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> You can't tell consumers what they should want. Why does marketing and advertising exist then? > Government failure and cultural malaise are what "late stag

> You can't tell consumers what they should want. Why does marketing and advertising exist then? > Government failure and cultural malaise are what "late stage capitalism" predicts. It then predicts a collapse of the whole thing under its own weight. If capitalism gives what the market demands, then you are suggesting that The People want government failure and malaise. Either your premise is wrong or Late Stage Capitalism is wrong. Likely both. Terms like Late Stage Capitalism are just there to give you something nice to hold on to and use as your scarecrow for anything bad you see in the world. An intellectual crutch, a helping hand into the graveyard. Car recall? Late Stage Capitalism! Forest fire? Climate change - late stage capitalism. Teeth fell out? Late Stage Capitalism. Covid-19 vaccines or a cure for cancer? Hmm somehow still Late Stage Capitalism. And now you have your answer to why the world sucks and even better, Late Stage Capitalism says nothing about what comes next! No reason to do anything about it, like support the arts or educate a child, because it’s just Late Stage Capitalism after all. Hopeless and failed ideologies (Communism/Socialism) love to generate destructive and useless distractions and slogans. Reject them!

ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
>> Government failure and cultural malaise are what "late stage capitalism" predicts. It then predicts a collapse of the whole thing under its own weight. > If capitalism gives what the market demands, then you are suggesting that The People want government failure and malaise You are both correct here. Obviously people don't want malaise directly, but some directly seek government failure, and the rest vote for things that result in malaise and government failure, wittingly or otherwise. Often such voters do so because they think it will get them more money, which is a reasonable desire under capitalism. > Hopeless and failed ideologies (Communism/Socialism) Oh, I didn't realize till the end that you were treating this discussion as a team thing, and capitalism is "your team", so you must attack "the other team", even though nobody else mentioned it. Maybe instead of treating "the other team" as something nice to hold on to and use as your scarecrow for anything bad you see in the world, you can keep discussing the substance of things? You did a good job of this for a bit.
- ericmay 1y ago
  > Oh, I didn't realize till the end that you were treating this as a team thing, and capitalism is "your team", so you must attack "the other team". Do you think that attitude affected the rest of your response, too? It’s just empirical. Both Communism and Socialism are failed ideologies. Millions dead. Millions more starved. It’s like when Libertarians want to bring about their ideology and people tell them to move to Sudan and experience it. The term “Late Stage Capitalism” is a communist slogan. What’s insidious about it is that it tricks you into believing we can’t make things better or right wrongs, and that progress can’t be made. It has entered the American and Western social discourse as yet another instrument to sow distrust, fighting, and hatred. If/when I see the Right Wing Nazi equivalents of those slogans I call them out too.
  - ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
    I noticed you excluded my entire post except for the parts about communism, which nobody brought up except you. I'm not interested in rehashing the team game of "capitalism vs communism vs whatever" for the millionth time here, and nobody but you brought up the latter, so you might safely conclude nobody else is, either. Do you think you can take off your team hat and have a discussion about what we were talking about? Hint: it was capitalism (specifically late stage capitalism). Try responding on the topic without any distractions (like mentioning the other team as you might consider it). After all, sports teams don't get better by pointing fingers at all the other teams, they get better by looking inward and finding what they should change. Here's an example: > What’s insidious about [the term late-stage capitalism] is that it tricks you into believing we can’t make things better The term absolutely doesn't do that, because it's 2 words, one meaning capitalism, the other meaning "a later stage of". You're free to suggest ways to motivate companies to stop enshitifying things for profit within the confines of late-stage capitalism, without resorting to one of your dreaded ideologies. But you'll have to actually do that. So let's look inward: how can we fix that?
    - ericmay 1y ago
      [flagged]

ImPostingOnHN 1y ago

>> Government failure and cultural malaise are what "late stage capitalism" predicts. It then predicts a collapse of the whole thing under its own weight. > If capitalism gives what the market demands, then you are suggesting that The People want government failure and malaise You are both correct here. Obviously people don't want malaise directly, but some directly seek government failure, and the rest vote for things that result in malaise and government failure, wittingly or otherwise. Often such voters do so because they think it will get them more money, which is a reasonable desire under capitalism. > Hopeless and failed ideologies (Communism/Socialism) Oh, I didn't realize till the end that you were treating this discussion as a team thing, and capitalism is "your team", so you must attack "the other team", even though nobody else mentioned it. Maybe instead of treating "the other team" as something nice to hold on to and use as your scarecrow for anything bad you see in the world, you can keep discussing the substance of things? You did a good job of this for a bit.

ericmay 1y ago
> Oh, I didn't realize till the end that you were treating this as a team thing, and capitalism is "your team", so you must attack "the other team". Do you think that attitude affected the rest of your response, too? It’s just empirical. Both Communism and Socialism are failed ideologies. Millions dead. Millions more starved. It’s like when Libertarians want to bring about their ideology and people tell them to move to Sudan and experience it. The term “Late Stage Capitalism” is a communist slogan. What’s insidious about it is that it tricks you into believing we can’t make things better or right wrongs, and that progress can’t be made. It has entered the American and Western social discourse as yet another instrument to sow distrust, fighting, and hatred. If/when I see the Right Wing Nazi equivalents of those slogans I call them out too.
- ImPostingOnHN 1y ago
  I noticed you excluded my entire post except for the parts about communism, which nobody brought up except you. I'm not interested in rehashing the team game of "capitalism vs communism vs whatever" for the millionth time here, and nobody but you brought up the latter, so you might safely conclude nobody else is, either. Do you think you can take off your team hat and have a discussion about what we were talking about? Hint: it was capitalism (specifically late stage capitalism). Try responding on the topic without any distractions (like mentioning the other team as you might consider it). After all, sports teams don't get better by pointing fingers at all the other teams, they get better by looking inward and finding what they should change. Here's an example: > What’s insidious about [the term late-stage capitalism] is that it tricks you into believing we can’t make things better The term absolutely doesn't do that, because it's 2 words, one meaning capitalism, the other meaning "a later stage of". You're free to suggest ways to motivate companies to stop enshitifying things for profit within the confines of late-stage capitalism, without resorting to one of your dreaded ideologies. But you'll have to actually do that. So let's look inward: how can we fix that?
  - ericmay 1y ago
    [flagged]