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Comment by notduncansmith | Hacker News Reader

I couldn’t find a source for this photograph, but my dad showed it to me a few years ago and I feel like it perfectly captures the tone of the current global civil unrest: https://i.pinimg.com/236x/c0/e4/06/c0e406018cc6b42ad0a2562f8...

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Agreed. I think the beauty of the phrase "shit is fucked up and stuff", is that the problems we face are so overwhelmingly obvious that we don't actually have to articulate them. And since the usual way calls for change are defused is by arguing about definitions, terms, assumptions, etc, in many ways articulating what shit is fucked up is counterproductive to change.

I think you will find that when you do articulate, absolutely everybody has a different interpretation of exactly which parts are fucked, and how to unfuck it, and who exactly should foot the bill. Perhaps some of them think you should, or people of your income bracket, or people who share your other demographic traits. Presumably you have a different opinion. And, of course, differences in opinion is anathema to a good protest march.

The true beauty of the message is that it's vague enough to get both you and the guy next to you (and the guy you would both intensely dislike if you knew the full extent of their opinions) to all come out and smash shit up at the same time in a coordinated manner.

> The true beauty of the message is that it's vague enough to get both you and the guy next to you to all come out and smash shit up at the same time in a coordinated manner...

... but the hidden ugly side is that you and the guy next to you will not agree on how to rebuild things once you're both done smashing stuff.

What really scares me is not only how fragile things are, but how expensive it's going to be to get back to the level of wealth we enjoy today, assuming it's even likely we are able to (which I'm not so sure about).

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