The paradox of productivity in 2018 is even if you're writing a quantum tech article whilst simultaneously dogwalking, podcasting your fourth Ph. D, & inventing the next revolutionary drudge-work-automating app (that will be consumed by a tech giant), you'll always be making not-enough per hour for a dignified existence.
No amount of neurohack pills, 180-hour crunches and AI assistants will ever free us, because neofeudal capitalism will consume all abundance.
The wheel must break.
@nev Sucks, but knowing is half the battle... right? 😂 😭
@silverspookgames no...no...i am always fully aware of what's in my bank account
@silverspookgames
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V1oP79fQr8
Trickle-down economics and the link between productivity and wages has been so thoroughly debunked it's laughable...
Yet those in power still force their neoliberal austerity down our thoats.
How, pray tell, do we destroy the system?
They laugh at our protests, attack our not-for-profits, and buy their votes using the mass/social media.
@kit_darko I agree, and I don't know the solution. But I see a lot of people still buying the secular brand of Prosperity Doctrine, believing that just busting ass, competing harder and winning the Hunger Games will make things ok. I know any emancipation from the hamster machine involves less people believing they can escape by running faster.
Disillusionment, in a kingdom of bullshit, needs to be a daily routine. Like crunches. (The crossfit kind, not the AAA game studio sweatshop kind)
@silverspookgames barely half a century ago the common assumption was that with technology improving the production of a single worker, said worker would be able to create more and earn the same for less time invested. But this didn't take into account that employers would rather keep working their workers at the same amount of effort for greater productivity with no increase in pay.
The result is that labor is now devalued and keeps losing value.
@silverspookgames Amen.
Though competition in itself is not the main problem.
We are wired as a species compete.
It’s who benefits from that competition.
@rbenjamin Yep. There's nothing wrong with working hard. But working hard to produce economic units should be coupled with working hard to make sure the product isn't going in gross proportion to the wrong places. The neoliberal Jedi mind trick is to make you think that asking for fairness is equal to laziness, when you are working yourself to death. Economic Stockholm Syndrome.
On some level we know this, but sometimes it helps to remind oneself, "I am a person, I don't deserve this bullshit"
@silverspookgames What is a "dignified existence"? Not trying to be snarky, just curious what you're definition of that is.
@nix_trismegistus I mean basically making enough money to pay for your own house, transportation, healthcare, education, children's needs, food, utilities, etc. without having to take money from family, live squished in parents' house or in a car, work 3 jobs all day, stuff like that. Where I am from (city in the US) you would need a 100k+ salary minimum to cover this. I worked two jobs (12 hrs+) and was still homeless and with horrible healthcare (I have 2 kids). This is wrong IMHO.
@silverspookgames Thank you for the clarification.I agree with your sentiment 100%. I would say, however, that I believe these are ultimately spiritual problems that have little to do with political or economic systems. Power begets power, and woe to those who aren't lucky or manipulative enough to get a piece for themselves. Revolutions solve problems temporarily, but human nature persists. And you can't solve what are ultimately spiritual problems with materialist solutions.
@silverspookgames *the wheel must be broken
@silverspookgames What would you like to see rise in its place once it does? I’ve asked this question of myself many times and have yet to come up with a satisfying answer. I would like to think that humans could be driven to productivity by something other than agreed but thus far haven’t been able to convince myself of that.
@feoh It is highly probable that the Forbes 500 list would re-fill shortly after any globally destabilizing cataclysm, French Revolution-esque upheaval, accelerationist obsolescence of pre-posthuman nature, or simple serial-wins of labor against suicidal capitalism. If a New-New-Deal redistributing wealth less insanely happens to be a side-effect (as it was in the 30's) that's better than decades of torture, austerity and fascism-fueled depopulation-by-lynching and proxy-warfare.
@feoh Human nature may change, though it doesn't need to. Are the German pencil factory workers making $35 an hour or the Scandinavians with their universal health care, free college, and months of maternity leave just naturally "less greedy" than the Americans living in cars make $7 to do three gig jobs and duct taping their broken bones? No. The system and specific circumstances of the society are just different. Circumstances can change. People demanding respect in solidarity is one.
@silverspookgames You're preaching to the choir. That's definitely what I'm after as well. However I'm surrounded by smart people who claim that it can't work here, that our government is too currupt and that the books wouldn't balance. So I maintain that here in the US, as one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we can't afford NOT to help the poor get the health care they need, but I'm not sure how we get there.
@feoh There is no easy solution to the problem, no doubt. All we can do is our best.
@silverspookgames "The wheel must break" man, that's a slogan for the 21st century right there. Someone put some sort of wheel image with this, will ya?
@donblanco Nice! I hope someone does put a wheel in there.
@silverspookgames this is too real :/