=== ANCHOR POEM ===
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Billionaires aren't solving childhood food insecurity.
They have the capacity to, with their essentially endless supply of dollars,
which taste good on rye with a dash of mustard.
But alas, they choose not to.
They CHOOSE to STARVE children. They choose that, by not dedicating their
lives to solving that particular problem.
"oh but like, there's so many problems in the world, how can-" shut the fuck
up, spend the dollars, make it happen, and now there's one fewer billionaire
and one fewer problem in the world. The next one can fix the next problem,
that's why we keep them around, isn't it?
https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
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=== SIMILARITY RANKED ===
--- #1 messages/364 ---
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Capitalism isn't perfect but if it's capitalism or cyberpunk North Korean
style dystopia, I'll pick capitalism. Can we at least make it so that the rich
aren't safe financially though? Like, if you own a billion dollars it should
be because you make a billion dollars per year. Anything you don't spend
should be taxed away, to be used for public services and the defence of our
nation.
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--- #2 fediverse/5205 ---
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║ ┌──────────────────────────┐ │
║ │ CW: capitalism-mentioned │ │
║ └──────────────────────────┘ │
║ │
║ │
║ whenever I talk to capitalists (who actually have money and aren't larping │
║ wage slaves) they always tell me that the best way to address the concerns I │
║ have with capitalism is to make a million or more dollars by making a company, │
║ and then using that million dollars to buy houses for people I care about. │
║ │
║ I ask "what about the rest of the people, the ones I don't know?" │
║ │
║ their response typically boils down to "if you don't know them, then why │
║ should you care? fuck 'em" │
║ │
║ It's never about hope or change. They want to change the world to make it │
║ cooler, not kinder. generally. │
║ │
║ bonus: "if you like unions so much, why don't you join one?" my guy, unions │
║ WERE great when they wielded power. Now they are bureaucratic and listless, │
║ serving only to sedate the working class enough that they stop complaining and │
║ get back to work. They are functionally a part of the enslavement system, a │
║ built-in course correction mechanism to ensure capitalism remains solvent when │
║ the powerful overstep their humanity. │
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--- #3 fediverse/3931 ---
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║ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
║ │ CW: politics-mentioned-DRM-media-piracy-pol │ │
║ └─────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
║ │
║ │
║ if people pirate media, it's more of an indication that they'd rather spend │
║ their money elsewhere rather than an indictment of their character. │
║ │
║ torrenting movies is easy. Kinda makes me think all media should run on a │
║ "tip" system where you pay for better service after receiving service. │
║ │
║ I mean, after all, that's how they justify underpaying restaurant workers, │
║ isn't it? │
║ │
║ "if they want more money, they should work for it" │
║ │
║ yeah, so... maybe we need something more than Marvel, Disney. Maybe we need │
║ more cool, small games from designers who believe in what they're doing. Maybe │
║ copyright holders should demand a standardized cut, rather than exclusive │
║ distribution rights. maybe maybe maybe. │
║ │
║ truth is nothing will be solved unless the problem is addressed at the root. │
║ For every hole you patch in the boat, there's a guy walking around with a │
║ hammer. │
║ │
║ Honestly... I don't believe there's any reason for someone to be a millionaire │
║ except to compete on the "wealth" leaderboards. │
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--- #4 messages/358 ---
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Ah, but think of the technological bounty our supremacy did bring! Surely if
we had split the wealth, we could not have reached such towering heights. And
we tried our best, but some things you just can't teach - for every seed
potato we did bring, that was another meal for their night. And so we worsened
their plight, for now they've forgotten how to fight. What more do you want
from us!
... Perhaps once we've made programmable matter. Maybe when we've overcome our
earthly delights. Could be when we've ascended to heaven, where we gaze down
from our towering heights. Possibly far in the future, possibly here in this
night, our bane is what we're guilty of, and our boons are struggling to light.
Where have all the good people gone? Oh yeah, they're burnt out from doing all
the work for all the bad people. Well, fuck 'em, they can carry their own
cart. At least until they can respect. A man who's never tasted hunger will
never be a farmer, and gee our tax dollars could go so much farther! And then
we starve, because nobody thought to build farms indoors, away from the
crippling heat that saps the strength from our plant fathers.
