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[SalmonGod]

I want to believe this, and it may turn out to be true... but I don't think it can be taken for granted.  Private jets have been around longer than cell phones, but those haven't made their way to the middle class yet.  Not everything works out that way.

probably because 100 million jets would be an impractical nightmare for a number of reasons

And there may be similar difficult constraints on transhumanistic developments.  What if the kind of genetic therapy necessary to halt or and reverse aging is only possible through intense manual labor tailored to the individual patient by a rare expert, and simplifying the process or expanding the capable workforce proves extremely difficult?

[Lord Shonus]

I'm also not sure I completely agree with your account of the rise of Social Democracy in Europe.  From the outside looking in, Europe looks to me like they're much, much more class conscious than the U.S..  I constantly see European examples brought up as models of collective action.  European workers are also much more likely to collectively negotiate than us in the U.S.. 

Not only are unions and strike actions demonized here by the wealthy and working class alike, but we have a very deep and disturbing history of shutting those things down with violence.  Anti-union organizations hired by employers to infiltrate, threaten, and murder unions and striking workers were a huge part of the 1870-1940 industrial era, and they never really went away in this country so much as they merged with and evolved into our modern law enforcement.  Even during Occupy only 4 years ago, individuals and businesses on Wall St made huge donations to the NYPD and covered legal expenses for the city, while they violently and often flagrantly illegally oppressed the protests.  Labor struggle in the U.S. is characterized by lots and lots of workers peacefully offering themselves up for murder until everyone gets tired of it and agrees to improve things little by little.  Eventually we got the New Deal, but did it last?  Labor rights and wages have been in decline here for roughly 40 years now, and attitudes towards the working class are once again resembling the gilded age.

While opposition to organized labor is, in the contemporary mindset, most prominently associated with the US and Great Britain, during the Industrial revolution it was common throughout Europe, where Socialist associations were often de facto proof of treason, and the Socialist dialectic formed from that time (drawing ONLY on mainland Europe, as that is where the movement started) was built upon the belief that the only way for labor to triumph was to massacre the capitalists before the capitalists massacred labor, and considered unions and democratic process much in the same way they regarded religion - nothing more than opiates given to the masses to delude them into thinking they had options.

[nenjin]

I want to believe this, and it may turn out to be true... but I don't think it can be taken for granted.  Private jets have been around longer than cell phones, but those haven't made their way to the middle class yet.  Not everything works out that way.

probably because 100 million jets would be an impractical nightmare for a number of reasons

And there may be similar difficult constraints on transhumanistic developments.  What if the kind of genetic therapy necessary to halt or and reverse aging is only possible through intense manual labor tailored to the individual patient by a rare expert, and simplifying the process or expanding the capable workforce proves extremely difficult?

AKA Juvenant treatments from 40k, something only the wealthy, important and well-connected can afford, because of the level of technology involved and how personal the treatment is. Kind of like, not everyone can afford to go to a cancer center and get their own personal specialist.

[i2amroy]

I want to believe this, and it may turn out to be true... but I don't think it can be taken for granted.  Private jets have been around longer than cell phones, but those haven't made their way to the middle class yet.  Not everything works out that way.

I'd say that that is because:
1) Most people don't need to travel distances that would require a jet every day.
and
2) Jet's are in general made to transport fairly large numbers of people. Everyone having their own private jet would be like everyone owning their own bus instead of a normal car, it's horribly inefficient.

If we look at the subset of people who do need to travel distances that would require a plane every day, you can find that a surprising number of them do actually own their own small planes and use them regularly. For example I have a neighbor who takes off from his own little private runway every morning to fly out to his job a several hour drive away. Should something comparable, like personal flying cars or jetpacks become both available and reach a point where it would be cost comparable to the current options, I see no reason why a company wouldn't push for making them. If there is a need (such as aging) and way to fill that need (such as some sort of treatment) then somebody is going to try to make as much money off that as possible, which involves getting the price to the point where the majority of people that need it (which would be everyone) can afford it.

And arguments about "personalized" treatments really only hold water in the early phases of the treatments. For things like gene treatments most people are going to fall into one of a handful of DNA groups functionally (remember, all humans are 99.5% identical to all other humans genetically!), so treatment becomes as simple as running a DNA sequence and selecting which treatment would work for you (at least for all but the unlucky outliers). And for the mechanical side of things it's as simple as making parts that are adjustable by default, or (for the cheaper side) a handful of different parts that fit the vast majority of the people (because while humans have many differences, they still cover a fairly well-defined "range" physically).

I might not have faith in the good nature of humankind as a whole, but I do have faith in the self interest of the corporation; if there is a profit to be made then somebody is going to do it.

[Angle]

I might not have faith in the good nature of humankind as a whole, but I do have faith in the self interest of the corporation; if there is a profit to be made then somebody is going to do it.

