this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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If yOu aRe nOt uNdEr cApItAlIsM It's yOuR OwN FaUlT
it’s hard for people so used to the comforts of capitalism to realise this is actually luxury
being inside, seated comfortably, doing non-manual work, educated, can read, listening to music, this is a job better than 99% of people who have ever lived have had
Slaves who existed before capitalism was even imagined would dream of this WaSTeD LiFe 🤪
I am not a slave or a starving medieval peasant, therefore I should be happy to waste my life in an office generating shareholder value. Got it.
Go and work for a company that gives more about other stakeholders, you see that often with smaller companies.
Oh I'm actually quite happy with my own job in the public sector. It's varied and at times challenging work that benefits society as a whole. The pay isn't all that much, but we're talking about fulfillment here not salaries. Unfortunately for my peace of mind, I posess empathy and the knowledge that most aren't as lucky. Companies either grow or die, so massive faceless corporations provide a large and growing share of all employment. And it doesn't even need to be a big corp for the job to be a bs job.
If you work in the public sector you often don't have shareholders breathing down your neck for more profit (but it can happen). And yes smaller companies can have bullshit bosses as well, especially when they are the type that either already had decently sized companies or just wants to be the next millionaire.
Save some straw for the animals, geez
How is that a strawman? Sure life could be worse as you said, but life could also be a lot better. The meme takes no shots at the former claim, instead making fun of people who fail to imagine the latter. Talking about how we already live in relative luxury is also a very common deflection from arguments for why we should improve society, without actually countering said arguments.
It's a straw man because nobody said you should be happy wasting your life away in an office generating shareholder value. It's possible to appreciate the good things we have whilst still being critical of the system we are in. I personally disagree with the other commenters implication that capitalism is to thank for these things but that's a whole other discussion.
Usually when people call anything a luxury, the implication is that it's something to be happy about. Given that the meme is about wasting ones life away in an office generating shareholder value, I would say that that's the it here.
My reading of the comment was that the luxury being referred to was the fact that it's indoors, access to clean water, music etc. Nobody said slaving away for shareholder value is a luxury. My point is these are important non black and white issues and to have a proper conversation about them we need to engage with what people actually say. Otherwise what's the point of even commenting here?
The meme is about a lack of fulfillment, not of comfort. The comment by ikr muddles these two off the bat by focusing on comfort as a retort to the meme, and my reply was to intentionally follow that flawed reasoning to display its absurd conclusion. Modern comforts will not make a job fulfilling.
Pointing out a positive side of something isn't muddying the waters, nor is it in any way an attempt to refute the original point. If you're unable to acknowledge something positive about the situation then I think that's on you, personally. Like I said, we should engage with the things people actually say, not what we think their implied meaning might be. It does not follow that being more comfortable should imply you should feel fulfilled and that is not an argument that's been put forward by anyone. No need to refute something nobody is putting forward. It just makes it harder to have a productive discussion, nothing more.
What do you think they meant with the alternating caps and the emoji? Personally, I think that it's quite clearly an attempt to ridicule the meme and those who agree with it, built on the preceding facts about modern white collar work being relatively comfortable, which is (as per my previous comment) irrelevant to the question at hand. If you disagree on this interpretation of their intent, then we'll just have to agree to disagree. Good day to you.
Fair enough, have a good one mate. Appreciate the discussion.
Friend, I take it you're joking ... but I've done warehouse, construction, assembly line, and other hard labor. The only other country I've been to is Mexico, which is a nice place to leave. Believe me, it is entirely possible for a privileged American to know how well they have it.
I wish some people around here had half the experience you do
Hell, if you're in this situation you have immediate and convenient access to potable water in your living space. This is a level of privilege beyond almost every other human that has lived in all of history.
Man I already hate it when I can't drink water out of the tap when I am travelling abroad.
Ya, totally. You make an obvious point.
The only problem with that is that almost all of the humans that have ever existed ... exist right now. Until we mastered this planet, there were very very few of us. We are now the most numerous mammal on the planet, and that's by a far degree. There's more of us than there are rats.
This is wildly untrue. The recent estimation of how many humans have existed is around 100 billion. Half of the total population of humans ever to exist was before the year 0, with the other half since then.
ok
Yeah but most humans didn't have to live around cars. I'd give up running water to get rid of cars. Cars are worse than running water is good. Sign me up for carrying barrels from the river if I don't need to worry about being run over.
