In the last 5 to 10 years everything seems to suck: product’s and services quality plummeted, everything from homes to cars to food became really expensive, technology stopped to help us to be something designed to f@ck with us and our money, nobody seems to be able to hold a job anymore, everyone is broke. Life seems worse in general.
Why? Did COVID made this happen? How?
Shallow consideration, multiplied by technology and laziness.
Collectivism
My take: the result of decades of incompetent leadership, at all levels from the government to individual households, that ultimately lead to a society that mainly uses dilatory tactics instead of finding solutions to its issues.
What happens when the economy crashes? We push the goalposts back a few yards so that it’s actually better now and will become a problem later instead. Notice how the frequency of market crashes is increasing? It was every 50 years or so, then it was every 10, now we’ve had 3 in 5 years, yes I’m fucking counting COVID you had literally over 60 years to prepare for a worldwide pandemic and you sat on your asses.
What happened with education? Well let’s see. Why do we pay for education in the first place? To increase our knowledge and push the boundaries of human civilization, or to put it bluntly: we don’t wanna live in a world filled with idiots. But like why do we need education? Cuz like jobs or something…Ever wonder why you MUST have a degree for a job? That’s a legal requirement, if something is on the job posting as a requirement then it’s a fucking requirement. Suddenly everyone needs a higher education, because the job posting is a legal requirement that must be met, else ye suffer the consequences of immediate disqualification. Fortunately the law miraculously doesn’t really care which degree you have, the companies get to choose how narrow the scope is and if they don’t do that well that’s on them lol xD! So we need a degree, but let’s say we don’t wanna put in the effort to learn all that hard shit. Besides, we just need survivabile minimum wage, so let’s aim for that. It sure is convenient that all these now impacted universities made up all these new bullshit degrees so they could pretend to deal with the influx of morons that are getting intimidated and bribed into their schools via their parents. This sounds like a game to me, and I love games. Wait wait wait wait. We said that we want education because we want people to be smart, but like technically we only need education to get a job. Suddenly education is like this super fun game where you get sorted into a socio economic class in a fun and interesting way. And then people realized they could influence that as early as elementary school, and well gee fuckin golly! They get to vote and control the public education because that’s how public school works. And if we loosen up the restrictions on what our kids need to get good grades, their chances of getting into college get better. Guess what? Money also works too, if we have money we can avoid the tiring scramble of public education and just pay to win baybee!!!
Why does the everything suck? Because it’s owned and operated by investment firms and run by people who are the result of decades of systemic degradation. And who’s to blame? The worse generation in human history. The only generation in United States history to have a losing record when it comes to war lose, while simultaneously being the single generation to have started and sustain the most wars! The same fucking generation that didn’t die off at 55 because their children didn’t huff lead gasoline like they did for Christmas and actually got bothered to learn medical science - as much as I shit on the education system as a whole, there are always some tryhards that slip through. The same generation that still controls 60% of the political offices in this country, while at the same time being composed of the top 1% of mentally unstable weak and decrepit elderly part of the population. The same generation that voted to fuck over retirement pensions from the previous generation back in the 70s or whenever it was, and then now in past decades have undone all of that to secure retirement protections for them suddenly now as they reach their sunset years. The same generation that still currently in the current fucking year of two thousand twenty-four are the two frontrunners for Presidential candidacy.
And you know what the funniest thing about it is? It’s not just the United States. How’s Japan looking over across the Pacific? A problem with a top heavy elderly population? Wow who could’ve guessed. What about the boys across the pond? What does the British parliament look like? Who are still the leaders of China, Russia, North Korea? What families are still in power in the Middle East?
Our ancestors have failed us. They have failed their brothers and sisters. They have failed our entire goddamned species. I am embarrassed and ashamed for all intelligent beings anywhere and everywhere in any reality where intelligence is possible that we are capable of such idiocy.
I take great solace in the fact that they will not be around long enough to etch their final memory into the stones of history. And we will.
