True… we’re not even feeling sorry for people starving half as much as hoarders
There’s enough hoarders that We have shows about hoarders.
The only hoarders that need to be scrutinized are the ones hoarding money
The worst hoarders are the financial hoarders. If someone hoards cats, or old rusty cars, or newspapers, etc., someone gets them psychiatric help.
But if you have a compulsion to hoard money to the point that it is having a negative effect on the entire nation, or even the planet, then they get celebrated as a successful businessperson, and the government shovels even more of our hard-earned money at them.
I’m tired of supporting mentally-ill money hoarders. Take their money away, and medicate them.
Well, we also haveMy 600lb Life. So checkmate?
Even worse we actively try to make sure they don’t go to our country, because we all know how much we did to become part of our own country (this is sarcasm because we did nothing at all, being born is not something we chose to do)
The right given by the “democratic” capitalist state to own the means of production is the root cause of this problem
I love the quotation marks here. We have two parties that are both team stock-market/GDP, and there is no third option: we can hardly be called a democracy.
I mean, between our FPTT voting system, the electoral college and rampant gerrymandering we have absolutely no right to call ourselves a democracy.
And the worst part of it is that I wouldn’t even want to be slacking off all day. I want to do so many things, and I would do it if I weren’t being paid! Fuck!
“The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
Is that Steinbeck?
oh yeah, the attribution fell off when copy-pasting
Thought I recognised it. Crazy how relevant it still is.
It’s relevant for as long as capitalism is relevant because this is what is required to keep an economy motored by the profit motive going.
And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange
Yes unfortunately so. If the system values profit over life, then profit will always be the priority. Even if that leads to (and encourages) acts of inhumanity.
The reason the system values profit over life is because it requires profit to survive. No profit, no capitalism. This is why the people that keep trying to reform capitalism have failed for almost 200 years now, there is no reforming the profit motive away from capitalism.
Capital does not consist in the fact that accumulated labour serves living labour as a means for new production. It consists in the fact that living labour serves accumulated labour as the means of preserving and multiplying its exchange value.
Karl Marx, “Wage Labour and Capital”
Removed by mod
Is there a way to look up what the violation was?
They were spamming advertisements for a gambling site.
Every comment was identical and started with “Exciting casual games, high rewards, and a variety of gaming experiences. So, what are you waiting for?” and then ended with a link and some emoji.
Thanks for elaborating!
Have you seen the cost of the figs???
If only a significant percent of the population didn’t feel the need control other peoples lives.
If people would organise themselves that percent would be powerless.
The people who would do the organizing in this case are going to have a disproportionate amount of power, and since power corrupt, they’ll become the new elite.
So organise in a way that doesn’t amass power.
Social organization requires hierarchies, and hierarchies are inherently unequal in terms of power and status.
Innovate on that.
Innovate?
Yes, like Greek Democracy only had hierarchies for wars. We most likely haven’t already tried all possible forms of social organizations.
But the rich man’s ego of pretending to be a saint by doing charity. THINK OF THEIR FEELINGS!
How much of this bullshit before we just take the billionaires out? And their families? And their business partners? 10,000 people, ten legions per billionaire ought to be able to overcome any security
In nearly every system, individuals often find ways to exploit or manipulate the rules; it’s part of human nature. When money is involved, this becomes even more dangerous, as it can allow someone to amass significant wealth in a small factor bill instead of the goods. This dynamic is so deeply embedded in modern society that reversing it seems impossible. Those who possess great wealth have the choice to either share it or hoard it. In many ways, when it comes to money, we seem to have regressed rather than progressed. The Indigenous peoples of the Americas once lived with a freedom and simplicity that many today could never imagine. This is why some argue that the ideal future citizen should own nothing and live off a minimal amount of land, embracing a simpler, more sustainable way of life.
And when the primates with the money and the power exploit their ‘lessers’ so much that we start dying from it, it’s perfectly natural and normal to rise up and rip them into little bits and leave their dismembered corpses out for the buzzards.
Exploitative individuals may well be a part of human nature, but cooperating with other humans to build communities that are greater than the sum of its parts is human nature too.
I don’t believe that it’s possible to necessarily reverse the toxic dynamic you describe, but I do believe that it is possible to move forward in a way that is more productive for wellness. Maybe I just believe this because it’s what I need to believe in order to not go mad and top myself, but I’ll take the free hope.
