So this is obviously a silly comic, but I wanted to put out another viewpoint. Just because you want cool new thing doesn’t mean you approve or want capitalism. You can still want everyone to have the opportunity to be able to experience the cool new thing. Consumption isn’t necessarily bad, overconsumption I’d say is. Idk maybe I’m a bit wrong, but I don’t see any reason to beat yourself up for having wants or desires.
Id argue there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Trace a supply and sales chain far enough, and somewhere there is abuse.
90% of the time when I see that phrase, people are using it to say it’s pointless to boycot a particularly bad company
Oh I haven’t heard that pairing, that’s awful. Boycotts are not pointless. They don’t really address root causes, ofc, but they’re something.
You should watch The Good Place if you haven’t. They definitely explore that thought and it’s an outstanding show in general.
Can confirm that show is great.
Might be the single smartest show I’ve ever seen on TV
I agree with you, but to be clear, you aren’t saying it’s not okay to have things you want right?
The wording of your post made me think you were refuting that argument.
Im saying we are all actively participating in abuse when when buy what we want. It depends how you internalize that fact as to whether its OK or not.
How reductive
Maybe a little. Kids in Africa are dying as slave laborers in cobalt mines so I can type this reply to you and play the video games I like to play.
The problem is between human rights and profits, profits usually win. You’re pitting people with a little bit of free time against a large conglomerate of corporations. Most of the time the outcome isn’t a surprise.
Whatabout Whatabout Whatabout!
The problem is that we don’t hold anyone accountable for the damages done, we’re unwilling to embrace repair culture, unwilling to pay the higher prices for ethical and sustainable products, and fully capable of objectifying faraway cobalt mine workers (and their analogs) as nothing more than something we might be upset about if it were more in our faces.
I do definitely believe corporate greed is to blame, but consumer need drives the greed.
It’s our dollars they’re after.
I just buy whatever I can secondhand and that the best I can do.
You’re right, we don’t hold them accountable. We encourage it! We create laws to empower corporations to do what they want. We bail them out. We give them tax breaks to incentivize them to build in our state. And then we scold them on Lemmy.
If we don’t hold them accountable, does that mean what they’re doing is ethical? What do you propose consumers do? Should we stop buying computers because of the cobalt minor slave kids? Are you going to be the one to tell everyone we need to stop buying computers?
We’ve tried putting the burden on the shoulder of consumers for years now. No one has the time or money to do it. Stuff has only gotten worse. It doesn’t work.
So, do nothing! You’re going to do that anyway.
Or you know we could vote for more corporate taxes and better labor laws. We can try to get more transparency in how corporations outsource their work. We can try to form more worker co-ops. And push for democracy in workplaces.
Whatever lets you sleep at night.
I simply accept that we are all culpable for the abuses around us.
Capitalism says make the new thing, then make versions as cheaply and as lavishly as possible as the market saturates and profit margins decrease, skim as much profit as possible for the owner class by exploiting workers and consumers until the bottom falls out, then declare bankruptcy, fire all of your employees, sell the business to a liquidator, and repeat.
An intentional civilization would make the new thing, then use the abundance of profit from interest to design improved versions of the thing, eventually scaling down production to a niche market of artisan products run by people with a passion for the work, and releasing all of the information into the open source market so that individuals can make their own modifications. No exploitation, no inequality, all the benefits of capitalism’s infrastructure.
CONSOOOOOOM
yeah, i bought a Fairphone. sure, it automatically generates e-waste and was pretty pricy, but i hope to use it for at least 5 years. that makes it worth it to me.
Im waiting for my Pixel to die first, but I definitely am looking at the Fairphone. Id buy it now, but i cant justify just tossing my current phone
Consumption in general is a gradient though
It’s like sugar, you get a hit, energy, then it fades, and you’re chasing that micro high
That’s consumption. We’re all guilty of it one way or another, anything you don’t need or higher priced than the value it brings us is on one end of the spectrum, and it gives you a fake high while delaying your financial independence
We should strive to feed this system as little as possible, it does not benefit us.
