I have a house and a pretty sizable retirement account.
I will GLADLY take a lower home value, higher taxes on my retirement, higher taxes in general, so long as the ultra wealthy are also taxed accordingly.
CosmicTurtle0 61 points 2 years ago
OurToothbrush 30 points 2 years ago
Or you'll get more communist when you have people to protect, like children or friends who start getting sick now that they're not young anymore
rockSlayer 44 points 2 years ago
I became a socialist because I was an "essential employee" during the height of the pandemic. I was treated like shit by my company, the customers, and the government while they sung my praise. I watched my grandpa get good cancer treatment with the VA (shocker, I know, but it happens) while my sister and grandma had to fight insurance for cancer treatment.
We can't make a perfect world, but we can make a better one. And it starts with a socialist economy.
AA5B 2 points 2 years ago
I became much more progressive after living in a “blue state” for much of my adult life. It’s hard to miss that the most successful economies in the us are also the ones who pay most attention to quality of life. We can look at the contrast in our neighboring states, and see the advantages brought by near universal healthcare, investments in an excellent education system, care about the environment, higher minimum wage, support for unions, and so much more
Cowbee 2 points 2 years ago
If you're referring to Nordic Social Democracies, they fund their safety nets via Imperialism, they can't exist without impoverishing and exploiting the Global South. It's the epitome of the Labor Aristocracy.
GarbageShootAlt2 8 points 2 years ago
You can only get more conservative when you have things to protect like a house and a pension.
In aggragate, that's the more reliable way to make a population more conservative, but remember that a reasonable portion of fascists in a society that is going in that direction are going to be people who either lost that or never had it and, in either case, blame some minority for that fact. (The majority are still people like you describe, though, the petite bourgeois, etc., who feel insecure in their holdings)
I agree if you mean neoliberal-conservative
Ultraviolet 3 points 2 years ago
That and the lead poisoning.
pjwestin 68 points 2 years ago
Whenever people say that you grow more conservative when you get older, they're working from the premise that you'll grow more affluent and comfortable later in life. For Americans, that just isn't true anymore. Wages are mostly stagnant, home ownership is much less attainable, and cost of living is at an all time high. Yet for some reason, pundits just can't figure out why millenials aren't getting more conservative as they age, or why zoomers appear to be following this trend.
Commiunism 14 points 2 years ago
Yeah, though there's also the phenomena of older folks generally being more against change and clinging in the past more, the idea being that you have less future to look forward to (since you're closer to death than your birth) so instead you look towards the past and become nostalgic about it.
pjwestin 5 points 2 years ago
Oh yeah, that's definitely why older folks are socially conservative, although usually when I hear people say this (and definitely in the context of this meme) they're talking about becoming fiscally conservative.
UnderpantsWeevil 1 point 2 years ago
there’s also the phenomena of older folks generally being more against change and clinging in the past more,
That's more a consequence of the moment. Older people like stable material conditions. And with programs like pensions, public health care, and a safe suburban neighborhood with good amenities, they see the status quo as worth defending.
But swing through North Africa and the Middle East during the Arab Spring (anyone remember that?) or pop over to the UK in the wake of the last election cycle or visit an impoverished neighborhood in Haiti or a bombed neighborhood in Lebanon and you'll find plenty of elderly revolutionaries.
you look towards the past and become nostalgic about it
People may be nostalgic for their youth, but they are rarely nostalgic for being treated like a child.
And you're going to find it hard to locate a South African native nostalgic for Apartheid or a Pole or Romanian who misses occupation or a Chinese national who pines for the Century of Humiliation.
Westerners coming out of their post war pre-Reagan Golden Era just have more to be nostalgic for.
PolyLlamaRous 8 points 2 years ago
All of that is the same here in Germany. Check out the stats on home ownership here... But oh man are the kids flipping to the AfD (far right nazi party) quick and in huge numbers. It's scary to see.
pjwestin 7 points 2 years ago
Honestly, that makes sense to me. It seems like when economic systems start breaking down for people, they turn to populism. It's either left-wing populism, which argues for reigning in the excesses of capitalism, or right-wing populism, which scapegoats minority or immigrant groups. Right now, the youth in the U.S. are interested in left-wing populism, but right-wing populism (AKA Trumpism) is the only thing making it into the political mainstream.
pjwestin 1 point 2 years ago
"Left-wing," is a very broad term. In the Weimar Republic, yes, the left-wing alternative to right-wing populism was communism. In America today, Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders are the left-wing alternative. If that doesn't fall in line with your definition of, "left-wing,' that's fine, but it most people wouldn't define it as exclusively anti-capitalist ideologies.
