Those who pursue power or money and nothing else are statistically more likely to achieve the most money or power. It’s a filter or selection process. So a 100 billionaires are much much less likely to care, or to know, how a society should function except for what they learned and practiced: capitalism as the wealthy exploiting the masses and buying political power to gain more money.

They are narrow minded nerds in their own specific fields. Techbro’s reprogramming reality. In that way the villains stupidly applying their narrow minded views or delusions to social problems is a quite fitting metaphor.

So even if Bruce Wayne would pay lobbyists and donate to political campaigns and do it wisely, he would be the rare exception and outspend 100:1.

Otherwise, how do you explain a man who believes government should not be restrained in how it treats people?

You’re saying you view Elon Musk and his DOGE department favorably? If so, we can save our breaths and don’t need to argue about anything any more haha.

I agree that things in Germany are, by and large, far saner and far better than the US or the UK. The conditions of the market, the news media and government institutions is better, which allows the liberal dogma to work better. But it’s far from good enough.

And yes I’m a doomer lol. It’s simply a question of numbers: billions vs millions.

I’m not an ideologue and think a mix of ideologies is important, but the fundamental problem is the vast accumulation of wealth (=economic power) that brings unstoppable degeneration and collapse. Especially with social media being completely corrupt, and mainstream news media even in Germany only spouting misinformation and imperialist war propaganda and a pro genocide stance, things will deteriorate to the state of the US.

I agree that many who vote for liberals believe those things, but those are not the goal of liberal parties. The historical meaning of liberalism was the same as what is called neoliberalism today. Calling it a derogatory term is just pretending to be a victim. There IS such an ideology as “belief in inequality based on wealth” and that includes the right to survive through access to healthcare. That is reality.

You argue as if good arguments win, and ideology matters - it doesn’t work that way. Ideology is merely a tool. There is only power, or money that you can exchange for power. And those who desire nothing except power have a competitive advantage to gain more power and shape the world over people who want other things. There is a selection process that has been going for decades that precludes normal people like us two.

Politicians in the US might write some other virtues on their flags, or they might even delude themselves to believe them - that is actually best. But when the chips are down, only those who pursue power gain more power. I believe this could be scientifically proven with game theory and a simulation.

What you are doing is kind of denying that economic power (or capital, or billionaires) have an overwhelming influence on politics and policies. If you say that the conservatives or democrats or whoever does this or that for ideological reasons, you deny political reality and obscure paths to improve things. We need transparency and better tools and countermeasures to these mechanisms.

Politicians are chosen by capitalists among thousands of candidates, and only the fringe that happen to fit into their plans are funded. Those who want power above anything else and who have neoliberal tendencies. The useful idiots to capitalists.

So no, neoliberalism is not a derogatory term that should be avoided. It’s reality. Or how else do you explain Elon Musk running DOGE?

I’d be curious what liberal party in what country you mean.

AFAIK the liberal parties in Europe like Germany, France and UK want exactly what the US neoliberals want, to dismantle the social equality state, deregulation, private schools, private healthcare etc. But they are usually smaller third parties after Social Democrats and Conservatives. But even the Christian Conservatives in e.g. Germany are more socialist than the third party liberals, and to the left of the Democrats in the US.

Of course, ever since the “Third Way” after the fall of the USSR and Clinton, the social democratic parties of Europe also have become far more neoliberal.

The question is really who’s liberty? The liberation of the masses from economic exploitation? Or the liberty of the capitalists to exploit the masses? There is absolutely no doubt what is meant today with liberalism.

And their virtue signalling you can mostly ignore. Why would they want to solve an issue they could run on next election?

If you believe in equality, you’re woke. You’re also a socialist. Because since fascism is a sincere belief in inequality based on identity, while neoliberalism (democrats) is a sincere belief in inequality based on class / wealth.

So yeah, this belief in equality or basic human decency needs to be destroyed in order to maximize profit. Invest in this propaganda, great ROI guaranteed!

There is an interesting analysis of the ideology of the techbro’s (youtube) backing Trump, who actually do want to destroy the US. I’m kinda shocked how well this explains things, and haven’t found a good written article yet (but haven’t been looking).

It’s weird, there is no reason for eggs to be expensive. Eggs are ultra cheap to manufacture. You can do that anywhere and just need some kind of food because they can eat a lot of different things. It doesn’t need precious metals or rare earth or patents or import raw materials - any country can just produce chickens and eggs easily.

So egg prices skyrocketing is either a fundamental dysfunction in a countries economy. Or maybe a political move to influence an election.

If a liberal merely explains in good faith a right wing position that they’re going to argue against, they’re “enlightened centerists”

I think the problem isn’t so much nuance but that there is now a small(!) but very angry group of progressives. Reddit used to be, and lemmy still is mostly composed of these. I mean, those slightly to the left of the event horizon of tankianism.

The central fundamental outlook of open minded intelligent people today is that climate change is going to ruin or snuff out billions of lives, and our institutions are structurally incapable to address this, and shit is continuing to trend downwards, any political revolution will be a lie(obama) followed by a counter revolution (trump) and any new technology will be enshittified. There is a quiet voice saying this in the back of our minds: we are in collapse.

This explains why the temperature in all camps is raised so insanely, because we can’t stand to look at the abyss in front of us we double down or become hysterical. The old sticks just don’t work any more.

So the anger is about the systems that led us here, the 70 year of lies and propaganda and framing of issues. Like your example, explaining a right wing position - there ARE no right wing positions relevant in politics any more than CAN be discussed in good faith. Continuing to debate if people deserve basic human rights and dignity with people who constantly lie is worse than stupid. The masks are off now.

So well anyway, yeah you can’t invite someone from “The Economist” on the show and think you’re anything but enlightened centristic.