This is why I read @pluralistic He's so good at succinctly summing up important high-level concepts and then connecting them with the current problems we face.
#capitalism #wealth #oligarchy

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Piketty shows that this holds true across markets and nations and eras: all other things being equal, the market system produces a class of hereditary aristocrats who command the world's capital and direct its deployment, despite never having done anything. The market's most lavish rewards do not go to its most productive participants, but rather, to those participants who have the good fortune to emerge from the luckiest of orifices.

#usempiredecline #Rome #fallofrome #christianity #SeperateChurchAndState #oligarchy

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Stxtus learning about the fall of rome, it sounds pretty sucky. a plague resulting in labor shortage, bad military leadership, christianity mattered more than the government, multiple civil wars, infighting, decisions created to benefit the rich more than the poor- hey wait a minute UGM

@nixCraft lol, well, considering the #TechBros and #FossilFuels #oligarchy have some of the best data analysts in the industry; they'll be able to ascertain putting more of a squeeze on the masses when too many overlapping ecosystems are past, too many tipping points to keep funding. So they extract as much as they can, while they can.

In other words, the Northern Hemisphere is "doomed".

AI altering meaning of users’ drafts on issues from abortion to climate, study finds | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/06/ai-altering-meaning-of-users-drafts-on-issues-from-abortion-to-climate-study-finds

> Researchers say small changes in drafting could spread rapidly and create long-term shifts in public opinion

Grok ‘has been instructed by Musk’s company – which billed Grok as a “maximum truth-seeking” AI – to challenge “mainstream narratives”.’

“AI is forcing itself in as a gatekeeper of knowledge and understanding.”

No, it isn't. The tech bro owners of the AI™ corporations are forcing themselves in. LLMs do not have agency.

#AI #LLM #Oligarchy

Interview: Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, et al say:

"I'll just spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the government outright... I can then have the government reward me with billions of dollars of contracts".

If the SEC, FTC or anyone else "is investigating my companies... I can just tell them to knock it off, & they'll do it."

20 years ago, Musk couldn't do that. But then SCOTUS said "we'll allow it."

~Dave Karpf

https://www.thenerdreich.com/attack-of-the-trillionaire/

#USPol #EUPol #oligarchy .

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Trump, thiel

RE: https://mastodon.social/@DrALJONES/116823309001369282

#JeffreyEpstein’s “genius” was to use the rape of children (there were boys too) to organize and radicalize who he saw as the new USA #oligarchy emerging in Silicon Valley and ―up to the now significant year of 2005―, mostly went to work for Wall Street or the military-industrial complex.

yes, there were people from other countries, but when you see his emails, it’s clear he was organizing the #techbros #gringolarchy.

so, if #tech is the #broligarchy’s #war machine, they’re military targets.

Cops Warn CEO Bodyguards That #LuigiMangione Fever Could Spark #ClassWar

Cops warned corporate bodyguards that “challenges faced by the middle and lower classes” might spur attacks on wealthy #CEOS.

By Glen Stellmacher, Noah Hurowitz
June 25 2026, 1:38 p.m. ET

"A law enforcement intelligence hub in New Jersey fretted that the growing class divide in the U.S. could drive a wave of lone-wolf attacks on high-flying corporate executives, according to a report obtained by The Intercept.

"The New Jersey Regional Operations and Intelligence Center, one of the so-called #FusionCenters that serve as intelligence clearinghouses for cops, warned in a bulletin earlier this year that disaffected Americans were increasingly blaming society’s ills on #RichPeople and #CorporateBigwigs.

"The report specifically cited the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024 — allegedly by Luigi Mangione — as an expression of #AntiFatCat rhetoric. To the analysts at the New Jersey fusion center, Thompson’s killing hinted at a larger trend.

" 'Public discourse increasingly attributes the challenges faced by the middle and lower classes to the actions and influence of wealthy #corporateexecutives,' the fusion center memo says.

"By warning corporate security outfits of the danger posed by average Americans who blame their problems on the actions of corporate executives, the report effectively dedicates public resources to securing a private system that has made the few extremely wealthy at the expense of the many."

Read more:
https://theintercept.com/2026/06/25/police-luigi-mangione-wealthy-ceos-threat/

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/WFji6

#TaxTheRich #PayYourFairShare #Oligarchy #Corporatocracy #Oligarchs #CorporateFascism #Austerity #CEOHuntingSeason #LetThemEatCake

But even Christians have their idols (dogmas, creedos, liturgies, customs, rituals) that blind them to the one and only one truth.

"My people perish for lack of knowledge ..."

Instead many Christians believe they have chosen the right narrow path, which is just one lane in the broad road superhighway to hell.

Real democracy for electing rulers is done by lottery, not by party ballot. Every citizen puts a name in the ballot box and then a random name is selected, and the candidate is examined. If the candidate passes muster, then he is the one put in the office. No campaigns, no campaign finance, no speeches, none of that garbage has any place in actual democracy.

The Bible has multiple instances in the law of God for casting lots (lottery) to choose a leader or successor for an office. That is real democracy. The Greeks called ballots for party or public candidate by a Greek word: Oligarchy.

Everyone who calls elections by the name of democracy doesn't know what democracy is. Democracy is not the 'choice of the people' but rather the 'random choice of God' from among the people. This is how the Greeks and Israelites originally practiced democratic elections. The idea of 'running for office' was anciently seen as a form of insurrection or oligarchy, not democracy.

#Democracy #Elections #Oligarchy #Vote #Government