TopRamenBinLaden 3 points 2 years ago
The youth in the US is mostly actually leftist, and they give them the choice to vote for a centrist or a right wing candidate. That's a big part of the reason. Also, just the fact that the youth also votes less, on average, even those youth who identify as right wing.
I know because I am an actual leftist, and I didn't vote for a long time into my adulthood, because it feels like a scam. I finally got over the fact that not participating in the vote is worse, but I completely understand the apathy amongst actual leftists in the US. We've had no true representation in our whole lives.
meowMix2525 2 points 2 years ago
Because for every loud voice you read on lemmy there's 1000 boomers and nut jobs that either a) don't use the Internet regularly b) don't leave Facebook or c) hide away in right wing circlejerk sites like truth social and 4chan. A and B just being old, and none of them being people that can handle having their views challenged, which is definitely going to happen in a space like this.
pjwestin 2 points 2 years ago
Actually, youth turnout is pretty high right now, with record turnout being set recently for both midterms and presidential elections. In 2020, turnout for the under thirty crowd was 50%, a possible new record, and it was 30% and 27% in 2018 and 2022 respectively, which are 30 year highs. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party leadership prefers centrist candidates, and frequently puts its thumb on the scale to ensure that moderate candidates win, so that turnout isn't translating into progressive politics.
Funny enough, just after I made the original comment, I read an article about how the youngest U.S. voters are starting to lean further right than before, so it's possible the ship has sailed on this all together. Given how aggressively the right wing has been to trying to indoctrinate young voters, who are watching Democrats successfully suppress left-wing populism while Republicans embrace right-wing populism, it's possible the youth are deciding that the far-right offers them only chance for change. I hope not, though, because then we're screwed.
CazzoneArrapante 1 point 2 years ago
German government should just ban the AfD and end with it.
tasteful_garbage -1 points 2 years ago path: 0 12627723 12629348 12630028 12630245, hotness: undefined, score: -1, children: 3
GarbageShootAlt2 4 points 2 years ago
The Nazi Party being banned was good, just not enough
CazzoneArrapante 0 points 2 years ago
Fuck this "goody two-shoes" bullshit, ban and repress.
bountygiver 8 points 2 years ago
yup it applies only to the privileged class, and of course only people in that class would think that is the general experience.
AA5B 4 points 2 years ago
What if you start to become better off, but realize so many other parents are unable to provide for their kids like you can, and you can’t hope to provide for your kids like the wealthy can? What if paying exorbitant amounts of money for your kids education drives home the point that we need to make that investment for all kids futures? What if you are more often on the hiring side and realize your well being depends on the next generation having opportunities and the means to successfully achieve them?
TopRamenBinLaden 2 points 2 years ago
Then you are alright with me. I think a large amount of our problems as a species come from those with a lack of empathy. If everyone thought like you, then we wouldn't have the vast wealth inequalities and greatly varying qualities of life between working class and upper class.
On the other hand, if everyone had empathy in the first place, I think we wouldn't have the economic systems that put profits over people.
TopRamenBinLaden 1 point 2 years ago
You don't think that more empathetic people would be involved in creating fairer modes of production? I think sociopaths and those lacking empathy are at least part of the reason that capitalism still runs rampant in the world, but its just my opinion.
If you downvoted me don't know why, just adding my opinion.
I know plenty of people that grew up in capitalism and still have empathy, and also hate capitalism, so I guess I don't understand exactly what you mean, either.
pjwestin 2 points 2 years ago
Then you're a good person, which is a statistical minority. Most people will never intentionally vote against their economic self-interests by raising their own taxes (although you can trick them into voting against their economic self interests; Republicans have been doing that for years by using racist dog-whistles to attack entitlement programs and pushing discredited trickle-down economic theories).
Sterile_Technique 33 points 2 years ago path: 0 12625423, hotness: undefined, score: 33, children: 13
Cowbee 16 points 2 years ago
Alright, next we have the blue team, which is the opposite of all those things, at the exceedingly high cost of... getting cockblocked by the red team when they try to implement those things... and... well there was that time Bill lied about getting a blowjob- outrageous! Surely the red team does a better job of keeping it in their pants... *checks* ...uhh, nope! Fuck, I'm starting to become aware of my own cognitive dissonance and it feels like absolute shit.
