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arbutus1440 t1_jccwhkx wrote

Reply to comment by E_Snap in A tech boss appointed by Italy's prime minister resigned after quoting a speech from fascist dictator Mussolini in an internal email by 777fer

I really don't get why people keep framing it this way. Scientifically, and from an evolutionary perspective, it's utter nonsense.

>chasing our own goals at the expense of everyone else

...is what our species has done throughout its entire existence.

>politicians play our selfish interests against each other

...as they always have, throughout our entire history.

People keep talking about these things as if somehow people could ever do anything different. They can't.

"Human nature" is a phantom opponent. We are who we are. We're not evolved to do things like separate truth from fiction when the truth threatens our well-being. It's just evolutionary fact. People do what they're wired to do, and expecting people to all behave like model citizens when that's literally never happened in the history of our species is just a recipe for frustration and futility.

Focus your ire on the systems. The hippies were right, and they've always been right: It's capitalism. It's the plutocracy. It's the corruption. All of these are reversible—human nature isn't. Stop getting mad at people and start getting mad at systems. It's not emotionally satisfying but it's what's gotta happen if we're gonna survive.

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E_Snap t1_jccz4ul wrote

Lol no, it’s democracy that’s the problem. Corruption, plutocracy, tribalism, and capitalistic tendencies arise out of even small differences between demographics when they are given the “right” to vote based upon their prejudices, and you’ve already decided that we can’t expect voters to make informed decisions.

People like to slant-quote Churchill and say “Yeah whatever, democracy sucks but it sucks least out of everything we’ve tried,” as if we did a 100% no-reload completion of the game of History and we don’t need to try new things anymore (or give old underutilized ideas another shot). I’m here to say fuck that— we are still evolving our society. Anyone who says that the current status quo is the best we can do is trying to sell you a bridge. All democracy does is placate the masses for trying when the politicians inevitably choose to go their own way anyway.

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