Capitalism has eroded society to the edge of what is tolerable. The push for infinite growth has pushed the world to the extreme, with 0.001% of human holding 99.999% of the riches.
We are now at a point where growth cannot continue because the customers are too poor and the thumbscrews are all the way in. And yet, corpos want more. It will break - very soon. Then what happens?
Then what happens?
People die is what happens. Societal upheaval doesn’t happen peacefully. Unfortunately.
Unbridled uncontrolled capitalism, that is.
Capitalism in on itself isn’t necessarily bad, it’s a tool. Just as you can use a knife to carve out a nice image, you can also use it to stab somebody to death.
Captialism is quite powerful and is pretty much the reason why western nations are as powerful as they are. The uncontrolled part is the reason why things got bad and are getting worse
It’s clearly working very well for itself, but it’s doing it for the benefit of the stock holders, not for the community, not for the employees, and certainly not for the environment - those are all just annoying cost factors that must be minimized to maximise profits.
I am saying this is not sustainable, and we have now reached that point. People have several jobs and still can’t pay their bills - that’s new, and a sign that we’ve reached the limit.
Yeah, and the right way to do that is to put a number of hard and soft limits on capitalism. Tax the greedy bastards, put good employment laws in place.
I think others see this but not enough: the slow collapse of Liberal democracy.
A rot has set in and people in politics and government no longer believe in liberal democracy. If you read history you find impassioned fighting for liberty, freedom and equality.
Now we have quasi democracies, with erosions of freedoms, rights and even dumbing down of access to news coverage and knowledge. Countries like the USA and UK that were leading lights in liberal democracy have fallen back into more authoritarian regimes. Countries in continental Europe that were bastions of liberal democracy also seem to losing their way. Big corporations and a wealthy elite are working against the interests of Liberal democracy and we’re letting them do it.
Authoritarianism is the scourge of our age - being pushed by China and Russia and taking hold in India, the middle east, Africa and increasingly in the west.
It’s depressing to see the rot.
I work in the field of mental health, specifically mostly in the area of recovery mentorship.
This is an area that is effectively dominated by women.
I wish women could see how that within the realm of healing, they have constructed their own systems of power where men are oppressed, abused, belittled, and prevented from accessing those services without standing up to / enduring that level of hatred.
In short, once the oppressed have the guns, they become the oppressors.
This is a really bold claim. Do you have any examples? (Of the systems of oppression, I’m aware women are overrepresented as mental health professions)
That is not a bold claim, that is a factual statement from someone that works directly in the field.
Yes, a specific example is being in a men’s session and having one of the female counselors invalidate the males’ experience because “Oh yeah, you should try being a woman in a man’s world”. That is just one tiny incident, but it is revelatory of a series of repugnant biases.
Sounds like with that one specific incident it was that chick being shitty at her job. I’m a female and have had female mental health providers treat me like garbage too. It’s not a woman vs man thing. Some people are just shit humans regardless of their sex.
No sources, so it’s your opinion plus anecdotes. Got it.
I see you found the men’s rights activist.
“Cite a study or it doesn’t exist.”
I use that to get my way all the time.
How stupid we humans are for coming up for all kinds of biases based solely on where other people were born at, more than their parents. Not only country wise, some people can get super defensive against people born 20-30km away within the same country and state.
To a lesser extent, more people should be aware of Dyogenes of Sinope, aka Dyogenes the Cynic’s antics. A man that “saw through” society’s bullshit and was willing to live and act according to what he preached: owning nothing, living in poverty, giving no fucks to societal norms of the time and being truly honest to everyone in their faces, behaving “like a dog”, kynos, which is the root of the word cynic.
The value of good frontend engineering.
I recently stumbled upon this blog post that describes it better than I could
The hidden walls and the dwarfs in them
Which dynamics (political, economical, privacy-wise) will lead to a less enjoyable future for all of us.
Following a reaction to being put under for surgery, I see way more colors than I used to. When I look at a rainbow, I can see more bands of color than normal.
Down side? Bright light is physically painful. When I woke up from surgery I had to beg to be put in a dark room.
Do you see new, unique colors, or are you more sensitive to what’s already there?
There are like 5 bands of red, then a space, then a really dark almost brick red. As an example. Almost brown.
What surgery was it if I may ask?
Tonsilectomy of all things!
Found the masked Terran.
The way fear, anger, hatred, and the resulting division is being used to control populations.
We have more in common with one another than we think. We all do. But our media highlights the things about each other that we fear or hate.
I know plenty of people across the political spectrum. There is a distinct lack of empathy for anyone who doesn’t share specific views or experiences.
Note, I am not trying to “both sides” here, I’m really not. Modern conservatism is dangerous. But it remains in place not only because conservatives are fed fear and hatred about progressives, but also because progressives are fed fear and anger towards conservatives.