Despite all of that it feels to me less like things are getting worse and more like a loud death rattle from a bloated creature - the final shout before the eternal void. I see the same feelings as mine in both my cohorts and in the future generations. I have hopes for the future and strongly believe that the world is just now entering the upswing. It’s painful and awkward right now while the old skin sheds, but I am confident we will emerge from our chrysalis transformed into something greater. Maybe that guy who brought up the 12 year delay on the Mayan calendar shit earlier in this thread was on to something; the timing is just too coincidental.
Have you read Cory Doctorow’s book on enshitification? I think he focuses more on the Internet but might help answer your question.
Enshittification is just a good concept because it’s everywhere! It’s basically how business operates on internet platforms. First the good times: you provide value to customers and sellers alike. Then the shitty times for sellers: the business begins to charge sellers where they weren’t being charged before and things that were free or easy to access before. Then the shitty times for everybody: customers begin to be extracted for their value as formerly free or easy to access stuff gets paywalled. The Bu
Planned obsolescence is enshittification of manufactured goods and services. Make a name with a strong product that meets customers needs, then focus on profit maximization, intentionally sabotaging the product so that customers are required to come back to you to buy it again.
De-regulation, in many cases, is the enshittification of so many things. The government limits potentially nasty things whole industries can do and then de-regulation comes in and upends all of that. Suddenly, trains are spilling toxic chemicals all over Ohio because of a rolled back law on safety.
It’s everywhere and it’s all about value extraction.
Capitalist governments are pro-finance, not pro-people. Totalitarian gvmts (China etc) are pro-system, not pro-people. They’re just different ways of maintaining classes of people who control the power/finances.
There’s always been an uber-rich elite, all the way from the first tribal chieftain or Pharaoh or whatever until now and there’s always been a huge underclass of the rest of us. The first law of any hierarchy is to protect the people at the top.
What we see today (in Westernised countries) is the natural, logical progression of economics driven democracy. Economic theorists say wealthy people create wealth by purposefully distributing it via jobs etc but in reality they do everything possible to minimise the loss of what they see as their money by abusing labour laws, privatising everything, trying to kill unions, creating convoluted laws to protect their fortunes, avoiding taxes and hiking prices up to the point most of us are just about surviving with enough carrot to ignore or pretend we don’t see the stick.
And we’re willing participants in that system. We know this is happening but we’re dazzled by lotteries holding out the chance to join the rich, promises of work making us rich and a media which lionises the elite as some kind of fabulous aspirational status to the point we have people on social media faking a rich lifestyle for internet points.
The uber rich believe they’re better than us and our acquiescence with this system really means we agree with them.
I agree broadly with much of your assessment of history and many of the problems that bely current western society. The rich might be exploiting capitalism to their benefit but a capitalist system with proper regulation will always be better (in terms of Quality of life and freedom) for larger groups of people Than a planned economy.
Possibly but I can’t think of a time that’s been attempted, let alone successfully implemented. Capitalism always (it seems to me) ends up morphing into a system to protect wealth and the wealthy. They would never, ever allow ‘proper regulation’ (by which I assume you mean regulation to protect workers as much as the rich) to happen.
Capitalism isn’t a national thing - its global - there’s always going to be places where what country forbids another country allows. All a rich person or company has to do is transfer their base of operations there to circumnavigate most laws and pay lip service to the laws of the countries they operate in. Look at Amazon or Starbucks.
Planned economies were the means to the end not the end. Basing it around authoritarian, suppressive, dictatorial government is what made it the end. That said, apart from freedom of speech issues. Capitalism struggles in most aspects to truly be better, even at its best. Because capitalism ends up authoritarian and suppressive as well. Those with all the wealthy and resources don’t tolerate those who are against their theft.
We should be moving past both.
Okay, but what does a system look like that moves past both? How do you ensure people get resources if you don’t want capitalism or a planned economy?
By implementing the thing Marxist-leninists were loathe to implement despite giving a lot of lip service. Actual communism. Not the Engles lenin variety. But the kind Marx spoke on. The thing to remember is that the Soviet Communist party was as communist as the national socialist party of Germany was socialist. Which is to say neither of them were.
This of course all starts with actual large scale engagement. We absolutely need to change the voting system etc as a start. For all the flaws and problems of the founding fathers, the fact that they saw us needing to largely rewrite the Constitution every few decades, let alone every few hundred years was not one of their flaws.
Then we need to uncap the House of Representatives. That’s a century overdue. Followed by abolishing the electoral college. Then reforming the house, Senate, judiciary and even the concept of the presidency. Basically take as many steps as necessary to make things as democratic/granular as possible. Dilute power.
One of the other important things we could do is abolishing the concept of private property. Private property is little more than theft. Allowing the wealthy to horde resources to the detriment of everyone else. If you own a home, you should be living in it. It shouldn’t be some sort of an investment that you never spend time in. Used for speculation on markets etc. Replace private property with something much more sane like the more limited concept of personal property. As in property, a person would actually use themselves. Tying legal fines and fees to a person’s income and wealth along with impartial enforcement is another good start.
Your suggestion would only usher in a different kind of tyranny.
Really? What kind of tyranny would increasing democracy while reducing concentration of power cause? Lol I’d really like to know.
There’s a reason the people who wrote the Constitution decided upon federalism as our form of government. It protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority. This concept is especially important as the urban majority seeks to assert its ignorant tyranny on the rural minority these days.
The United States isn’t a single government like most non-federal nations. There is plenty of democracy in our local and state governments, and we have our bicameral Congress which accounts for both the equality of the states, no matter their populations, as well as the inequality of the states, taking into account their populations. Remove that equality and you will be unable to get enough states to ratify your new constitution.
Late stage capitalism is your answer, my friend.
Maybe overpopulation is a factor?
It’s not overpopulation. We are seeing the results of late stage capitalism coming into effect. When you design the economy around an owning class vs a working class, the owning class will use its inherent leverage and capital to beget more leverage and capital. That happens at the expense of the working class. If your income mainly comes from working for money, you are part of the working class.
The obvious solution here is to change the economic structure to not have an owning class at all or at least to keep it in check, but liberalism is not good at keeping it in check and leftism doesn’t have the momentum needed to change the world economic structure. Right now all we can do is make progress where we can, which means passing legislation that taxes and weakens the owning class in favor of supporting and empowering the working class through social programs and better pay and benefits. Unions will help you a TON here and more quickly than legislation, so look into joining/forming a union. Biden has changed the requirements for forming a union to make it really easy now. The other thing we can do is prevent fascists from tearing apart the systems we’ve built to allow that to even happen in the first place. That means not voting for or supporting right-wing politics.
None of this is caused by overpopulation, and the myth that overpopulation is the main source of your problems directly benefits the owning class who is currently winning the zero-sum dynamic of owning vs working class. That dynamic is the reason things are bad and worsening. Join a union and vote for the most progressive viable candidate in both local and federal elections.
Greed
Greed, wanting stuff, precipitates giving value in return for value. Regardless of motives everybody benefits. This is a free market.
Throw in an institution that can manipulate & distort free market forces - government - then you get parasites that use the violence of that institution for non reciprocated greed. This creates distortions in wealth and power in favour of the scrupulous.
Doesn’t that assume that resources were at one point distributed fairly? If you have all the value, you can devalue everyone else.
- No. Why would it assume that?
- How so? The only way I see to have all the value & devalue others is to be an absolute dictator that has enslaved everyone. This of course is not possible in a free market as it is all about private property rights/self ownership.
- Because if they weren’t distributed equally, some people would unfairly have more capital than others, which means a fair trade where people exchange the precise value of an item leaves some people with inherent setbacks.
- If I don’t own property, then I am forced into wage-slavery, which means I don’t have time to myself to innovate or property to innovate. Even if I manage to buy some property, I can innovate some, but larger players with more capital and resources can out-compete me. The more money you have, the longer you can take to turn a profit, and drive others out of business.
I do not think you understand fairness or value. Life is not fair. You cannot expect it to be. To try to make it fair requires the initiation of force against another. The happenstance of an unfair life is different to the deliberate application of force to create what one thinks should be fair. Precise value??? All value is subjective! Setbacks? Every exchange that occurs happens due to the exchange making both parties life better - otherwise the exchange would not occur. You are viewing the world as a glass half empty rather than half full! Wage-slavery? There is not such thing! You own property - always! You own your body! Other peoples ability to generate wealth is something you have no right to interfere with just as much as they have no right to interfere with your body. You may not like the terms of contract but that is simply because you have no better option and you need to upskill. Innovate? If you are working you are gaining skills. Are you showing your worth or just doing the acceptable minimum to justify your employment? If the game is unfair - it is because the system (govenment) applies the law unfairly - not because others create value.
