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from the picthfork-futures-accelerate-to-new-highs dept.
Nick Hanauer, a self-described "plutocrat" says history shows that the current economic and governmental situation can't last, and the USA should should get busy changing before the system breaks down.
From the memo to his "Fellow Zillionaires":
I founded aQuantive, an Internet advertising company that was sold to Microsoft in 2007 for $6.4 billion. In cash. My friends and I own a bank. I tell you all this to demonstrate that in many ways I'm no different from you. Like you, I have a broad perspective on business and capitalism. And also like you, I have been rewarded obscenely for my success, with a life that the other 99.99 percent of Americans can't even imagine.
But let's speak frankly to each other. I'm not the smartest guy you've ever met, or the hardest-working. I was a mediocre student. I'm not technical at all - I can't write a word of code. What sets me apart, I think, is a tolerance for risk and an intuition about what will happen in the future.
If we don't do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn't eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It's not if, it's when.
(Score: 4, Funny) by EvilJim on Thursday July 03 2014, @08:43AM
Alistair Crowley gave up his fortune for drugs, sex and satanic rituals, does that count? }:)
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday July 03 2014, @07:19PM
If you think Crowley engaged in satanic rituals, you don't understand either Crowley or satanism. Anton LeVey(sp?) was closer to being a satanist, but I actually think he was just a con-man. Some of his disciples, however, WERE satanists.
Yeah, I know that's off the main point. And I sort of agree with you. There are individuals who from an ecstatic belief (or just fanaticism...it may not always be ecstatic) will do unusual things, even to the point of impoverishing themselves...or worse. People have willingly put themselves into the hands of torturers in the expectation that it would eventually kill them.
The real thing is, however, that that kind of government is usually only overthrown by a coup. The Menshevik revolution was an extreme exception...and you'll notice that they were quickly overthrown by the Bolsheviks. Usually what happens is that the government is so weakened by internal strife among the upper classes that someone outside steps in and takes over.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by EvilJim on Thursday July 03 2014, @11:23PM
quite possibly, my info only comes from a couple of youtube docos so really not sure how reliable they are. also I only have a passing interest in Crowley, not something I'm deeply studied in :)
(Score: 1) by NickM on Friday July 04 2014, @12:58AM
He was not a satanist he was a nietzschean uberman actualizing his will to power in a dramatic way.
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !