I often think along those lines too, but of course, our perspective is very skewed living in very rich countries, and earning a good wage, being programmers/engineers/etc.
This really hit home for me when I worked minimum wage jobs, and became good friends with people living that life. People working in those jobs MUST go to work 40+ hours merely to have food, shelter and transport to/from work. Nothing else. If you want to have medical coverage, savings or any kind of "pleasure" money, you'll need a second or third job to make that happen.
If you have not seen it already, I highly, highly recommend the first episode of Morgan Spurlock's series "30 Days" where he and his girlfriend attempt to live on minimum wage in a poorer part of the US [1]. tldr; They cry themselves to sleep and struggle horribly. Then Morgan meets a guy working the same jobs as him who has a wife and 3 kids to support. Shocking is not nearly a strong enough word.
For tens of millions of "working class poor" the prison you speak of is the only reality they have.
In the lives of most people, power still requires violence. (Privileged people don't have to be aware of this.) Hence all the police and military. Otherwise we would have another system, and money (if it exists) would have a different meaning.
But, I think most would rather be trapped in a sprawling country estate than a crappy 1 bd apartment.
Tom: "I wonder if our generation is any better than our parents."
Nick: "Oh, it’s far worse. Our generation’s probably the worst since… the Protestant Reformation, it’s barbaric. But a barbarism even worse than the old-fashioned, straightforward kind. Now barbarism is cloaked with all sorts of self-righteousness and moral superiority."
http://cryptome.org/0005/rich-pander.pdf
i think there was an update on that paper
Little old, bu should help.
Take-away: Clear your cookies/use another browser.
Its amazing that Google doesn't nuke sites that do this into oblivion.
(Lest you think this is completely evil and self-serving, remember that the alternative is banning paywalls altogether — which means the sites would be forced to rely on ads, which would be even more in Google's interest as the biggest player in the ad game. So I think this might be what Google being selfless looks like.)
command+shift+N and then cut and paste the url into an incognito window :)
