Despite promises of colonizing Mars, ushering in paradise through VR, and piloting "Wellness" programs, the wealthy aren't ACTUALLY interested in dealing with humanity's problems.
They're focused on getting *beyond* humanity to increase profits.
To really understand our bizarre moment and crisis, we have to take a look at both the history of capitalism and the current cults of personality that have developed around disgustingly wealthy men like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, who have become savior-like to their followers.
2/
The worship of men like Musk and Bezos is centered around a loss of faith in our political and societal structures and a need to find messiahs who might act singularly, outside those systems, to create a solution to problems like climate catastrophe and political schisms.
3/
We are so desperate to believe in some future beyond our current crisis that we're accepting these adolescent fantasies that these men of power and wealth will simply craft us a future...if we just allow them to consolidate more and more wealth and power.
4/
The idea of living in a Mars colony is attractive to those who see no possible way of remedying the climate crisis.
It's literally a promise of a Heaven beyond life, a religious faith that something, somehow, will save us without requiring any action beyond purchasing.
5/
Meanwhile, these ideas that we'll just "escape to virtual reality" is a surrendering of shared society, an admission that our political and social polarization is not only untenable but unfixable.
It's a surrendering of life and reality to the wealthy and powerful.
6/
But the purpose of these pursuits, both interstellar colonization and digital religions, is to hide the very real and inhuman means these people are using to acquire wealth and power and to obscure the awful history of this process that has revolved around cruelty.
7/
To believe we're going to escape to Mars or VR, that men like Bezos or Musk will save us, is to go ahead and accept that the dehumanization of their businesses is totally fine, that their destruction of the environment is a means to an end.
It makes people feel better.
8/
It's necessary to talk about the rise of capitalism and how these religious ideas made white supremacy and colonization possible.
The destruction of cultures, genocide, and slavery were laundered through religious faith that the cruelty would lead to future utopias.
9/
It's no coincidence that exploitation of cultures and the stealing of their resources by the point of the sword and barrel of the gun were always accompanied with missionaries preaching of a religious purpose.
The violence is always hidden by the faith.
10/
White supremacy, enabled and destined to move resources to the hands of a white and wealthy few, was propped up by religion and religious faith.
After all, the accumulation of resources and exploitation of people had to be for a *purpose*, or a future utopia.
11/
Slavery was whitewashed with the same idea, given "legitimacy" through religious stories of ancient curses and God shining grace on the white race.
Again, slavery was a necessary evil that would, over time, lead to a utopia. The promise was the cause.
12/
The truth is, the wealthy aren't going to save us from climate change.
They caused it.
They have no answer for it except for to promise us future utopias FREE FROM IT. And those utopias depend on more production and more destruction of the environment.
13/
The wealthy promising they'll get us off Earth before it's destroyed by climate change is telling us to have FAITH that further destruction of the environment is necessary.
It's the same utopic promising that legitimized genocide, slavery, and exploitation.
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The wealthy will not help us. They've already shown this. As automation and declining economies persist, they'll leave us to food lines, to suffer on our own.
The utopic promise will continue, but it will only be a front for the continued exploitation and profiting.
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And as the wealthy consolidate political control, our polarization and violence will only get worse.
The government will continue to be coopted and pushed in the direction of their choosing, resulting in worsening material conditions and spurring more disorder.
16/
The truth is that these promise of a future utopia, whether on Mars or in the digital space, are hollow, requests for religious faith where it isn't deserved.
If we're going to solve the climate crisis, if we're going to fix our politics, we have to do it ourselves, and it will involve massive changes and a lot of work.
We can't buy our way out of this and we can't depend on the techno-messiah false prophets who got us here.
18/18
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The most important story of the 2024 Election is going untold.
Kamala Harris isn’t just facing Donald Trump, JD Vance, and the GOP. She’s squaring off against fascist Tech billionaires using them as puppets to destroy democracy.
Vance becoming Trump’s VP pick was a political marriage between MAGA and Far Right Tech Fascism. They are now a front for Musk, Theil, and a generation of tech oligarchs who have been quite open about their desire to co-opt government for power and profit.
What is happening with the Tech Fascists is the same thing we’ve seen before. Industrialist always use their obscene wealth to corrupt government and then find authoritarian puppets to finish the job and multiply their power.
This is yet another chapter in a long, long story.
JD Vance is a historic piece of shit who sold out his family and people to make a buck and gain power. He’s in bed with techno-fascist billionaires and is one of the foremost advocates for a literal fascistic ideology that seeks to take MAGA to the next level of oppression.
It’s bad enough that Vance is such a colossal asshole and that his ideology is literally fascistic, but he is capable of taking the MAGA baton and turning it into a force the likes of which most have yet to even imagine.
Terrible, terrible day for the country.
If our media returns to fawning over Vance because they want to hate poor people, I’m going to lose my everloving mind.
This is serious, serious business. And we all got a whole lot less safe today.
For years MAGA has promoted a culture of violence and oppression.
Now, in the wake of the shooting, calls to lower the temperature disgustingly obscure that fact and also undermine the need to protect millions of Americans from authoritarianism.
This isn’t a “both sides” issue. One side has waged an authoritarian war on democracy predicated on violence. The other has said people deserve safety and dignity and shouldn’t be hunted and systematically erased.
This false equivalency is disgusting. And telling.
The Center in America has now revealed what it truly believes. Fighting authoritarianism is “ugly” and “dangerous.”
It’s much easier and more pleasant to wring hands and welcome the authoritarianism and make nice with it. The media and political class enjoys that privilege.
Absolutely disturbing but unsurprising that they’ve managed to equate a movement’s constant fearmongering and calls for literal violence and murder with people saying, hey, maybe this other side calling for literal violence and murder is dangerous.
I just want people to remember that the reason this environment is so charged is because 1. One group has spent years openly talking about carrying out a bloody, reactionary revolution and 2. There are literal human beings whose lives and fates are on the line.
When you say, “Hey, let’s all take it down a notch,” you’re spitting in the face of women, people of color, immigrants, gay and trans people.
The stakes are actually as high as they can be. But there is one side constantly pushing a bloody resolution.
Trump has used Christianity’s persecution complex and obsession with apocalyptic danger to his advantage, crediting imaginary battles between Good and Evil.
Now, they have a ready-made situation that will inflame those fears and necessitate more extremism.
The ground was prepared for the MAGA Cult when evangelicals merged with the GOP a half century ago. Now, Christian Nationalism and the MAGA Cult are logical evolutions of a religious-backed push for power.