It’s people like you that make me look like an asshole. Every morning I wake up at 3am to squeeze orange juice, make sausage gravy, biscuits, waffles, 5 omelettes, 40 pancakes, 6lbs of bacon, hash browns, buttered toast, and right after my son comes down the stairs, puts his ball cap on, grabs a single piece of bacon, heads out the door in a rush, I chase him down with a PB&J he inevitably always forgets. But it’s not like I want to waste 40lbe of food per day. Some days I just want my son to sit down and eat the 40lbs of food I prepared. He may think I’m overbearing but I’m really overcaring.
Because the people who made money investing in the old way stop making money. That’s it. That’s the entire problem. The fossil fuels industry wants to keep making money, and the politicians who are bribed by them want to keep getting bribes. So they create a culture war so the facts don’t matter.
I’d add that especially in developed countries, we have gotten used to the high energy-density of fossil fuels, which is the result of millions of years of pressure, temperature or in short: energy. And we are using up this energy within two centuries. This resulted in the unsustainable lifestyle (it’s everywhere we look), that would have to be curbed, if we were to get off this Jurassic Park Experiment completely.
Therefore a number of people see their very (unsustainable) way of life in jeopardy. This source of resistance is what gives that culture war BS its fuel in the first place. At least in my experience of talking with people it is this negative emotional place that leads them to embrace false information in order to keep their lifestyles. Which in turn makes cooperation impossible. To make it even worse, people in developing countries now aspire to the same lifestyle - and who can blame them? But I don’t trust their (or ours for that matter) politics enough to hope for scientifically sound action to get there.
I’ve said for years that the deniers and fossil fuel barons will be looked upon by future generations as some of history’s greatest villains. They will be seen in much the same light as a Hitler or Stalin or Mao.
It’s not THAT simple. For a period of time, there is a slight reduction in quality of life as people switch to renewables. Example, in many towns there are mandatory solar requirements on new homes, which inflates the cost of construction for homeowners etc. Same with the no gas hookup requirements now in some cities where you can’ get a gas line to your house… which means higher costs to run your heat etc.
It’s one of those short term problems but it impacts people in a real way and people just don’t wanna go for that.
Man im pretty socialist who lives in ex east germany with my parents actually being parz of that time and i gotta tell you, with what i hear from them, it was horrible
Ah yes the oh so good DDR with exciting features such as
no freedom of movement
constant shortage of any goods
being a dictatorship
(contrary to your first point) a housing shortage
a culture so dictated by work that people had little to no free time
political pressure
control over the media
the fucking stasi
And what i mean by pretty socialist is: everyone gets equal opportunities no matter what race, religion, gender, political views, etc. I want that chad - who just lost all his belongings - has the same chance to live a fulfilled live as elon musk has. I abhorr the fact that there are billionaire’s or even just millionaire’s while other people have to choose between paying rent or eating, and those people not even being in the worst situation compared to others.
Think about why this might be, Friend. Really think hard about it. What large geopolitical things were happening at the time?
being a dictatorship
Yes, of the proletariat
(contrary to your first point) a housing shortage
Again, source? Also, wondering what you think happened before East Germany existed that might have contributed to this. Surely this changed over time
a culture so dictated by work that people had little to no free time
Because people working 3 jobs under capitalism have so much free time? What does this even mean?
political pressure
Again, what does this mean? All Political cultures and institutions exert pressures on their population… That’s how politics works.
control over the media
I’ll agree that the siege mentality of much of former socialism led to a lack of press freedom, which was ultimately detrimental, but again… Why might this have been?
the fucking stasi
Quick, name the West German secret police!
Let’s assume for a minute that everything you’ve said is entirely true. If we’re to be thoughtful about this. East Germany was a historically poorer, agrarian, region of Germany, much less industrialized, artificially lopped off from the west (not by the USSR, btw, who wanted a unified, nonaligned Germany, like the allies had done with Austria), it was heavily sanctioned, had been bombed to shit, much like the rest of Europe, but was made to pay the USSR reparations, that it wasn’t as capable of paying, as a unified Germany would have been. The USSR even dismantled entire east German factories and shipped them back to rebuild their own industrial base.
How do you expect any country to not come out of that with considerable problems?
