The Entire Human Species Has Been Turned Into A Profit-Generating Machine
5d 16h ago by kbin.earth/u/Maeve in progressivepolitics from media.kbin.earth
The human species has essentially been transformed into a giant machine to generate profit for corporations.
Under capitalism, humanity exists to serve the interests of the corporation. We are all livestock; beasts of burden used to carry margin expansion forward from quarterly statement to quarterly statement. Enjoyment of life has no value other than the extent to which it can be used to increase the net worth of the shareholders.
That’s why everyone’s so unhappy. We’re not living with purpose. We’re not working together to build a better world and a better future, we’re just pulling levers to turn gears to make the arrow line go up on the graph in the conference room. It’s a hollow, pointless way for people to live.
It makes our whole culture vapid and soulless.
Crosspost from https://news.abolish.capital/post/56355
And AI is the Golden Calf that investors and CEOs think will generate profits without having to pay humans.
There's a sort of euphoric feeling of watching the world burn down around us while all these corporations jerking off to AI realize they can't sell any of their shit to anyone as they're AI bots are just advertising to other AI bots with no money and they see their revenue plummet while the rest of us laugh in our ramen noodles and homelessness.
Always has been?
Not to this extent, but yeah, it's almost like there should never be superwealthy to exist.
We need tax brackets that go up to 100%. If you own more than $100m in assets, everything above that should be taxed 100%. We need to remove the possibility for billionaires to exist. We also need to dissolve massive corporations by enforcing/expanding antitrust laws. Stop the concentration of wealth, in any form. There should be zero incentive to concentrate wealth in the first place, which could be achieved (at least, at first) with a significant amount of socialism infused into our current capitalist systems.
I really don't see a need for a large having to have 100mn, and like dengism, can see allowing some capitalism to exist to jumpstart socialist production, but otherwise agree, sibling.
It's more about allowing vestiges of the current system to exist to ease the transfer to a more equitable system. When systems are ended abruptly, it tends to have unforseen consequences. We need to treat society as the living construct that it is. It's very ill right now, so we put it on life support by infusing some socialism, let it stabilize, then add more socialism until we have a system that is truly egalitarian.
I don't think there's an inherent problem with people having a (reasonably) large amount of wealth. We just need to make it so having that wealth doesn't harm anyone else, or deter anyone else from gaining wealth. In other words, let money obsessed people have some money, just make it an amount that every human could achieve, if they wanted to, and make it kind of pointless by making sure every living being has the best quality of life possible, whether they pursue wealth or not. Like the Scandinavian model, we need a system that steers society towards altruism, community, and egalitarianism.
But... That's like dengism with extra steps and money, if I understand either, correctly.
100 mn is not achievable by most, regardless of how hard they work. Assuming a 40 hour work week (which is too many hours, in my opinion), $100k/yr would require $48/hr pay rate. Deduct taxes at an assumed rate (say 30%) to cover cleaner infrastructure, education, health, clean water, social programs, how much is left? Even if we immediately nationalize all necessities for living, there are still expenses on both sides, bringing housing, water, food, education up to par, for example, on the government side, and travel, clothing (which is a necessity, in my estimation), pencils, books, computers, furniture, dishes, on the private side.
So it's not going to be overnight, and with hours will be necessarily long, for a time. The current generations may never realize gains from our investments; but generations behind us may.
Nope. It's social-democratic capitalism, or capitalism with massive guard rails. The emphasis is on guiding society to a more equitable default. We would need to prosecute all of the current billionaire class and their bought politicians and have a massive redistribution of wealth, in the form of reparations. People can choose how they want to live their lives from there. A soft reset.
I don't think it's wrong for people who want to lead organizations to have more wealth than others, there just needs to be limits to it. It should be illegal to exploit others in any way. You know; life, liberty, and justice for all.
Social democracy still stomps on the South/Asia/East. I'll hard nope on that.
I don't think you understand social democracy well enough. The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway all have social democracy. South Asia/East does not. Assuming you're mostly referring to China, since you referenced dengism earlier, China is an authoritarian regime with a strict class system and unevenly regulated capitalism favoring the authoritarian class at the top. That is the opposite of social democracy.
Oh boy. Who told you that?
Not sure exactly what you're referring to. Who told me what?
Did you start a discussion so you can inaccurately categorize people's opinions and try to brow beat them when they don't agree with your false equivalence statements? I'm just telling you what I think would be a good solution. An easy, smooth transfer towards a blend of systems that seem to work well in some Scandinavian countries.
