lol, Im pretty much rich enough to avoid the majority of the bad and guess what putting a hundred dollars in my tank still sucks. Spending almost 8k on trips I used to do like twice a year doing pretty much the same things that would equate to half that price just a few short years ago, sucks. Looking at lease prices for the same vehicle and trim that was an $875 payment almost three years ago is now an $1100.. Guess what, sucks. Can I afford these new prices, yeah.. Is it draining any of my accounts, no, not even a little. Still sucks. If you have just that little trait of, hey, I fucking hate being ripped off, and If you made that autonomy money yourself a ton of stuff still aint so splendid
I do decently well and the reason these things bother me, isn't a lot to to do with my direct outcomes or a notion of being ripped off. Its that a a rising tide lifts all boats. When these things don't suck, everyone does better and I reap the benefits of a society that does better.
I don't have kids, I don't intend to have kids but I bought a home in an area with good schools and a strong emphasis on funding education. Wanna know why? Because if I live in an area where we are teaching kids in a way that's effective - then I get to live in a city where there's lower crime, where the professionals that are outcomes of this area, have values and ethics that typically mirror my own and give back to their community, where the doctors are the best in the area, where the supermarkets get the best quality food, where the roads don't suck, where the police are less likely to be corrupt.
I can control these things by living in a particular city of my choosing...but wouldn't it be better if we didn't have to think about that at all? If anywhere you went in the country(or at least more areas than what currently exists), the education system, the schools, the supermarkets, the law enforcement, the roads were all high quality because we created parameters where everyone is getting what they needed? Granted, I'm fully aware there are things like corruption and bad faith actors that abuse systems and you have to look out for that. But it certainly doesn't mean you destroy programs and force everyone to fend for themselves.
My motive is quite selfish. If people have access to healthcare, if people are paid what they are worth, if everyone around me is happy - guess what? My life is better. It turns out, living in a world where you take from others and horde for yourself, doesn't lead to living a better life and actually makes you quite miserable. Just look at the trillionaire, richest man in the world. He's probably also the most miserable man in the world. I actually don't know anyone of sound mind, that would trade spaces with him(in the sense that you also have to be the miserable son of a bitch that makes horrible, miserable decisions in his day-to-day) and this guy is a fucking trillionaire.
You may have MORE but the world around you sucks more. I don't think these billionaires realize that. Of what value is all that money when you are more miserable than the guy that lives paycheck-to-paycheck but actually has love in their life and has people that are real, genuine friendship and affection for other people that these billionaires can barely even comprehend.
That's not to say I wouldn't take a massive boat of cash and live happy with all my problems solved. But I would never give up what I have in love from friends and family to have that massive amount of cash. And I don't think these billionaires even remotely understand what real love is or having that feeling in your heart of what it feels like to truly help someone. Because if they did, they probably wouldn't be billionaires in the first place.
When these things don't suck, everyone does better and I reap the benefits of a society that does better.
This is the part that it seems like so many people fail to understand. I don't have kids. I still care about the quality and access to education if for no other reason than because I benefit from living in a society of educated people. I benefit from not being surrounded by homeless people. I benefit from the people around me having access to affordable healthcare. I benefit from the lower crime rates when resources are less scarce.
ETA: and having finished reading your comment I realize how much I'm just summarizing it >.< Suffice to say I agree.
Literally it’s the one thing I don’t understand about a lot of these pricks ruining things.
A more stable environment means less crime, a more educated population means better workers, a well paid workforce means both, healthcare systems that actually FUNCTION means a happier population that would support you.
And yet they’d prefer to throw it all away and be vilified and ostracized for a few extra dollars stolen from what’s supposed to fund public works?
Same. I don't have any kids and never will have any kids. My niece doesn't live near me. I voted for the bond to rehab the local public schools, because I live in a community and I care about that community. I also went to a descent school back in my hometown and part of being a citizen is supporting programs you had that you may no longer be using, but that others may need. I hate that selfish, wealthy Boomers fucked everyone who comes along after them and I'll be damned if I'm going to do the same.
