Daily
Daily
156 comments
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I used to read through history and so frequently I would wonder things like "how did these serfs just put up with this for so long?"
I no longer wonder these things.
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there's also the matter that most of the time, you didn't have to deal with noble strangers with horses expecting your loyalty (often, not the same nobles and horses as the last ones to come around). There may be the local lord but he had good cause to keep things consistent and open up the grain reserves whenever the winter was bad and crops failed.
But the keen thing that changed in the 20th century is we went from a desperate labor shortage to a labor surplus. There was just tons to do and no giant machines with which to do them. Death was right around the corner: A boar attack here, a bad influenza there, any kind of infection (no antibiotics), so people were dropping dead often enough that every last idiot, hunchback and bastard daughter were celebrated as a strong back that could churn butter or assemble barrels or pitch hay.
In fact, society was so fraught that clergy who knew the deal would look the other way when peasants were rutting like bunnies out of wedlock in springtime. (Stories are told and songs are sung of parish priests who were a bit strict on the sins, and how they had a tendency toward morbid mishap.)
We have crusades and territorial disbutes to thank for higher ranks getting into common business. The Third Crusade (King Richard v. Salah ad-Din) squeezed the peasants hard in England. Then Richard went cooky, disguised himself as a merchant, and was seized for ransom, and a king's ransom was a lot. So the peasants were squeezed so hard it hurt the earls, and John of England (last of his name to this very day) was already a Trumpian / Neroesque asshole, and the economy was already tanked when Richard died in 1199, and at that point enough people were pissed off at unilateral monarchy they made John sign the Magna Carta at swordpoint. Several times.
And that was the beginning of the end of monarchy.
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I was thinking something similar in regards to the amount of time it takes. If dystopia and dictatorship is coming to the "free world" the dictators have learned to land that plane gently. It's nuts that things haven't properly broken completely. We just keep putting up with small adjustments. I don't think the serfs would have gone from, say, 2008 to 2025 without some sort of uproar or downright rebellion. Then again. Not my area of expertise.
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I sometimes wonder if I'll ever be inspired again. Or feel motivated.
Seeing a convict run amok and President really fucks with your mental health.
Seeing the blatantly corrupt and evil people just makes it hard to care about anything anymore.
I sometimes just stare in the dark night wondering why im still here when other people who wanted to do things are not here anymore.
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Its cyclical, there is no end or beginning just a chain of actions. Might not be the fun part od the circle but it goes around again, we will see better days.
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The eternal pendulum of nihilism and existentialism.
Nihilism, there is no meaning. Existential, there is no meaning, so find meaning.
If you can, find a reason. Find that meaning. And, if nothing else, live and love out of spite. One day, you'll wake up to the obituaries (naturally caused; no martyrs here please) of the awful people. And you'll never have to think on them again, ideally.
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Even when things aren't all fascist, we're still disposable wage slaves for the elite. And somehow that's what we're supposed to be working to maintain.
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I think we have to start respecting ourselves, respecting others, and teaching those concepts to people who are receptive. To me, it seems like the only way to break the cycle called slavery.
They can dress slavery up with benefits all they want, but they don't even care to anymore. Everybody knows it's a raw deal and they are trying to scare us into thinking we have no power.
Let's not be stuck in fear and hate, in subservience and denigration, and be sovereign and resolute in the change we want to see in the world.
I don't need an external authority to tell me what I should believe and hope for. I don't need somebody to curb my expectations and tell me change is impossible, that we actually need to compromise for no real reason, that it is too "costly", or that it will take an extremely long time. I don't want to be told ANY of that when change is possible — these people simply gave up before they even started. No more am I going to be gaslit, and I hope others feel similarly.
If you can't imagine a world where comprehensive solutions manifest imminently to ease suffering, you probably aren't fit for leadership. We need change now, this is absolute insanity. FUCK the perceived costs — it's infinitely more costly to continue the current state of affairs while many, many countless individuals suffer and our precious and irreplaceable planet goes up in flames.
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It's that or go full on regular slave. Even if we maintain the old status quo, we're still losing.
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"We should boycott Amazon for firing all their workers in my province."
"Why bother, boycotts do nothing."
How is that the default response and not "FUCK THIS COMPANY"
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...and instead of joining the boycott, proceeds to do nothing.
