tldr; we need one of the following - 1) Sacrifice some independence or values to get billionaire support, 2) Sacrifice some of our priorities to find a leader to unite influential outsiders, 3) Sacrifice some of our honesty by being outlandish.
We need fast change, and progressive ideas alone are not enough. The media will bury any reasonable progressive, like we’ve seen with Bernie and Cenk in their runs. We need something extreme.
Here are the options we have:
Billionaires. In 2020 Bloomberg was an obviously horrible candidate, but his money allowed him to hang in the race like a leech. Imagine if someone with that kind of wealth gave it all to Cenk to use for a presidential run. Finding a mountain of cash is a simple, but tricky solution. There aren’t that many billionaires, and their families probably didn’t get that way being progressive. I think it’s WELL worth it to compromise most of your progressive values if you can get that kind of funding for it. Once you get into power, you can rely on public support and pressure instead, which allows you to switch to progressive ideas that threaten the establishment. For this we elect someone like Cenk, who is willing to risk their career if it gives a good shot at enacting strong policies.
Leadership. Justice democrats has elected well meaning people with good ideas like AOC. But they’ve proven they’re not willing to commit to fighting the establishment. We need an outsider, or small coalition (big ones are too hard to manage) of powerful political outsiders who have a lot of media attention to consolidate for a movement or candidate. Imagine if Cenk, Joe Rogan and Bill Maher were united with a candidate - they’d at least have a spring board to get a chance to win. We need to sacrifice many of our platforms to get those guys on board. The tricky part here is finding someone who is willing and able to woo powerful people, while keeping some unshakable progressive beliefs. And while I’d want to support a leader like Cenk, his honesty and directness would make it too hard for other influential people to commit to him.
Attention. We can get attention by being outlandish - think of how Trump’s insanity gave him billions in free media. Progressive ideas are NOT outlandish. We need a lady gaga of politics if we want attention. We need theatrics, since we have the substance to make it stick. What if a candidate vocally supported capital punishment for corrupt politicians? That would get LOTS of attention and popularity. Capital punishment isn’t progressive, but it gets attention. Progressives often forget ideas alone are worthless without the power to enact them. And to get that power, we need to sacrifice part of our soul. Our leader will also need to be willing to risk their life. They might end like Epstein if the powerful see them as a threat.
In the practical sense, you are right in the objectives that those three sacrifices bring about, however, I think we can achieve all those three without the sacrifices that youpropose. How? please read on:
There is a good billionaire (I know of at least one) that could help with that. He has already put his money where his mouth is and has had victories. Look Nick Hanauer’s 4 TED Talks.
with the correct strategy (alluding to:
)
We can have this AND also add an influential figure to increase momentum. I will expand on this when laying out the specific strategy that I have in mind to see if we can get it to work and if we may start tomorrow.
and…
We can be outlandish with the truth, no honesty needs sacrifice. For this,
can also apply. I will tag you on section Action Alerts when I lay out the strategy to see if we can get you onboard.
In regard to
I think you have a point in here. There has been another instance of this. Last time someone used technology in an effective way against those in power, result was the same. That time, it was Aaron Swartz. What you bring in here is precisely the reason I proposed and up-voted a documentary of his story. This could serve as cautionary tale and what to expect so we can, maybe, think of ways to be prepared. Please join us at TYT’s discord server movie nighgt. It is tomorrow at 8:00 PM CT.
If interested, please go to:
Sincerely,
Another hopeful but concerned as to take action causing good trouble… a Hoper for short (Hopeful Operative)
This would be a great start, though we’d need him to invest a bunch of his money in us to have a real effect - national media ain’t cheap. Crowd funding could feasibly kick in after that. Still, it is getting late enough in this election cycle that it would still be really tough I think without more starting money. The media campaign would have to be absolutely unmatched.