It depends on how you think you should get the cool new things. If you see cool thing and are happy to work to buy it, congrats capitalist! If you see cool thing and expect someone to give it to you, you either believe in Santa, or are a socialist.
All suffering is born of desire.
So if you get a disease and suffer, it’s because you were desiring something?
I desire to not suffer
How dare you!
You desired health and did not accept sickness as a natural part of life.
And that caused the sickness?
Of course not. The sickness was caused by external factors; your suffering from the sickness was caused by your desire for health.
I don’t think you get to choose whether or not your illness is suffering at that point.
Downvoted for quoting Buddha, never change lemmy, never change 🙄
I desire the world to be better for the future generations and have them be able to live their lives judgement free. I don’t think that’ll spawn suffering onto others. It may make me feel miserable because it’s a seemingly insurmountable task. However, I take comfort in the fact I can make my city/state a better place for my children and I hope to impact it so that others feel the same about making it better and assuring that it stays better. As long as there is one place I have left better off so the future can call it home, I’ll be able to pass on happy.
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You’re right, I misunderstood
Another thing, Capitalism doesn’t need you to want it or to approve of it, nor does White Supremacy, or Patriarchy, or other systems of bigotry need the approval or support of their oppressed in order to perpetuate.
Do you need help carrying all those apples and oranges?
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What?
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That was such an elitist comment. He has no idea what its like being on the internet with our coconuts and bamboo setups.
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consumerism != capitalism
Capitalism is the allowing of control over companies to be bought and sold without the consent of their workers.
Consumerism is using cheap marketing tactics to sell cheap garbage to people who don’t know any better, and is mostly the result of not requiring companies to pay for the waste they create.
Either of these could easily exist without the other.
Stop defining everything you don’t like about the economy as capitalism.
Also things having a pricetag != Capitalism and doing/getting something that grants brief reprieve from the nonsense also!= Capitalism.
This meme is just rephrasing “you criticize society yet participate in it.”
You criticize slavory bur refuse to leave, smh. /s
What I like about this comic is that it depicts the lure of ‘cool new thing’ as a party, with someone notifying about it. Why even care about ‘cool new thing’? Largely it’s because of the ‘fear of missing out’; a product as a shared experience with your peers, where not having that same experience may distance you from them and make you more of an outsider. For me, I’ve found that what seems like wanting something for its own sake often masks this underlying dynamic, like I will only start wanting it after people I like mention it positively, and things no one mentions positively I will just be less interested in regardless of whether they should be up my alley. That doesn’t make you a sheep, it’s just how humans work.
This dynamic is intentionally manufactured, and some of it is fake (it’s not actually popular or relevant you just got tricked by an ad), but some of it is real. So then the mistake is in seeing consumerism as an individual struggle of self-deprivation, when it’s really a shared cultural battle; what it comes down to is supporting the people around you in non-consumerism.
Here are some tangible ways I think we can do that:
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If your friends don’t have adblock, get them on adblock
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Support pirate culture
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Support and practice DIY
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Support open source, reject closed ecosystems
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Potlucks instead of takeout
Any other ideas?
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Ugh, Cool New Thing? Lame. Who remembers Weird Old Thing?
I love weird old thing!
Unfortunately, I’m also a sucker for cool new retro remake of weird old thing…
1st gen Toyota Yaris anyone?
Right, because capitalism is only about consumption and also only capitalism provides cool new things.
I don’t understand how people find it so difficult to just stop spending their money on shit they don’t need. You have to treat yourself occasionally, but I’ll never understand those who anyways have to buy the newest thing.
My car is over ten years old. I still use a Pixel 4. I don’t own any fancy clothes, new consoles, TV’s, etc. and I’m perfectly happy. I run my own business and put money aside, ensuring I’m not going to go hungry if shit hits the fan, which is always a very real possibility. The last nice thing I bought myself was a gaming laptop, and that was just to replace my old one which got me through a good 5 years of use.
