Not really all that interesting. It’s just the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_paradox wearing the cape of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

Without the fancy jargon, the argument is “All people must be free to do whatever they want (the paradox part they don’t say out loud is: except form a consensus)”

If you resolve the paradox, what you’re left with is exactly the same world we have now: everyone is free to do exactly what they want, including forming a consensus (that may restrict the freedom of the individual)

It’s a philosophical sleight of hand that’s easy to hide in grandiose and virtuous rhetoric. I’ve seen it often from the Libertarian Right, and I suspect so have others on Lemmy.

I recommend you check out analytic idealism instead:

https://philarchive.org/rec/KASAIA-3

This is one of the best and most ignored rules.

You are absolutely correct on all points. Now what do you propose we do about it?

You’re arguing with a straw man. The point isn’t that billionaires are the sole reason these things exist in some abstract sense - it’s that, in the world we actually live in right now, they control the levers that determine whether you have access to them at all. Nothing that we have right now could be possible if not for everything that came before it. So unless you invent a time machine, you’re arguing beside the point.

Claiming any of these things only exist because of billionaires is absurd. They take over and destroy.

But if they ‘took over,’ then by definition, the things that exist now - including the infrastructure you’re using to complain about them - exist because they allowed it. What you (and !Feyd@programming.dev ) have actually described is a world where billionaires are both all-powerful and completely irrelevant. That’s not a critique. That’s a paradox. And it’s a useful one because it lets you feel angry without actually taking any concrete action.

After all the Quanon stuff and the general population increasing their awareness of how conspiratorial thinking works, it’s weird to see “my side” use the same rhetorical tactics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Definitions_of_fascism&useskin=vector#Umberto_Eco

“Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as “at the same time too strong and too weak”. On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.”

Post about it on the internet built upon tech enabled by the said class in today’s world, from devices sold to us by the said class in today’s world, in our homes with comforts the existence of which wouldn’t be possible without the said class in today’s world. Then go to work using infrastructure and means we wouldn’t have without the said class in today’s world, likely doing work we wouldn’t have without the said class in today’s world. Perhaps go buy some food the likes of which we couldn’t dream of having access to without the said class in today’s world. Maybe indulge in a hobby - a leisurely distraction, the kind that only exists because the said class engineered today’s world where you have time and resources to waste on frivolity, while they decide what those resources are.

Anyone who wants to hold on to the comforts of modern life will have next to no power to make a change happen. Most of the money you spend goes into their pockets. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Option is to reduce spending, start exchanging favors without money (or develop your own currency with your friends) and if you have to spend money, prefer local goods and small services. Learn to fix things instead of buying new stuff. Offer community, food and fun to people with as little money investment as possible.

Make it work for you and people immediately around you. Get it to spread. This goes triple for you tankies out there. If you can’t get this to work at a small level, you will not bring about systematic change. The game is theirs, it’s rigged against you and bless your sweet honey heart, you somehow think you can win.

Not saying this is what I think everyone must do. I’ll be dead soon enough and I don’t have kids. But I am saying that if YOU want to see a change in the system, you need to start playing a different game that isn’t built on money.