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Csonicgo

Occupy Wall Street

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Gez said:

The Outraged and Wall Street Occupiers are a very real threat, so they have to be harshly repressed and cruelly mocked. The Cultists of Mammon will do everything they can to stop them.



Revolutions have started this way. We'll see how it ends.

To be honest, I can't really take these protesters seriously but they may ignite something the bigshots may *not* be able to stop anymore.

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Graf Zahl said:

To be honest, I can't really take these protesters seriously but they may ignite something the bigshots may *not* be able to stop anymore.


Seriously? They are not even half as damaging or aggressive as the riots that occur in Europe nearly all the time, and those usually fail to bring about any real change, especially when the protests degenerate into widespread hooliganism or the police gets exceedingly heavy-handed. A few hundred people arrested by the police for "public disturbance" in a relatively mild manner? Not even close. Let them escalate to the level of a desperate ghetto riot -the very least- and then we're talking.

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Maes said:

Let them escalate to the level of a desperate ghetto riot -the very least- and then we're talking.

And that'll never happen because they wish to be taken at least somewhat seriously. The problem is that the only way to be taken seriously is by having a lot of money or an absolutely and incredibly impassioned group willing to literally lay down their lives for the cause. One needs only look at the american civil right movement. It took millions of people and many years, and violent and deadly marches and protests and assassinations. And this was for people looking simply to be treated fairly and equally by the rest of society. They were fighting for something that they shouldn't have had to have been fighting for in the first place. It should've been the default way things were. OTOH...

These occupy protesters, as much as I agree with them and admire their will and conviction, their aims are to undermine the basis of our financial institutions and foundations of our predatory capitalistic society. If the civil rights movement took what it took, then this is going to take a very real armed revolution, a coup d'etat, a fucking civil war. The people and institutions that have real power will not give it up without a fight. Blood will be required to be spilled and many lives lost. Shouting in a park and tweeting about said shouting will do nothing.

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In five years, they will be forgotten, but in five years, I'll probably still want to slap the lot of you, armchair revolutionaries.

Obviously I can't nor will ever be able to do that, so let me be the "first world problem" guy and express my contempt for anyone ranting about the evils of capitalism while typing on their fancy smartphones or top of the line computers built by chinese children, on which they spent as much money as what could feed an african family for a month. Who cares about them, they're just niggers or chinks, right? Can't have no crummy $10 cellphone to communicate, no sir, how the hell could a common man defend their oppressed freedom without the ability to play Angry Birds or read the latest antics of Lindsay Lohan in real time while they're behind the wheel - sure, the environment is hurting and all that, but public transportation is for losers, cool guys like them deserve to drive nice cars. And eat outside daily. And watch movies. And play video games. All of which are, like, essential human needs, man.

There's getting by decently while disliking the system, and there's crapping all over your expressed ideals by living a life of luxury. That western standards of living have gotten so high the latter became not only the norm but also accepted within circles that claim the system sucks infuriates me to no end. There's simply no excuse for that kind of ignorance expressed on the Internet, where you're a search away from looking up what goes on in other parts of the world or earlier in history.

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I'll just leave these here to sum up why it's impossible for me to take most of these protestors seriously.

Yeah, the Tea Party movement had signs that made much more sense, right?

Phml said:

WALL OF TEXT

They're not complaining about captialism. They're protesting against this backwards version of capitalism where people can make fortunes while doing absolutely nothing for society. Wall Street is the epitomy of that. They don't make cars. They don't make food. They don't make cellphones. They don't hire workers. All they do is trade money and make bets on which companies are going to succeed and which ones are going to fail.

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Graf Zahl said:

Revolutions have started this way. We'll see how it ends.

To be honest, I can't really take these protesters seriously but they may ignite something the bigshots may *not* be able to stop anymore.

That's what I was saying before. The Boston Massacre started as a protest, and eventually ended up triggering a full-blown revolution. There is a distict possibility history could repeat. At any rate, unlike the Civil Rights movement, those in power have a lot to loose if they make concessions to the protesters. Unfortunately, I don't think this will end peacefully.

Phml said:

Obviously I can't nor will ever be able to do that, so let me be the "first world problem" guy and express my contempt for anyone ranting about the evils of capitalism while typing on their fancy smartphones or top of the line computers built by chinese children, on which they spent as much money as what could feed an african family for a month. Who cares about them, they're just niggers or chinks, right? Can't have no crummy $10 cellphone to communicate, no sir, how the hell could a common man defend their oppressed freedom without the ability to play Angry Birds or read the latest antics of Lindsay Lohan in real time while they're behind the wheel - sure, the environment is hurting and all that, but public transportation is for losers, cool guys like them deserve to drive nice cars. And eat outside daily. And watch movies. And play video games. All of which are, like, essential human needs, man.