The question is not “Is life fair?”, but rather “Should we pursue fairness?”
No. We should pursue liberty (the absence of coercion), peace, prosperity and happiness. We should defend self-ownership/private property.
I mean, I think it has to do with different kind of value, some have capital, some have services, they would not work without eachother
Automation could replace all services, and only property owners would remain.
like… seriously this.
Normal function of capitalism. It has superseded law. Just “accumulate”.
Chronic disease and general poor-functioning has been skyrocketing and the vast majority of people just ignore it like it’s no big deal.
Obviously it’s a big deal when the intelligence and competence of a majority of people has been severely diminished. We’re now living in Idiocracy. And it’s why for two elections in a row we’ve ended up with the choice of two senile old white men.
“What’s wrong with me, Doc?” “Well, you look like a fag, and your shit’s all retarded.”
I think the enshitification of the Internet was sort of just what happens to everything once it gets monetized. It was already happening before COVID.
On the other hand - when I was growing up, my city was rough. So much violent crime, bands would not come here, it was notorious. Now? No. Violet crime has decreased sharply, my kids grew up in a different world than I did.
Jobs haven’t become less secure, or at least not in my experience, that change happened in the 1980s, and it’s been about the same since.
Everyone is broke because of Ronald Reagan, for lack of a better way to explain it. Deregulation. Workers have gotten ever more productive without getting their cut of that increase in productivity and this is the endgame of that trend.
Are things demonstrably worse? I’m reading that they are but I’m not seeing that they are. I don’t live in a great area, but people generally seem as they’ve always been. Some struggle. Most are fine. Life goes on.
People keep electing conservative fascists like morons
America, in particular, doesn’t exactly have an alternative.
To wit,
“Americans are served by three political groups, but are represented by only two political parties.
“The alt-right have a party all to themselves, while the centre-left share a party with the centre-right such that they cannot effectively function.”
You take a look at any president since the Carter administration, and they have all been right of centre. Obama was solidly centre-right. Biden is on the threshold of being fully right-wing.
About the only people who sit anywhere to the left are people like Bernie Sanders and AOC, and in most other countries they would be considered solid centrists and milquetoast moderates. They are not extreme-left in the least.
America has no left-wing politicians, much less any on the far left.
But on the far right? pretty much the entire GOP is sitting there with their asses hanging off the fascist end of the political horseshoe.
Your view of the political spectrum is heavily skewed to the left if you think Obama was center-right.
Because most people have stopped giving a fuck.
I’m serious. Remember all those memes a couple of years back about not giving any fucks? Their chickens are now coming back to roost.
A lot of people have simply decided that it was no longer worth the effort to try and be a good person, and to just shut themselves off and take care of their own needs. And perhaps it was necessary at the time because they were simply tired of putting in effort while others decided to take and take and give nothing back, but clearly, this isn’t a viable long term solution. The Roots put it quite well in their song How I Got Over:
Out on the streets, where I grew up
First thing they teach you is not to give a fuck
That type of thinking can’t get you nowhere
Someone has to careThe less people care, the colder the world grows. If no one does anything charitable, every interaction becomes a matter of win or lose. Now I’m well aware of just how difficult it is to be kind in a world full of greed where everyone seems to want to take advantage of you the moment you show any sign of weakness, but unfortunately, that is the only way anything will ever change.
For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?
Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others?
Do not even the tax collectors do so?
Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.Matthew 5:46-48
Or maybe we need better solutions than expecting people to allow themselves to be abused. 🤷
I find it crazy how basically every Marxist since, well Marx, has pretty much clairvoyance powers. It’s of course not that, it’s just that material analysis really is the best way to understand reality. But when all you have are vibes, ideology and moralism, Marxists do seem like witches.
But basically, just read and watch some Marxists my friend. Even light-Marxists like Yanis Varoufakis are good at “predicting” the future.
We have all been expecting this since the 1800s lmao.
