Many text parsers trim down whitespace unless it’s explicitly a code block. You see this often when people attempt to use interleaved spaces for emphasis. For example:
<span style="color:#323232;">R E D H A T
</span>
becomes “R E D H A T” in your Markdown interpreter.
I think WhatsApp supports code snippets with backticks.
Eh, feudalism too. And real-world communism. And pretty much any society that ever existed on this pale blue dot in space. There are always some in power that live in wealth, and then the rest that live in poverty and get fucked, it’s not a feature specifically of capitalism.
Yeah this is just selfishness. Capitalism is when the one kids father bought the tree decades ago and now that kid has the legal right to all of its fruits forever despite doing literally nothing.
Eh, in feudalism too, if you were the son of a noble, you’d get the estate. And in real-world communism too, if you were the child of a high ranking official, you’d get into positions of power and know influential people. Even this is not specifically tied to capitalism.
Capitalism is the fact that you can buy and sell the tree and the fruits freely. In feudalism, you couldn’t do this, not really at least, the land belonged to the noble, and you owed them your life and your work. In some cases, it was more akin to slavery than anything else. And in communism you couldn’t do this either, the land and the produce was of the state, and the powerful officials decide how to allocate them.
And I’m not even saying that capitalism is in any way good, just that “powerful people at the top” is not in any way specific to this or that economic system.
You seem to be the only one arguing about how this meme can apply to multiple ideologies. So far no one has disagreed about this meme possibly applying to feudalism, communism, or even a dictatorship.
I don’t think there’s any debate that the selfishness depicted in this meme is representative of modern day capitalism, so I don’t really understand the point you’re trying to make? It seems like you’re just trying to find anything you can to disagree with.
That’s not really accurate, if workers collectively own the Means of Production and thus can direct where the production goes, they are not simply “fucked.” Alienation from labor is minimized, because instead of a Capitalist owning all of the profits, the Workers can democratically participate in the system and collectively allocate the benefits of production.
This meme is necessarily depicting Capitalism. Even within Feudalism, Serfs still owned their own tools and as such they could produce for themselves while giving a large portion to the noble lords, unlike Capitalism where all of the goods are given to the Capitalist and a petty share of the profits are returned.
Yeah, thankfully I said real-world communism. Utopian communism would indeed be great.
In feudal society, the noble owns the serfs. The serf cannot move without the noble’s consent and is tied to the land in such a manner that, if the noble decides to sell the land, the serf on the land are sold too. They have to work the lands of the noble before their own and have to pay a tax on what they own to the noble. While they own some small tools, like pots, needles, tools for churning butter and other small farming tools, the biggest tools were often owned by the village as they were too expensive for the single farmer. Some other tools were instead illegal to own, a famous example was the grinding stone, which was illegal to own, since you HAD to go to the noble’s mill to transform your wheat into flour and then bread. This was because you then had to pay a tax to the miller and a tax to the noble in order to mill your wheat.
So, in essence, in feudalism a serf did not own their land, did not own their labor and was not even free to move. So much better, right? /s
That isn’t “real world” Communism, though. Socialist States tended to place a much higher emphasis on welfare than Capitalist states, that’s historical fact, regardless of how effective or not they are/were.
Secondly, I never said Feudalism was better. I indicated the key production distinctions between Capitalism and Feudalism, in Feudalism the serf gives the lord a flat portion of that which they create, in Capitalism the proletarian receives flat wages as a petty portion of profits. Feudalism therefore has very different mechanisms, and while horrible, is different from Capitalism.
Regardless, that has nothing to do with the comic OP posted. Are there, in real-world communist/feudal societies, people that get more on the shoulders of other people’s work? If the answer is yes, then the comic does not specifically represent a capitalist society.
Because this is what the comic represents. It does not represent the welfare system, or lack thereof. It does not show any means of production. It just shows some person getting wealth on the shoulders of another person’s work. That’s it.
Not at all what I’ve said. I just want people here to have an honest conversation rather than circlejerking each other. But circlejerking it is I guess
It wasn’t explicit! What if the amount of sorries is stored in a global state? She didn’t necessarily specify 100 more sorries. Women so confusing smh.
To me it makes me think of the intellectualization of revolutionary theory to the degree that it’s no longer revolutionary, merely a means by which academics can advance their careers. I get that impression with a lot of western Marxian/critical theory from the last few decades tbh (although that doesn’t mean the works don’t contain interesting ideas).
A quote from Marx that I like:
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.
Yet some academics remain content to idly interpret while benefitting from the spoils of imperialism and colonialism.
Oooorrr it’s just a comic by an anti-communist trying to point out a perceived hypocrisy so they don’t have to engage with the ideas lmao
Erwin and Attenborough didn’t believe either of those things.
Attenborough is a massive hypocrit who wants the poors to go plant based but refuses to, and also thinks the world is overpopulated but wont use fewer resources.
Erwin’s job was literally harassing animals for entertainment until one finally got the better of him.
I don’t know much about him, but poking around a bit shows him saying vegetarian or reduced meat consumption. He eats cheese and fish. Sounds like he’s doing exactly like what he’s recommending to others.
Attenborough is a pescatarian, and Irwin was specifically rescuing animals and transporting them to places that were more natural, and less human infested.