What a lovely little idea. Another nice start. Might get some light headlines. I’d love more of these positive ways to do activism. We’ll still need to find something stronger though. Something average people will hear about, not just news junkies. And for them to hear about it, it needs to be REALLY grabbing. It needs to be dramatic. I’m sure there are ways to do it - like what if we had some representative celebrities to do some stunts, or pranks, or something to get attention at parties for rich people. Imagine something dramatic at the academy awards. But we’d have to get those connections, and to get those connections, we’d have to have a candidate that’s inspiring enough to make people commit. Right now, finding a great candidate seems to be our biggest obstacle.
I’d love to see how this is possible. For getting attention, there needs to be drama. There needs to be something catchy. A super talented politician could probably get away without losing any honesty if they had a great sense of humor, or maybe some other skill. But for the rest of us, unless we present things that are unusual and unique, they won’t grab much attention - and the truth is generally pretty boring and common. Making the truth interesting is possible, but not for anyone I’ve seen near politics.
Thanks!
Thanks for such a thoughtful response. It’s always nice seeing that there is hope for less sacrificial ways to do things. I hope we manage to get a great candidate somehow
A common thread that weaves its way through every billionaire is the desire to be loved and not despised
Never use love but opening up a door is perfectly acceptable.
Alfred Nobel, famous through out the world for the Noble prizes in the sciences and humanities was accidentally declared dead and he read his own obituary in the newspaper describing him as the merchant of death and a stain on humanity and to change that legacy, he created one.
Lightning often strikes many times in the same place, we just don’t notice
We place to much importance on a savior. Just do better and you will be saved. There is more then one billionaire that wants credit for helping get us out of this mess.
You must understand they are experts in risk. They hear pitches all day long, that is their job often times. They only really like pushing things that have robust risk arbitrage.
The thing we need is a way to test ideas collectively, to refine ideas before they are fully built out. Also decoupling the firms from top talent makes a lot of sense. We need them as a public service in common good projects. This doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be utilized to further XYZ firms project goal.
This also means we could cause billionaires to compete in a venture capital platform that is more equitable about judging risk, and diffusing it. As soon as it is built it will be a JUICY target for capture is the only real issue.
I’m interested, but I’m not sure which ideas you mean, or what testing might look like. Even so, testing ideas takes time. Long term sure, but might be tough to fit it into this election cycle.
The idea of billionaires competing to see who can be the most humanitarian has some incredible potential. BUT in order for that to work, they need to be able to trade in their money for fame. The media needs the desire to properly reward them, more than just a news cycle or two. Billionaires are not going to be competing until there’s a sufficient trade for popularity attached to it, which there is currently not. Imagine a Hunger Games style tournament where rich people can sponsor competitors. Everyone would like watching it, and rich people would like paying to influence or sponsor it.
This is the heart of one the tools I am proposing. The idea of a platform called working title “Careshare” the idea is modeled on a carbon tax but for everything else. I have spreadsheets that have outlined averages and national consumption offsetting seems viable. You take consumption patterns then weight them against hidden costs. For instance women average garment use is very low on average. If consumer data is inputted in survey or otherwise you could compare a single user against national average. If it turns out they are worse you direct them to child labor, and environmental not for profits that score 4+ on charity navigator. Based on your wealth you will be asked to donate an amount threshold. If you then prove that donation we will issue a garment share to you that offsets that consumption period. This would look like a digital badge that would be attached to a profile.
My idea boils down to a series of tools and for celebration to be accepted by a group of talent. When you couple that with iterative design during especially during conceptualization, and team lobbying you have the heart of it. Careshare will provide the function for how they will be able to show people the anonymous good deeds they are doing.
So you’re proposing a policy to implement a tax, and reward system, to be put in place by congress. As a reward, people get to see their contributions on a website, maybe on a leaderboard with badges and such?
Interesting once we have a progressive administration. Do your suggestions translate to getting a progressive administration in the first place?
Side note - this defeats the point of voluntary competition. If rich people are competing to donate the most, you can’t ‘ask’ them to donate, especially based on their wealth. Also if it’s proportional to wealth, that that gives poor people an even easier shot at getting the badge. That will sink the idea of rich people donating to look superior. This idea can be refined of course, but it seemed worth responding to that bit.
