damn I'm poor edit in reply to person who's blocked me: i care because the material conditions of my life are difficult as a result of the established system of ownership and my status within that system. for example, i am going to lose my home before the end of February. yes I disregard property when convenient, but it's rarely convenient, often impossible, and frequently dangerous. this should be obvious, but maybe I have an advantage of perspective. also, why are you asking me questions if you have me muted so I can't reply to you?
You can totally reply to me. You just can't reply in my posts. So why give a shit about the metrics? Why give a shit about the beans and their counting? You've absolved yourself of the system and freely antagonize and degrade those who participate in it while all the time claiming the moral high ground. Yet when push comes to shove, you're still complaining about your place in the system. Pick. You're either outside of the system or you're in it. And I'm sorry. Or I would be if I hadn't seen you take every available opportunity to antagonize those who willfully participate in the system. But you can't bitch about being poor because of your current place in the system AND shit all over people who are doing better through their participation in that system WHILE claiming moral superiority through eschewing the system. You're either "poor" and in a position for sympathy and support OR You're exempt and free of any economic consideration whatsoever since you've crafted your own position. You can't be both without being a hypocrite. Because let's be honest: if you had money under "the rules" you'd bitch about stuff a lot less. You'd certainly spend less time and effort on the morality of theft. And let's be honest: if you were a better thief you wouldn't be losing your home before the end of February. I grew up poor. I been poor. I ain't anymore. A lot of that is circumstance and circumstance gets us all in the end. But a lot of it has was recognizing that poverty was my problem, not the world's. i care because the material conditions of my life are difficult as a result of the established system of ownership and my status within that system.
for example, i am going to lose my home before the end of February.
I didn't see minimum_wage's comment that way. It's neigh impossible to escape the system legally. To have a home and food, you have to partake. To the extent that you don't want to partake, you are often a threat, or at the least, a nuisance to be minimized. I don't share wage's politics specifically, but fuck, there is so much wrong with the what this article illustrates and the fucking defense bill that just passed. We are all in this system whether we like it or not, and it's full of hypocrisy. I want to change the system, and I have my own strategy. wage recently posted about strategy, that doesn't seem to be hers specifically. I'm just not sure if hypocrisy is all bad. At any rate, I'm following you both for good reason.
She's never attacked you for owning things. Certainly - but she's committed to acting illegally, damn the consequences on everyone else. And then she wants you to feel bad for succeeding legally. Exactly. Therefore, there is no moral ground, like the one she pretends to, to accost those who are partaking. This article has never accused me of wrongdoing for owning something. If _wage feels like stating, for the record, that she attacks people not because she believes her ethical position to be superior but because she's a hypocrite, I will unmute her, un-ignore her, and fuckin' A, follow her.I didn't see minimum_wage's comment that way.
It's neigh impossible to escape the system legally.
To have a home and food, you have to partake.
I don't share wage's politics specifically, but fuck, there is so much wrong with the what this article illustrates and the fucking defense bill that just passed. We are all in this system whether we like it or not, and it's full of hypocrisy.
I'm just not sure if hypocrisy is all bad.
But then, ideologically, why do you care? You rail against ownership whenever you can so why would you give a shit how someone else measures value?
If you were crazy rich in 2007 and weren't wiped out, you're crazier richer in 2014. There are way more crazy rich white people in the US than there are crazy rich black or hispanic people. Just look at the numbers: the median black household has $11k in assets. The median hispanic household $13k. The median white household has ten times that.
Yeah but medians should be less sensitive to extremes than averages, and the median white wealth has increased from 2010 to 2014, albeit modestly. I suppose for whites, that 401(k) probably has rebounded to well past where it was at the bottom, and that is where the modest gains are. All that said, it is a tragedy, independent of the increase or decrease, that black and hispanic households are utterly penniless. It's indefensible when we consider how much money is up for grabs in the US.
Less sensitive does not mean insensitive. The lower and middle class believe that your greatest asset is your house. The upper class believe that your house is where you live. If you were lower or middle class and believed the hype, you bought a house in 2005 and lost it in 2008. if you were upper class and understood bubbles, you sold houses in 2005-2008 and then snatched up real estate for pennies on the dollar. In 2014, the lower and middle classes are about where they were in 2005. In 2014, the upper class owns all the houses that the lower and middle classes lost, and they're renting them out. My financial planner is mad at me because we aren't buying a house per year.
"If we stick to the same path we do today the world will become a massive dystopia, everyone will live in shantytowns, and the wealthy will be insanely powerful." I don't like that attitude and never have. You can see it in the global warming nuts, the people who see china taking over the world, and hundreds of others. People adapt, people change, and people improve things. Rates of emissions increasing has gone down. People will notice when the system grows stale and begin to vote for more changes in the systems. New jobs or industries can pop up that employ millions and bring back a middle class. (pipe dream, but imagine if space mining/colonies becomes a thing and requires people to be up there to fix and maintain things) We can't predict the future. It could go horribly, the world could be crippled by global warming, food prices could go up, and modern society could collapse. It is entirely possible, but so is the alternative. The most we can do is take the best course of action, and vote on the best course of action. Keep a keen eye on the possibilities and chose where we are headed accordingly. Of course, things like this are important to show us what is possible, and that we need to change, but I never believe the doomsayers.