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--- #5 fediverse/5660 ---
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║ ┌─────────────────────────┐ │
║ │ CW: violence-alluded-to │ │
║ └─────────────────────────┘ │
║ │
║ │
║ my enemy is not "the rich" │
║ │
║ money brings power, and power brings evil, but there are many other ways to │
║ gather power that may be just as evil. │
║ │
║ my enemy is evil. of which there is very little in the world, but much of │
║ which resides in the hands of the powerful, upon whom all our fates depend. │
║ │
║ most people with money are either stupid lucky, willful, or intensely focused. │
║ │
║ some people with power are rich, and some people with power are evil. │
║ │
║ I know it when I see it. Sometimes, you need to force the choice - test their │
║ virtue - and from this you are informed. │
║ │
║ most things go WAY over my head. │
║ │
║ most things are too easy to be true. │
║ │
║ most things that Id do for you tend to be of the heart. I'm not a frontline │
║ girl, I have weak noodle arms, but I do hope you're in shape. │
║ │
║ resolve, determination, and innovation. That is what I offer. Do you want it? │
║ I'm sure. I won't prove it with blood, not unless I may raise my fists in │
║ defence of another. │
║ │
║ I'm not JUST a baby, I'm a banner too. │
║ │
║ bannermen fall. │
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--- #6 fediverse/3848 ---
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│ CW: politics-cursing-mentioned │
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people? oh yeah I know "people". they're all a bunch of bastards.
good, bastards are the best fighters
not if your fight relies on fighting for something you believe in. There's a
zero percent chance that you'll get everyone to believe the same thing because
people naturally gravitate toward filling the idea space equally and finding
niches to fit themselves into
ha true - thinking of successful revolutions of the past, they've always been
caused by material conditions creating insufficiencies that must be resolved
through violence. and then, the people fighting can all agree on something
like "we must have bread" or... actually that's pretty much the main thing
people need
and yeah, sure, wealth inequality is unjust, but they're careful to only take
enough to ensure that we're sufficiently placated.
but they're always taking more, and someday soon they'll take too much.
... I hope, for my sake, that I'm not around when that happens. But I'm not
too hopeful in that regard
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--- #7 fediverse/3711 ---
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│ CW: food-mentioned-politics-capitalism-mentioned │
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what if instead of spending most of our paycheck on rent we spent most of it
on food so that our food could be higher quality
"but then people will starve because they can't afford food"
okay how about we make food free and tax it
"but then people will be fed by MY tax dollars and what if I don't want to use
the services that the tax dollars are paying for"
oh you don't want to eat, do you? or do you just not want THEM to eat? I hope
leopards eat your face
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--- #8 messages/466 ---
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The only things we should trade across an ocean for are luxury goods.
Nintendo, not medical supplies, hard-wood bikeframes, not piles and piles of
"recycling". People's time on culinary thirty course weeklong meals, not cans
of San marzano tomatoes. Tapestries and gilded statues, not thirteen tons of
barely processed rubber.
What would we offer in return? Luxuries of our own. We do still make them, do
we not? Just think of what the 1% has gathered to rot and give away the whole
damned lot. We shall not provide necessities, because giving a man a fish will
feed him for but a day, and a man's gotta eat. He'll find a way.
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--- #9 fediverse/735 ---
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I'd ask why of course, and then I'd try and find them a solution that didn't
involve taking my stuff. They may need it more than me, but I still need it.
Like... okay picture that feeling you get when in a capitalist society and you
need dollars to live because they are a genericized and fractalized
abstraction of all the various individual mazlowe's hierarchy of needs you
have. Then, think of it like, instead of money being an abstracted form of all
of your needs, think of your needs... each of them, the ones that matter to
you, and abstract them into money. Basically say "yeah sure my time and my
labor are worth dollars, I abstract my needs into money" and then you can
kinda see why capitalism is harmful. I'd prefer to give them what they need,
because society provides what I please, but alas I'm always kept wanting. What
good is our capitalist utopia? what good is our hope? what good comes of us
when all of us have learned how to cope?
I think we could give a bit more if we weren't hanging from the rope
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--- #10 fediverse/2681 ---
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║ ┌─────────────────────────────┐ │
║ │ CW: uspol-history-mentioned │ │
║ └─────────────────────────────┘ │
║ │
║ │
║ the american revolution was literally just... rich people trying to avoid │
║ paying taxes │
║ │
║ and the poor people went along because, like... yeah inflation's really been │
║ fucking with their budgets │
║ │
║ so in the end it made most households wealthier... │
║ │
║ (built upon the backs of slaves, mind you) │
║ │
║ ... but as time went on the rich wanted to pay less and less. │
║ │
║ they had their opportunity with the World Wars, and after the first (when │
║ America, previously a mid-tier country at best, suddenly industrialized) they │
║ realized "oh hey war profiteering is pretty profitable"... │
║ │
║ (something that was known quite well to the British) │
║ │
║ ... and then the Rockefellers and such, whose descendants never lost money but │
║ nobody knows their names, did it again in WW2 and the Cold War and. │
║ │
║ anyway │
║ │
║ the entire country is a game of numbers and spreadsheets in the ivory towers │
║ (literally, towers with nothing but opulence) and it always has been. │
║ │
║ fools like me believe in the mythology. fools, but propaganda appeals to truth. │
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--- #11 fediverse/98 ---
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@user-113 I feel like that's only true if you rely on your work for survival.
