this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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Giving money to Amazon, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Google .etc

It's like, you can't have an argument for price gouging, when you're enabling them by spending. If people were smart, they'd stop giving them money 10 - 15 years ago and they'd be right now, trying to reconstruct so they can be more economically friendly than how they are now.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

A person is smart. People, not so much.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Great movie

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Because with stuff like this you cannot simply say "everyone should know better" they don't know btr, they don't care, they don't understand. For a myriad of reasons people will always do stuff counter to best logic, so you cannot ask them to. The only practical way to prevent stuff like this is through regulation and a government that serves the people. Lol it's nice to dream.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, and also even if there's smart people doing it, it doesn't matter. Supposed 10% of people don't use Amazon, as long as 90% are fine, it won't affect them. Most people won't look beyond "it costs me less", the whole reason thing like temu is widespread is exactly that. People don't care about other people, ethics of things, or even the long term effects of their actions. They just see low price vs high price on everyday setting.

If a chain restaurant gave half price food for a year in a loss to take out all local businesses people would gladly buy it. And then when everything is gone and that chain raises price because there's no competition they'll just blame other people, economy, whatever they can find.

In many cases it also comes from the side that people can't afford to spend more money for the right reasons. Many people are living paycheck to paycheck, and those that aren't, are still not well off and want to save as much money as they can for retirement/emergencies. You can't count on anyone except yourself for your future, so they'll take whatever costs them less now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

If a chain restaurant gave half price food for a year in a loss to take out all local businesses people would gladly buy it. And then when everything is gone and that chain raises price because there’s no competition they’ll just blame other people, economy, whatever they can find.

Nice summarization of modern day capitalism, this is pretty much the play book. Operate on a loss and Survive off of investments until you have created a monopoly, then the price is whatever you want, use your newfound endless wealth to pay the government to create fake consumer protections that's only goal is to increase the startup capital required to attempt to compete with you thus securing your monopoly, all while the poorest people have all of their money transferred to the people with too much money.

Then you have people come around with this unwise narrative that people need to just "choose with their wallets" like somehow you can convince enough people, who are at a majority financially unstable because of unregulated capitalism, to spend more money than they have, to stop capitalism. I totally understand where they're coming from with this, but sadly it just serves the capitalists by placing the blame for their gross greed on the people instead of on them. Its the same thing with consumer recycling agendas when global warming was a new concept, its redirecting the blame onto the wrong people.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

Building electric car charging stations without security cameras.

About 75% of the chargers are disabled in my city. The primary method of disabling them is roll up with a sawzall and just chop the cable off. Gets you $5 worth of crack, which is always a nice incentive structure when there’s unguarded copper lying around.

The only chargers that survive are in front of 24 hour businesses.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

Believing public figures on camera, or on a dais with a mic in front of them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

It's not about "smart" vs "dumb." People's ideas are shaped by their Class Interests and Material Coniditons.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

You're not getting cashback on your credit cards yous daft cunts πŸ˜‚ You're paying it in advance

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Stop generalising groups of people.

I cannot think of a proper example rn, but I see this everywhere.

meme example

group a does x

also group a: says something contradicting x

This happens across the board, not only in political topics.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

they would stop wasting their money

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago

If people were really smart, how would they post insults to make them less obvious?

[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 week ago

Stop. Electing. Fraudsters.

Especially when the fraudster is a convicted felon.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I'm doing better now, but 15 years ago Walmart was the only option I had for food. Local/regional grocery stores were more expensive and I was living paycheck to paycheck with growing debt.

"If people were smart they would stop buying the most cost-efficient option" is really not feasible.

"If people were smart" they would read and stop putting oligarchs in power.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

β€œIf people were smart they would stop buying the most cost-efficient option” is really not feasible.

In fact, more and more people don't have the luxury of buying more expensive options.

Of course, stealing is an option, and I think 'If people were smart' they would accept that stealing from Walmart is not an ethical or pragmatic problem, but it's a risky behavior so I wouldn't criticize people for not stealing. [edit: see Fubarberry's reply]

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Stealing from walmart also isn't sustainable if many people are doing it. For example there were a ton of walmarts and other stores in the Chicago area that recently closed due to high theft at those locations. Now whole communities there are left without convenient shopping options, which can be a big problem for people with limited transportation options.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago

Ignoring the fact that alternative voting systems exist and there can be more then two political parties.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

Voting for fascists/not voting

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

That we haven't learned more from history and keep making the same mistakes over and over.

[–] MrSebSin 13 points 1 week ago (13 children)

They would understand that socialism is not communism. Also you can have capitalism and socialism at the same time, you just have to give and take a little.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

They would understand that socialism is not communism.

Socialism has so many definitions that this can be subjectively true or false. This isn't even some trivial gotcha, the terms were used interchangeably even by significant writers of the 1800s. For another example, a socialist mode of production and a capitalist mode of production are contradictory.

If one wants to make these kind of broad claims without starting pointless arguments, they'll need to use a more specific term than 'socialism'.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (4 children)

The obvious answer is fossil fuels, right? Few people want to cook the climate, they just can't quite fathom something that abstract and slow-moving, so they do it anyway.

Less obviously, feeding all our most sensitive data to random websites and apps. Again, the threat just doesn't look enough like a sabre-tooth tiger.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thinking that "being smart" means shit. We need to realize that the people who run things aren't necessarily smart. Presidents aren't necessarily smart. Professors aren't necessarily smart.

And being smart doesn't mean you're good. Evil smart is a nightmare, because destroying is so much easier than building.

What would we do if we were good? Now that's a question.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

There's smart and then there's cunning.

A lot of people in power aren't smart - they're cunning.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Drinking alcohol. Lots of people drink way too much and make life ruining decisions.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Processed food and high sugar diets are killing us.

These foods are addictive, and ubiquitous. A well informed and smart american would still have a problem switching over to whole food only. (Where the ingredient label only says one thing).

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thinking that they have the "one simple trick" for everything when most matters are actually a complex network of issues where there isn't one answer.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

And not counting for the variables like what could go wrong, short-term gains, long-term gains .etc

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)
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