I'm not sure where you see "browbeat." I merely noted that social democracy stomps on the South/Asia/East, then you started browbeating and maligning China. No investigation, no right to speak.
I have learned enough about social democracies enough to know the treats are from brutal exploitation of the people in the aforementioned regions, and followed up with a Greta Thunberg video. So who's browbeating, who investigated?
I'm reeeaaaally not interested in a reddit-style gotcha debate. But, since you seem adamant on persuading me to agree with your opinions; how does social democracy stomp on Asia? How is my assessment of China's political system wrong?
Nah, I just don't click on random links. I'm not familiar with tankie.tube.
I think they are refering to the fact that the worldbank and the IMF are keeping poor countries trapped in debt
That makes a lot more sense than "social democracies "stomp Asia". There is absolutely a global effort to maintain the status quo that keeps many non-western nations suppressed. I don't think social democracy, as a system, is the culprit. It's all a big game for the ultra-wealthy everywhere, and most politicians quickly learn they need to play the game to stay in the game. It won't stop until we create and implement systems that are impossible to corrupt.
Not to mention resource extraction for a pittance, pollution of the dirt, water, food, low pay often at para/military/governmental complicity, and a host of other wtfery.
The gymnastics here are worthy of a medal and the projection is 100% Oscar winning. What this says to me is you're not interested in hearing another perspective, your treats mean more than the lives they squander, especially since they are out of your direct line of vision. The video is also available on Instagram but again, you'd prefer treats to truth.
Enjoy, I guess.
Lol, ok.
They're working on a way to monetize just breathing just you wait.
Water first, wait they did that already
They already primed that idea with the bogus "fresh air cannisters" story projected onto CHYNA CHYNA CHYNA.
I feel like the only way we could ever escape this is by going back to trading with actual goods. Money is the root issue. Because it isn't worth anything by itself, except maybe fire tinder or goat feed, everyone and everything always needs to generate profit in order to do anything else than work, e.g. eat. And the profit part is also the issue. Everyone cannot make a profit, unless you create new money, which will make it worth less, and your profit margins need to keep increasing, which, again, everyone can't do, and the cycle continues.
It's just a flawed system in general, even if you use precious metal coins or something, those things don't really have any inherent value to a human being. You can't eat it for nutrients, can't really use it as building material (debatable I guess).
We need to have goods for goods, and goods for services.
Life will be a lot more boring, but we'll escape this hamster wheel, perhaps.
Or it will just bring us other problems. 🤷♂️
Edit: this also means we need to get rid of the profession of being a trader. Because they inherently only work to make a profit. As they pay for things, they need to pay under value and sell over value, because they produce nothing but profit for themselves. Everyone has to produce something or be entirely self-sufficient. It's very difficult.
everything except communism
Sorry, I just woke up. It's this answering a question or something? 😅
Let's do a communist gift economy
What's that? How does that work? 🙂
It's how the economy worked in Australia before colonisation. It was explained to Me by an Elder from the central desert. Before colonisation, there was no word for work. There was a word for sweat. You put sweat into helping your community because you loved your community. Karl Marx explained it a little differently; he said: From each according to ability, to each according to need.
David Graeber wrote this book called Bullshit Jobs. A bullshit job is a job so pointless, even the person doing it believes it has no purpose. Some people with bullshit jobs don't even have to do any work. They just sit in an office all day browsing Reddit and pretending to work. Graeber thought these people would be happiest, but they're not. They're depressed and unhappy. Turns out, humans have a psychological need to contribute valuable work to society. They need to help others.
A gift economy is the natural and proper state of humanity. Trading work for currency tokens is a dangerous aberration. Groups who live and work together don't need to barter in order to cooperate. If you take people out of the capitalist mind prison, a gift economy is just what makes sense. We already have communism for children; we give them food, housing, clothes, and an education for free. But it takes a village to raise a child. So imagine if everyone in your community just helped each other the way we help kids. That's communism.
I love it. Sign me up. I wanna go back.
I think we're gonna have to have a revolution first. The capitalist state forces us to engage with the whole money system. We need to tear down the state.
Step 1 is to spread more knowledge of communism through your community. Step 2 is to use direct action and mutual aid to build a revolutionary group who see and practice the benefits. Step 3 is going to have to be a coup of the government by the people, where we smash apart the machinery of government.
