I would say it worked until the world changed in such a way that old systems were entirely dismantled.
But even in previous eras that system of wealth preservation only worked when it worked. If the invading army was never expelled, your land could be lost. And carrying all those valuables around with you while fleeing, well I'm sure people still got robbed sometimes. So it wasn't a foolproof solution. But there were limited options, and maybe not a better options.
Even now, what's the solution for wealth preservation in times of upheaval and displacement? I have no idea. Right now most of us trust in the banking system to some degree and that's only good as long as the system stands. If it collapses we're all boned and might wish for a bit more art, gold, and land to fall back on.
That is a good question. And I'm sure it's because the reality isn't much like what we perceive from TV and movies. And cartels and crime organizations are far from omnipotent.
They don't have infinite resources. And if they can't get at a person easily, trivially even, maybe it's just not worth the effort a lot of the time. Especially once the damage has been done.
During the dotcom bubble thousands of companies were way over valued, where are they now? Mostly gone. Amazon survived and evolved. They actually were the exception. That doesn't mean every company that you can imagine being in a similar boat to amazon is going to end up in the same boat as amazon or even close to it.
Not to mention when the dotcom bubble popped Amazon's stock price took a beating and didn't really surpass its dotcom bubble peak until fall 2009, 9 years later...
All airlines do, because they have decades of passenger data to work with and can estimate how many people won't show up, how many people will take compensation, etc. They have policies in place for every contingency.
Passengers don't like the idea of overbooking. But most passengers don't really understand how the sausage is made. And they don't care when the system works for them most of the time, just that it's not perfect, so booooo.
>I'm convinced that since citizens don't know their rights, that the government doesn't think we care about them, and uses that against us when we try defending them. It's the idea of... If you don't use them, you lose them.
Alternatively, some people are willing to give up some rights for a feeling of security.
Or some people are willing to curtail some rights because it hurts people they don't like a lot more than it hurts them.
Or some people imagine gutting rights they don't regularly seem to need will never come back to bite them. People aren't going to defend things they don't care about.
Or some people seem to imagine that if a certain right doesn't seem to benefit them directly that it's not worthwhile to defend.
Or some people seem to think that maintaining the status quo is a right that they need to defend, no matter how many people are harmed by the inequality in the current landscape.
I mean you're not wrong. But that's certainly not the only issue issue causing the erosion of liberty.
It's more expensive to run three schools. And if those three schools don't each have enough students, they're going to be underfunded as funding is largely based on the number of students.
So the problem starts multiplying.
1. Can't afford supplies, facilities, etc.
2. Can't afford to be properly staffed.
3. The school is invariably going to be under-performing and we've decided as a society that if your school isn't performing well we're going to penalize it by cutting funding, which exacerbates the funding problem.
4. You've got all sorts of people, fiscal hawks, tax payers, etc who don't really want to pay for education, let alone pay for half empty schools and all that overheard. No one really wants to subsidize a ghost town...
So the result is school districts that are too small to make sense being combined together to try and pool their resources and maintain quality and efficiency.
So if you live out in super rural or low population density areas, and families aren't churning out children like they're old school farmers or Catholics, then this is the sort of reality you'll have to deal with.
Or at least let's not pretend that this 21st century version of status symbol nonsense is really any different than what kids have always been doing. Some kid has a SNES and you only have a NES... Who's got Air Jordans? Who's got the best lunch? The best toys. Whatever. It's all the same. It's always been the same.
Hell I remember 1990 my elementary school installed a pencil machine. And you got like two random pencils with whatever graphics on them for a quarter (or maybe two quarters) and people were dumping money into that thing like they were going to hit the jackpot and become pencil barons of the midwest.
It's always been the same song and dance, kids are morons, and they are subject to the whims of whatever fad.
If they want it that bad, let them go mow lawns or shovel driveways or whatever. You know, like kids have often had to do when there was something they wanted, no matter how silly it seems to adults.
I'd agree, except that Fortnite is hardly the originator of this sort of model. Blizzard has been doing similar things for years. And once upon a time Team Fortress 2 being dubbed a hat simulator comes to mind. And then there was Counter-Strike.
I don't buy into the "please, won't someone think of the children", type arguments like this is a new problem or that this game is specifically for kids. Or that Epic should change their business model when it turns out lots of children end up playing their wildly popular game.
Way more people use Steam than Epic Launcher. The oldest Steam accounts are 15 years old now, people have been using it for a long time when it was largely the only game in town. People may use another company's platform because they have to to play a certain game. But a lot of times it's just that other platform trying to be Steam, but not in the same league.
You might be surprised what people consider love, and how all sorts of other beliefs get intertwined with it.
IE you have strong sacred long held beliefs that your female children are not independent, are your property. That you want the best for them, according to your beliefs and your customs, which you believe are right. That resorting to "tough love" to get wayward children on the right track is for their own good. A lot of folks would claim or deny they're hurting their children, it's their children who are being hurtful by being "disobedient", bringing dishonor, or rejecting the values on which they were raised. The list goes on and on, the rationalizations are enumerable. And even aside all that, some people just love exercising their authority over others and actively seek opportunities to do it to the maximum degree they possibly can.
It's pretty easy to rationalize cruelty as love. And everyone is the hero of their own story, so not always a lot of incentive to be objective or introspective about it.
Depends on if you care more about the benefits of getting at your enemies than the consequences of legitimizing criminal behavior and/or the inevitable "friendly fire" incidents.
But even in previous eras that system of wealth preservation only worked when it worked. If the invading army was never expelled, your land could be lost. And carrying all those valuables around with you while fleeing, well I'm sure people still got robbed sometimes. So it wasn't a foolproof solution. But there were limited options, and maybe not a better options.
Even now, what's the solution for wealth preservation in times of upheaval and displacement? I have no idea. Right now most of us trust in the banking system to some degree and that's only good as long as the system stands. If it collapses we're all boned and might wish for a bit more art, gold, and land to fall back on.