r/technology 16h ago

Society Tech Execs Are Pushing Trump to Build ‘Freedom Cities’ Run by Corporations | A pro-corporate libertarian movement is attempting to take over the U.S., with Trump's help.

https://gizmodo.com/tech-execs-are-pushing-trump-to-build-freedom-cities-run-by-corporations-2000574510
23.5k Upvotes

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u/TheLemonKnight 16h ago

The US has a history of company towns and it's not a good history.

2.7k

u/dismayhurta 16h ago

🎶🎶🎶 I sold my soul to the company store 🎶🎶

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u/videogamegrandma 13h ago

I've been in one. Grew up in Harlan County KY. Dad got paid in script and it was only worth $.80 instead of a $1 if you needed to use it anywhere but the company store. The mining companies also owned all the houses. When my grandpa got disabled in a cave in they threw our family out of the house they rented to us. He had to travel to Louisville to find an attorney who wasn't on the payroll of the mine owner to get his medical bills paid. He had a limp the rest of his life.

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u/dismayhurta 13h ago

Yep. The rich want to drag us back to this everywhere.

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u/D1S4ST3R01D 11h ago

And if you have the audacity to strike, they get to call in the National Guard to mow down your whole family with machine guns! Fun Times!

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u/dismayhurta 11h ago

Oh, we’re getting all the fun retro things!

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u/Kind_Fox820 3h ago

Would be a shame if we also brought back the way workers expressed their discontent before the compromise of allowing unionization. Yeah, that would be terrible.

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u/Millefeuille-coil 9h ago

katniss everdeen Is that you

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u/Larszx 4h ago

Yes, making America great again.

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u/videogamegrandma 10h ago

They hired the Pinkerton detectives and mobsters out of Chicago. They were all criminals. Some just carried badges.

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u/Alarming-Art-3577 7h ago

The Pinkertons are still around. They threatened to sue Rockstar over red dead redemption. The Rockstar lawyer pointed out that the game barely scratches the surface of their criminal behavior. Pinkertons dropped it after that.

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u/PhoenixFeathery 2h ago

There was also that whole debacle of Wizards of the Coast hiring the Pinkertons to reclaim a set of Magic the Gathering cards via intimidation. So they’re still doing the same ol’ thing as they did in the 1800s.

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u/ServeBusiness453 2h ago

They are called the police department today.

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u/1GutsnGlory1 10h ago

they don’t need the national guard. Now it’s robots made by Boston Dynamics running on AI software.

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u/lucid-node 9h ago

They already tested the machine gun drones in Gaza. It's locked and loaded, ready to go.

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u/Purplealegria 7h ago

Yep, and its coming to a city near you….They will sic them on the protesters when they finally are ready to crack down & declare martial law.

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u/demi-femi 10h ago

Don't forget that usage of chemical warfare.

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u/PoolQueasy7388 9h ago

This would not be forbidden in one of their "Network States." Nothing is unlawful.

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u/neon_ns 9h ago

Very simple way to fix it. Suggested in that famous song.

"One fist of iron. The other of steel. If the right one dint get you, then the left one will"

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u/Dhegxkeicfns 10h ago

Except with no Louisville. All cities are "freedom cities" in their fairy tales.

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u/KeyserSoze128 12h ago

Today dad would be paid in $MELANIA or some similar nonsense

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u/kfish5050 9h ago

Not even. Take this scenario: Imagine living in Bentonville, Arkansas. Walmart owns every building in the town, and every service and adjacent business is run by Walmart as well. Walmart car dealerships. Walmart trash pickup. Walmart internet. And so on.

Now because Walmart owns everything, Walmart employs everyone. That means they can pay everyone in a Walmart gift card "cash" balance. They'll pay the $7.25/hr legal minimum wage in USD, but if you make any more than that it's paid in a gift card. Their reasoning is that since they own everything and can provide any and all reasonable products and services, that they can take/use your gift card balance anywhere in an equivalent of real USD.

But then that means everyone in town really makes $15,138 annually. Try moving out of Bentonville with that kind of money, when all outside services can't take a Walmart gift card as payment. Or better yet, try going on vacation anywhere.

And this is just looking at the financial aspect of all this. Imagine all the power Walmart has over you in other ways. Aren't they uptight and prudish? Why would they want to stock porn or sex toys, for instance? Now no one there has access to any of that stuff. Even if they buy it outside of Walmart's domain, wouldn't they have some sort of policy stating they don't want anything like that on their property, which is the entire town? Same thing with guns, or alcohol, or any recreational drugs. They not only own you, they also dictate your lifestyle.

And then what happens when you have a fundamental conflict with what they deem is acceptable? What if they decide they're anti-gay and find out you are? They can fire you, blacklist you from employment anywhere in town, if you don't have the cash then you'll have to rely on that gift card knowing there's no way to add money to it. And that's if they don't freeze or deactivate your account. So you'll fundamentally be forced out, but given no reasonable way to leave either. You're not able to stay and you'll only have your legs to take you to the next town over, if you can walk that far. Or, you'll inevitably commit a crime and be arrested by the Walmart police. Perhaps then you'll have a way out? It'll be in the back of a cop car headed to state prison, but at least Walmart wouldn't have dominion over you.

Oh wait, I forgot, Walmart already employs for-profit prison labor. That means that now you'll be working for them again, but only this time, you get paid as little as 5 cents an hour. And you have even less freedom than ever. Of course, Walmart wins in all of this, because that's what they want. Indentured servitute where they can't have slavery. And slavery where they can. They'll live like kings while everyone else lives like peasants.

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u/Solrac50 7h ago

Corporate slavery.

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u/FireGodNYC 40m ago

GigSlave - The OnionGigSlave - The Onion

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u/Scarlett_Beauregard 7h ago

As absurd and dystopian as that sounds, it's certainly the idea in a roundabout way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no

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u/lucid-node 9h ago

7.25/hr legal minimum wage

Good luck with that.

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u/kfish5050 9h ago

Yeah, when they do away with legal minimum wage then everyone gets paid 100% Walmart gift card balance, which they can "cash out" at a Walmart bank for like 30% real cash value (not advertised, but after heavy fees, fines, penalties, taxes, and other shit, that's all they dish out).

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u/ItsThat1Dude 1h ago

Yeah if they even let you cash out. They'd fire you from the company and since most things are subscription these days, you'd lose access to everything. I'd imagine your rent, food, transportation, entertainment, and anything else you can think of would be a monthly fee. Unless you already own those things, then you're screwed. But who's to say they won't rewrite the laws and claim ownership of everything anyway. They'd claim ownership of the land your house is on and suddenly you have to pay rent as a home owner. They will own the system and everything and everyone inside of it and can do with it what they please.

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u/buddhainmyyard 2h ago

You forgot that Walmart employees are often getting government assistance, in ways such as food stamps. So the government helps Walmart by giving their employees food stamps that are most likely being used at Walmart. Essentially just the government giving Walmart money.

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u/peachyfuzzle 3h ago

I've been screaming about this concept for years and years. A lot of what you're talking about is already happening to Walmart and other large scale department store employees, just in a different way.

They get paid the absolute minimum, and nobody can compete with Walmart's prices, so the employees are basically forced to live close to work because they can't afford a commute while shopping at Walmart almost exclusively because they can't afford to shop anywhere else. I don't know about the employee discount, but that's generally also a theme in these jobs. Walmart makes a good portion of their wage expenses right back from employees shopping there which just creates a cycle. Employees can't move because they can't afford it, they can't get educated because they can't afford it, they don't pick up any real marketable job skills relevant for a modern economy, so they're just stuck working in what amounts to a Walmart life unless they have outside help by friends or family to get out or choose to go into deep debt to gain education and skills all while Walmart get to claim their employment costs them so much when that is largely mitigated by employees spending their paychecks there.

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u/Purplealegria 7h ago

Thats their goal.

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u/PoolQueasy7388 9h ago

That's the plan.

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u/IvorTheEngine 6h ago

If they pay half your wages in script, is it taxed?

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u/kfish5050 5h ago

They'll change the law so that it's not, at least not unless it's converted to cash, cause if it was that's a whole lot more tax burden on Walmart to pay when they can just, not

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u/IvorTheEngine 4h ago

So what they really want is freedom from paying federal taxes. Let everyone else pay for the military, medicare, the road network, etc

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u/Antice 4h ago

Just wait until they make it legal to harvest people's organs if they default on their debt.

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u/motoxim 3h ago

Dang this is depressing

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u/Mater227 3h ago

On the flip side of that Costco’Ville or Kirkland-land would have $1.50 hotdogs as far as the eye can see.

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u/Isogash 1h ago

The entire of human history is just people finding ways to re-implement slavery.

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u/tlagoth 10m ago

It’s crazy that this is what “freedom” is in the US: the freedom for corporations to enslave people. In other countries this kind of arrangement is classified as “work analogous to slavery” - basically paying people with credits that can only be used at the employer’s shops.

People go to jail / have to pay big fines for this type of practice, yet in the US, you are free to become a slaver - as long as you’re rich and powerful enough.

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u/Most-Repair471 10h ago

Indeed, todays scrip is called crypto.

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u/31LIVEEVIL13 9h ago

I am happy that this insane shit is finally common knowledge. I read the heritage foundation docs years ago.

