How do you end 'cancel culture'?

[AmazonQueen]

I believe you are unfairly "othering" m/billionaires and unfairly demonizing capitalism.
The latter, in spite of its shortcomings, is still a system under which greatest strides have been made - globally - in all categories of HDI.
The former are not some different species, but human like you or me. If anything, they have better education and more time/opportunity to spend reflecting on world than your average global citizen.
If a group like this were wholly so self-centered, lacking in empathy and unable to see the benefits of collective action as you insist, then we'd be screwed anyway, because no economic system would be able to transcend this flaw in our species. Fortunately, I believe our entire evolutionary history suggests otherwise.

However they are likely to have only superficial knowledge of how most people live and little contact with poorer people except as employees.
Its harder to feel empathy for people you have little contact with or knowledge of and easier to believe stereotypes about the lazy, undeserving poor, stereotypes which justify their success and rewards to them.

 

[Crezth]

This assumes that capitalists/entrepreneurs are inherently evil, totally consumed by greed and unable to grasp the benefits that a functioning state provides for everyone, including themselves.
That is quite pessimistic view of things.
https://www.millionairesforhumanity.com/

Allow me to introduce you to the United States of America and the Republican Party.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

It is technology that have improved living conditions, and if the economic system help or not help technological development is probably what should be asked. For example the rich countries in 1950 had a life expectancy that today would be worse than many poor countries today, even if the poor countries today have worse gdp per capita than the rich countries had in 1950. Money is just a medium of exchange and work poorly when comparing different periods because it ignore the massive impact of technology.

So even the rich in the past is in many ways worse of than the poor today, but that have to do with technology, not how the economic system is setup.

 

[Yeekim]

However they are likely to have only superficial knowledge of how most people live and little contact with poorer people except as employees.
Its harder to feel empathy for people you have little contact with or knowledge of and easier to believe stereotypes about the lazy, undeserving poor, stereotypes which justify their success and rewards to them.

True. Harder, yet not impossible.

Allow me to introduce you to the United States of America and the Republican Party.

Well, that is just the United States of the America and the Republican Party... and hopefully at their lowest point at that.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm going to trademark the term "whitesplaining" before it catches on in the near future!

too late

The former are not some different species, but human like you or me. If anything, they have better education and more time/opportunity to spend reflecting on world than your average global citizen.

https://twitter.com/anthonyvclark20/status/1200783096372748291?lang=en

 

[Yeekim]

https://twitter.com/anthonyvclark20/status/1200783096372748291?lang=en

I'm only defending those that demonstrably do give a **** about others.

 

[Crezth]

Well, that is just the United States of the America and the Republican Party... and hopefully at their lowest point at that.

It is just the pinnacle of capitalist power and a good chunk of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world.

The problem is not contained to America, even and especially in the context of Europe. Europe is indeed doing relatively well right now, but still had to tighten belts when the US financial system crashed in 2008. The problem is not that b/millionaires are lizards or evil, but that they are unaware of the true cost of their government policy and, to be frank, totally uninterested in actually being governors. The only thing the leadership class in America accomplishes is pillaging the public coffers. We have giant monopolies for which there is zero political appetite to dissolve or restrict. And most importantly, the US real economy has been in a state of slow implosion since at least 2008 and probably since the 1980's.

It's just "one country," yes; I know Europeans have every confidence they can survive America's collapse. Unfortunately, in the age of global commerce, economics doesn't work that way. There was nothing anyone could do to avert 1929 once the course had been set: Germany's debt and the septic trade balance of Europe had doomed the entire world to a crash and depression.

And that's putting aside the many unforeseen consequences of a possible collapse in the post-war consensus.

It is technology that have improved living conditions, and if the economic system help or not help technological development is probably what should be asked. For example the rich countries in 1950 had a life expectancy that today would be worse than many poor countries today, even if the poor countries today have worse gdp per capita than the rich countries had in 1950.

Life expectancy in America is on the decline generally, except for a brief uptick this year which bucked a four-year trend and very miserably at that. Arguably this is because the healthcare system is poorly tuned... which would be a problem, in this case, with the political and economic systems.



At any rate, there is evidence that the capitalist American economic system is, in fact, inhibiting the uptake and availability of the benefits of new medical technology for the general population.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm only defending those that demonstrably do give a **** about others.

What, they demonstrably care about others because they signed some chickenhorsehocky letter? Talk is cheap. Call me when they give away all their money to the poor.

 

[Yeekim]

The problem is not that b/millionaires are lizards or evil, but that they are unaware of the true cost of their government policy and, to be frank, totally uninterested in actually being governors.

