Any time you're told that the weak and vulnerable are responsible for how bad things are, rather than the rich and powerful, you're being lied to
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
And the claw people
I mean yeah, but how is this a shower thought?
I thought about it in the shower
You’re not even the Arse Assassin though
It's not really it's just Lemmy being Lemmy
How exactly is this a shower thought? (I agree by the way, but how?)
Yeah, this dude is using his shower as his political soapboax
ArseAssassin would never. How dare you accuse ArseAssassin of such things.
I don’t think I’ve seen a legitimate shower thought on Lemmy ShowerThoughts.
I mean, who doesn't think the dynamics of the society and power structures of the system and the injustice of it all during their showers? I personally find myself thinking about these, almost exclusively, on my showers. Is it an age thing, maybe?
Also one of the aspects of fascism
The enemy or 'other' is both simultaneously weak and unworthy and should be defeated ... and powerful and oppressive and is the cause of all problems.
That's not just fascism, that's any time people villify an enemy. That is said by both major US parties.
I keep thinking about that, and I keep coming back to how the ones being lied to will double down on "but the ____ actually are very powerful! That's why they've taken so much for themselves! That's why they have so many protections!"
I've had a conversation like that.
"By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak." - Umberto Eco
Many of the weak and vulnerable are responsible for putting the rich and powerful into power though. Power is entirely a social construct. Bit of a paradox but that's the way it is.
I think the white is referring to minorities being scapegoated, though. While absolutely some people vote against their best interests, they often don't have the numbers to make change themselves (eg, trans and NB people are maybe 1% of the population but getting severely attacked right now) or the system is constantly trying to screw them over (eg, black people are a sizable chunk of the population, but there's countless efforts to restrict their ability to vote and keep them poor).
Well it's really not that simple. I assume you're referring to things like climate change and privacy concerns and general de-evolution of government.
Just to boil down a very complex subject into a lazy comment:
Let's take climate change for instance. Do corporations and government do almost nothing to curb climate change? Yes. Do they actively lie to people about climate change? Yes.
Does the public still know that climate change is a real thing? At least some of them.
Do a ridiculous proportion of people still buy gas-guzzling SUVs and plastic water bottles and use plastic bags at the grocery store unnecessarily? Yes.
Do some people have full access to the information to educate themselves very quickly on the science, and yet choose to ignore that and instead actually actively promote what they want to believe instead? Absolutely
The reality is that "blame" is seldom simple and we all carry some amount of responsibility.
Personally I view this as a sliding scale. And while I do take personal responsibility in driving an efficient vehicle and refusing plastic bags and bottles (even though people look at me like some kind of crazy hippie and mock me accordingly), I also refuse to live in a yurt in the forest. When more people move down the scale toward me, it will make it easier for me to move even further down the scale.
Do a ridiculous proportion of people still buy gas-guzzling SUVs and plastic water bottles and use plastic bags at the grocery store unnecessarily? Yes
It's not that this doesn't matter, it does. But almost every time it's mentioned is alongside industrial climate impacts as if they were at all in a similar scale.
They aren't even close. People doing the 'well actually' thing for individual climate impacts are inadvertently being patsies for corporations to continue to deflect scrutiny away from the absolutely ridiculous levels of climate impacts they have. And while consumers are trying to move to metal straws, corporations have basically not even started trying to address low hanging fruit ways to mitigate climate change, let alone anything slightly tricky.
Yes, but expecting corporations to do it on their own is silly. They operate in a competitive environment so game theory should tell us what's going to usually happen. The laws and regulations exist, and a lot more are needed, but it's also not as simple because costs of enforcement also range from inexpensive to infeasible. In the end, it's people making self-interested decisions, whether on behalf of themselves or on behalf of corporations. I don't know of any easy solutions - my feeling is that those don't exist - so the best bet is to steer society towards better and more effective politics. More distributed and less concentrated power structures, checks and balances, enforcement, novel, effective, and efficient systems through science based analysis, as well as lots of trials and errors and fast iterative improvements based on rapid feedback loops. In short, the world nowadays moves faster than the current government systems and it's a losing battle until governing adaptability can increase in speed.
What is the "'well actually' thing"? Claiming to correct something that's wrong? Is that not allowed?
People doing the 'well actually' thing for individual climate impacts are inadvertently being patsies for corporations to continue to deflect scrutiny
No one is doing that. I could very easily just say that you're just doing the opposite. That is, deflecting personal responsibility from individuals and just blaming corporations. It's very easy to just lean back and blame corporations for your choices but the reality is that they simply couldn't sell this bullshit if individuals weren't buying them.
I get your point and it's fair. Only those with the power to shift opinion can be held responsible in 2023. The consolidation of power and bullhorn should not be taken for granted. People are just people. Trillions are spent into making their decisions for them. You missed the forest for the trees in OPs sentiment imho.
Sorry to say, but many can barely afford rent and the bills, let alone even imagine trying to go out of their way to fix the climate.
Buy an electric car you say? Hell, can't even afford a new tire for the old car to get to work, you gotta be out of your mind to think poor people can afford to buy a new EV because fOSsiL FUeL bAd...
Yes, clearly fossil fuel is bad, but how you expect the vast number of people living week to week and can barely afford new shoes to buy an EV?
