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Education is the best way
Exactly why Reagan defunded higher education and every republican administration has dismantled public education.
"We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat." Not my words, but those of the Reagan administration.
Dumbed down masses are easier to control and mindlessly consume. Exactly why GTA6 will do massive numbers while Rockstar and Sony continue their cartoon villain evil streak.
Explain to them exactly how much a billion dollars is, so they understand
Ridicule.
You have to convince them that they won’t someday be billionaires themselves. And, convince them they don’t want to be billionaires.
Yeah, well said. Too many people are delusional
Explain to them that you can still be a billionaire if you are dead. You can still be a senator if you are dead. Next question.
when education does not work we build walls.
If they're being paid off you can't stop them. You have to stop the billionaires first, then the payoff money stops flowing and all of a sudden the arrogant and petty petit bourgeoisie are on their own desperately trying to convince you that they were on your side all along.
Be vocal about it. Not just online. Word of mouth is much stronger than a thousand online posts.
Posting about it on the fediverse does jack shit, because we already agree. Posting on Facebook or shitter where the boot lockers are also does jack shit, because the algorithm will sort your opinion out of where it needs to be, and it's cost free for them to post their angry indoctrinated talking points.
However there's absolutely nothing Zuckerberg or Musk can do to stop you from expressing your opinion to your family and friends in real life.
I'm fucking done with avoiding topics of politics out of politeness at family gatherings. I have absolutely no desire to cozy up in unspoken agreements of class war or racism or fascism.
I speak up, and so should you. Keep in mind that you need to repeat a point at least 3 times before they even begin thinking about it themselves. And that's what you want: Them to start thinking. They will come to right conclusion if they just start thinking.
In-group pressure and trauma are the only things that change minds. Traumatizing people is often rude, and maybe a crime, so it's safer to try to get people to see you as trusted in-group and then work on changing their minds.
I believe that a person can only change their mind when they themselves understand something.
F.i. You can't teach math. You can provide a pupil the necessary examples to come to the right results, but you cannot force feed knowledge. It only makes sense to the pupil when it makes sense in their own mind.
I also believe that many casual right wingers only hold their political views because they didn't think about it and didn't generate their own opinion. They caved in to group pressure. Each and every one of them must have at some point been aware of a situation in which they chose to not want to think about the righteousness of it and simply went with the stream of the group that they wanted to be in, even if it didn't necessarily align with anything they'd ever heard or believed before, because they were afraid to challenge the view. Some of them even pretend to have formed this opinion themselves and act proud and superior for going against a more commonly acknowledged opinion. But they're not. Their talking points are the same on a global level.
In every country in Europe the topics are the same, the false arguments are the same, the talking points are as irrelevant everywhere, yet they keep yelling them as if they had witnessed the second coming of Christ themselves. They're being fed like sheep, and I'll be honest and admit that I don't know how it works that well. It shouldn't but it does.
Anyway, I do not want to make group pressure, nor do I want to force my own opinion on them in a similar manner. I just to debate them enough and provide them with the necessary examples that they can form their own actual opinion.
I just to debate them enough and provide them with the necessary examples that they can form their own actual opinion.
This will be fruitless if they don't trust you. That's another way of saying you're in-group.
Yeah well, I don't stop strangers on the street to have a conversation about politics.
Most recently the debate where I live has been about agriculture against the environment. The subject came up at my last family gathering and despite the unspoken notion to keep it as civil as possible and just to nod in agreement I decided to stand up for my own opinion and made them think. Nobody dared to speak up for the opposing side, which would otherwise have been the consensus, and by now I'm pretty sure I've got my point across and that they themselves will be exposing this point of view or at least bring up that I'm of that point of view if they ever get into that debate elsewhere.
I count that as a win. Also the government made a decision yesterday in this favour, and while I obviously can't take any credit for that, at least my family will now understand why the decision was made.
I think we agree, then? What I was saying is you have to talk to people like your family. You have to have bonds with people, whether that's from being a family or just spending time together.
Absolutely. I read your post assuming it was intended to be in agreement to begin with.
I like how this is even possible on Lemmy in contrast to other places where disagreement is assumed as the default.
