Who is "they" in this context?
Even the author of the piece said it was not a description of her vision of the future, but intended to start a discussion about technology.
But it's been picked up by wackaloons around the world as part of some overarching conspiracy theory.
it's because it's so easy to simply blame the ills of society on some illusory few pulling the strings behind the scenes. It used to be the migrants, or blacks, or the chinese (still is apparently) or the japanese...and now, it's the rich/shadowy figures etc.
The actual truth is that the collective actions of everybody leads to certain outcomes - today's outcomes. It can't really have happened any other way.
Please don't dilute the argument by comparing racial groups with the ultra-rich.
The (ultra-)rich form a class in the classical Marxist sense - a group whose interests naturally align, and they work together to further their interests.
There is deliberate government policy behind what's going on with housing - free money for the rich, which they can in turn invest into speculative assets to make yet even more free money.
Then they ensure that their money has weight by putting said money into housing, pricing out common folk, and building new units to serve as price control to preserve the value of their assets.
It’s not a lobbying firm, it’s the same people that make our laws and decide our future.
By the way, the full title of that essay is “Welcome to 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better”
The strategy is everywhere now. You buy but buy doesnt mean you own. How did that happen?
One recent case https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1981i3j/ubisoft_get...
But you see that everywhere. You buy the hardware but the company may block your property totally or partially.
You buy a car but pays to use heated seat? Who eats this thing that you haven't paid extra for the seats. The costs are just sunk in other parts.
You buy a movie but it can be revoked. You buy an smart tv that can have features revoked. You barely can pay your rent because now everyone needs to rent because no one has money to buy except equity firms.
There is no need for "they" to be a centralised being. It is just happening. Doesn't matter who or if there are a "they".
We live in a world where people think that the homeless man is the enemy because people are to simple minded to not understand why there are incentives to keep make it worse and worse.
‘As Hitler declared in 1934, “The German revolution will be concluded only when the entire German Volk has been totally created anew, reorganized and reconstructed” (cited in Koonz, 2003, p. 87). The “Great Reset,” announced by World Economic Forum (WEF) director Klaus Schwab, son of Nazi industrialist Eugen Schwab, attempts the same thing on a global scale, promising to “revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country [ . . . ] must participate, and every industry [ . . . ] must be transformed” (Schwab, 2020).’
The book is: Wall Street, the Nazis, and the Crimes of the Deep State
By David A. Hughes