It's not a choice to live in poverty when the billionaires literally milk most of the population of every penny they can get away with while not even paying their employees a fair living wage.
Sorry to say, but many can barely afford rent and the bills, let alone even imagine trying to go out of their way to fix the climate.
There are many things you can do to "fix the climate" while not spending more money. Often times it even costs less money.
Buy an electric car you say?
No I did not say. But you could buy something that's NOT unnecessarily large and inefficient, and it would SAVE you money, but many poor people still seem to find money for gas guzzling trucks and SUVs.
You could also ride a bike or ebikes or any number of new e-mobility solutions, or even use the 2 feet you were born with (depending on your exact circumstances).
It's a pretty incredible trick to convince people that those who, demonstrably, have the least power in society are responsible for all of its problems. What's that thing about how there has to be an enemy, and that enemy has to simultaneously be weak, wretched and inferior but also strong enough to pose a threat that justifies an authoritarian response? I forget who tends to do that...
Not always. Half of these putzes openly fight to protect the system because they benefit from exploiting their neighbors, too.
EDIT: Here they come right now lol
Money is power. The people with the most money have the most power and therefore bear the most responsibility for the way things are
Well, yeah.
It's not the powerless that made things how they are, it's the powerful that shape the world.
It's also worth noting that when you're powerful but don't have the votes it takes to do a thing you want, the shortest path to getting those votes is unifying people around being mad at some sort of scapegoat.
This is why fascism looks the way it does
Only a Death-Eater uses absolutes.
Currently watching Lord of the Harry Witcher right now and can confirm this.
Let us examine the couch movers analogy.
A) If two people, A and B, who can lift 25 lb move a 50 lb couch, and A does not try 100%, whose fault is is that couch does not get moved?
B) If A can lift 20 lb and B 30 lb, and A does not give 100%, whose fault is it then?
C) If A can lift 30 lb and B 20 lb, and A does not give 100%, whose fault is it then?
D) What if both can lift 20 lb?
E) What if A can lift 100 lb and B can lift 20 lb?
F) What if A can lift 20 lb and B can lift 100 lb?
G) What if A and B can both lift 100 lb?
I find it interesting that whose fault seemingly changes even if it is always assumed A is not giving 100% in all cases.
I think where this analogy falls short is that in reality it gets assumed everyone can lift the same if they just would give 100 %. And therefore one person always gets the blame since they are seemingly not giving enough.
Otherwise known as bootstraps.
The thing assholes always tell you they pulled themselves up by, conveniently ignoring their rich, connected family and friends that was the biggest factor in their success.
There's also a difference between fault, responsibility, and ability to do something. They're interrelated, but they're not equivalent. If A is able to move 100 pounds, but not obligated to do so and not trying then A is able, but not responsible and not at fault. If A can only lift 20 pounds, works as a mover and gives their best effort then A is unable to move the couch, responsible for moving the couch, but not at fault as they've done everything they can do to move the couch. I could go on but my point stands: it's a weak, reductive metaphor.
Seems more like one person who could lift the couch one handed is sitting on it yelling at the person who can't lift it by themselves
Not necessarily. I think that lying requires intent. Someone could tell me something verifiably false without lying because they truly believe it to be true.
Ok, so you’re being lied to by proxy
I'm gonna have to steal that term for my own use
But what about your carbon footprint? Isn’t this all your fault for asking your boss for a cost-of-living pay rise?
lemmy is so based 🙏
Except for me 😎 I am cringe
You do you
It's not a matter of responsibility.
The rich and powerful won't safe the world. If we don't want to live in a world with so many natural desasters that there is no farming and only synthetic food, then things have to change.
The opposite of the rich and powerful are not the weak and vulnerable but almost everybody. It's OK to let things happen but it's also possible to change everything, maybe even in a week or two.
Who's responsible for how good things are?
Are things good?
Uh oh. You’re going against the narrative.
Delusion.
Anytime you're told that group A is responsible for your problems rather than group B, you're being lied to. Including this post
This is some enlightened centrist crap. Some people are actually responsible for things. I thought that was obvious.
Jokes on you, it's pretty obvios, that anti trans laws in 3rd world shitholes like Texas appeared out of nowhere/were matirialised by aliens!11!1
You're right people are responsible for things, you're right that that's obvious. In fact, it's so obvious, it's wrong of you to imply that my point suggested otherwise, because it obviously doesn't. Your sentiment supports my comment, people are responsible for things, so if you have a problem with something, and you feel the need to blame someone for it, you should actually blame the right person. "The rich" are not a group of people united out of a common goal, and include all sorts of political and cultural sentiments, many of which you would support. Moreover, the post makes no suggestion as to what problems they're talking about anyway, so you kinda just have to already believe "rich people" in general are the people responsible for any general set of problems you choose to believe. If you don't see the flaw in this thinking, you've got a serious problem with political vitriol, and you need to stop blindly circle jerking everything you see on lemmy.
The sad thing is, I know you'd agree with me if I said the exact same thing in a thread blaming socialists or Marxists or something. My opinion that you shouldn't blame general problems on a general group of people for the sake of hating on them doesn't change based on context.
No no you don't understand. It's always the people with the least amount of economic power who are responsible for everything!
Yea but there's so many of them! They must be getting controlled by some imaginary ruling class, or something
Exactly. They're simultaneously responsible and irresponsible.