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The luddites lost, sure—but industrialization did make an absolute shit-ton of people miserable until the labor movement clawed back some of those productivity
by bamfly 3y ago
The luddites lost, sure—but industrialization did make an absolute shit-ton of people miserable until the labor movement clawed back some of those productivity gains for the workers and curbed the worst abuses committed by capital.
If we don't see another wave of reforms soon—which is sure to require labor action!—a whole bunch of folks are in for another rough time (stretching to entire lives, as it did last time) which will not automatically get better through capitalism pixie dust or whatever.
The last time we saw a huge shift in human participation in the economy, it sucked absolute ass until a bunch of workers screamed and bled and died to make it somewhat better. That's what'll happen again if we don't catch it early. "It'll get better on its own, because markets" is magical thinking.
- 128bytes 3y agoi don't think a little syndicalism is going to cut it this time, because it's about a lot more than labor now
- JieJie 3y agoDon't leave me hanging, given that we are in a "for all the marbles" point in the game of civilization, what's the next move? I want to believe there's something better than, "Stop the world, I want to get off." What is the compelling alternative to this somewhat unrestricted growth we have currently going on? I know there's lots of "if only we just..."s, but what's the implementation plan? How do we install socialism on hardware that was built to run capitalism and seems to be running super well, except for all the pollution it causes? I support the artists and writers, the creatives and creators, hell, I even support the social media influencers, but this strike is a stopgap, if that. What's our plan? What can we offer the capitalists to get them on board with it, other than the guillotine option? Is that all we really have to offer? I have to believe we have more than, "be nicer to people, or we'll kill you".
- 128bytes 3y agoOh you've misunderstood, I'm not a socialist. I do not support writers and creatives who profit from intellectual 'property', they are themselves a part of the problem. I reject the notion that workers are free from blame for their participation in the system. A good first step to solving much of society's problems, including this is to nuke the financial sector from orbit, companies like Netflix and Universal will then go bankrupt and their employees will be forced to do something that is more beneficial for society, instead of contributing to the useless glut of for-profit entertainment. Furthermore, transhumanists should be persecuted for their anti-human beliefs especially for creating human likeness, until their beliefs are erradicated. None of these are easy solutions, but if solutions were easy we would not have reached this point.
- namarie 3y agoSo, just to be clear, your "good first step to solving much of society's problems" is... ending most forms of entertainment?
- JieJie 3y agoThank you for clarifying. Is it difficult to get people on board with the "transhumanist persecution" thing, or do people take to it naturally, in your experience?