this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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DJ Calvert told BBC News NI: "I've been let down - and I'm not the only one."

It was proof that Northern Ireland's health and social care system had "crashed", said the 49-year-old.

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[–] DontMakeMoreBabies@kbin.social 112 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Billionaires exist and this poor man can't get a goddamn health care worker.

At all levels of government we're (worldwide) making due with less while these fucking parasites grow.

Shit is going to get ugly in the next few decades...

[–] Szymon@lemmy.ca 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Eat the rich, problem solves itself.

I'll argue that you only need to eat five rich. The first two will be shocking, the next two will be surprising that they were eaten despite all the security measures, the fifth being eaten is the reminder that the rich will be eaten.

You've taken care of like, 50% of the billionaires parasite issue with those 5, the remaining few will suddenly decide that social welfare programs are a good idea and donate so much that they are no longer billionaires.

[–] Zorque@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Eat the rich and more rich pop up. It takes more than just "let's get rid of who we think the sole problem is and everything will turn out fine". The rich didn't just appear from a vacuum, they've accumulated power and wealth for centuries, if not millennia. "Eating the rich" would require vastly more fundamental changes than just grabbing goods from the nearest billionaire and tossing at "the poors".

[–] Dkarma@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lol Eat the rich is a euphemism for killing them...not just taking their wealth.

[–] Skyline969@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

No. Dine upon the flesh of the rich. Consume their nutrients so that you may absorb their power.

[–] zerfuffle@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The problem is that value is derived from property rather than from work. You earn substantially more by owning a machine than by operating that machine, which rewards people who have money more than people who have skills.

[–] HumanPenguin@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yes but their is not real answer to that. Even comunism where people own the means of production. Turns into a state where the leaders of that state make more money owning the machines then the workers on those machines.

Any system will always result in a cost to start the industry be it land in the past. Machines in the present or AI in the future. Those who have the resources to provide work for others will always have some form of power. And power will always lead to corruption.

All differing political stratagies do is change the process for gaining that power.

[–] nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago

Humanity would probably have to eliminate psycho/sociopathic behavior. Something like 1% of humanity (much higher rate in billionaire and CEO populations, like 25%+).

Like you said, designing a system that prevents them from taking control without pretty draconian measures that are likely to catch many false positives (and still be evaded by skilled psycho/sociopaths) seems pretty difficult.

Maybe AI will be able to filter them out of the population, but that’s full of moral and ethical pitfalls too.

[–] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml -3 points 1 year ago

Turns into a state where the leaders of that state make more money owning the machines then the workers on those machines.

Except not really. Corruption is a problem but corruption happens in bourgeois democracy too, the overwhelmingly main source of wealth extraction that we can eliminate is surplus labor value extraction brought about by property relations. State socialism cuts away a massive problem while still retaining smaller ones.

[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

I'd like to propose for maximum psychological impact they should be literally eaten using whatever gold plated dishware and diamond knives they've got laying around.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 28 points 1 year ago (30 children)

Not everywhere...

The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf

From 1978 to 2000, the number of people in China living on under $1/day fell by 300 million, reversing a global trend of rising poverty that had lasted half a century (i.e. if China were excluded, the world's total poverty population would have risen) https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/China%E2%80%99s-Economic-Growth-and-Poverty-Reduction-Angang-Linlin/c883fc7496aa1b920b05dc2546b880f54b9c77a4

From 2010 to 2019 (the most recent period for which uninterrupted data is available), the income of the poorest 20% in China increased even as a share of total income. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.DST.FRST.20?end=2019&locations=CN&start=2008

By the end of 2020, extreme poverty, defined as living on under a threshold of around $2 per day, had been eliminated in China. According to the World Bank, the Chinese government had spent $700 billion on poverty alleviation since 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/world/asia/china-poverty-xi-jinping.html

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience

[–] Kushia@lemmy.ml 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is why the Chinese people are very supportive of their government. You would be too in this situation.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 23 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Exactly, no great mystery as to why Chinese government enjoys overwhelming public support.

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[–] Admetus@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 year ago

Bringing out the guillotine again.