AllonzeeLV

joined 2 years ago
[–] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don't mean it that literally. I mean just observing swaths of people putting straws into drinks, putting ointments on scrapes, etc might make them extrapolate and try similar actions using what's available to them.

It's not much of a reach for a primate seeing a human manipulate and dig with a shovel, and use that as inspiration to manipulate a bamboo shoot to scratch their own back.

We homosapiens spent 180,000 ish years wandering around in the dirt like idiots before it occurred to some of us that we could grow food in one place, thus beginning the path to civilization. Even we need examples to extrapolate from.

[–] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

The difference might be in primates in captivity learning from humans using tools around them all day every day. Primate see primate do trial and error.

One seen doing it spontaneously in nature might be more significant.

[–] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Why do vaccines need to be made by private companies for private profit at all? Why not publically funded research at universities and agencies that charge reasonably for use, where that capital is either turned into more public research or other commons? Other than the fact that we starved public research almost to death to cut private industry for private profit's taxes.

Also private industry does NOT belong in basic utilities everyone needs AT ALL.

There should not be a single power plant or utility that's for private investor profit. It's too important to have any allegiance other than serving the citizenry full stop. There should be no private investor in a position to advocate sticking it to captive customers (or our sole shared communal habitat), who need any common utility like elec-fucking-tricity, to increase their quarterly private profit expectations. But here we are.

 

Hi, I just poisoned you. Would you like to buy a possible cure? It's very expensive and probably won't work, but trust me, its the only way!

[–] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

NEOliberals absolutely would. I'm not accusing the minority within the majority members like Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez of such things.

https://apnews.com/article/business-nancy-pelosi-congress-8685e82eb6d6e5b42413417f3d5d6775

Both parties literally put blinders on for places like Saudi Arabia because they're good customers for our military industrial complex.

[–] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Externality: Noun - Capitalist term for "I already got your fucking money, so my mess is your problem you fucking sucker peasants 🖕🤑💰"

[–] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

"What an absolute disgrace! We must not allow this travesty to continue!

The Union of Concerned Scientists must be punished, in order to protect our beloved economy and the quarterly earnings of private shareholder portfolio staples like Tyson foods/TSN!"

-Neoliberals to fascists, probably

But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders!

[–] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Human self-importance.

We think we're magic, despite the fact we aren't built for high g dogfights at all.

Kind of the same reason us being space colonizers is a pipe dream at this stage in our civilization. We can get a dozen highly trained peak human specimens to grow potatoes on Mars as a symbol, and I'm all for that, but not regular people. One mistake everybody dead, one cabin fever victim in the right position everybody dead. We literally can't even care for the almost infinitely forgiving habitat we evolved out of that's perfectly suited to our biology, and all that would require is stop actively, recklessly fucking it up.

[–] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Capitalism is feudalism with a marketing team.

Land/capital shouldn't be more important than people. Economies are supposed to be lowly tool of a society to maximize the equitable and efficient distribution of goods and services within a society for the benefit of the citizens of said society, not a few thousand sociopath families at most of society's expense as it is.

Our society (the US in my case, but increasingly the entire west) literally lives in perpetual servitude to one of its broken tools. A catastrophe should have leaders coming out saying they'll take every measure to protect their people and society, not their fucking economy and it's quarterly private profit expectations.

 

Good thing we (the US) lost the war, or this lady would probably have her own team of lobbyists running their country.

 

George's comedy specials helped raise me from a young age when no one else was doing any raising. I consider him to be one of the greatest minds, social commentators, and philosophers of the 20th century, and I've yet to recognize a contemporary near his level. I'll always be grateful to have had the honor to see him twice before he died.

I see a lot of people enjoy his brilliant bits, but with the way the world is and where its going, imho in the name of enthusiastic greed, I personally find a lot of peace, and a lot less depression when I choose to aspire to George's genuine divorce and detachment from "caring about the outcome."

Enjoy the freakshow, folks!

Bonus: I've seen so many comments in his bit videos wishing for George's perspective on smartphones, well this was near his end (2008), smartphones were just arriving, and his opening words briefly address in passing what he thought about the latest tech obsession.

 

If you're unwilling to earnestly, critically examine/scrutinize your beliefs, and discard them in failing that scrutiny or in light of new information, you are doomed to stagnate as a individual.

An important sentiment in these times of belligerent, entrenched ideologies imho.

 
 

Hatred often makes you want to hurt people, but people hurt peope in the name of greed more often, and not only with less potential for guilt, but is often the cause of delusional accolades and reassurance both from within oneself and from others.

Hypothetical:

A CEO lays off 10,000 employees that helped that company succeed, solely to increase earnings and not because the company is hurting, not only seriously hurting 9,997 people, but causing 3 to commit suicide.

A bumpkin gets in a fight with someone he hates the melanin of because he's a moron and kills them.

Who did more damage to humanity that day? They're both, I want to say evil but evil is subjective, they're both highly antisocial, knowingly harmful behaviors, yet one correctly sends you to prison for a long time if not forever, while the other, far more premeditated and quite literally calculated act, is literally rewarded and partied about. Jim Kramer gives you a shout out on tv, good fucking times amirite!

Edit: and this felt relevant to post after someone tried to lecture me about equating layoffs to murder.

"Coca-Cola killed trade unionists in Latin America. General Motors built vehicles known to catch fire. Tobacco companies suppressed cancer research. And Boeing knew that its planes were dangerous. Corporations don't care if they kill people — as long as it's profitable."

https://jacobin.com/2020/01/corporations-profit-values-murder-culture-boeing

 

A society in which it's everyone for themselves, that refuses to care for one another, is no society at all. Then everyone acts shocked and horrified at someone who understandably snaps, like modern western culture doesn't run entirely on schadenfreude.

That was the crux of the idea of a social contract, which is long dead in the US. Now people line up to revel in the suffering of their fellow citizens with "well you were stupid to do xyz in life, so you deserve your suffering haha."

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