https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63668626

Rupert Murdoch pays £11,000 for Boris Johnson to visit

It's astounding that this corruption persists - Murdoch should have been staked through the heart and buried long ago - metaphorically of course.

Whatever ire we may have for any given politician, their influence has been transient and limited comparative to the long, insidious corruption of our political institutions by sleazeballs like Murdoch circumventing the democratic process for personal gain.

Tortured_Genius wrote:To be fair, £11,000 is pocket change to both Murdoch and Johnson.

It's not the amount that's really important, though, although it's obviously a motivating factor - I'll bet BoJo wouldn't turn down 11k even if it amounts to a relatively small portion of his monthly income.

Tortured_Genius wrote:Of far more concern is the influence wielded by Murdoch in acting as kingmaker and directing politicians based far more on power and influence than mere money.

Aye, this is the point - the influence wielded by a single unelected, self-interest driven individual over what is nominally a democracy, i.e. people power representing the same peoples' interests.

Tortured_Genius wrote:I've no idea how you could legislate against the 0.0001% abusing their positions of power and influence, especially when it's in the form of mutual backscratching and use of soft power rather than pinned to concrete things like envelopes stuffed with cash.

I think we could, but there's never a will to do so once you've won your position of power to enact such change by, at least in some part, the corruptness of that system.

It boggles me that that bastard is still alive at 91. The wrong people are dying young lately in my opinion.

George Monbiot, above: "The faces may change, but the fundamental policies do not. There is an elite consensus around deregulating business and re-regulating citizens. And what that means is basically preventing citizens from getting in the way of capital. And it's particularly telling that these new highly repressive laws are aimed a environmental campaigners, the people who question the very model of economic growth; who point out that business as usual is destroying the living world."

It's the same point many people from different disciplines have raised: the tenor of neo-liberalism has changed with the advent of big data. The citizen's just not that important any longer as the basal unit for which society is structured to serve.

Spearthrower wrote:It's the same point many people from different disciplines have raised: the tenor of neo-liberalism has changed with the advent of big data. The citizen's just not that important any longer as the basal unit for which society is structured to serve.

That's an issue I've been taking note of for some time - the manner in which the über-rich have been seeking ways of decoupling themselves from any economic reliance upon the "plebs". Hence the increasing extent to which institutions such as the Stock Exchange are being turned into magic money trees for said über-rich.

Their ultimate aim is to build an entirely separate economy from that the rest of us live in. An economy that's based upon multiplying their billions via processes that make no actual contribution to the real economy, but which instead involve what can possibly be described as "accounting witchcraft". Actually making products that the rest of us use, is something they're looking to get away from as quickly as possible, because that involves costs before the revenue comes in, and worse still, involves giving money to the "plebs".

It's the reason they're spending so much money on AI and robots - their ultimate aim is to cut the"plebs" out of any opportunity to make a living. Once they've achieved that aim, your guess is as good as mine what they'll seek to do with the "plebs" they've bullied out of the economy, and if your guess is darkly dystopian, it's probably correct.

Calilasseia wrote:It's the reason they're spending so much money on AI and robots - their ultimate aim is to cut the"plebs" out of any opportunity to make a living. Once they've achieved that aim, your guess is as good as mine what they'll seek to do with the "plebs" they've bullied out of the economy, and if your guess is darkly dystopian, it's probably correct.

one of them movies is called Elysium

Which simply reinforces another Idea I've had - every utopian ideal can, and almost certainly will, be twisted at some point by the rich and powerful to become a dystopia for the poor and powerless.

We already have a two-tier economy, but alas we keep voting for millionaires who say they have our best interests at heart.

Calilasseia wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:It's the same point many people from different disciplines have raised: the tenor of neo-liberalism has changed with the advent of big data. The citizen's just not that important any longer as the basal unit for which society is structured to serve.

That's an issue I've been taking note of for some time - the manner in which the über-rich have been seeking ways of decoupling themselves from any economic reliance upon the "plebs". Hence the increasing extent to which institutions such as the Stock Exchange are being turned into magic money trees for said über-rich.

Their ultimate aim is to build an entirely separate economy from that the rest of us live in. An economy that's based upon multiplying their billions via processes that make no actual contribution to the real economy, but which instead involve what can possibly be described as "accounting witchcraft". Actually making products that the rest of us use, is something they're looking to get away from as quickly as possible, because that involves costs before the revenue comes in, and worse still, involves giving money to the "plebs".

It's the reason they're spending so much money on AI and robots - their ultimate aim is to cut the"plebs" out of any opportunity to make a living. Once they've achieved that aim, your guess is as good as mine what they'll seek to do with the "plebs" they've bullied out of the economy, and if your guess is darkly dystopian, it's probably correct.

The only thing I'd say about this is that I never envision such things occurring as the result of some master plan concocted by geniuses plotting an ultimate societal coup. Rather, it's the slow erosion of legal and social boundaries by greedy people for immediate benefit exploiting whatever modicum of power they have to their local and contemporary ends without caring what damage is done elsewhere or elsewhen.

THIS ...

No blue tick so obvs fake.