How much experience do you have with third world conditions? I would tend to assume from what you are saying that you've never seen what a lack of sanitation does to a society.
But you might be well familiar with all of this ... and just like it?
Not the person who you replied to, but if you could trade all the cars in the world to go back to using rainwater to shower/flush toilets and buy drink water I think we should take that deal.
It has already been proven countless times that having walkable/bikeable cities with the adition of public transport is better for our health and the environment. Most countries don't even have drinkable water out of the tap anyway.
The only issue is that it doesn't rain enough in a lot of countries to keep up with our water usage for showering/flushing toilets, but infrastructure to move water is as old as the Roman's, so we would find a way again.
My friend, we have a way. Many ways. We don't need to find one. But we keep doing that too.
You are proposing civil engineering projects to deliver water to the people. Yes, that is how we do it.
The other fine contributor to this discussion posited dragging barrels of water from the river as if that would be a good thing. This is a perspective that I cannot support.
Yes I know we have plenty of ways to get water from A to B, but that isn't my point.
I am just saying that this hypothetical depends on what we would be giving up. If we can still live our lives, but we have to get water from the store instead of from the tap, I would be fine with it.
Car's are a necessary evil at the moment, and we need to change that, sadly there are a lot of people in countries like the US or Canada who actively work against biking, walking and public infrastructure.
"We need to remove the bike lanes because the fire engine can't get to point C quickly enough" meanwhile in NL they just drive over the bike lanes to get to D even quicker ....
Mmmhmm. I sorta like the point that you want to just rush past. Civilization is a good thing. Among other things, it brings us water...
Ya, I get it. You are obsessed with cars. Ok.
Civilisation is a good thing yes also having access to clean and drinkable water is a good thing, but we don't need to flush our toilets with drink water, we don't need to shower with drink water, we don't need to water our plants with drink water or wash our cars with drink water.
I drink a lot of water per day and I hate it when I am in a country where I can't, but buying jugs of 8 litter water to drink isn't the worst thing either.
And since when are we obsessed about something when we talking about hypotheticals? Cause that is what this all was, heck I didn't even start about cars, that other person did ...
Ok. Figured you two had a similar bent. Heh. This is going nowhere. Nice to meet you. Lets move on.
It's not just the convenience of running water, it's all of the infrastructure around making sure that water is clean and safe, which involves government regulation and audits, massive engineering projects, a lot of maintenance effort and a considerable amount of tax dollars.
Just as an example, leptospirosis is a common bacterial contaminant in untreated water:
If you go hiking in places like Hawaii (where the government gives a shit about public health) you'll see warning signs about lepto around pools and streams because people have this delusional fantasy about tropical paradises with clean flowing streams. If you go hiking in other places the lepto will still be there but the warning sign won't. Untreated, uncontrolled water is a hazard.
Everyone can't be an expert on water sanitation. Employing some experts to provide that service for thousands or millions of people is a fantastic solution. It's probably impossible to overstate how much benefit water infrastructure provides for society.
So I disagree with you. "Running water" (centrally managed water sanitation and delivery) is one of the best things human society has ever done. The benefit to public health is incalculable.
The only reason you might discount how much benefit you gain from this system is that you've grown up with it as normal. You've never had to worry about groundwater contamination, about boiling every cup of water before you drink it, about filtration or desalinization or testing for lead. Which is why I describe having access to this as a privilege - because we take it for granted.
But I have had to worry about cars cooking the atmosphere with their pollution and ending the entire human species. And I think that's worse than leptospirosis.
Oooh. You went there. Well done.
it's good that you think this way, after all, happier slaves are more productive.
please stop using the word slave like this, i live an incredible life, you are diluting the word
sorry
That's still capitalism, genius
adjusted for people who cannot see the difference between free market wage labour in a western economy and literal slavery
Problems like infant mortality, disease, manual labour, the human species evolved to deal with those. That's why exercise releases endorphins. Your body is rewarding you for doing what you need to survive. It has strategies to soften those blows and keep you going. Because you have to.
There are no biological coping mechanisms for cars, city noise, pollution, and financial anxiety. These problems didn't exist in the ancestral environment. Evolution hasn't had time to protect us from them. They might not hit as hard in the moment, but we can't heal from the losses they cause us. That's why chronic stress, suicide, depression and anxiety are so common nowadays. This is worse. Maybe not in objective germs, but it's worse for a human being. It hits us in our weak points.
wat?
Capitalism is an outside context problem.
Ok.