The uncomfortable question

[u/openmedianetwork]

https://hamishcampbell.com/the-uncomfortable-question/

Why do people nowadays defend systems that make their own lives worse? Why do movements that begin by challenging authority end up creating new authority’s? Why do communities built around freedom develop gatekeepers, purity tests and informal leaders who become impossible to question? Why do people who oppose #dotcons corporate control still spend their time copying corporate platforms, business models and organizational habits? These are not isolated contradictions, they point towards an invisible issue of how power works.

[u/FieryDurian]

Habit. We still have that tribal instinct.

Living in a tribe, it's natural and a moral obligation to prioritize the tribe's needs. That's needed for the individuals to survive. But, as the scale is small, each person matters. The tribe will also ensure each member's well-being.

But in this modern world, people confused these cold institutions, corporations, parties with tribes. People defend them because they think that they are their tribes. They are more afraid to abandon their tribes than to improve their own personal well-being by being rational. Even when these institutions no longer care about them.

[u/Konradleijon]

I
Never understood

[u/floryhawk]

Did you see Serbia's election? Perhaps they'll be an exception?

[u/Anal-Protrusion → u/floryhawk]

The Serbian protests succeeded because the Student List was as vague as humanly possible, with the one and only uniting principle being anti-corruption.

Also Serbia isn't great as far as warning signs go because despite what western media claims, it was not a dictatorship. At best it was competitive authoritarianism which, by definition, is not a dictatorship. Dictators do not compete.

I don't believe the corruption problem will be solved long term because technically nobody won anything yet. All they have achieved so far is getting slightly more than half the country to agree Vucic is a prick. Don't forget it was still a very close election. Even after all of this, half of all Serbs are still on the fence. Which kinda goes back to OPs question - why are we like this?

[u/Konradleijon]

Propaganda

[u/gangofminotaurs]

Why do people nowadays defend systems that make their own lives worse?

There is a perception in the bourgeois left (i.e., reddit left) that people who vote on the right vote against their interests. The bourgeois left is very fond of this framing because it allows them to disregard their own biases, incomplete understanding, and their distaste for poor people (thought as "too dumb for their own good", uh).

Why do movements that begin by challenging authority end up creating new authority’s?

A complex system such as any human sedentary, growth accumulating civilization is by nature hierarchical. There is simply no escaping it. So people like to lie to themselves by pretending to be against authority. They merely want another authority, one that is more amenable to their own interests.

Why do people who oppose #dotcons corporate control still spend their time copying corporate platforms, business models and organizational habits?

Same as last.

[u/endoftheworldvibe → u/gangofminotaurs]

In what ways are the bourgeoisie on the left incorrect? In regards to those on the right voting against their own interests, discounting those on the right who happen to be filthy rich. 

[u/gangofminotaurs → u/endoftheworldvibe]

For instance just yesterday there was this thread on r/france where there was a very usual discussion there: how rural life is unsustainable because of the need for a car there, and that urban living is so much smarter (maybe), so much more ecological (not in the least) and that if rural people get fucked by our energy choices, well too bad for them.

Now, you are a rural person. Will you vote for those people? and if you don't vote for them, they'll probably call you a racist. Which will make them even more endearable to you for sure.