We consume pseudo-food, watch pseudo movies and participate in pseudo sports, heck even pseudo politics. Why pseudo? Because everything is made as cheap as possible and to distract us from the suffering that capitalism brings us so that we won’t rise up.
Examples:
Our vegetables are genetically modified so that they grow bigger but they can’t reproduce anymore and the seeds are copyrighted.
The movies that are watching are catered to the mainstream and don’t even really get a message across. Marvel movies try to tell us that rich people with power will save the world
Football games are there to distract people "give them bread and games and they will never revolt"
The people at power, through massive propaganda, seperate our people into left and right. These two parties will then fight eachother instead of realizing who is really opressing us
I think capitalism isn’t the problem nor is liking and consuming a product or experience. We have great products turned into entire experiences here in the US, and I’m not terribly upset anymore about it.
The problem is the late stage unchecked capitalism running rampant. I think allowing individuals the freedom to pursue their ideas and allow others to even build livelihoods from it works great. But there’s gotta be checks and balances, its what the USA was founded on.
a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community
So regulation of the market by the people (aka people democratically deciding where capitalism should be limited/regulated).
If there is another word that fits better though please let me know.
The reconstruction of the south shouldn’t have ended until 1960, giving near a hundred years to set things right. Instead chickenshit halfhearts let the south return to political power and return to treating POC like slaves. Then they let their grandchildren build fucking monuments and statues to slavemongers.
I wasn’t aware that countries in South America ever rebelled against the US constitution, insisted on the enslavement of their fellow citizens and then lost a war about that issue, requiring their slaveocracies that we burned to the ground to be reconstructed…
I wonder if US insistance on the Nuremberg Trials was a result of seeing the results of failing to hold their own fascists adequately accountable after the civil war.
from what I’ve read, not really. it was so hard to get many held and charged in the first place, the trials were very much a race against time to see how many the could convict before sentiment in germany turned.
We started with hating the gays, then we accepted gays, now we hate straights. See, backwards. “Conservitves”, have been progressing in their own direction, which is not actually conservative but a branch of liberalism that focuses on things like anti abortion and more government control over that as well as border control and anti lgbt. One side of liberalism wants more government control over social things, the other wants government control over economic and state things. By things I mean…whatever those retards are bickering about ATM I’m not sure, thats just my own conclusion.
No one cares about straight people enough to hate us. Spare me your fox news talking points about why we’re actually the most persecuted group in the universe. It’s old hat bullshit.
Progressive to me means fair wages, medicare for all, tackling climate change, defending civil rights, protecting against authoritarianism, tackling the wage gap, making government work for all people, etc.
Conservative means insurrection, praising authoritarianism, banning books, attacking public education, idolizing the ultra wealthy, culture wars, gerrymandering, preventing fair elections, etc.
Next year will mark my 16th year voting for democrats, all they do is kick the can and move the line. While I don’t think there is anything wrong with saying don’t vote conservative, I do think it’s a bit like saying “CLOSE YOUR WINDOWS” when a tornado is coming. We’re screwed regardless of who we vote for, the only thing that changes is the rate at which we’re screwed; that is why Anon is sick of life.
Give the Democrats a 4 person majority then 5 conservative Democrats will Hum and Haw about fiscal responsibility to their voters.
It is really up to hard progressives to get in and vote as a block to keep the Dems from passing watered down policy by forcing them to earn the blocks vote with real policies the public already want.
Medicare for all, free college, 20 dollar minimum wage and more all all supported by way more than 50 percent of the country.
The Dems want to lose these fights for their donors they need to be forced to do their job against their donors wishes.
The FPTP voting system means everyone is held hostage voting for the party they hate the least. If you vote for a third party you just make it more likely the party you hate most will win because the vote is split.
Obviously things still wouldn’t be perfect with a proportional voting system but I think it would take some power away from capitalist oligarchs because we will be able to vote for a party we like without just making the fascists more likely to win. The issue is the only two parties you can realistically vote for are highly incentivised to not change the voting system because they will lose a lot of the power they have.
Or how about everyone who wants to vote 3rd party, votes 3rd party?
I know it’s a little different because my country has proportional voting system, but the first two elections the party I vote for was below the limit to be in a parliament. I still voted for them as did others and now it’s one of the stronger parties.
If everyone who doesn’t like both the parties starts voting 3rd party, you have a chance.