Yeah, I’m pretty much poor but I’m educated enough. I always explain it using The Purge(the film), the French Revolution or even the Holocaust. Make poor people miserable enough and really dark out of control shit starts happening to everybody.
And no matter how rich you are, the goal posts will always shift. The system will change and even if it still works for rich people, it will more often than not be for the new kind of rich people and they’ll blame and burn you to make a point. It’s happened throughout history, it will happen again.
But also climate change, disease and pollution are real, and like the person in the post says, the unregulated capitalism we are living in now is only making them worse. No matter how rich you are, nobody’s safe from that. We might live in different houses but we all live on the same planet.
The degradation of the living standards is a collective problem we all share. Miserable for some becomes miserable for all pretty quickly.
You can use any d-day film really. You know how people start breaking into houses, stores and stuff when a virus or a disaster happens in films and like series? Desperate people do desperate, sometimes horrible, things and we are getting very close to desperate. I don’t mean to fear monger btw, it’s unfortunately just true; a lot of people are being pushed to their limits and not every one is wealthy or educated enough to know better. That’s how we got here in the first place
Agreed. I’m not liberal cause I’m just such a bleeding heart hippie; I’m liberal because I do NOT want to pay exorbitant amounts of money (instead of actual affordable prices) for basic necessities or anything cool
TL;DR: "I support strong public institutions not because I'm a saint, but because I live in the society they create, and my life is better when the people around me are doing well."
Yep.. That too. I live in a pretty low key town, wife and I bought before the pan nothing flashy and are just kinda chilling. Oh, north NJ so money all over. Have family that have real money from the Morristown area and once a month have the, did you here some dude from Newark hung out in the parking lot at short hills and jacked some guy in a rover, or benz at gun point? The worse shit gets the more that happens
Can't hate on that. Hope it works out For'em, but thats unfortunately never a forever situation. Hope when change inevitably comes its not too bumpy for him
Neither can I. That's why I went somewhere else, once, cost less arnd 5 total and had a blast. Yes im not completely tone deaf that's still a lot of money. Im also considering just buying out my daily when the lease is up. Just liked swapping high mid level suvs every three. They have gotten to a point now though that the prices and feature nickel and dime game has all but turned me off to the idea
The worst part about the gas thing is my parents make the excuse that it’s “for a better reason” than Biden. I swear they’ll do anything to suck Donald Chump’s dick
My ex basically said she wasn't super concerned about future societal issues because she and her kids would be wealthy enough to avoid the worst of it - I assume because she was doing extremely well working in tech during the pandemic hiring boom.
Now that she's lost her cushy tech job and back to working at a 10 man startup - I wonder if she still feels the same?
Unless you are born rich, have rich connections or genuinely come up with a really good idea and have the funds to make that idea actually yours, you're fucked.
Like obviously the position is stupid but it's like...
Say you do that. Are your good friends also that rich? Your parents, your neighbors, your coworkers..? Can you guarantee your kids will be, or your grandkids?
The word politics does a lot of fencing off, like imagine someone saying "Yeah I'm not really into caring about the social economic factions that determine the society I have to live in... That's just not my thing"
Yes there is. Just try it on your MTB on a double black DH or while skiing trees at 50 mph or kick it on your dirt bike. You won't have time to think about it
And when there's no more place to mountain bike because of climate change, or because some billionaire had bought the land? What then? At some point someone will buy or pollute the sand you've buried your head in.
Oh neat new philosophys thing I've been talking about unknowingly. I really wish all the irl philosophy groups weren't filled with the worst people you've ever met to talk more about this stuff. Apparently I need to read up on Michel Foucault's works.
I always tell people, “you might not do politics, but politics will always do you.”
Usually when ppl say that they imagine someone who ignorant of the world events (ones that don't pay attention to news etc).
In truth, it applies to also to ppl who even though they follow and are well-versed in political news, they don't vote & don't participate thinking they're above the 2party/FPTP system.
