this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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Late Stage Capitalism

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

Yeah but... Humans created capitalism, so again the root issue is that humans suck. Just think of it this way: No humans, no capitalism.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

And it's not just capitalism, living beyond their means was rather common for many civilizations in the past and some of them paid dearly for it. And look at who ruled the area when the aral sea started to dry up, which fucked the entire area to hell. That wasn't capitalism, just a short-sighted communist (or "communist", but that definitely wasn't capitalism) regime.

It's definitely possible for humans to not suck in this aspect, but once you get to a certain level of technology and organization it gets pretty hard.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 week ago (2 children)

People often conflate capitalism with greed because the core of capitalism depends on people acting selfishly. But other systems can also reward the greedy.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (10 children)

I think it even goes beyond that. e.g. the sowjet union genuinely had issues with food security, but they still fucked up when they dried out the aral sea because they were acting shortsightedly.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Humans are a product of evolution in nature. So nature sucks, right?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Nature makes a lot of things that suck, including viruses

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Nature is a product of atoms. So atoms suck, right?

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

You don't need capitalism to suck, though. The Spanish conquistadores were slavers and genocidal murderers but they certainly weren't capitalists.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

There's a bit of a fundamental difference between capitalism and other systems. Mercantilism sucked but conquistadors got some level of pushback for their atrocities. The Spanish crown fought a war over illegal slavery and the vast majority of conquistadors died poor or in obscurity.

Modern capitalism has no such brakes. Naked avarice is the mathematically correct play, exponentially growing the power of an individual at the expense of literally everyone else.

It's not likely that other economic systems could result in this level of global instability and ecological collapse. A king used to have some incentive to keep his society functioning; his personal power was tied to the power his kingdom could project, not his personal wealth. Our modern overlords have no problem destroying their country or environment, their wealth is fungible and can be taken wherever they want.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 week ago (12 children)

A bunch of people thinking they outsmarted the meme by asking "who made capitalism".

A better question is "when you say humans are a virus, which humans exactly do you propose to exterminate in the name of saving the planet?" Because the bunker-state ethnonationalist, the trumpists, the Peter Thiels and the Mark Andreesens, the Dark Enlightenment and Network State and Tech Zionism neofascists, they know exactly what they mean.

The earth is big enough to support modest human life. It's not big enough to support billionaires' delusions of singularity. So they imagine to purge the parts of humanity that are not their particular version of white.

Don't fall for their fascist propaganda.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

When I said "humans are the virus," I think people heard "so we should kill the people I don't like," and missed the part where I don't like all humans.

I don't say it anymore, because I don't want to be overlapped with fascists who apparently say the same thing.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

I'm sure the rhetoric stems from propaganda, I won't disagree there. But I don't think that trying to logic the analogy itself is the way to outline the problem with it.

Calling humans a 'virus' may not mean an extermination is the intention of the person regurgitating it. You can control a virus instead of just exterminating it, for example. It's just a term people are familiar with that they associate with abusing resources and multiplying beyond a sustainable level, thus creating a toxic environment around them.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (26 children)

If humans weren't greedy dicks then capitalism or any other form of government would work perfectly. You can't force humans to not be greedy dicks. No matter what system is being instituted it is susceptible to greedy dicks.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We can regulate greedy dick behaviour

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (3 children)

There are human societies were greed is not accepted.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

I welcome you to inform us of this utopia you speak of.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Which ones? Which ones don't damage their land or steal children from enemies or rape or steal? Please don't try to say any indigenous tribes because they are all guilty of one or more these.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (20 children)

We live in a religious society that promotes a culture of bigotry. Does this mean we shouldn’t blame bigots?

We live in a patriarchal society that doesn’t take violence against women seriously. Does this mean that wife beaters aren’t to blame?

We live in a capitalist society that promotes selfishness and greed. Does this mean we shouldn’t blame selfish people? (Which is most of them.)