Think about it on the constituency level, say you have a constituency with 100,000 people. One year, 60k people vote for party A and 40k for party B so party A wins. But during during the years before the next election people become disenfranchised with party A so they start voting for party C who they like more. In the following election, party A gets 30k votes, party B gets 40k votes again and party C gets 30k votes. Because FPTP is a “winner takes all” system, party B is now takes that constituency which is the the party A and C voters dislike most, even though party B got less votes than those other two. This is called the spoiler effect. When this is happening all over a country, sure maybe some constituencies will flip but for each that does like 30 will have the vote split leading to a probable landslide victory for party B.
Sure in your country, your vote was also “wasted” if your party of choice never entered parliament I suppose (although if you get to choose multiple parties in order of preference where it defaults to your second if the first doesn’t get enough votes then it isn’t wasted) but the ecosystem will be much more favourable to new parties growing because the way the voting system works makes it actually possible for them to do so. So the vote isn’t wasted like it is in FPTP.
CGP Grey has some great videos about FPTP on his channel if you’re interested in a better explanation that I can provide.
Democrats are also conservatives. If you allow the oligarchs and aristocrats to choose who represents you then they will always choose candidates who rule in their interest. You can’t change this system by playing within the ruleset you’re given. Democratic power can only ever be wielded by unions of workers and communes of citizens. Those organizations combine and concentrate the power of regular people and can effectively wield this against the ruling class.
It’s not even a matter of “Democrat vs Republican” - do you know what they all have in common? They’re all part of the same ruling class you mentioned, and they’re all also helping the corporate owners of America push their agendas.
Like… it’s pretty damn blatant who the GOP are rooting for when you consider what rich asshats like Elongated Muskrat want, and then look at some of the policies they passed and go “oh shit.”
And then there’s the idiots who try to use this reasoning to glorify a nonexistent nostalgia based version of “the good old times” when really capitalism is the problem
My family wasn’t rich and I didn’t have many luxuries, but I still claim to have been much happier than many children who live in this hectic world where everything is so superficial. 90% of ordinary people don’t even dare to have an opinion anymore if it’s not exactly what the mainstream represents.
Hit the gym and touch grass every so often. It’s that simple to feel better. The hardest part is finding consistency. But being chronically online and doom scrolling is what makes the world feel so bleak.
Edit: gonna copy and paste my other comment
I mean, I’m simplifying it for me, but I realized at one point I’m just tired of being tired. Doesn’t have to be physical activity, but it’s really just finding your niche and not getting into your head too much. Easier said than done, but I really just woke up one day and decided that change is only going to come if I force myself to get up and do something. Otherwise I just get depressed and all “woe is me, woe is the world”. If life sucks anyways, I’m going to find ways to enjoy it my own way.
I hate to break it to people but when it came full circle to me, it became as easy as “I’m a depressed right now, well I don’t want to be so I’m going to put a little effort into something. That way, I can at least be proud of myself if not the world”.
I can keep complaining about the world, or I can toughen myself up for myself and be proud of the person I am. I wouldn’t call it ignorance to the rest of the world, I just don’t give a fuck anymore. It never gave a fuck about me in the first place. I’m doing it all for myself.
Ironically it’s not even that anymore. Since these are recommended as the answer so much they are the same as any zeitgeist-chase. Act on your own selfishness for your own enjoyment. Go swim, chill out with that show you think you’ll enjoy that everyone hates, try cook something new.
People can get stuck in the rut of information overload with the internet but its still an incredibly useful tool to use. Some people just need to learn to use it rather them let it use you.
While yes, being physically fit is a good thing generally. Going outside especially within the US just makes me feel worse. Everyone is just as miserable as me, it’s too hot, it smells like smoke and gas, I can’t hear shit because the 4 lane road’s noise is deafening, and those who aren’t miserable are blissfully ignorant towards the horrible shit people go through in a country that doesn’t give a shit about them.
I’ve managed to disconnect more, work on my hobbies, and find the will to live. My diet in improving and my fitness is also improving, but I just fucking hate the place I live and do not have the means to pick up and leave. The MOMENT I look into it I’m berated with product after product, and expense after expense. We as a society have cultivated an unsustainable model of operation and it’s finally falling apart. Like the oil fields, we too are being sucked dry.
I wish I could be ignorant. But I just can’t bring myself to that point.