Eh, on this point I'm afraid I'll need to disagree with you. There are enough places where being a dick outweighs self interest that it makes me uneasy.

[i2amroy]

I might not have faith in the good nature of humankind as a whole, but I do have faith in the self interest of the corporation; if there is a profit to be made then somebody is going to do it.

Eh, on this point I'm afraid I'll need to disagree with you. There are enough places where being a dick outweighs self interest that it makes me uneasy.

Fair enough, I guess I just don't see why anyone would chose to screw someone they have nothing against over when the other option involves bettering their "class" and moving up while the screwing people over choice does absolutely nothing for them.

[nenjin]

I might not have faith in the good nature of humankind as a whole, but I do have faith in the self interest of the corporation; if there is a profit to be made then somebody is going to do it.

Eh, on this point I'm afraid I'll need to disagree with you. There are enough places where being a dick outweighs self interest that it makes me uneasy.

Fair enough, I guess I just don't see why anyone would chose to screw someone they have nothing against over when the other option involves bettering their "class" and moving up while the screwing people over choice does absolutely nothing for them.

Because those you give a leg up may be in a position to hurt you some day. They're more useful and less threatening to you when they can't live without you and aren't motivated to try.

[Angle]

I might not have faith in the good nature of humankind as a whole, but I do have faith in the self interest of the corporation; if there is a profit to be made then somebody is going to do it.

Eh, on this point I'm afraid I'll need to disagree with you. There are enough places where being a dick outweighs self interest that it makes me uneasy.

Fair enough, I guess I just don't see why anyone would chose to screw someone they have nothing against over when the other option involves bettering their "class" and moving up while the screwing people over choice does absolutely nothing for them.

Yeah, I don't understand it either, but it clearly happens, *Cough Indiana Cough*, so there you have it.

[i2amroy]

Because those you give a leg up may be in a position to hurt you some day. They're more useful and less threatening to you when they can't live without you and aren't motivated to try.

Which makes perfect sense in the context of within a company... and none in the context of a company and it's solitary customers. There's no reason why Walmart should refuse to sell you clothing on the scale of a personal level when doing so makes them a profit and selling you a single set (or even multiple sets) of clothing in no way causes a threat to their business.

(Now if you announced your intention to open up your own clothing store and then wanted to buy 100 crates of clothing at Walmart I could see why they might refuse to sell them; but on an individual level it doesn't.)

Yeah, I don't understand it either, but it clearly happens, *Cough Indiana Cough*, so there you have it.

Which you'll note has now passed a law specifically prohibiting what they originally put into place in the first place! The invisible hand of the market at work!

[Angle]

That's not the market, that's all the people who pointed fingers and said "Fuuuuuuck no!" The market allowed segregation to go on for an entire century.

[Sheb]

Helgo, I feel your underestimating the impact that revolutionary parties have on the political discourse. Even if you believe that social democracy is a better way to redistribute riches than hanging bankers from lamppost, having a party actually advocating the latter can be a good way to scare bankers into supporting social-democratic reforms.

This is what happened historically. I'm currently reading a book about Teddy Roosevelt (The Bully Pulpit, quite good I must say), and he describes his policies as "[Advocating] the adoption of what is reasonable in the demands of reformers as the surest way to prevent the adoption of what is unreasonable." Even if he wasn't actually pushed to his policy by fear of a communist/socialist revolution, the fact that those parties existed helped him push his agenda against the conservative elements of the Republican party. The socialists and communists also did a good job of exposing the issues in the first place.

To quote Roosevelt again "Talk quietly and wield a big stick". Class warfare is the stick.

[Helgoland]

Bismarck did the same thing to marginalize the SPD, yeah - there's a catch though: You can't knowingly invoke this effect. If you dishonestly (that is, despite knowing reformism is the way to go) advocate class warfare and suchlike, people will catch on sooner or later and you'll have hurt the cause as a whole. It's better to openly advocate reform and play up the danger posed by those more radical than yourself - they won't die out just because you became moderate.

And there's another thing: Radicalism often provokes a gut-level contrarian reaction, making things even worse. Nobody likes to give in to a bully... Whether this effect outweighs the one you describe depends on the situation, I guess. But the gender debate (and the general stupidity surrounding it) provides some good examples of radicals hurting the movement rather than helping it, at least as far as I can tell.

[Sheb]

Good point. So you should just have said "Yeah, go on, stab that banker SG" and then try to frighten the riches with that. 

[RedKing]

Welp, Rand Paul is officially in the race.

Part of his banner speech was a rallying cry to "take our country back". Which is all well and good, since we've been living under foreign occupation since...umm...when again?

[FearfulJesuit]

Welp, Rand Paul is officially in the race.

Part of his banner speech was a rallying cry to "take our country back". Which is all well and good, since we've been living under foreign occupation since...umm...when again?

Much of the Republican base has been living under the shadow of Northern aggression for the last century and a half, of course.