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"We just have to eliminate the poor" | Tech Bros Utopia (existentialcomics.com)

submitted 9 hours ago by haverholm@kbin.earth to c/socialism@beehaw.org

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Surely a society of all narcissistic tech bros whose only talent is talking people into giving them money would be ideal, right guys? Right?

Explain: One of the funniest stories in history that I heard was Dostoevsky recounting some utopian thinkers among the Russian Aristocracy that wanted to make everything rational, and someone objected saying the peasants would never go for it, so they replied "then we'll just eliminate the peasants". As though a society of all rich people would somehow work, even though the peasants did all the work, which is sort of the one thing you actually need for society to operate. The rich people would literally just starve in like two seconds.

People sort of still have the same idea today though, like if we can just eliminate the poor somehow, everyone will be rich and live off the interest from their stocks or whatever, not realizing that stocks only go up because somewhere, someone is actually doing work. Oh right, and uh, the robots will do all human labor in like the next 5 years, I forgot about that. Good luck with that one bros.

Existential comics is a philosophy webcomic about the inevitable anguish of living a brief life in an absurd world. Also Jokes

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[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

You need The Poors in order to be able to exist. The mistake techbros seem to be making is thinking that they won't become The Poors in a society of immortal super-beings who only need electricity to continue their existence (a la The Matrix).

Which makes sense - both nations and corporations are immortal super-entities and they were able to bend them to suit their wishes, as they had tribes before either of them.

Although I am not certain if they are merely being greedy in the short-term, or implementing longer-term strategies looking ahead to when humanity may be significantly reduced by the effects of climate change. Perhaps they hope to be hailed as saviors of humanity's upcoming remnants. I try not to think about that too much though - it does not seem healthy.

[–] luciole@beehaw.org 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Just want to point out corporations are systems of oppression. Nations are a mixed bag (I'm naive like that) that do contain systems of oppression as well. Hollow shells if not for the working class. They're leverage that makes it easier, not harder, to oppress the poor. If tech bros take pride in bending these entities to their will, they're failing to recognize they were on the same side all along. To be honest I don't give much credit to these guys' wisdom. Capitalism doesn't reward that. Sociopath workaholics with privilege and capital who never read their scifi until the end, the whole lot of them.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 1 points 7 hours ago

Yeah most of the men themselves seem to just be chasing some tiny semblance of human connection, like attempting to earn daddy's love. This seems to describe the likes of Musk and Zuckerberg.

Then Thiel seems on a whole other level, which might be best described as a semi- (or actual?) religious zeal.

Machiavellian principles act regardless of whether intentionally applied or not. I guess, they do what they found works for them, rather than hold back based on a sense of morality (or in the case of Thiel, having a contradictory morality).

To the detriment of us all, though they might be slightly happier themselves in the meantime, riding that wave of addictive destruction.