Yo, please add alt text to this. See rule 0.5 in the sidebar
I find it interesting how the furry community has transformed over the years. It was very politically neutral when I discovered it as a teenager. Now, about +15yrs later, it’s very left leaning and it seems like a lot of furries tend to be relatively politically active. It’s kinda wild.
it makes sense to me. ostracized people veer away from mainstream narratives and that gives them some degree of instrinsic shielding from the propaganda firehose that defines the media and social groupthink.
the same used to be true for feminists and queers and they’ve both gone left as a result. we’re seeing them start to go to the right now that they’re starting to become part of the mainstream; as evidenced by the aesthetics and “trad wife” movements that boosted trump in the last elections.
wait, <tinfoil> is that what hipsters were? an illuminatt attempt to make not being maintstream so mainstream that societal outsiders would
rise from the gravevote republican? </tinfoil> ah shit me noodle
War( itself and its results) can be profitable in the end. And that would be a non-controllable profit that is easy to loot.
Feeding the poor cannot make the rich even richer.
The really stupid part is it probably actually COULD. Healthier, happier people are more productive and more willing to spend their time in the ways that make those people rich.
So, thereby grow the whole pie, they still take the majority of it, get even more. But they’re so goddamn greedy and small-minded, they actually make it worse for themselves. To say nothing of the conditions for the rest of us, and also leaving out the way taking this too far tends to result in turmoil and (gasp) dead rich people.
But if they don’t take all your money asap, someone else might do it.
Probably the core limiting factor.
What you’re describing is essentially Keynesian economics which we had till the 70’s or 80’s, and it did fall out of favor, replaced by neoliberalism that we know now.
The reason why was essentially capitalism - historical conditions why high rate of profit that allowed keynesiasm disappeared (such as war which tends to lead to massive profits via destruction of capital, still expanding global markets and US hegemony over the economy), so the rate of profit fell. People lost jobs, wages couldn’t be raised and state couldn’t really do much about it without pumping a ton of money via intervention, so instead what we got was attacks on labor organization, privatization and deregulation.
The only chance to return to that kind of economy (and by that I mean if everyone collectively forgot about neoliberalism too) would be through another world war and its unprecedented destruction of capital. Even then it’d be temporary again until rate of profit declines, as it does with capitalism regardless of economic system.
Healthier, happier people are more productive
That’s a long shot and needs a large scale prognosing. And even in the best case, it would work only if you have a lack of workforce. It isn’t the case for most countries. Moreover, productiveness can easily be forced by oppression, especially if we’re talking about an unqualified workforce (and we do, because most of those who are hungry currently aren’t specialists)
I’m not sure I agree, I do think that broadly positive things happen from more people using their time to do “more stuff”, in the most general sense - for me this is the nature of life being decidedly not zero-sum. An unavoidable consequence, part of the same fact, basically.
But adding all of the caveats I’d attach to that statement I just made, along with just my original acknowledgement that of course the worst among us will reap the (by far) largest share of rewards - I mean it would make for a comment too long to be worth reading, which I already struggle with because I crave accuracy of delivery.
With that said, you’re exactly right that the most vulnerable people and the least-training-required jobs make for exactly the disgusting combo of exploitability that we already see, and that are easiest to compel, on both counts. As to not make a euphemism of “compel”, I of course mean force, by causing suffering, of all the many available ways.
I’d go farther (though provisionally) and say that you pointing that out has all the familiar hallmarks of one of the many moments in my life when I have the good fortune to consider a POV in a way that causes me to go “hmm, yep, just found an old remnant of indoctrination in my head, that idea has gotta go”. So I’ll do some sincere thinking, and I appreciate you.
Add one more nuance to your analysis: extreme ineffectiveness of the wealth and well-being measurement. Owners of factories count money as the simplest method to evaluate the effectiveness. And, as any self-tuning system, where there is some “performance indicator”, all is tuning to increase the indicator value, not the value itself. So, as a result, we have factories producing an enormous amount of useless shit that is bought by customers only because all factories behave in this very way. All this leads to an excessive usage of resources and energy while providing very little to the well-being.
The lack of long-term analysis is to blame. Nobody cares what will be in 10 years.
Believe me, it’s already in my long list of caveats. Not to mention the environmental damage of it all (which I guess you probably meant too). And yep, the numbers are goosed anyway.
Ultimately the choosing of what to do and how is the central element of whether “doing more stuff” is good. Still, short term, I’d rather see more people in jobs and affording necessities and feeling some degree of agency. And to my original point, I do think it would make the owner class richer probably, not that it’s a goal of mine lol.
But yep, as Deceptichum pointed out, they could never stand the idea of leaving something deliberately unexploited, lest it be exploited by someone else. It’s basically their defining feature, this need to exploit and extract, first and most thoroughly among their hideous peers.
Anyway, cheers, getting off my gripe-horse for a while.
There is a pretty close relationship between overall productivity and relative wealth and well being of the general population. See all industrialized nations.
People who can look beyond surviving start to consume, which drives demand, which drives the need for workers. Productivity can be forced shortly, but in the long run it goes down as people have less energy, are less focused, more accidents happen, more things break…
So you’re saying we need some kind of war to… Make the classes change?
Make the classes change?
Don’t understand you. Classes as in “working class” and “governing class”? No, war only empowers the governing class. Or do you mean something else?
Well, like some sort of war where one class… There’s probanly a word for this, im explaining it badly.
I’m struggling to come up with a word too.
Maybe there isn’t one?
is subsumed by?
Ionno. Somecsort of class… Fight?
Queue B.Y.O.B
we won’t feed the poor but we will fund a war.
