Leaders and political groups from around the world seem hell bent on choices that don't make any sense. Even if you take into account stupidity, greed, narcissism, religion, rascim, hate, ect. there are constantly things happening that don't fit.

If inst, you reframe the shit being done with the thought that while none of them may agree on a final destination, they all agree that a fast drop in population is the "fast and easy" solution, then suddenly it all starts to make a lot more sense. Then everything going on is a rush to secure power and position in the post apocalypse world. And things like antivax become their own filtering mechanism to self-select stupid people out of the gene pool.

Unfortunately, once you begin thinking about things with that mind set, then it also becomes really difficult not to see COVID as a test of the system, or at least the tipping point that pushed everything into high gear.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 6 points 9 hours ago (6 children)

Human nature arguments are dubious when the range of human behaviors is largely determined by the opportunities, obstacles, and incentives that arise from particular socioeconomic systems.

Capitalist societies value and incentivize the accumulation of wealth, which requires greedy and self-centered behavior, so we are surrounded by greedy and self-centered people.

Socialist societies value the collective good, so they promote altruistic and communally-minded people. Just look at interviews of people from former Soviet states. Almost universally they say that people got along better and had a real sense of solidarity and care for your neighbors.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 3 hours ago (2 children)

    Nah, the rich and the powerful are the rich and the powerful in every society because of a psychopathic ability to step on others.

    In the Soviet Union, the average person wasn't really much more prosocial than the average person in the US. The people with any sort of power ranged from skeevy fuckers to open psychos. Just like in the US.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago (1 child)

    This is ahistorical, and is exactly what the capitalist ruling class want you to think.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago

    Capitalist ruling class or not, I've lived in the USSR and I've lived in the US. Same people in both places. Neighbors are generally decent folks, cops are insecure assholes, and rich/powerful people got there by screwing people over.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 6 hours ago (2 children)

    I really don't think so. You'll find people who will say the same thing about capitalism but doesn't make it true. I've worked with people who are from Vietnam, China, Russia, Cuba and Venezuela. That is not their sentiment. I dislike this idea that socialist societies will suddenly make everyone nice and kind and caring, it just isn't true. Socialist policies are definitely beneficial but it is not a solution to the greater issue of human development which is that being a heartless, selfish psychopath probably resulted in a higher likelihood of survival for millions of years across all forms of systems and cultures.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 4 hours ago (1 child)

    I absolutely disagree. The reason our brains are so large is because we are an incredibly social species. Cooperating and altruism were the defining traits that enabled our species to develop civilization. We only stopped being altruistic when our socioeconomic system shifted to agriculture and suddenly there was property to hand down to descendants.

    As for you working with people from socialist countries, if you want to find out how it really is, ask the people who stayed, not the small minority who didn't like it and left.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 12 minutes ago*

    That just isn't true we have Neaderthal bodies with signs of violence on them, some societies were less hostile than others but that more depends on geography and resources. In Africa there was families who were clearly bound and beaten to death over 20,000 years ago. The idea of the peaceful hunter-gatherers just isn't true, there was definitely places and cultures that were more peaceful but a lot of that was again just dependent on resources. Person to person today, regardless of what economic system you live in, people are actually less violent than they used to be.

    I also would say we did not stop being altruistic, we built a system that makes it difficult to be. But people are exceptionally kind today in a lot of places.

    I think you decided how you feel on this topic so there's no point in going on. But you should look into it, you're falling into a classic trap that doesn't allow you to view the world complexly and you're convinced all violence stems from capitalism or something. Overall, violence was a daily way of life for many people and cultures don't suddenly just flop to violence, they develop it slowly over time. We have also over time developed better ways to interact and our population size shows that. While poverty is a problem and widespread, the base level of existing is far more comfortable than it used to be just look at the infant mortality rates and the average life span.

  • source
  • parent