disgust at the vast hoarding of wealth and suffering caused by billionaires is one thing, but openly revelling in their death is gross and i wish more people would say it. it often feels like people have a streak of sadism that they want to direct at an “acceptable” target through bloody revolution, rather than being leftist because of compassion for other living beings
This is true, but also, the system is designed to make more people to make the system.
Wealthy kids grow up extremely sheltered and disconnected from the reality of most every else, and while that leads them to being assholes and making horrible decisions and etc, it’s not entirely their fault they ended up like that given their upbringing.
Schools also propagate terrible ideas, and distort history, etc, by design, but also the kids that grow up in those schools often end up parroting and reinforcing those ideas just because they don’t know any better.
Personal politics, still, is statistically ties to your family’s politics and where you grew up. People can break out of that, sure, but it’s an extra step, and one that often is personally costly because it can break social and family ties.
That obviously doesn’t mean people who were raised by asshole families and taught by assholes can’t be held accountable/responsible for then also behaving like an asshole, but they’re that way because of external factors, not because they were just born bad. The systems self-perpetuate through making more people who benefit from them and believe in their virtue, then those people raise more people to fit the system, and so on. Just taking down a few people at the top of a system doesn’t do anything to stop the machinery that will create and empower their replacements.
The system has to be fixed at a system level, or else the system will just keep churning out assholes. This is true regardless of whether the system was designed out of malice or ignorance or pure chance or all three.
I think that years of struggle just to meet basic needs leads to dangerous anger, resentment, and bitterness. Tbh billionaires are the ones who have rigged the system against us with decades of lobbying and most, if not all of them, would gladly see us dead in a cost benefit analysis if it gained them profit, so I have no problem with people taking pleasure in their misfortune. They made their choices and current public opinion is the consequence of that. No one gets to and stays at billionaire status off of pure merit alone…
People do have an ingrained instinct for in/out groups and dehumanizing and even wishing for harm to befall the out group is very much a part of human nature. That there is harm being inflicted on the in group by the out group (perceived or true) will of course reinforce this.
Having said that, most people will agree that we should be more than our base instincts and use at least logic if not compassion in our decision making.
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disgust at the vast hoarding of wealth and suffering caused by billionaires is one thing, but openly revelling in their death is gross and i wish more people would say it. it often feels like people have a streak of sadism that they want to direct at an “acceptable” target through bloody revolution, rather than being leftist because of compassion for other living beings
I reckon that people become leftists out of compassion, but the dehumanizing rhetoric seems cool and edgy; so they slide into it, thinking it’s OK.
Hate systems, not people. Don’t eat the rich, eat their money.
If you hate the system why not the designers of the system?
Systems exist because people willfully build and maintain them. Extreme wealth inequality is not the result of an accident. It is very much by design.
This is true, but also, the system is designed to make more people to make the system.
Wealthy kids grow up extremely sheltered and disconnected from the reality of most every else, and while that leads them to being assholes and making horrible decisions and etc, it’s not entirely their fault they ended up like that given their upbringing.
Schools also propagate terrible ideas, and distort history, etc, by design, but also the kids that grow up in those schools often end up parroting and reinforcing those ideas just because they don’t know any better.
Personal politics, still, is statistically ties to your family’s politics and where you grew up. People can break out of that, sure, but it’s an extra step, and one that often is personally costly because it can break social and family ties.
That obviously doesn’t mean people who were raised by asshole families and taught by assholes can’t be held accountable/responsible for then also behaving like an asshole, but they’re that way because of external factors, not because they were just born bad. The systems self-perpetuate through making more people who benefit from them and believe in their virtue, then those people raise more people to fit the system, and so on. Just taking down a few people at the top of a system doesn’t do anything to stop the machinery that will create and empower their replacements.
The system has to be fixed at a system level, or else the system will just keep churning out assholes. This is true regardless of whether the system was designed out of malice or ignorance or pure chance or all three.
I think that years of struggle just to meet basic needs leads to dangerous anger, resentment, and bitterness. Tbh billionaires are the ones who have rigged the system against us with decades of lobbying and most, if not all of them, would gladly see us dead in a cost benefit analysis if it gained them profit, so I have no problem with people taking pleasure in their misfortune. They made their choices and current public opinion is the consequence of that. No one gets to and stays at billionaire status off of pure merit alone…
It is difficult to have compassion for those who utterly lack it.
To play a little bit of devil’s advocate.
People do have an ingrained instinct for in/out groups and dehumanizing and even wishing for harm to befall the out group is very much a part of human nature. That there is harm being inflicted on the in group by the out group (perceived or true) will of course reinforce this.
Having said that, most people will agree that we should be more than our base instincts and use at least logic if not compassion in our decision making.
I just honestly didn’t give a shit about them, and still it was all over the news.
How many people died in car crashes eachday this coverage was everywhere?
A group of rich people with poor research skills exploded themselves, and it just doesn’t matter to me.
We don’t spend half this time crying over much bigger tragedies.