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Nobody Wants to Work

metis

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
PureX said:
But what will it take for us to see what we have become? And what then?
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Well, with the genie out of the bottle, that'll be an uphill task. British anthropologist Desmond Morris said around 1970 that we need to back off on our competing with each other because, as our resource levels drop, "a divided house cannot stand". And take a look at the internal hostility we have today.
 
Yerda

Yerda

Veteran Member
PureX said:
I'm old enough not to expect to live to see the revolution that will be required for our collective survival. I hope it's peaceful, but the rich and powerful are not going to share anything willingly. So it's going to have to be taken from them. And since their reign and their means of control is now global, so will the revolution have to be.

It's a frightening prospect.
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The idea that people with nothing are ever going to wrest control from the people who own or control everything seems so unlikely it would look silly in a comic book. We should expect to see Jesus return in a pink flying saucer before that happens.
 
PureX

PureX

Veteran Member
Yerda said:
The idea that people with nothing are ever going to wrest control from the people who own or control everything seems so unlikely it would look silly in a comic book. We should expect to see Jesus return in a pink flying saucer before that happens.
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Revolutions have happened in the past and will happen again. It's the scale that's become worrisome. And the technology involved.

The elites always lose so long as the "rabble" can stay united. It's what comes after that gets iffy.
 
Stevicus

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Yerda said:
The idea that people with nothing are ever going to wrest control from the people who own or control everything seems so unlikely it would look silly in a comic book. We should expect to see Jesus return in a pink flying saucer before that happens.
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Well, it's happened before in other countries. One reason the Russian Revolution happened was not necessarily because everyone just rose up en masse in some unified struggle. Both the Tsarist regime and the Kerensky-led provisional government simply collapsed because nobody really wanted to fight for them. Nobody wanted to defend them. The Tsar owned a great deal, and he was the richest person in the world at the time. But it didn't save him.
 
amorphous_constellation

amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
PureX said:
Addiction is progressive. People can function while addicted for a time, depending on the drugs being used. And these folks could be placed in an environment like you describe. And most humans addicted or not will act to stay alive as they are able. So I'm sure something could be developed to help them do that. My rant is more aimed at the very many among us that stil think addiction is some sort of moral weakness that could be corrected with the right "stern" incentives. They have no concept of how terminal this disease really is. Nor do they see how brutal our greed based culture has become, already. Or how profound the changes need to be to stop this slide into distopia that we're on.

That's why I repeat myself.

Also, we have reached a point where no solution to this epidemic of drug addiction and the resultant homelessness and unemployability is "good", or even morally acceptable. We're past that, now. At least for those already lost to it. But we could at least try and minimize their suffering, and better still, change the way we live so that far fewer among us get caught up in it in the future.

But I see little hope of any of this happening.
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Well, actually scrap my whole idea. I'm not even sure if I like it anyway. I don't know what the solution is. But to me, I don't believe in just stopping to live within the doom mindset. Analysis of serious problems is important. But I think that positive solutions should always follow the description of serious problems. Otherwise we don't allow, in my view, the good to overcome the bad
 
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PureX

PureX

Veteran Member
ideogenous_mover said:
Well, actually scrap my whole idea. I'm not even sure if I like it anyway. I don't know what the solution is. But to me, I don't believe in just stopping to live within the doom mindset. Analysis of serious problems is important. But I think that positive solutions should always follow the description of serious problems. Otherwise we don't allow, in my view, the good to overcome the bad
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Sometimes there are no good solutions. Sometimes things get broken beyond repair. Which is why we should try not to break them in the first place. But capitalism doesn't care who gets broken, or how many. All it cares about is maximizing profits for those who have investment capital. And it's driving all our decisions, and corrupting most of our personalities. And it's destroying a lot of human beings.

There can be no solutions until we can acknowledge the problem. And so far that's not happening. Especially not among those who are being rewarded by capitalist greed and indifference. And because capitalism is what it is, they are in control.
 
Revoltingest

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
PureX said:
Sometimes there are no good solutions. Sometimes things get broken beyond repair. Which is why we should try not to break them in the first place. But capitalism doesn't care who gets broken, or how many. All it cares about is maximizing profits for those who have investment capital. And it's driving all our decisions, and corrupting most of our personalities. And it's destroying a lot of human beings.

There can be no solutions until we can acknowledge the problem. And so far that's not happening. Especially not among those who are being rewarded by capitalist greed and indifference. And because capitalism is what it is, they are in control.
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I'm beginning to think you want something other than capitalism.
 
Shadow Wolf

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
Revoltingest said:
@Shadow Wolf will understand my post
about Jar Jar Abrams vs Star Trek.
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Not entirely as fan-fiction Star Trek was very quick to break away from the moneyless society that Roddenberry built. And as Picard said to the banker/investor (I don't remember which exactly he was) people still work, but rather than working for money and material possessions they work to enrich and improve themselves and eachother.
 
amorphous_constellation

amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
Stevicus said:
Perish the thought! How could anyone want something other than capitalism?
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What else is, or was, there? It's actually all just different gradations of capitalism. That's all there ever was, throughout history. It's a requirement of the use of non-free material resources. As long as resources are finite, someone will allocate them. Now I would like to see an up-scaled quality of life for the masses, but I think that might have something more to do with a misuse of technology.
 
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amorphous_constellation

amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
PureX said:
Sometimes there are no good solutions. Sometimes things get broken beyond repair. Which is why we should try not to break them in the first place. But capitalism doesn't care who gets broken, or how many. All it cares about is maximizing profits for those who have investment capital. And it's driving all our decisions, and corrupting most of our personalities. And it's destroying a lot of human beings.

There can be no solutions until we can acknowledge the problem. And so far that's not happening. Especially not among those who are being rewarded by capitalist greed and indifference. And because capitalism is what it is, they are in control.
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Again, I understand your point of view. And if may speculate further, correct me if I'm incorrect, I think I understand what kind of Christianity you like: which is actually the most authentic kind - the doom-pilled Jesus was in fact, a brute realist about the fatality of material conditions. 'The poor will always be with you.' 'woodworms will eat your rotting earthly gold.' 'gaining the whole world profits you nothing.' My question to you, is to ask if you take all of that as literally as possible

I myself, as a follower of other philosophies, cannot fully forsake the material part of the world, since everything else is built on it. Spirituality, creativity, and motivation all require the material world. It is not doomed, for the sake of hope in heaven, it's instead the foundation of everything else.
 
Revoltingest

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Shadow Wolf said:
Not entirely as fan-fiction Star Trek was very quick to break away from the moneyless society that Roddenberry built. And as Picard said to the banker/investor (I don't remember which exactly he was) people still work, but rather than working for money and material possessions they work to enrich and improve themselves and eachother.
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Roddenberry still had money & wealth
driving private commerce, eg, Mr Mudd.
 
amorphous_constellation

amorphous_constellation

Well-Known Member
Shadow Wolf said:
Not entirely as fan-fiction Star Trek was very quick to break away from the moneyless society that Roddenberry built. And as Picard said to the banker/investor (I don't remember which exactly he was) people still work, but rather than working for money and material possessions they work to enrich and improve themselves and eachother.
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One wonders though, what the political implications would be of there being a 'replicator.' (that was the thing that made free food) One wonders if a political faction of some kind, would want to regulate it anyway, if it existed.
 
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