I mean, I’m simplifying it for me, but I realized at one point I’m just tired of being tired. Doesn’t have to be physical activity, but it’s really just finding your niche and not getting into your head too much. Easier said than done, but I really just woke up one day and decided that change is only going to come if I force myself to get up and do something. Otherwise I just get depressed and all “woe is me, woe is the world”. If life sucks anyways, I’m going to find ways to enjoy it my own way.
I hate to break it to people but when it came full circle to me, it became as easy as “I’m a depressed right now, well I don’t want to be so I’m going to put a little effort into something. That way, I can at least be proud of myself if not the world”.
I can keep complaining about the world, or I can toughen myself up for myself and be proud of the person I am. I wouldn’t call it ignorance to the rest of the world, I just don’t give a fuck anymore. It never gave a fuck about me in the first place. I’m doing it all for myself.
Eventually you have to. It sucks, I get it. But if you’re not going to do it for yourself, no one else will. If you need help, you have to make that first phone call to the therapist yourself. Otherwise you can easily get stuck in the comfortable spiral of depression.
The purpose of your life is to be a productive asset for people who make their living owning productive assets. They are in charge of the government and the economy and will never vote themselves out. They will kill to maintain their status as owners of productive assets because they do not want to become owned by someone else. They do spend a lot of time making sure you’re over stimulated because not only do you make the product for them you also buy the product from them. You’re a little blood bag in multiple ways and they are leeches.
They need you to vote for them, to make their actions legitimate so the whole thing doesn’t erupt in violence and get them killed. The most effective way to do that is to build a bunch of windmills at which you’ll tilt. They can’t make you hate other people for owning productive assets, so they have to come up with other reasons. And those reasons also have to work in their favor, as in make you hate their competition and enemies. You hate their enemies, who also own productive assets, but you hate them for largely abstract reasons detached from the actual reality of your exploitation. This dissonance creates malaise unless you feel like you’re discovering a deeper truth by buying into more propaganda. You get on another dopamine treadmill which ultimately leaves you unsatisfied no matter how angry you get. Because it’s never about recognizing your actual situation.
They need you to keep making product for them, because if you run out of product to make, they lose their livelihood. You also need to keep buying product. They sell you everything you need, making sure there’s as many people between it and you as possible, each extracting some profit. This causes friction which causes malaise. Once everyone has everything they need, they don’t sell as much product. This is bad so they invent need, they try to make you want stuff so you keep buying. This means they need more productive assets like yourself, this grows their empire. They come up with more abstractions for why you’re unhappy and how buying product will satisfy you. But with the accumulation you are still left unfulfilled.
This isn’t new and owning productive assets isn’t as profitable as it used to be. You need more and more to make the same amount of money, to keep the same amount of power. So the expansion and accumulation of more involves people like yourself being made miserable. They need war to go into other places and take over those productive assets. They need you to be on board for war so they have to demonize the other productive assets like yourself. They need you to fight in the war so you lose your friends and family. But to make up for that they abstract that exploitation away with fictions as well.
A society that allows a few people to collectively own all or most productive assets (ie, labor) will always result in this malaise. It will never bring you contentment. And if, by some chance, you get to own productive assets are now happy because you’re free from being owned, millions of others will take your vacancy from the working class. So you’re happy but they are not and their discontent will ultimately bring conflict, which makes you unhappy again.
Human experience is not profitable, or I should say, it is. As you’ve noticed, the amount of human experience you can afford or make time for is almost none. Your entire human experience is consumption and production. Even when you have fun you must consume product. You must pay a series of people who own the productive assets that produce your enjoyment. Reality is not helpful to the owners of productive assets. It just gets in the way.
You can’t imagine an alternative because the prospect of another promise of freedom from being owned is just too scary. You’re better to go with the devil you know.
You’re not unhappy because you’re possessed with bad spirits. You’re not unhappy because of some abstraction living across the ocean that exists to threaten your other coveted abstractions. You’re unhappy for a precise and easily explainable material reason. That reason is that you are exploited and are actively prevented from stopping it. You are manipulated into believing that exploitation is actually freedom. So in chasing freedom you either further exploit yourself or exploit others, adding to the general friction of society and life, causing misery.
If I could change one big thing, I’d make it such that each worker is aware of how much they personally have put into the economy via their labor and wage. Someone who works for someone else never really knows the true value of their work, just the wage that’s paid to them. If we all knew the true value of our labor we’d riot.
When I was a fitness trainer for Big Corporate Gym, I was paid a quarter what each session cost for the client. I’ve come to understand that even this is an unusually high proportion.