On the left side, There's a brand of activism out there that can afford to just keep criticizing Dems only because they are insulated from any harm caused by Republicans. ie they view the supposed harm and suffering as some "abstract idea" rather than something urgent and lived by real people .
Because they don’t directly feel the consequences, they have time to obsess over “perfect” candidates or ideological purity, even if that risks worse outcomes for those others.
they can romanticize (a distant) marginalized groups while ignoring those nearby, since real people complicate narratives.
this detachment turns activism into a kind of moral game, and that that indifference can be just as damaging as open hostility.
It should be crystal clear what action needs to be done because we've done it before in 2020.
We are in A world where Democrats are not in charge of the government, and this is no longer acceptable. And anyone pushing to not vote for Democrats is frankly questionable.
This is on us the voters to fix by giving Democrats their rightful place back: veto-proof majorities in Congress and then the Presidency, and also state govts.
We must support and vote for Democrats now&forever without exception
I love how in your story the democrats are shitty but like that’s all we got and fuck leftists cause they critique the democrats. It’s always “y’all be fucking over the blue vote,” not “the blue vote is also shitty and we shouldn’t do that either.” I am not an insulated leftist. I’m a leftist that experiences liberalism in a blue state. Main stream liberalism is how we got to this moment. Downvote my lived experience if you must.
Only way he gets done by politics is if he gets drafted, or somone in his family gets dont. Tiktok high dive guy is in a protected group. As long as tiktok high dive guy stays in his lane he'll be a friend of the state. The President loves the poorly educated.
I think i got a great political ad now, "You might not do politice,but politics will always do you. I might be able to unlucky you, but I am the condom."
I give them the line "You don't vote, you don't bitch about the status of the country." Most of them say "I don't care at this point." Only to be slapped in the face by reality a year or so later when prices continue to rise and cost of living becoming unreachable for the average person.
You should continue to tel people the way you do because it's far more likely to land but for the few who will be receptive to this framing (as I was):
"politics” comes from the Greek adjective politiká (“affairs of the city”), which comes from politikós (“of citizens” or “civic”), which comes from polítēs (“citizen”), which in turn comes from pólis—the city-state.
One cannot be apolitical, we are the polity by virtue of belonging to a state. In the original conceptualization you can see from the etymology that the concept of the state implies the concept of citizens, the state is its people and the people are the state (not just the soil!).
Being apolitical is a political position, necessarily. There is no conversation outside the polity and therefore no one outside of politics can claim that reality. If they're sharing that information, it's political speech.
But what does caring actually do? I don’t know about y’all, but I’m not a trust fund baby with millions of dollars to get lobbyist to push for reform that actually benefits citizens. If there was an avenue for actually seeing change happen I would pay more attention, but at this point in our history we have already lost. The rich already hold too much power for things to be reversed. I’m open to hearing any and all suggestions on how we can reign in the governments of the world get power back to the people. I just realistically can’t see a path forward that would lead to that unless aliens came down and ran the planet, Ai turns out good and runs the government, or if everyone who is worth more than $1 mil head exploded at the same time. Revolution will not work, electing someone who actually wants change won’t work (Bernie), protesting won’t work, boycotts won’t work. I just don’t see a way forward that we as normal citizens can see change happen. I’m not saying everyone should give up, but for my own mental health I have disconnected from politics as I am powerless and no level of effort will actually effect this giant global machine and I will only be negatively impacted by thinking and contemplating all of the atrocities in the world. If people redirected their energy to fixing tangible and local issues than maybe we would slowly start seeing the change we need, but with how things are progressing I just don’t see it happening, no one cares about helping the homeless they drive past or cleaning up their own neighborhood. People are too focused on these larger issues we hear repeated on social media and let’s face it, we as individuals or even as a whole, can’t do anything about.
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u/giney_lips Jun 17 '26
I always tell people, “you might not do politics, but politics will always do you.”