I'm gonna have to move some things around. 🥴
Read theory
Excuse me, I'm trying to have an interhuman interaction here, would you mind?
Actually, I'm otherkin. I don't identify as human, so it's not an interhuman interaction
Ah, neat, I identify as a garbage truck, so therefore I am one.
😐
I know you're being a sarcastic asshole, but I've put a user note on you in My client so I can remember that you identify as a garbage truck and respect your identity. Rducto ad absurdum doesn't work on people who have consistent beliefs, and I consistently believe in treating people with kindness, so if you say you're a garbage truck, I choose to believe you.
😆 I love it, I deserved that!
So if you go to the doctor with some kind of ailment, what do you say to them when they ask you about maybe your organs and stuff? Do you just say "are you a doctor for humans? I think I need a specialist." Or do you concede that you are in fact a human being and let them help you?
Also not sure what you thought would "work on you" with your "consistent" beliefs. I'm telling you I identify as something I'm clearly not. Why is mine different from yours? Why is mine absurd and yours isn't?
Yours isn't absurd, I could just tell you're a kinphobe from your tone. Still a garbage truck, since you say you are. And as a garbage truck, surely you can answer your own questions about otherkin at the doctor? Well, since you don't know, I'll tell you that I possess a human body. But I am most certainly not a human body. I'm a pattern of electrical impulses living, at least in consensus reality, in a brain. You're not a body either, you're a pattern of electricity too. And that pattern of electricity happens to be a garbage truck, as you say.
But you said it was absurd? Never mind. 😅
I wouldn't say I'm a kinphobe, I just think it's unreasonable to say you aren't a human. But maybe that's not what you're saying you aren't, specifically.
Because that to me would be like saying I don't have a penis, when I do. But I could feel like I'm a woman, with a male body. That's different, I guess. But to say I'm something other than human, when I in fact am, feels inaccurate. But maybe I could feel like something inhuman?
It's fascinating though, how you could feel like something other than human, when the only experience of being anything, is that of being human. Same with trans people as well, I suppose. How you could feel to be another gender than your sex (important distinction of course).
Just very fascinating. And, yo, I didn't mean to be an asshole to you. I hope you didn't take offense (you seem tough-skinned based on your responses). I respect your feelings, I just can't relate as a major cis. And I had a bit of banter with you, but I realize it probably came off really bad, so I'm sorry.
With love and respect.
Awwww, okay, thanks.
Well I'll be happy to explain it to you if you're curious. I'm otherkin. There are two big philosophies in the otherkin community about how it works: the neurological group, and the spiritual group.
The neurological otherkin believe that just like trans people, they have an abnormality in their brain that has changed their species affinity from human to something else. They identify as having a human body and brain, but a nonhuman mind within that brain.
The spiritual otherkin believe that certain spiritual experiences they've had explain their identity. Spiritual otherkin often believe they reincarnated from a nonhuman body into a human one. They might have experiences of having a nonhuman astral form while astral projecting.
Personally, I'm an antirealist. I don't think the nature of reality is objective. I think our subjective reality is made up of cultural constructs. I think the idea of species is unscientific and impossible to define by biological characteristics. I believe our social constructs should be manipulated to serve people, instead of the other way around. If we're manipulating people to serve our social constructs, then we're a failed society.
Having a monetary trading unit is not the problem. Trading goods for goods is not always an option because you might need goods or services from someone who has no interest in the goods or services which you produce. The main problem is when this monetary trading unit inherently and intentionally devaluates over time. Therefore if we just used gold we would be far better off.
Gold makes no difference because it's the same as money. You need to make a profit of gold as well. It's the same as being a trader. They add nothing except inflate the price of things for the service of being a middleman. It's the exact same issue as money. And I know gold is a finite resource but it still doesn't change the fact that you need to make a profit in order to live.
you might need goods or services from someone who has no interest in the goods or services which you produce.
This is exactly the purpose of money, from the start. It's something people attribute value onto, because it's pretty (gold, that is) and whatnot. But it has backfired.
I think what I'm actually saying is that we need to be more self-sufficient, and limit our need for trading at all.
That's a wild take. Profit isn't the issue. Exorbitant profit is. Who gets the profit and how its used is. When workers are the state and own the means of production, profits can be planned and used to keep production lines running, decrease hours while increasing wages, paying more taxes for basic human rights such as clean food, air, water, quality housing, quality healthcare, quality education, reduction of waste and emissions, r&d of better ways to produce, better medicine, and more!
