Pilfer

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
1

I think you people are missing the point, left, right and center. Everyone steals from everyone, so why shouldn’t the bottom 10 to 20% steal from everyone too? There is no society… society is illusory. Society isn’t natural, it’s artificial. It’s held together by government and a few hardworking douchebags. The moment you get rid of government, we’d all be at each others throats, killing and raping one another instantaneously. 75% of the population are suckers, the rest know society is illusory, even if some of them won’t admit it, and try to get away with as much shit as they can when the blue boys aren’t looking… or they’ll bribe the blue boy (everyone has a price). It’s not about fair, if society was fair, there wouldn’t be banker bailouts, there wouldn’t be runaway inflation, there wouldn’t be war, there wouldn’t be a need for minimum wage, unions and workers rights, and 0.1% of the population wouldn’t possess 99.9% of the wealth and power. People are suckers, so fuck em, don’t waste your time trying to convince em (the ones who can get it won’t need much convincing). They’ve bought into the lie, a lie as old as Egypt and Babylon, told by politicians, priests and ideologues, the lie of altruism, divine retribution, karma and natural law.

The poor should get together and demand more money. You think after all the shit the rich have pulled, it’s really going to make a difference? No, it won’t, society will adapt, and if it doesn’t, who cares?, the working poor have little or nothing to lose in any case, especially the young working poor and the homeless. If they don’t give us more money, well, we’ll kill them, it’s that simple, just start killing upper middle class and rich people, taking their money and shit, like just 10 000 people walking into walmarts at the same time and taking shit. How you gonna arrest 10 000 people, if we could just semi-organize ourselves? Or what if we said fuck, let’s just simultaneously not pay rent at the same time, or pay half. How are they going to evict an entire city, if we all got together and said no? Would the economy collapse because we stopped paying rent? Who knows… maybe it’d be better off, it’s not like apartment owners produce anything, they just live off other people’s hard work. Remember, it’s not about being fair, it’s not even about being strong, it’s about never passing up an opportunity, it’s about taking as much as you can carry. So fuck ideologues, I’m not a communist, I’m just someone who wants a little more, I’m just someone who’s tired of playing Jedi mind tricks and moral head games with these fucks.

2

In places where the poor are as bad off as you say, they behave in the way you suggest. When they aren’t, they don’t. When the poor seem content, a lot of people will just immediately turn on the poor and call them ‘stupid’ or ‘sheep’ or whatever, because the reality that poor people can be genuinely happen threatens their ideological purity.

3

Good point, it could be seen either way. Perhaps the masses know how badly they’re getting screwed, but they don’t care, or they care, but they don’t want to rock the boat, because things could be a lot worse. On the other hand, perhaps they’re cowardly, ignorant and stupid. I think it’s a little from column a and b. Maybe I’m not even ready to start inciting riots and mass looting just yet, but if the economy gets even worse, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

4

It could be for a lot of reasons. Who do you mean by ‘the masses’? If you mean poor people in the English speaking world, then it’s pretty difficult to begin with the position “they are getting screwed so badly they ought to revolt” if you make even a cursory comparison between them and poor people anywhere else on earth or through history.
So maybe this new poverty, the kind of poverty in which the biggest health problem is obesity and people suffer because their computers are a few generations old instead of cutting edge, maybe this is ‘being screwed so badly that revolt is in order’. But it seems like a hard sell. It’s easier for me to believe that they simply aren’t in dire enough straits to revolt, and that people who say they are have other motives besides the well being of the poor.

5

I can’t speak for the masses, but for me, having to work more than 10 or 15 hours a week is sufficient grounds for contemplating revolt, especially considering how superfluous 99 of jobs are, and how advanced technology is, not to mention how much money Bill Gates, Warrant Buffet and the Rockefellers possess. I don’t think I should have to pay rent. I say I own my apartment. I define property and other words/terms pragmatically, to suit myself and my interests. I don’t require everyone, just enough people behind me to get what I want. There’s nothing particularly fair and objective about what I’m proposing. I just want it, and I may be willing to kill in order to get it. It’s not about materialism. I don’t want a new computer, I simply want to stop paying rent. Justice and objectivity are largely illusory. They’re social constructs, created and maintained by one class, the established, preeminent class, in order to oppress another. Nature abhors a vacuum, but some people can dupe others into believing relatively empty spaces are relatively full, bypassing, circumventing authentic natural law in the process.

You can give me all the toys you want me to believe I want, but at the end of the day, if I have to work 30 or 40 hours a week to food on the table and a roof over my head, I’m not a whole lot better off than the Chinaman or the Indian.

6

ROFL, another person that thinks the wealthy have actual money that can be redirected to others. Chances of those mentioned even having a dollar bill is slim to none. Their assets are files and real properties. How are you going to divide up a file, car or house?

7

I don’t necessarily want more than I have, that’s yuppie scum thinking, I just don’t have to work 30 or 45 hours a week for what I have (food, clothing and shelter). I should be able to get by working 10 or 15 hours a week.

8

Fine, but, that is not answering my questions.

9

Can you help me out?

10

Help you with what?

11

Wire me some cash?

12

No, want to wire me some? I have a large expensive family. We could always use extra. By the end of each paycheck, my pockets are empty.

13

Would you wire me some if you had a lot to spare?

14

I can understand the desire to only want to work a few hours a week. I can’t understand the sentiment that you ‘ought to’ be able to do that, or that it’s somebody else’s fault that you can’t. What you’re describing is a situation that hasn’t been true at any point in human history under any economic system, except for nobility or whatever. I see no reason to believe that if you were to have some big revolt and change things around, you’d get a result where most people only have to work 10-15 hours a week. Maybe that would be true for YOU, because YOU would be in charge and give yourself special privileges.

15

Ucc, in the last 18 months I haven’t worked at all. For the year or so before that I was down to 10-12 hours a week. Sometimes just 6 or 8 hours a week.

16

No because you would be way down the line, family and friends come first, then children charities, which I donate to now.

17

And? I’m not seeing the relevance.

18

You said it was a situation that hasn’t been true under any economic system.

19

So what you’re saying is you put you and yours ahead of starving children, and you put starving children ahead of me and mine?

20 
Read for comprehension man. Obviously I'm aware that in any given society, there are people who don't work very much.  So, given that I'm not a retarded person and I've heard of teenagers, artists, the idle rich and etc, what do you think I really meant?
Anyway, Antithesis, if you don't want to work very much, find yourself the kind of life where you don't have to. A revision to the economic system isn't going to create a world were 10-15 hours of work a week is the norm, and you certainly aren't entitled to it just by virtue of your existence.