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We have gotten to the point where the simple (and arguably essential) task of individuals learning about what the economy is producing is degenerating into a so

We have gotten to the point where the simple (and arguably essential) task of individuals learning about what the economy is producing is degenerating into a societal gangrene. No, this is not all the handywork of Zuck and the "don't be evil" company. All the conditions for their "success" have been engineered in the previous decades of the adoption and scaling of TV tech: The captive population of couch potato, oversized "consumers", the behind the scene rat races of "brands", the ever so inventive and smart adtech people (you always need talented and willing accomplishers to dehumanize a situation). It goes deeper: why is forced consumption such an existential need that must be serviced at all costs? Because without the promise of a consumerist bliss always around the corner all the internal frictions, deep dissatisfaction and social fracture lines come to the fore... One can only hope that digital information systems will at some point switch from being part of the problem to being part of the solution...

aerique 5y ago
"Economic growth is not the solution: it is the problem." -- one single political party in the Netherlands that does not get enough votes
- aloisdg 5y ago
  Which one?
  - tgv 5y ago
    Partij voor de Dieren. It's a simplistic slogan, probably not meant to be taken too seriously.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      Why would you say that? It sounds like classical ecologist rhetoric. Stop producing shit, stop trying to measure what cannot be measure. Just make sure everyone is housed and fed and suddenly things are better. Sounds like a better and more serious political program to me than any other political party i've heard lately. But hey i'm an anarchist so "fuck capitalism" has always been my program, it's just not what we hear from political parties usually ;) See anti-productivism, anti-extractivism, anti-capitalism... Or as some writer once said, approximately, "Progress is the myth that says full ahead is always the right direction, ecology is the discipline that teaches us it's a complete disaster"
      - tgv 5y ago
        > stop trying to measure what cannot be measure That'll work out just fine, I'm sure. > Just make sure everyone is housed and fed and suddenly things are better. Literally 99.8% of the population is housed and fed. But saying economic growth (however you define it) is the problem, means that economic shrinkage is a solution. I'm not so sure about that. I'm also 100% convinced the problem isn't economic growth, but pollution and other ways of exploiting nature that form part of the problem. But saying that lacks that edge.
        southerntofu 5y ago
        >> stop trying to measure what cannot be measure > That'll work out just fine, I'm sure. ? > Literally 99.8% of the population is housed and fed. You obviously live in a bubble. In USA or France, there's millions of people living below the poverty line despite residing in the richest nations on Earth (that are so rich because they are pillaging every other nation there is through neocolonial schemes). There's countless homeless folks and even more mishoused folks and persons forced to live in bad conditions despite there being millions of empty apartments... > economic shrinkage is a solution Economic shrinkage is the only solution is you want the next generation to have drinkable water. All scientists agree we can't go on like that, it's not exactly rocket science. > the problem isn't economic growth, but pollution and other ways of exploiting nature It's entirely correlated. There is no economic growth without extractivism. Hence the degrowth movement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth
        tgv 5y ago
        > You obviously live in a bubble. Partij voor de Dieren is a Dutch party. That's the 'bubble' I live in. > There's countless homeless folks In France, there are 140,000 homeless people. Also 0.2% of the population. > extractivism Your condescension is very visible behind your neologisms. > Hence the degrowth movement Saying "consumerism" is bad for the environment is rather a different statement from "economic growth is the problem". > > stop trying to measure what cannot be measure > That'll work out just fine, I'm sure. > ? Well, for starters, you can't measure happiness, well-being of humans, animals or plants, air quality, etc. And when there are countless homeless folks, you can't even measure that. IMO, some approximate measure of your goals, with a sensible flexibility and understanding of its biases, is good enough to steer away from the worst consequences of your policy. But go ahead, base your policies on gut feelings. We all know where that ends.
- streamofdigits 5y ago
  its the defining issue of our times and there is some of nuance: First, there is room (imho) for conventional growth in many parts of the world. Its insane that people go starving, without shelter or water while others throw away truckloads of food - because of "xyz". Then there is the branch of "personal growth" that is decoupled from material consumption. Getting every functioning brain to fully develop its faculties through education quickly translates into economic growth. I suspect that if we address these two opportunities the "materialist growth imperative" will cease being relevant
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    The fact that there's starving folks and throwaway-food, and more empty apartments than homeless persons, is an argument against growth... at least on a global level. In a system based on private property, where a piece of paper determines ownership and speculation determines production (instead of actual needs), production is necessarily harmful. Anti-productivism is not about not producing anything at all, but rather admitting we can take other angles to the problem before extracting as many resources as we can and polluting as many water streams as we can just to produce more bullshit that's gonna end up in the trash soon. That there's people starving is arguably not a bug of the capitalist system, but rather a feature. If you desire another outcome, expropriate the owners, dismantle the police and organize into autonomous communes.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > organize into autonomous communes Humans once operated like this. We were violent, suspicious of one another and traded from time to time. Most people died violent deaths or starved. (Absent any police force, I can take command of my commune on the promise of improving its wellbeing by taking your’s stuff.) Also, I can’t autonomously grow good avocados in New York.
      - southerntofu 5y ago
        > We were violent, suspicious What's your source? Some people argue the exact opposite. Personally, i don't believe in human nature but i believe in the power of cultures to shape our lives, so the two situations are entirely possible in my view. > Absent any police force, I can take command of my commune That's not how it works. It's precisely when there is already power and privilege that a police force is established, to protect those, not the people. When there is less authority/privilege in a community, there is no police force: the people arm and defend themselves directly (popular self-defense). > I can’t autonomously grow good avocados in New York Is it a bad thing? I'm not entirely against some goods crossing some distances for some reasons, but of course you couldn't eat avocados in NY everyday. What good does eating avocados bring to yourself and your community, compared to the social/environmental damages caused by huge monoculture of avocado and transport of it over long distances using fossil fuels?
- pas 5y ago
  That makes no sense. Every time an economic activity happens that helps people growth happens. The simple fact that when someone gets a bicycle, car, washing machine, electricity, plumbing, a phone, or whatever they value and if it helps them take better care of their family (or even themselves), that counts as growth. The problem is unsustainable growth, ecological destruction, etc. Of course effective measures (carbon tax, emissions regulations, consumer protection/advocacy, right to repair, open patents) are needed to ward off mindless "VC funded" enterprising/consumerism/gadgetism and waste.
  - tremon 5y ago
    "When a measure becomes a goal, it seizes to be a good measure." But as you say, the problem isn't economic growth in itself, but the fact that our entire (debt-based) economy is predicated on eternal growth. Eventually, every population reaches a steady-state equilibrium with its environment (even an artificial environment such as "the economy"). The hyper-focus on economic growth and our dependence on it causes all kinds of sustainability problems, whether it's ecosystem diversity, climate change, or any similar long-term problems. As long as we don't have a sustainable economic system, the other problems can't be solved.
    - XorNot 5y ago
      Again, this is not what economic growth is. Any efficiency improvement, any self-improvement, anything, is economic growth. If you don't have economic growth, then tomorrow cannot be better then today. But that is a very different question to "should we cut down more rainforest?" You've got the cause and effect backwards, and it's exactly what lobbyists for the problem areas want: arguing against economic growth is pretty trivially a bad idea, but they want you speaking in the abstract because it does useful things like not have you saying "the burning of fossil fuels is unsustainable" and "we need to tarrif unsustainably sourced palm oil" because then you're dangerously (to them) close to actually lobbying for an effective solution.
