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  • svdasein@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    I think we may have bigger fish to fry these days; billionaires love it when little people fight amongst themselves. It’s high comedy because in the mean time they’re well on their way to owning everything.

    • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      I disagree wholeheartedly. This is a dumb exclusionary policy being fairly pointed out, not ageism.

      I’ll explain it with a comparision of the language used.

      The language used for benches like this in my country, Australia: “Priority seating. Please stand for seniors and handicapped people”.

      Priority, based on needs. Anyone can use it otherwise.

      The language used in this sign: “Benches are for seniors are handicapped citizens only

      Exclusionary, based on privilege and needs. If you are old and infirm and a citizen ONLY YOU may ever use this bench, and if you’re not a citizen (tourist, asylum seeker, migrant worker) you can fuck off regardless of your needs.

      This is not a subtle distinction. This is language used to assert a hierarchy and exclude underclasses, and it’s embedded into every aspect of your society without most people even noticing because they’ve never seen different.

      • svdasein@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        I don’t disagree with you. My point is simply that in the US right now there’s a concerted effort to keep the citizenry in a frenzy of angry finger pointing to distract us from the fact that we are being robbed blind by the “Epstein class”. The issues are real, but these are relatively small issues in comparison. Those folks pay actual money to keep us doing this shit and it works. In the US we have a desperate need to understand that this is engineered, and the engineers are laughing their asses off at the screaming rabble.

    • halcyoncmdr@piefed.social
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      13 hours ago

      You’re not wrong… But the crossover age range of the vast majority of billionaires and seniors is a damned circle, it’s both a class and age thing simultaneously. Boomers are usually defined as those born between 1946 and 1964, so that age range would be 62-80 as of 2026.

      Nearly half of the 3,323 billionaires worldwide in 2023 were between 50 and 70 years old. Moreover, more than 40 percent were above 70 years, whereas around 10 percent were below 50 years.
      https://www.statista.com/statistics/621046/age-distribution-of-billionaires-globally/

      And that ignores the much larger number of them that are under a billion but still well on their way up towards it. In practicality, there’s little difference between 100 million and a billion despite it being 90% less.

      • guillem@aussie.zone
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        7 hours ago

        Of those mentioned between 50 and 70 years old, the ones up to 61 are Gen X.

        Also the trillionaire is Gen X.

        I have seen so many boomers going to the front of demonstrations to make the police hold back their batons.

        It’s not a generational issue, it’s a media bombardment of manufactured issues with a generational spin. In that picture we should be angry at not having enough benches for everybody instead of blaming the beneficiaries of that dumb sign.

    • guillem@aussie.zone
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      15 hours ago

      Pitting racism doesn’t work so well with left-leaning audiences, so the billionaires try with ageism which is not so frowned upon. No demographic is without a wedge to exploit.

      • Zirconium@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        Went canvassing for the first time today. So many seniors living in shitty homes. Fixed income at $900 and rent is still going up while no jobs exist for miles. We cant single out a generation and just blame them while material conditions worsen everywhere.