What’s it going to take to actually do something about these ultra-rich leeches literally destroying our planet and everything good on it to inflate a number in a bank somewhere? How do we actually build up the initiative to stop it?
All our other problems seem largely centered around our inability to appropriately respond to extreme greed. Not only in actually actively stopping it, but in even identifying it or being able to properly censure it in the first place. The moment you start talking about the rich being the cause of our problems, there’s a section of society that starts tuning you out. I definitely feel like as things get worse people are starting to catch on, but even once we’re there, where do we go?
If we actually get to the point of agreeing that excessive wealth is inherently misanthropic and should be a crime in and of itself, how do we make it a crime while so much power sits in the hands of those who’d be on the losing end of that decision?
I hope the WGA and SAG can spark a change in people’s consciousness around labor. I’d honestly love to see a lot more interviews and independent podcasts coming from the picket lines. If there’s anyone who can convince Americans to fight for the value of their labor, it’s the people write and play the parts in the stories they love.
Robin Hood Rebellion. Start taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
I want to add on some quick math. Some people will look at this and scoff, saying that actors are millionaires and are more similar to these billionaire leeches than to us. A billion isn’t a number you can easily wrap your head around – I have trouble putting it into the correct perspective and scale, and I’m an engineer. It’s really difficult. So to try and show exactly how much money we’re talking here, I’m going to use time:
- 35k seconds, 9.7 hours
- 70k seconds, 19.4 hours
- 100k seconds, 1.16 days
- 250k seconds, 2.9 days
- 1m seconds, 11.6 days
- 10m seconds, 115.7 days
- 100m seconds, 3.2 years
- 1b seconds, 31.7 years
I haven’t even lived for 1 billion seconds yet, and I’m 28! Even an actor who’s racked up $100m over a successful career is closer to $0 than they are to $1b. Now arguably I’d say $100m is at the point where it needs to be treated similarly to $1b, but even so. The average working adult is closer to an actor in terms of wealth than these disgusting hoarders.
In reality, every dollar isn’t equal, and what this analysis doesn’t take into account is the amount leftover after all necessities are paid for, which is the reason why someone making $35k is not living like a millionaire. The point here is, a billion is incredibly big. It’s unfathomable. Unless the person protesting is a billionaire, they’re on your side against the leeches and absurdly wealthy.
(I suspect this is why actors tend liberal and billionaires tend conservative.)
The fact that most people will reflexively reject and wilt at the idea of a wealth cap, or at least enforceablely taxing every dollar made above a certain amount at 99%, is a testament to the many decades of often-subtle propaganda that makes people think that modern western capitalism is the only way. As well as the continuing de-funding of public education and making colleges less accessible.
The moment you start talking about the rich being the cause of our problems, there’s a section of society that starts tuning you out.
That’s because this is an insane claim.
If we actually get to the point of agreeing that excessive wealth is inherently misanthropic and should be a crime in and of itself
This is a massive “If.” I could probably never be convinced that one person’s wealth is inherently detrimental to someone else’s well-being.
These are very extreme views. I support the Hollywood strike, my buddy is a union leader (as were both my parents), and I’m a reliably Democrat voter, and I couldn’t disagree more with what you’ve said above.
The thing is, you can’t get that rich by playing fair, it’s only possible at the expense of others. And I can assure you, most rich people are activelty making our lives worse.
Again that’s a huge claim with nothing to back it up.
Nothing? 💀 Show me a single billionaire that got rich by playing fair
Define “playing fair”
Anticonsumer, anticompetitive practices, corruption and lobbying in their own interest, propaganda, tax evasion…
I lobbied in my own interest not 15 minutes ago, as part of Citizens Climate Lobby. Just got off a zoom meeting with my rep. Lobbying is not inherently bad.
Can you prove tax evasion? That’s a serious crime.
Also, shameless plug - consider joining your local chapter of CCL! Took me 5 minutes to sign up and all meetings have been via zoom.
That’s because this is an insane claim.
Consider that they have the power to massively improve everyone’s lives but are choosing not to.
Perhaps they didn’t personally cause and create some of those problems, but they are still the only ones with the power to make the necessary changes, so the continuation of those problems is indeed their doing.