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        But people wouldn't be cutting down the rainforest if they weren't rewarded for it. If we patch each problem as it comes along, we're spending a lot of political will on the problem.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  The issue might be that growth used to be a pretty good proxy for wellbeing, but once the measure was established it became the target. Some dude's law, escapes my mind.
  - streamofdigits 5y ago
    Goodhart's law
- woliveirajr 5y ago
  If you stop buying bottled water and use tap water, economy is shrinking. Reduce tap water and get some from your backyard and it shrinks again. Healthier <> economy growth
  - XorNot 5y ago
    Question: what happens to all the money you don't spend on bottled water? The economy does not shrink because you make a process more efficient.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      If you don't need anything else, it does.
      - XorNot 5y ago
        Then how do you have all that money? And where are you keeping it? (1) Earning that money is still growing the economy, and (2) even a zero-interest bank account is growing the economy (you're just not seeing any remuneration for your part in that) - and (3) even if you took the money home and destroyed it, since you're still working, you're providing a very useful deflationary function since it means someone else can print more money safely (and once again you're helping grow the economy, just yielding your output to a third party).
        InvertedRhodium 5y ago
        What if I just take it home and keep it?
        XorNot 5y ago
        It's identical to if you destroyed it. It just adds some risk that you might suddenly mobilize it (hence one of the reasons it's actually illegal for individuals to store large amounts of physical cash for long durations). Also irrelevant anyway from point 1: you're still working to make money, thus you're growing the economy.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  Part of what problem exactly? Do you think modern society would even exist without economic growth being the main driving factor? The idea that people would just sit around creating things for altruistic reasons is a utopian pipe dream. Constantly seeking material growth isn't perfect but it provides more positive aspects than negative ones.
  - luffapi 5y ago
    One of the problems is ecological destruction which has increased with economic growth. I would argue that because growth is so unevenly captured by those at the top, a very high gini coefficient is another problem.
    - CountDrewku 5y ago
      We've reversed a lot of that destruction in the past century. You're benefiting daily from that growth and your modern lifestyle (in 1st world countries) is far above what people enjoyed even half a century ago. Unfortunately destruction is a necessary evil. There's no way to improve society while simultaneously avoiding any ecological change. Unless you're suggesting we all go back to some sort of nomadic lifestyle?
      - developer93 5y ago
        Not absolutely, but it can be a hell of a lot better than it is. We don't, for example need to have such a lot of disposable packaging, we don't need to farm the way we do etc
        CountDrewku 5y ago
        >We don't, for example need to have such a lot of disposable packaging, we don't need to farm the way we do etc Ok, innovate a way to ship items across the world while keeping them from spoiling, getting damaged and make it so they're received in a timely manner. I'd also like to see how you can feed an entire planet with 1st world standards and not farm the way we do. Just a hunch but my guess is you'll be no where near as efficient or viable as you think you would. I'm gonna place my trust in experts and not arm-chair internet activists. The only reason you're even able to sit around and consider things like this IS because we've innovated to the point that your base needs are met without you having to lift a finger. So, yes we should always strive to be better but you also need to take a few moments and realize the sort of advancements it took to put you in a position to consider issues like packaging/factory farming instead of where you're going to get your next meal or drink of water.
- Siira 5y ago
  Easy to say for rich people in rich countries.
lordnacho 5y ago
Problem is there's a finer line between persuasion and coercion than people appreciate. Use guys with guns to sell white powder and you're a bad guy. Place chocolate at kid height at checkout and you're a business guru.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  Such ethical standards can only be altered on a big scale through relentless struggles. Abolish competition and advertisement, and suddenly a lot of things will start to be ok in society. Yes a lot of people will loose their useless job, but that won't be a requirement to have a place to live anymore, and both individuals and society will be better off.