And the GDR did have considerable problems. I think you and I would disagree on what those problems were, but in the broad strokes, that much we can agree on.
But I would contend that, even with that in mind, East Germany ended up being a much more positive socialist experiment in many respects then say, Romania, which suffered a much more severe centralization of power, and cult of personality issues, then East Germany did.
In fact, looking at the makeup of the East German Parliament and its mass organizations, there was a much greater degree of representation of various social cleavages then in some other Eastern Bloc states.
While you could say argue that this was only ‘on paper’, that really depends on what period of East German history you’re looking at, as the electoral system was altered a handful of times.
Regardless though, this was an expression of the fact that East Germany had a more open Political culture due to its institutions being establisehed as part of an intended nonaligned, unified, German state. And due to the fact that it had received the socializing effects of industrial capitalism that gave it things like an incredibly progressive Queer movement, that other Eastern Bloc states, which were formerly feudal backwaters, hadn’t developed.
Tl;Dr - this shit is a lot more complicated than listing off bullet points for “why East Germany was Evil”, That I was taught in the 7th grade.
Love how you counter concrete, material facts like “guaranteed housing, employment, and childcare” with fact-free scare mongering like “political pressure” and “control over the media.”
There’s never any analysis about what this shit really means. “The fucking stasi” gets thrown out there like “the boogeyman” without even a thought towards how the U.S. security state violently repressed a nationwide movement against police violence in 2020, or how right now that same security state is violently repressing people protesting the genocide we’re supplying. You’re supposed to belive the stasi is the worst thing possible without ever digging into how it functioned, and certainly without asking how it compared to other states.
im sorry but you seem to have been fed quite a few western myths about the gdr. you seem to be arguing in good faith though, so lets examine:
no freedom of movement
this is just plain wrong. tourism was possible and encouraged not only within the country, but also to fellow socialist states like czechoslovakia and hungary, as well as, albeit to a lesser extent the soviet union. such trips were enjoyed by virtually the entire population thanks to guaranteed vacation time.
constant shortage of goods
shortages were only a thing in the immediate aftermath of ww2, as well as during the 1980s. in the second case they were caused by the economic liberalization enacted at the time due to western pressure, as well as the general deterioration of conditions in the eastern block at the time, which happened for similar reasons. during the late 60s and 70s per capita consumption was more or less equal to the west.
being a dictatorship
every state is necessarily a dictatorship, as this is important for class preservation. just as liberal states will mercilessly crush revolutionary elements, so must socialist societies crush counterrevolutionary ones. please read engels on authority to understand this point better. it is a short read and very eye opening.
a housing shortage
any source on this claim? the only periods i can imagine this to be the case is in the beginning due to war era destruction and the end due to crisis.
a culture so dictated by work that people had little to no free time
this is in fact a valid point. a solution for this could have been found within the socialist system though.
political pressure
already answered previously in the point about “dictatorship”.
control over the media
“All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake “public opinion” for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.”
– v. i. lenin
the fucking stasi
the mfs was necessary due to the constant threat of counterrevolution going out from west germany. but its reach and capabilities are much overblown in western propaganda nowadays. in fact, the east spent much less on its intelligence apparatus than the frg while still managing to have a lower crime rate.
the goals you stated are extremely noble and i do in fact agree with every single one of them. you are being idealist though, which means that you absolutely need to read theory, especially lenin. a good reading list can be found here. if you would educate yourself properly you could become a great contribution to the communist movement.
thats exactly what the dictatorship of the proletariat is for! after the exploiting classes are eliminated, the state will wither away, leaving a classless society, aka communism. this takes much time though.
why are reactionaries always assuming that their opponents are children? only because you are a teenager living within the imperial core, consuming nothing but nato propaganda, you shouldnt assume that everyone else is an equivalent.
This is bullshit. I will refute most of your points as someone who has lived in Socialist Hungary before the iron curtain.
Housing was not guaranteed. You were assigned lodging based on need. If you had no children, you were staying with your parents and two siblings in the 1BR apartment. Once you got a kid, if you were a young couple, you got an apartment with an elderly in it, that you had to take care of along with your new born, until their death. After that the apartment would be yours. To overcome the shortages of housing, the government invested into building temporary housing called panel buildings. They were not meant to last for more than twenty years.