In what way does the logistics revolution spurred by Amazon’s growth not massively benefit every person who buys anything in the US? You’re seriously suggesting with a straight face, that Microsoft hasn’t saved literally hundreds of millions of lives just in database tech alone?
You’re talking out of your ass here man. Hell, you’re putting billionaires on par with running a government which is simply absurd.
It’s not on rich people to save the fucking world, though Bill Gates has personally done more for the world than most governments ever have. It’s on voters to pass policies that provide them better lives. That’s the point of democracy
Are you serious lmao
You think billionaires have no influence on government? Please
I think you don’t understand how government functions in any real way at all
I’ve been “striking” for a long time now, against junk TV in general. There’s an occasional awesome show that delivers but 95% of it is low-effort junk TV like dating, survival, cooking and other shows like it.
I haven’t had live TV in years and it’s quite shocking to see what the average user deals with. Junk TV + ads that play 30% of the time is absolutely insane.
low-effort junk TV like dating, survival, cooking and other shows like it.
… in other words, exactly the shows that don’t use actors or writers
Huh. When you put it that way…
I actually think the movies they star in and write are shit too.
Just looking at the list of movies held up by the strike makes me weep with joy.
Glad greedy shitbags who make nothing but garbage are fighting each other.
I haven’t had live TV in years and it’s quite shocking to see what the average user deals with. Junk TV + ads that play 30% of the time is absolutely insane.
Yeah, I’ve had the same experience. We don’t have live TV, and when we occasionally hang out with friends or family who do I’m always flabbergasted at the frequency and length of ad breaks nowadays, and similarly amazed that despite a nearly endless list of channels there never seems to be anything I actively want to watch.
I had one of them first TiVos, then upgraded to them expanded versions modes online for 1TB of shows. The 30-second skip button pressed six(6) times would effectively (skip) the ads. Never looked back. When I see or hear a commercial at someone’s house it rocks me like I’m in a different dimension and time.
Personally I rarely watch TV in real time, so the only time of year I ever really see commercials is during the NFL season.
Fuck hollywood.
This would be good opportunity for people to start new film studios and such, founded on more equal profit sharing. Let greedy pieces of shit shrivel and die without labor to exploit. There is no negotiating with those kinds of people as they will just try to find ways to force and manipulate people to do what they want.
It’s ironic that Hollywood was created by filmmakers and actors who got tired of being exploited by investors and cinemas alike.
Ribbit
incredibly based. fuck the execs. fucking parasites
Whole lot of the bigger establishments have been going through the ringer lately
Fake news, these are all crisis actors. They didn’t even try I’ve seen many of these people in movies!
“Women and men, let no one miss today! Death to the machines!”
- Metropolis
Lol get fucked Hollywood
UNION STRONG ✊
While I agree that the compensation has been way too low for the working class, I fucking hate how this is used as an excuse when it hits certain group. “what are we waiting for?” as if the real working class (employees of supermarkets, fast food chains, gas stations, etc) haven’t being fucked in the ass for a long time. But now it “hurts me, let’s have solidarity”. No sympathy for them. Eat shit.
What a shit take. Seriously, how is this bad for others? Trying to delegitimise these peoples work shows me you have no idea what you talking about. Do you understand what a class war is?
You know what? I refuse to believe someone can be this dense. I took the bait, my bad. Troll.
Good. More please. Hold these cucks accountable.
Destroying the planet for infinite wealth.
You wanna get really mad? A new practice they were trying to pull off was bring in some young good looking actors; do 3d body scans, record a bunch of voice data, and then have them allow the studios a perpetual license to use their likeness for a few thousand bucks. How evil is that?
It’s only a matter of time for desperate people to sell their likeness to a company doing that. If there was a company out there saying they’d pay you $3k to do a full body 3d scan, record 1 hour of voice lines, and own the rights to your image…do you know how many people would do that? (Probably a significant amount)
Evil and awful yes, but people are desperate for cash in this economy and most people wouldn’t truly understand what they are giving up to the company
At this point they should just pay OpenAI to AI generate their “actors”
Now I can finally catch up with my backlog!
How’s that boot taste?
As far as I’m aware, neither of the striking unions have called for a consumer boycott.
It’s just kind of disgusting to be saying this shit jovially when people’s lives and families are at stake and actors are publicly threatening to burn down CEO’s homes. It reeks of sociopathic shit having absolutely no empathy or support for what people are going through.