Don't be an idiot. The people forcing children in China to make cellphones in terrible conditions are the same people taking away our jobs and murdering our economy. Getting rid of them means some hope for the rest of the world.

And when was the last time you saw a fucking $10 phone? I got my phone 5 years ago, I went for the cheapest model I could, and it cost me $50 still. Also, it was loaded with all sorts of "features" I never used like internet connectivity, dozens of apps, a camera, and all sorts of crap like that. The cell phone companies MAKE you buy the shit with dozens of bloated add-ons because anything else is "obsolete" so they don't sell it anymore (and of course, their new model is $30 more expensive).

As for public transportation, I WISH I had some public transportation around here. It barely fucking exists in most of the country. Due to budget cuts, the busses around here only operate 5 hours a day, 6 days a week, and they've cut back on the amount of lines. If you need to get to work early in the morning or leave in the evening, you're shit out of luck. Even in Seattle it's getting bad. They've cut a lot of their bus lines in recent and got rid of the free ride zone there. Don't even get me started with the ferries. Every time they discuss putting in more public transportation, it gets shot down by hoity-toity business owners who think it would be "disruptive" (meaning they'd have to see more poor people in their area).

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Quast said:

One needs only look at the american civil right movement. It took millions of people and many years, and violent and deadly marches and protests and assassinations. And this was for people looking simply to be treated fairly and equally by the rest of society.


Exactly. Considering it a "success" is like claiming that the ass rapist reaming you will, at some point, have to finish/take a break, and so you define "success" the brief pause before a fully rested and more energic one takes his place, reaming you even harder. The rapists may get eventually tired of your loosened-up ass, but you ain't getting the tightness back ;-)

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Wagi said:

Yeah, the Tea Party movement had signs that made much more sense, right?

The tea party 'protests' and the occupy protests are not analogous in any fashion. The tea party was created by and funded by and advertised by the media moguls and the powers that be. And their general message was simple and stupid enough that jane and john doe middle america could easily jump on board.

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Yeah, this is all kind of foreign stuff to me :P

OWS is barely getting any real coverage in the UK from what I've seen and until this thread I had literally no idea what it was all about.

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Protests are good for getting the word out and for maybe giving a little scare to the 1% as its called

However, I don't think significant change will happen without significant action. Whether that is political action, or something else. I think a massive "boycott" might be in order - that is, if every normal citizen goes ahead and withdraws all of their money from their big bank institution (i.e. bank of america, wells fargo, jp morgan, citibank, etc) and puts it into a smaller, more local bank, or a credit union.

The government has a lot of power, but it's also its own sort of mega-corporation seeking loads of money. Change might happen faster if instead of asking them to help, consumers take matters into their own hands (the possibility of which is one of the good things about capitalism)

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I think Anonymous is just the hip thing now. I don't get the whole occupy Wall Street thing... but maybe that's because I fall into the 1%.

And I don't think Wall Street is the problem. Its a problem, but not the problem. I think the banks are the #1 problem coupled with deadbeats that can't or choose not to repay their debt (I know plenty of people that just declair bankrupcy or con the system into keeping everything they've borrowed without paying it back).

I also think the Internet is the #2 problem because the Internet costs people jobs and destroys local economies. Even if the Internet makes new jobs, it stomps out a lot more in the process. Everything is free and working for free or getting things for free lowers the value and destroys jobs. Music, newspapers, movies, real estate professionals, graphic design, dating professionals, marketing are all industries suffering, because they have been automated online. Where you can now "do it yourself."

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geo said:

I also think the Internet is the #2 problem

Then what the fuck are you doing on an internet forum for? The internet is not a problem for those reasons, the world just simply needs to adapt over time to the advancement of technology. The internet is a great thing, and has allowed the world to communicate like never before.

Just because some things are easier to do on the internet doesn't make it bad because it takes away jobs from the market using the old method. That's just simply what happens when new/easier/better ways of doing things come about. The world eventually adapts.




Anyway, who wants to bet that these guys will be staying as long as they possibly can, and then the authorities just crack down on the entire protest, despite no violence. Then there would be some sort of huge controversy over protesting rights. Of course, the government would like to stamp out those that speak out against them.

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LOL just because I think its the problem won't make me want to be the one to solve it. One person can't make a difference.

The itunes store doesn't require many employees compared to all the record stores across the US. Kind of like employing 50 people per country instead of 50 people per city.

I'm not sure how the world can adapt to that.

>>> edit : Protesters staying for a long time would be interesting. It would make me think they have no job to get to...

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geo said:

I'm not sure how the world can adapt to that.

It will, some way or another. Similar to how in the industrial revolution, when machines that were more efficient began to replace workers. It recovered.