  - mycologos 5y ago
    What does it mean to "abolish competition and advertisement"? If I come up with a new idea, I can't tell anybody about it?
    - tssva 5y ago
      You won't have a need to because your new idea won't be allowed anyways because it will compete with an old idea.
      - southerntofu 5y ago
        That's not how ideas work, except in a capitalist system. New ideas about how to better run the world are not allowed because they compete with private interest of the ruling class. The same is true in pretend-communist States like the USSR, which are just State-capitalist systems, not actual communism (where communism is according to Marx abolition of class, property and privilege... none of which were abolished in Leninist States).
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      Competition doesn't mean "having ideas" or going separate ways. "Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared" (wikipedia). For example, competition is when you keep millions of empty apartments to make sure everybody struggles and will pay more and do whatever you say to find a place to live. Competition is also when you teach children in schools that they should not copy because it's cheating. Advertisement is also not "telling anybody". It's paying other people to tell in your place about stuff they wouldn't want to talk about otherwise.
ryan-allen 5y ago
It's been in motion for quite a while, according to Adam Curtis [0] at least. [0] https://thoughtmaybe.com/the-century-of-the-self/ https://thoughtmaybe.com/the-century-of-the-self/
ashtonkem 5y ago
It’s more than that. Without the promise of ever rising profits, the capitalist class will panic and do god knows what. Their need for not just profits, but increasing profits is insatiable. Trying to force products on consumers for manufactured reasons is probably not even the worst crime done in the name of profits.
idownvoted 5y ago
> why is forced consumption such an existential need that must be serviced at all costs I think this is just half the picture. Most mindless consumption doesn't happen all the time by all people. And most mindlessly consumed products still have some people who get a true benefit out of it. > the scene rat races To be more precise: The rat-race is on for those moments during a day when people are mindless. And with Zuck and the "don't be evil" company trimming down our attention-span I postulate that they are to blame, because they make us more mindless.
tomjen3 5y ago
You make this sound like a boring dystopia, but everything you say about our society is also the case for 1955, only more so. They didn't have adblockers or sponsor block. They didn't have audiobooks (probably available from your local library to) or anything but radio when driving. They had significantly fewer choices and had to endure radio with ads playing whatever they were told to play. Meanwhile the population today is the least bound to the couch it has been in half a century (modulo a pandemic). And, shocking to some, most people are not an empty shell inside, although they have desires and things they want. Don't complain about ads the next time you stand in line and whip out Instagram rather than an ebook.
- luffapi 5y ago
  > You make this sound like a boring dystopia > Don't complain about ads the next time you stand in line and whip out Instagram rather than an ebook. I can think of nothing more boring or dystopian than Instagram. > And, shocking to some, most people are not an empty shell inside, although they have desires and things they want. Happiness levels in the US are at an all time low: https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2019/the-sad-state-of-happiness-in-the-united-states-and-the-role-of-digital-media/ https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2019/the-sad-state-of-happi...
mschuster91 5y ago
> Because without the promise of a consumerist bliss always around the corner all the internal frictions, deep dissatisfaction and social fracture lines come to the fore... Panem et circenses. Even the old Romans were already masters at keeping a populace from rioting and a society from collapse. We're just lucky that most developed countries have eradicated executions. But to make up for the lack of public spectacle that a hanging or quartering was, we have taken up mass sports events (soccer, baseball, basketball, cricket) and blatant consumerism instead...
polishdude20 5y ago
I think it's because if we as a society decided what we all have now is enough, we would have a few good short years until everyone realizes we aren't producing more things and we aren't improving things and we've been left behind economically. In this system, you can't afford to stop and smell the roses because next year, someone else will come and bulldoze the field the roses were planted in.

