Sad that you have given up

Ok, Abe. Sure. Take your onion belt and go back to your room. It's well after lights out.

Sad that you want a return to the Reign of Terror.

Return? We never had a reign of terror. There have been hundreds of peaceful revolutions.

“THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.” ― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

I am familiar with the Reign of Terror, which gets capitalized because of it's singular uniqueness, but I am also not an 18th century French peasant, or a Frenchman at all for that matter. I doubt most of the people on this thread are either. When I say "we" I am referring to an immensely large group of people for whom "the revolution" refers to an event which did not include a reign of terror.

Why do people assume revolutionary action must be violent? Emmeline Pankhurst will want to have words with them.

Have you seen people?

> You really need to read up on your history.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47888542

The suffragette movement was hardly a revolution in the traditional sense.

Giving so many people the ability to vote was absolutely a fundamental shift in the social, political, or societal order, so is absolutely a traditional revolution. This is just the 'no true scotsman' argument.

Dont defend accepting corruption, thats so lame

But, being more respectful to you and who i orignally replied to — yes actual revolution would be brutal, and could/would create a much worse daily life for the non-elites.

Still, as I bet you could agree when not aguing semantics, its inexusable for people to declare we should accept corruption

> yes actual revolution would be brutal, and could/would create a much worse daily life for the non-elites.

50% of revolutions in the past 200 years have been non-violent, and the non-violent ones have a much higher success rate. Even for violent revolutions, most aren't brutal. When there is brutality, it's usually because the pre-existing conditions were already brutal.

That comes with the caveat that most revolutions happen against failed states. Those pretty much don't get the chance to be violent.

There's not much reason to replace good functioning governments. There are some examples, although typically they are foreign-backed regime changes masquerading as revolutions.

Good and functioning are not the same thing. Look at North Korea. It's definitely not a failed state, but it's also about as far away from a "good" government as you can get.

For most revolutions, the state needs to be unable to maintain control over it's populace. The ones where it can still maintain control is where it gets bloody.

I appreciate that info

Yes we should just calmly ignore private insurance death panels, propped up by politicians, killing treatable people at scale rather than put the fear in a few thousand rich people physics didn't see fit to spare from eventual biological death anyway (since they love to trot out that argument).

To say nothing of the processed food and automobile industries.

You really need to read up on your history.

Mhm, and is this history in the room with us now?

takes notes

What's your alternative? The present situation is intollerable and even a bad solution is better than no solution.

The present situation is very tolerable, actually.

For you.

Cowards like you would have a us a British colony to this day

So a slow decline is OK?

Nah, life would be better if a cleptocrat couldn’t find his way into power.

It was slow for 30 years, the last couple of years have been insane.

I'd say that either way the population will not rebel. If the government is smart they'll just pay for the populations Netflix, burgers and beer. It's enough to keep people passive.

Weed is the ultimate double edged sword- it pacifies much better than beer, but also the GDP and standard of living plummets.

Slow?

> Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how fat the fat cats are so long as the general population’s standard of living doesn't go backwards too far too fast.

Well, given that people are behaving more and more violently towards said fat cats I think it's clear we're starting to reach a breaking point and people are caring. It wasn't too long ago that I saw people cheering on LinkedIn when that healthcare CEO got got, so if people are willing to put their professional profiles at risk you have to imagine it's far worse behind closed doors.

Personally I really dislike living in interesting times and greatly prefer advocating against corruption rather than letting things slide until they get a lot worse.

That’s until food and energy price increases become unbearable for the masses. While the first test is already here with gas prices, we’ll have the second test soon in the form of 50% price increases on food in developed Western countries.

Where is the evidence that petrol prices are unbearable, by the metric you’re proposing.

In some places, like the Philippines, gas/fuel prices are up 70-100% since the start of the Special Four Day Operation in Iran. It's easy to say "who cares doesn't affect me", which sounds nice. But the Philippines is a major manufacturing hub of stuff that keeps life artificially cheap in the west. The rest of SE Asia is undergoing similar rapid price increases. Thailand, Malaysia, etc make lots of electronic components which will be facing a huge squeeze very soon.

The reason for those price increases is those countries don't have massive fuel stockpiles. The west does have big stockpiles, and they're artificially suppressing the price of fuel by releasing those stockpiles and hoping the special operation is over before their stockpiles run out. Because if prices shoot up now, people will realize just how truly disastrous it all is and actual consequences for various governments may be had, so the only option is to kick the can down the road and hope it somehow resolves itself.

Asia is in a particularly bad situation, because even for countries that do have stockpiles, they get basically all of their oil from Iran, the UAE, east coast of Saudi Arabia, etc. Now they have no oil. America can pretend it's a 4D chess move and now those countries will buy American oil and make their economy great again. But the thing is America isn't selling any additional oil to Asia. But America is 100% dependent on cheap things made in Asia, things that are built with plastic made from middle eastern oil and powered by electricity generated from middle eastern oil and shipped on boats running on middle eastern oil. All these things take months to show any effects to Americans and Europeans, so until then, it's just a game of burying heads in the sand until the situation suddenly explodes.

For a lot of us this perturbation hurts portfolios, tightens the belt, and hurts business investments… But oil and food production are tied together in numerous ways.

We’re looking at fuel shocks, downstream the agricultural, fertilizer, and food shocks are gonna cost untold anguish and many lives. Farmer suicides and famines, as the start of a destabilizing wave.

1) for the second time in my adult life I have to ask aloud how shit Dick Cheney was saying on 60 minutes ca 1993 escaped the notice of the entire US military and its commander in chief

2) the obvious lack of a post-strike plan and confusion about how mountains and waterways work make it hard to pin down how elementary and remedial the eff-ups here really are, so incompetent and indifferent

Why don't Asian countries just ally with Iran for free passage of their ships?

