Most all of this system of control was predicted by Orwell, Ministry of Plenty concerned with rationing, Ministry of Peace concerned with war, Ministry of Truth concerned with disinformation and the Ministry of Love concerned with torture and interrogation.
Right, but the incentives are aligned with the prosperity of individuals who figure out how to use them, so they do. It may look like one group vs another, but it's really each capitalist against everybody else in the world, with a few alliances that are abandoned when they stop working.
You make the most profit by coming up with life-saving medicine, making a boatload off it, and putting your competitors out of business. The company that cures cancer will literally destroy their competitors. From that point on they print money. And think of the good will and brand value from a move like that.
They don't need to keep us sick. There will always be new diseases and new ways to get hurt. Evolution and stupidity see to that. And if they did solve for that somehow, then their focus would be on keeping us alive and healthy in old age.
Is this /s or not I can't tell. Well they definitely benefit from drugs that you have to constantly take. For years. Until you die. That's their business model. If there could be a drug that cures you instantly, there is no effort to develop it by this company who sells you this constant supply of drug. So yes. Pharma has an interest in you staying sick enough to need treatment and not die.
Banks and pharma comments are for sure trash.
Weapons... Also trash. The idea is to dominate and that's what you pay extra for. These are all industries I have personally worked for or my wife has.
The media is going to tell you the truthiest thing that gets clicks for engagement so that's basically true.
This is mostly tin foil hat except the government bit at the bottom that is legit trying to fuck us all (I worked for them too).
Edit: Your word of the day is "verisimilitude". Or alternatively "specious".
Weapons cannot be sold if there are no wars to use them in.
If you actually take a minute to think about it logically you'll see where the profits come from
Edit: it's not that they're doing it intentionally to ruin our lives. But they are doing it intentionally, for profit. And the intentionality to follow the profit is what's making the standard of living worse for everyone
Yes, because you have to use logic that goes deeper than surface level.
Banks make a ton of money from people making interest payments on debt they (the borrowers) can support. Depending on the diversification of the bank they also make a ton on investing the money they hold for you. Comparatively little money is made from collections for defaulting on debt, overdraft fees, account fees, and so on. So "bankers will keep you in debt" doesn't make a lot of sense. The banks don't set the price of the stuff you want, they only compete with other banks to give you a better rate on things you've already decided to buy. There's no small room of people trying to up your payments or interest rates and hoping you won't notice. It would be bank suicide.
Pharma is the same. Sure they treat side effects, but the main point (besides introducing new drugs that pass non inferiority studies to get new patients, which is predatory for sure) is to sell drugs that have good outcomes. It makes a lot more sense to sell the cure for cancer and charge a ton for it than it does to make a cure, make sure it has side effects, and magically keep it secret through FDA trials. This is like "the moon landing was faked" kind of bad logic. It sounds to me like "Oh, UPS needs to deliver packages to make money, so I bet they intentionally lose one in every 5 to generate more traffic!". Just... No. Thats how you put your non-monopoly company right out of business.
Weapons also ABSOLUTELY can be and are sold when there is no war. You don't need war at all. You need fear. If you needed war to sell weapons, nuclear weapons and the cold war are the perfect counter example.
Now maybe you've got your head on straight because for sure these sectors all want to maximize profit and there is certainly room for that, but "bankers keep you in debt, pharma keeps you sick, and weapon companies (prime contractors mostly) keep us at war" is nothing short of conspiratorial ignorance. The actual original post is stupid and sanewashing it still doesn't make it remotely true.
Taken together it really does look like a conspiracy of elites vs commoners, but it's really just elites individually and in small alliances doing what they think will benefit them individually. No elite will support a system they can't personally control. they only take advantage of parts of it that benefit them, and try to create more of those parts. Collectively this makes it look like they're all working together, until some issue comes up that benefits one and hurts another. Then they throw each other under the bus, which sometimes benefits the rest of us.
If a drug makes someone feel better despite not helping with the underlying issue, people will buy it. Even if that drug is known to cause issues. Painkillers is a whole category that does the first part and contain ones that also do the second, some by wrecking your liver, others with addiction.
Keeping us healthy and telling the truth will never maximize profits.
If the drug can help, the sick person will buy it. If it cures you when the pharmaceutical company can sell one that treats, but does not cure you, then they will not sell you the cure.
What theme? A government can't provide for its citizens without kowtowing to corporate interests? That seems like a narrow view, and maybe these days much more difficult in some countries due to the corporate influence but that just points to corporate interests having too much say in matters, not that the preference is a anarchy.
Guys this is kinda crossing the line into conspiracy theory territory and, to be frank, enables the whataboutism on the right. Generalized assertions based on "common sense" aren't insightful or illuminating. Please stop.
Sorry miss chinabook(?), I just wanted to help a brand new community that was still empty yesterday. I know this post is low-effort but it was one of many.
I'm going to step back so other content can make its way to the top. I look forward to your contributions in making this new lemmy community great.
It's just like, I get it and I do agree with the spirit of the post, but are we really going to let grandma-Facebook level memes be what this starts off as?
Crypto is a race to the bottom. Investing in a currency to make money is stupid. Presuming you don't do that, crypto use is mostly supporting untraceable transactions which, by and large, are unsavory.
There is an argument for Bitcoin, but that argument was 6 or so years ago. Right now crypto and blockchain are a really good way to light your money on fire.
One of the reasons crypto works is that it didn't create money out of thin air like the dollar where they print unlimited money, devaluing everyone's money.
That's always going to a positive which is one of the main benefits of chains like bitcoin over the dollar.
And because of this, Blockchains like bitcoin hold value better than the dollar.
In the last 10 years, the dollar has lost 49% of its purchasing power, as measured in gold.
While bitcoin has increased from $300 to $100,000 in the same time year period an increase in value of 35,287%.