I sound like a broken record but, BAN ADVERTISING. Along with all the pretty well established secondary bad effects of advertising, the most basic direct effect of it is lying to people. If people weren't deluged daily with lies about how they should think of this or that company, they wouldn't be so readily deluded into thinking of a company like a person with a positive effect on their world.
only if it's actually banned and not allowing loopholes for "the government" and "public good"
im. ok with the government advertising there's an election coming up on date x, or be sure to get your vaccination etc but any political party advertising should be banned , their party policy platform can be on the government website but all commercial advertising should be banned.
It's so bad that when JC Penny tried to stop deceptive pricing they almost went out of business.
When I worked in retail, the store had different price label flags for different sales, discounts, etc. One of those was "Every Day Low Price." If something had they price it would never go on sale because they were loss leaders, even big ticket items. The prices on those were below the sale price of competitors.
Far too many times I had a person ask if something already in their cart was on sale, I'd give them the above spiel and even comparison shop for them, and every single time they'd put it back.
It was truly frustrating.
This. ☝🏻 We gotta ban advertising.
This. ☝🏻 We gotta ban advertising.
Shame. Cultural norms and taboos are reproduced through shame.
Look down on them. Call them bootlickers. Be clear that you think you're better than them. Make jokes at their expense. Roll your eyes. Leave them out of things.
That's how a culture exercises soft power against manners we think are unacceptable.
Education. But you can clearly see the defects of the last 40 years of defunding and deriding education.
Ruthless mockery.
Probably won't work, but at least you'll get a laugh out of it.
Could work tbh. If you show ppl the mirror of reality of them living in dirt conditions while their favourite billionaire buys their dog a 3rd 100 sqm house, they may wake up.
Havent seen alot about musks, gates, etc spending sprees. Bezos had that wedding. Zuckerberg is buying up Hawaii. This needs to be way more prominent.
I like that answer.
Education, help your community, try to help people around you getting out of their job thoughts and doing something they actually like, meet new people
You're three bad months away from being homeless.
You will never be three good months away from being a billionaire.
I think I could become a billionaire if I started off as a trillionaire
Naaah. If you were a trillionaire, you'd have activated the cheat code to be wealthy for at least 4 generations, and who cares about your great-grandkids really?
You under estimate my ability to buy stupid things
Billionaires do that all the time. Still living the easy life.
a billion dollars (ignoring the anti-crashing-the-market laws) is an amount someone could spend "reasonably" (look at widebody aircraft, asml euv lithography machines, and aircraft carriers) , a trillion dollars would require quite a bit of innovation to spend.
I'd invest in AI. That'll get rid of a trillion dollars per quickly
Mostly independent media. Throw in a ban on advertising if you are already at it. Probably not realistic, maybe just much harsher rules on obvious lies and political influencing campaigns in media. Much harsher prosecution.
Platforms like twitter and facebook (and many "news" companies) brainwash their users, mostly by providing multiple different lies. Users pick whichever lie appeals to them the most, and they pretend they have found the truth.
To combat this, we need to emphasize the importance of thinking critically and verifying claims.
State the facts. Correct their misconceptions. Emphasize that billionaires are intentionally killing us all; lazy thinkers might reconsider if there is a possibility their life is at stake. I'm not saying threaten them, but we are all threatened by human greed.
The people you're talking to might not listen, but someone else might. Sometimes it just takes repetition to get through to someone, hearing the same clear message from multiple different sources.
Advocate for stakeholder socialist policies like worker and consumer coöps that would render billionaires impossible.
This. Arguing with people online is -- with all due respect -- a complete waste of time if your goal is to change the world.
Ignore the people who have dumb opinions. It isn't as though if you win 500 arguments Elon Musk donates all his money to Socialism.
Go join a tenant's union or a mutual aid society. Go build the alternative world that doesn't transfer all our money upward.
(Also, though, if you do this long enough there will likely be a revolution. But that part comes after you feed and shelter enough people that it begins to become a threat to capital. It's downstream. Either way, don't bother trying to persuade strangers on the internet,)
How much do you want to invest in ammo and a solid backing wall?
you would have to stop all the MSM from airing news in a certain way, like no tabloid/opinion pieces.
Mock them.