We live in a racist society… etc.

You are responsible for your actions and your beliefs. Step one to improving our society is accepting the reality that most humans have a poor (nearly non-existent) relationship with morality. They’re easily swayed by fallacious arguments because they are irrational and stupid. These are empirical facts about human beings that we ignore (with memes like this) at our own peril.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

humans invented capitalism, soooo....

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

humans also invented socialism, communism, fascism, monarchy, democracy so on and so fourth.

like, you can't just take the worst and be like "you see this is why we need to get rid of them!". its literally the point of the post. thats what is going on right now in the US with literally any person below the top square on the family guy race card. Would you say just because less than 1% of immigrants that are in the US have committed violent crimes, that all of them are violent criminals? If you do, I have bad news for you.

Famous screenshot from Family Guy episode "Are You There God? It's Me, Peter (Season: 16 Episode: 20). The screenshot depicts Peter in his car wearing stereotypical Muslim garb, while being stopped at a bridge checkpoint. The guard at the checkpoint who is not in frame is holding a card which is in frame that showcases 6 race "color squares". The lightest 3 are separated into the "Okay" category on top, the darkest 3 are separated into the "Not okay" category on the bottom.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (7 children)

Redirecting blame attributable to human foibles to an abstract concept like “capitalism” is shortsighted and self-defeating. Analogously, the problem over the last 10,000 years hasn’t been slavery (the concept); the problem has been slavers (their ignorance, psychopathy, and greed).

There’s no period in human history when people weren’t unfathomably stupid, because people are literally just animals (and many would happily end the world in order to get access to cheeseburgers). They make bad choices because the average person is not capable of moral deliberation. All hyperbole aside, this is an actual empirical fact.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (10 children)

if the structure of society is set up in such a way that practically every action I need to take to keep myself fed and sheltered ultimately contributes to climate change, then it's fucking inane to say it is the fault of individuals being stupid.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Plenty of bacteria and viruses are beneficial, and contribute to the overall health of their hosts.

If humans are diseases, then it is because through learned behaviors that we act in a deleterious manner towards the overall ecosystem. We are entirely capable of shifting those behaviors, of creating social structures that select for behaviors that promote co-existence and symbiosis with that ecosystem.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There are some symbiotic bacteria, but I'm unaware of any beneficial viruses. Their entire nature is to hijack cells to replicate themselves, typically resulting in the eventual death of the host cell.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Researchers are looking into bacteriophage that infect gut bacteria. It seems that over time, the viruses select for and introduce genes to bacteria that play nice with our intestinal health, rather than run amok.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbvAaDN1bpE

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Why do I need to put guard rails on things? People can just choose to not fall off. All people are perfectly rational/knowledgeable and other physical pressures do not exist, so people must want to fall off of cliffs!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There actually is no way to change this. We can't do anything about it because we're just too stupid. People create systems of violence, and there's just nothing that can be done to help that because there is no way to change that. No sir, no way at all. It's pointless to even try.

We are all sinners filled with sin so anything that we do is bad. There is no hope. Your grandmother is a virus actually.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I really don’t get this positive attitude some people have.

No, there is no way to change this. Have you read any part of history? This is naive at best.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Idk if we're gonna have fascism we might as well have eco-fascism.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

except eco-fascism isn’t "fascism but we save the planet! :D" it’s "fascism but to justify the genocide of brown people we add a bit of green sprinkles on the white supremacist rhetoric"

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Sometimes I get frustrated with people and I think this. But then I quickly snap my mindset out of this because I know really what's the problem. Capitalism.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

Who do you think made capitalism? Space aliens?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If I'm not mistaken, Marx describes capital as "dead labour". So, to answer your question: who made capitalism? Vampires, zombies, liches. The undead.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Also kings, gods, holocaust, slavery asf. So, we have to remind ourselves that we can take back anything we thought up. If humans are the problem it’s those that say we can’t do that.

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