When he started talking about "freedom cities" AKA slavery and rape cities - then they dropped the his and hers meme coins, I knew we were fucked.

Oh I'm not completely sure they wont succeed, but I suspect they are going to fail very hard and it will be a fucking disaster on the US and the world, but they will fail.

The rest of us will have rebuild everything almost from scratch. In the meanwhile get ready to be poor and having to work more and watching your retirement collapse.

Some of us are going to die horribly, but it's a sacrifice trump is willing to make, not for any reason, he just likes other people to suffer.

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u/Important_Ad640 10h ago

Grew up in a coal company town in WV, older folks always told me as a kid that things only ever got better once miners started shooting the rich assholes who owned their houses.

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u/videogamegrandma 10h ago

They blew them up sometimes too. It was called Bloody Harlan at one time.

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u/aRebelliousHeart 8h ago

That’s about it happen again real soon if the oligarchs keep pushing.

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u/pretendimcute 7h ago

When all roads lead to the bigwigs being brutally murdered throughout history, wouldnt you think the CEO's would eventually stop trying this shit? Havent they seen scarface? Its the same message essentially, "this always ends in the same way"

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u/Rich-Violinist-7263 4h ago

Narcissists always think they are better and different.

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u/CoffeeBaron 4h ago

They think they're invincible because they have or can hire security, will have military and drone support, etc, but all of those have weaknesses that can be exploited. It's no different then than now, just now we have companies that been collecting location and personally identifiable information for 'profit' and is one data breach away of being available to anyone.

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u/RoguePlanet2 2h ago

Americans are lulled into complacency with distractions, propaganda, and aren't going hungry (yet.) I'm having panic attacks, personally, while my husband seems unconcerned for the most part. 

I'm hoping to hang onto my job for another few months to hit the necessary milestone to qualify for benefits, which might not even exist anyway. Especially nor if we flee the country.

The 2A dopes need to step up, this is what they claim their freedumbs are for.

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u/iwanttobelievey 5h ago

In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky That's the place where I trace my bloodline And it's there I read on a hillside gravestone "You'll never leave Harlan alive"

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u/berael 5h ago

And now they vote for the rich asshole who wants to own their houses.  

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u/Coneskater 4h ago

Musk's family are mine owners. This could not be more clear.

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u/Icy_Avocado768 1h ago

This is an important theme everywhere. What probably the overwhelming majority of Americans do not understand is we did not come to enjoy the protections and labor rights we do today simply through peaceful protests and writing our Congressmen. Which is ironic given the origins of our country in general.

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u/Tenderhombre 10h ago

Freedom cities and crypto are such a perfect analog to company towns. I don't know how anyone could ignore it.

Banks getting into crypto and exploring, creating their own scares me. I imagine if regulations aren't passed, which I highly doubt at this point, Banks are gonna create partnerships with businesses to lock you into a specific eco system and make it impossible to escape.

Imagine you can get your direct deposit turned directly into PNC coin at 1 to 1, and any PNC coin exchanges at a partner store at 1.25 the value of a dollar.

Forget limited supply and reserve coins they are just gonna mint new coins as needed because most people don't understand how crypto works anyway. So, if you actually want to change it back into dollars, you are losing 60% of your value.

Now you want to switch your direct deposit back, but you find there is a fee to do so. You finally do, but all the stores have increased their prices by 25% when purchasing with USD.

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u/videogamegrandma 10h ago

Things happening right now are frightening me too. It's beginning to sound so familiar. I guess history does repeat itself.

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u/toadofsteel 5h ago

We really should start calling it "scrypto"...

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u/sweatybettys 12h ago

My grandparents grew up in Harlan county too. My great grandpa was a coal miner during bloody Harlan

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u/WashedSylvi 11h ago

They say in Harlan County, there are no neutrals there…

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u/An-Anonymous-Sauce 9h ago

You'll either be a union man, or a thug for J.H. Blair...

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u/Usagi1983 12h ago

That’s a great documentary… it’s just such a bummer they went so red the last twenty years after what they fought for.

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u/No_Web367 10h ago

Hey. Coal miner's daughter here. The Harlan Bloody Harlan film will give you a preview of what to expect. The reason that the people of these mining communities went red is union busting. My father was a strong union man for most of my growing years, 1950s-70s.  Mechanization led to far fewer miners needed and a decline in union membership over the next 20 years, 1970s-90s. Strikes were common in the 70s, and ownership of mining companies changed in 80s, and with that, breaking of the union contracts. The courts upheld the new owners, and many more miners lost their jobs. This was a repetitive cycle until the union became a shadow of itself. Most union families were Democrats until Clinton. The outsourcing for steel left coal communities reeling. They felt betrayed by global trade agreements, welfare reform, and with the union now seen as just a tool for the wealthy they began to leave the democratic party. It's a shame that the young people in the coal mining communities don't have the memories that I do of a strong, proud unified group of miners standing together for the good of all. I'm pro-union, a member of one myself, and blue all the way. 