People need to start being happy with less. It’s really, really easy to do, and you’ll likely find yourself feeling happier not giving a fuck about the New Thing… or maybe I’m just getting older and my priorities have changed.
EDIT: I should note that this is aimed at people who complain about having money issues, but who go out and spend it on things they don’t need and then blame anything but their own actions. If your dopamine hits come from buying stuff, and you’re all good with that, more power to you.
Your feel good drug is alcohol, for others it’s buying the last new thing that gives them a dopamine rush.
You have to treat yourself occasionally, but I’ll never understand those who anyways have to buy the newest thing.
sudo apt-get install -y mongodb-org
I’m not going to gatekeep. I have a PS5 so I am not coming at this from a high horse. But Pixel 4 is a very new phone, and even if it weren’t, all it takes is a billion people “treating” themselves every few years to make the system work.
I feel like I’m missing some kind of inner desire for the cool new thing that people seem to have
Mine definitely burned out sometime in the last five years. Used to be so excited for new tech, new features, new consoles, not necessarily to even buy, but just to see what’s going on. Being fair, there was also some crippling depression, but now the new yearly tech release feels exhausting rather than sparking any amount of curiosity. Same with programs, Google releasing something is more of a “what now?” rather than the neat exploration it used to be.
I don’t know, it feels a lot more exploitative than things used to be. Phones cost as much as laptops, all your programs are trying to spy on you better, everything seems to be trying to find the maximum limit for how expensive a thing can be before the line starts going down instead of up.
It brings me great pleasure to own things for a long time. My car is 15 years old and it’s in amazing condition, my phone is 6 years old and it’s fine. Hell, I have several pairs of shoes that are 6-8 years old and I can’t believe they’re still going strong. When it’s time for something new I’ll happily upgrade but I’ll never understand people who constantly need new things all the time.
Very true. I’ve never had a car loan or a loan for any of my toys like campers, motorcycles, boats, dirt bikes etc… Because I save to buy and buy used. I still have tons of shit I don’t need, I just don’t buy on credit. I’d love to buy a Tesla brand new, but I have too many cars already, I don’t have 100k laying around, and if I did I’d be a fool to not pay off my house.
Hold on, I have to buy the latest iphone to post my latest screed.
Average hexbear and lemmygrad user.
The problem with blanket attacks on capitalism is that it ignores the fact that the US became an economic superpower under capitalism, and we built the strongest middle class in history under capitalism WHEN WE MIXED IN SOCIALIST PROGRAMS.
BASIC economics shows that BY FAR capitalism is the most efficient way to generate wealth.
It sounds profoundly ignorant to be against that system.
Instead, we should be talking about what to do with the wealth it generates.
Bernie Sanders “Democratic socialism” is actually “capitalist socialism”. It leaves in place all the profit incentives and machinery of innovation and production, but then it redistributes wealth away from the hoarders at the top, and gives it back to the workers who generated it.
This is a much more compelling system to fight for than just a blanket “capitalism bad!” argument.
The US became an economic superpower because all of the others had to rebuild from rubble after WW2.
Also by draining wealth from poorer countries. Banana Republics in Central America. The constant pro-american coups in South America. The plantations of Liberia that used essentially slave labor to harvest rubber.
Social programs are not socialism. It’s often up to the socialists to put enough pressure on the system to get social programs implemented, but that’s because liberals are completely devoid of compassion.
Socialism is an economic idea diametrically opposed to capitalism in one key point: private property.
Social programs are not socialist. The government is not socialism.
Modern governments are tools directly descendent from the capitalist bourgeoisie revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries. They are tools of the capitalist class.
Social programs are appeasements to the proletariat class so they don’t revolt and destroy the government/capitalist class.
Socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production. Capitalism is (among other things) the private ownership of the means of production.
By the way, when socialists/communists say “private property”, they mean “private property of the means of production”. So “abolish private property” is to collectivise the means of production amongst the workers. Not to share toothbrushes.
Is the generation of wealth really the end goal, though?
