I feel like we're all stuck in a movie where all the rich people live on some kind of floating island or satellite with everything they need to live well, and all of us have zero chance of going there

Elysium!
You’re not wrong. And anybody who could afford to stop them is too busy fighting a culture war to organize. Who do you think is stoking animosity? MLKJ wasn’t assassinated for civil rights, it was for the Poor Peoples Campaign. The only thing that could stop them is the unity of all those living paycheck to paycheck, regardless of religion or race.
- That sounds like a pretty terrible dystopian movie that should not be made into real life.
  So, please, support the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Hopefully there will be some good news soon.
- Just get your negligent employer to irradiate you and give you cancer, making you a man with nothing to lose and then go up there and get your cure while toppling the status quo. Easy.
  
  Just give me a cool robotic exoskeleton and I'm sold
- Bravo sir.
- Bravo

Good sci fi usually isn't about the future, aliens, etc. It's about the present, but portrayed in a strange way so as to bypass your existing preconceptions about the situation, so you can look at it with fresh eyes.
- It also makes it 'safe' to discuss controversial topics, because it's 'only scifi' (or horror/fantasy).
  Allows creators and authors to fly under the radar with stuff that could potentially get you arrested, censored, cause controversy or end your career. Prime example, Tarkovski movies like Solaris or Stalker, which are full of religious metaphors, despite being released in the USSR.

It's okay. There will be no Elysium. They'll die on this molten rock right here with us if they're still alive by then.
I think our reality is more like Idiocracy than Elysium.
- The people in Idiocracy were wiser because when they found the smartest person they put him in charge pretty much straight away.
- Can confirm! Just rewatched Idiocracy.
- it won't be a space station but on earth. the rich been building bunkers in new Zealand. which..has a really fucked up wealth disparity and cost of living crisis before it was cool.
  good luck staying safe fuckers
  
  Bunkers ain't gonna do shit if they can't grow food
  
  If you want to hoard your supplies during the collapse of civilization, all you did was made yourself a target to the person with a bigger gun.
- I think there will still be many places that will be livable even if the temperature rises to +10, such as Nothern Canada and Russia. So it seems probable "rich" people could be able to have their own colonies their, though it's probable rich will have a different meaning then, maybe more about water and food than numbers on the internet. Our species is far from endangered, it's rather our civilisations that are, the bad and the good in them.
- Wait, so you mean the absurdist comedy movie made by the guy that made Beavis and Butthead doesn't go deep into the causes of the issues experienced nor tackles potential solutions?
  
  I think you missed the point of the movie there, champ.
  Also, if you don’t like Carls Jr., then fuck you.

All I know is the second the very second that we are sure they're starting to build the cloud cities, we need to start murdering people. You can't let him finish the cloud cities. Cannot happen. The second construction starts we start cutting off heads. That's our only chance.
- We should start cutting off heads right now tbh
  
  Also: guns are bad, ban them all, only the police and military should own them...
  Am I right???
  
  The ends do not justify the means
- Stopping things now would be easier than the future. In the future they'll perfect the killer dog robots etc. and things will get harder.
  
  Mass surveillance is more powerful than killer dog robots and they already have it.The idea of solving our problems by mass murdering rich people was always stupid, but it's already too late for that anyway.
- Kill now
- They're not building a cloud city though. They are trying to get away with rockets and space ships.
- You mean something like NEOM The Line in Saudi Arabia?
  
  Nah, that's just the stupid ideas from stupid people that the actual arcology architects are saying "Let them cook!" about. It will be a case study when the real Elysiums start getting built.
- The line . They are already building arcologies.

- That's unpossible

Same as it ever was.
- There is water at the bottom of the ocean
  
  Same as it ever was.

"Cyberpunk was a warning, not an aspiration," == Mike Pondsmith (creator of the Cyberpunk TTRPG)

People working 40 hours to make 10 things. Technology improves so that one person can make 20 things in 40 hours. People now get paid twice as much? People now only work 20 hours? Nope! Half as many people now work at the same pay. The rest have to go find something else to do.
- You're right that we have more luxuries today, many that we could live without. And we have them because of higher efficiency and specialization. One person operating machines can farm what took 40 people before. One person in a factory makes thousands of shoes vs making one pair by hand. We're able to create immense value. The issue is that people who own land and buildings and machines take an oversized share of the value being created, while some workers struggle to meet basic needs. Of course there are many people who live middle class lives. There are also plenty of people who work very hard and still have a low quality of living. We should commit to meeting everyone's basic needs.
  