The DNC isn't to the opposite of the GOP, they are aligned on the vast majority of issues and use the rest to yap loudly in disagreement. Dems aren't left.
During all ^that I wandered into the military which gave me access to all kinds of socialized resources which have enabled me to get where I'm at now and have made a pretty significant improvement on my life.
Social programs aren't socialized, that's a bit of a misnomer.
Keeponstalin -1 points 2 years ago
However US Corporations that exploit US Workers and Workers abroad are subsidized, even for their losses. Us Taxpayers pay them while they exploit us further and Social Services get gutted and crumble. Gotta love neoliberalism, where socialized welfare is bad for workers, but good for corporations.
Edit: not actual socialism like worker owned, just socialized losses, as in the working class paying taxes foot the bill for the corporations benefit and privatized gains
Cowbee 8 points 2 years ago
Have you read Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism? It analyzes modern Imperialism, where workers in the Global North are both exploited by their bourgeoisie and yet benefit from the fruits of Imperialism, forming a labor aristocracy.
It isn't Socialism for corporations, it's Imperialism in action.
Keeponstalin 3 points 2 years ago
No, I have not. I've only touched on the book Consequences of Capitalism so far. Thanks for the req, I'll check it out.
Socialism isn't the right word, it's not like they are worker owned in any regard. It's just that the subsidies they receive for the benefit of their private business and profits for shareholders come from taxpayer money. Further redistributing weather to the wealthy at the expense of the working class Americans, and further enabling them to exploit us more. Their gains are privatized and their losses are socialized by the working class.
Feathercrown 1 point 2 years ago
Thanks for sharing! I feel like this is representative of a small but important political group recently.
index 1 point 2 years ago
there’s the red team. Burn through our fossil resources with reckless abandon. War, war, war, and more war.
The blue team is doing the same thing: burning through fossil resources in the name of war. The military complex doesn't stop or change when blue or red are elected.
I encourage you to keep studying and researching. Politics isn't a football match where teams compete against each others and "left" and "right" are two buzzwords.
Feathercrown 0 points 2 years ago
I encourage you to keep studying and researching. Politics isn’t a football match where teams compete against each others and “left” and “right” are two buzzwords.
No offense but I think OP has a better grasp of this than you do
Feathercrown 1 point 2 years ago
You're acting like that's the only policy point that exists. There are meaningful differences in other areas. I don't have enough non-propagandized information to argue for sure that there are differences in the middle east war department, but the parties certainly aren't the same on all war-related matters (see Ukraine/Russia as an example). Their rhetoric is different for the middle east but again I can't speak for their actions. And obviously their non-war policies are drastically different.
jol 28 points 2 years ago
I am more conservative in the sense that I see things with more nuance. I understand societies are very complex systems in a fragile equilibrium and that my naive solutions to the world's problems are not feasible.
And yet, each day I'm more convinced we need to eat the rich.
Confidant6198 12 points 2 years ago
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Edit: We need to create a whole new system to prevent people from getting that rich and to keep the power to the people
jol 5 points 2 years ago
The people who say you become more conservative usually mean that you will become more well off. And indeed when they earn their financial freedom, they want to protect the status quo. So they start seeing others as threats: be it young people wanting more rights, employees wanting fair salaries, immigrants coming for your hard earned money, everyone is a threat. This is the how the mind of an unempathic person works.
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Funkytom467 10 points 2 years ago
I don't think anyone knows what it's like, was there any communist country which wasn't also both a dictatorship and poor?
Pretty hard seeing the good and bad of communism when it's always alongside the two worse things that can happen to a country.
P.S. Wait, actually not the two worse things... there's also war, and that applies to most of them too.
dessalines 7 points 2 years ago
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Jumpingspiderman 6 points 2 years ago
Capitalism doesn't benefit the vast majority of us. But the purpose of capitalism is to enrich a fortunate few at the expense of the rest of us who will be reduced to perpetual wage slavery until we die. Capitalism is working a treat in that regard.
dessalines 5 points 2 years ago
That point is def made in that link.
Funkytom467 2 points 2 years ago
Have you read my comment?
I know capitalism don't work, everybody does now.
That has nothing to do with the fact we didn't manage to have one successful exemple of communism either...
dessalines 3 points 2 years ago
I don't have a post for this, but also as a testament to China's poverty alleviation campaigns, world poverty is increasing if we exclude China.
