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Discuss..
(lemmy.world)
"When goods increase, they increase [the number] who eat them..."
The decline in unions and collective bargaining has been a big part of this is my opinion. The anti-union propaganda was so effective that a couple generations killed it off before the younger ones could see it in action.
The disappearance of the USSR made it so that capitalism doesn't have to pretend the grass is greener on this side. It never was, but now there's not when pretending.
It definitely, definitely was.
And globalization meant that companies could just threaten to move the jobs overseas if the remaining unions didn't accept the bad conditions. Then they moved them overseas anyway
Maggie Thatcher fucked the kids
And her BFF Ronald "The Devil" Reagan.
Soviet leadership in the late 70s and 80s played a role, too, at least to the unions who are the most influential where i am
Hey now, what's a bigger reduction in labor hours than unemployment?
Your employer doesn't want you unemployed. They need to keep unemployment just bad enough so you would be afraid to lose your job, taking on more responsibilities for less money.
Ultimately the machine wants to preserve itself and strengthen. It does this by any means. Democracies stabilize the machine in that they prevents people from becoming bothersome. All people can voice their opinions, but ultimately everybody has to be in favour of the machine in fern to be taken seriously. If the people abandon the democracy, the machine will become less stable, and have to use more coercive means to maintain itself.
Strength is all under the machine.
This is what comes to mind to me every time "the demographic problem" of aging population comes up.
Lowering the number of humans in a natural way is a good thing and economy should evolve into supporting that, not the other way around.
But we depend on a system that relies on constant grow instead so a bunch of people can rape kids without repercussion...
Lowering the number of humans in a natural way is a good thing
I don't think that's strictly true, as emissions per capita have little correlation with raw population size.
Also, when the Eugenics Axe falls, it inevitably falls on the weakest and most vulnerable. Shrinking the population will reduce the number of homeless folks, not the number of super yacht owners.
we depend on a system that relies on constant grow
We target growth of GDP, limits on inflation, and a low single digit unemployment rate. All of that can be achieved regardless of gross population size.
Consequently, we've built an economy that focuses on gaming these three numbers without regard to life expectancy, mortality rate, education rate, per capita hours worked, or real economic value produced.
We're just as happy to AI generate movie hours as grow corn or build homes. We're just as happy to bomb a hospital as build an MRI machine.
That's the rub in our economic calculus. If we were just trying to maximize the growth rate of - say - watts of power to each household? Or vacation days allocated to each worker? Or healthy life years? We have a large frontier in front of us to grow into.
But we're not doing any of that.
I don't know what you mean by eugenics axe, but I was not talking about any kind of intervention, rather the opposite, let just not panic over ageing and just try to find a way for the economy to adapt to it.
you can say what you want, but humanity has multiplied and the planet resources are limited. So the current plan of keep multiplying doesn't seem reasonable. For as much effort anyone does to not pollute, having kids is by far the biggest pollution source.
Also is not like being many humans is lowering the power gap, rich people just have more people to abuse.
To finish my point, I'm European, and unlike America, here the mid/high class are not ultra Catholic having tenths of kids, so my perspective could be a bit different than yours. There is not a clear correlation between wealth and kids, if anything inverse.
I was not talking about any kind of intervention
No. But then you're not the one setting these policies, just kinda observing their consequences from a limited vantage point.
let just not panic over ageing
This isn't a panic over aging so much as a malaise over having kids. Exorbitant rents, depressed wages, and suffocating inflation - particularly in health care and education - make children cost prohibitive.
Consequently, policy makers (largely past the baby making age) are resorting to increasingly draconian methods decide who gets to procreate and to what degree.
"White Replacement Theory" dominating public political discussions can only end in widespread social murder.
humanity has multiplied and the planet resources are limited
The resources aren't being used equitably. Ergo, "humanity" isn't to blame in the aggregate.
I’m European, and unlike America, here the mid/high class are not ultra Catholic having tenths of kids
Bro, I'm an American Catholic with exactly one sibling.
Deranged beliefs like this are exactly what end in genocide.
dude you're tripping. And again, in American context might make sense, but I'm telling you, American social reality is not the only one. And American society, you Catholic specially, are the most preachy and "get involved in people's life" of them all. In most European countries we don't give a fuck about what our neighbours are doing, unlike you guys that keep exporting your morals to anyone around you and their dog, so don't you give me lessons about interventionism.
But let's be real, talking with Americans, specially Catholic, is useless... you guys chose trump... TWICE!
talking with Americans, specially Catholic, is useless
Well, there it is folks.
Anyone want to guess this guy's opinion on Muslims?