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SO much learned helplessness in the "geeks" around me. They've given up on privacy, ownership, seemingly democracy, certainly peace for Palestine. Never been to a protest, or even considered boycotting. I'm surprised they even bother voting (centrist ofc).
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Sorry I realise I'm being a doomer about the doomers. It's not all like that, and they can be stirred to passion sometimes.
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To me, it's only because they use their services and the concept of inconveniencing themselves is absurd. "It didn't happen in MY province, and Prime delivery is next day! I'm sure they'll all find better jobs."
They work a job and are probably underpaid, so instead of thinking about someone else, especially when that other person makes more than they do, they view it as the other person just isn't "surviving" as hard as they are... maybe? There's tons of possibilities, but that's my anecdotal take on it.
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Alexei Yurchak who was a professor of anthropology coined a term for this: Hypernormalisation.
From Wikipedia: "He introduced the word in his book 'Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation', which describes paradoxes of Soviet life during the 1970s and 1980s. He says everyone in the Soviet Union knew the system was failing, but no one could imagine any alternative to the status quo, and politicians and citizens alike were resigned to maintaining the pretense of a functioning society. Over time, the mass delusion became a self-fulfilling prophecy, with everyone accepting it as the new norm rather than pretend."
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This is where I feel democratic leadership is at right now. The fact no one is stepping up, rallying a cause, spearheading any sort of movement including “let’s protect what we’ve already got” just absolutely no leadership from the left seems like they just can’t fathom reality being anything other than what it is right now. I’ve been incredibly disappointed by the disappearing act both Harris and Walz have pulled and consider them failures due to this lack of leadership when we need it most, they ran for leadership of the opposition party but clearly have zero interest in actually leading in any form beyond titles/formally and this explains why, although does not excuse their behavior
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I spend a lot of money of booze and weed for this reason.
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Same, dude. Same.
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Yeah. Especially living in a society actively sliding towards some of the worst features described in some of the fictional worlds I enjoyed in novels coupled with a police state. It was never perfect, ever, but the amplification of the awful parts is really depressing.
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The word hypernormalisation was coined by Alexei Yurchak a professor of anthropology who was born in Leningrad. He introduced the word which describes paradoxes of life during the 1970s and 1980s in the USSR. He says everyone in the Soviet Union knew the system was failing, but no one could imagine any alternative to the status quo and politicians and citizens alike were resigned to maintaining the pretense of a functioning society. Over time, the mass delusion became a self-fulfilling prophecy with everyone accepting it as the new norm rather than pretend.
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The weird thing is it's kind of more bizarre than a dystopian society. In dystopia, you know resources are scarce and that you have to defend yourself with violence. But in this actual dystopia, I can still get up and go play disc golf, pretty much without incident. There could come a day when I'm pulled over by some Nazi cop who decides to make an example of me, which face it, has been the case for some time now, but until then for little things like that, it's pretty much business as usual despite the plummet into fascism. Very weird.
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Scarcity is artificial with our level of technology and our ingenuity.
It's a myth, we are able to produce more than enough even with many countless individuals in dire straits maintaining the world's economy/production. We produce so much that we can afford to waste incredible amounts of food and other goods without batting an eye.
What if the individuals slaving were given the ingredients to be happy and healthy, with their human rights and needs respected?
Personally, I believe the world would get even more productive, things would start making sense, people wouldn't have to work so hard, we'd see forward movement in our societies, and without a doubt we'd see incredible advancements.
I refuse to believe that everybody would laze about, leave the "hard" jobs unattended, and let the world rot.
If we can work this hard while we are forced to survive, forced to live in lack while the landfills pile up to the sky — there's no way we wouldn't be incredibly more efficient if people could take a second to breathe and fill their cup. If everybody could take a second and look around and see where things could be even better, where they can make a difference, everything would surely very quickly improve.
There's no way to convince me that "peak productivity" is everybody emptying their cup and breaking the glass to pay debts and to afford necessities.
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Did you mean to respond to me because I don't see how it relates? I assume you are responding to the thread.
I agree with you to a point. I mean, think of how wonderful a world it could be if there was any kind of equity. People making sure everyone is fed, no theft, no slavery, etc. It's almost traumatizing to realize we have the capacity to make this a reality, but don't.
I've come to the conclusion this is just fantasy. It's human nature to destroy itself. People have a long history of hating people not like them. Just when I think we're making progress along comes racism again.