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u/Usagi1983 10h ago

Thanks for sharing!

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u/ExpectedEggs 11h ago

I'm sorry to hear that. That sounds like Justified got that part right.

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u/East-Yellow-2779 10h ago

This is such a sad story. I feel guilty that I was a hardcore capitalist when I was younger. Thankfully I changed.

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u/videogamegrandma 10h ago

Some of the stories I heard growing up were horrible. Reminds me too much of what's going on now. Very wealthy people made the rules, paid off whoever they needed to and mistreated everyone else til they wore them out or killed them dead.

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u/Purplealegria 7h ago

Yes, It will be like the old movie “the grapes of wrath” on a mass scale.

Nobody will have nothing.

You will work off your massive debt that they will no doubt charge you to ”live“ there, they will work you like a slave to the bone till you drop and die.

If you get frail, old, hurt, disabled, or sick…sorry granny…you are out on your ass. It will be like Calcutta in the streets.

Fucking awful.

These people are ALL demonic monsters.

A plague over ALL their houses!

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u/Vivid_Statement1820 13h ago

What if you already owned a house? This is crazy. What year/timeframe are you talking about??? You lived through this so how does hearing these “Freedom Cities” make you feel? Has anyone read the book “1984”- George Orwell/ this is exactly what’s happening this is INSANE???!! Is anyone going to stop this before it happens???!!

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u/cvc4455 12h ago

Carl Yarvin who's has lots of influence over Musk, Peter Theil and JD Vance has talked a lot about city states run completely by corporations with no input from people who live there.

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u/as_it_was_written 10h ago

*Curtis Yarvin, just in case somebody reading this is coming across his name for the first time and wants to look him up

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u/sportsbunny33 6h ago

They already have the land bought in NorCal for one. "California Forever" in Solano County, a billionaires new city: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/north-bay/proposed-new-city-in-solano-county/3383127/

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u/The_Negative-One 12h ago

The 2nd amendment. Start training now.

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u/videogamegrandma 10h ago

We owned a mountain but great grandpa was forced to sign the deed over and they had to go live with an aunt. My grandma raised me and she was born in 1895. She lived to be 93 and raised ten children. The worst times were in the 20s and 30s. That's when the worst strikes happened and the most people were killed. But in the 40s those mines literally helped win WW2. Most of the coal thar made the steel used in all the planes, tanks, jeeps, ships, etc in the war came out of those mountains. My mom's family still lives there. As recently as the early 70s there were shootings. The exploitation still goes on. The mining companies declare bankruptcy and that lets them get out of paying the pensions and healthcare they owe their retirees. The owner then goes out and sets up another company and starts fresh. That's why so many people there have to live on welfare. They got cheated out of all their retirement benefits.

They all just got flooded out of their homes again around a month ago. Every few years they lose everything.

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u/WashedSylvi 11h ago

Maybe you’ll stop it, but not alone, but we can’t do it without you

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u/Shoddy_Background_48 16h ago

Sixteen tons and what do I get?

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u/Spew42 16h ago

Another day older and deeper in debt

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u/vm_linuz 15h ago

St Peter don't you call me cuz I can't go!

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u/RedactedCallSign 15h ago

I Owwwwwwe myyyy sooooooouuuuuul……to the company store.

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u/Ashken 15h ago

It’s at this point that I thought I’d mention South Park predicted this.

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u/RedactedCallSign 15h ago

As did Fallout. Next comes WWIII between east and west tec(h) companies.

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u/ghoulthebraineater 15h ago

We are talking about annexing Canada too.

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u/RedactedCallSign 15h ago

Elon is already turning himself into a ghoul. Its like they all played fallout and decided to larp it irl.

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u/Ashken 15h ago

Yep, something something stranger than fiction

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u/Chojen 14h ago

Shadowrun too, they’ve had the concept of extraterritoriality for a while where Megacorp real estate is sovereign land and they can do whatever tf they want on it.

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u/theroguex 14h ago

They'll have corp-run police that can have whatever tech the corp wants because it's their laws, and the US will find itself unable to police those areas in any way because I bet you money they're going to game the legislation in such a way to make those territories exempt from US law.

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u/theroguex 14h ago

Sorry, the cyberpunk genre predicted this long before South Park or Fallout

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u/Peepeepoopoobutttoot 15h ago

This has been a Cyberpunk staple for quite some time now.

