[KaiserJeep]

dohbois, you ARE the original poster in this thread entitled "Eat the Rich!". If you were not talking about wealth redistribution from the wealthiest 10 people to lower income levels - including YOU who if a typical academic ended up somewhere in the Lower Middle income brackets, then please explain what this thread is actually about.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Mainly about GMO & Monsanto - but he talks of the involvement of the likes of Bill gates & Rockefella(s)

Corrupt and greedy corporations / individuals.

Yes, it's so terrible. People like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett giving away almost their entire fortune, they spent decades earning.

It's so awful, the rich paying a huge proportion of the income taxes that first world societies rely upon so heavily.

For an unfair world, the system seems to work a lot better than the jealous who want to just take what doesn't belong to them will admit.

[dohboi]

I do not envy them nor want their money.

[Cog]

Dohboi does not want their wealth
He wants the wealthy to be brought low. To be whipped in the street on the way to the people's justice. To shame them, to humiliate them for the crime of being exceptional. To sentence them to a life of rigorous menial labor as a permanent example to others. He wants what the cultural revolutionaries wanted in China. For the rich to get their comeuppance at the hands of the masses.

[onlooker]

Cry me a river. That those here would defend a system that has steadily become ever so exploitative, corrupt and destructive both of the livelihoods of many in the third world and of course of the Environment. And they hardly bat an eye, when told 8 people own the same as half the world's people. But it is simple. Since, they are successful denizens of a rich countries and not until recently the victims of this widespread exploitation rather the beneficiaries, it is easy to defend the Western Economic Model. But if you live in countries exploited from within and from the outside, then you realize what a sham and farce this system is and has been in not allowing so many people to partake in roughly equal measures of the bounty of this world and of this Civilization

[Cog]

At the heart of leftist ideology is the hatred of capital preservation and accumulation. Doesn't matter from their perspective, whether you accumulate capital from inheritance or hard work or any other method. You can see this in there insistence of high taxes on the rich, confiscating wealth derived from inheritance, or simply adjusting the tax code so that no one can accumulate wealth over a period of time.

Just look at calls to means test Social Security. Although you are forced to pay into a system involuntarily, the left says that because you were moderately successful you don't deserve to have that money that you were required to put into the system.

The left hates Banks, corporations, or any other organization that seeks to preserve or expand capital. Even though most people in the upper and middle class benefit from the accumulation and preservation of capital. The thought that there would be a inequal outcome infuriates the left. They hate the fact that a parent could give their child a leg up on anyone else in society by passing on capital. The left wants equality but only on their terms.

So as I said in my previous post, the real goal of the left is to have a classless society in which no one is allowed to accumulate capital, to pass that capital on to the next generation, or to have the concept of capital to exist at all.

[Newfie]

Onlooker,

Your view makes sense if you view the world within the current economic model. Once you step outside that model then it looks different.

That’s not to deny that the West has exploited the third world, it has. But also the third world has its own home brewed exploitation. So a more true model would be to say that where ever you go there is some class that are willing to exploit folks deeply. It’s just that, at this juncture, the West is assendent and can exploit more efficiently. It would seem that such behavior is a characteristic of our species. Perhaps somewhat alalageous to a queen bee, who lives atop their society and is fed by all below. It’s how bees organize themselves, maybe it’s how humans organize themselves.

I don’t get too worked up about it because, as I say ad nauseam, it’s only Monopoly Money anyhow, it can not be turned into much tangible.

And, to folks in the Congo, each of us here are unimaginably wealthy. So we share some of the guilt of the upper crust.

It’s a pity not everyone in the world can be as rich as we mere plebs are here in Western Society. Yet if they were then they would be consuming a vastly higher levels than they are and we would be pushing the worlds systems over the edge in at an even more frantic pace.

This is not to deny that there is massive inequity or human suffering, it exists. Railing against the few at the top seems futile, humanities problems are far bigger and inherit to our makeup as a social species. If you make a list of our 5 biggest challenges as a species this inequity is maybe a part of one one major catagory. We have much more to worry about.

[KaiserJeep]

This "inequity" you are all railing on about is simply Natures's way, the survival of the fittest. Greed is a primate emotion because it evolved into our genetic makeup. In the coming crisis that results from cheap FF's becoming expensive FF's, greed will sort out the winners (or survivors if you prefer) from the losers.

Just because we have had thoughts about mutual cooperation, does not make it a survival trait. Just because we had a religious prophet or prophets that preached "love thy neighbor" and "turn the other cheek" and "do not covet thy neighbor's wife" and similar homilies, does not mean that practicing these increases your chance of survival.

I mean, it very well might - religion did for much of our recorded History encourage behaviors that were pro-survival for the species - if that still holds true, it will help sort out the winners and losers. But most folks today are pretty secular even though Western civilization is permeated with religious ideals.

Cliché or survival trait? Nature will decide. Think of it as evolution in action.

[dohboi]

Cooperation is also 'natural':

https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowled ... x-13236526

[Cog]

Cooperation for personal advantage is what you mean. But have left unsaid because it does not forward your position.