aerique 5y ago

"Economic growth is not the solution: it is the problem." -- one single political party in the Netherlands that does not get enough votes

aloisdg 5y ago
Which one?
- tgv 5y ago
  Partij voor de Dieren. It's a simplistic slogan, probably not meant to be taken too seriously.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Why would you say that? It sounds like classical ecologist rhetoric. Stop producing shit, stop trying to measure what cannot be measure. Just make sure everyone is housed and fed and suddenly things are better. Sounds like a better and more serious political program to me than any other political party i've heard lately. But hey i'm an anarchist so "fuck capitalism" has always been my program, it's just not what we hear from political parties usually ;) See anti-productivism, anti-extractivism, anti-capitalism... Or as some writer once said, approximately, "Progress is the myth that says full ahead is always the right direction, ecology is the discipline that teaches us it's a complete disaster"
    - tgv 5y ago
      > stop trying to measure what cannot be measure That'll work out just fine, I'm sure. > Just make sure everyone is housed and fed and suddenly things are better. Literally 99.8% of the population is housed and fed. But saying economic growth (however you define it) is the problem, means that economic shrinkage is a solution. I'm not so sure about that. I'm also 100% convinced the problem isn't economic growth, but pollution and other ways of exploiting nature that form part of the problem. But saying that lacks that edge.
      - southerntofu 5y ago
        >> stop trying to measure what cannot be measure > That'll work out just fine, I'm sure. ? > Literally 99.8% of the population is housed and fed. You obviously live in a bubble. In USA or France, there's millions of people living below the poverty line despite residing in the richest nations on Earth (that are so rich because they are pillaging every other nation there is through neocolonial schemes). There's countless homeless folks and even more mishoused folks and persons forced to live in bad conditions despite there being millions of empty apartments... > economic shrinkage is a solution Economic shrinkage is the only solution is you want the next generation to have drinkable water. All scientists agree we can't go on like that, it's not exactly rocket science. > the problem isn't economic growth, but pollution and other ways of exploiting nature It's entirely correlated. There is no economic growth without extractivism. Hence the degrowth movement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth
        tgv 5y ago
        > You obviously live in a bubble. Partij voor de Dieren is a Dutch party. That's the 'bubble' I live in. > There's countless homeless folks In France, there are 140,000 homeless people. Also 0.2% of the population. > extractivism Your condescension is very visible behind your neologisms. > Hence the degrowth movement Saying "consumerism" is bad for the environment is rather a different statement from "economic growth is the problem". > > stop trying to measure what cannot be measure > That'll work out just fine, I'm sure. > ? Well, for starters, you can't measure happiness, well-being of humans, animals or plants, air quality, etc. And when there are countless homeless folks, you can't even measure that. IMO, some approximate measure of your goals, with a sensible flexibility and understanding of its biases, is good enough to steer away from the worst consequences of your policy. But go ahead, base your policies on gut feelings. We all know where that ends.
streamofdigits 5y ago
its the defining issue of our times and there is some of nuance: First, there is room (imho) for conventional growth in many parts of the world. Its insane that people go starving, without shelter or water while others throw away truckloads of food - because of "xyz". Then there is the branch of "personal growth" that is decoupled from material consumption. Getting every functioning brain to fully develop its faculties through education quickly translates into economic growth. I suspect that if we address these two opportunities the "materialist growth imperative" will cease being relevant
- southerntofu 5y ago
  The fact that there's starving folks and throwaway-food, and more empty apartments than homeless persons, is an argument against growth... at least on a global level. In a system based on private property, where a piece of paper determines ownership and speculation determines production (instead of actual needs), production is necessarily harmful. Anti-productivism is not about not producing anything at all, but rather admitting we can take other angles to the problem before extracting as many resources as we can and polluting as many water streams as we can just to produce more bullshit that's gonna end up in the trash soon. That there's people starving is arguably not a bug of the capitalist system, but rather a feature. If you desire another outcome, expropriate the owners, dismantle the police and organize into autonomous communes.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > organize into autonomous communes Humans once operated like this. We were violent, suspicious of one another and traded from time to time. Most people died violent deaths or starved. (Absent any police force, I can take command of my commune on the promise of improving its wellbeing by taking your’s stuff.) Also, I can’t autonomously grow good avocados in New York.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      > We were violent, suspicious What's your source? Some people argue the exact opposite. Personally, i don't believe in human nature but i believe in the power of cultures to shape our lives, so the two situations are entirely possible in my view. > Absent any police force, I can take command of my commune That's not how it works. It's precisely when there is already power and privilege that a police force is established, to protect those, not the people. When there is less authority/privilege in a community, there is no police force: the people arm and defend themselves directly (popular self-defense). > I can’t autonomously grow good avocados in New York Is it a bad thing? I'm not entirely against some goods crossing some distances for some reasons, but of course you couldn't eat avocados in NY everyday. What good does eating avocados bring to yourself and your community, compared to the social/environmental damages caused by huge monoculture of avocado and transport of it over long distances using fossil fuels?
