Don't be so glum. We can travel across the world in a day. We have medical treatments for diseases that would have killed millions a year 75 years ago. We can communicate openly and freely with people all over the world. We can go to motherfucking space! The world is more at peace right now than any other time in recorded history. The power of religion to control people has slowly degraded away.
>We have medical treatments for diseases that would have killed millions a year 75 years ago.
Thus exacerbating global overpopulation and all the problems this causes
>We can communicate openly and freely with people all over the world.
Not for much longer. There's a push everywhere to centralize communications into silos owned by tech giants with zero accountability. How many times have I seen on HN that "email is deprecated" and the way of the future is to just buy into $proprietary_messenger that the user happens to work for?
>We can go to motherfucking space!
If you're a CEO, sure. The privileged overclass enjoys many perks as a consequence of its dominance.
>The world is more at peace right now than any other time in recorded history. The power of religion to control people has slowly degraded away.
Replaced by massive media and tech corporations controlling public discourse via social media, the new opiate of the masses, and fomenting identity politics to stave off the realization of class consciousness.
Anybody with a $200 Chromebook can now write things that are read more than ever before. People have a voice that was unthinkable even 50 years ago.
CEOs can't go to space quite yet. However, it appears that space is about to get far more accessible. Not only that, cheap space launches are enabling things like Starlink, which may provide worldwide internet and get around national firewalls and make the world that much more transparent.
The average person has many incredibly cheap amenities available that were unthinkable not that long ago. What does a CEO have that is that much better? A bigger boat than other people? They get to fly in an airplane that has less people in it? A more expensive car? A slightly bigger TV? There are rapidly diminishing returns for being rich.
A (large company) CEO has the wealth to give them the freedom to not be an employee. The wealth to pay others to do anything they don't want to do. The top of the pyramid status and respect, and power that comes with it. Ordinary laws and things like parking fines become trivia they can dispense with. Other laws become things they can bend by buying a sufficient quantity of lawyers.
Time becomes less of a sticking point as they can buy a waiting limo and direct connecting flight, other people become less of a concern as they can rent any Penthouse suite with bodyguards in any location.
Influence over others becomes a matter of spending - donations, philanthropy, employment, high status connections.
The returns on being a (sufficiently) wealthy (American) person are much more than just the material stuff they can buy and own.
You missed the biggest one of all, he doesn’t have to work at all anymore. Giving him all his time back, which is priceless.
But, they also become what they likely spent their life hating: a non-worker. Worse yet, they get the added distinction of becoming a leech on the human network, gaining further wealth through usury. The welfare recipient at least puts all the money they’re handed back into the economy. The capitalists can never claim that, and mostly horde.
The OP is correct in that materially, the capitalist and the worker are largely equals. We all use the same phones, TVs and computers now. When I was a kid in the 80s a car phone was something only in movies, I never actually saw one.
> Giving him all his time back, which is priceless.
It's valued at "a livable wage", which isn't always but ought to be, "minimum wage". That's how much money you need to have every month to not need to work and still be considered living.
> "The OP is correct in that materially, the capitalist and the worker are largely equals. We all use the same phones, TVs and computers now."
Which is why I was trying to point out that's a sham measure, it's like saying "King Richard is your equal because you both speak English!". That might be true, but it's certainly not true that we are equals, it's a distraction from all the things which aren't equal. If nothing else, it shows that using a smartphone, TV or computer has lost its significance now we all have it, rather than we all gained signficance by having it.
Sure they can[0]. They can also afford to live in luscious gardens patrolled by private security while inner city kids struggle with things like lunch debt because they didn't have the foresight to be born to wealthy parents.
What a time to be alive!