Education was discriminatory in the sense that those favoured by the party got a pass. You have long hair? Your dad had long hair? You are a Gypsy? Yeah sure, you can pass elementary grade 8, but you sure as hell won’t be allowed to go into a four-year highschool for your profession and graduation . Best you could hope for is a 2 year middle school for a manual labour job (szakmunkásképző). If at all. Often it’s off to the fields for you to work at the communal fields.
0% unemployment because if you are unemployed you go to prison. Off to the fields or else!
Sales tax (VAT) has been 25% even before 1988
The railway system the country has was all built before the second world war. It got maintained during socialism, but the best they could do was put train drivers on concession show trials and execute them when accidents happened instead of actually improving the system. To this day the max speed on these rail lines is 120kmph and many of the smaller lines are falling into disrepair and unelectrified.
Healthcare was universal, however it was not highly developed nor without discrimination. What was true for education was also true here. You better be a good party member or else. If you were lucky, you had a relative working in healthcare to skip waiting lines (I’ve benefited of this a lot)
This one was a given. Although you still had to pay for meals for your kid at the daycare. But the times were also different back then. Those responsible for child care were not necessarily professionals and hitting children if they had misbehaved was still a thing.
I don’t think this had a measurable comparison in any way. How do you draw comparisons?
Ahh yes, how nice. Went from nazi dictatorship to literal Russia planted dictatorships in both East Germany and Hungary ('56).
“Throughout Eastern Europe and the former USSR, many people grudgingly admitted that conditions were better under communism (New York Times, 3/30/95). Pro-capitalist Angela Stent, of George- town University, allows that “most people are worse off than they were under Communism . . . . The quality of life has deteriorated with the spread of crime and the disappearance of the social safety net” (New York Times, 12/20/93). An East German steelworker is quoted as saying “I do not know if there is a future for me, and I’m not too hopeful. The fact is, I lived better under Communism” (New York Times, 3/3/91). An elderly Polish woman, reduced to one Red Cross meal a day: “I´m not Red but I have to say life for poor people was better before … Now things are good for businessmen but not for us poor” (New York Times, 3/17/91). One East German woman commented that the West German womens movement was only beginning to fight for “what we already had here… We took it for granted because of the socialist system. Now we realize what we [lost]” (Los Angeles Times, 8/6/91).” Michael Parenti - “Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism”.
A new book by Kristen Ghodsee, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that women have better sex under socialism.
If that sounds strange to you, consider this: A survey of East and West Germans after reunification in 1990 found that Eastern women (the socialist side of Germany during the Cold War) had twice as many orgasms as Western women.
What in the world accounts for such a wide gap?
According to Ghodsee, it’s about social safety nets. If, she argues, you build a society that supports women and doesn’t punish them for having children or devalue their labor, it turns out they’ll be happier and have better sex.
But it doesn’t matter how many studies or surveys or policy differences you point to – some guy always has an old relative whose story outweighs everything.
What exactly are these quotes supposed to prove? This was what, a few months or a few years after reunification? Any social change that large is going to cause some turbulence. And of course Parenti has an agenda, so he wouldn’t include someone lauding their new experience.
It’s clear that Kendrick really fucking hates Drake, but…
It really rubs me the wrong way that if he had the fucking “receipts” for all of this, he sat on it all until he could make a diss track.
Like, if Drake is a pedo who is grooming young women (that was clear before this anyway), isn’t that a little bit more important than your ability to make a fuckin music track about it? Why would you sit on those receipts for so long instead of putting the motherfucker on blast when it happened? Why did you have to wait until Drake did a diss track first? It all feels so fucking petty and stupid.
We really do live in the worst fucking timeline. People would rather sit on criminal wrongdoing they know about to be able to use it to pump themselves and their record sales up, instead of actually, you know, helping fucking victims.
Kendrick didn’t come out of it looking much better than Drake, in my opinion. They are both petty, selfish fucking twats who care more about their records sales than, I don’t know, real people’s real fucking lives.
Commercial musicians caring about their sales. Why is that surprising? It is time we stop thinking of every celebrity as a good person, they are completely average for the most part. Including casual indifference to things that are not their problems.
