Comment on So...how the fuck do I trust *anything*?
eightpix@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Welcome to the Internet. Hopefully, I read as a good person. I am not a bot.
I lived as a young adult through Bush II. 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Halliburton, Blackwater, and loads of corruption. It was tough to trust anything then. The goal was pure profit.
Apparently, Dubya was the warm-up presidency for this shit.
First, let me share a clip from Margin Call, 2011.
As long as the prevailing mode has been capital, there has been speculation. As long as there has been speculation, there have been lying liars who exploit the system.
The last few pump and dump bubbles he mentioned (1987, 1992, 1997, 2000, and 2008) are all market crashes I can remember. The market is a casino. Crashes since '08 include 2010 (Flash Crash), 2015 (sell-off), 2018 (cryptocrash), 2020 (Covid), 2022 (Ukraine War), and 2025 (tariffs).
These were once “once in a lifetime” events.
Second, everything in the world is designed to generate more:
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self-serving, self-centered, selfish
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short-term-focused
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extroverted, charismatic, vain
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action-oriented
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thoughtless
psychopaths and sociopaths. This ethos runs things because of profit motives, monopolies on the exercise of violence, and the development of contemporary morés rooted in exploitation, expropriation, and (deemed) externalities of colonialism. Identifying some humans as “the other” makes much more inhumanity possible.
So, I’m here to tell you, it’s real alright. What you’re feeling is real. What you’re feeling against is real. We are immersed in it. Algorithms are doing their best to lock it in.
Finally, what to do and who to trust.
Establish your own moral center. Decide what matters to you. Find those who are telling the most truth, especially when tested. Demogogues fall apart under examination. Lies fall apart when questioned. The unchallenged authority is no authority at all. Get the receipts; find primary sources as often as possible. Seek those who share at great personal cost.
For me, it started with Star Trek. Then, hip-hop. Then, journalists I could trust. Even films that challenge prevailing narratives. I read a lot of books from many perspectives.
20 years later, Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, Jeremy Scahill, Henry A. Giroux, Amy Goodman, Arundhati Roy, and Noam Chomsky have never wavered. Films like The Insider, Erin Brockovich, and The Corporation light a fire in me. I’m rewatched David Simon and Barry Levinson’s Homicide: Life on the Street and, hilariously, Murphy Brown.
Challenge the prevailing narratives. You’re not alone.
aubeynarf@lemmynsfw.com 3 days ago
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when you look at the hundred year chart, none of those events materially changes the slope.
Don’t sell on a downturn and you’ll be fine
IronBird@lemmy.world 3 days ago
ph yeah, I’m not worried about $ anymore…I think that’s part of why this all came together for me tbh.
someone finally took pity on me I guess, and let me on the open-secret about the various speculation markets we monkeys seem so fascinated in.
I proceeded to make more in the last 2 months than I could working my day job for entire year (not counting OT), not worrying about bills/rent frees up a lot of thought-time I guess…
moonlight@fedia.io 3 days ago
What is that 'open secret'?
IronBird@lemmy.world 3 days ago
basically just that shits fucked, and it aint no accident/coincidence.
others on here have expanded on it, some clearer than I was expecting given what I posted so i guess it really is true, more or less.
Captainvaqina@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
I’m insanely curious, what was the open secret that your benefactor taught you that led to such success?
IronBird@lemmy.world 3 days ago
idfk, just a book that (in my eyes, considering it’s age and how well it still applies to today) showed beyond any shadow of a doubt the whole thing really is bullshit.
moreso than any movie/drama saying the same thing which I’d probably seen a dozen times over the years, a dusty century old book laying it all out there removed any doubt whatsoever for me. especially when cross-examined to peculiar differences I noticed comparing US financial markets to others around the world (which generally favor stability), and who ultimately benefits most from those peculiarities.
which ultimately means that it isnt gambling/speculation…if you utilize proper risk management and know (all of) the rules to whatever imaginary line your betting on, whose moving what, what they want, and how you best make $ of their $
until, eventually, your port is large enough that your the one actually moving things. at which point certain strategies just don’t scale up as well as others (recall seeing a Buffet interview saying as much to some reporter).
Just…idk…the flippant way these motherfuckers fuck with the economy, all to just make their lines go up. and how deeply entwined that is/has been with the US government, going back a good…100-125 years atleast.
i’m not completely batshit crazy, I dont really believe (yet) that there is some uninterrupted conspiracy chain going all the way back to fucking moses or something, just that we’ve seemingly built our economy around one generation of psychopaths breeding another to replace them, in some fucked up game of fake-oneupmanship.