[dohboi]

Well, that's not what the article says, unless you equate genetic advantage with personal advantage, which would be quite a stretch indeed.

[KaiserJeep]

Interesting article, but just because they used the term "widespread", does not mean that it is the norm rather than the exception. I tend to think that Darwin got it right, that compettition maximizes and the rate of evolution advances during the times that a species is under stress.

The exhaustion of FF's is about to place a great deal of stress on the human race. However, Darwin's theories won't necessarily be proved or disproved. We now have the genetic engineering capabilities to make designer children. Predictably the rich will do so first. In fact, perhaps Buffet or Gates or the Kochs already have a little group of clones they are gleefully indoctrinating. Later on, the government may attempt to engineer soldiers or placid taxpayers, or vegetarian citizens that taste good - the possibilities are endless and some are nightmarish.

[Ibon]

Altruism and cooperation go hand in hand with selfish greed in our species. Both individually and collectively. Our cerebral cortex evolved on top of our lizard brain. We are both noble and savage.

Individually and collectively.

KJ, if it was all about survival of the fittest why do we provide wheel chair access to public venues?

[KaiserJeep]

Truthfully, Ibon, it is because of the " Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990", which is a tacit admission that Senior citizens are the most powerful voting group in the USA today. I was wheelchair bound for two and a half months following surgery for bone spurs a couple of years ago, and revelled in parking close to the door everywhere I went. Age is a disability everyone suffers from. This is one of the few things that the R's and D's can agree on, so that this most powerful group of voters can divide over other topics.

Unfortunately, the battle over Social Security is looming. I think that Trump has the sense to kick the can again, but who knows, he's arrogant enough to think he could "fix" SS. I have been feeling the bite of premium health insurance premiums here in California, which may in the end be another reason to move to Massachusetts, which would have been the prototype for Hillarycare.

[Newfie]

Alutisim and cooperation are more strongly in play the closer the relationship. The more distant the other person the less it is in display.

It does happen at a distance, it happens much more the closer someone is to our personal circle.

That’s a big focus of advertising, to make us feel as part of the crowd, if we are not drinking Coke we are not part of the in crowd. Who would want to be a Pepsi drinker when most folks drink Coke?

[KaiserJeep]

Actually, I favor a nice smooth Bourbon over either, even though such a preference may make me a social outcast. What's even worse is I pour it over ice. Oddly enough, I have found that the ice has an equal contribution to the taste, and deserves some care in selection.

[Outcast_Searcher]

I do not envy them nor want their money.

No, you just want their money taken by the force of the state.

Once they've paid their taxes legally due, that's greed by proxy.

Or if you don't believe that, then don't use idiot threat titles like "Eat the Rich".

[Outcast_Searcher]

“We are talking about 10 people have the same as 60 million Mexicans,"

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/ ... -0011.html

Long past time go get rid of all these hyper-consuming scumbags!

Discuss...

Why not become one of the top 1% and give your money away. you could be a great example for others.

+1

I'm no where near the top 1%, but I earned my way comfortably into the top 10%, and don't apologize for that.

I pay more taxes by far than what I live on. I give away more by far than my taxes, but as per comments above, like to keep most of it within the family, close friends who are poor, or at least my local community (homeless/veterans with mental problems).

To me, once you're safe and even comfortable as far as not having to worry about getting what you need to be live a middle class lifestyle, being obsessed piling up more money is madness.

But regardless, I think it's wrong to want to confiscate the wealth of rich people, once they pay their taxes legally due. It's their property and their right to spend it or give it away or invest it as they wish, barring illegal stuff.

[onlooker]

The larger point is eluding some here. Your sucess, your wealth is all dependent upon your surroundings and particular situation. Nobody, achieves within a vacuum. The people in rich countries have been the beneficiaries of the Economic system that pegs them as the consumers. Other more numerous amounts of people were pegged as the ones to be exploited as part of the exploitation system. Could a slave in the 1700's aspire and attain anything more than being a slave. No. In the same way those born recently in places like Africa or the Middle East or South-Central America find it very difficult if not impossible to rise above their alloted station in life. So, the point is we all are very much products of our circumstances and that very much applies to socio-economic status.
I don't demand that we eat the rich or redistribute wealth. I do hope that our species may someday evolve into a softer course whereby we take into consideration the interests, wants and needs of EVERYBODY. And in so doing our societies in all aspects will reflect this. Maybe that is a Fantasy. In which case I find it ever more necessary and worthwhile to speak for those born into a fate not very kind or desirable.

[onlooker]

And as for Overpopulation being the one and sole reason for the dismal conditions of the poor countries that is not conceding the exploitation going on. Nor is it conceding that several strong reasons exist as to why people in poor countries have numerous children. One, because they know some will die soon after birth; because those children can grow up to afford their parents or grandparents much needed help in their old age; because a young man is very horny and will pressure a woman to have sex many times on the spur of the moment without either of them take any form of contraceptive; contraceptives are difficult/expensive to obtain for the poorest; Religious dogma forbids contraceptive use and encourages procreation; other economic advantages in having a child etc etc. So again the surrounding circumstances in poor countries have contributed to the overpopulation boom.