Alienation from labor and isolation from your community cannot be solved through pleasure and consumption
Anon is living like royalty
Submitted 9 months ago by Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works to greentext@sh.itjust.works
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/cb9e32bc-28b9-4908-95f0-097f3a837d4f.jpeg
Comments
paultimate14@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Productivity has risen as well. Anon likely has a mind-nunbing job that produces more economically in a year than a village or two of those ancestors would have.
Keynes famously predicted in 1930 that his grandchildren would only need a 15 hour workweek as technology would allow people to work less. Many others predicted similar throughout the 1900’s. When you look at a household perspective, Keynes was writing in a time when huge populations of women were expected not to work already.
What we see now is that it is incredibly rare for multi-adult households to have singular incomes. For the household, the 40 hour workweek might have actually grown to 80. Or more, as individuals engage in gig work or get 2nd or 3rd jobs. Plus forced overtime is becoming an issue, and of course wage theft.
Wages have stagnated while productivity has increased. Pensions (and unions) are gone (at least in the US). Inequality is constantly increasing - the rich use their power to get richer while the poor are stuck getting poorer.
Anon mentions his freedoms, but neglects to mention he probably spends 50 or more hours a week either working, on break from work, getting ready, commuting. He cannot criticize his employer publicly. An arrest and a night or two in jail could throw him into poverty. Unless, of course, he is rich enough that he doesn’t need to work, in which case simply tossing his name around with he police can often get him out of any trouble.
He mentions healthcare - US life expectancy not, and I do not believe has ever been, 90 years. Maybe for ultra-wealtjy women? Currently the average is 76 years for the whole country. But even then, women live longer than men, and the top-1% of income earners live almost 15 years longer than the bottom-1%. . So if anon is a low-income male, his life expectancy may be in his mid-60’s. Which is comparable to the average life expectancy of the late 1700’s- early 1900’s in Europe.
He has a lot of fancy toys at his disposal, but his life is still being consumed by the wealthy in power.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 9 months ago
US life expectancy not, and I do not believe has ever been, 90 years.
Closer to 80, but even then that’s tilted by youth mortality and chronic health issues (and race and height and gender). But if you’re going strong after the age of 30, you’ve got much better odds of making it to 90 than an infant who hasn’t survived through some of the most dangerous years to be alive. If you’re old enough to be shitposting on 4chan, you’re probably doing well enough to at least think about making it that far.
Anon mentions his freedoms, but neglects to mention he probably spends 50 or more hours a week either working, on break from work, getting ready, commuting. He cannot criticize his employer publicly. An arrest and a night or two in jail could throw him into poverty. Unless, of course, he is rich enough that he doesn’t need to work, in which case simply tossing his name around with he police can often get him out of any trouble.
“Anon” is appropriate. It really is security through obscurity for a lot of Freedom Loving Americans. You’re not protected because you’ve got rights and freedoms. You’re protected because nobody considers your stupid shitposts to be worthy of their time. You’re non-threatening not free.
As soon as police or management or some national security goon thinks you’re a clear and present danger, the game changes significantly.
He has a lot of fancy toys at his disposal, but his life is still being consumed by the wealthy in power.
One might even argue the toys he has were created to distract and alienate him from his peers and neighbors.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
Nobody said he is US…
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Look up Maslow’s Hierarchy.
Anon is enjoying every creature comfort the planet has to offer, but they are still missing the entire top half of this pyramid. And you need that to be happy.
AShadyRaven@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
thats fucking wild how we live in the same country and yet the top half of this pyramid is ALL i have
Krauerking@lemy.lol 9 months ago
Man it’s wild that I have only really every had the top and the bottom of that pyramid and even then not always.
I wonder what it feels like to have a full sense of self, if anyone even actually has one.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
Why is this a screenshot?
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Lemmy won’t let me hotlink images, and I couldn’t be bothered to save and then upload a file. :/
Eol@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Funny I used to have those things but someone fucked with my life.
JATtho@lemmy.world 9 months ago
What I’m doing wrong? I have the top two and 1/2, and I’m missing most of the bottom half? (I’m basically standing on a glass strand, which is constantly on verge of collapsing)
Wanderer@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Hunter gathers (which human are from an evolutionary perspective) worked 4 hours a day and would have had a lot of exercise.