I don't believe this will ever change. It's a true shame.
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I say this all the time: we built an economic system based on scarcity, and then manufactured scarcity.
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Scarcity is artificial with our level of technology and our ingenuity.
Not for much longer. Global fresh water demand will outstrip supply by 40% by 2030 and 90% of global top soil and arable land is at risk of depletion by 2050.
Enjoy the last of the abundance. Things are going to start getting really bad very soon.
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Sure but scarcity due to broken supply chains is a real thing. It doesn’t matter how wealthy you are if you physically cannot get your supplies where they are needed there will be scarcity and it will not be artificial
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William Gibson wrote: The future has arrived, it's just not evenly distributed.
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Yeah I've been feeling bizarre as the US falls into fascism and ill just be at work like any other day
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I felt this feeling as we were finding out we invaded Iraq under false pretenses to make money for blackrock. We never did anything. I figured people would change but after voting in same clown after the shitshow he did last time…..
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The average American reads at an 8th grade level, with slightly more than half reading at a 6th grade level.
We have been cognitively neutered, by design.
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Didn’t that actually happen (not the Blackrock part)? I thought it came out in a Congressional hearing that there was oil which motivated the whole thing. The U.S. went in to find WMDs but after many years could not find evidence of any.
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It was just because W wanted to finish what his dad started and remove Saddam. There was no exit plan or grand strategy.
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I guess to call out Blackrock exclusivity is incorrect as they were just security in Iraq. My point was using private contractors and then allowing firms to profit. This government to private is now infecting everything.
2007, an internal Department of Defense census on the industry found almost 160,000 private contractors were employed in Iraq (roughly equal to the total U.S. troops at the time, even after the troop “surge”). Yet even this figure was a conservative estimate, since a number of the biggest companies, as well as any firms employed by the State Department or other agencies or NGOs, were not included in the census
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I feel like it’s always been? I read a lot of history and there’s not many instances of peace and prosperity for all. Things considered im happy i live in the modern world, wish I could live in the pre 9/11 sweet spot, shit wasn’t off the deep end as far as it is now, and homes were affordable
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pre 9/11 sweet spot
There's a line in Fight Club about how Jack's generation has no great war, out no way to prove themselves. It really is a great example of how things felt pre-9/11.
I am Jack's overwhelming sense of buyer's remorse.
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I recently watched that movie when I turned 40. It hits different when you’re older, when you’re a teen or young person half of it goes over your head. Especially how young people glorify it and the whole fight club thing, not grasping that the movie is about toxic masculinity among other things
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No, the current climate change situation is unparalleled in human history.
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Humans have been at risk of ending their own species for almost a hundred years now.
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Ok but that’s hardly what this post is talking about, and tbh the Roman’s gave us a run for their money with climate change and we’re lucky they didn’t have fossil fuels
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Shit wasn't of the deep end... for some countries.
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When has it ever been any better? There’s plenty we can say about class exploitation, racism, lack of healthcare for the poor, low wages, war… but was any part of that better in any other era of history? You could make a tenuous argument that some of these were marginally better a decade or three ago, but in the grand schemes of things, the only thing that’s gotten worse during our history is environmental devastation. And even on that score, we are rookies. The cyanobacteria fucked this ball of slime UP long before it was cool.
I’m not saying everything’s great. I’m saying it’s only been worse as you look back.
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Isn't "everyone acting like it's normal" a dystopian nightmare trope?
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This weekend I built a shed in my back yard, which was a nice bit of father-son bonding, and stockpiled ammo in case civil unrest causes widespread violence to break out in our neighborhood.
Definitely a strange vibe.
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plant food trees and gardens…
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Bro, I have just seen so much bad shit happen for months and all my girlfriend will say is, "Something's gonna happen, something is coming, I'm believing and praying and everything is gonna work out and be okay" and inside, I'm screaming like Atreus from God of War (2016), "HOW DO YOU KNOW?!"
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Watch she doesn't fall victim to a cult or something with that mindset.
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Okay, sure, the Faro plague has consumed all of Eurasia, but have you considered seeing a therapist?
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Fuck Ted Faro
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Well people aren't having kids anymore so I guess we're doing what we can
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Every child that isn't born is a life saved.
