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this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I understand that you feel strongly about this, and I genuinely want to understand better. Sometimes, a more approachable tone can help bridge gaps and make it easier for others to engage in meaningful dialogue. Strong approaches might make some folks hesitant to join the conversation. I'm here to learn and discuss, so let's keep things open. Appreciate the sources you provided!
I feel we started off on the wrong foot. Just like you, I'd also like to improve the system we live in. For example I understand that everyone in the Netherlands is privileged, including me, and I'd like for more people in the world to be able to enjoy this quality of life.
Capitalism might not necessarily be the best approach. For example I value the insights from Noam Chomsky about how state funded research provides essentially all technological innovations. Personally I think these innovations are what make our world better over time. I dislike that our knowledge isn't freely shared with the rest of the world.
Also one of my personal heros is Perelman.
I'll be honest, I don't have the will nor the energy to talk you through anti-capitalism from the basics, it's clear you're not willing to actually make any effort, so neither am I.
I will just leave you with two things that stick out from this last reply:
Educate yourself on tone policing and stop doing it, it's not only derailing to the conversation and providing you an excuse to ignore everything being said to you and to do fuck all, it's also just plain rude and extremely condescending - don't pretend to want to learn from someone (worse - naturally expect them to educate you) and than focus first and foremost (and almost entirely) on how they're doing it (especially from your ignorant starting point, where you clearly have no idea about even the basics of the topic, let alone what kinds of oppressions people less privileged than you suffer daily, and just how much of an impact reality has on our lives. You being completely clueless and deliberately detached doesn't mean you're more "cool calm and collected" it just shows you lack any sort of passion, let alone relevant lived experience).
The second point I want to address is:
On a global scale, yes, people living in the Netherlands are, on average some of the most privileged, on a local scale however, absolutely not everyone in your country has the same privileges as you seem to (I assume because if you don't/won't see marginalisation, you've almost certainly never experienced it yourself), and the idea that they do is so absurd I don't even know how to get you to see the reality around you when you refuse to open your eyes.
Do you seriously think there are no desperately poor people in your country? No homeless people? No disabled people? No racism? No sexism? No Islamophobia? No Anti-Semitism? No anti-migrant hate (which is a mix of a couple of the former)? No homophobia or transphobia?
Do you seriously think Dutch workers aren't being exploited by the dozen billionaires in your country (and a bunch outside of it) that control the economy (by, at the very least, hoarding money that would otherwise be circulating)?
Do you seriously think your government works for the benefit of all of those marginalised people, and not for themselves and those aforementioned billionaires?
Whatever, it feels like I'm wasting my breath either way, like I said before - you either take your head out of your ass and look around for yourself at the reality around you and at the unimaginable wealth of information that exists at the tips of your fingers, or you don't.
I'm seriously done here.