How is inside training outside of US s thing? Please give dpurces

>We are much much better off tolerating this level of corruption than we would be attempting a revolution.

There is no we to prevent any revolution occurring once corruption or "mere" wealth distribution unsustainable discrepancy are passing some thresholds, after which it simply will feedbackloop exponentially.

Pauperization that allows some party to have chip exploitable labour too frightened to have strong collective claims is also building the social structure of bloody revolution as masses feel like rushing into brutality is the only viable left option.

Thresholds by themselves dont auto trigger some state change because the state is aware of them too.

The police and intelligence are well paid to keep an eye on all kinds of signals. Unless the situation reaches a point they cant pay the cops any voilence will be shut down fast, because over time they have become quite good at it. Just like we have become good at running gigantic boilers without them exploding. Even poor states are good at it. Because anyone running a farm, factory, depending on banks, telcos, ports, power grid etc are all very dependent on the state to keep the lights on. More efficent they get the more dependent they are on external structures staying in tact to stay afloat.

The world today is a much more complicated place, full of interdependcies(as covid showed us), than what it was when revolutions were seen as the solution to anything.

So Organizing and Voting still remains the easier way to cause change as tempratures rise. Thats the control and feedback mech.

Except that organizing and voting doesn't actually accomplish anything.

Protests have already been mitigated by tactics researched and documented among the most authoritarian think tanks.

Believe it or not, wealthy people plan ahead to protect their hoard and they have had several decades since Gandhi to figure out how to neuter peaceful protests that threaten their status.

> Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how fat the fat cats are so long as the general population’s standard of living doesn't go backwards too far too fast.

Worker's compensation in real terms has been almost flat for the last 50 years, 50 years which have seen the largest increase in productivity in recorded history by far. I'm surprised this is still not enough to you.

And that's using the fake, government approved definition of "real wages" where they pretend the existence of smartphones cancels out a 200% increase in rent, which it doesn't. Real real wages have declined.

> We are much much better off tolerating this level of corruption than we would be attempting a revolution.

We, today, are better not attempting revolution because revolutions are painful. But we are also on a downward slope which will eventually reach below a threshold where 2 things happen: their* life will be much worse off than any revolution, but also they will no longer be able to mount a revolution.

I've lived through a violent revolution. Not knowing what's happening, not knowing what tomorrow brings, while getting shot at are all terrifying. I can genuinely say that most of what came after was better. A few paid a high price for the several generations that came after to mostly have it better.

I am not advocating revolution, just doing what it takes to change course. Even voting appropriately could do it.

*I say they because it might not happen in our lifetime. But we are selling our kids' futures for our current comfort. They'll be the ones really paying our debt.

I think they meant revolutionary as in new and novel

> hasn’t risen to a level that warrants revolutionary action.

A certain amount of corruption is normal - as Doctorow pointed out, all complex ecosystems evolve parasites. It's much better to have a democracy with some corruption than a police state that enforces its laws perfectly.

Now, when people realise the current state of their democracy and how it reflects the needs of the people, then they'll start considering bringing out the guillotines.

The general population's standard of living HAS gone backwards too fast.

Just look at something like Office Space. Just twenty seven years ago, it was a satire of the indignities and disrespect of work life. Today, the movie's work environment would be incredibly cushy.

> I’d argue that the level of corruption we’re seeing, not just in the USA but all over the Western world, hasn’t risen to a level that warrants revolutionary action.

What level of corruption would warrant revolutionary action? How much more corrupt can you get than sending forces into combat in a war of choice that disrupts the global economy and kills thousands to win a bet on a crypto platform and shift the news cycle away from accusations of rampant pedophilia among the elite and the lack of prosecution thereof?

I doubt they did it for the purpose of crypto bets, that was just a side benefit. They did it because Israel owns our government, and this is the first time we've had a president far enough out of touch with reality to not push back.

Age limits (for Congress/Judiciary/Presidency) would be a much more targeted fix. Past ~75 you just don't have enough years left to be at risk of being affected by the things you're implementing. Dying in office of old age should be a deeply shameful way to go.

Israel owns out government? You have proof of this outlandish claim?

I'm trying to determine the causal basis for this and given the ubiquity of evidence, I can only conclude that it must be sea lioning.

thanks for proving my point. There's no evidence other than you falling prey to the tropes of yesterday.

In what world does it make sense that Israel controls our government? Only in the world where you think that Israel controls our banks etc.

Let's keep this conversation tied to evidence before launching attacks that are based on prejudice.

> They did it because Israel owns our government

Yeah I don't really see how that is an argument that current corruption isn't too extreme.

> Age limits (for Congress/Judiciary/Presidency) would be a much more targeted fix.

Would it? There are plenty of corrupt people in office younger than 75, to say nothing of the countless unelected people in close proximity to power. Only 42 out of 535 members of congress are over 75. On the supreme court, Alito only turned 76 3 weeks ago, and the only other justice over that threshold is Thomas who is 77. Trump was under 75 for his entire first term. Biden, Trump, and Reagan are the only presidents who have ever been in office over the age of 75. Such an age limit would do basically nothing to change the composition of government. While there may be compelling reasons for such an age limit like ensuring mental acuity, it is not a remedy for corruption.

I wasn't saying that age limits would fix all, or even the most important problems. I'm just saying that we're only at war with Iran because Trump's dementia is leaving him disconnected from reality.

MAGA propaganda is so effective that it got those who never believed in the economic utility of the stock market to begin with to call for revolution to preserve the integrity of the market.

The cost of insider trading mostly get passed to the rich. The reason why insider trading is illegal isn't that it's particularly morally wrong as much as it disincentivizes participation in the markets.

> the general population’s standard of living doesn't go backwards too far too fast.

Too late for that hypothetical.