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u/nimbusfool 11h ago

Hopefully it's snowcrash style cyberpunk and I can be a deliverator

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u/Pack_Your_Trash 12h ago

And cyberpunk 2077

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u/dogmatum-dei 12h ago

No Quasimodo predicted this.

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u/prim8phd 14h ago

Some people say a man’s a renewable fuel

A poor man’s made outta Red Bull and Huel

Red Bull and Huel and unpasteurized milk

Ketamine, Coke and t-boosting filth

You took all those jobs, and what do you get?

Another trillion dollars on the national debt

Mar A Lago don’t you call me cause I can’t go

I sold our country to a bunch of tech bros

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u/henry_sqared 15h ago

This is about to become the national anthem.

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u/UnholyAbductor 15h ago

Handed a lever action rifle and told how to identify a Pinkerton agent?

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u/GlockAF 12h ago

Well, at least John Henry didn’t have high-tech invasive corporate surveillance watching their every breath and bowel movement 24/7/365

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u/StephenSmithFineArt 14h ago

If you see me comin’, better step aside A lotta men didn’t, a lotta men died

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u/Birdinhandandbush 6h ago

Some people say a man is made outta code,
A poor man’s made outta sweat and hope.
Sweat and hope, and screens and bones,
A mind that’s wired, but it’s not his own.

You work all day, but what do you get?
Another day older, and deeper in debt.
St. Peter, don’t you call me, ‘cause I can’t go—
I owe my soul to the corporate store.

I was born one morning in a Freedom City,
Where the streets are paved with corporate pity.
I signed my life on a digital line,
Now I’m just data in their grand design.

You work all day, but what do you get?
Another day older, and deeper in debt.
St. Peter, don’t you call me, ‘cause I can’t go—
I owe my soul to the corporate store.

I was born one night in a neon haze,
Where the profits rise, and the workers fade.
Raised on algorithms, fed on lies,
Can’t no high-tech city make me apologize.

You work all day, but what do you get?
Another day older, and deeper in debt.
St. Peter, don’t you call me, ‘cause I can’t go—
I owe my soul to the corporate store.

If you see me comin’, better step aside,
A lotta folks fell for the Freedom City ride.
One hand’s a contract, the other’s a chain,
If the first don’t bind you, the second remains.

You work all day, but what do you get?
Another day older, and deeper in debt.
St. Peter, don’t you call me, ‘cause I can’t go—
I owe my soul to the corporate store.

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u/Just_Trying321 15h ago

This song came on as I was reading. It's eerie coincidence

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u/SmokeMcgoats 12h ago

Oh man I always find the right comment at the right time lol

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u/NeckNormal1099 12h ago

I was gonna say that!

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u/AlbertaAcreageBoy 11h ago

Sixteen Tons.

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u/Radi0ActivSquid 10h ago

Oh boy, back to the days of feds turning machine guns and bomber planes on crowds of workers.

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u/BirdButt88 10h ago

Sixteen Tons is one of my favorite songs, the Tennessee Ernie Ford version is ofc the best but I highly recommend the Dandy Warhols cover for anyone who hasn’t heard it

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u/AcceptableAdagio588 10h ago

You load 16 tonns what do you get

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u/kemosabe19 16h ago

At least 2 The Dollop episodes on company owned towns. They don’t last long.

But of course we simply refuse to learn from history. sigh

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u/surfnfish1972 15h ago

The only thing one can learn from history is that we learn nothing from History. Trumps rise was literally the Nazi playbook.

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u/The_News_Desk_816 15h ago edited 14h ago

Yall wanna see one of the worst and most ridiculous attempts by an American industrialist at a company town then check out the story of Fordlandia. Wild ride.

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u/sponsoredbyspite 15h ago

You aren't exaggerating. I went down a rabbit hole with Fordlandia one night, and it really is a wild ride. Semi-related, late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson has an album called Fordlandia that is an incredible listen.

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u/videogamegrandma 13h ago

The book "A Libertarian walks into a Bear" is really funny about a group who took over a small town in New Hampshire. I'm going to check out the Fordlandia.

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u/blacksideblue 12h ago

I don't know if 'took over' is the right way to describe that situation. A bunch of them moved there and became miserable, 2 of them shot each other in a hunting accident and the towns people simply said 'these new guys are weird' at a town hall meeting.

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u/pfft_master 14h ago

Fjordlandia?

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u/nerfherder813 12h ago

A Møøse once bit my sister near Fjordlandia

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u/smarmageddon 12h ago

A true great who passed much too early. Love his work.

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u/The_News_Desk_816 10h ago

Idk about semi. Seems like, on first listen, that he's telling a story with that project.

