too rich to be adversely affected by poor decisions or things that turn out not to be true. |
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| ▲ | mandmandam 7 months ago | parent [-] | | > things like the FT and the Bloomberg terminal continue to be reliable "Reliable" doing some heavy lifting here. Sports figures and statistics are reliable. Stock tickers are reliable. Neither will ever lie to you, but neither are they likely to teach you anything of real value. FT and Bloomberg are extremely biased toward class interest; in what they choose to cover, in how they cover it, etc. Did they ever speak out against torture, or illegal war? How much? Did they ever go into the long term advantages of Jill Stein's economic plans; or Bernie's? How much? The fact that we spent over $8 trillion in a murderous money laundering scheme should have been front page news every day for years. The costs of our incredible and historic inequality are rarely discussed, and if they are, it's in the most limp manner imaginable. The opportunity cost of all this fuckery, from a rational economic perspective, is mind blowing. The Overton Window is now looking onto bipartisan genocide, after decades of bipartisan illegal war and an extreme agenda of Islamophobia. > people like Musk pick news sources which confirm their biases People like Musk buy news sources to spread their biases. Same for Murdoch, Turner, Bezos, etc. | | |
| ▲ | seabass-labrax 7 months ago | parent | next [-] | | I think the reason why the FT, among others, don't spend much space on human rights issues is because they are inherently transactional publications in nature. You have to pay to subscribe, and those who do expect something in return - I suspect that this is usually a sense of being 'in the know' on business matters. Obviously knowledge of Jill Stein's manifesto is not going to make its readers any money in the foreseeable future. I suppose I'm defending the FT in the sense that there is no alterior motive, I believe. Compare this to the tabloids, which don't charge for online access and make money by peddling particular business or political interests - mostly shady business, I think most would agree. I'd therefore trust FT on the facts, albeit probably not for wide coverage. | | |
| ▲ | mandmandam 7 months ago | parent [-] | | > I suppose I'm defending the FT in the sense that there is no alterior motive, I believe No ulterior motive? I really don't know about that. They're better than most, because they generally tell the truth - a shockingly low bar - but it's a specific type of truth, as seen from a specific and very narrow window, from a deliberate vantage point. Always viewing the world from that specific window belies a motive, conscious or not, to maintain a highly destructive status quo. They are not seeing the forest for the trees, while writing factual and detailed reports on the least consequential tree bark facts. Which is fine, if tree bark facts are your bag, I guess - but I'm more concerned about the rapidly deteriorating forest. | | |
| ▲ | llm_trw 7 months ago | parent [-] | | I'm having a hard time understanding what your complaint is. That the worlds premier capitalist publication publishes facts capitalists find useful? Yes. Also bears shit in the woods. | | |
| ▲ | mandmandam 7 months ago | parent [-] | | > I'm having a hard time understanding what your complaint is. That the word reliable was being used to describe the FT. 'Reliable' within a certain narrow context for the people trashing our potential (ie, the capital class)? Yes. 'Reliable' within a broader context, where we get to the root causes of our catastrophic inequality, our over extraction of resources, our environmental destruction, our war mongering leaders, etc? Also yes; but in precisely the wrong way. They can be relied on to support whatever makes the yacht class more money in the next few quarters. This matters because corporate media has been truly complicit in much of our impending doom/s; the FT being far from an exception. Handy tip: If someone's point seems very obvious, like where bears shit, it's usually worth reading the comment again to see if you've missed something. Ie in this case, the entire second half of my comment. | | |
| ▲ | Jensson 7 months ago | parent [-] | | > 'Reliable' within a broader context, where we get to the root causes of our catastrophic inequality, our over extraction of resources, our environmental destruction, our war mongering leaders, etc? Also yes; but in precisely the wrong way. They can be relied on to support whatever makes the yacht class more money in the next few quarters. They are financial news, if you want to read news or opinion articles about other topics go read something else. Something being important doesn't mean it should be written about everywhere. | | |
| ▲ | mandmandam 7 months ago | parent [-] | | > They are financial news, if you want to read news or opinion articles about other topics go read something else. Financial news from a specific and narrow viewpoint. There are others. This is the third time I've said it now. It would be nice to know where the confusion is coming from. Is it simply that many people can't imagine any alternate view of finance news, other than that sold by FT? | | |
| ▲ | llm_trw 7 months ago | parent [-] | | A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. | | |