  things being made today are a lot more complicated
  There's a kernel of truth here- yes, a lot of everything is more complex (and a lot of it, like cars that now have better safety features and standards- is just better) today than it was- but that's not the whole story behind why everything is more expensive today, particularly in terms of labor's buying power.
  Today, there are things that haven't improved in power or technology or quality (looking at you, broadband cable and cell phone connectivity, and basic foodstuffs, and commodities like fuel and timber, and health insurance, and housing) but cost so much more because largely none of these markets are elastic or competitive, and there's been so much 'vertical integration' in these spaces that in years past would have run afoul of basic antitrust enforcement of laws on the books.
  Speaking of things that used to be illegal and still should be but aren't, stock buybacks account for a lot of money that used to go to payroll, but which now sidesteps payroll and goes directly to capital in seriously tax-privileged ways.
  Basically, that means capital has been getting regular raises since the 70s but labor's rates mostly haven't kept up with inflation- and as such, ought to be regarded to be pay cuts.
- What's your counterargument when I mention that technology creates jobs and specialty positions? Especially for autistic people.
  
  I'm pretty sure @randon31415@lemmy.world was trying to create a simplified example. To include a generic autistic tech we can modify the example to "40 people making 10 things an hour. A clever autistic person comes along and writes a computer script that improves efficiency. Now 19 people make 20 things an hour, the autistic tech makes 5 times as much as one of the original people and has the specialty job of maintaining the script, the business owner lays off 20 people (4x of their pay compensates the tech) and the business owner pockets the other 16x as extra profit"
  The 19 people still employed don't get any more pay for their extra efficiency, nor do they get any more time off.
  The 20 people who were let go at no fault of their own now apparently don't get to eat or live or have any kind of security until they reeducate themselves to a new line of work.
  The autistic tech doesn't understand where their additional pay comes from, but is happy to get rewarded well for their good work.
  If questioned about why the 20 people needed to be let go, the business owner will blame the scripts efficiency instead of their own decision to pocket the money.
  However, to answer your question directly: it does not matter how many new jobs or specialty positions are created - if the net pay available to workers is reduced and the net jobs workers can fill are reduced, some workers are destined to get the short straw.
  
  People have been complaining about technology forever. The south complained about machinery that would make slavery obsolete. There's no pleasing these people.
  This guy wants all of the benefits of technology at a low price, but doesn't want any of the change that occurs from that benefit. What happens if you make everyone work 20 hrs in his example? Everyone makes half what they did before and can't afford anything. What happens if you fire half the workers in his example? Half the workers can afford the tech but no one else. Which one allows the company to keep selling the tech? The scenario where half are fired.... BUT How about we keep all the people like he claims is possible? Then the price of the tech must double. But this guy doesn't want that because that must be a greedy company. So how will they pay all those employees? What happens when someone else makes the tech with fewer employees and thus lower cost?
  So yeah... Tech always requires some to retrain. But society always benefits as a whole.
  The only certainty in life is that life is uncertain. To complain about change is just being lazy and refusing to accept change.

- Battle Angel Alita is exactly what I was thinking, it's also a great movie it deserves a sequel!

Well on the plus side cardboard drones laden with explosives are cheaper than ever. /s
- That /s is doin some heavy lifting
  
  It wouldn't fly without the lift.

It surprises me how many people dont realize that most rich people are rich because of poor people.
Stop change your phone each year, stop buying brand clothes, stop going to movie and music concerts. Start buying clothes by your local people, support new artists.

I feel like we're actually the prequel to WALL-E

If anything they’ll start tunneling under the Earth to escape the brutal conditions they created on the surface.
- How long until they farm us and eat us?
  Ah, who am I kidding? Morlocks and Eloi would never happen. They wouldn't give us free food.
  
  I think you have that analogy backwards. The point was that the industrial proletariat stayed underground while the bourgeois regressed into the eloi bc they had built the overworked utopia and had no need to do anything. This is the literal way the rich.
- They're safer going to mars or Venus. Once they are in their bunkers, there's nothing to stop a whole lot of us from sealing the air intakes with concrete.

Have you read/watched Alita: Battle Angel? That's the situation there.
- This is one of them. yes.

You should check out the movie Elysium.
- I knew this reminded me of a movie, just couldn't remember the name. Thanks.

It has never been any different. It's worse and exponentially more visible, but is not new by any means.

What do you think billionaire marbling is like? I bet it's better than wagyu 🍽🥩😋

No, we still have a chance.
We could stage a revolution, overthrow the oligarchs and restart with whatever we want.
But it ain't gonna happen.
- The problem: human nature is such that those who overthrew the tyrants would shortly find themselves in power. They might even be just and true leaders. But inevitably, greed will out. I suppose the silver lining is the resulting system of oppression might not be so... efficient as it is now.
  
