ID: a photo of a child scratching their head looking confused and maybe anxious, the text above says: “Damn… I’m kinda tired of living inside a giant pyramid scheme controlled by criminals who gaslight us into believing they are the good guys.”

  • themoonisacheese
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    5 days ago

    If you think the people elected in gouvernement are the people controlling us and not puppets, you’ve fallen for their trap

    • ShareMySimsOP
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      4 days ago

      Capitalism and the state are both oppressive forces, and both need to be abolished.

    • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee
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      4 days ago

      The guys at the top of the pyramid here are the politicians. Regulatory capture, super PACs and blatant bribes are also part of the political machine and they influence the actions of those at the top. What trap are we falling for?

      • cacheson 🏴🔁🍊@piefed.social
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        4 days ago

        So there’s a video by CGP Grey that I tend to recommend to people a lot, The Rules for Rulers.

        In the framework he presents for democracy, business interests (capitalists) are named as one of the keys to power that politicians need. However, one could argue that it’s actually the (mostly cohesive) capitalist class at the top of the pyramid. The individual politicians would be their keys to power, which the capitalists distribute treasure to in order to keep them loyal (and in office).

        Or maybe the reality of the situation is that it’s something that falls between the two views, without neatly fitting into either of them. All models are wrong, but some models are useful, as the saying goes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

        In a shift from democracy to fascism (Coming Soon™), the capitalists do (mostly willingly) become subordinated to the strong man, so that would fit with your conception of the situation.

    • freewheel@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Yes, that should be obvious to even the most casual observer. In practice however it doesn’t matter. There will always be layers to any bureaucracy. The need is to start peeling back the layers.

      For the record, this sort of rhetoric does not help. All you’re achieving (perhaps your goal) is to push people away from the fight.

      • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 days ago

        It would be hard to say confidently that any given rhetoric hasn’t been captured by some purpose opposed to its overt intent. Words are more like Go than Checkers, and that’s part of the difficulty here. There’s a recursive pattern to this discussion: expressing a sentiment that the former statement has or may have been captured by malign intent. The urge to repeat that pattern is I would guess why there is writing here rather than none, and that isn’t bad even if it doesn’t exactly get anyone any closer to seeing the real big picture.

    • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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      5 days ago

      people

      I wouldn’t say people, the system exists to protect capital, not capitalists. There is a slight difference. Jeff Bezos doesn’t personally call up each senator, companies he may own significant shares in lobby for laws that benefit them, think-tanks he funds fund campaigns of ideologically-convenient politicians, etc.

      A system isn’t just a collection of people.