I’m afraid to tell you that, so far, Luigi is the only American with some balls.

They used to be involved in a cult. They still are, but they used to, too.

Eh, kinda true? Some egalitarian societies had no cops, many did in some way, shape, or form. I don’t have the means to provide links as sources but they’re out there… Many egalitarian societies had some form of “law” enforcement (“law” in quotations being not just the written-law the Western world is familiar with but cultural codes of conduct and the natural social contract) but had wildly different approaches to it. One society I’ve read about had seasonal rotations for the role of “police” as no one person could hold that position of authority indefinitely - thereby the abusive authoritarian cop would likely find themselves on the other side when their victims now hold the badge, so better be on your best behaviour when it’s your turn.

Some societies would have the cultural practices of ritualistically beating and humiliating their politicians and police on a regular basis, parading them down the streets in clownish makeup while flogging them sticks and whips, pelting them with rotten food and excrement, as a reminder to these people of their place in society and who they work for. If you were a popular or well-liked politican or cop, the people would feel bad and go easy on you. Makes one think twice about taking on those roles, better be on their best behaviour if they do… A far cry from how we do things nowadays. Not full egalitarian by any means, even if many other practices were egalitarian.

It’s shaky ground to classify cultures or societies as “egalitarian” as societies aren’t that simple. They’re a wild and colourful carnival of social experiments (at least they used to be.) Some societies were egalitarian on seasonal rotation as well, switching back and forth between egalitarian to brutal authoritarian. It’s also similar to when people say “egalitarian societies only work in small populations,” as there’s very little evidence to be convincing either way. Some egalitarian societies were small, some were enormous and spanned continents. In fact, most egalitarian societies were large and you often find strict, hierarchical authoritarianism in smaller groups - especially within families and households. Some hierarchical, authoritarian societies didn’t have police either.

Not saying that’s what you were saying, but it’s more for other readers to not confuse such ideas as “Egalitarian = No cops” or “Egalitarian = No money” etc. Truth is we can have whatever society we want, they’re all just playground rules at the end of the day. The ultimate truth is we choose the society we want every day with our actions, the way we treat others, and our politics. The State is just copium for people who wish to believe someone or something is in control, when in reality we live in a perpetual state of anarchy.

Seriously…

If we are to learn from history, and the successes of various resistance groups in Europe when occupied by the Nazis, we would learn that targetting the higher ups and figureheads don’t work. What DOES work, is targeting the workers - the average people who facilitate the machine. When the architect of the holocaust was assassinated, it only sped things up and made it worse. So instead resistance groups started doing drive bys on average ol’ Deborah’s and Johns who was employed to operate the Nazi bureaucracy, do the paperwork, doing the monitoring, doing the deliveries, average folk who worked for them - as destabilizing the machinery is far more effective than targeting figureheads. As leftists know so well - it’s the workers that do all the work.

So rather than shooting Musk, it will genuinely be more effective to shoot at Tesla/SpaceX/X employees until they stop showing up to work. Same goes for banks, private equity firms, hedge funds, healthcare insurance companies, etc. They don’t even have security detail. There’s a million other jobs they could be doing, real work like helping to rebuild, instead they choose to make these demons dreams come true in exchange for a financial bribe. As my atheist father would say about religion - “I fear not the cult leader, but the millions who follow them.” Workers and employees of these companies are just as fair, and empirically more effective targets than the billionaire CEOs.

…In a videogame, of course. I would never incite self-defence violence.

But I don’t see any blood on your gums.

Neither yours. I have visible, physical scars from fighting against capitalism and fascists. I don’t wanna eat them, I want them gone.

I just came.

Might create an epidemic of pregnancies and STDs, however. Eh… It’d be totally worth it tho.

That’s pretty quick as far as UK bureaucracy is concerned.

Super-soakers full of LSD and MDMA.

I agree with all of this, but it doesn’t answer the question. For many many people, people like my brother, who live a life of benefit from the capitalist system that is cooking our planet - where do they fit into the hypothetical revolution? All those words you’ve typed are things I’ve been trying to talk to him, my family, and everyone about. They just go “yeah it sucks,” and continue spending more time working for capitalists than spending time with their own family. They simply aren’t willing to listen, they don’t care, and why should they? Why would they give up their privileges? And if a massive climate disaster event occurs, do you think that’ll be enough to convince them? Or will their lifetime of invested loyalty have them double down to defend centralized food corporations that decide who does or doesn’t get to eat because “they offered me a competitive salary to work for them”? Because depending on a climate-collapse-induced-revolution I think is extremely pie-eyed, most people will happily side with fascists if they’re the one providing food and “jobs.” To some extent, people like my brother are already doing that. So what of them?

So what can my brother do, who works for a finance firm that invested $9billion into Palantir, who still thinks “High GDP = Human Progress” and capitalism is good, has a maths degree, has multiple kids who’s futures he thinks is totally fine because “money,” who has faith that technology will solve all our climate issues so investing into oil companies ain’t that bad, and even if his firm isn’t doing good for the earth at least he donates 25% of his salary to tax-reclaimable charities? Who believes in “effective altruism”? Who considers himself among “the capitalist class” because he now has enough money to make investments? Who still believes that everyone is responsible for their own circumstance, and if you’re poor it’s because you were financially irresponsible and lazy? Who thinks “material circumstances” are a cop-out? Who thinks Einstein is a brilliant man but can’t take 20 minutes to read his “why socialism” article?

For the millions of people with any spending power who can afford to buy their own home and afford private healthcare, their salaries depend on them to believe in the system, love capitalism, and protect that status quo… Where do they fit in this hypothetical revolution?

So we should show up to work tomorrow to keep this capitalist system alive and cooking?

“Can I play the piano anymore?” “Of course you can!” “Well I couldn’t before.”

The only thing they’re half-competent at is hiring local police to help kill civil rights leaders. Other than that these agencies fucking suck at their jobs and are really expensive about it too.

Speaking of Snowden and 9/11, I’m a fan of his take on the “conspiracy.”

Not that it was an inside job and the alphabet agencies purposely took down those buildings. The way I remember Snowden describing it was that CIA, FBI, NSA, and others knew about the attack ahead of time, but each of those departments wanted to be THE ONE TO STOP IT. So instead of working together, which if they had done they might’ve actually been able to thwart it, they would instead compete against eachother with more government funding being the prize. The conspiracy isn’t some financial cover up, or a false flag event, or a reptilian sacrifice to their death god or whatever. The conspiracy is that these agencies are more concerned about competing against one another for funding instead of working together to prevent attacks and loss of life. Just classic capitalism shit.

Then speaking of classic capitalism shit, because the attacks were known about ahead of time, insider trading happened and that would explain the shorting of United Airline stocks in the week before it happened. A lot of people saw opportunity from that tragedy, that could’ve been avoided, but wasn’t due to greed, competitiveness, and hubris.

Pretty sure it wasn’t the virgins that convinced them, and more like fighting back against an empire that was actively killing their people. Not defending their actions, just trying to curb back the blatant islamaphobia from your comment.

So you’re saying people in Africa have a better idea of how fucked Americans are, more so than Americans do? I mean, that honestly checks out.

Isn’t that why Israel was created out of thin fucking air to begin with? So Europe could have a place for Jews after moving them all out? Wasn’t Lord Balfour (of the Balfour Declaration) a white-supremacist anti-semite?