  The current system is in part because the rich got there by taking it from the previous leaders - every country has it's revolution story, sometimes multiple ones - and they don't want it to happen to them.
  So more likely the new system would be even more efficient.
- I believe it starts with Gen Z. Millennials are getting too comfortable, too safe, many have families and more to lose. Revolution is a game of young men. The problem is it requires a wise leader with vision, likely elder, manipulating and pulling the strings. And it's so hard to be heard nowadays. You'd basically need the movement to go viral.
- Or... we could Europenize America so everyone wins.

This won't last for long. This capitalist with corporate socialism system has a short life span eventually what happens is inflation moves the poverty line far up enough that it collapses. Right now people are struggling to purchase just groceries compared to just last year. Either regulation or wages move up.

Every capitalist society trends towards this, as too do all other forms of society as well. Also remember that in the Western world, even someone who is next to outright homeless can have a better life than something like 90% of people around the globe - the water from most streams is safe to drink (unlike many places in Africa and South America), there are currently no missiles raining down from the sky (unlike Ukraine), if you have friends or family that you can stay with there is a good chance that someone can make room for you (unlike super crowded places where there are already 20 families in a small household - and at the risk of repeating myself, yes I meant families there, not just people), plus with a mere handful of dollars we can get treatments for diseases that even Kings and Pharos of the past who were considered to be literal gods could not.
So it is a spectrum where we are not as well off as we used to be a few decades ago, but are still doing well globally speaking. The problem is that we are changing, so not yet used to there being such rigid divisions between "classes" of people as now exist, so people still talk as if mere hard work is all that is required to deal with it. And they aren't even fully wrong, bc that really is a part of it, though there is a significantly higher uphill battle than there used to be.
Just do your best - what else could you possibly do even? - and also remember that kinder people are happier people, and that is literally something that no amount of money can buy:-D.

There was a point, around the end of the Gold Rush and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when they were still building that floating city, that the common man could work his way up and get on it. Unfortunately, as time has passed and conditions have changed, the floating city is now all but completely out of our reach.

We need Alita battle Angel
- I for one am ready to become a badass robot girl.

Well yes, those stories are often written as critiques/analysis of real world culture

Children of Men always struck me this way

Well they have been buying up the Hawaiian islands. I think Larry Ellis, Zuckerberg and few others have bought a ton of property on Lanai or Molokai.
- At least that will give them a reason to actually do something about climate change. Those islands aren't gonna be paradise for too much longer with the more frequent and stronger hurricanes, and ocean levels rising.
  
  I hope your right, but their previous behavior suggests this is a fuck you all, I got mine.

Elysium

And the rich have the rest of us bickering amongst ourselves about Team Red vs. Team Blue, and social media exacerbated this. News flash, if any of them actually cared, we wouldn't be in this mess.
Team Red has their side blaming immigrants and liberals for everything, while Team Blue has their side convinced that everybody on Team Blue is infallible just because Team Red exists.
- Team blue is calling out Melendez for corruption. So maybe the infallible thing is false?
  
  Every single time anyone brings up Biden's problems, the response is downvotes and "Doesn't matter because Trump exists." And I'm sure you've heard the mantra of "Vote blue no matter who!"
- while Team Blue has their side convinced that everybody on Team Blue is infallible just because Team Red exists.
  I've found it to be quite the opposite. Team Blue opposes Team Red and half of the people on Team Blue too. It's split into all these different agenda and identity groups and they're all so very eager to tear each other apart with labels and accusations if you don't toe the exact line that's currently being drawn. It's a given that any time you have a large group of thoughtful individuals you're going to have some inter-group bickering. But Team Blue is more divided and combative against themselves than I've ever seen before in my lifetime.
- hating trump is glue

Gunnm, Elysium and all this kind of films are a reflection of reality.

You can try to climb to Zalem. Try is a key word.

Speaking of this, my amateur ass had an idea for a shelved sci-fi book where two people traveling through alternate dimensions ends up during one chapterin a world where the rich have fled theirs through dimensional travel. The idea of that world is that the remaining people on Earth fight to survive as the rich left behind devices that every so often go off and ends up destroying their natural or man-made structures and their farms too.
All of why this happened would be explained in a later episode where they find the rich people who explain they left because the resources on the planet dried up and they couldn't make any money off of a planet without resources.