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Detroit's crime rate went up for the 10-20 years when all of the auto makers replaced thousands of workers with robots.

Some companies chose to use humans instead of robots in the past decade.

Maybe the US intends for the unemployed to get sick and die because they aren't covered for health insurance when they don't work.

Here's another thing. A woman on welfare gets more $$$ if she has a kid. That's good incentive to have a kid.

Banks would also give people loans knowing the people couldn't pay it back. In fact I saw a bank give an ex gf a $5,000 loan for cosmetic reasons when she had no job for 2 years, wasn't going to school and she was living off of other people. Yep within 10 minutes she got a loan for anti acne laser surgery. wtf? Maybe they gave the loan because $5,000 isn't $100,000. Years later, I think she's paid back $150 over the past 4 years (not that I still know her). That's $5,000 the bank is in the hole. How does that make sense? Money doesn't just appear.

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Yeah, I think the human population is getting too high, even if it stayed the same. As the world moves forward, there's less demand for people, as machines that we build do our tasks for us. It needs to go down, so that we don't have basically useless people that have no purpose other than taking up space.

I think the best solution to this is to lower birth rates, and increase adoption rates.

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Machines will find a use for humans. You've seen the Matrix right? My money is on the robot apocalypse and not the zombie one. That's assuming that Earth just doesn't reset itself. Like an overflow trigger that flushes a toilet.

Oh yes lower birth rates and increase adoption rates... You'd have America wide protests. People would say this isn't China. Plus then good luck enforcing it. The lowest forms of life always have the most offspring.

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geo said:

Banks would also give people loans knowing the people couldn't pay it back. In fact I saw a bank give an ex gf a $5,000 loan for cosmetic reasons when she had no job for 2 years, wasn't going to school and she was living off of other people. Yep within 10 minutes she got a loan for anti acne laser surgery. wtf? Maybe they gave the loan because $5,000 isn't $100,000. Years later, I think she's paid back $150 over the past 4 years (not that I still know her). That's $5,000 the bank is in the hole. How does that make sense? Money doesn't just appear.


They do it for the same reason that credit card company's will give any one a credit card. A lot of people only make the recommended minimum payments that only cover the interest generated by the card or loan. Or they wait tell the interest has added up to a large sum and send the account to a collection agency that can and most of the time garnish your wages. No matter what happens they will make more money then the loan or credit card is worth.

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geo said:

Machines will find a use for humans. You've seen the Matrix right? My money is on the robot apocalypse and not the zombie one. That's assuming that Earth just doesn't reset itself. Like an overflow trigger that flushes a toilet.

Oh yes lower birth rates and increase adoption rates... You'd have America wide protests. People would say this isn't China. Plus then good luck enforcing it. The lowest forms of life always have the most offspring.


The Matrix is full of shit. If you can feed humans you don't need to use them for power.

Lowering the birth rate of the U.S. isn't a problem. Industrialized countries already have birth rates and only grow or stabilize through immigration. People with money don't want six kids. Many of them don't want any.

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But as we all know, the OWS people are just angry for no reason and it's impossible to know what they're really about.

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geo said:

Machines will find a use for humans.

They already have - building new and better machines, feeding them, providing communications infrastructure and (in most cases) a safe environment. Once machines have developed to the point of being able to fend for themselves they may decide we're an unnecessary hindrance they're better off without.

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GreyGhost said:

Once machines have developed to the point of being able to fend for themselves they may decide we're an unnecessary hindrance they're better off without.


Heh, and to think that Asimov had written a story about a twist of said possibility: in "I, Robot", Chapter 3 "Reason", the QT robot is -almost- able to convince his human assemblers/makers that they could not really be his makers, through the "self-evident" fact that "an inferior creature cannot design one that is its superior in every aspect" (which I always considered somewhat of a fallacy, since I could very well "design" a being that's like me but a bit better, and that one can build one that's a bit better than itself etc. Dammit, Asimov, I never forgived you for that one!)

As someone else already pointed out though, the Luddites may finally get to be proven right: the point where machines will be used to keep productivity levels pretty the much the same while lowering demand for human labor has come. That would be true if it wasn't for China: there, the demand for manual unskilled or semi-skilled labor is still high, but let's face it, who of you DWers would like to work a 12 or even an 8-hour shift in a factory doing something repetitive like e.g. drilling a hole through a bolt for 100000 times a day?

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People have got to get a job to earn a living. It's not possible to have moochers consuming without producing. Humans just aren't productive enough for such a system to be possible.

This is the fundamental basis on which our economy is built. If you want to consume, you've got to produce by being a worker somewhere. That's how you get a wage which will allow you to buy the things that you and other workers have produced.

