Reminds me of this passage from Cory Doctorow's book Walkaway: "You realize that they're exactly right," Sita said. She smiled, stopped. "You know, when the first walkaway prostheses project started, most of the people contributing had lost an arm or a leg in Belarus or Oman, and were tired of paying loan sharks for something that hurt and barely worked and could be remotely repossessed by an over-the-air kill-switch…
Gosh I really love-hate that book. It comes up over and over and over again despite what I consider shoddy writing. It's a bit of a blueprint for how to make the best of a foreseeably shitty future.
"I'm suspicious of any plan to fix unfairness that starts with 'step one, dismantle the entire system and replace it with a better one,' especially if you can't do anything else until step one is done. Of all the ways that people kid themselves into doing nothing, that one is the most self-serving."
