Dan Fixes Coin-Ops
I said in another toot in another conversation that I wanna stop using the word "capitalism" when I could more easily use "greed" but I kinda never explained why, and I dunno if it's useful or if I'm talking out of my butt but here's the gist of it.
People outside of this lovely bubble here, when you say Capitalism to them, they don't think of greedy CEO's, they think of, like, "Capitalism/communism/socialism" and those are the choices and in some of those you have money and in some γ(γ)γ
Dan Fixes Coin-Ops
But, like, "greed" is a more visceral, straight-to-the-point kind of phrasing. Everyone agrees, except for the greedy, that greed is bad, and that too much of it in one person can be bad for the whole world, and it's easier to open conversations about hey, if everyone agrees that greed is bad then why's nobody trying to just flat-out make the most blatant greed illegal?
Dan Fixes Coin-Ops
I think this comes from an essay Lenny Henry wrote about diversity. He wants more of it, but he hates the word itself - he says "Fairness." I think that's really clever. Dude knows if you point to a blatantly racist situation and say "That's racist" then folk get all defensive and oh-maybe-they-didn't-mean-it but if you point to the same situation and say "That's unfair" then there's a viscerality to that that cuts through bullshit and hits us right in our playground days.
Dan Fixes Coin-Ops
Like, a lot of people Not On Here think of capitalism as, like, What We Have In A Free Country. They think, hey, you get a fair shake (ideally) to earn some money and make a decent life for yourself, and under communism you get bread lines and under socialism you get lots of taxes, that's most people's understanding of economics. You say "smash capitalism" to mean "eat billionaires," they think you mean "smash my paycheque specifically."
Dan Fixes Coin-Ops
So when I'm thinking "more diversity" I say "more fairness," and when I'm thinking "down with capitalism" I say "down with greed."
'cause heck, you get WAY more people to agree with you that way.
Start banging on with the playground mums about smash capital they look at you like you've got three heads, but start with how greedy billionaires are and how much greed hurts the world and ten minutes later they're cackling "eat the rich" right along with you. People already know greed is bad.
Dan Fixes Coin-Ops
And hoo boy it doesn't take much, lemme tell ya. I talk to a lot of playground mums and dads. It's the accent! They're all "Hey where you from," I'm like "Cheshire, North-West of England" and from there it's a hop skip and a jump to the NHS and about three times in four the conversation veers into class warfare with only the teeniest tiniest little nudge in that direction.
People round here are SERIOUSLY ready to turn Jeff Bezos into a sausage roll.
Dan Fixes Coin-Ops
Use a big word if a big word is called for, but big words don't get to your guts as quick as short ones.
Jeff Bezos is GREEDY.
Elon Musk is a CREEP.
Mark Zuckerberg is NOSEY.
This is all self-evident and you don't need to start off with a primer on surveillance capitalism, start off with an easy agreement instead.
Dan Fixes Coin-Ops
(but that's beside the point)
Also, nobody outside of really bubbly bubbles is impressed by long words, *especially* when a shorter and more common word would do a better job. You say "wealth-hoarding capitalists" when you mean "greedy billionaires" you just sound like you're trying to sound clever and impressive rather than just passing the time having a natter like a normal friendly person.
Like, I've met people who talk IRL like they talk online, it's not fun to listen to
Dan Fixes Coin-Ops
Also people - if you talk to them in real life and not on the internet - generally agree that you could throw a banana out of a window on a busy street and have a pretty good chance of hitting someone who'd make a better and more representative president than either of the two sad old men we watched debate each other back in 2020. People who watched the debates really do all have a common feeling of "Christ is this the best we can do"
Dan Fixes Coin-Ops
Dan Fixes Coin-Ops And Radicalizes Soccer Moms
Santa Claes πΈπͺππ°π
Dan Fixes Coin-Ops
@clacke Aye, he used it and he won (and nearly won again!) while we were all banging on about surveillance capitalism or whatever. He won 'cause it works.
(and also because the opposition was shit)
Santa Claes πΈπͺππ°π
Dan Fixes Coin-Ops
@clacke Yup
π¦π¦β’
@ifixcoinops the problem is that... actually a lot of rich people are really nice when you talk to them
they're just
(a) completely fucking clueless about how poor people live
(b) think the real nasty rich people are actually nice like them (because they are nice *to* them)
(c) are usually *legally bound* in the course of their jobs to do horrible things to increase shareholder value
and all *that* really is a systemic problem that moralizing language obscures terribly
π¦π¦β’
@ifixcoinops a lot of us also internalized the gordon gecko ayn rand stuff about greed
which when combined with a lot of stuff about lust and pride and other individual-freedom "morals" being the wrong thing to base a country's laws on
all works together so that if you condemn "greed" like you assume the audience understands the seven deadly sins are bad and should sometimes be controlled by laws, you actually run into the same wall, but in a way more misleading than if you say capitalism
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