They were around similar, closely related people, with a united culture and strong community.
There form of stress would have been “oh fuck a bear. Let’s get away”. “Wow remember when we spend 10 minutes this week stressed about a bear”
Humans work a shit load, including getting ready for work. Don’t have time to sleep enough. Human society is largely devoid of anything that it should be, not enough of the stuff that mattered and too much of everything else. Low level stress is constant.
GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I’m sure they also had community infighting, gossiping, feelings of unfairness, jealousy etc. You know like all humans in all parts of history.
They also had a short lifespan where a broken leg, bad tooth or infected cut could kill you. Not to take away from what you wrote but to add that it probably wasn’t as ideal of a life as we may think.
Wanderer@lemm.ee 9 months ago
I’m not on about ideal.
It’s about what we are built for.
Like you could say no suffering, i.e. no physical exertion is ideal. But we know physical exertion is good.
Maybe all the shit we had to deal with back then was good for us, or okay for us. But the bad things for us now are mentally much worse, even though they don’t seem as bad.
Like maybe occasionally being starving and coming together as a community then later having a feast and everyone being super happy is mentally better than you stressing out because you were planning to make chicken nuggies and chips, then watch TV alone but you forgot to stop in the store on the way home.
potatar@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Can you give any other example(counter argument, whatever you wanna name it) but science, especially life sciences? I always try to find it myself, but nah. Are medicine-adjacent fields the only inherently good things we have made?
umulu@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Which can be summarized by “we work too much”
luckystarr@feddit.org 9 months ago
Royalty had agency and power. Anon is just doing the movements, but can’t sculpt the future.
flerp@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Also it’s a bit naive to think royalty didn’t have their fair share of depression and mental illness
morrowind@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
Well, for a start, 90% of young men cant relate to the first one. That is a major and growing problem
HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.world 9 months ago
What can we do to solve it?
bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
As someone who formerly suffered from that problem I think a big part of the issue is that the world is incredibly isolating and alienating, so you get stuck in your head and can’t just talk to people normally. We need to stop creating suburbs that act like prisons for developing minds. We need more third places. And we need to find some way of teaching people to have healthy relationship-building interactions with other people without making anyone feel unsafe.
CptEnder@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Travel helps a lot. Gives perspective. Also there’s a whole ass planet of people that will boink you out there. No need to geographically lock your romantic life. Just ya know, don’t go to brothels and shit, that’s no bueno.
Honytawk@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
Have guys who post dick picks add those pics to their dating profile
ChowJeeBai@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Can relate. On our coast we have some of the most laid back village people in the world, yet here in the city with all our amenities we get upset with dumb things like people making noise in the tennis court across from our condo. Priorities are shot.
gmtom@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Because you spend most of your life working, you have meaningless sex without forming emotional connections or freinds, even if you did you spend too much time at work to enjoy their company, then what little free time you actually get, you squander it doomscolling or engaging with the crab-brains on 4chan, or playing games that make you angry and in the process constantly consume media to desperately try and eek out some good chemicals from you completely fried neurons and never give them a break.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 9 months ago
or, you stay outside the system, nibbling off of whatever jobs you can find around the industry of your professional focus, but never committing to any of the big players, hoping to retain some shred of a soul but also knowing… the jobs they’d offer would come with hooks that would drive me nutso and eventually out.
bah. the only way to avoid this is to avoid interacting with it. it fucks up my ability to progress professionally but those who know my work are enthusiastic to put me to work, within those constraints.
:|
bstix@feddit.dk 9 months ago
It’s fairly easy to see the problem here: The dude has way too many obligations.
Most people would be happy just to go to a beach and poke the sand with a stick. The privileges of “upper middle class” are the real schackels preventing people from going to the beach.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 9 months ago
All the luxuries of the world, but vanishingly little time to indulge in them.
ndupont@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The lack of purpose my dude
Kaboom@reddthat.com 9 months ago
You need some sort of goal in life, and anon doesn’t sound like he has one. Most any positive goal will do, just get one
proceduralnightshade@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
Yeah just get one of the life goal market, something is gonna make sense eventually right haha
dudinax@programming.dev 9 months ago
You can always contribute to the great project of figuring things out.
