• BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Check out The Dawn of Everything, puts to rest a lot of the myths about prehistoric societies that we tell ourselves. Early societies were consciously experimenting with different social arrangements and they were far more peaceful and egalitarian than we usually give them credit for. Their ideas on property were vastly different than ours as well. There wasn’t really an “our hunting grounds” to speak of. If you’re interested I’ll leave this video by Andrewism about human history. It’s well sourced and pretty informative

          • