When people say “Eh, it’s a living” are they referring to simply being alive? I think people sometimes look too much into some idioms.
In the natural world, you don’t actually deserve to be alive and need to compete for it. In societies I would argue it’s what the society can put up with. You don’t deserve to be alive, you simply are or are not … or the many thousands of states in between. By default, you are going to need to adapt regardless to keep alive. I can see “living” referring to that adaptation, but then again, I can understand polysemy.
Lions have sharp teeth because theyre used to kill other animals.
Hi.
“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in 10,000 of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.” — Buckminster Fuller
i fucking volunteer to labor for humanity. Fucking pick me when we get the socialism please.
Man, those pro life people will be so mad when they find out
There are a great many things I would like to do, but don’t do, simply because it is not economical. Even when I find employment doing something I enjoy, I am forced to do it at an increasingly fast pace, and I know that what I’m making is low quality garbage that will be discarded quickly. How can one be expected to take pride in their work under those circumstances?
Capitalism murders your soul, and blames you for being soulless.
And most of the work that actually contributes something to society has shit wages, while the jobs that don’t contribute anything or are detrimental to society have insanely high wages.
I’m secretly hoping that AI takes out banking jobs and VC first, just so that that the moneylickers have to confront their new reality of who they are without it
People are generally good and will even freely donate their time for things that contribute to society. That creates an excess of labor available for those jobs.
I remember as a kid being told god hates us and we have to spend our lives earning his love. Like wtf? Im automatically hated by being born? This is the same energy as the posts if not the source of the belief.
Was it the cosmic being, or some aliens pretending (or being mistranslated) to be god?
Still… either way, it’s still wrong.
(Jokingly) Hey! Get (that meme template) out yo gotdamn mouth!
Lol same
I mean … in a way? When one looks at it from nature’s point of view, no organism has some “given right to live”, all organisms try to survive. But do we, as a society, really want to live like animals, each for themself, without empathy, without solidarity?
So nearly got an upvote from me, but then you had to ruin it with a false dichotomy. Better ways
Oh, and also, I just caught before clicking reply, “given the right to live” is a moved goal post.
You sound fun. Can I have an upvote?
I’d argue that our social capabilities are our nature, rather than an exception to nature.
Massive disagree, we exist within nature not separate from it.
Human sociality doesn’t supersede nature because it’s an embedded system within nature.
I think… That’s what I said?
Yeah I definitely responded to the wrong person, my bad
deleted by creator
I’ve always believed that everyone should be able to have, for free, a permanent private living space of at least 80sqft, a reasonably comfortable bed, access to a toilet and shower and associated toiletries, clothing suitable for the weather, water and food (even if only some flavorless nutritional paste), and access to medical care both as-needed and on a regular basis. if you have no ambition in life beyond sitting in that little room staring at the wall and eating soylent, then so be it, for a society to provide any less is immoral
I’ve always believed that everyone should be able to have, for free, a permanent private living space of at least 80sqft, a reasonably comfortable bed, access to a toilet and shower and associated toiletries, clothing suitable for the weather, water and food (even if only some flavorless nutritional paste), and access to medical care both as-needed and on a regular basis. if you have no ambition in life beyond sitting in that little room staring at the wall and eating soylent, then so be it, for a society to provide any less is immoral
Since around 2004, getting really deep in some leisurely research rabbit holes, I’ve maintained the assertion that everybody should be able to have, for free, spaceships of their own, that are clean ZPE powered, can do zero-inertia propulsion (~ that’s all the instant acceleration, instant stopping, high speed sharp angle turns, stuff ~), can sustain human life indefinitely, can print another of itself instantly, and safe enough for a 2 year old to fly home.
… And that we could have had spaceships for everybody since the 1930s, and it’s not so wild if one simply follows the tech arc from Michael Faraday through to Nikola Tesla’s time (stopping by things like the Sonora Aero Club from 1850 along the way), and you can see the early working prototypes of the technology before the wright brothers’ first flight.
That, and, the abundant space on earth.
… Y’know we could increase the carrying capacity of earth to over 300 trillion, still with abundant spacious nature, with vast forest arcologyscapes. Much of the same tech that avails all space, helps us accomplish such constructive feats of better resource management on earth.
No cull necessary.
We have so much headroom, with proper resource management.
We have so much headroom, without the parasitic crooks keeping us down, just so they have “more”. Blithering idiots in the psychopathic circlejerk, yet to evolve to realise they’d have even more yet, in availing abundance and emancipation. They’d not be living the stressful fear laden life, striving to keep us down, and keep us from turning on them for keeping us down. Do they have spaceships yet? And the reassurance no one is trying to take theirs because everybody has their own too?
Spaceships for everybody.
(I say that a lot. I mean it like it encapsulates everything you proposed we each should have, and more, to the very best of human innovation.)
Imagine my shock when I checked how much 80 square feet are.
honestly seems wild to me that people are pushing back so hard on the idea of having at minimum a small bedroom, as opposed to a cot in a crowded bunk room, or one of those Japanese pod hotels. y’all never seen a college dorm room?
Don’t get me wrong, I like the ideas you’re proposing. The 80 square feet is just a little behind the rest in my opinion. And the flavorless paste, but others mentioned it already. It’s not necessarily bad to have these as guaranteed minimum, but at the same time we can easily set the bar higher.
And think of the world we would create if this were the norm.
The majority of people everywhere are ambitious, industrious and want to be useful. So you’d end up with a world full of people doing creative things … and entire groups of people doing creative, inventive and useful things together.
They’d figure out things like building space elevators, new industrial technologies, the cure for cancer (which would probably be redundant because everyone would automatically be able to afford to take care of their health), stabilize global warming, create alternate forms and sources of energy and begin the process of exploring space beyond our own system.
Instead, we have a world where a hundred people own all the wealth, a billion people who think they’re wealthy but aren’t and 7 billion people struggling to get by … and all of them fighting to become king or queen of the world.
The best argument for UBI isn’t that it’s an inherently decent thing to do, it’s that it would legitimately make the world better for rich people too.
UBI would never work with rich people in the world. The unfettered American form of a capitalist system is incompatible with life because the rich will never stop trying to take ALL the money, better world be damned. The system must be changed first.
While I agree with the mindset, I share the same view, some of your details are kinda…barbaric
permanent private living space of at least 80sqft
That’s the size where prison cells float around. Iirc there was a study done that concluded that for an average person to remain mentally healthy they need at least 3-400 sq ft per person. Allowances must be made for families and partners
even if only some flavorless nutritional paste
Shit, that’s been widely considered to be cruel and unusual punishment for prisoners. There’s a balance between “not even good enough for prisoners” and “Lobsters every night”
if you have no ambition in life beyond sitting in that little room staring at the wall and eating soylent
Yeaaa there’s plenty of other ways to entice people to work or to aspire. You don’t need to make people eat flavorless paste, just luxury material goods alone would be enough. Like a decent smartphone, games, attractions (amusement parks, circuses etc), electronics etc. Plus most people want to work anyways just to have something to do
If we enacted your plan as-is, the suicide rate would skyrocket lol
I absolutely love your still very capitalist driven word choices and ideas. It really illustrates the depths the capitalist system influences. “Hey you’re alive, but only deserve bare minimum treatment, an unreasonable amount of space and flavorless food paste! The good life is still only for those that aspire!”
Everyone deserves more, it’s just that the whole things collapses if nobody does any of the things that make it happen. There needs to be a limit on those who are a “drain” on the system, and placing it at some sort of base-level dignity is a practical evil at least until such time where there is so much abundance it won’t matter.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. If you want more than what you need, then it has to come from somewhere.
I’m sure there are better solutions if we assume we can dismantle and rebuild all of society any way we want, along with the attitudes of those who inhabit it, but I think it’s worthwhile to consider how current systems could be improved
I’m not talking about my personal vision of utopia, I’m talking about the bare minimum of a society that can begin to be considered just, even in a very hollow sense
Capitalist Realism.
Correct, the good life is only for those that put in work.
Shit ain’t free.Except for people with generational wealth I guess huh?
You guess?
I was being facetious. Do you really not see that I was pointing out that your comment was wrong?
Narrator ~ “It wasn’t.”
What’s your favorite flavor of boot?
Ariat Rebars.
I wear them tho, don’t eat them.
They’re for something called a “Job”. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of it.
It’s where you trade your skills and work for goods and services, or vouchers for goods and services in the form of money. What’s your favorite flavour of Valenki?How novel that you define worth through work. Some people just take the programming better than others. Just look at the US South; prideful slaves living in poverty working themselves to death.
I didn’t define worth at all. [Edit: not the worth of a person anyway…] Are you stroking out due to lack of producing any work?
So your continued implication that I don’t have a job therefore what I’m saying is irrelevant isn’t a comment on my worth? Good to know.
In other words you want the homless to have a day pass from prison.
There is already free and public media access through libraries.
Are you ready to work and spend almost your whole salary to satisfy the needs of those who don’t? Because work creates all those amenities. If they don’t work, means you need to work more and results of your work be distributed.
We have the means to satisfy everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed.
Without working? Sure, tell me your plan.
Where is it implied that people won’t be working? Just because they are not forced to?
No incentives to work is a good reason not to work.
Funny how people who claim to defend “the working class” can’t comprehend this.
Yes I am willing to take less for myself if those in need receive more.
Most people will work if they are able. Maybe we need more incentives for “shitty” jobs, but few people will want to live at such a base minimum level and do nothing. It is however, infinitely more humane than letting them die in the streets
Do you not have a burning desire in your heart to labor? to derive some meaning out of your life? For nothing but your own enrichment or accomplishment?
Most people won’t work if they are able. This is quite literally the main incentive behind hard work and investments today.
Like if instead of buying an apartment at mortgage I would be able to just receive one, I would pack my savings into crypto, get the space, and play games 24/7 till I die. Maybe I’d get bored and start doing some personal project, but most likely I won’t.
I’m in top 4% earners in my country btw, my taxes pay roughly for ~4 person welfares. If people like me have no incentive to continue working the system you build will collapse super fast.
Oh for lives of leisure.
So that we may all become polymaths.
Rather than lives of distraction from our toils done under duress, keeping us as specialists, cogs in the machine, ignorant to all else.
You could’ve just said you were an elistist shitbag from the beginning and saved everyone time.
Edit: you clearly don’t know what real life is like. Enjoy your privilege. Gfys
I’m working class. You are welfare class.
I’m done here.
I’m in top 4% earners in my country
I’m working class.
Fucking lol.
You’re either a damn liar (nobody does that on the internet!), or you’re owner class. If you’re actually in the top 4%, it’s all the people below you that are working class. You just suck up their labor, you parasite.
Ever hear of the precariat?
It’s growing. It’s coming for you.
I literally work and earn my money. I have less assets than good chunk of “poor” people have.
So I don’t understand how I suck up anyones labour. It’s the opposite actually, those who didn’t try to get education and a decent job are now getting welfare from the state from my progressive taxes.
So why would you be a layabout. I have to many ideas for projects to sit on my ass so i have a hard time imagining the mentality to sit around until i die.
Ideas worth shit. Implementation is everything. And it’s grind in many areas.
Do you think the “richest country in the world” should have people dying of exposure or malnourishment? That they should end up that way because of a bad cosmic dice roll?
Check your privilege. Nobody is self-made in a vacuum.
USA defaultism. I’m not American. And from my perspective you have worse problem to than malnourishment.
Nice dodge, Neo. Very pretty sidestep. Now, answer the fucking question. It’s an easy yes or no.
Easy: I don’t give a fuck. It’s your contrymen, not mine. If you really care you would open a volunteer org by now. But as of now, it’s just a nice talking point. So why should I care if you don’t?
A reminder to people that there is no such thing as a lazy person. Only a person who’s work is not valued
Edit: erased “under capitalism” at the end. The problem of certain work or skills not being valued is not limited to just capitalism
Does make the best of UBI advocacy pretty tight.
My therapist tells me everyone is doing their best, even the housemate that leaves dirty dishes all over the house and never flushes the toilet. I grapple with this on the regular.
This is exactly it. We never know what each other is struggling with that limits their capacity to do things, we don’t know what supports they need to succeed.
Some people are just lazy and shitty.
For example: Trump supporters are mentally lazy and shitty. We don’t go around excusing them for their shitty beliefs just because “they tried hard.”
We don’t excuse anti-vaxxers because they “tried hard doing their own research.”
I wish reality lived up to our egalitarian values but it just doesn’t.
In the USSR work is a duty and a matter of honor for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: “He who does not work, neither shall he eat”.
Article twelve of the 1936 Constitution of the Soviet Union
Do you think this is a gotcha or something? I’m an anarchist, not a marxist.
No? Just saying it’s not exclusive to capitalism
Thats fair. I guess its more so just hierarchy in general. When people are in power they get to decide what is an isnt valued.
I went and fixed my original comment
Also I apologize for immediately assuming that you were trying to be rude
Wow… That sounds… fun…
It also sounds like what you’d expect an oligarch-run slave farm to sound like.
I’m shocked people turned against this. Shocked, I tell you.
My roommate hard at work drinking energy drinks and playing HoI4
There is another similar quote that I think fits your roommates situation.
“Somebody has said that dust is matter in the wrong place. The same definition applies to nine-tenths of those called lazy. They are people gone astray in a direction that does not answer to their temperament nor to their capacities. In reading the biography of great men, we are struck with the number of “idlers” among them. They were lazy so long as they had not found the right path; afterwards they became laborious to excess. Darwin, Stephenson, and many others belonged to this category of idlers.” - Peter Kropotkin
Undiagnosed ADHD, their brain is meant to be hunting and gathering
Ask me how I know
Since they don’t seem interested in the answer, I’ll ask.
How do you know?
My ADHD brain is very interested. Is it because of the broken dopamine reward pathways causing us to gravitate towards tasks with more immediate gratification and things like pattern recognition being incredibly well suited to those kind of tasks? I bet it’s got something to do with that. Ooh learning is exciting!
I remember talking with a fellow Hungarian who happened to be a “moderate” conservative, and he told me there’s nothing wrong with Fidesz making our country for cheap labor, because some of those cheap laborers can be promoted to be middle managers in the factories.
Life isn’t exactly easy for most of nature. Animals starve and are killed continuously. It has been the same for most of human history. We may have overcome challenges regarding having sufficient resources, but we haven’t overcome all of the obstacles that our selfish animal nature continues to produce in society.
I thought this was about to go a very different way at the beginning.
Similar to “make money”, it’s an insidious Orwellian mislead.
“Make money” =~= “profit” =~= “wealth extraction”.
Well, the reality is that it does take work to live, sort of by definition. That is unless you envision life as existing in some sort of techno-uterus, being pumped full of nutrients a la the Matrix. But seriously, a fulfilling life does take work. A social safety net shouldn’t mean there is no expectation to work. There should be both.
I agree 100% with you. Everyone wants to be a socialist/communist until they realize that you still have to put in your fair share. There isn’t some magical system where everything is suddenly free for everyone. Mooching off others isn’t the way ANY economic system works. It’s what we have now, and it’s failing. Just because it’s you instead of some fat cat doesn’t change the fact that someone is trying to get something for free. Everyone works so that everyone prospers. What needs to change is who owns the labor. You work for what you have, not what someone else takes from you. Maybe one day we can live in an automated utopia where all our basic needs are provided for us, but we aren’t there yet, and anyone who says we are is ignoring the other thread they just spent ten minutes writing a comment in about how the AI bubble is about to burst.
Squirrels manage to live without capitalism and “worth”. Their trees aren’t “owned” and leased out by different squirrels that require them to spend a third of their day foraging for acorns not to eat, but to give the treelords so they have the basic need of shelter.
Can you even consider that how you think about life is a direct result of brainwashing?
Hardly worth engaging with someone who immediately starts with a strawman argument. I never said anything about worth or owned. But ironically I think most would consider the squirrel pretty hard working. I don’t think many squirrels expect someone else to build their house.
Alas, that’s a misidentification of the strawman fallacy there, reading implication between the lines that was not there, as well as also mistaken about what was referred to on the lines.
Good effort looking out for fallacies though.
The worth comment was in reference to the image. All I did was compare a natural system versus our master slave one, challenging your argument. I guess I should have asked you to define work first, but instead you ignored the point and picked out the part that you thought best supported your argument.
Squirrels do work. But their work directly benefits and is essential to their survival. Also, older squirrels built their houses by planting the trees their younger generations now live in… For free.
Hard to argue one way or another with the one sentence statement in the original post. I mentioned that a social safety net is important but that there should be an expectation of work. Work doesn’t necessarily mean toiling in a factory for some wealthy capitalist. Ideally it means work towards self-improvement, which can mean a variety of things, including toiling in a factory.