When they write the history of the early 21st century, China's uplifting of millions of people out of poverty will be one of humanity's greatest acheivements.
dessalines 1 point 2 years ago
Wrong, from the link I posted:
Capitalist hegemony has short-circuited people into buying wildly illogical and ridiculous propaganda like: "Lift yourselves up by the bootstraps" (which shows the almost religious power of capitalist propaganda, that the impossible can become possible), or "Communism doesn't work", when in fact Communism did work extremely well.
Examples from this post by /u/bayarea415, Stephen Gowans - Do publicly owned, planned economies work, Ian Goodrum - Socialism vs Capitalism and quality of life, and yogthos's USSR acheivements post about the USSR specifically:
- USSR had a more nutritious diet than the US, according to the CIA. Calories consumed surpassed the US. source. Ended famines.
- Productive forces were not organized for capital gain and private enrichment; public ownership of the means of production supplanted private ownership. It was illegal to hire others and accumulate personal wealth from their labor.
- Had the 2nd fastest growing economy of the 20th century after Japan. The USSR started out at the same level of economic development and population as Brazil in 1920, which makes comparisons to the US, an already industrialized country by the 1920s, even more spectacular.
- Free Universal Health care, and most doctors per capita in the world. 42 doctors per 10k population, vs 24 in Denmark and Sweden, 19 in US.
- Had near zero unemployment, continuous economic growth for 70 straight years. The "continuous" part should make sense – the USSR was a planned, non-market economy, so market crashes á la capitalism were pretty much impossible.
- USSR moved from 58.5-hour workweeks to 41.6 hour workweeks (-0.36 h/yr) between 1913 and 1960
- USSR averaged 22 days of paid leave in 1986 while USA averaged 7.6 in 1996., 2
- In 1987, people in the USSR could retire with pension at 55 (female) and 60 (male) while receiving 50% of their wages at a at minimum. Meanwhile, in USA the average retirement age was 62-67.
- All education, including university level, free. 2
- 99% literacy.
- Saved the world from Fascism, Taking on the majority of Nazi divisions, and killing 90% of Nazi soldiers. Bore the enormous cost of blood and pain in WW2 (25M dead), with the bloodiest battles in the history of warfare.. An estimated 70% of Soviet housing was destroyed by Nazi invasion. Nazis were in retreat after the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, a full 2 years before the US landed troops in normandy.
- Doubled life expectancy. Eliminated poverty.
- Combatted sex inequality. Equal wages for men and women mandated by law, but sex inequality, although not as pronounced as under capitalism, was perpetuated in social roles. Very important lesson to learn.
- Combatted Racial inequality.
- Feudalism to space travel in 40 years. First satellite, rocket, space walk, woman, man, animal, space station, moon and mars probes.
- Soviet power production per capita in 1990 was more than the EU, Great Britain, or China's in 2014.
- Housing was socialized by localized community organizations, and there was virtually no homelessness. Houses were often shared by two families throughout the 20s and 30s – so unlike capitalism, there were no empty houses, but the houses were very full. In the 40s there was the war, and in the 50s there were a number of orphans from the war. The mass housing projects began in the 60s, they were completed in the 70s, and by the 70s, there were homeless people, but they often had genuine issues with mental health.
- 66% of Russians polled in 2015 want the USSR back. The story is the same for all the former eastern-bloc countries: 72% of Hungarians say their country is worse off now than under communism, 57% of East Germans, 63% of Romanians, 77% of Czechs, 81% of Serbs (for Yugoslavia), 70% of Ukrainians, 60% of Bulgarians.
When it is claimed that a system works, we should ask, who it works for. Capitalism benefits a tiny number of rapacious capitalists, to the detriment of the rest of us, while Socialism works for the masses.
For an overview of the soviet experiment, watch this brilliant talk by Micheal Parenti, or read his article, Left anticommunism, the unkindest cut.
Also read this great article by Stephen Gowans, Do publicly owned, planned economies work?. Audio on youtube
Bonus vid about cyber-communism: Paul Cockshott - Going beyond money.
More sources: Socialism Crash Course, Socialism FAQ, Glossary.
Cowbee 5 points 2 years ago
I don't think anyone knows what it's like, was there any communist country which wasn't also both a dictatorship and poor?
Most steadily improved their material conditions and did not have dictatorships.
Pretty hard seeing the good and bad of communism when it's always alongside the two worse things that can happen to a country.
Explain, please.
P.S. Wait, actually not the two worse things... there's also war, and that applies to most of them too.
Are you saying most Communist countries intentionally started wars?
