I read it as these two questions:
Don't know if I'm right or but that reading makes most sense to me after a couple of passes and some thinking.
[Map Men / Jay Foreman] (https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCbbQalJ4OaC0oQ0AqRaOJ9g) - fun, painstakingly produced educational videos about maps.
Yhara Zayd - Not too long media analysis. Especially of Horror and through BPoC lens.
Andrewism - discussions about Anarchism and organising from Trinidad.
Danger Mouse - I think the consistent 4th wall breaking, kidnapping narrators, and sense of humour as a whole had an effect on my from a formative age.
Monkey Dust - the cartoon that made it clear to me that cartoons weren't not at all nesseccarily safe for kids. I was too young to appreciate it at the time, it was too disturbing for tween me.
Sealab 2021 and Excel Saga both crazy animations that I found easier to digest about that time, too.
Watership Down, other folks have already mentioned.
My family monopoly games ended up with written contracts signed by both players with things such as "in return for Player B gaining ownership of Park Lane, Player A does not pay rent on purple properties, and in addition 10% of payments made to Player B for non-player A players landing on Park Lane."
Now we just play Scythe, Ticket to Ride, or the like.
I blame the gay panic of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Webadict's statement:
you have to admit that the bottom line is the chief concern here, and not the safety of the workers of consumers.
Clinicallydepressedpoochie's response:
We are far beyond seamstresses burning up in a building with no escape route. The cost of an incident has tangible costs. How will production continue if your sugar mills keep blowing up? Who will make your product if your workers keep breaking their backs? How will tribal knowledge of your process be preserved if your workers keep dying from inhaling toxic fumes? How will you meet deadlines if you're equipment keeps igniting?
As an aside: what profit do workers make when they're employees? They didn't invest in the business. They are selling their time/energy (or labour) to the company at a certain rate. You'd have to compare that rate to the value of any other potential salary, as well as minus health and stress costs, plus take into account the value of non-economic activity that could also use those resources.
I agree, but add the proviso that since under capitalism capital is power, those with the most capital will slowly find ways to use their capital to deregulate their income streams again.
Supporting friendly politicians, editorial control of the media, or even just the good old Starbucks/Wallmart practice of squashing independent competitors by leveraging economies of scale to outcompete on price - which at the end of the day, the poor customer has to pay attention to. These are all examples of how capital will find ways to get ahead.
Even if companies can't donate, the CEO or every member of the board still can.
That's the thing, merit can be defined however we want be any value system.
One could define it as any of the things you said. I can define it as bringing happiness or health as easily as boosting profit, and if I wanted to facetiously make a point I could define it as strength or even "being closely related to previous leaders".
What is deemed as merit is itself a statement of what has highest value under that system.
Under Capitalism the merit that's rewarded, in my eyes, is the ability to make money.
I personally, would rather a system that places ability to support peace and raise quality of life as the merit that is rewarded.
And it's quite valid for someone to level that same comment at you.
Only in its adverts.
What truly drives capitalism is the need to get more capital to reinvest to get more capital.
The system doesn't, can't, intrinsically care about how it is done.
It's also telling that all your "merits" are of the commodity, not humans.
Why do you think Capitalism has meritocracy as a core component?
Capitalism is a system where capital needs to be converted into more capital via economic action (reinvestment) rather than just sat upon.
Capital will always find ways to grow, if there are laws - they will be lobbied against. Or those with main market share will work together to stabilise the market and squash competition.
British English has a lot more variance than Yankspeak.
We're more likely to use "help V+ing" than "help INF". An average larger vocabulary, atop different usages. Even with US dominated media eroding our dialects faster than ever there's still a lot of difference out there.
I will need a more specific question to give more response. Are you a non-native English speaker living in the UK?