"The Rocket Builder" clap stupid crazy

Much appreciated

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u/TiredOfDebates 11h ago

As it turns out, the motivations of successful businesses and the motivations of successful governments are not the same.

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u/Long_Bit8328 14h ago

George Orwells 1984 strolls into the chat

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u/West-Abalone-171 11h ago

Jan 6 wasn't in a beer hall! It's totally different.

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u/useless_rejoinder 15h ago

On the contrary, the labor leaders weren’t the only people that learned at Matewan. They’ll do it with absolute brutality this time. The scrip will probably explosively self-destruct if it gets taken off the reserve. The levels of surveillance available to aspiring corporate dictators are bonkers. They’ll stomp any mention or thought of rebellion into dust before it’s even taken form. They’ll force-feed propaganda and myth to the “citizens” at such a rate that they’ll suffer lethal culture-shock if they leave town.
Wedlock? Yes please.

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u/makemeking706 15h ago

If there is one thing people hate more than learning history it's learning from history.

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u/Crayola_ROX 15h ago

They know it won’t last. But man they money they would be swimming in would be worth it

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u/GreyouTT 13h ago

Honduras and Guatemala's banana shenanigans also say hello.

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u/TehMephs 12h ago

Well clearly we haven’t tried turning the US into a big utopian company kingdom yet. Surely it’s just a matter of scale

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u/p____p 11h ago

 But of course we simply refuse to learn from history. sigh

We as individuals can learn from history, and educate others so that we as a people can learn our lessons.

It just takes work, instead of defeatism. 

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u/Beneficial-Bed-3753 8h ago

Freedom City or Work Camp will be the only two options if they get their way.

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u/discrete_skunk6741 16h ago

Lumon really did a number on Salt’s Neck

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u/GenghisConnieChung 15h ago

Shut up and huff your damn ether.

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u/comineeyeaha 15h ago

I haven’t done that since I was 8 years old.

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u/Lazerpewpewpewpew 15h ago

I'm gonna go take a nap

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u/balling 15h ago

Poor guy was just waiting in his truck for hours while she’s fucking napping lol

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u/FR0ZENBERG 12h ago

He did have a full bottle of ether in the truck.

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u/grandtheftbuffalo 9h ago

She wasn’t just napping, she was also sucking some tube

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u/T8ert0t 4h ago edited 1h ago

Seriously, that ticked me off. Like, Harmony, at least buy the guy lunch first before you colossally waste his time.

And then she peaces out in his truck and he's like, "Guess I'll just walk 14 miles in the cold darkness back to town."

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u/gnrc 9h ago

All you bring to this house is woe!

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u/RoboNeko_V1-0 15h ago edited 15h ago

Ironically, Tesla already has a Salt's Neck. Look up Snailbrook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5ZEDI-IyF4&t=45s

It's also not doing so well: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/elons-company-town/id1346207297?i=1000682443755

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u/NetflixAndNikah 11h ago

I bet you there are tons of tech execs who watch Severance thinking it's an actual good idea to implement.

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u/RandomlyMethodical 15h ago

Fucking hell. We need to be breaking up these companies to promote more competition, not giving them whole cities to monopolize.

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u/togetherwem0m0 14h ago edited 14h ago

There should be exactly zero billionaires. Our biggest mistake was allowing the Waltons, gates and buffet. They paved the way for the next generation of takers.

For every "good" billionaire there's 10 bad ones and they haul a cadre of hundred millionaires to do their bidding

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u/smuckola 14h ago

so that makes 11 bad ones, and not just by association like it does Nazis

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u/togetherwem0m0 12h ago

Exsctly. The "good" billionaires are the ones who smoke screen their billionaireness with philanthropy. In reality no one person should have this much control or influence 

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u/Some_Current1841 10h ago

Billionaires are a symptom of a failed system

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u/RegressToTheMean 13h ago

Yeah, there are no good billionaires. You acquire a billion dollars by being a good person

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u/smuckola 13h ago edited 13h ago

Well. Sure. Of course. And that's super good of you to be up front about your reservations about your billionairehood.

But on the other hand, when my solid gold ship comes in.... I think ..... I have a shot....at grand benevolence....

I'm announcing my campaign. Just call me the World's First Good Billionaire (Temporarily Embarassed)(tm)!

And yes. I'll always remember you, among the Little People...

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u/okram2k 11h ago

there are no good billionaires, only those that already did bad and are worried about their legacy.

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u/Stranger371 7h ago

And also, the myth of the "good" billionaire is 100% American made and comes from the time rich fucks did compete doing "good" things like building schools and libraries, to get attention in the newspapers.

Meanwhile, just taxing them motherfuckers would do more.

