alt Hacker NewsEvery once in a while I feel this -- "yeah we're being exploited!"
And then I remember that basic living has always had a cost to be paid. I doubt the first hunter gatherers sat around wondering if they were fulfilled. They just had a more immediate sight-line from their labor to their actual living costs.
Most of us here work well-paid jobs that allow us to pay our requirements and still have disposable income to enjoy our lives. But work we must; homes aren't free and neither is food and much of the entertainment we enjoy.
I don't feel particularly exploited. I fear if you do whatever menacing thing you're insinuating you want to do to the "exploiter class" then my job will go away and much of my lifestyle with it. Not sure that's a good outcome for anyone, really.
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Do you realize how much money some people are making out of this racket while spending billions to convince you that socialized healthcare is the devil's work?
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Homes aren't free, but many people here have parents for which one of them worked a single job out of high school and were able to provide food and shelter, buy a home, take vacations, etc for an entire family and they weren't in the top 5% of income. They weren't expected to be always online and available out of work hours either.
A little bit of historical knowledge, a little bit of reading statistics of wealth inequality currently being about the same level as France before the French revolution. A little bit of looking around and doing the math for what a schoolteacher, or someone earning the median income has to do to survive right now, and maybe you can develop a bit of empathy.
We are at a historical apex of economic exploitation in the US, where we have a trillionaire preaching about the dangers of empathy while giving billions to politicians to ensure he is never taxed or his companies regulated. We are the sons and daughters with far less security, working harder for longer and for less than our parents. We have more gadgets but far less peace or leisure or time to take care of our neighbors.