I hear you, is all I can say. I hope you find our way!

People want borders for exactly the same reasons you want a yard to do stuff in. You can direct that question right at yourself. Why do you want to have your own space? If someone comes along and tries to force you to give up your space, would you try to “get along” and just relinquish your space, or would you defend it? Why do you think you have more rights to that space than the other person? We don’t tend to like it but there is no ultimate law in the universe that says that people can’t acquire a space with violence.

You’re asking questions about human nature that you yourself are equally subject to.

I do get the frustration. Best solution I can offer is just working on the level of the self. Like I said, non-attachment. Read some philosophy. Look into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism (also https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKUeOXz8J87Q9qi-YfBfkT1KlKyhdKhrj). That was the only way I was able to finally come to increasing amount of acceptance of reality without losing my will to try to have at least small positive impacts on the world while I’m here. Actually I’m more effective at it because it helped me significantly reduce endlessly chasing after pointless dopamine fixes and trying to get “more” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill).

Not that I disagree with the sentiment but you are veering close to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_paradox

You can buy a piece of land in bumfuck nowhere and try to live off it. Or you can join a community that tries to do that (more realistic). There’s the whole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-the-grid thing

Problem is that most people want the conveniences of modern, globalist life, and many people don’t have a realistic choice.

Personally I try to find a balance between Buddhist non-attachment and making do with the life I got.

It’s a treacherous intoxicant. People love recreational outrage but for many people it turns into active, seething hate that colors every interaction they have. It’s the lens through which many view the world and it becomes self-perpetuating. People will have angry and hateful interactions with others, begetting more hate, begetting more hate, begetting more hate.

The fury feels good in a moment. Makes you feel strong. Find some like-minded people angry at the same things and you get to feed off each other’s rage. You’ll not only get more reasons to hate, but you’ll feel justified in the hate. You are in the right. The others are wrong. How dare the others be wrong. You must hate them because they are evil. See how they respond to your hate with more hate, further proving how justified you are in your own hate. It warms your chest, it rushes through your veins like the best alcohol you can imagine and you’re not feeling so helpless. It makes you feel like you’re accomplishing something. It masks the feeling that you are just one, small person faced with an impossibly complicated world, that is often filled with incredible injustice. It keeps you from realizing that you’re a tiny little cog in the same machine that causes both all the suffering and all the joy in the world. It tricks you into thinking that you are both apart from the world, yet powerful enough to impact it.

Every hateful comment you leave adds more hate into the machine. Every act of kindness adds more kindness. But hate is easier. Kindness feels weak. It’s vulnerable. It’s fragile. Even if you’re kind, the hate that others keep adding may reach you and bite you. Most people can handle having their teeth kicked in only for so many times. It’s easier to shut down and hate. But that doesn’t mean that commitment to kindness is impossible. It’s just harder.

And so it goes, and so it goes.

Tell me you had a certain experience without telling me you had a certain experience.

Were you taught to not talk in certain terms about how your world “shattered”? Because I was.

This is one of the best and most ignored rules.

I’m not entirely sure what you’re getting at with the sarcasm. You asked, I answered. My point was never that capitalism is good or necessary, but that it’s the system we’re currently stuck in and I suggested relatively low bar action individuals can take.

I’m not interested in discussing hypothetical worlds that woulda been, clouda been or shoulda been if not for them darn capitalists. I’m sure we could live in a completely egalitarian utopia if not for this, that and the other thing.

But we don’t.

If you have something constructive to contribute, feel free to do so.

Well, that’s exactly why I advocate for small actions on the level of the individual and branch out from there. I can’t make other people do anything. Least of all use their brain beyond their capacity.

Noted, you have successfully got me to edit my first post. I await the results of this revolution.

You are absolutely correct on all points. Now what do you propose we do about it?

You’re arguing with a straw man. The point isn’t that billionaires are the sole reason these things exist in some abstract sense - it’s that, in the world we actually live in right now, they control the levers that determine whether you have access to them at all. Nothing that we have right now could be possible if not for everything that came before it. So unless you invent a time machine, you’re arguing beside the point.

I might be misunderstanding you but there seems to be an assumption that I’m making the claim that the kind of modern life we have can’t be possible without capitalism. I am not. It’s completely irrelevant to me (and my point).

If people want to insist that a world like ours can be possible while resources are shared equally, great. I have nothing against making the attempt at that, please do. But that’s not the world we live in right now. The world we currently find ourselves is the one where capitalism has made all the luxuries etc. possible, and we are very habituated to it. To the point that many people are reluctant to let any of that go, while simultaneously demanding for a systematic change. Hence the “can’t have your cake and eat it too”. People are demanding revolution but precious few have any actually actionable suggestions on how to bring that about. I’m suggesting things that anyone can do by themselves, as much as is possible for them. Doing those things doesn’t require that everyone agrees with you, because you start with yourself. It doesn’t require a massive systematic change, because again, you start with yourself.

If anyone has suggestions on concrete actions to take to bring about massive systematic change, please let me know. Let everyone know. But keep in mind you’d have to persuade people that it’s going to work and it’s a better system. Revolution is very easy on paper.

Claiming any of these things only exist because of billionaires is absurd. They take over and destroy.

