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Author Topic: Occupying Wallstreet  (Read 266176 times)

Duuvian

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Occupying Wallstreet
« on: September 24, 2011, 12:16:18 am »

Illyriad gifted me with this knowledge. Someone mentioned that the media isn't covering it. This seems to be true as I haven't heard anything till now.

https://occupywallst.org/
« Last Edit: September 24, 2011, 12:19:12 am by Duuvian »
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C27

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #1 on: September 24, 2011, 12:51:37 am »

Fists in the air! It's about time we in the States got tired of those nobles and their mandates...I mean, err... yeah.
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Pnx

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #2 on: September 24, 2011, 12:58:48 am »

Huh, so activists protesting against economic disparity and corporate greed...
Rock on I guess. I hope it does something.
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Duuvian

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #3 on: September 24, 2011, 01:12:44 am »

Well, I can't go but I can tell people about it on the internet. Perhaps my situation is similar to yours. MMOs are a good place to start.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2011, 01:15:27 am by Duuvian »
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MrWiggles

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #4 on: September 24, 2011, 01:26:09 am »

I just watched something about this on Colbert Report.

They're all protesting for one demand. (Sounds dramatic.)

But, they dont have their one demand yet, so everyone is protesting for nothing right now.
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Heliman

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #5 on: September 24, 2011, 01:49:06 am »

They're all protesting for one demand. (Sounds dramatic.)

But, they dont have their one demand yet, so everyone is protesting for nothing right now.
Sounds like a party.

A Tea-Party.
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MrWiggles

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #6 on: September 24, 2011, 01:53:42 am »

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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #7 on: September 24, 2011, 02:42:25 am »

As I understand it, the actual Tea Party has been trying to crash this.
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LordBucket

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #8 on: September 24, 2011, 03:19:16 am »

They're all protesting for one demand.

Glancing through the website, "one demand" seems to be a catchphrase rather than literal.

"Ending police intimidation is our one demand.
Ending corporate censorship is our one demand.
Ending the modern gilded age is our one demand.
Ending political corruption is our one demand.
Ending joblessness is our one demand.
"

etc.

I'm skeptical that deliberate disclarity would be helpful for any organization attempting to bring about change. But then, looking over some of their material, I get the impression that they lack understanding of some of the basic concepts they're fighting for.

"Ending joblessness is our one demand."

The middle class has always been confused on this point. Ironically, the lower classes often understand it better. If they truly wish to end wealth disparity, if they truly wish to put an end to the power of the upper class...they need to stop perceiving voluntary servitude as a desirable end result.

Money is a medium of control. The middle class has wholeheartedly embraced the idea that working for somebody else, being dependent on someone else for survival, is a positive, desirable, beneficial thing to be proud of. How often upon meeting someone from the middle class, is the very second question they ask after your name "what do you do?" And when asked, they give their answer in the form of self identification: "I am a baker." "I am a shoe salesman." They identify themselves and each other by the nature of their slavery. They take pride in it. They play competitive games over who has the more prestigious work. Women marry based on it. A man with two jobs might brag about how he works so hard to support his family. Children in school feel shame if the father of the student next to them has a loftier job title than their own.

The entire social structure of the middle class is based on the manner in which they submit themselves to slavery.

They demand equality, and in the next sentence demand jobs...and yet they see no irony in this.

*shrug*
« Last Edit: September 24, 2011, 03:26:47 am by LordBucket »
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Aqizzar

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #9 on: September 24, 2011, 03:33:33 am »

Money is a medium of control. The middle class has wholeheartedly embraced the idea that working for somebody else, being dependent on someone else for survival, is a positive, desirable, beneficial thing to be proud of. How often upon meeting someone from the middle class, is the very second question they ask after your name "what do you do?" They identify themselves and each other by the nature of their slavery. They take pride in it. They play competitive games over who has the more prestigious work. Women marry based on it. A man with two jobs might brag about how he works so hard to support his family. Children in school feel shame if the father of the student next to them has a loftier job title than their own.

The entire social structure of the middle class is based on the manner in which they submit themselves to slavery.

They demand equality, and in the next sentence demand jobs...and yet they see no irony in this.

I do kind of understand this viewpoint, but I think you're actually the one more obsessed with the nature of employment than they are.  This may come as a shock, but I really don't think so many people define themselves by their employment as you seem to think.

Do I say what I do when people ask?  Yes.  I'm glad to have my job, precisely because I know what it's like to not have an income, and I know how many other people are competing to have my job.  I want a job that pays more, not because I would be proud of that job, but because I want the money, and I don't feel like going to the risk and trouble of whatever the alternative is to working.

I guess my question would be, what exactly do you propose they do instead?  Not everyone can start their own business; mathematically speaking, most people can't, because most businesses need more workers than owners.

More to the point, I think what the "ending joblessness" means, is that they want American businesses to start hiring more people.  Not anything more elaborate, like changing the social compact of employment, just spending some of the $2trillion in capital sitting in banks to hire people.  There's been a distinct trend in America over the last 30, especially last 10, years of essentially the entire American corporate landscape of firing half the workers, then telling the other half to either work twice as hard for the same pay or try to find another job.  It's an easy trend to be indignant about, especially without understanding the massively more complicated economics at play.
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Montague

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #10 on: September 24, 2011, 04:18:59 am »

If they wanted to create jobs, the gov't would just print more money. Inflation would make American products and services competitive in other countries (as well as making foreign imports less competitive against domestic goods) it would also reduce the debt burden of the government and people without much liquid capital. It would also cause wealthy people to invest their money, rather then sit it in a bank to try to maintain their wealth against devaluation. Reasons why the Chinese intentionally devalue their currency.