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... and a soldier less who dies in WW3
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Just the other day there was a writer that explains a phenomenon in her new book (can't remember her name off the bat).
She describes the fact that people always say "it starts with you", promoting individual action. Like, "if you want to stop climate change, why don't you become a vegetarian." But few people actually do.
She argued that it's not that people don't want to, however what's never taken into account is that the cards are stacked against the individual by corporations and (in many cases) government.
There are laws, marketing machines, price points and supply chains that set the virtual boundaries within which people can maneuver.
People still have enough individual freedom to keep a sense of free will, but under the hood, this free will is heavily influenced by what's affordable, normalized or in supply.
It's a pretty bleak view, and only solved by a change in politics where politicians actually want to work for the people and for democracy rather than for corporations.
The people can provide them with votes, corporations with money. This can lead to a government that benefits from lying to their voters while profiting from corporations.
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I see the housing bubbles all over the world and am glad I wasn't born 10 years later. I'm also screwed for not being born 10 years earlier.
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If those bubbles pop as they're graduating college, they might get to have homes.
Also there's a few countries that don't have housing bubbles, in Japan, 600/mo can get you a 700 sqft 2bd in a city of 10 million, in China 300 can get you that. Both these countries had bubbles that deflated.
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If I didn't have a small lake to go to and cry on my lunch breaks, I think I'd have completely broken and quit my job while screaming at everyone around me to fucking do something.
Thank God I can just stare at some birds and water and remember what life is.
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A little random, but your comment reminded me of a poem I encountered in college. It's by Liu Cheng, and in Burton Watson's translation it's called "Poem Without a Category." https://ccl.northwestern.edu/curriculum/poetry/cp.cgi?C/Cheng/PoemWithoutACategory
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That's a lovely poem. Thank you so much for sharing that with me. It very much captures the feeling and sensations of what I was describing.
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All day everyday
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Society has a lot of inertia.
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Do you ever statement framed as a question?
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I'm just over here hoping we destroy ourselves for the benefit of the universe as a whole. We're a blight.
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over here hoping we destroy ourselves for the benefit of the universe
... and Trump took that literally.
don't say things such as this, not even as a joke :)
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I hate the state of things, but what drives me crazy is pushing it in people's faces and still watching them go back to school and work and talk about whatever typical bullshit they're thinking about.
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That is pretty much how the mechanics of human consciousness works. We also know we are going to die some day, and that it is most likely not going to be very pleasant leading up to it. But we still manage to block out that knowledge of finality in our daily life.
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When the weight of the world feels overwhelming, remember this: Everything humans have ever done, every building, road, machine, and moment, makes up only a tiny fraction of this planet’s mass. We are small creatures, clinging to the surface of a vast, ancient, quietly turning sphere. The Earth itself is not in crisis. It simply is. Steady, silent, and endlessly patient. If human noise becomes too much, just place your hand on the ground. Feel the stillness. Let it remind you that you are connected to something far older, far larger, and far more enduring than any headline or heartbreak. The Earth will hold you.
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But what about the animals that are going to die?
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Everything humans have ever done, every building, road, machine, and moment, makes up only a tiny fraction of this planet’s mass.
Oh boy do i have news for you
... but i agree with you. Even if humanity ceases to exist for whatever reason, both the planet Earth and life/evolution will go on just fine. We're a merely given a chance, but if we can make it, depends on us.
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The real question is what can we do about it
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We aren't, we are simply adapting and continuing on with our human existence. It's not normal but humans will always adapt. We invented air conditioners and populate a literal desert in opulence. We literally created flying machines to get from one side of the world to the other in 24 hours. None of that stuff was normal either. We are inventive and adaptive.
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I mean... It is normal. But that's one of the things that sucks about it.
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Nope. Been a shadowrealm in the background for me forever. This added shitstorm has yet to play a part but I expect it to change soon enough
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But Momma, that's where the fun is
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And pay the overwhelmed fee, no thanks.
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EvErYoNe kEEps aCtINg LiKe it’s NoRMaL
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Story of my life! 😁😂😭
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"We live in a dystopia"
Said the dude
With access to running water
Food
Medicines
Rights
Technology
Opportunities
Privileges
That 99% of the whole world population doesn't have and won't ever have access to, even in their wildest dream
This dude doesn't need to worry about being sold into slavery
Or leaving his country just to avoid persecution be it political or otherwise
Or working 24/7 non stop
Or being caged just to be a source of entertainment for others
Having his limbs chopped for food.
