this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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The social dynamic would flip overnight if Americans suddenly had self control. The oligarchs control us by controlling our habits, and so many people are mindless about their habits and are impulsive and subservient as a result.
Just buy essentials and make your fun with what you have. Call it "soft striking".
Exactly.
People behaving as "consumers" supports the current system and hence supports the harmful side effects of such system, from the systemic suffering from wealth inequality to ecological destruction.
Whilst very few of us, living within this system, can in practice stop living within the system, we can refrain from living in accordance with the rules of the system which are not imposed on us via removing all other choices or force, but which we are "nudged" or manipulated to follow using marketing or even propaganda, and pretty much everything which is "impulse" or "deriving a momentary pleasure from buying" are the latter kind of thing.
"If only everyone would get together and collectively do " we could actually fix a lot of problems.
There is no solidarity in society. Much of that is by design, but a lot of it is human nature.
More of it is by design than you seem to think. Look at all the effort and money being put into dividing people... if entropy was humanity's natural state, why all the effort to make it happen? And I didn't say some silver bullet would do it, but that the more people take control over their habits, the less they inherently give up control to the wire pullers...
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, and our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of…. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind."
Edward 'The Father of Public Relations' Bernays
Tribalism is an inherent part of human nature. Capitalism and nationalism certainly exacerbate and exploit this though, no doubt about it.
Tribalism is a part, no doubt, but we are more than capable of rising above it and seeing beyond our tribalism, or at the very least seeing humanity as a single tribe/super organism.