I often daydream about how society would be if we were not forced by society to pigeon hole ourselves into a specialized career for maximizing the profits of capitalists, and sell most of our time for it.
The idea of creating an entire identity for you around your “career” and only specializing in one thing would be ridiculous in another universe. Humans have so much natural potential for breadth, but that is just not compatible with capitalism.
This is evident with how most people develop “hobbies” outside of work, like wood working, gardening, electronics, music, etc. This idea of separating “hobbies” and the thing we do most of our lives (work) is ridiculous.
Here’s how my world could be different if I owned my time and dedicated it to the benefit of my own and my community instead of capitalists:
- more reading, learning and excusing knowledge with others.
- learn more handy work, like plumbing and wood working. I love customizing my own home!
- more gardening
- participate in the transportation system (picking up shifts to drive a bus for example)
- become a tour guide for my city
- cook and bake for my neighbors
- academic research
- open source software (and non-software) contributions
- pick up shifts at a café and make coffee, tea and smoothies for people
- pick up shifts to clean up public spaces, such as parks or my own neighborhood
- participate in more than one “professions”. I studied one type of engineering but work in a completely different engineering. This already proves I can do both, so why not do both and others?
Humans do not like the same thing over and over every day. It’s unnatural. But somehow we revolve our whole livelihood around if.
I just don’t make the mistake of attributing every advancement of human living conditions to capitalism, all while conveniently omitting all of the horrible conditions capitalism also creates.
Let me just explain something very simple here. The base state of man is suffering.
That’s our default. That’s how living works.
What our system has done is alleviate so much of that base suffering that now, we are so incredibly unused to any real suffering that we just make up things to be ‘hurt’ over.
Capitalism has removed almost all of that base suffering from your life. The ‘horrible conditions’ capitalism ‘creates’ is simply handing you much much too cushy of a life.
I mean, who had time to be offended when you’re too busy trying not to starve to death, hiding in the bushes with a spear, hoping a rabbits gonna run by.
No. Sod off with your “explanation” you condescending prick.
Literally just doing the thing I mentioned in my last comment, making “the mistake of attributing every advancement of human living conditions to capitalism, all while conveniently omitting all of the horrible conditions capitalism also creates.”
You can misunderstand how life works all you want.
Go be miserable somewhere else
You are using an open source platform, developed without a profit incentive, running on one of the most impactful publicly-funded infrastructure developments of our lifetimes, which is also powered by near countless free-and-open-source tech stacks.
You are on our turf, buddy.
You go somewhere else.
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Technological development is not uniquely the product of capitalism.
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Oh, yes capitalism has optimised my devices. But I think that’s often bad thing. Because many of those optimisations weren’t for my benefit. In fact a huge number of them are directly detrimental to me.
The tech was an open platform focused on solving problems of the people working on it. And then capitalism “optimised” it by adding advertising and spyware, locking it down, removing the ability to control or repair it, and artificially obseleting it in order to drive further sales. All at the expense of the user, and the environment.
The optimisations also often removed user choice and product differentiation, rather than added them.
I don’t think I can imagine a statement more false than this.
Capitalism increasing the availability of choice, only so long as those choices are profitable. If they are not profitable, those choices are actively removed. I used to be able to find multitudes of devices that were user-maintainable, had replaceable batteries and expandable storage. But those choices are not profitable, and so they get removed.
Technology would look different under a different economic system. Likely in some ways worse, but in other ways better.
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Run out of arguments, so you resort to childish insults.
I’m sorry what do you think happened before capitalism existed? Do you think that all Indigenous peoples were struggling to survive before white colonists came and enslaved them? Capitalism has created suffering around the globe.
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I’m not pretending that every place that Europeans colonized was some utopia before but Colonialism made all of these places worse. On top of that you’re completely generalizing huge groups of people and their practices.
Oh yeah, native American scalping was so bad. Surely worse than Europeans coming in and massacring 100 million native Americans, expelling them from their homes year after year, torturing them for existing, enslaving an African population, building a nation on their backs, then invading nearly the entire earth, causing mass suffering.
Oh yeah where were we? Scalping and inner-tribe fights. Man that was wild!
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You’re just parroting Thomas Hobbes uncritically
Listen to some other philisophers
Oh! Yes, I also remember 10th grade philosophy class. Was it your first week this week?
Back to school is always fun
Yes… it’s obvious you remember it… because you were the one quoting it.
Odd tactic you’re using, mate. I told you to broaden the horizons of what philosophies you listen to, because it’s clear you’re new to the realm and you… are trying to somehow turn it round and suggest I’m the one that’s new?
How exactly did you expect this to play out?
Everything you’re spouting as a gift from capitalism is exactly what capitalism has taught you to say in its defence.
I love hearing this delusional thinking. “we actually shouldn’t complain about anything, we only complain because we have it better! So if things got even betterer, we would complain morer!! Get it?”
If you’re so into suffering, why do you want to involve everyone else in it? We want a better world. No one will force you to live happily.