Sometimes, you just need to wipe the drawing board clean and start over. 🤷👋 🔥
this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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i'm not refuting your core premise.
but on the note of this issue, not sure i can agree.
have a look at this public infrastructure technology from 122 years ago:
Youtube/Invidious
imagine if we'd spent the last 1+¼ century collectively working towards the utopia this kind of project hinted at - instead of developing new machines to destroy?
typically they say utopian dreams scatter in the face of increased technological awareness. have to say my experience has been the opposite.
the more i learn about technology, the more i realise we could probably be very close to a near-utopia by now. for some suspicious reason we took a very different road, and here we are.
Yeah I don't know. Just see how the modern world is shaping society to the negative. Generation Instagram/TikTok all want to be influencers, there's growing mental illnesses. Fertility rapidly declining (and it isn't unfortunately all because of education). Capitalism is almost perfected abusing the dopamine system in an unhealthy way. I don't want to be a doomer. I just don't see where we are close to utopia. Which for me would be more sociali(sm) more community, less narcissism/egoism and more solarpunk. But right now we are on a different path. I'm happy to be proven wrong though...
That's why I've started trying to disconnect from social media. So far it's been harder then quitting smoking
Yep, Internet addiction is real, and so widely socially accepted...
That was essentially a big part of my point. We could be close to a utopia by now (from the perspective of technological possibilities).
Instead, as I said
That said I don't currently believe technology itself is inherently bad.
Like all tools, it depends what you do with it.
Is a general purpose tool like hammer good or bad? It has the capacity for both. And therefore it's up to the user which is which.
And that's the issue really, what are we doing with our wonderous technology?
This might be a bit of a radical take. But in that ~125 year window i was refering to, alot of machines we've invented are actually weapons.
Weapons to destroy eachother physically (conflict/threats of violence etc).
Weapons to destroy nature (deforestation and probably most mining).
Weapons to destroy the mind (social media etc, actually most media now).
What if we'd had 1+¼ century of building a collective utopia instead of all these weapons?
afaict from the technical perspective it's not really unfeasible, its the non-technical problem: the user and what they use the tools for.
Another clue for us is probably the term appropriate technology, which is a vibe i think eg. solar punk is helping to cultivate.
Anyway we've done ALOT of misuse. That's why i don't blame technology itself.
I still think it's more about what we've done with it.
Capitalism defeats itself through decline. The decline is a part of the process, join an org and build up dual power so that when it does collapse, there is a ready-made alternative. Thinking and hoping don't get you closer to Socialism.
Believe me I'm doing all parts of things towards this, but I'm being realistic, I'm just 1 of 8 billion people... And Capitalism as much as I would like it to be different seems to be a rather stable system (destabilising all sorts of other things, don't get me wrong). I expect other things to collapse first (and foremost ecological systems).
In what way? Disparity rises and Imperialism gets worse until it eats itself alive. Systems exist in motion, and Capitalism is unsustainable.
It is, but I fear it will break apart much later than we hope it is. And likely violently, as worse ecosystems also mean less base on which capitalism can grow which in the past lead to conflicts. I mean the whole stuff gets already unstable when it isn't growing (and I don't mean capitalism as whole, more like everything connected to it)
It seems to be breaking pretty quickly.
Does it really? How do you come to that conclusion?
I mean climate change is certainly faster than most of the stubborn people, not grasping how much damage has already been done (as all of this comes in delayed and with feedback effects, which are already in motion).
Capitalism isn't lasting because people are "stubborn." It legitimately cannot sustain itself economically even without climate change. As disparity rises, and wages fail to keep up with productivity, rates of profit lower and exploitation increases.
I mean we're seeing it in the USA already don't we (as one of the more capitalistic examples)? Capitalism is still pretty stable, a lot of are mentally ill (otherwise I can't explain why someone like Trump is so popular). (And physically too). Opiate crisis. Richest country, yet the poorest are living in similar conditions as those in the poorer countries in Africa. I can name more examples of society falling apart, but yet capitalism still being strong (even in the democratic party). I mean I agree with your points (which are undermined by mine), yet that doesn't mean that capitalism is falling apart - and that means IMO that a major part of the people agree (and especially those with power, be it financial/political or military), that the system is is inherently flawed, and needs to be changed. But exactly that is something I'm not seeing anytime soon.
Then you need to read theory, this is an ableist and immaterial answer. Fascism is an attempt to set the clock back, so to speak, and takes the form of an alliance between the bourgeoisie and petite bourgeoisie along xenophobic and nationalist lines. It is a reactionary response to Capitalism's decay.
If you understand that the rate of profit trends towards zero, why would you think Capitalism is stable?
Interesting theory, need to think about that. Though I don't think Fascism and Capitalism are necessarily exclusive. (As example China, which is I'd say fascist and against the usual theory of "communism" quite state-capitalistic)
Because the trend is clearly not to zero currently, there's a lot of rich people (and the number is growing), profit is still growing, it's just that the gap between poor and rich is also growing. But Capitalism doesn't care about a lot of poor people. How that will be long-term is another story (as said ecosystems are the limiting factor).
China is not fascist. Read Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco. America fits the commonly accepted fascist points far better than China currently does. China is certainly more liberal than it was under Mao, but it's not fascist.
The tendency for the Rate of Profit is falling, and will do so even when rich people grow and gross profits rise. Capitalism does care about poor people, wages are tied to subsistence + replacement (child raising), but it will pay no more until Capitalism is abolished. It is, in fact, this vector that drives decay and decline, wages cannot increase beyond it except in low supply labor fields. You may want to read Wage Labor and Capital