Most people do in a capitalist system, so you're not wrong, but it doesn't
HAVE to be that way. People could do what they love because they loved it IF
and ONLY IF they wouldn't starve by pursuing it. Or by neglecting it. Most
people love to do more than one thing, of course, so if you punish people for
being diverse then you'll find a culture where people only do the bare minimum
to get by. Which, coincidentally, is what we have now. Which, fortuitously, is
not the most efficient way of production. If humanity had lived to it's
potential from the start we would have burned through our wood stocks, our
coal, our minerals and all of it would be rot. But we didn't. These crude
inefficiencies have brought us here, to an era where we have the choice to be
more resourceful. I just hope we figure it out sooner rather than later.
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--- #12 fediverse/4349 ---
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║ ┌──────────────────────┐ │
║ │ CW: re: uspol │ │
║ └──────────────────────┘ │
║ │
║ │
║ @user-883 │
║ │
║ best case scenario, we elect a lawyer working for capitalism, the kind of │
║ society we live under. │
║ │
║ having money is the same as having resources. And resources allow you to apply │
║ yourself to a goal. The more you have, the better, but they each bear a heavy │
║ load. │
║ │
║ Do you sacrifice your labor? your dignity, your honor? what do you burn on the │
║ fire of wasteful expenditures, just for the power to rent? │
║ │
║ I'm saying that if you don't have money, you need to think about what you can │
║ do with what you got, because that's how you pay for things, at least until we │
║ decide that we'd rather help each other than work on capital's games. │
║ │
║ you have a house though, right? a place to live until it gets hot? that's good │
║ enough for right now. Stay where you're at, do what you can to help. Get in │
║ the habit of it. Think about how someone will complete their task, and then │
║ think about stuff two or three steps down the road - what tools will they │
║ need? what are they working on next? Can make any of those availble? │
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--- #13 fediverse/3370 ---
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I know it's not like that but I'm intentionally framing it that way to make a
point about societal exclusion.
nobody should be excluded.
nobody should have to harm their friends to come by making them sacrifice
their [time/labor/paycheck] in order to bring them along.
we live in a post scarcity society that insists on commodification of
everything
we don't have to. A better world is within reach. It sits there, twinkling
like asbestos resting at the base of a snowglobe, while we search and ponder
and endlessly analyze how society sucks.
there is nothing left to analyze. all that we need is to put our hands to a
task and our feet to grass.
the rest will come, and it'll come easier with time and focused attention.
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--- #14 fediverse_boost/2968 ---
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║ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ ║
║ │ It's all made up. And we can make it up differently. We can make it up so that it's not about a murder of genocides on a boiling rock where billions must die to maintain the way of life for a few thousand uber-rich reactionary maggots lining you up for a shallow grave. │ ║
║ │ │ ║
║ │ But not, if you keep pretending, that this is all fine, and these people aren't out to get you, and the power structures aren't designed to render you into a commodity and invest the power of CHOICE in the capitalist's hands. │ ║
║ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ║
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--- #15 fediverse/4566 ---
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│ CW: politics-mentioned │
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I want modern society without capitalism. Most people do, which is why no
matter how awesome our proto-post-capitalistic anarchic socialist paradise is,
there's always going to be people who want to go to work and watch TV.
call me fucking crazy but they should be allowed to live as they please? So
what if they're beguiled, so what if they are deceived? We can take our time
to show them how much better things can be, but also... they like modern
society as it is, and so I reckon someone should fight for them to be able to
live as they please. Just... without billionaires and endless layers of
bullshit micro-managerial jobs and paperwork pushing bureaucratic whatever
time wasting jobs.
modern society without capitalism can look like plain old capitalism, just
without the oppression. Without the coercion.
all I'm saying is that nobody's gonna fight for a healthcare CEO because
they're scum. They're scum because they oppress. oops politics-mentioned brb
I personally want communes + love
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--- #16 fediverse/4126 ---
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│ CW: capitalism-mentioned-periodic-sine-curves-not-present-oh-also-capitalism-ment │
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if you think one person's worth is more valuable than another's, then you are
at best a eugenicist, at worst a traitor to humanity.