But is it merely an unfortunate reality for many at this time and place, or some unavoidable condition?

What, they demonstrably care about others because they signed some chicken**** letter? Talk is cheap. Call me when they give away all their money to the poor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge
I'm - unironically - hoping people will realize that by giving it up only once they are dead they are merely screwing themselves out of the joy of doing so in their lifetime.
In any case, poverty is first and foremost a governance issue and as such could and would not be eliminated if every millionaire donated 99% of all they own tomorrow.
EDIT: Of course, the above does not mean I don't realize the importance of progressive taxation.
EDIT 2: It's just that the slogans like "Bezos alone could end world hunger!" are hyperbolic silliness.... regardless of what a greedy bastard Bezos personally appears to be.

 

[Lexicus]

In any case, poverty is first and foremost a governance issue and as such could and would not be eliminated if every millionaire donated 99% of all they own tomorrow.

The "governance issue" is precisely the creation of a society where some people can have tens of billions of dollars and others are hungry.

 

[gay_Aleks]

The million-dollar question here is, "who is the government working for?", and, surprise, surprise, it's working for the men with the millions and the billions. Since they won't give 99% of their wealth (they don't want to give a tenth of it, most of them, so why do we ask about 99%?), there ought to be a force that makes them do so, for the betterment of society. And since the current government is working for the bourgeoisie, it is then true that poverty is a government question, though here in the sense of class rule: the exploiting classes control the commanding heights of the state.

 

[Yeekim]

The "governance issue" is precisely the creation of a society where some people can have tens of billions of dollars and others are hungry.

We seem to be doing rather well in reducing world hunger.

 

[Crezth]

But is it merely an unfortunate reality for many at this time and place, or some unavoidable condition?

Does it matter? The reality is real. It's possible for capitalism to both create wealth, and cannibalize itself at the peak of its success. We've also observed many times in history that a generation or three of decadent, nepotistic leadership can create the worst and most incapable classes of rulers, not because they are inhuman but because the conditions of their upbringing don't beat them into the fittest shape for the job of ruling. This is not just America, but the entire world that has many a noble dynasty still in power.

Whether this entire circumstance was inevitable or not, the damage is done. It's purely a matter of faith whether one expects it can be turned around: the material reality speaks for itself as to the current situation.

 

[Hygro]

How can racism help capitalism? Easy. There are many ways. One is the allocation of externalities. Firms can accumulate more profit if neither they, nor their consumers, have to pay for pollution and other externalized costs.

If you have a preassigned group of “others” who don’t warrant your sympathy, you can corral them in segregated neighborhoods and put all the oil refineries, freeways, etc. You can use them as the designated people to absorb externalities with no strong voice in government to fight back and no allies in industry to think “I wouldn’t want this to happen to me”.

 

[Yeekim]

Does it matter? The reality is real. It's possible for capitalism to both create wealth, and cannibalize itself at the peak of its success. We've also observed many times in history that a generation or three of decadent, nepotistic leadership can create the worst and most incapable classes of rulers, not because they are inhuman but because the conditions of their upbringing don't beat them into the fittest shape for the job of ruling. This is not just America, but the entire world that has many a noble dynasty still in power.

Whether this entire circumstance was inevitable or not, the damage is done. It's purely a matter of faith whether one expects it can be turned around: the material reality speaks for itself as to the current situation.

Of course we can not change the past, but it matters for the future.
I believe capitalism is the best system known to man for the creation of wealth. Unfortunately, another one of its effects is that the wealth tends to concentrate in the hands of the few, thereby increasing economic inequality, which creates problems, arguably for everyone.
Imagine being a God-Mayor of a village of a hundred families. Each family owns a cow, for a 100 cows total. You can choose between two systems: one will lead to every family having 2 cows in a generation (for a total of 200), another to one family having 400 and everybody else 0. Which one is preferable would, imho, depend on how realistic is the prospect of more equitable redistribution. Might that one family accept that everyone else getting 3 and themselves keeping 103 is a win-win? Maybe they are not complete psychopaths and find that the marginal utility of another 297 cows would not outweigh the annoyance of having to deal with the stench of bloated corpses of hungry neighbors and the threat of the remainder resorting to violence?

 

[NinjaCow64]

@Yeekim In case you missed it the mods undeleted my post: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/how-do-you-end-cancel-culture.660962/page-11#post-15853080

It actually addresses a lot of what you’ve been talking about in a lot more detail.