If Kendrick was using this to pump his record sales up he’d probably be releasing a record to boost. He’s just schooling a clown that danced on Pac’s grave and as you say, it’s already public knowledge. Not every fucking diss track has to be Story of Adidon level lmao.
Beyond sitting on a crime instead of reporting it to police because he would rather put it in a song…
Using Drake’s victims and their trauma essentially as props in his songs.
Going all-in on weird racist shit where part of his critique of Drake is that Drake is… half-white. Like what. the. fuck. Bringing back the worst of the Colorist shit that I remember from the 90’s. Don’t act like this isn’t fucked up, it’s massively racist of Kendrick and feeds into fucked up racist shit in the black community between “light skins” and “dark skins.” This hurts the black community as a whole and has effectively said to any and all half-black-half-white kids out there that the black community does not accept them. I bet they love being not accepted by both whites and blacks! What the flying fuck man. Drake being half-white has fuck-all to do with whether or not he’s a good rapper, and Kendrick is old enough to god damned know better.
But yeah let’s boost some dumb racist shit because it makes us feel good about our chosen side.
It has nothing to do with him being biracial and everything to do with him being a culture vulture pos that was a Hollywood actor as a teenager and claims he rose from the bottom. It’s about his code switching and pandering to his majority white boy audience. It’s about the way he ‘only comes to Atlanta for a check’. It’s about the way he disrespected two of the artform’s greats with his AI bullshit. It’s not about him being half-white at all and everything to do with him not being a ‘colleague’ but a ‘colonizer’.
I actually know someone like this. He’s been in software engineering since the early 2000. I recently saw a post from him that he’s now a firefighter recruit.
I’ve been in tech since 2005 and I wish I had the means to bail like that. I’ve honestly considered taking a fat pay cut and going back to driving a forklift.
It’s interesting because my dad followed a similar path and I wish I had the smarts he did. He worked as an electrical engineer and was with a company contracted by NASA. He told me how he got to work on some of the stuff in the space capsules back in the 70s/80s. Then at some point he became a full-time kitchen designer and was a carpenter. I asked him once why he left such a high-paying and interesting field. He said it was because all of the people he worked with were uptight squares and he just didn’t like it.
He passed away about 17 years ago. I wish he was still around. I could use his advice as a web dev that feels collectively burnt out and in a rut.
My friend was a pretty accomplished academic. Nothing like a mad genius or anything, but pretty excellent and capable. Wasn’t down with the rat-racey pressure to publish and oversell ideas. Left it all to go live in a small farm town. Last time we talked he seemed happy but it wasn’t the easy and smooth path of academia -> farm town, it was actually academia -> enormous existential crisis -> farm town.
I think human nature is inherently greedy and selfish, and capitalism is best equipped to use this in a way that benefits society. Workers are motivated to work harder and learn new skills to find the most rewarding job they can. Businesses are motivated to create products and run as efficiently as possible. Consumers are motivated to get as much value as the can out of their money. Everyone in the equation is acting selfishly and in their own self-interest (which I believe humans are inclined to do anyway) but when applied on a societal level, everyone benefits. However I will concede that this is a balancing act that requires some level of government regulation to maintain.
On the other hand, I think communism only works when everyone acts altruistically. Which is noble, but unrealistic.
I agree. Businesses and owners have too much influence. I want more unions, trust-busting, and consumer protections. Workers seem to be organizing more at least, which is a good start.
It’s the inability to see the forest for the trees. We were raised in a capitalist economic system, as were all of our past family members. The failings of capitalism appear to be the failings of human nature. In reality, meta analysis of multiple studies on human greed show that people will be inherently more kind to each other than be cruel. Quick search will bring up many articles on these studies. Plus, exchanges in material goods within communities where money hadn’t been invented would show that people didn’t barter, they gave their goods away to their neighbors, and the good deed would be remembered and reciprocated in times of need. You can look up “Gift Economy” in Wikipedia.
I also highly recommend reading or listening to the audiobook for The Dawn of Everything A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wingrow. It is extremely interesting and eye opening.
Human nature is co-operative and altruistic, there’s evidence going back to barely recognisable AS human and it’s literally a key reason why we’re the dominant species.
@Taleya Is there any scientific material on this? I've had this discussion again and again with my family, from the far side of ultimately altruistic to vastly egoistic... and if there is (hopefully unbiased) scientific material on this, we might settle this argument.
off the top of my head there’s the ancient remains found multiple times of disabled and/or badly injured hominids who were treated (signs of healing) and lived long into adulthood despite requiring extensive care from others, the fact an extended childhood in our species means that our young are vulnerable for a far longer period than any other animal (a necessity since you can’t fit a fully formed adult brain through a human pelvis) and require cooperation with others to raise and continue the species, the fact we have developed specialised skillsets (that are shared between us rather than developing and being held isolate and then lost when the person who holds then dies).
When you have a group that works together go up against one that doesn’t, the former comes out on top. When this competition is for resources and survival, it becomes an evolutionary pressure.
If you do a quick googs you should find scores of whitepapers - but the egoistic argument falls flat on its face out of the gate because we have the word ‘sociopath’ and it’s not considered something to emulate. Neither is ‘egotistical’. We’ve literally got coded into our language that isolation, self-absorption and ‘self serving at the cost to others’ are bad concepts. Being a self absorbed shithead is documented as wrong as far back as our tales can possibly go.
Not going to downvote, but I do think you’re lacking quite a bit of insight into the reasons human society exists at all. Cooperation is the reason human society exists at all, so saying we’re inheritly selfish is kinda laughable in that context.
I would encourage you to look up information on dialectical Materialism and the necessity of capitalism as a stage in that dialectical.
Capitalism had a purpose, and it’s past time for us to move on.
Explain open source, free software, linux community, lemmy / the fediverse, and many many other things not formed around profit, largely maintained by people in their free time motivated by community over profit.
People aren’t inherently greedy. People are born into a system that rewards greed, and punishes altruism. There have been many different societies with many different political and economic systems, and capitalism is a fairly new one all things considered.
Rational self interest is irrational. If only a few can succeed, chances are you fail. If everyone only looks out for themselves, then everyone fails. Humanity’s biggest strength — what set us apart from many other animals — is our ability to work together and look out for each other.
Capitalism doesn’t work, and is destroying the Earth.
Freeloaders, like large corporations taking open source and then not giving back, is yet another symptom of a system that rewards extraction and self interest.
FOSS exists despite capitalism. The fact that people are willing to work on something out of their own passion, or sense of community, directly contradicts the fundamental assertion of capitalism.
Fuck that, I do not concede the point. At least, I don't concede that humans are /more/ selfish than we are compassionate. Our emotional wiring evolved for hundred-human tribes that required a lot more empathy and cooperation than competition.
You don't have to go so far as to disincentivize greed. Greed is socially useful in small doses. Adam Smith wasn't a total idiot. Just stop letting the people who shape society make it so only the greedheads survive.
You’re preaching to the choir. “Concede the point” is a figure of speech which means the speaker is going explore an assumption despite not believing it themselves.
My point is that the whole “capitalism is the best economic system we know about because humans are greedy” argument is sophistry. It doesn’t even make sense in the context of its own flawed premise.
Even if it was true that human nature was inherently greedy and selfish then it would be an argument for creating systems that discourage such behaviors. What you’re arguing is akin to saying that you should encourage a person struggling with alcoholism to drink more.
@Gigan@SouthEndSunset
Human nature is not inherently greedy and selfish because human beings possess an inherent capacity for empathy, cooperation, and solidarity, which when nurtured within equitable social structures, can create a collective ethos centered on mutual aid, communal ownership, and the pursuit of the common good, transcending the narrow confines of greed and selfishness perpetuated by systems of exploitation and inequality like capitalism.
Greed, selfishness and our hyper-individualism is a product of our society, not society as a product of our nature
These sentiments are something encouraged by those in power as it is advantageous for them to have the masses in want
There are underlying instincts for survival and dominance that have manifested today as greed and selfishness, but that is something an equitable society can address given the chance
To suggest otherwise is incredibly degrading humanity
@Gigan@SouthEndSunset
There is nothing bad about the collective ownership of the means of production. I can, however, think of many things that are bad about one person owning the entire means production despite not doing any work, which is what exists under capitalism.
