this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I’m not following. You’d be ok with risking beheading to overthrow a monarch. But you won’t overthrow a corporate CEO?

You think corporations don’t exist under monarchy?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I feel like it's more about distribution of responsibility. If you have a king, he's either a good king and runs things well, or a bad king and runs things poorly. A King's success is generally measured by the quality of his kingdom, which is at least somewhat tied to the wellbeing of subjects.

In a corporation, even if you have a comparitively "good" CEO, he's still answerable to the shareholders, and thus obligated to raise the stock value by any means necessary, a factor which is not necessarily dependent on the wellbeing of his employees.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

no, I don't. They have far more complex structures. Just because you remove a CEO, does not mean the whole company will go away. How many CEOs have been fired and replaced? Plenty. These companies still remain though, corrupting everything around them.

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

I will say I'm the UK we still have a king that we couldn't physically overthrow although we could possibly remove them constitutionally if the democracy aligned in that direction. However we do still have amazon here.

I think the difference between UK and US for workers rights comes from how we treat lobbying differently.

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

Yeah, but the point is that corporations still exist and rule in most monarchies at this very moment. You would just be adding an extra layer of something to overthrow.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

that's true too lol

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

How many monarchs have been replaced? Plenty. Just think of anchient Egypt.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

jeff bezos is a monarch. he has an empire with people doing literal slave-work and practically untouchable by the judicial system. if you are not willing to overthrow him now, you won't be willing to overthrow a "literal" monarch. same goes for every billionaire.

as there are middlemen protecting the billionaires now -like mass media, military industrial complex, heavily armed local police, union busters, corrupt judicial system etc.- there will be middlemen protecting the monarch then.

you think you would be willing to overthrow the monarch because it's not real, a fantasy. but you're willingly turning a blind eye to the exact same thing that is real and happening right now.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

except if you overthrow bezos, other billionaires will just take his place, put the insurgeants (is this a word?) in prison and the system persists

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

You don't overthrow people, you overthrow systems

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

and as if like there will be one monarch to rule them all! all by himself, waiting by the dock, preparing for a duel.

just because we don't officially call it monarchy, people think that it's a whole new system. every critique you have against monarchy is valid for the billionaires and vice versa.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Oligarchy and monarchy are not the same, but have similarities

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What makes you think a monarchy would do anything to combat a corpo hellscape? If history's any indication, they'd probably make all the CEOs lords and turn everybody else into an indentured peasantry.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

We're so close lol... for now

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A company is much easier to crash than a monarch or government. A government will lock you up or kill you for planning to overthrow them.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Don't buy anything from Amazon. Convince others to join your cause.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Right. All 10 of us will make a huge difference...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Why do you need to make a difference in the existence of Amazon. Stop trying to save the world and start trying to save your block.

Like, maybe call the city and report a pothole or something. Get a low hanging branch trimmed so it doesn’t hit a biker.

You’re right. Even with the might of 10 people you’d be a mote of dust on Amazon’s windshield. And you don’t have 10 people you have 1.

Amazon is named after a mighty river. And you’ve got a little beach shovel and and a bucket and you’re asking about how to stop the river.

The trouble with someone trying to find the biggest machine they can and pilot it, is that they might actually succeed in getting to those controls some day and then because they didn’t work themselves up from small to larger vehicles, they have no idea how to drive it and they crash.

Doing good works is about more than obtaining power. You also need competence. Like, a software developer is omnipotent in the realm he’s working in. Doesn’t mean that omnipotence actually results in anything valuable being done.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Same way you overthrow a king. Without exaggeration or sarcasm, we can’t really discuss those methods civilly, but history can always repeat itself.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

It would be far easier to start a populist movement that reigned in corporations. The problem with revolutions is you never know who's going to to end up on top at the end. Most likely the new regime will be just as bad as the old. I think what we actually need is more democracy. I like the idea of a democratic referendum that allows the people to force the government into action.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Regulations? Idk what you think the world is lol

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

What if the people who make and enforce the regulations are the very same people who run these corporations?

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

I think a lot of people here have a weird understanding of monarchy and revolutions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

When the entirety of your experience with monarchies and revolutions is a line in a history textbook, it seems a lot easier and less painful than it is.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Man you would love NRx-type thinking and people like Mencius Moldbug if you’re interested in this line of thought.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Same - monarchy’s flaw is that it’s clear who is in charge and who can be (ultimately) blamed. The same thing is simultaneously it’s advantage - it’s honest. For fans of voting - you can have elected monarchy as was a case with few countries ;)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Not really, or do you think, that all those child monarchs in anchient times were actually ruling?

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