Profit is entirely the issue, profit is undue costs on goods and services above production requirements.
Profit is exploitation commodified.
With that line of thinking, no one would get a raise or improved quality of life. This is not a binary issue, unless you are talking about socialist production vs capitalism/fascism.
Which is why ditching a capitalist system is also required. One should not have personal profits, one should have basic needs met.
Every dollar of profit is taken from the back of a worker further down the line.
Here you go: >When workers are the state and own the means of production, profits can be planned and used to keep production lines running, decrease hours while increasing wages, paying more taxes for basic human rights such as clean food, air, water, quality housing, quality healthcare, quality education, reduction of waste and emissions, r&d of better ways to produce, better medicine, and more!
Bolding added, here
State capitalism is still capitalism. It still works on the exploitation of those down the line at some degree, profit is not generated from thin air, it is taken from others earning less than their fair share or paying more than something is worth.
There is no ethical capitalism, be that private or state (states are also not the people) owned.
I've already told you, I began with anarchism and moved to communism. I'm not saying it's entirely impossible, either, and I'm not entirely opposed to anarchy, rather that we need a practical, disciplined, and proven means to achieve it, if it's ever to be realized in materiality. It doesn't mean I like practicalities, rather that I recognize them as necessary.
I don’t even know if we’ve ever spoken before to be honest.
However I started with communism and moved to anarchism. I do not think there is any universal one size fits all approach, rather that we need many local ways of doing that accommodate the needs of the local population. That can only be achieved through empowering people at the local level and ensuring they have the flexibility to adapt and change as situations arise.
Top down models are incapable of meeting that, and routinely fall into power traps from small groups of elites from everything I see practiced historically and currently.
I don’t even know if we’ve ever spoken before to be honest.
You have, and Maeve was insulting you for being an anarchist.
Muh left unity tho
We have! Sorry, it's one of my divergences. I think by listening to each other, we can grow our perspectives, if not evolve them.
Eta:
I do not think there is any universal one size fits all approach, rather that we need many local ways of doing that accommodate the needs of the local population. That can only be achieved through empowering people at the local level and ensuring they have the flexibility to adapt and change as situations arise.
Believe it or not, this is a shared, popular perspective, on grad!
It's not state capitalism. If you're interested in an understanding that differs from your preferred narrative, they are abundant on grad. If you can stomach it.
Did... you actually read the comment to which you originally replied?
If “socialist” production has profit, it is capitalistic.
With that line of thinking, no one would get a raise or improved quality of life.
Like what was already said, life would be a lot more boring. But at least we'd be free of the hamster wheel.
And yeah, no, you wouldn't get a raise, because there'd be no money. You can't get a raise if you can't make a profit, very correct.
Look, imagine these initial conditions: start with 100 people in a moneyless society. Give each person 100 coins. Now ask everyone to make a profit.
That means creating money out of thin air.
The system is b-r-o-k-e-n.
The current Western system is working as designed. Do you imagine a fantastical leap forward without any sort of transitioning steps from here to there? I'm working hard to understand you.
I know it's working as designed — working against us.
I'm not imagining a leap forward, I'm imagining a leap backwards, to freedom before there was money. Sorry if this has been unclear all along...
Would you be so kind as to elucidate in some detail?
I didn't realize who you were until I scrolled up. Barter is cumbersome and greatly limits mobility. Do you propose means to overcome that?
I do not. Like I said, again, life will be a lot more boring and cumbersome. Trade-off.
What fucking bullshit.
Profit is a goddamn lie. It's MY FUCKING LABOR, anything bit returned to me and the crew after operating costs are covered is stolen wages.
Profit IS rent seeking, and requires that actual progress of the community be violently suppressed. People with an honest desire to help the community are forced to accept exploitative conditions that enable this theft, otherwise you starve and die.
Nothing good has ever, or will ever, come from the system you describe, since it CAUSES every god damn problem that it supposedly fixes. resulting in a vicious cycle of pain and more pain and nothing else.
It seemed to work in AES states well enough.
Not wild at all. It isn't even a "take", just basic facts and logic. Everyone cannot make a profit. That's just not possible.
Your scenario of workers owning the means of production and all that, they'd still be participating in the grand world scheme of paying for things with money. It doesn't make a difference.