Dialectical Materialism. Right now, they are. You either work towards communism or capitalism moves towards consolidation of capital. Those are your choices.
thats not a mix though, it was just a bandaid over capitalism, borrowed from socialistic ideas. the capital accumulating class was never extinguished, eventually leading to the same problems today all over again.
hence why we advocate for a systemic change, if you can’t accumulate capital, you can’t buy back the system again like it is rn. this is pretty much the crux of the issue here.
I mean, it’s just literally what they call themselves. Sure, they lie or don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about, but that’s kind of their whole deal.
Power dichotomy will always slander any “third option”. They’ll even say something dumb on its face like third way is “x”. There are only two solutions, “with us” or “against us”. Anything outside these choices is literally unthinkable for the power structure. The power structure cannot imagine a future where it does not exist. If you ask the unthinkable alternative, they will default to “oh you must be one of the enemy”. We know that category well. They stand for every thing we don’t stand for.
Describe what you consider the “third way” that isn’t capitalists owning the means of production, workers owning the means, or the state owning the means.
No, I asked for a third pill. I didn’t say “take my third pill”. I also hope we can escape the narrow minded concept of a society centered on the tug of war to “own the means”.
PS. “but what about GIMP, or Krita, or Inkscape, or OpenOffice, or using rsync for cloud storage, or <YOUR_FAVORITE_TOOL>?” you may ask. Trust me, I tried it all. Every last presentation, raster/vector graphics software out there. Regardless of how much I hate Adobe, their software is top tier, and until GIMP becomes the Blender of graphic design, I can’t really rely use it for most of my purposes :(
The Trust me, I tried it all. and mentioning OpenOffice in one paragraph doesn’t feel quite right. OpenOffice is obsolete. Instead there is ONLYOFFICE and LibreOffice as open source choices for Linux users, available as Flatpak, Snap and probably AppImage.
Nobody should use OpenOffice. It is just an an ancient version of LibreOffice at this point.
The name OpenOffice is much better. Many people every year probably get pulled into OpenOffice without realizing what it is. I hate that Apache is just sitting on that codes and pretending it is still active.
Some people say that OnlyOffice has the best Microsoft Office interoperability. If LibreOffice is not good enough, maybe give OnlyOffice a try.
Okay. Your Arch Linux review ends with naming your favorite options which include Proton, Microsoft and Adobe. As you don’t seem to mind using closed source software, did you have a look at WPS Office (Some Linux distributions include this), SoftMaker Office (Available for Linux and Android), Zoho Office ?
As for The GIMP (People have complained about its project name, but developers refused any changes) : From what I read Krita and Inkscape seem more promising. Krita has David Revoy as open source advocate, vocal on Mastodon : www.davidrevoy.com
I used WPS, it was worse than Libre from the usability, plus quite bloated with all sorts of stuff (luckily, I don’t have to pay for the Office, and will never actually do that willingly). Haven’t used the other two, however, will have a look, thanks!
Both GIMP and Krita are very nice and decent, just not powerful enough for many things I need photoshop for. Inkscape is actually much closer to Illustrator (not as powerful, but still), so that might be the only one with the “getting used to it” issue.
Actually, one other thing I should have mentioned, is that I also transited from using Premiere Pro to Kdenlive (and sometimes even Blender for very light video editing). Kdenlive is an amazing success story for KDE, hope that happens to Krita as well.
PS. The name GIMP sounds amazing! Love it, they should never change it )
Actually, one other thing I should have mentioned, is that I also transited from using Premiere Pro to Kdenlive (and sometimes even Blender for very light video editing). Kdenlive is an amazing success story for KDE, hope that happens to Krita as well.
game where what gender your character is is based on the difficulty level. Men are easy mode, because of male privilege. Women are medium, they start out with 25% less GP and have a debuff when traveling without a companion NPC at night. Nonbinary people are hard mode, some NPCs will perceive your character as “against the natural order” and attack them, but if they fail the “pronouns” skill check they get a disadvantage.
This meme’s older than the latest yuzu thing. I’m pretty sure I saw it on reddit, and I haven’t been there in months. Nintendo’s been like this forever.
lemmy.ml
Top