I haven’t heard anything about David Attenborough talking about plant based stuff so I won’t dispute it but he did help found and fund the zoology museum in my town, one that specifically tries to educate people on the dangers of climate change and making species endangered. From what I’ve seen of his filming they’re pretty conscious about not leaving any waste behind too.
“We must change our diet. The true tragedy of our time is still unfolding – the loss of biodiversity,” Sir David says in the film. “Half of fertile land on Earth is now farmland, 70 percent of birds are domestic, majority chickens. There’s little left for the world. We have completely destroyed it.
and yet
“I do eat cheese, I have to say, and I eat fish. But by and large I’ve become much more vegetarian over the past few years than I thought I would ever be.”
Sure he helps fund some decent shit. He’s rich, knighted, connected to aristocracy. He’s also a spineless twerp.
Do you drive a car? How about ride the bus? Use electricity?
Spineless twerp!!
Yeah, just because he admits to not being your idea of perfect, eating cheese and fish, doesn’t mean he isn’t trying. I see that comment about eating cheese and fish to mean he’s not eating steak every night, like others.
Yeah sure. Skipping the Camembert and buying a plant based really fermented one instead is just too hard for a multi millionaire. What an unrealistic standard! He only thinks the apocalypse is nigh.
I mean that’s like equivalent to like walking the 60 km commute you have to do. Be realistic, it’s not like you manage to be plant based on a budget that’s below median for your city or something. It’s not like you give up cheese entirely because you can’t afford the vegan replacements but recognise the cruelty of animal ag. What’s a millionaire famous guy to do?
he’s still a hipocrite… like yes it’s good that he advocates, it would be better if he followed through and used some of his staggering, mind meltingly large wealth to actually do something.
Instead he pays lip service while using an enormous amount of resources and being shitty. Is lip service better than no service? yes. Is it good enough for one of the most privileged individuals on the planet? no.
If even a billion people lived like him we’d destroy the world in a week.
Everyone is a bit of a hypocrite. Even you. It’s important to know when someone is being hypocritical but has a point and when they’re just being hypocritical. I think this is pretty clearly the former.
He’s also only a hypocrite if you believe the only possible outcomes are perfect success, and complete failure. He, by all accounts, seems to live by what he preaches. Not perfectly, but again, that only matters if the only marker for success for you is perfection, in which case no one will meet it.
He’s a multi millionaire who admits to still eating red meat despite having the funds to hire a professional chef to make delicious plant based meals every meal. He also admits to eating chickens while decrying it.
Fuck me for holding people with more power to higher standards I guess.
He’s also intensely classist and has deeply problematic views about overpopulation. Doing the very British thing of talking about too many African people while completely ignoring the massively asymmetric resource consumption that he takes part it.
I just think if you’re one of the most privileged people on the planet and you think the world is dying you ought to live a life which if the average person lived would be sustainable. Not do some token effort, far below that of your average poor person, and claim that’s all you can manage.
Any reduction in the resources used from agriculture? If he could be eating red meat daily, but instead only eats cheese and fish occasionally… That’s good, if not perfect.
Vegetarianism (or in his case pescetarianism) is not inherently reductionarian, so him saying he’s become much more vegetarian isn’t really meaningful without knowing how much of that land based meat was replaced with fish and cheese. Dairy comes from cattle or other ruminants, just like red meat. Fishing is ravaging the seas like agriculture is ravaging the land.
Erwin routinely relocated animals from areas that had high human interaction to conservation or animal refugee. He never used tranquilizes while showing the animals of left alone, were no threat.
The one that “got him” only got him because he didn’t believe in harming animals and he could have easily survived it.
Just drive fast in racing games, it is surprisingly not just safer but way more affordable than buying a sports car and paying for tires and getting speeding tickets…
It’s also convenient that you can just press the reset button when you inevitably launch your video game vehicle into a fence at high speed. A single crash in a real car is real expensive when you gotta fix the parts of the track you just wrecked too. See: nurburgring barrier repair costs + towing
You can also still experience that strange calm people love that comes from driving at your limit, where there is zero room for anything other than your presence in the moment reacting to the road, your vehicle and what is coming around the corner……
But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right. . . and that’s when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it. . . howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica. . . letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge. . . The Edge. . . There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others – the living – are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.
But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it’s In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.
The above is a quote from Hunter S. Thompson on this odd but enchanting species of calm that he gets from driving his motorcycle too fast and though I am sure it is much more intense to do in real life, the fact is if you play a good driving game you absolutely go to a similar place in your mind. You face the same mental situation of the road coming at you so fast that all you can do is exist in the moment, except instead of the edge-y boy antics of almost killing yourself or someone else from driving like an asshole (and also burning fossil fuels for no reason, though with a motorcycle that point is moot they get such good gas mileage usually) you are playing a video game where a spectacular crash is part of the fun (looking at you Flat Out, Burnout and Wreckfest :P ).
That mental state that people who love driving fast crave is the same mental state gamers who like playing competitive games pursue (you ever see someone play quake multiplayer competitively? It is the same exact flow state even when it isn’t a racing game), it’s just one hobby puts human lives at risk and the other is a fun time no matter what.
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