pas 5y ago
That makes no sense. Every time an economic activity happens that helps people growth happens. The simple fact that when someone gets a bicycle, car, washing machine, electricity, plumbing, a phone, or whatever they value and if it helps them take better care of their family (or even themselves), that counts as growth. The problem is unsustainable growth, ecological destruction, etc. Of course effective measures (carbon tax, emissions regulations, consumer protection/advocacy, right to repair, open patents) are needed to ward off mindless "VC funded" enterprising/consumerism/gadgetism and waste.
- tremon 5y ago
  "When a measure becomes a goal, it seizes to be a good measure." But as you say, the problem isn't economic growth in itself, but the fact that our entire (debt-based) economy is predicated on eternal growth. Eventually, every population reaches a steady-state equilibrium with its environment (even an artificial environment such as "the economy"). The hyper-focus on economic growth and our dependence on it causes all kinds of sustainability problems, whether it's ecosystem diversity, climate change, or any similar long-term problems. As long as we don't have a sustainable economic system, the other problems can't be solved.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    Again, this is not what economic growth is. Any efficiency improvement, any self-improvement, anything, is economic growth. If you don't have economic growth, then tomorrow cannot be better then today. But that is a very different question to "should we cut down more rainforest?" You've got the cause and effect backwards, and it's exactly what lobbyists for the problem areas want: arguing against economic growth is pretty trivially a bad idea, but they want you speaking in the abstract because it does useful things like not have you saying "the burning of fossil fuels is unsustainable" and "we need to tarrif unsustainably sourced palm oil" because then you're dangerously (to them) close to actually lobbying for an effective solution.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      But people wouldn't be cutting down the rainforest if they weren't rewarded for it. If we patch each problem as it comes along, we're spending a lot of political will on the problem.
lordnacho 5y ago
The issue might be that growth used to be a pretty good proxy for wellbeing, but once the measure was established it became the target. Some dude's law, escapes my mind.
- streamofdigits 5y ago
  Goodhart's law
woliveirajr 5y ago
If you stop buying bottled water and use tap water, economy is shrinking. Reduce tap water and get some from your backyard and it shrinks again. Healthier <> economy growth
- XorNot 5y ago
  Question: what happens to all the money you don't spend on bottled water? The economy does not shrink because you make a process more efficient.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    If you don't need anything else, it does.
    - XorNot 5y ago
      Then how do you have all that money? And where are you keeping it? (1) Earning that money is still growing the economy, and (2) even a zero-interest bank account is growing the economy (you're just not seeing any remuneration for your part in that) - and (3) even if you took the money home and destroyed it, since you're still working, you're providing a very useful deflationary function since it means someone else can print more money safely (and once again you're helping grow the economy, just yielding your output to a third party).
      - InvertedRhodium 5y ago
        What if I just take it home and keep it?
        XorNot 5y ago
        It's identical to if you destroyed it. It just adds some risk that you might suddenly mobilize it (hence one of the reasons it's actually illegal for individuals to store large amounts of physical cash for long durations). Also irrelevant anyway from point 1: you're still working to make money, thus you're growing the economy.
CountDrewku 5y ago
Part of what problem exactly? Do you think modern society would even exist without economic growth being the main driving factor? The idea that people would just sit around creating things for altruistic reasons is a utopian pipe dream. Constantly seeking material growth isn't perfect but it provides more positive aspects than negative ones.
- luffapi 5y ago
  One of the problems is ecological destruction which has increased with economic growth. I would argue that because growth is so unevenly captured by those at the top, a very high gini coefficient is another problem.
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    We've reversed a lot of that destruction in the past century. You're benefiting daily from that growth and your modern lifestyle (in 1st world countries) is far above what people enjoyed even half a century ago. Unfortunately destruction is a necessary evil. There's no way to improve society while simultaneously avoiding any ecological change. Unless you're suggesting we all go back to some sort of nomadic lifestyle?
    - developer93 5y ago
      Not absolutely, but it can be a hell of a lot better than it is. We don't, for example need to have such a lot of disposable packaging, we don't need to farm the way we do etc
      - CountDrewku 5y ago
        >We don't, for example need to have such a lot of disposable packaging, we don't need to farm the way we do etc Ok, innovate a way to ship items across the world while keeping them from spoiling, getting damaged and make it so they're received in a timely manner. I'd also like to see how you can feed an entire planet with 1st world standards and not farm the way we do. Just a hunch but my guess is you'll be no where near as efficient or viable as you think you would. I'm gonna place my trust in experts and not arm-chair internet activists. The only reason you're even able to sit around and consider things like this IS because we've innovated to the point that your base needs are met without you having to lift a finger. So, yes we should always strive to be better but you also need to take a few moments and realize the sort of advancements it took to put you in a position to consider issues like packaging/factory farming instead of where you're going to get your next meal or drink of water.
Siira 5y ago
Easy to say for rich people in rich countries.