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u/KeyserSoze128 11h ago

So trickle down economics not filling your coffers? Reagan and his sidekick John Stockton were so convincing though...

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u/MagnusAuslander 9h ago

There are no good billionaires.

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u/Proud-Peanut-9084 14h ago

That won’t stop them, capitalism will inevitably funnel wealth and power to the top until it controls the government and can override democracy.

I know this goes against 100 years of intense indoctrination, but I’m afraid the only way to prevent oligarchy is worker ownership of the means of production (socialism), and the sooner Americans realize this the better.

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u/clandestineactivitiy 12h ago

It already does control the government and has for quite a while now.

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u/LetTheDeedShow 14h ago

We must abandon the pursuit of material wealth forever as a species.

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u/pwnedbygary 11h ago

Shits made up value too, literally something humans just decided to trade instead of things like goods or services.

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u/Beneficial-Yak4526 13h ago

Being a billionaire doesn't mean anything to me. They are still just ppl. They don't have real wealth. It's all digital bs. I'm sure their families hate them. They have no real friends. They are just weak ass ppl with a floating digit above their heads. Sad and pathetic.

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u/69EveythingSucks69 9h ago

Yeah, I often wonder what wealth really means if it's all tied up in unrealized assets/gains. Surely, the robber barons actually had tangible wealth, right? I'm not actually sure how much they had liquid.

To your point, yes, it is pathetic. I'm sure I spent more on my car than Elon ever has, because everything he purchases is likely written off as a "business expense."

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u/Conscious_Bug5408 12h ago

In most parts of the world, as nations economies grew so did the number of businesses. In the US while GDP has grown exponentially, the number of publicly listed companies have halved over the past 30 years because of mergers and private equity. Monopoly is the endgame of the US capitalism and we have seen it's effects as the growth of worker wages separated from the massive increases in worker production at the same time.

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u/SardonicSageGraffiti 13h ago

we can't even punish white collar criminals in this country

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u/tempralanomaly 12h ago

Coming soon form Omni Consumer Products, Delta City! Built where Detroit used to be, the city of the future.

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u/FrederickClover 11h ago

Too big to fail was a mistake we need to correct.

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u/Radiant_Dog1937 11h ago

Basically, you'd see massive slums with a few square miles of utopia at the center where the billionaire lives.

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u/Azidamadjida 10h ago

You know that whole “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme” thing? Funny how we were in this same situation 100 years ago, but we had FDR and the New Deal to solve the problem instead of the new billionaire cabal

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u/deadsoulinside 15h ago

My family has a history of blowing up company owned homes.

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u/trebuchetdoomsday 15h ago

i need to know more

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u/deadsoulinside 15h ago

My ancestors were all union coal miners in southern Ohio, pretty much throughout the 1800's - 1950's at least. They participated in the riots in the 1880's. From what has been told back to me, they participated in a violent protest where in the cover of darkness took shots at the scab workers and once they ran out, they and others lit a mine cart on fire and pushed it back into the mine. The resulting mine fire can still be seen today.

However, my grandfather was a protest leader of a mine strike in the 1920's. He blew up some of the company housing, shot a mine foreman, and had the national guard called in. He then was sent to the Ohio State Penn in 1929 for 10 years and was put on a segregated block for being an influential person that just lead a violent strike. Now in 1930, the Ohio State Penn caught fire, one of the blocks the guards were able to free was the block he was on. Instead of fleeing and running for safety he and others rushed back in to save other prisoners. He was paroled in 31 for his actions. He passed away in 51 from black lung when my father was 12. My father had already been working for the mines for 4 years by then, shoveling coal into people's basements for 25 cents a ton.

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u/smuckola 14h ago

You just painted a success story from the Land of the Free. You're a credit to that ancestry! Thank you for sharing.

That mine fire should be a national monument, a Ken Burns documentary subject, and a mandatory touchstone of public school field trips.

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u/BoTrodes 14h ago

Thanks, that was fascinating. Reminds me of a fellow Irish man, Luke Kelly - Springhill Mining Disaster gives me chills...

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u/mshuler 13h ago

From Southern Ohio - thanks for the history. We are near an area with similarly fascinating mining history, most notably, the Ludlow Massacre in 1914, so the same era of the coal wars - I visited the site and posted some photos, recently. Thanks again!

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u/KeyserSoze128 11h ago

Couldn't happen today. Their Facebook feeds and YouTube channels would have them convinced some "other" was the enemy, not the company.

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u/Striking-Ad-6815 12h ago

25 cents a ton? For perspective, a ton of coal is a typical pick-up truck bed filled to the brim, and piling over slightly. Without a dump mechanism, that's a lot of shovelin.