If everyone knows it takes X percentage of yearly wealth to get a bronze badge then how is it unfair? We don’t need a rich person to participate mind you. We don’t need them, but we will do best if we work together.
Remember life went for a long time without a single billionaire, we would be fine without them. My point is that will not happen they will want to help, and if / when the do. I say we welcome them.
How else will you possibly track everyone’s purchases reliably? Any solution to this requires MASSIVE investment that our movement isn’t remotely close to achieving.
Just like with taxes, rich people can afford to give more. It’s more fair if they have to give more.
Rich people want to give less because for them the numbers feel unfair - just like with taxes, they feel like they deserve to keep more money (flat, not percentage) than the rest of us. Rich people are not going to be participating in this unless it’s built for rich people. If you’re looking for general crowdfunding with the general public, there’s already sites for that.
A voluntary tax for the general public isn’t going to do well. We’re already struggling as it is.
If the billionaires aren’t with us, they’re against us. We CANT win against them without something extremely special, which I outlined in the original post. Thinking otherwise is just ignoring the numbers with how much wealth they can put toward something compared to the rest of us. Not remotely close.
Who’s tracking everyone’s purchases? I said survey. Taxes? Congress? You seem to love to attacking strawmen arguments no one is making.
Taxes seems to be your fixation here. A tax implies a government which isn’t what I am talking about. Donating is what I call a voluntary tax.
Billionaires are people just like everyone. They aren’t monolithic, I think you framing implies zero sum quality that isn’t accurate. Maybe you have the way I think all ideas take time to analyze. If you’re correct it will become apparent organically.
Yes, you’re right. The presence of ‘carbon tax’ and implementations of how to logically implement this threw me off. Because with a survey, there’s no guarantee people will be honest, so whenever it’s something with functional benefit, you simply can’t use a survey. You HAVE to have proof for what your inputting. And the government is the simplest way to do that, which can only be done through a significant executive effort or congress. In other words, not viable for where we are now.
I’m talking about donations in what you quoted.
I somewhat agree with you. While billionaires do have differences of course, they tend to know each other much more than the rest of us. There’s a culture that they get integrated into with other rich and famous people - celebrities, TV hosts, CEOs. Once you’re in that culture, you get sucked into their mindset, and group think takes over to some degree, and if you side with progressives, you get ostracized, or at least judged, for it. There’s pressure to side with corporations, and it’s actually fairly difficult to not be monolithic. That’s why I suggest we need something special to break through and reach them, and others. If we get a bunch of them through some, let’s say, artistic feat - then it could create momentum to give us victory. But it’s something special. Something that isn’t obvious to us right now.
Life is all about opportunity costs. That’s the sacrifice. Opportunity cost is what you give up when choosing something. You give up time with your family, friends, the money you could make doing something else. That’s the cost.
At what price tho.
I bought into it
I worked as hard as i possibly could to make a life for my family.
I don’t begrudge that. I treated it as my sacrifice.
I was my job. I was no longer human.
What decides everything is ability and opportunity and that experience lets you choose you path.
There’s no good without bad so curse not the bad but bless it and look closely into what that incident has produced in your life.
There is no coincidence
There’s only choices we make consciously or unconsciously, but above all, we have free choice.
So, if I may interject, I started a topic that can move us towards a progressive politic from where we are now. Look at running progressive republicans. It is kind of related to your point:
While, I’m not really about finding “a” leader, I do agree “a” leaders will come and go over time during our political movements. What I am focusing on here is the sacrifice of some of our priorities in order to lead towards politically progressive policy collaboration. I expect various groups and persons will support a variety of leaders, and I think having sets of leaders is better than a singular leader for various reasons, (seems more realistic for amassing large number of diverse voters, avoids cult of personality, better policy through collaboration, prevents ignoring marginalized positions, etc).
All that said, speaking of how to move towards progress from where we are, we can strategically compromise our political priorities with select leaders. Perhaps my ideas are a bit separate from this topic thread, and again I would suggest looking at running progressive republicans topic.
