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Comment by newswasboring | Hacker News Reader

Please give me an example of what happens.

Edit: before someone throws very strong platitudes at me again, I would like to see real-world examples. Because at least in my lifetime there have been zero consequences for people in power.

Edit 2: I've been banned from replying to this thread (lol, talk about power of the state). I guess I didn't define my acceptance criteria properly. But I thought it would be clear that the goal should be uplifting everyone not just shift the money around to someone else. That is what most of the revolutions mentioned in the replies are.

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> Please give me an example of what happens.

It’s easy to forget after 80 years of stable western democracies, but brutal equilibrium shifts do happen. There was a revolution every ~20 years in Europe between 1789 and 1917. And even during the 20th century, the history of much of the world is full of coups, revolts, and uprisings. See all the revolutions in ex-soviet republics, the Arab spring, etc.

So you can pick and choose between the American independence, the French Revolution, the revolutions of 1848, the Commune, and the soviets, to give you just a couple of examples for which you can find some documentation easily.

And (even though I don't support him in any way), would say the election of Trump is in part due to the constant wins of the white collar work force. Most of the examples you gave of revolutions led to greater democracy and greater socialism, which benefits the blue collar, but ironically, in this case, the blue collar elected a autocratic conservative.

Again, am not a Trump supporter in anyway, but agree that when the wealthy keep getting richer while the blue-collar worker continues to struggle, this leads to discontentment and pushback.

> And (even though I don't support him in any way), would say the election of Trump is in part due to the constant wins of the white collar work force.

Definitely. He tapped the anger and resentment of an underclass. The shame is that this underclass does not really see how he is harming them and how his politics benefit their old ennemies, the economic elite that’s turning into oligarchs.

> Most of the examples you gave of revolutions led to greater democracy and greater socialism, which benefits the blue collar, but ironically, in this case, the blue collar elected a autocratic conservative.

True. But examples of this also abound pre- or during WWII, from all the fascist regimes in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, and copycats such as Vichy.

Upheaval and chaos can lead to either progress or ruin.

Agreed, overall, they're only hurting themselves economically

> The shame is that this underclass does not really see how he is harming them and how his politics benefit their old enemies, the economic elite that’s turning into oligarchs.

I'd bet you that at least some are aware and just don't care. You crap on people long enough and they'll want to burn it all down out of spite. I suspect the eventual endgame here might be class warfare. Keep an eye out for more of these oligarch bunkers that are popping up.

Feel like we already have some level of class warfare (meaning more than lets say ten years ago).

Modern police and military gear is so advanced that revolution is unrealistic.

Maybe. But a modern revolution also doesn’t need physical violence.

People in power only have power in so far as others believe and enforce it. The emperor has no clothes.

It does not help when part of the military sides with the revolution. Which happened to some extent in just about all of them. It’s never just normal people against the army. Soldiers also have families suffering just like the others. They also see what happens to them when they leave the military and become part of the underclass again. There is a spectrum between not following orders efficiently to just ignoring orders and then open mutiny.

If they want to try their hand and unleash the first American genocide in history, that may be the cost for people to wake up. too many cameras and live uploading about to bury hundreds, maybe thousands of citizens being shot down in cold blood.

"First American genocide?" Maybe ask a Native American about that...if you can find one.

The gear generally requires an industrial base to keep it functioning. Given what was in SmarterEverDay's recent video about a barbecue cleaner, where so much of it ended up being imported despite their efforts (including chain mail!), I think in the event of another actual civil war, the USA would struggle to self-maintain any weapons more advanced than what you had in what is now "the" Civil War, and would be dependent on the whims of whichever foreign power wanted to support whichever sub-group.

When it goes on just a little too long, it can result in the French Revolution and 1917 and the election of populist candidates with unexpected consequences.

So sure, not a given, but it’s a risk that goes up as conditions get worse.

French revolution I can still see as consequences but Bolsheviks just took land and gave it to the new nobelity (the state).

The goalposts somewhat shifted, here. The original point was

> It surprises me that the monied elite seem to have so little awareness of what happens when they keep winning.

What happened is that the Russian elite ended up dead or penniless in exile. What happened after that is not really relevant to the lot of the blind elite of the ancien régime.

The period after the initial French Revolutions includes a period with an Emperor Napoleon and also a period where King Charles is restored to power.

It's like a century of struggle before that whole situation resolved.

> just took land and gave it to the new nobelity (the state).

This is unsubstantiated by historical evidence. No new class of "hereditary bureaucrats" emerged to replace the nobility; there was remarkably high movement between workers and officials, and even up to the very end of the Soviet Union, high officials were former day workers who had worked their way up the ranks.

Some very close haircuts.

When was the last instance of this in the last 100 years?

Nicolae Ceaușescu comes to mind?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu#Death

EDIT: One could argue whether the United Healthcare CEO assassination meets the criteria, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia#Derg_era_(1974%E2%80%... comes to mind.

So, even if you weren't factually incorrect as well as smug, what's your actual point?

They're the ones trying to bring back feudalism. If they want feudalism, things are going to get... well feudal. The lesson I've learned in the past decade is that people have not changed, at all. People will act as medieval as their circumstances allow.

> I would like to see real-world examples. Because at least in my lifetime there have been zero consequences for people in power.

Liberia (1980 coup & 1989–2003 wars): Americo-Liberian elite overthrown by indigenous-led coups; cyclical elite purges, executions, and exiles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Liberian_coup_d%27état

Argentine Military Junta (1983): generals faced prosecution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_the_Juntas

Philippines – Marcos Family (1986): Ousted by "People Power"; Ferdinand Marcos fled, family assets frozen, political exile: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/06/17/Judge-orders-Marcos-...

Romania – Ceaușescu Regime (1989): Ceaușescu and wife executed after rapid regime collapse; party elite purged: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_and_execution_of_Nicolae...

Rwanda (1994): Hutu elite responsible for genocide overthrown by Tutsi-led RPF, the attempt to seek justice overwhelmed their legal system so hard that it was itself criticised by Amnesty International: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide#Aftermath; internationally, there were also trials and convictions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Tribuna...

Iraq (2003)/Libya (2011): External forces happened, Saddam Hussein got hanged, Muammar Gaddafi's death was the kind of thing people make laws to stop soldiers from doing.

And this year, that health insurance CEO who got assassinated, didn't they get their own legal strategy carved onto the bullets or something like that?

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