| ▲ | mandmandam 7 months ago | parent [-] | | I'll try one more time - just for you llm. What if, back in the slavery days, a newspaper reported solely from the perspective of slaveholders, never slaves. They only printed 'facts' - how much a slave could be expected to depreciate by age, which regions produced the hardest working slaves, etc. Would this be a 'reliable' paper? Would it just be 'financial news'? Would it simply be a 'premier capitalist publication publishing facts capitalists find useful'? Well, yes, in a way. And that's exactly what financial newspapers back then did. They traded in dry, money making facts - in support of a deeply exploitative and unsustainable system. Always from one particular perspective - the slaveholder's; that of the ownership class. 'Reliable' isn't a word I would have chosen to describe them. In more modern times, FT takes huge ad money from fossil fuel companies, cheer-leads the likes of Thatcher and Reagan, has never met a neoliberal/neocon since that they didn't love; and takes the view of the 0.1% 99.9% of the time. Almost completely heedless of the permanent damage that is being done to all life on Earth as a result, except as a side note in an article about how apocalypse might affect your portfolio. Will any of this sink in? Can you change your mind, or at least the subject? Let's see. |
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| ▲ | mistermann 7 months ago | parent | prev [-] | | > How much? Such an important (and often unpopular) followup question. |
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| ▲ | asdff 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Part of it is a sort of pascals wager being done, where it becomes rational and logical to play this game as it is for yourself however unsavory, because the incentives for playing it as such are high enough where people will always do it. Altruism towards the collective species fundamentally takes a backseat for individual and kin survival. There are plenty of species where the
mother will even eat any offspring who don’t flee them after birth soon enough because the incentives for the mother even out way that small affordance of altruism to kin. Biology is about entropy not emotions at the end of the day. |
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| ▲ | alexashka 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Maybe what's most important to them isn't what's most important to you. Have you contemplated such possibility? |
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| ▲ | mandmandam 7 months ago | parent [-] | | Yes, the ultra wealthy have different priorities to what I would call important. The yachts, deregulation, tacit (or not) support for torture, illegal wars, pollution, private jets, ostentatious displays of conspicuous and pointless wealth, etc, leave that in no doubt. Were you trying to say that maybe all that destruction in the pursuit of insatiable greed could be 'good' somehow? Like Zorg's little speech [0] about the benefits of destruction (the broken window fallacy)? 0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkFAcFtBD48 | | |
| ▲ | alexashka 7 months ago | parent [-] | | > It's astounding how people can have all the facts and teachers in the world, while dodging genuine understanding of everything most important. You said they are dodging 'genuine understanding'. I am saying you aren't the final word on what 'genuine understanding of everything most important' is. In other words - you are using lots of words to say 'I want others to do more of the stuff I want them to do and less of the stuff they are doing because the stuff I want them to do is obviously good and the stuff they are doing is obviously less good'. Thing is, almost everyone thinks this. Given that almost everyone already thinks this way and the world isn't what you want it to be, maybe something about such a worldview is off. Or maybe we just need more of people like you in positions of power and you'll fix it :) Where have I heard that one before? | | |
| ▲ | mandmandam 7 months ago | parent | next [-] | | So anyone who uses the phrase "genuine understanding" is secretly a wannabe power-hungry authoritarian? Dunno about that one bud. And anyone who calls out vapid conspicuous consumption, or the greedy exploitation of the planet for personal gain, that's not obviously perverse to you; it's just one person's opinion and easily disregarded - because they're not the final word on genuine understanding? Well, pick your prophet; pick your genius; they all say the same thing: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." - Jesus. "By his craving for riches the foolish man slays himself, as if he were slaying others." - Buddha "The mutual rivalry for piling up of worldly things diverts you, until you visit the graves." - The Qur'an "He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have." - Socrates "It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor." - Seneca "The more you have, the more you want. The more you have, the less you are." - Tolstoy "A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness." - Einstein "Wealth is like seawater: the more you drink, the thirstier you become." - Schopenhauer "A small terrace by the mountain stream, living at ease, free from the burdens of the world — this is better than the glory of an emperor." - Zhuangzi Etc, etc, etc. Some people, really, truly, have a genuine understanding of this concept. And many, probably most incredibly wealthy people, with every possible opportunity, can't grasp it for the life of them. That's not really "my opinion"; it's the opinion of anyone worth listening to. | | |
| ▲ | llm_trw 7 months ago | parent | next [-] | | >And anyone who calls out vapid conspicuous consumption, or the greedy exploitation of the planet for personal gain, that's not obviously perverse to you; it's just one person's opinion and easily disregarded - because they're not the final word on genuine understanding? Pretty much, yes. Yesterdays vapid conspicuous consumption is tomorrows minimum living standard. Three meals a day every day forever? Even medieval kings had to go on a diet when famine struck. | | |
| ▲ | mandmandam 7 months ago | parent [-] | | > Yesterdays vapid conspicuous consumption is tomorrows minimum living standard. The way of life of our billionaires is threatening all life on the planet, particularly the poorest [0]. There might not be a living standard if we don't fix this issue. 0 - https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/billionaires-emit-mo... | | |
| ▲ | Jensson 7 months ago | parent [-] | | It isn't the billionaires emitting that, it is all the factories they own that produce products for the middle class. If the middle class didn't consume those then they wouldn't have been made and the pollution wouldn't be there. Billionaires emit a bit more, but not that much more. Note the very disingeneous comment here: > tracks the emissions from private jets, yachts and polluting investments "Private jets" and "polluting investments" were in the same sentence as if they were in the same ballpark, but its the investments that count for almost everything and they would be polluting regardless if the billionaires owned them or not. | | |
| ▲ | mandmandam 7 months ago | parent [-] | | > Oxfam found that, on average, 50 of the world’s richest billionaires took 184 flights in a single year, spending 425 hours in the air —producing as much carbon as the average person would in 300 years. In the same period, their yachts emitted as much carbon as the average person would in 860 years. That's not "a bit more". That's insane. And there's absolutely nothing disingenuous about it, because the article clearly states: > the average investment emissions of 50 of the world’s richest billionaires are around 340 times their emissions from private jets and superyachts combined. > Through these investments, billionaires have huge influence over some of the world’s biggest corporations and are driving us over the edge of climate disaster. ... I don't know why this isn't convincing to you, but it's not Oxfam's fault. |
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| ▲ | 7 months ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | pixl97 7 months ago | parent | prev [-] | | If course what you're saying can be taking to absurdity too. Take the paradox of intolerance, if we let the intolerant have power they will wipe out anyone they don't like, hence why we have laws against things like murder. |
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| ▲ | exe34 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| profit. they have the best information money can buy and they use it to make profit. Hanlon's razor doesn't take into account the fact that they have a perfect motive. |
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| ▲ | mandmandam 7 months ago | parent [-] | | > a perfect motive It comes across almost trite, but it's still perfectly relevant: > Canada [and The West], the most affluent of countries, operates on a depletion economy which leaves destruction in its wake. Your people are driven by a terrible sense of deficiency. When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money. - Alanis Obomsawin This isn't rare or hidden knowledge. Billions of people know this for a fact. Versions of this phrase go back well over a hundred years. Yet the media and political classes do everything they can to diminish such "sentiment" as "naive" and "childish" "wishful thinking"; with or without the tacit understanding that this is what their owners demand. | | |
| ▲ | cafard 7 months ago | parent [-] | | Will the last tree be cut? New England has much more three cover than it has a couple hundred years ago. | | |
| ▲ | mandmandam 7 months ago | parent [-] | | > Will the last tree be cut? It's a metaphor (though in many parts of the world it's a simple fact); but yeah, it could be global some day. I wouldn't put it past us. We've lost countless species already. We've been abysmal to trees. If we were to keep losing forest at our current global rate we'd lose the last tree in 400-800 years (though tbf this is decelerating right now). New England has more tree cover than 200 years ago - great. Europe too. Is 200 years ago a good reference point though? Isn't that when we chopped like 80% of our forests down for industrialization? Anyway, so the centers of Empire are green(ish). How's the Amazon doing though? How's South-East Asia? Central Africa? And our new forests - are they old growth and diverse, or monoculture Sitka spruce? Organic, or doused with glyphosate? And then there's the climate, which we are fucking up faster than scientists predicted... Can trees adapt in time? ... Would trees survive nuclear holocaust? I'm not saying Bladerunner was a documentary. But we're on course for catastrophe, no doubt about it; and the relentless pursuit of ever more capital via externalized costs is why. |
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| ▲ | hmmm-i-wonder 7 months ago | parent | prev [-] |
| >Then why are their actions more harmful than any other class? I see them: Lets assume all people when given the opportunity will do what is in their own best interests first. The less power you have, the more working with others is in your own best interest. The more wealth you have, the more power you have and the less you _need_ to work with others to achieve what you want or need, so you have an increased ability to weigh what is best for you vs what is best for everyone. At some point the wealth/power split is so much that you can effectively stop caring about what everyone else wants and pursue what you want and what benefits you. So while they may have better information, they aren't incentivized to decisions that are less harmful to everyone. > Starting proxy wars, fueling climate doubt, lobbying/destroying governments to allow every kind of degradation of every commons. Paying people 6 or 7 figures to confuse and divide the people earning 5 or 6 figures. Apparently utterly ignorant of their legacy, which will be one of murderous self-interest and absurd delusion. All of those can be leveraged for profit if one is cynical and self-serving enough. Most of 'them' that fall into these categories know to some degree the actions they take are harmful to others, and frankly they don't care. Either in their own self-interest, or deluded interests of whatever group they identify with. |