He clarified his words after some people naturally started to take it a little too literally, but I don’t think he needed to.
Whoever that “anonymous exec” was who said they wouldn’t even start to negotiate until strikers started losing their homes deserves to be pilloried.
Pretty sure this walk back is simply because of the legal implications. It’s pretty obvious what he meant.
Pillory is too nice for them.
Idunno, the pillory could get pretty brutal if the crowd was sufficiently riled up. It wasn’t uncommon for people to bring stones or bricks.
Oh no! Anyway…
Edit: In case the subtlety slipped by some folks, I was pointing out how very unimportant the film industry is as a whole. I stand by the folks striking for better conditions and pay, but without Hollywood the world will continue on. Humanity doesn’t need a new Marvel movie to survive the next year. Food, water, construction, transportation, these things are critical infrastructure. But I do not care if Hollywood stops making cookie cutter movies for a while, let the studios feel the crunch. Who can honestly say they are totally caught up on all the shows they want to watch, anyway? Go watch something you didn’t have time for before, because the newest season of “Someone else’s life” just aired. Go make a new friend, read a new book, or explore a new place. Don’t want to or can’t for some reason? Ok, go watch anything else, there is more media then you consume in a lifetime available for you to peruse on the internet.
To add; this is, in my opinion a bigger deal than UPS. There are other freight companies. It’s bigger than the railroads. We have other shipping. We only have one Hollywood. Entertainment sucked the last time they striked. It started all the reality shows.
I’m glad more and more workers are realizing the power they have over the industries they’re working in.
Without the workers, the businesses have nothing. We really need to have a serious revolution before they replace all jobs with AI robots.
If you still have the bird app or some other method, send your support of solidarity to your favorite actors. They will definitely appreciate it.
Glad you guys are fighting so hard to make more money while children go without food and water.
History really does repeat itself and that’s why these problems never get solved.
I honestly don’t know how I feel. Most content feels like ‘consume our product/content and give us monthly fee’ instead of nice shows and movies. Everything seems to have a point where it pulls me out and I find myself questioning if I’m crazy or if everything feels like shit.
There are some amazing gems, but for years it feels like Hollywood has cared less and less about making cool and engaging media and are instead of focusing on manipulating people.
I’m sure the problem is coming from the top, but writers and actors have been pretty shit too
I’ve barely even noticed this writers strike because I’ve hardly even bothered to watch any new Hollywood movies or TV shows in literally years. Everything I have seen recently has been complete garbage. So I find myself watching older shows again and again, more YouTube content, educational and history stuff like that…heck, I’ve been following some modern film critics like Red Letter Media and just watch their commentary vs the real thing, and it’s usually much more entertaining.
I think Hollywood is going to use this opportunity to replace the writers with AI. If it works great, if it doesn’t work, nobody will notice or care.
I subscribed to Britbox and find the writing and acting of much higher quality. Plus, the stories are generally more interesting with more feeling. I mainly watch that, watchTCM, and certain YouTube channels.
If you want a gem, I recommend checking out Undone. It’s by the same guy who made Bojack Horseman.
You can stream it for free here: https://fmovies.to/tv/undone-70zyj/1-1
Just make sure you have a good adblocker, like uBlock Origin.
Everything is shit. Quality is down and prices are up.
People gladly have been lowering their standards for years so those profiting off of them can make even more money.
Most actors are awful these days. Like, look at Chris Pratt lmao. That guy is terrible but very popular among children and manchildren.
We don’t have this generations’ Tom Hanks yet.
The only way to watch live action stuff that isn’t kiddie-bullshit is to watch things in other languages. They still have integrity and aren’t just loading their actors up on cocaine to cover up bad acting.
This is probably the worst take I’ve ever heard. It’s actually amazing how much i disagree with almost everything you’ve written here.
And, Tom Hanks is still acting, Tom Hanks is literally this generations Tom Hanks.
There’s so much excellent acting and directing in the world at the moment i just can’t fathom how you have come to your conclusions.
I’m sorry, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree.
Hope you like the new marvel movie coming out.
Yes, only marvel movies come out now. Everything else is actually banned at the moment. Christ, your takes are fucking awful.