Funkytom467 0 points 2 years ago
Most didn't? Can you give a few exemples then?
You don't start a war unintentionally... but i didn't say start, just being in a war.
Also i don't imply it was because of communism, my point is that, how can we judge communism if other devastating sociological factors are involved.
Now, i don't have a point if you say most of them were better for it, but i don't know any who did so i'd love to educate myself...
Cowbee 9 points 2 years ago
A few examples include the USSR, Cuba, PRC, etc. Life standards dramatically improved, life expectancy doubled in the USSR and PRC and jumped around half in Cuba, literacy rates jumped to 99%+ from less than 50% prior, education access, healthcare access, food access, housing access, all dramatically improved. Wealth inequality also fell down dramatically.
Here's an example of wealth inequality over time in Russia:
And how the Soviet Democratic process functioned:
tiredturtle 1 point 2 years ago
Fascists masquerading as communism doesn't count
beebarfbadger 27 points 2 years ago
Honestly, if your goals include conserving an inhabitable environment for the human race in the future, conserving a semblance of wealth for everyone but the top, like, dozen people on Earth, conserving the rights of workers and consumers against an overwhelming opposition, conserving democracy for future generations (and all that against the best efforts of a supposedly "conservative" party), your parents may have been right.
Juice 7 points 2 years ago
Then you have to join in the fight for those things and educate yourself. This world is not getting better, and the reason for that is the productive political economic system in which we live.
I have the same values and I am a Marxist communist. That means I work for political struggle with the systems that oppress and exploit to for improving conditions for all, and also work to try and educate workers about the class dynamics of this struggle, and the revolutionary potential of the working class.
kofe 10 points 2 years ago
I went from "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" in high school to liberal to communist to anarchist back to communist now I think I'm democratic socialist in my 30s? Just basic safety nets and unions, please.
Crikeste 9 points 2 years ago
Same homie. I can’t even imagine what it was like to be a leftist after 9/11. The whole fucking country was blood thirsty. Heard my friends say some of the most abhorrent shit, and just brushed it off as patriotism.
So fucking glad I found my way out.
AA5B 2 points 2 years ago
When I was a teen, I was definitely fiscally conservative. Paying better attention to how you use money is easy to understand and a central pillar of politics. But it was a sheltered life in a town with all well-paying jobs, no diversity, and an excellent education system.
Now I keep floating left the more I realize how many people missed out of that picture.
But it was my kids that really did it. Fighting for better opportunities for them easily turns into wanting a better world for them to live in. I’m more worried than ever about my government’s poor money habits and when it will eventually come due, but we’re in the middle of a rolling disaster of short term and misplaced spending, our politicians more concerned with scapegoats and spite than actually benefitting their constituents
erev 3 points 2 years ago
My brother in Christ, im sorry to inform you but the upcoming fiscal crisis are gonna be some of the least of your kids worries. I'm still probably closer in age to you rather than them, but i grew up knowing that money is gonna mean jack shit once the water starts boiling (metaphorically, but hyperbolically realistic). We're the frogs in the pot and the economy is gonna be the least of our troubles. We're seeing a global rise in fascism, climate disasters, war, inequity, and yes financial instability. If you wanna help your kids, get involved in the community and organize. Start unions at your work places and march in protests for a better future. I'm not talking about a stronger or more fashy future, but one where we work together. Join or make mutual aid networks where you live. The best thing you can do for your children (imo, coming from a young person) is help set up the future you want for them. I would hope that's one of community and mutual aid where we help each other not because we expect a reward or are paid to, but because together we stand taller and can hoist up those who cannot stand on their own. I hope i don't sound too preachy, but it sounds like you love your kids so I implore you to get involved further. The future did not look kind to me when I was a child, and it looks even less hospitable now. We can change that. Direct action and mutual aid are the way forward to a better future imo.
ZILtoid1991 19 points 2 years ago
“You will be more conservative as you grow older” is not a truth, but a threat. If you don't become a conservative under their regime, you won't become old.
Realitaetsverlust -11 points 2 years ago
Well some people never learn I guess.
zeppo 13 points 2 years ago
The people who told me that were 100% boomers. There’s that idiotic saying “if you’re not liberal* when you’re 20, you have no heart. If you’re not conservative when you’re 40 you have no brains” ok boomer.
Note this is using the US meaning of liberal, not to mean “capitalist”.