But if they ‘took over,’ then by definition, the things that exist now - including the infrastructure you’re using to complain about them - exist because they allowed it. What you (and !Feyd@programming.dev ) have actually described is a world where billionaires are both all-powerful and completely irrelevant. That’s not a critique. That’s a paradox. And it’s a useful one because it lets you feel angry without actually taking any concrete action.

After all the Quanon stuff and the general population increasing their awareness of how conspiratorial thinking works, it’s weird to see “my side” use the same rhetorical tactics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Definitions_of_fascism&useskin=vector#Umberto_Eco

“Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as “at the same time too strong and too weak”. On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.”

Great, all the better. Please do start building it again from scratch.

Post about it on the internet built upon tech enabled by the said class in today’s world, from devices sold to us by the said class in today’s world, in our homes with comforts the existence of which wouldn’t be possible without the said class in today’s world. Then go to work using infrastructure and means we wouldn’t have without the said class in today’s world, likely doing work we wouldn’t have without the said class in today’s world. Perhaps go buy some food the likes of which we couldn’t dream of having access to without the said class in today’s world. Maybe indulge in a hobby - a leisurely distraction, the kind that only exists because the said class engineered today’s world where you have time and resources to waste on frivolity, while they decide what those resources are.

Anyone who wants to hold on to the comforts of modern life will have next to no power to make a change happen. Most of the money you spend goes into their pockets. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Option is to reduce spending, start exchanging favors without money (or develop your own currency with your friends) and if you have to spend money, prefer local goods and small services. Learn to fix things instead of buying new stuff. Offer community, food and fun to people with as little money investment as possible.

Make it work for you and people immediately around you. Get it to spread. This goes triple for you tankies out there. If you can’t get this to work at a small level, you will not bring about systematic change. The game is theirs, it’s rigged against you and bless your sweet honey heart, you somehow think you can win.

Not saying this is what I think everyone must do. I’ll be dead soon enough and I don’t have kids. But I am saying that if YOU want to see a change in the system, you need to start playing a different game that isn’t built on money.

Yeah, reading this thread actually made me cry. I’ve clawed myself out of some dark places and really wish I could offer some help but there’s very little I can do.

Doing the little I can, in ways that are available to me but… yeah. Would be awful nice to have a magic wand that just fixes everything.

Never once did I say to ignore anything. On the contrary, I encouraged taking action, twice. But from a place of love and empowerment, not from a place of hate and futile demand for the world to bend to your will. That will only consume you from within.

But if you wish to bring privilege into this, let’s do so with honesty: the fact that you’re here, on Lemmy, discussing these things freely, already means you’re in a position of relative safety. Most of the world doesn’t have that luxury. MOST of the world is too busy surviving, too busy fighting for clean water, food, or a roof over their heads. If you have the time and space to worry about fascism or collapse online, you’re already doing better than BILLIONS of people who have the exact same capacity to experience suffering as you do. That’s not to dismiss your concerns, it’s just to say that perspective matters and you may want to be careful about how you wield the accusation of privilege.

And this device you’re using? There’s a good chance it was made possible by slave labor. That’s not your fault, but it’s worth sitting with. Because exploitative labor is also a function of capitalism. The system is what it is, and we’re all part of it in ways we don’t always see.

Guess what also addresses these inequalities though? Settling for less, refusing to play the game of endless wanting for more. Like I said.

Sure it will. We aren’t the first creatures or even people to witness what we take to be the end of the world. You can grieve it and do your best to resist it if you so feel called. If you can do so out of love for whatever it is that you value. My gratitude and respect if so.

Just stop believing that it is “bad”. Which is NOT the same as saying it’s “good”. It’s just the natural consequence of everything that has happened so far. Or do you shake your fist at the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs? Have you given a good talking to at the volcanoes in Siberia for wiping out nearly all life in the Great Dying? Or any number of other events that led to mass extinctions. Human nature is also just a natural consequence and we’re a microscopic blip in Earth’s history. Cherish what is here now and do what you’re called to do out of love for what you want to protect but you’ll spare yourself a lot of meta-suffering if you can give up the idea that there’s some right or wrong way for history to go. There’s just what is advantageous for humanity and what isn’t. I’m aligned with the former but I don’t believe that humanity should or shouldn’t exist.

Yet weirdly enough many people still let the psychos decide what “success” means.

If the game is rigged against you, stop playing it. Live by your examined values and get your priorities in order. If you really want tons of money, and power, by all means play the game. But if you actually value something else than money, pursue that. Money is often a shortcut, not an obstacle. People have more options than they think but the capitalistic mindset doesn’t allow people to see them. Are you going to perhaps have to sacrifice luxuries that capitalism has granted us? Yeah. Is it just that easy? No. But how fucking ungovernable would you be if you you could settle for less?

Buddhist monks are doing pretty good. Not that you have to go that extreme but just to make the point: usually people reject modest living purely because they just gotta have more. And the system everyone is bemoaning in this thread is always ready to provide more and more and more - the price is just one’s body and soul.

Most people in this thread could take a good, long look at their wants and needs and figure out which are actually which. And then decide for themselves what they can do that’s actually worth doing as per their own values.