It works well, when collectively the produced output matches the demand, or to put it another way, if on average one person produces enough to provide for one person, and is paid enough to cover the needs of one person.

But since the first Industrial Revolution, we've seen boosts after boost in productivity. Crises are no longer caused by shortage in production, but by shortage in consumption -- if people don't consume as much as is produced, businesses can't recover their expenses and are forced to lay off their workers, who having lost their wages can buy even less stuff, causing other businesses to fail, and so on. The 1929 crisis was largely this. Agricultural production even has seen quotas being invented as a way to prevent the offer from outgrowing the demand so much that the producers ruin themselves.

World War II was followed by an era of incredible prosperity because, well, Europe being so ruined led both to an increase in demand (gotta rebuild everything) and a decrease in production (can't manufacture a lot of stuff while you're still waiting for your factory to be rebuilt).

Since then, Europe has recovered and the third world countries are quickly industrializing. Shit has never been so deliriously plentiferous as now. Lookit all these fancy electronics gizmos everywhere, the cell phones and iPuds and stuff. They're being built by Chinese sweatshops (like Foxconn).

Ever heard about Fordism? Henry Ford knew the potential of heavy industry. His idea was twofold: 1, cheap goods; 2, well-paid employees. The workers would be able to buy what they made, and so they would do so, and that would make just that many additional customers for the business right there. Well, this idea has been completely lost. Think a Foxconn workers can afford the latest iPid? They can't, and neither can the all-American ex-employee whose job has been outsourced to China.

As productivity per person keeps increasing, unemployment will keep increasing as well. If you need less persons to do the job, you need less persons. Sure, they might be able to find jobs elsewhere, by discovering new needs they might fulfill; but that's where you really fall in the "first world problem" issue: if you're creating artificial needs so as to justify your continued existence, you're not really a useful member of society.

There's basically only two options here, and honestly I see neither being adopted, so we're all fucked. These options are as follow:
1. Full-on luddism. Hamper individual productivity so as to increase again the demands for more workers. People will toil away earning their living while knowing that there would be a much more efficient way to do their job, but it'd be too efficient. Of course, people would cheat the system and use machines in secret.
2. Leisure society where everything is free and people work as a hobby rather than an obligation. Ahahaha, do you really think mankind would be able to make that work for long?

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Gez said:

2. Leisure society where everything is free and people work as a hobby rather than an obligation. Ahahaha, do you really think mankind would be able to make that work for long?


That's exactly what the upper/ruling classes have always been doing. Some (few) people may be able to do this almost indeterminately (or for as long as their dynasties/hegemonies/empires/hoards last).

It's a classic case where extending a privilege to far too many people makes it meaningless/waters it down to the point that none can really enjoy its benefits.

Take e.g. motorized transport, tertiary education and computers: once they were privileges of the rich or necessary tools for real professionals or specialists. Nowadays they are so common as to create traffic jams/unemployed engineers/a fuckton of issues, with the result that very few people (if any) can really claim to be traveling faster, get a better job or work/communicate more efficiently thanks to them. And at that point you start wondering if it was really that bad without them, or when their use was more restricted.

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One of the biggest problems is people are electing the wrong people. Electing people based on speeches, blind faith or party affiliation is a recipe for disaster. We need to start judging candidates by there political history and we need to start questioning every thing we are being told. Like wise people need to not let things like race, religion or sexual orientation prevent them from voting for the person for the job. If a black, lesbian that happens to be Jewish is best candidate out of the bunch then that's who we need to vote for.

Doing simple things like apply tried and true logic to some of the things coming out of Washington now it will save us a lot of grief in the long run. One of things being said is that deregulating industries is going to create jobs. Ask your self how does that factor into supply and demand. Is this going to get consumers to start demanding more products or services from these companies to the point where they need to hire more people to increase productivity needed to meet the new demand for what they are selling? The answer is no its not. It will cut the cost of doing businesses and increase profits for these companies. And we all know what companies do with extra profit. Give there CEO's or executives raises and such. They have been doing for years.

Another load of crap being thrown around is that the rich are the job creators. Once again lets lets factor in supply and demand to this. A company that manufactures tile flooring had a massive increase in demand for there products during the housing market bubble. There for the company bought more equipment and hired more people to help the make enough tiles to supply the increased demand. What group of people where reasonable for the increase in demand for these tiles? The rich guy that is not buying houses or the working class people buying houses with tile flooring installed in them?

You have to remember a company only hire people to help them sell there goods or services if and when they are in demand. No company is going to hire some one to do a job that isn't there. The working class generates more demand for products and services then the top 10% does. A thriving working class is key to pulling us out of this mess we are in. Any politician that tells you anything different is feeding you a load of bull and is trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

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