Omg i saw this on Tumblr today and almost posted it XD
The Americans could learn from the French in regard to labor laws what happens when the government and corporations try to fuck them over. General Strike.
I think a lot of you people need to learn about hyperbole and missing the forest for the trees.
though if you stopped working hard, foreigners would come and take your job, and then take your kitchen and land. (they come regardless, no worries, but they’d come faster.)
on top of that, what’s the point of life without adventure and progress? we make great progress through your suffering, so heads up, the 40 hour work week is worth something. also, capitalism is a natural structure based on people’s greed, and you can’t abolish the capitalists because they will simply be replaced by other capitalists.
signed, your friendly capitalist :)
no but seriously … it drained my soul somewhat to write this. i wish so fucking much for a 20 hour work week or less.
i wish so fucking much for a 20 hour work week or less.
No offense but who is stopping you from working only 20 hours?
starvation
Also homelessness.
I bet you could live on less if you wanted to.
But you would have to make some tradeoffs to make it work with 20 hours of work, live downgrading your living situation or moving to a cheaper place to live.
Now I am not saying that’s good, I am just saying you can make 20 hours of work work if you really want to, but really people just like to bitch.
Agreed! Worked 12 years full time. Last 3 years lived in a small forest off grid, working 2 to 3 days a week. In the winter months I rent a room in a cohousing.
It’s a different kind of life. It takes adjusting. The “luxeries” like no running water, electricity being very limited, etc are fine. I honestly prefer the simplicity. I prefer that making a coffee takes 40 minutes, from starting the fire, to boiling water. The ritual is part of the experience.
Most difficult is that friends still do the city hard work, hard (and expensive) play, constant complaining thing, that I can’t relate to or keep up with.
Not sure if I’ll do it forever. But the next couple of years for sure!
I honestly don’t mind working a lot, as long as it benefits EVERYBODY and not just a handful of hoarders. I love improving things for others.
I just don’t want my healthcare tied to a fucking job. Then I could actually work whatever, whenever, and how long I want to.
I love teaching for this reason. At least when it’s not administrative bullshit, “fill out the forms for this miraculous new program,” but the actual interacting with and helping young people grow. If I get my third job I’ll be doing that 7 am - 8 pm basically 7 days a week, but I’m okay with that. Sitting next to a kid and getting them to understand how imaginary numbers work is the thing that makes me not want to kill myself. Explaining to a high schooler that yes, dinosaurs were real… saying “hey this time of year it’s really easy to see Orion,” or saying “yes I absolutely LOVE Ender’s Game! Let’s talk about foreshadowing in that book!”
It’s bullshit work that kills the soul. I’ll teach until I’m hoarse and be happy to be alive.
Thank you for sharing that. I think that passionate teachers are the cornerstone of a good society and healthy community!
That made me think about the Finnish model. I think they are doing this somewhat right. A masters degree is a minimal requirement for teaching at all levels except very early education.
If anybody from Finland reading this could share their thoughts on this that would be amazing. In not from Finland myself.
not to contradict you, just mentioning it:
well i do mind working a lot because it drains my body and i get really really bad sensations after an exhausting work day, including the feeling that everything is shit and such. idk, it’s probably only me, but there is people who struggle with work, independent on what kind of work it is. it’s literally the exhaustion itself that does it.
though it’s good if you made that decision for yourself. doing community service definitely does help the world, especially your local community :)
Yeah that makes sense of course. You are definitely not the only one. Sounds like you know your limits!
In the end, and in my personal belief, we’re all one big community and we have a chance to uplift each other (I know, I know, utopian fantasy much?). It should not be a competition, but a synergy. In my book, it’s the effort that counts, not the hours.
yeah i’m programming a computer game rn and intend to make it open source once i have some substantial amount :)
actually, i think competitiveness is artificially instilled on us based on a thinking in races, i.e. “getting ahead”. not like skin-color, just beating the other guy by being better than him and such. (i.e. like a race-car competition).
actually, i think competitiveness is artificially instilled on us based on a thinking in race
Agreed. Keeping the masses artificially competing with each other over the crumbs the upper 10% leaves us just distracts people from who they’re really in competition with.
Buddy just discovered communism
Upcycling is not communism.
Treating symptoms instead of the root cause is idealistic and utopian
