this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
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(page 3) 36 comments
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[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

By default, you don't deserve to be alive. But you can't earn it either. It's a gift.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Hallmark card platitudes are not a fitting replacement for philosophy.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

More like a punishment, except it's not even deserved. There is way more suffering in life than pleasure, it is immoral to bring someone into this world, and you have absolutely no responsibility to your parents for doing that, rather the opposite.

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[–] [email protected] 125 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Human productivity has exponentially increased since the beginning of the industrial revolution. We produce far more food and clothing than can be consumed and there are more than enough homes for people to live in. Generic medicine can often be produced for pennies.

There is no reason that we as a society cannot guarantee at least a basic standard of living consisting of sustenance, a safe place to rest and relax, treatment for common ailments, etc.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

I'd probably ponder about how the system exists to force evolution by weighing traits and whatnot, but the trait is money. It doesn't matter what's in your genes or your head. Money is all.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Still, there are farmers working to produce that food, using fuel, hiring mechanics, etc. Literally millions of people are involved in the research needed to make insulin so efficiently. Millions more are currently involved into making AIDS, Cancer and other diseases less fatal. And obviously homes don't grow on trees, from raw materials to specialized geologic knowledge, lots of people have to work very hard to build (and maintain) a home that is safe and pleasant.

That's being said, many countries do guarantee all of that. Capitalist countries, before lemmings jump out with bullshit.

In Germany even if you are unemployed you get your health insurance paid for, your rent covered - up to centra in surface area depending on the family size - utilities paid for, and a certain amount of cash for groceries and basic needs. The only condition is you have to be looking for a job and accept any reasonable offer - and make a good faith effort to keep it. Sometimes the government will ask you to work for them (usually unskilled laborike cleaning parks or something like that).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Nothing you said changes the fact that only a small portion of humans need to work for the rest of humanity to survive. Or everyone could just work 10 hours a week and everything would still be fine. Problem is most people spend 40 hours a week doing bullshit number shifting jobs that just serve speculators to get richer. Nothing being produced. If we actually focused our productive forces into use-value instead of trade-value and completely removed financialization, we could all live lives of abundance while barely working at all. We are at that point, technologically and in the total productive forces of our species. It’s simply a matter of political will. But the ruling classes would never accept that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Right but I don't want to survive, I want to have a smartphone, and a car, and a TV, and some steak or sushi every now and then. I even want someone to prepare the sushi for me and maybe even deliver it to my house.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (16 children)

I mean, you picked like one of the handful of socialist market economies that does that.

Canada nominally provides you with money in the form of social assistance if you're unemployed. It's not enough to pay for rent on a studio apartment. Let alone food.

The point is that being alive is not a voluntary contract. We don't ask to be born, and we are continually told by society that suicide is unacceptable. This is fine, I think that it's generally a good idea to promote being alive. But capitalism has actually decided that being alive is only half of it. You can't kill yourself, but you can't exist if you're not useful to the capitalist system either.

So basically if you're mentally ill, if you're disabled in any way, if like me you have medical conditions that make routine employment significantly harder than it is for people without these conditions - you're just screwed. Here's your 600$ a month social assistance check. Rent is 1000$ on the absolute most basic apartment in your area. Bare minimum groceries for a single person are close to 300 a month. You might be able to afford to live in a multi bedroom dwelling with strangers without central heating and lead plumbing that often doesn't work. At that point, your best bet to eat is at food banks, which are overcrowded and underfunded. Every single person, company, and political group across the entire country will demonize you as being essentially worthless and openly talk about how you should be forced to output labor that you are unable to output.

All this while like 10% of apartments sit empty, we throw out like 30% of the food we produce, and most labor in society has become about capitalist maintenance (office job, desk job, working for companies that essentially do nothing to feed or house people, that produce unnecessary goods in mass quantities for profit motives). Like capitalism has openly determined that we are worthless. We're worth less than garbage. They'd rather throw food away than feed us. They'd rather leave perfectly functional working apartments empty than give us homes. Capitalism has no use for people who cannot produce capital. This isn't new, and it is a fundamental aspect of the system. They call it merit. How much merit do you have? How much do you deserve to be alive and be happy?

And I work 40 hours a week and have for years. I take medications that make that possible, and I'm very lucky that medications exist that can essentially make me compatible with the capitalist labor system. But I lived that life before, and have many friends who still do. Barely surviving because society has decided that it's not worth it for them to live.

Not everyone can output labor. The point of society should be to ensure that all members of society can live healthy safe and happy lives. There is no reason this cannot be the case. It has just been decided by those with majority power that it shouldn't be the case. Suffering is legally mandated.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Sounds nightmarish. I bet education doesn't even saddle you with unforgivable debt.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

[email protected]

I wish this community were more active.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There are people in my family that would hear this and agree 100%. They think Musk is changing the world too and they will vote for Trump a third time.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Musk is changing the world. Some changes are good. Other changes are... not so good.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 9 months ago (2 children)

It's more like "you haven't earned the right to have other people keep you alive". I daresay it's related to how, after 40ish years of working and raising a family and being a good citizen you can retire and have the bar for "staying alive" set a lot lower for most.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I think the implication is meant to be getting the living standard by your own effort instead of through dependency on a supporting figure like a parent.

Does it make people who can't reach that standard for any reason not of their own failing feel shitty? Sometimes yeah, but it's not like it's to say that you're earning the right to keep living itself.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Most things die unless they do stuff to not-die

[–] [email protected] -4 points 9 months ago (8 children)

Ahhh yeah. I'm not allowed to do any of that stuff. I'm only allowed to work. Why can't I do what's natural instead?

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Except for plants. They're lazy as fuck.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago

When was the last time you fixed any carbon, you lazy, entitled heterotroph?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

I, too, want to just sit here and photosynthesis all day.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (2 children)

They still do stuff, just a bit slower.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

EIGHT HOURS A DAY I’M PHOTOSYNTHESIZING AND I HAVE TO COME HOME TO THIS?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

12 for those hardworking tropical chads

(Did I use that right? It was uncomfortable.)

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

I can relate.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Being alive wasn't my choice and I'm seeking compensation.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Being born wasn’t your choice, being alive is 🤓

[–] [email protected] -5 points 9 months ago (3 children)
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