HubertManne 11 points 2 years ago
Yup but I have seen it in my peers unfortunately. Honestly though not in the ones who were actually passionate. Like the guy who started the environmental club is as left as he ever was but like the one friend I had I think just parroted what most of his friends said atm.
frightful_hobgoblin 10 points 2 years ago
In the mid 20th-century, people reliably got more petty bourgeois as they got older.
EldritchFeminity 11 points 2 years ago
There's a much better correlation between wealth and conservatism than age. Almost like those who begin to benefit from the system of oppression are incentivesed to keep it going.
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WhimsicalWood 9 points 2 years ago
Broadly speaking, I'd say it's done out of fear. Voting conservative feels like staying the course and not challenging the status quo, even if it's not ideal. Voting change could be seen as a threat to "stability" even when it's a false narrative.
NauticalNoodle 4 points 2 years ago
To add to what you said I'd also argue it comes with finding financial success while lacking the awareness of how lucky one had to be to achieve that kind of success in life.
-- although lately I have also seen a lot of people that lack the imagination to consider a reality different from what's presented to them by the status quo.
On second thought, that latter point just sounds a lot like Indoctrination.
anachronist 6 points 2 years ago
Yep this. It's a combination of becoming more financially well-off, combined with loss aversion, combined with a sense that the culture starts to alienate you. It's like grandpa simpson said: "I used to be with it. But what was 'it' changed. And now what I'm with isn't 'it', and what is 'it' is scary and strange."
NauticalNoodle 4 points 2 years ago
Immigrants being on the right is also implicit. Almost nobody is gonna migrate to some place new because things like recent changes are going well for them in their country of origin. They instead leave and migrate to some place that is relatively more stable & predictable. Host countries don't like it when people migrate over and start agitating for change. As a result conservatism is built into the process.
–Consider the Cuban Communist. The Cubans that are happy with Communism have no major incentive to leave and resettle in Miami. The Cuban Capitalists OTOH flee to Miami where they espouse the evils of Communism while advocating for our government to continue the trade embargo, ensuring they can spread their pain to their fellow Cubans back in Cuba. It's the same exact story with Falun Gong
BilboBargains 8 points 2 years ago
Maybe we become more extreme in our existing beliefs. My political compass position drifted right from bottom left as I hit my thirties. After the Iraq invasion of 2003 and recessions following 2008 it swung back towards Ghandi. I became convinced that conservative politics isn't working in my late forties and that has only been reinforced as I try to access the creaking UK healthcare system.
Olgratin_Magmatoe 1 point 2 years ago
It's definitely a terrible system, and there are better ones out there like 10Groups. But astrology is completely meaningless. The PCT at least tells you a vague (terrible, yes), but somewhat meaningful direction in which you believe.
For example, I know that since I'm libertarian left on the PCT, that I'm going to disagree with 90% of the things somebody who's authoritarian right on the PCT believes.
Astrology doesn't have that ability to reliably compare, since it is literally and completely meaningless.
But again, shit like 10Groups is better and everybody should switch to measures that have more than 2 axis.
Olgratin_Magmatoe 1 point 2 years ago
I just gave an example of how it is meaningful.
HawlSera 7 points 2 years ago
On some social positions, I've grown more conservative.
On fiscal issues? Son, at this point I'm only slightly to the left of "Feed the 1% to the homeless and convert their left-over mansions into low income apartments."
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linkhidalgogato 3 points 2 years ago
really If anything i have become more communist as i have aged, when the daydreams of becoming a millionaire or whatever fade away all thats left is the reality of life as the 99% and it kinda sucks, also the older i grow the more i learn about history, about the world, just about everything really and the more i realize how fucked up capitalism is and how much i was lied to thru out my life. Putting that aside tho, people generally do become more reactionary as they age for the simple fact that what was revolutionary in our youth becomes standard and then reactionary over time while many people dont change their views much.
greywolf0x1 -1 points 2 years ago
they probably are too privileged or can't form an opinion by themself
MonkeMischief 5 points 2 years ago
Quite rude towards a total stranger simply admitting they don't know something yet, but okay.
andrew_bidlaw 3 points 2 years ago
If something, as years roll on talking to people with different experiences enriched me as a person.
Krauerking 3 points 2 years ago
Yeah I think they misunderstood what was happening cause they were getting wealthier as they got older.
Honestly, you just become more protective of your stuff and things you consider yours as you get older.
There are plenty of nerds that are super conservative about their fandoms and what is allowed to happen with them and same for all kinds of niches but the idea we would get more conservative with money really assumed we would accumulate more of it and assets. But what people do have is their apps and thoughts and those... Those people will be just as conservative as the boomers are about their money as they get older.