Of course, inflation is bad for debtors and banks, so has thus convinced a majority that inflation is the worse of evils.

People should probably be protesting the central banks if they wanted policies that created demand for labor.

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LordBucket

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #11 on: September 24, 2011, 05:04:27 am »

I want a job that pays more, not because I would be
proud of that job, but because I want the money

Let me ask you a question, rhetorically, for now. "Why do you want the money?"

This may seem a silly question. After all, money buys food. Money buys toys. Money buys a car, a place to live, etc. Money in our society allows for both survival as well as comfort.

But, let's consider an example of this act of using money to acquire survival and comfort: you go to a restaurant, and you buy dinner. The food keeps you alive, and the fact that somebody else made it for you is a convenience. However, what of the waiter who brought you the food? What of the chef who made it? Did they make and bring you dinner because they wanted to? Because they enjoyed it? Probably not. They did these things in order to acquire money for themselves, so they can use that money to get somebody else to do something that they don't want to do.

There's a very fundamental thing going on here. The function of money is basically to manipulate people into doing things they don't want to do. Money, at its most basic level, is a tool for the manipulation and control of others.

So let me ask you that question again: why do you want the money? The answer is so that you can manipulate others into doing what you want.

Money is a tool for manipulation, and some people are more skilled at using it than others.

Quote
Not anything more elaborate, like changing the social compact of
employment, just spending some of the $2trillion in capital
sitting in banks to hire people.

It doesn't benefit those who have it to hire people to do work they have no desire to have performed. If I have a billion dollars and all the houses and servants I want, and you have zero dollars and are starving, how does it benefit me to hire you? I already have everything I want. The stockpile of money that I have is a stockpile of power to manipulate others. If I give some of it to you, I am giving away power so that you have it instead of me. Why should I do this? I already have enough servants to fill all my desires, and you have nothing particularly that I want. Why should I hire you?

Spending that $2 trillion to hire people only benefits the people being hired, not the people with $2 trillion dollars. Do you have any savings? Maybe $5000 in a bank account? You could hire people. You could pay someone to delivery your groceries for you. Or to polish your car every week. But you don't, because you don't particularly want these services performed and you place more value on having the stockpile of $5000 on hand. It's no different when you have millions rather than thousands of dollars.

Quote
what exactly do you propose they do instead?
Not everyone can start their own business;

I would propose that these people attempt to perceive the nature of society more clearly. It's more difficult to manipulate someone who clearly understands the nature and process of manipulation. As they are, these people are perpetuating the very system they rage against.

Starting a business to avoid slavery, or to put it another way: offering enslavement to others, is entirely missing the point. The system is the problem. Starting a business rather than working for a business is simply jockeying for a more comfortable position in the hierarchy of that system. One does not end enslavement by having slaves rather than being a slave.

Quote
I think what the "ending joblessness" means, is that they
want American businesses to start hiring more people.

If things like equality or ending wealth disparity are desireable end results, then businesses hiring more people is counterproductive. The solution here is not more jobs or more people working. The solution is less jobs and fewer people working. "Work" is not a desireable end result. It is a means to an end. Focusing on a method generates different results than focusing on a goal. When people perceive jobs or money as desireable goals, they misunderstand the nature of the system.

Chunes

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #12 on: September 24, 2011, 05:07:55 am »

Quote from: LordBucket
The middle class has always been confused on this point. Ironically, the lower classes often understand it better. If they truly wish to end wealth disparity, if they truly wish to put an end to the power of the upper class...they need to stop perceiving voluntary servitude as a desirable end result.

In my 15 years of scouring the web, I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen this wisdom shared. Kudos to you.

I get so tired of hearing about "job creation" in the news as if it is some holy grail. How about we design a stable economic system first? Might help a bit. It is plain to see how recently we parted with our ape brethren. We are still using the same system that allowed the Great Depression. Humans are egregiously stupid.

Quote from: LordBucket
Starting a business to avoid slavery, or to put it another way: offering enslavement to others, is entirely missing the point.

I love you. You are the only person I have ever witnessed adhering to this line of thinking other than myself.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2011, 05:12:58 am by Chunes »
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Aqizzar

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #13 on: September 24, 2011, 05:21:01 am »

Oh for God's sake, here we go again.  Fine, you want a hunter-gatherer society with computers.  Good luck.

I know I'm being disparaging, but you are asking questions about the fundamental underpinnings of civilization that you and I both know you do not have an answer for.  Why do I want money?  Because stuff I want costs money, stuff that I can't or don't want to make for myself and therefore must pay someone else to.  I don't want to work in itself, and neither do any of the people I'm buying things from.  But you know what?  That's just the way things are.

If you want to spend your life tilting at windmills for some theoretical society that has all the comforts and trappings of modern civilization with none of the responsibilities of trading resources, i.e. your labor, to get things, go right ahead.  And if you can actually come up with a societal structure that can promise all that, without requiring anyone to "enslave" themselves by laboring for a trade of currency to exchange elsewhere, and a way to implement it across all of civilization within a lifetime, I'll sign up.  You know where to reach me.
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Chunes

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #14 on: September 24, 2011, 05:27:19 am »

And if you can actually come up with a societal structure that can promise all that, without requiring anyone to "enslave" themselves by laboring for a trade of currency to exchange elsewhere, and a way to implement it across all of civilization within a lifetime, I'll sign up.  You know where to reach me.

It's not as difficult as it seems. Here's a starting place: gadgets get cheaper as we learn how to make fewer resources perform more functions. As productivity increases in the job sense, we simultaneously work longer for less benefit. Our productivity is being siphoned; it can be realigned so that increasing productivity benefits everyone. It would require cooperation. It's very simple. Just a decision.
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