Comment on đ€ Interesting
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world âš3â© âšweeksâ© agoSee, hereâs the thing. Everybody loves to point at the guilitine, and the French Revolution. They love to say âLets do what they did!â
Hereâs the problem. Nobody talks about what came next.
Because what happened was, you had one group of rich assholes who controlled everything, and treated everybody else like shit. So the French chopped off their heads, and got rid of these rich assholes.
And what happened next? Well, a lot of infighting, but the end result was instead of having a group of rich assholes controlling everyone, you instead had a different group of not rich assholes controlling everyone, who thengot rich from it. And nothing changed.
I think, before we go around killing everyone, we need a plan. We need to figure out why humans are so quick to all clump up as one submissive blob, who follows the will of whoever claims to have power.
Instead of 1 president, or 1 dictator, I think we should instead have a panel of 1 million people. Tens of thousands of people from every state. Anyone can apply, and if need be, your individual county can run sn election if youâre not running unopposed.
This I think would cut down tremendously on corruption in our government. Because a company couldnât just bribe 1 president. Theyâd need to bribe 1 million people.
And the comittee would always represent the people, because they ARE the people. Most people would know at least 1 committee member in their neighborhood.
THEN you can kill all the rich assholes.
The French Revolution was succesful. What the king & nobles did before that was much, much worse.
It just wasnât a socialist revolution. The bourgeoisie won.
It also didnât happen just like that, it took 10 years - Wikipedia calls it âa period of political and societal changeâ. I think itâs fair to say it wasnât completely unplanned.
It led directly to Napoleon conquering Europe and crowning himself Emperor of FranceâŠ
Yeah, so?
Once again: you have to understand how bad the Ancien régime was.
No, my point was the French revolution wasnât exactly a success because it was followed by two other revolutions in 1830 and 1848 that also aimed at overthrowing the monarchy.
There needs to be a little killing first, to set the tone. I like your ideas, but there is no way in this world or any other that the rich assholes would allow you to assemble a committee like that. They would literally carpet bomb it before allowing it.
The majority of people donât like to lead. Itâs simply easier and more comfortable to follow. Less conflict. Less confrontation. Less stress.
Leading requires initiative, the capacity to be confrontational, to step outside the box. Itâs rather opposite of what is known as the bandwagon effect. Most people cannot do any of that without feeling extremely self conscious or anxious. Or, without being obnoxious and off-putting. You not only have to be able to function separate, you have to do it without annoying the fuck out of those around you.
Effective leadership also requires the capacity for some degree of speed. Some problems cannot wait for debate due to safety.
The bandwagon effect is a fun bit of study. Whatâs even better is the majority of people believe it doesnât hold sway over them when the data shows that it absolutely does, something like 70-80%. Itâs why, in part, so much money is thrown at AI and bots on social media, especially pre elections.
This appears to be a long but solid definition of it, with some easy bullet points: researchprospect.com/what-is-the-bandwagon-effectâŠ
Thereâs also a reverse bandwagon effect, for, you know, the cool people.
Nobody talks about what came next.
Most of the monarchies and aristocrats in Europe fell / lost all real power / reformed themselves to avoid losing their heads?
Humanity actually successfully implemented a decentralized egalitarian socialist society without dictatorships in 1936 Spain, which bore out that Anarchist political theory is the most viable long-term solution we have to achieving freedom for all while also ensuring everyone gets what they need for free.
Itâs like you invented democracy with extra sauce đđđ»đđ»đđ»
We need to figure out why humans are so quick to all clump up as one submissive blob, who follows the will of whoever claims to have power.
because people like when decisions are made for them, and they donât have to think to make those decisions for themselves.
Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world âš3â© âšweeksâ© ago
Wealth cap or bust. No one should ever be able to make 1 billion. I think there should be forced divestments after 1 bil and youâre barred from the stock market for 5 years. Plusâđ», if you use any money to build anything whether it be a building or a business, said billionaire is not allowed to earn more than a total of 1 million/yr.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world âš3â© âšweeksâ© ago
That sounds like a cat and mouse game. You make a rule that person A canât be on the stock market for 5 years. This does two things. First, it causes rich people to find some loophole or exploit.
And second, it just disincentivizes them from using the stock market at all, in favor of some unregulated form of making money. Like crypto.
Now you could say âWell then weâll place caps on how much you can trsnsfer crypto over to american currencyâ.
And now youâre in a cat and mouse game. Because now they just need to convert it to some foreign currency. Then convert the foreign currency to American currency.
See? Cat and mouse.
See, this idea thread is putting up fences to seperate the corrupt from illicit gains. You build a fence, they bring a ladder. You build a bigger fence, they bring a bigger ladder. You build a wall, they install a window. The incentive is always there to overcome the barrier.
Instead, we should be finding ways to make bringing a bigger ladder cost more than the gains. Rewrite the whole system so that all people benefit before the greedy have a chance to hoard it all.
Regulate every system. Regulate every persons finances. If they cheat the system, make them pay twice the gains they got. Then distribute those fines to fund education and poor neighborhoods.
Suddenly you donât need to worry about how big their ladder is, because the juice isnât worth the squeeze.
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world âš3â© âšweeksâ© ago
What do you mean by forced divestments?
Oh and are you going to hard code these numbers into the law? Because rich people would respond by deflating the currency to the point where the average person makes 10 cents a day and a millionaire is inflation-equivalent to a billionaire today.
Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world âš3â© âšweeksâ© ago
Selling off half their stocks or Πof their their majority share to lower their stake in their own businesses so their wealth is stifled.
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world âš3â© âšweeksâ© ago
Selling it to who though? And who gets the money from the sale? Taxes? But rich people already control the governmentâŠ
Gorilladrums@lemmy.world âš3â© âšweeksâ© ago
This only sounds good to people who are ignorant of both economics and history. Wealth caps, rent control, fixed prices, etc all sound nice until you take a minute to learn about the side effects. These sorts of policies arenât knew, but they donât work which is why they havenât stuck around.
Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world âš3â© âšweeksâ© ago
At this point in time just blow out everyoneâs bank accounts and start over again.
Gorilladrums@lemmy.world âš2â© âšweeksâ© ago
But exactly do you think this will accomplish?