Being used as a tool to relieve sexual stress
Being extorted into war and crime just to save his family lives
Being forced to murder and rape perks just to not be murdered himself
Or being used as a human shield against his will or else
Having his organs harvested to pay debts
Murder his own family and children to avoid them the pain of being abused and tortured to death
All things that happens daily in our current world
And yet he says he lives in a dystopia nightmare
while sitting on his couch
At his parents or his own house, owning property
Stoned out of his mind
On his latest generation phone that he probably got to pay for on easy installments or was gifted to him
Having had breakfast and a good night sleep
While having access to the sum of the whole world knowledge at his fingertips
And working a couchy desk/customer service job which requires zero skill whatsoever
Yes we hear you and feel so sorry about your pain. Let us commiserate together about how bad YOU have it.
I'd like to think people like this are not real, but in case they are, I just wish them to experience the most slowest and agonizing of lives
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Lists all the terrible awful things going on in the world.
How dare you complain about the suffering of others, shut up and be happy you get to have the privilege which is built on said suffering.
What a fucking take.
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You do realize that most people don't know the truth, right? That the world doesn't need to be the way it currently is? That we have the empathy, technology, and ingenuity to solve these issues with awareness and action?
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There is no use in getting overwhelmed. I am merely getting more practiced in drinking larger and larger amounts of whiskey and smoking larger and larger amounts of cannabis to deal with it.
We all have a process
And hopefully, at least most of us will survive.
If not, for all of you fascists: I have a plan to destroy all of you that involves an enormous amount of pee. Like, so much, you can’t fucking imagine. An absolute cavalcade of pee.
Don’t try me
#PeeStrong
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The rest of us, in the civilised world, watch on from behind our fingers in horror and bewilderment
America is a classic case of the elephant chained to a small stake as a baby
The learnt helplessness of the population is nuts
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Chained to a small stake, yes. But there's also the greater threat of being shot and told it was your fault if the stake comes out.
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Bold of you to assume this post is limited to American neo-fascism. It absolutely resonated with me here in Germany. This "civilized world" you speak of - is it here in the room with us right now?
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Yeah, it seems to me, school is really just a process that mostly exists to teach you to adhere to nonsensical processes. At least that was largely how it was in my case.
People are told to sit and listen for the first 18 years of their life, and then they're told to stand up and do something the rest of their lifes.
People are educated to not think for themselves, feel for themselves, and make life experiences. Everything is regulated. Parents have too much control. It takes a village to raise a child, yet we've normalized the "core-family"-household. What a perversion of nature.
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After the election, I gave myself permission to become an alcoholic if I wanted. I don’t see a great future ahead.
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Don't do it. It's not worth it. It makes you bitter more often than numb. It's better for your mental health to channel your frustrations into something useful. Get involved somehow, make yourself useful for others. Collaborate with some direct aid org. Start making content on the internet where you speak your mind and talk about how you see the world, you might end up turning a few people.
The thing I've noticed is that a lot of the alienation we feel is because most paid work doesn't really touch people. It's either too abstract (office work that only helps your company make money by servicing other companies so that they can make money) or direct servicing of disgruntled customers in a hurry (most customer facing work, like barista, cashier, call center, etc.). Really there's few jobs where you feel like you do something worthwhile, so try to get involved in something for your soul, something that contributes to directly building the world you want to build.
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No, because it isn't even close to real distopia. Especially for people in most rich nations.
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Distopias can take many different forms, you haven't felt the boundaries because you haven't stretched. Also I recommend the book "brave new world" for a view of a distopia that doesn't oppress with power but softer means.
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Have you read your recommended book? The whole story is about overt oppression, caste-based systems, dehumanization, not about softer means. If by different forms you are saying that dystopias are often flawed utopias, then our own isn't utopic at all, we just live in the least bad times in all history.
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A boring Dystopia.
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It becomes less boring by the day though.
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That's subjective, obviously.
I imagine being a migrant in the US right now would feel pretty dystopian.
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Lol, that's what I'm talking about, people in rich nations have absolutely warped idea of how really bad things can be (no I'm not diminishing suffering of migrants in US) and actually are for majority of himan population. We are living in the best, most abundand, most free and happy stretch of human history.
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156 comments