I don’t think the original goal here was to control people, I think fear sells. We seek out warnings, they impact our mental state more. News organizations originally realized they could make more money by making their audience afraid.
But there have always been those who capitalize on those fears. And today it means that those who control the channels simply need to keep us afraid of and angry at one another over some wedge issues and they don’t then need to fear anyone coming together to make actual meaningful societal change happen.
I wish we’d all spend a bit more time talking to other people. But that’s becoming more and more rare.
I’ll consider empathizing with conservatives when they aren’t trying to legislate away every aspect of my existence. I’m not going to apologize for having disdain for white supremacists and their supporters.
Very well said!
Watch the CGP Gray video “This video will make you angry”. Absolutely changed my world view and how I interact with the internet
That the solutions that benefit all beings are always the best. Even if they require more effort. Also, that there are never just two solutions to any problem. The human experience is not binary, there are infinitely many solutions to all problems.
I’ve started to think of “optimum solutions” rather than “right solutions”.
Yes, good point. I try not to get too hung up on words. But, when speaking to others, you point out a more productive way to word it. Thanks!
Ghosts
Do you? Tell us more.
Brunhild says I shouldn’t talk to you
Damn Brunhild, that’s just like her.
She still owes me $10, the jerk.
The ISS. Woke up around 4-5 am just to see it a couple of years ago. I was afraid of missing it, but then saw a fast dot on the sky. First a dot, that split into 5 and a line, after that back to a small dot before disappearing.
Seeing the human technology in space with naked eyes is beautiful.
There was helpful site on Nasa to know when to look for it, but looks like theres an app for it now. Give it a try if you like space stuff, it cost nothing, well maybe a sleepy morning.
For a multisensory experience also grab a walkie talkie and tune it to 437.8
little history tidbit. Some of the first satelites for communications were actually just giant balls of aluminum foil. You could literally see them from space at night. They were like an itty bitty little moon almost.
The world’s population is getting significantly sicker and we’re blaming the victims for “lifestyle diseases” as a way of dismissing the problem. But research needs money and time, so there will always be better and stronger evidence for money-making remedies instead of the slow and complex research into why people are increasingly experiencing disease.
We’re hurting ourselves, and each other, and because disabled people are excluded from huge parts of society, we’re also covering up the evidence. It’s only when we’re wounded that the reality is clear, but by then it’s too late - you’re just written off as someone who made bad choices.
e.g. “More than 500,000 under-35s in UK out of work due to long-term illness” - obviously, the government response is to reduce the help available.
When I was young I saw the night sky with the milky way clearly visible. I never got the chance to see it again.
I travelled to the top of a remote mountain free of any light pollution or air pollution. It was a dark night with new moon. The sky was completely clear. I still had good eyesight at that time.
The starry night sky was magnificent and mesmerizing.
This is a weirdly universal statement for an anecdotal experience. If one were to go to an actually remote location, many miles from any city, I don’t know of any reason that the stars wouldn’t be visible.
Weather (clouds), moonlight.
And the fact that I have responsibilities as an adult, and it is not easy to go to an actually remote location at the right time.
Going to a dark site is not as easy as “just drive an hour from your home.”
Take a look at this: https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/skywatching/how-to-find-good-places-to-stargaze/
So you went to stargaze on a cloudy night and your takeaway is that nobody can see the stars anymore? Yeah, that’s a bizarre conclusion.
If you want to purposefully misunderstand what I said, feel free to do so.
I’m not really sure how else to understand it, tbh. Unless you meant things you don’t see anymore, which wasn’t really the point of the thread.
I went from living in a 9 or 10 to a 3 on that scale, and it blows my mind every time I look up at night. I literally did not believe my own eyes the first timei saw it all.
You really do feel connected to the past realizing this is the same sky we’ve had the entire time we’ve been on this planet.
Except then you learn that even this “unchanging” sky changed A LOT from the distant past to today!
Like sure most stars where always visible in the sky (always being relative to homo sapiens looking up at the sky and being able to communicate with each other verbally) but their position might have been different…
Most of the stars we see are several thousand light-years away from Earth. That means we are seeing the stars’ past as well.
It would have been a lot more colourful to your kid eyes too.
How much damage suburbs strodes and massive footprint drive up box stores actually do. The amount of materials and ecological flattening needed so that everyone can have their own yard with a patch of shit grass. All the concrete reflecting heat into the atmosphere and causing temperature instability, the damage to the water and carbon locking systems we all need to survive because so many people can’t stand being around people outside their own isolated family units or need to find a place to park their car. We need affordable city and high density village housing and flip the script on housing costs heavily incentivizing moving out of suburban areas.
We need more trains and buses but more than that we need design where our land use is treated as an actual resource that requires harm reduction policies instead of just “unused” land because “unused” land is what is keeping the planet alive and if we don’t start reclaiming it we are gunna be in massive trouble.
