Resentment

I'm not sure why this article was shared here. The thinking in it is very elementary and not even based on facts. For example, the grapes vs. cucumbers analogy grossly misrepresents the issue. People don't resent billionaires because they have grapes, people resent them because billionaires use their immense wealth and power to constantly tilt the odds even more in their own favor.

Yeah, I think enraged_camel put it pretty well there,

This isn't the difference between a cucumber and a grape. It's the difference between a grape, for which you sell most of your time to earn, and the ones who own the means by which those grapes are produced, who have been given better circumstances to own those vinyards by their parents and their parents parents, and their parents parents parents, in which each generation has done atrocious acts to remain in possession of the vineyard and where each vineyard worker is squeezed into getting fewer and fewer grapes (or grapes which are simply worth less, due to an overall higher number of grapes) where the vineyard owners have influenced the policy makers that should be ensuring the power of the vinyard owners isn't so absolute and abusive such that they can keep moving the window to keep paying even less grapes.

Meanwhile, some people are told that, because the vinyard owner doesn't like their identity, they should get no grapes at all.

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But lets drop the absolutely ridiculous metaphors. It's not grapes. It's not animals. It's money, and power, and lives, and freedom. It's conflicting freedoms, as some wish to be free to impede the freedoms of others.

Let me quote someone else here,

For example Did you know that Amazon workers frequently earn so little that they rely on government top-ups and overtime just to tread water above the poverty line While their CEO Jeff Bezos has so much ducking money that if you count it by one number every second, everyday, without sleep, it would take you over thirty years just to count up to the amount of money he has? Oh no, wait a second, I misread that He actually has one hundred and eighty-five times that amount He has more money than the human mind is capable of imagining More than anyone could ever spend in multiple lifetimes And that's just the money we know about Because remember in 2015 It was headline news across the world A global conspiracy by the financial elite to hide trillions of dollars in unreachable, illegal bank accounts in Panama And what happened there? Oh yeah The journalist who broke the story was assassinated in broad daylight with a ducking car bomb And the story just disappeared

This entire article misses the mark to the point of malice. I find it hard to engage in civil manner with something so belittling of the situation that we all are living though. This posted the day after peaceful protesters in Syria fighting corruption were blasted with sonic weapons. During a take over of the US government by the richest man in the world facing no accountability as he upends the lives of countless government workers just doing their job.

Yeah, I want my damn grapes. I want my fair share of grapes. I want my fair amount of influence in society to ensure I and my fellow people get enough grapes that they can live happy and healthy lives.

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EDIT: I should also point out the actual article OP has two startups that use AI. So, as far as understanding and respecting the value of other peoples work goes, I think that says a lot :)

"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage."

"And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed."

"A fella ain’t got a soul of his own, just a little piece of a big soul-the one big soul that belongs to ever’body."

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Sure, monkeys might be upset at inequality, the fact that one of them has grapes while the rest get cucumbers. But we, as humans, have something more: an understanding of the struggles of our friends, families, and neighbors. We are not merely driven by resentment. No, we are capable of solidarity, of working together to change a system that denies so many even the most basic dignity. And this has been demonstrated countless times throughout history. Even in our worst points, we have had tremendous resolve and the willingness to improve our situation.

The notion that revolution inevitably leads to nothing but purges, starvation, and collapse is a tired one, repeated by those who would prefer to justify the injustices of the present rather than imagine something better. Yes, history is complicated, and no movement has been perfect. But even in the so-called "failed" socialist experiments, there were undeniable periods of transformation, where poverty was drastically reduced, literacy soared, and entire nations once ravaged by imperialism and feudalism were lifted into modernity.

Take Cuba for example. After the revolution, they eliminated illiteracy in a year. They built a healthcare system so strong that even in the midst of a nonstop US blockade which has been ruled now for decades to be inhumane by the rest of the world, they send doctors to other countries in times of crisis. Or take Vietnam for instance. After fighting off multiple imperialist invasions, they rebuilt their country and lifted millions out of poverty. Even Chile under Allende, before the US backed coup crushed it, was making massive strides toward a fairer economy.

This isn't to say that these experiments did not still contain its fair share of inhumane treatment of its people, or that they didn't have their class distinctions and inequalities throughout their histories. But to say that the many capitalist nations throughout the world and its history are somehow better I think is ignorant at best, and maliciously disingenuous at worst.

Even the leaders of the US understood this as the Great Depression continued its trudge onward. The only reason we ever had a welfare state and a strong middle class was because of social democratic reforms by FDR. It was the concession of capitalism to its workers, an understanding that if things get worse, there will no longer be a class of capitalist who can accumulate wealth and continue to perpetuate class distinctions.

I think it's naive and childish to just sit back and expect the oppressed to simply let resentment burn itself out until people are so starved and beaten down that they learn to "accept market realities." That is not healing, no, that is submission. That is accepting that nothing better can every be accomplish, or even imagined. The real question isn’t whether a better world is possible, it’s whether we are willing to fight for it.

"It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism"