How can we expect the republic to survive if some of the most capable people try so actively to not pay attention to what's going on outside their bubble?
This might surprise you, but I'd prefer people be up to speed on matters of public policy (school funding, environmental regulation, labor laws, etc.)
I can't imagine what relevance you think this case has to the lives of most people on this forum, or even to most people living in the USA. It doesn't impact their future, their well-being, the well-being of people they know or are likely to know, or have (any? much?) lasting meaning for rational policy decisions.
The survival of the republic is most assuredly not dependent upon everyone on the internet clinging to the details of every morbidly awful high-profile sexual misconduct case.
Epstein wasn't just gossip or a one-off terrible person. He was a network, he provided services, and his clients/friends/co-conspirators were some of the most prominent people in the country. Not because they were popular but because they were powerful.
Corruption at the highest level that goes far and wide. You shouldn't ignore it because it's "just" sex abuse and not anything important. When you shine light on any kind of high level corruption, you get corrupt people out of their positions. The collateral damage is that the other corrupt things they do which might be more "important" and honest people who don't do those sorts of things get promoted into the spots vacated.
Not to mention validating the many victims of similar abuse around the country who are most often the prey of powerful people.
If you don't care and think there are more important things than that... well ok, but I think that not caring about that kind of corruption and ignoring it is a real threat to the stability and longevity of the republic.
Because they’re too busy counting their money. We’re the lackeys of the mighty and powerful and when the “common people” sometime try to react to the visible power imbalances some of us feel the need to obey and defend our masters. Source: me, a desilusioned programmer approaching my 40s
Or lack of money. The current economy, even for those in the professional class (given the absurd costs of living in tech cities), is designed to maximize precarity and force people into such a hustle mentality that they can barely pay attention to the world around them. It is truly the billionaire class vs the rest of us. We're all in this together.
You would think so from the outside but given the current level of technological development today's billionaires would be nothing without us, IT people (I include here everything from devops, to programmers to QA etc etc), without some lawyers and some medical professionals. Even the billionaires' goons are almost nothing without the technological-heavy guns they employ to potentially carry out their goon-related stuff, and said technology depends, like I said, on us, IT people.
What makes you think anyone with billionaire status thinks about anyone of lesser status as anything but cogs in their personal machine? So their existence depends on others, in reality... when did they last have any contact with reality in any meaningful way?
If you can be bought and sold, you are a pawn, not a player.
I am there with you. Part of me worries about overreactions, but the other part is glad this is happening, because, at one point, people have to figure out that those narcissistic douche bag are the bane of humanity, and that we should avoid them and socially isolate them, and that there are consequences to enabling them.