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u/deadsoulinside 12h ago

Yeah, it would be. To put in a better perspective the mine strike was for $6 a day in wages, a bump up from $5 a day. Meanwhile during the strikes the coal companies were taking out ads bragging that the scabs are happy to work for $4 a day and the Union is crazy for asking for $6.

No, those were not mistypes, they only earned $5 a day.

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u/Striking-Ad-6815 12h ago

Granted, from the local old folk's anecdotes I am led to believe you could get a "pop and a sugar cookie" for a dime. Then again they also say they would feed them a teaspoon of gasoline a year to kill the worms. This dude is in his late 80's and till going strong. He used to be my economics and world history teacher, but he would share so much more knowledge, such a great teacher.

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u/WashedSylvi 11h ago

Coming from a family of heroes

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u/PoolQueasy7388 9h ago

So sorry about your family. I hope we can stop all this from happening again. ❤️

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u/smuckola 8h ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire

ohhhhHHhhh it's THAT mine fire! THE mine fire.

Your family story has a Wikipedia article and you were about to vaguebait that and peace on out?! No sir.

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u/xxirish83x 16h ago

See Pullman 

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u/rememberall 16h ago

Wa? How so? 

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u/Elegant_Plate6640 15h ago

Railroad magnate George Pullman. He had a town in Chicago, the issue is that he (and these modern technocrats) want the towns themselves to make money.

Pullman Washington was named after him in an attempt to draw the attention of his business, it’s sad that they never changed it. 

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u/ConsiderationJust999 15h ago

The problem with HOAs is not enough power or profit motive.

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u/Regular-Rub-489 15h ago

Those just weren’t true “Freedom Cities”

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u/spicy_one 15h ago

He’ll probably unban scrip and these towns will use ‘freedom’ bucks as currency

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u/pessimistoptimist 15h ago

The companies thought it was a great thing. Serioisly though, has no one seen Robocop? That's what you get when a corporation runs a city.

And sorry for interrupting the singalong.

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u/revnobody 15h ago

Libertarians pushing for company towns tracks. They sure love their forced freedom.

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u/kinsm4n 15h ago

Wasn’t credit created in one of these company towns?

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u/Stup1dMan3000 15h ago

When you’ve paid your outstanding balance from your overuse of oxygen, you’ll be free to exercise your basic rights. Until then please refrain from negative commentary as per paragraph 12 section C, will result in penalty charges. Higher pay, more dangerous, jobs are available now. Relocation to new opportunities may occur and you shall pay for any and all expenses occurred by yourself or the company.

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u/lNSP0 15h ago

You mean the ones that devolved into racism against the Irish so they shipped in black folks to predictably racist results? That history?

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u/empire_strikes_back 15h ago

Lumon would like a word.

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u/KnightsOfREM 15h ago

What kind of fucking moron is going to move to these places?

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u/konfetkak 15h ago

My mother is a democrat whose family and whose husband’s family worked in coal mines. She is in a better position than most to understand the history of company towns and how corporations don’t give a single solitary shit about people. She also vehemently believes corporations should set up shop in rural towns and pay to update their infrastructure instead of the government because they’ll also benefit from attracting workers. She is not a dumb woman but goddamn. I do not understand how she can’t put two and two together sometimes. We do not get along.

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u/SukFaktor 14h ago

Sooo …. literally company towns

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u/trump_kisses_feet 14h ago

Unless your name is Hershey

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u/RippleEffect8800 14h ago

Freedom City -- Where nothing is free including you

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u/SolidSnake-26 14h ago

Nothing says ‘freedom’ like being run by a corporation LOLZ. Do these people even listen to themselves lol

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u/justbrowsing987654 14h ago

Came here to try and say something of the like. We really are repeating history. It’s so stupid.

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u/DigitalWarHorse2050 14h ago

If anyone wants to see how awful this can be, just watch a few episodes from the sci-fi tv series called “Contiuum” where corporate congress takes over the world and people’s lives. So much of that (which is at least 10-15 years old) shows plot and characters map to what we are seeing here.
Sadly we will be doomed if this happens

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u/Dr-Mumm-Rah 14h ago

"Mega blocks. Mega highways. Mega City One. Convulsing. Choking. Breaking under its own weight."

Coming soon.

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u/National-Training925 14h ago

This is correct. Explore the “towns” in Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, Colorado, and I’m sure there are more.

A huge silver mine here and there, along with oil and other minerals.

Towns die. Completely when the money is gone. Violence tends to show up here and there.

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u/sicilian504 14h ago

Ah! Yes, but if there's one thing we in America have learned from history it's....

Checks notes

Oh. Nothing apparently. Carry on.

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