Or find anyone you even slightly admire and help them do their thing.
Kaboom@reddthat.com 9 months ago
Are you doing okay? You didn’t sound alright
Smoogs@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Yeah anon sounds like he’s fallen into the ‘what is masculinity’ trap of trying to fulfill all goals he’s told by other men to do or an idea of men and doesn’t understand why he himself is unfulfilled. He only knows the idea of man and never became his own friend enough to understand what might make his self more satisfied. This is why many if the happiest people have simple things they are happy about. They don’t fall for the money = happiness trap or other stupid roles that society brainwashes into people. The main complication is just getting comfortable enough with self to speak ‘hey maybe gardening/cooking is my thing’ or whatever. We’re taught to over complicate our happiness.
Crazyblu@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
Who told u kings from the past, and bricklayers in africa are not depressed ?
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
“I have all these materialist things and still not happy”
dildobaggins69@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Yeh, this absolutely hits the nail on the head. Good summary.
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 9 months ago
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
Also, from an existentialist point of view, we’re inundated by so many choices that almost nothing could satisfy us. We’re always seeking more. Here is a quote from Soren Kierkegaard:
Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy.
LowleeKun@feddit.org 9 months ago
First thing to do: Do not go on social media. Second thing to to: Consume less news.
Do not thank me later as it would require you to browse social media.
Also, do whatever if you feel fine.
rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Alienation moment
Eol@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
You’ve unlocked the American Dream!
echodot@feddit.uk 9 months ago
I don’t believe the first claim, but other than that he has a point.
GBU_28@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Meh if he’s hooked up with 5 people over his whole dating career, and each happened to be of a different ethnic background, then there’s a pretty good chance the variety statement is true. Hell, even one, of a different background than your own would probably beat most medieval royalty
flerp@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Even if it’s someone who isn’t in your own family you beat a lot of them
jerkface@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
hedonism does not lead to life satisfaction?? do people know this??!!
umbrella@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
diet of kings, but we are all alone now
gandalf_der_12te@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 months ago
so are kings btw
“it’s lonely on the top”, ever heard that?
umbrella@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
i mean sure, but is that what we want?
Hikermick@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Life is nothing without struggle
SsxChaos@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
I upvoted your comment but as I always say, man fuck this BS life and it’s stupid fuckin rules
therealjcdenton@lemmy.zip 9 months ago
You have nothing to distract yourself
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 9 months ago
Does Anon think immigrants bring produce with them?
Takumidesh@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Immigrants bring their culture (and thus, cuisine)
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 9 months ago
That’s not something that’s unique to modernity, but sure.
Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It’s just chemistry, it barely has anything to do with what is actually going on in your life or how much you appreciate it.
cheddar@programming.dev 9 months ago
Do you think environmental factors have no effect whatsoever?
Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world 9 months ago
They have an effect on the chemistry, but for the most part, if you are depressed, you will be depressed no matter how good of a day or month or year you have. Depression doesn’t happen because you did something to cause it. And it doesn’t stop from just having a good time.
Chef_Boyardee@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Let him know I’m willing to trade places.
Etterra@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Sure, that happened. Stupid greentext.
dohpaz42@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I would imagine that those starving bricklayers in Africa know the value of what they have, are grateful to have it, and would gladly share it with anybody they felt needed it more than them. Their life is probably difficult at times — whose isn’t? — but they have family, friends, and community who look out for them, because in the end they know they have nothing without each other.
MutilationWave@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I have read in the past that depression is very rare in Africa.
PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
suction@lemmy.world 9 months ago
BS. They literally risk their own and their children’s life to emigrate to somewhere where they have a fighting chance not to starve. Like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in dinghies
dohpaz42@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I have no doubt that there are those who wish to (and do) emigrate to other countries for more opportunities. I also have no doubt that there are those who stay and are happy living the lives they have, despite being impoverished. They are not mutually exclusive.
Serinus@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Are you thinking of Cuba?