Elisium. Great flick. Like all of Bloomy’s old stuff

3% on Netflix is really good. Definitely do the english subtitles instead of the dubbing though, it sounds ridiculous.

Yeah, and both this feeling and the wealth inequality are only gonna get bigger and bigger as time goes by, that's capitalism.
But there is still hope, a government and state of the working class, for the working class, where the capitalists are the ones oppressed, and not us. A society where profit is not the goal anymore, where the global south is not explored until they drop dead, where the poor and homeless can get what they need, where people can stop worrying about surviving and start living, where we are not a product anymore, but human beings.
This can only happen if people start organizing and start learning what do to and how.
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  Socialism for Absolute Beginners
  Why Social Democracy Isn't Good Enough
  Will Life Be Better Under Socialism?
  "Socialism always fails" is a stupid argument
  How Capitalism sells poverty as modesty & why equality isn't a practical goal.
  Comunismo: princípios básicos e guia de leitura / Communism: basic principles and reading guide
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

This is what the Soviet movie kin dza dza is about

From the perspective of most of history, you’re that guy with everything he needs.

Isn't this the plot to elysium?
In all seriousness, its not impossible to go from the bottom to the top, but its definitely improbable. Anyone can do middle class. Just do middle class.
If you really want to go wild, sacrifice your pleasantries in order to save a bit and give it to your child a chance. Ill give you an example.
Jeff Bezos mother Jackie and father Tim when were 16 and 18 respectively when she was pregnant with Jeff. Jeffs first dad was a drunk asshole and they got divored. She met a Cuban Refugee named Miguel Bezos, who adopted Jeff. Jeff went and got himself into Princeton, where he graduated and started working for a financial tech company.
Now Miguel got his degree and was working for exxon. Thats how he was able to save up the $254k that he and Jackie loaned to Jeff. With that, he made an online bookstore called amazon.com. From there Jeff became the multi billionaire he is now. Oh, Jackie and Miguel got 6% each so they're billionaires too.
Now that's the American Dream. Even so, I think the question is, how rich is too rich?
- I had a teacher who won the lotto. I don't take investment advice from her.
  The odds of winning the lotto are better than being a billionaire off a business plan.
- But imagine a world where if you capped over say, 1 billion, your excess would be funnelled into your employees.
- You're right, with careful planning and hard work it's possible to better your situation or those of your children. (Though it doesn't always work) Even in our current system, statistically, some people will become billionaires. Do we think those billionaires lives are significantly better than if they were millionaires? If anything, judging by their behavior becoming ultra rich seems psychologically damaging.
  On the other hand, we have millions of people who struggle to have enough food, to have a place to live, to get healthcare, to gain an education. Without a healthy environmental we face disaster that will cost many lives. I'd like to build a system where everyone has those modern rights. We need a systemic solution, personal effort is important but not sufficient.

They're gonna fall, we just have to stop saying yes. No more subscriptions, no more taxes, no more work. And we're getting so many, 30s and 20s, we're not buying anything anymore and most of all, we've been doing nothing. Soon billionaires will become millionaires and millionaires ordinary people.
- We could bring everything to a screeching halt and change everything in months if enough of us did that... But only if enough of us were willing to stop paying rent and not being able to afford food. It would take at least a couple weeks, at most until the end of the quarter, before a renegotiation of the structure of society is on the table
  Doing anything short of a full drop out in critical numbers will just lead to what we have now - modern capitalism cannibalizing itself trying to keep the exponential growth party going just a little bit longer... except everyone who committed to it end up further behind, sacrificing what they have now to speed up the process a bit

If you are young, they would trade a lot for the years you have left to live. Also, time value of money and all that. It's hard to fathom how powerful compounding is. Start investing small, start investing early.
- Folks aren't even able to get out of debt. Considering debt generally has a higher interest rate than savings, folks are even held back from saving. OP even mentioned that straight out. If you're a disaster away from destitution, you aren't investing money. Money years from now isn't worth more than money today when your bills are due today.
  
  Increasing consumer debt was a policy decision in the 1930 and ever since, to control powerful Labour organisations. An indebted worker is less likely to strike.
  Same today for students. Bright optimistic minds out of college are less likely to say ‘hey, there s a better way’ if they are weighed down with debt. .
  
  Totally, debt stifles saving. All rich people are alike; each poor person is poor in their own way, or something.
- It ain't about money. It's about time. The rich still die...
- That's true, and it can be liberating. But for a lot of people, they have to dig into those investments every time something unexpected happens and they never really get to a critical momentum where compounding interest starts working its magic.
- Yeah but it would be a lot better with socialized healthcare and free education.