I was not talking about any kind of intervention
No. But then you're not the one setting these policies, just kinda observing their consequences from a limited vantage point.
let just not panic over ageing
This isn't a panic over aging so much as a malaise over having kids. Exorbitant rents, depressed wages, and suffocating inflation - particularly in health care and education - make children cost prohibitive.
Consequently, policy makers (largely past the baby making age) are resorting to increasingly draconian methods decide who gets to procreate and to what degree.
"White Replacement Theory" dominating public political discussions can only end in widespread social murder.
humanity has multiplied and the planet resources are limited
The resources aren't being used equitably. Ergo, "humanity" isn't to blame in the aggregate.
I’m European, and unlike America, here the mid/high class are not ultra Catholic having tenths of kids
Bro, I'm an American Catholic with exactly one sibling.
Gotta keep the people off of the streets.
It's actually the opposite. The more we can automate and the more we produce with the same time and effort input, the less we earn and the more we have to work. Which has been happening for a long time, and is why anyone thinking that AI would help anyone other than billionaires is a dummy.
seize the means of production and we all good yeah? yeah?
i mean that's what marx and lenin said did or something so must be true. right? right?
I mean, yes? In the USSR there was a total inflation of 0% between 1950 and 1985, and in that time salaries grew at a steady rate about 200%, thereby tripling purchase power, as working hours got progressively reduced.
That's a pretty surface level take, but I'll bite.
What are you proposing instead?
Well, I have them tagged as a Zionist, so I think we can take a few guesses as to what they'd want to do...
We should be able to share tags with other like-minded people. That way we all know who we're dealing with.
Ah, say no more fam
This is silly, off the top of my head:
Electric lighting, Air conditioning, refrigeration, vacuums, washers/dryers, modern toilets + sewage systems, grocery stores, GPS guided + Air-conditioned combine harvesters.
This very moment I have my Instapot cooking, the dishwasher washing, the washer washing, the dryer drying, as I lie in bed (which I bought instead of made) cooled by a fan. I just took a drink from a water bottle I didnt have to whittle by hand. Life is, in this beautiful instant, pretty good.
Literally all those things you mentioned are 50+ year old technology, yes, even GPS. Amazing that you can't come up with a single thing made in the past 50 years that improved our lives, literally proving the post of the point.
Great, I’ll let the people in the line outside the food bank know that things are actually pretty sweet right now.
While you're doing that, ask them if the food bank line is preferable to literal famine because the crop their family spent 14 houes a day to dig by hand failed.
Historically nothing changes until the pedophile class and corrupt politicians live in fear.
Plenty of things change if they don't live in fear.
For instance, a lot more little kids get buggered
Here's a weird trick I've learned: I just care a lot less than I used to and only do the bare minimum a lot of the time. If you're good at what you do, you can slack off quite a bit without drawing any attention to yourself most of the time. Obv only applicable in certain job roles / conditions, so I plan to stay at this job forever.
Slacking off doesn't cut it for me anymore. I've been doing it for years and I still long for freedom where I'm not paid to sit on a chair all day long.
I want to work.... on things that makes sense for me or others that I care more about than the company profit.
Paid work is preventing me from doing that. If the pay was higher I could afford to take more time off to work on my own interests.
Shhh, don't give away the secret
Are you an air traffic controller? Lol
In recent times, for sure. But that's because the capitalist class have done a very good job of making people afraid to rock the boat like their ancestors did...
After all when you're one bad paycheck from starvation, or you're working two jobs just to make ends meet, your first priority is surviving.
And for those who aren't, there's a practically militarised police force to keep you down should you ever step out of line.
It's almost like the lack of unions is causing workers to have worse conditions.
Or increased pay.
It's pathetic that there hasn't been a raise in the minimum wage in like 50 years. The epstein class is completely opposed. Forget about 4 day work week. Never even mentioned. Politicians would rather serve capital than win.
I don't know. Some people I know are spending a lot of time on gaming and social media instead of doing shit in the real world. I don't know if more free time would translate in anything else than more time on addictive behaviors.
It's a complicated subject, there are a lot of issues with the current state of technology that can be blamed on capitalism but we also need to start blaming our consuming habits at some point if we at least want to promote the use of products that serves us the way we want to be served.
don't know if more free time would translate in anything else than more time on addictive behaviors.
It translates to comfort and quality of life
I mean, yeah? If you're going to be producing more in the same amount of time with no benefits and functionally a decrease in pay compensation... you're gonna start taking time for yourself. Your company won't, so why shouldn't you?
For every person who are on social media and gaming, there are just as many who have outdoor hobbies.
Gaming and social media as a hobby is fine just like having a few drinks is fine.
Just to put credit back in here, without bringing more clicks to Twitter:
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this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
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