Krauerking 1 point 2 years ago
I've been incredibly broke before and I think it's different kind of protective. I'm frugally protective at trying to keep something working but that's a different kind of possesive.
Of course you will care about food when you are starving. And you won't care about scraps and leftovers when you are not.
But like that was a change of not being afraid to lose something you can rebuy. I'm sure their is plenty of non disposable items that you would have and ideals that you hold onto as truths about yourself. And im sure you don't viewing housing and transportation as disposable.
psycho_driver 3 points 2 years ago
I am becoming more annoyed by young liberals as I get older but I'm sure as shit not turning GOP conservative.
umbraroze 3 points 2 years ago
I was politically ambivalent as a young voter.
Now, I'm pretty much convinced the rich people (and the parties that represent them) are just out there to screw everyone else over. And every single year just adds more evidence to the pile.
I don't think there is any conceivable scenario in which anyone can convince me that free market will magically fix all problems. It's nonsense.
greywolf0x1 2 points 2 years ago
you're left or you're not, you're a plain liberal
ZombiFrancis 1 point 2 years ago
They don't have to be entirely mutually exclusive. Though I imagine the most consistent form is just a left-facing liberal: like one that values philanthropy.
Though I have argued that some kinds of anarchists can embody this unholy fusion by way of contributing to society by removing themselves from it. Kind of requires rural homesteading in my experience, having known a few folks that I think could be defined that way.
...Though those homesteading types are often prone to going all sov-cit or worse. Also based from experience.
RandomVideos 2 points 2 years ago
Eventually, it will overflow and you will become fascist
putoelquelolea 1 point 2 years ago
All that saying means is that some people are willing to change their moral compass according to situational convenience
FunderPants 0 points 2 years ago
I know that conflating Liberals and Conservatives is practically lemmys official pass time, but I have to point out they are not the same.
sensiblepuffin 14 points 2 years ago
Liberals and conservatives are more similar than liberals and progressives.
FunderPants -1 points 2 years ago
No, I have a lot of experience in liberal organizations and they are not, despite the memes, closer to conservatism than progressivism. It honestly makes me feel like most people on lemmy have never really worked with liberal groups.
The major differences between a liberal and a social democrat or progressive comes down largely to deciding when a market has failed and when to use government intervention, both Liberals and progressives are fine with intervention, only the threshold changea. We want the same things, mostly, but disagree on how to get them.
Conservatives, philosophical Conservatives anyway, won't typically even consider such a thing, and often do not even want the same things as Liberals or progressives.
This both sides same stuff just hurts progressive causes, because it sours mushy people with little to no real philosophy on voting for liberal parties. Those people flip flop back to Conservatives when they get angry and we lose the progress we've made, as is about to happen in Canada.
OurToothbrush 14 points 2 years ago
The major differences between a liberal and a social democrat or progressive comes down largely to deciding when a market has failed and when to use government intervention,
Okay sounds like you're just describing different labels for liberalism.
Compare these people to a communist who thinks we should literally nationalize and worker-self-manage the relevant sectors of economy and you'll see what people are trying to tell you about how liberals and conservatives are basically the same.
Cowbee 10 points 2 years ago
No, I have a lot of experience in liberal organizations and they are not, despite the memes, closer to conservatism than progressivism.
Perhaps if you redefine progressivism.
The major differences between a liberal and a social democrat or progressive comes down largely to deciding when a market has failed and when to use government intervention, both Liberals and progressives are fine with intervention, only the threshold changea. We want the same things, mostly, but disagree on how to get them.
Yep, you redefined it.
Conservatives, philosophical Conservatives anyway, won't typically even consider such a thing, and often do not even want the same things as Liberals or progressives.
Conservatives often do, and the distance between genuine progressivism and liberalism is shorter than liberalism and conservativism.
This both sides same stuff just hurts progressive causes, because it sours mushy people with little to no real philosophy on voting for liberal parties. Those people flip flop back to Conservatives when they get angry and we lose the progress we've made, as is about to happen in Canada.
Electoralism will not save you.
sensiblepuffin 5 points 2 years ago
I think the fact that you've spent a lot of time in liberal organizations is why you think that way about where it falls on the continuum between progressivism and conservatism.
