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Comment by Varelion | Hacker News Reader

Any adult who has been paying attention has no doubt that enough of the elite do collude to call the duck a duck.

In the real world it's hard enough to get 5 people on the same page about anything. The idea that dozens/hundreds of people with billions of dollars who are in business against each other in many cases are secretly colluding with any effectiveness is a joke. If they were, zuckerberg, larry and sergey would have been squashed in the 90's/00's by the elite of the time. Sam Altman would have been crushed years ago. Obama or Trump would have been put in their place, probably both. Look at all the billionaires all of a sudden kowtowing to Trump. The billionaires just got beat real bad in NYC.

Billionaires just don't have much power. This isn't a movie.

This seems to contradict itself. You first claim that there's no organization but then you claim billionaires have no power because of the more powerful above them. Hierarchy is organization, so which is it

No, nothing above them. No power. That's the point. In a couple years Trump will be gone and he'll be kowtowing to others and so on.

There is no group in charge. No one is in charge.

If that is true then we all are in charge and it is up to all of us. As you agreed elsewhere, cooperation exists.

If there's no power then why did so many line up to bring gifts and kiss the ring of a certain vindictive, convicted felon turned President?

Just because no one is in charge, it doesn't mean favors disappear and it doesn't mean no one can throw a wrench in your system.

It really sounds like you're trying hard to define a square circle. Your argument isn't even self consistent because what you described sure sounds like someone has power...

Nope. It's perfectly consistent. No one has much power at all. No one is in charge, there is no greater power sitting above us all calling all (or even most) the shots. To use someone else's term, there is no cabal.

You seem to conflate "no one is powerful" with "no one has any power in any situation at all".

  > You seem to conflate "no one is powerful" with "no one has any power in any situation at all".

The problem is not this, it is your claim that all power is equal, that there is no imbalance. No one is claiming God, only men

Never said equal, just that no one has much. It's just not that hard of a claim to understand. No need to twist oneself into a pretzel.

How many billionaires attended Biden's inauguration or donated to Biden's projects? How many for Trump 2?

I never said nobody hoped to be powerful, or increase the level of power they have. They just don't have much, and they can't/don't coordinate like some conspiracy theorists believe.

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