What sort of circumlocution is this? You are arguing against nothing I said.
Profit isn't the issue. Exorbitant profit is. Who gets the profit and how its used is. When workers are the state and own the means of production, profits can be planned and used to keep production lines running, decrease hours while increasing wages, paying more taxes for basic human rights such as clean food, air, water, quality housing, quality healthcare, quality education, reduction of waste and emissions, r&d of better ways to produce, better medicine, and more!
I'm saying everything you said is irrelevant to the point I'm making. Sorry if that was unclear.
Slavery wasn’t ended. Just rebranded and expanded.
From enslaving bodies to enslaving minds.
With drugs or mental health issues, apparently.
What do you mean you're not happy living under capitalism? You must have a Mental Illness. Here, take this pill: you'll gain weight, lose all your motivation, and numb your emotions, and, no, you wont be any happier, but you won't be complaining about the system anymore, and even if you do, who cares what you think? You're a crazy person.
The human species has essentially been transformed into a giant machine to generate profit for corporations.
It doesn't stop at humans. Farm animals, plants, minerals, everything is for profit.
Kill the rich, save the poor. Taxation, is not enough for the current era. There must be justice for the crimes committed. Once they are dead, then we can figure out how to run the world without capitalism. Untill then, the elimination of the ultra-rich by any means should be the goal. Everything else is noise.
No fate but what we make for ourselves.
Yeah, but if poor people got access to healthcare, all of society would crumble. I would rather live on the street and starve to death from malnutrition than ever vote for that brown person or trans person to have access to healthcare /s
Walks into SpaceX “Fucking men like you built the hydrogen bomb. Men like you thought it up. You think you're so creative. You don't know what it's like to really create something; to create a life; to feel it growing inside you. All you know how to create is death and destruction."
This fatalism is boring, disheartening and false.
Would you elaborate on the "false", please?
Humans still do volunteer, create art, go out and have fun, have days off, partners and some do procreate, take care of children, educate, socialize, protest, provide 3rd spaces, measure success with not their wallets.
It makes sense to use a measure when deciding at scale, but believing this is the only way to look at the world is dystopian. Also note that afformentioned things do provide a value to society that can be measured, even in currency. But that is not trivial. And measuring at scale is what must be done to decide humanely. Otherwise you discount human lives for personal belief and cause harm. Deciding badly, such as by personal belief can cause disproportionate harm. E.g. if you belief water power is the only good power and hinder change to all other forms of power you will cause harm because terrible things are still being done when instead of those bad things could be done.
You are distracting from the issue at hand.
Namely that a few are misusing all of us for their benefit.
Also imagine if all of that effort went to benefit us all (medicine science) instead of making a few rich or fantasizing about flying to mars.
create art
How about music as an example; it's harder than it's ever been to make a living from making music without following an ever-narrowing window of what it should sound like.
We went from music in the 19thC being a hugely expressive range of dynamics, tempo, time signature, instrumentation all within one single piece, to the top 95+% of artists all pumping out 4/4 time, 130bpm, same volume throughout, same instrumentation throughout, no pauses, repeating verse/chorus structure. Is that because it's better? Heck no, it's because that's what record companies will consider a reliable enough formula to be worth the risk of pumping millions into promoting.
You're accusing OP of fatalism, but I put it to you that it's you who are fatalistic in accepting Capitalism as just how it is, and that we should lump it and do our Art in our spare time and be thankful for it.
Music is a form of art. You are thinking of paintings, I believe.
You are allowed to earn from music and try to make a living off of your music. And a lot of new music I experience doesn't follow the formula you prescribed.
You should broaden your world view.
And a lot of new music I experience doesn’t follow the formula you prescribed.
Well done, you're listening to a group than makes less than 5% of the money mentioned earlier.
You should broaden your world view.
It's always the densest, point-missing people that act the most condescending and rude when you thought you were having a good faith discussion. Blocked
The world has been turned to profit generating machine, but some parts of the machine are still actively under construction
So it's pointless to sour the mood by talking about the completed parts until it's all completely finished, we should focus on the unfinished parts, not to mention profits can be good if we ever end up getting access to them in any state and at any price
Option1: (that's why we should start demolishing every part of it) Option2: (so it's not all bad, we can live with the machine)
Option 3: there's no reason we can't be of good cheer that not everything is thoroughly corrupted, while also smashing the orphan crushing machine, which will also increase and spread good cheer and good will!