I believe we must repalace leadership, i.e. politicians, CEOS managerial and administrative positions with A.I. or just automate the decicion making at those levels, since they are actively going against humanities interests and just pursue their own, like instead of figthing climate change by yeeting oil businesess into hell, they instead keep receiving blood money from oil companies so that they actively push back on reneubable energy sources, and use that money to build themselves another fucking swimmimg pool.
The A.I. should be able to not be corruptible and shouls exploit resources in a renewable manner and distribute them in a just manner according to both phisical and human needs. Its the only way which we stoo exploiting each other, we must automate the means of productionand take it back from those lizard people (not actually reptilians but might as well be since their so detached from the human experience) Why A.I.?
Because humans get horribly corrupted with power, and end up taking all from themselves, and if not they are either forced out by the system or forced to adapt to the system, and if we make a revolution and replace them its all just gonna happen again, we cannot rule ourselves without resorthing to violence, represion or enslavement.
This is why i believe we must repalace leadership, i.e. politicians, CEOS managerial and administrative positions with A.I. or just automate the decicion making at those levels, since they are actively going against humanities interests and just pursue their own, like instead of figthing climate change by yeeting oil businesess into hell, they instead keep receiving blood money from oil companies so that they actively push back on reneubable energy sources, and use that money to build themselves another fucking swimmimg pool.
The A.I. should be able to not be corruptible and shouls exploit resources in a renewable manner and distribute them in a just manner according to both phisical and human needs. Its the only way which we stoo exploiting each other, we must automate the means of productionand take it back from those lizard people (not actually reptilians but might as well be since their so detached from the human experience)
Why A.I.? Because humans get horribly corrupted with power, and end up taking all from themselves, and if not they are either forced out by the system or forced to adapt to the system, and if we make a revolution and replace them its all just gonna happen again, we cannot rule ourselves without resorthing to violence, represion or enslavement.
Welcome to being poor … I mean poor poor … not the kind of poor where you can’t afford a Lamborghini … the kind of poor where you no longer have any luxuries like being able to go to the movies.
Where life is a constant hassle and struggle to survive. And where you constantly have to fight to stay above water. A kind of life where someone is constantly either trying to screw you, is screwing you or has screwed you. A kind of life where you no longer trust the people you see, the people you meet, or the people you live with. A kind of life where you know from the time you are born that everything and everyone will be hard.
I grew up like that and it became a normal part of life.
I learned to make a bit of money and survive and I’ve done good but not great … good enough to travel the world. It gave me the insight that the majority of the world is poor … I thought that before but after traveling, I realized just how true that really is.
The world we’re complaining about now is the world that most of the world already knows.
I think this is less about being poor or struggling to survive, more about the struggle to find meaning in modern life.
I’m doing well in life. Could certainly be doing better (who couldn’t), but my bills are paid, and there’s food on my table. I don’t worry about these things, and I don’t struggle. But there have certainly been times when I’ve felt the sentiment of the OP. When your needs are met and you feel a sort of emptiness, trying to fill the boredom with the next best dopamine hit. I almost feel like I’m just floating through life, not yearning for, yet waiting for the day it all ends.
10.2% of US households aren’t food secure in the richest country on the planet with limitless food accessibility. I’m pretty sure it is about being poor and struggling to survive.
You know you’re poor when you realize how bad powdered milk is compared to real milk. You know you’re really, really hungry when powdered milk tastes good.
I’ve gone through a lot of crap to learn and really believe that happiness and contentment can only come from within. The outside world has a lot to offer, but it will never give you that.
Unfortunately the outside world and circumstances CAN make it pretty damn difficult or impossible.
It’s a cliche to think of a monk or philosopher saying stuff like “if you want to be happy, be happy,” but that’s a lot of how I I’ve come to see it. And obviously it’s not that simple, we are pretty damn complicated, but that’s the spirit behind it.
There is a correct amount of resources. Too much and you lose touch with reality. To little and the weight of reality is too much to bear. Happiness comes from within but unhappiness can very much come from outside forces.
I get what you’re saying. There are ways to think that can help people feel happier or better on a personal, individual level. Thats more or less what some forms of therapy can do for people, and its a very good thing, again on an individual level.
But the context in that piece, and where i would put the emphasis, is that its an example of capitalist alienation and atomization. There’s no individual answer to that. It’s something that is pushed onto all of us through our relationship to capital, and to truely end that malaise, we need to work toward ending capitalism itself.
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