 

[Socrates99]

But is it merely an unfortunate reality for many at this time and place, or some unavoidable condition?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Pledge
I'm - unironically - hoping people will realize that by giving it up only once they are dead they are merely screwing themselves out of the joy of doing so in their lifetime.
In any case, poverty is first and foremost a governance issue and as such could and would not be eliminated if every millionaire donated 99% of all they own tomorrow.
EDIT: Of course, the above does not mean I don't realize the importance of progressive taxation.
EDIT 2: It's just that the slogans like "Bezos alone could end world hunger!" are hyperbolic silliness.... regardless of what a greedy bastard Bezos personally appears to be.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/...uffett-giving-pledge-billionaire-philanthropy

Buffet and Gates are wealthier now than when they signed that pledge. A lot of Gates's donations are self dealing. It's a little disappointing.

 

[amadeus]

In purely logistical terms, I would assume on the surface that the endowments are so distributed as to not unintentionally devalue them, which would defeat the purpose of the giving in the first place should their endowments rapidly decline in value. The wealth of Gates, Buffett, etc. is tied up in the stock of their companies and valuations of companies are something of a collective fiction to which we tacitly accept. Why is Tesla, which produces so few vehicles and has such a spotty record, valued more highly than that of Toyota?

I don’t think Gates, Buffett, etc. are doing their charity with ulterior motives, just the glacial pace of their movement is necessary so as to not upset that charitable intent.

 

[NinjaCow64]

In purely logistical terms, I would assume on the surface that the endowments are so distributed as to not unintentionally devalue them, which would defeat the purpose of the giving in the first place should their endowments rapidly decline in value. The wealth of Gates, Buffett, etc. is tied up in the stock of their companies and valuations of companies are something of a collective fiction to which we tacitly accept. Why is Tesla, which produces so few vehicles and has such a spotty record, valued more highly than that of Toyota?

I've heard this argument a few times and its never hit right to me. "Oh those poor billionaires, they want to give away all their money see but you see they can't because market forces, its so sad!". Honestly, even if Buffet gave away all of his wealth and it lost like 90% of its value, that's still 7.27 billion USD. Imagine the amount of good one could do with that kind of money.

But lets pretend that you're correct and that it is physically impossible for the billionaires to give away more money to charity than they earn. Warren Buffet is 89 years old so he'd be lucky to make it to 2030. Lets say in 2030 he dies and he gives away all his money to a big trust that's meant to burn through all that money and give it to charity. But by our earlier assumptions, that is physically impossible. Simply through inertia it will grow bigger and bigger for all of eternity (short of someone messing up and wasting all the money on bad investments).

So that leaves us with two conclusions: 1) We accept that Capitalism will eventually spawn these Kafka-esque zombie philanthropists that will never die short of external intervention or 2) The billionaires are lying to us and they could give away all their money to charity and they choose not to. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter which of these two scenarios are true (I think that (2) is more likely than (1) for the record, but that is purely gut feeling). The answer is the same - to dispense with this collective fiction that we tacitly accept and reorder society among different lines.

I don’t think Gates, Buffett, etc. are doing their charity with ulterior motives, just the glacial pace of their movement is necessary so as to not upset that charitable intent.

Nah, Gates 100% does this as a PR stunt. Before the Gates Foundation, Bill Gates was known as that guy who was such a terrible monopolist that the U.S Government even got tired of his nonsense and shut him down. Then suddenly he has a change of heart and a few percentage points of his enormous wealth into (largely performative) charitable ventures and even more into PR about how great the Gates Foundation is. And now all of a sudden he's the "good billionaire". I honestly wouldn't be surprised if we see Bezos pull this kind of stunt in a few years.

 

[Crezth]

Of course we can not change the past, but it matters for the future.
I believe capitalism is the best system known to man for the creation of wealth. Unfortunately, another one of its effects is that the wealth tends to concentrate in the hands of the few, thereby increasing economic inequality, which creates problems, arguably for everyone.
Imagine being a God-Mayor of a village of a hundred families. Each family owns a cow, for a 100 cows total. You can choose between two systems: one will lead to every family having 2 cows in a generation (for a total of 200), another to one family having 400 and everybody else 0. Which one is preferable would, imho, depend on how realistic is the prospect of more equitable redistribution. Might that one family accept that everyone else getting 3 and themselves keeping 103 is a win-win? Maybe they are not complete psychopaths and find that the marginal utility of another 297 cows would not outweigh the annoyance of having to deal with the stench of bloated corpses of hungry neighbors and the threat of the remainder resorting to violence?

Well once the 400 cow-owning pharaoh lets the country burn down while fiddling on his harp, you'll have your answer. Historically, powerful people don't tend to give their wealth and power away, and being raised wealthy and powerful doesn't tend to give someone a lot of perspective.