Interesting that you characterize my statement as "both sides"ing. I would say the thrust of my statement is not "both sides" but "one side". America does not have a progressive party, only conservative and conservative-lite. Given the choice, of course I'll choose the latter, not least because the former is so far off the deep end it may never recover as a party. That does not mean I think that both parties are the same.
Visually:
--------Progressivism ------------------------ Center ------ Liberalism --------------------------- Conservatism.
rockSlayer 7 points 2 years ago
Both the democratic party and the republican party are liberal parties. One of them got scratched.
NauticalNoodle 6 points 2 years ago
A lot of conservatives are liberals. The two terms are not mutually exclusive.
winterayars 5 points 2 years ago
Yet both liberals and conservatives (in your sense of the words) say this.
GarbageShootAlt2 4 points 2 years ago
path: 0 12624536 12633728, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
EarthShipTechIntern -2 points 2 years ago
Not communism, but Putin.
This is the Maga flag. Thus is the "new conservative party"
EarthShipTechIntern 0 points 2 years ago
Trump is a Putin puppet.
The Russian flag may as well be the MAGA flag
EarthShipTechIntern 1 point 2 years ago
I do.
Poor commenting on my part.
Some part of me would want to argue 'that's still Putin's flag, he's reinstating Cold War & KGB mindset' but honestly, he's taken things far beyond anything his predecessors did.
Alwaysnownevernotme 4 points 2 years ago
Are the tankies in the room with us now?
dessalines 4 points 2 years ago
path: 0 12643123 12644229, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 0
33550336 1 point 2 years ago
Yes, tankiness is a support to AES. I lived in such "communist" country, and as in any other AES, the elite in "workers" party was far more privileged than anyone. Is this a communist worker car?
DreadPirateShawn 4 points 2 years ago
what's a retart?
andrew_bidlaw 3 points 2 years ago
Maybe they are into chemistry\alchemy.
AngryCommieKender 3 points 2 years ago
I vaguely "knew" that alembics, retorts, and calcinators were things because of some fantasy book or another. Morrowind taught me what they were.
andrew_bidlaw 3 points 2 years ago
Hehe, same.
ZombiFrancis 6 points 2 years ago
They're just past the end of the pier, those big things that aren't seals.
Vuraniute 3 points 2 years ago
Well, for one example: Kissinger approved Operation Menu, which is estimated to have a death toll of at least 100.000 civilians, and this is just ONE operation. Operation Condor, an anti leftist repression campaign in the Americas, has an estimated count of 80.000 killed and 400.000 political prisoners. These are just specific cases: the "knife wounds" amongst the "amputated limbs" for an analogy.
UnderpantsWeevil 11 points 2 years ago
Makes me think of the old Samuel Clemmens quote
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak;
whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
~ Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
It's so easy to pretend the mob that turned on French nobility in the 1800s or the Qing Dynasts and Russian Tsars in the 1900s or the Arabs who lashed out at European occupation in the 2000s were simply seized by mania or some animal impulse.
It's so easy to pretend they had no grievance, they suffered no generational atrocities, they had no motivation for their violent uprising, save the insidious Mind Virus of Leftist Agitation.
It's romantic to see the aristocracy and the colonial governments of these nations as martyrs of a golden era. They were cruelly deposed by savages for the crime of living the gentile and sophisticated life. They were the Eloi, dragged into the dirt by vicious Morlocks who envied their perfect beauty.
But it's all bullshit.
The aristocracy were monsters. They maintained their grips on the people through generation after generation of terror, torture, and enforced ignorance. They were cult leaders and warlords who claimed turf through centuries of conquest, inquisition, and cultural indoctrination.
When these archaic institutions failed, we like to blame the revolutionary leaders who happened to climb atop the ruins of their bloody legacy. But they were simply at the right moment in history to witness a corrupt edifice crumble under the weight of millions of their own dissatisfied subjects.
Confidant6198 2 points 2 years ago
Millions of Nazis, yeah
TheVisionary -11 points 2 years ago
You people so naive its toxic. Ill leave this here for reference about one of the many examples as to why communism is not the way to go:
Thank me later.
Jumpingspiderman 1 point 2 years ago
As if total communism were the only alternative. And you call us naive.
TokenBoomer 0 points 2 years ago
Climate Change will make planned economies inevitable.
memes
@lemmy.ml
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Rules:
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memes
@lemmy.ml
57204
14831
4507
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
go to feed...
You can only get more conservative when you have things to protect like a house and a pension.
Most millennials retirement plan atm is die of heatstroke in 150 degree weather in a 8 person shared apartment in Alaska.
save