On top of that, yes I agree that there are various declinations and modifications of capitalism. And yes, democratic socialism is still a version of capitalism, but one where the harshest edges of capitalism have been significantly smoothed over. Looking at Europe, they are also under capitalism, but implemented significant socialist policies, and the problems there are less extreme than in US. And still, this meme would apply.
democratic socialism is still a version of capitalism
I think you mean social democracy. Democratic socialism is a form of socialism.
Social democracy is democratic socialism. It’s reformist socialism.
What people actually usually mean is social liberalism, which is liberalism with pretensions of empathy.
No. Social democracy is what nordic countries practice—a capitalist system with relatively strong social and welfare programs. It does not do away with private property and owner class, just tries to reform and regulate it.
Democratic socialism is a socialist system (means of production collectively owned) which is ruled by democratic principles. Instead of reforms and regulations to try and reign in the owner class, it completely does away with private property. You can also have socialist systems ruled non-democratically, by a dictator.
Wealth is the incentive, and fuel for innovation.
As pointed out above the problem is that if the wealth is hoarded, eventually the game falls apart. (We are here)
Wealth is the result of an equitable transaction that gave both parties value. So yes it is very much the goal, in any economic system.
Is wealth really the one thing we should be capitalism thankful for? I wouldn’t argue that it helped make so many advancements in so many fields in such a short time, but from my understanding, wealth isn’t really something that helps living a better life. Wealth is more a by-product of hoarding. Like if someone would hold the monopoly over something like housing, they would have immense wealth. If all houses were to be distributed, so that in this theoretical village everyone would have a house, this would still lower the overall wealth of the village. First of all the houses would be priced more competitively and secondly no one would be in desperate need of a house and thus wouldn’t buy houses at an impractical price. I would agree with you that throwing away all lessons learned from capitalism is a bad idea, but wealth isn’t it.
Social safety nets and taxpayer funded programs aren’t socialism either. Socialism is a tainted word anymore and is basically used wrong by everyone including Bernie.
“Yo, Apple released the next iPhone”
wait…they still release new phones? i thought they just kept selling the iphone 8 with different names
it’s all the same phone since the 11, but this time they added usb-c (because the were forced to).
gosh apple is so innovative. they truly pioneered this new technology
I don’t really understand why people buy new phones these days. To browse lemmy faster?
We’ve really hit the wall of deminishing returns. Its not like the old days where there are markedly huge performance gains between generations
It’s cause most people drop their phones in the toilet or the Wendy’s drive through
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I’m so bitter at this point (and broke), that I refuse to spend almost any money. Let these assholes choke on their own products.
This speaks to me to. Ironically I wanted to spend more on virtual things to keep down possesions and enjoy more in a way that impacts the environment less, but the way its all gone to subscriptions leaves me cold. Luckily there is a ton of free stuff that is old or just not cool that is great to watch. Just watched the third man do to a post someone had here and I think I have seen clips from it before but it was great watching the whole thing.
I’ve found great fulfillment from getting into free entertainment: Hiking, emulating old games, torrenting movies, etc.
I’ve also started trying hard to touch less plastic and shopping local. It’s surprisingly simple and (I believe) could actually make a difference.
yeah I just talked about consumer thigns but agree. good walks and nature not only I enjoy but try to enjoy the heck out of while its here. Unfortunately its been difficult getting rid of plastic. Especially since I don’t drive if not completely necessary.
Open-source provides cool things all the time. For example, allowing that some prefer KDE (totally valid preference), I personally feel like Gnome is the greatest desktop environment humanity has ever created and every six months it keeps getting better still.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention Arch btw
Never used it!
I spent 5 years gaming like a penny pincher on an old faithful ps4, buying games only on sale years after their release. Finally gave out and splurged so I could play ps5-only Baldur’s Gate 3 on release date (do the math on the total bill there). I don’t mind it. By all means let the industry learn that producing a Baldur’s Gate 3 is how you make a lot of money.
Guilty as changed unfortunately.
Self-validation is one hell of a drug. :')