lordnacho 5y ago

Problem is there's a finer line between persuasion and coercion than people appreciate. Use guys with guns to sell white powder and you're a bad guy. Place chocolate at kid height at checkout and you're a business guru.

southerntofu 5y ago
Such ethical standards can only be altered on a big scale through relentless struggles. Abolish competition and advertisement, and suddenly a lot of things will start to be ok in society. Yes a lot of people will loose their useless job, but that won't be a requirement to have a place to live anymore, and both individuals and society will be better off.
- mycologos 5y ago
  What does it mean to "abolish competition and advertisement"? If I come up with a new idea, I can't tell anybody about it?
  - tssva 5y ago
    You won't have a need to because your new idea won't be allowed anyways because it will compete with an old idea.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      That's not how ideas work, except in a capitalist system. New ideas about how to better run the world are not allowed because they compete with private interest of the ruling class. The same is true in pretend-communist States like the USSR, which are just State-capitalist systems, not actual communism (where communism is according to Marx abolition of class, property and privilege... none of which were abolished in Leninist States).
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Competition doesn't mean "having ideas" or going separate ways. "Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared" (wikipedia). For example, competition is when you keep millions of empty apartments to make sure everybody struggles and will pay more and do whatever you say to find a place to live. Competition is also when you teach children in schools that they should not copy because it's cheating. Advertisement is also not "telling anybody". It's paying other people to tell in your place about stuff they wouldn't want to talk about otherwise.

ryan-allen 5y ago

It's been in motion for quite a while, according to Adam Curtis [0] at least. [0] https://thoughtmaybe.com/the-century-of-the-self/ https://thoughtmaybe.com/the-century-of-the-self/

ashtonkem 5y ago

It’s more than that. Without the promise of ever rising profits, the capitalist class will panic and do god knows what. Their need for not just profits, but increasing profits is insatiable. Trying to force products on consumers for manufactured reasons is probably not even the worst crime done in the name of profits.

idownvoted 5y ago

> why is forced consumption such an existential need that must be serviced at all costs I think this is just half the picture. Most mindless consumption doesn't happen all the time by all people. And most mindlessly consumed products still have some people who get a true benefit out of it. > the scene rat races To be more precise: The rat-race is on for those moments during a day when people are mindless. And with Zuck and the "don't be evil" company trimming down our attention-span I postulate that they are to blame, because they make us more mindless.

tomjen3 5y ago

You make this sound like a boring dystopia, but everything you say about our society is also the case for 1955, only more so. They didn't have adblockers or sponsor block. They didn't have audiobooks (probably available from your local library to) or anything but radio when driving. They had significantly fewer choices and had to endure radio with ads playing whatever they were told to play. Meanwhile the population today is the least bound to the couch it has been in half a century (modulo a pandemic). And, shocking to some, most people are not an empty shell inside, although they have desires and things they want. Don't complain about ads the next time you stand in line and whip out Instagram rather than an ebook.

luffapi 5y ago
> You make this sound like a boring dystopia > Don't complain about ads the next time you stand in line and whip out Instagram rather than an ebook. I can think of nothing more boring or dystopian than Instagram. > And, shocking to some, most people are not an empty shell inside, although they have desires and things they want. Happiness levels in the US are at an all time low: https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2019/the-sad-state-of-happiness-in-the-united-states-and-the-role-of-digital-media/ https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2019/the-sad-state-of-happi...

mschuster91 5y ago

> Because without the promise of a consumerist bliss always around the corner all the internal frictions, deep dissatisfaction and social fracture lines come to the fore... Panem et circenses. Even the old Romans were already masters at keeping a populace from rioting and a society from collapse. We're just lucky that most developed countries have eradicated executions. But to make up for the lack of public spectacle that a hanging or quartering was, we have taken up mass sports events (soccer, baseball, basketball, cricket) and blatant consumerism instead...

polishdude20 5y ago

I think it's because if we as a society decided what we all have now is enough, we would have a few good short years until everyone realizes we aren't producing more things and we aren't improving things and we've been left behind economically. In this system, you can't afford to stop and smell the roses because next year, someone else will come and bulldoze the field the roses were planted in.