... wow fiery rhetoric, real strong I guess. /eyeroll
truth is that everyone can do what they can do - some people are not built for
work. And that's okay, they're just as valuable, in the same way that F2P
mobile game developers value the players who AREN'T whales.
whales cannot survive without krill, and krill cannot survive without their
food source (which is probably like, fish poop I guess?) which requires poop
from fish
and, like, they can't all be the same type of fish, or poop, or whale, because
then you'd get excessive stagnation which leads to loss of moderate-term
growth.
... did you say... not, short-term growth?
wait please come back
... yeah we all know you're not serious, ha who would have ever heard of that,
"medium-term growth" ha what a noob, can't even capitalism right l m a o
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--- #17 fediverse/462 ---
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I don't care about capitalism. You know what's more interesting than bringing
value to shareholders?
How I'm going to clean this floor that I drunkenly spilled beer upon with only
2 paper towels and 0.1ml of bleach.
How I'm going to feed the 36 people who are coming to this social event
tomorrow that I've only sorta planned for and that I have enough groceries
for, but am not quite sure how to cook everything in a way that is delicious
and accessible.
how I'm going to climb this mountain on only 2 eggs and a tiny bowl of
hashbrowns even though I promised my friend I'd be strong and that we'd reach
the top because that way we'd be able to
============= stack overflow =====
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--- #18 fediverse/4998 ---
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┌──────────────────────┐
│ CW: pol+ │
└──────────────────────┘
"But I don't know what it'll look like!"
Yeah, that's okay. For four reasons:
If they knew what it'll look like, they'd find ways to contest it
nobody knows what it'll look like, because it is necessarily derived from the
solutions created ad-hoc to address problems.
we are a kind, honest, and strong people. If your burdens are too much to
bear, I will be your pack mule. If you require rest or relaxation, we can get
pizza and smoke weed together.
For most of history, we've had more work to do than people to do it. This time
is different. There's endless work to do, but only a certain amount of people
can be working at a time. Everyone else has to do chores and catch up on life.
"what kind of chores?"
oh, you know, like making food at a restaurant, stocking the shelves of the
grocery store, driving trucks from point A to point B, mowing lawns, building
barns, committing to whatever github is replaced by, etc.
In a better world, everyone is family.
In a better world, nobody goes hungry.
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--- #19 fediverse/3955 ---
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║ a congregation of nerds is like... a gift of all of your most brightest, in │
║ the same room, ready to work on problems that they can see │
║ │
║ just throw money and institutional capabilities at them and they'll hire │
║ people to do their projects and handle all of the deliverables and all that │
║ junk │
║ │
║ only works though if people care about what they're working on. hence why you │
║ should give the creatives more freedom to apply themselves. │
║ │
║ they'll make useful things I swear just give them resources and aid and │
║ manpower you don't have to choose projects based on a profit-oriented-approach │
║ there is a better way that can make more money in the long run │
║ │
║ trust me, supporting workers is like investing in bitcoin in 2012. if you play │
║ the long game, you can become fabulously wealthy, beyond what anyone would │
║ want or need. │
║ │
║ like, we get it, you want to be an oligarch, sure-yeah-fine-whatever. We'll │
║ shower you in gold and champagne if you just hand us the keys to the kingdom. │
║ you're drunk, you can't drive a nation state, sleep here │
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--- #20 fediverse/4544 ---
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┌───────────────────────┐
│ CW: cursing-mentioned │
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I can't cancel my internet because I use it to work, which almost pays enough
to cover rent, and nothing else.
It's hard to avoid spiraling when you run out of money. Every time this
happens to me I start feeling things
like... am I good for society? Society doesn't want me, clearly, because I
don't have any money. And currency is how you measure demand, right? It's
literally a measure of value.
But then I think of all the homeless and poor people and, like... I value
them, so what if they don't have dollars? It's literally just paper. Or bits
in a mainframe that nobody knows how to program anymore.
So if they're valuable at least to me, yet me, with my 67$ in the bank and
127$ internet fee, is not valuable to me... Then what's the discrepancy?
I'm not trying to be hard on myself, it's not my fault that I bleed money, but
I still feel terrible.
It's like a common cultural persuasion, if you run outta cash you better kill
yourself fast.
Fuck that. Oops cursing mentioned, one s
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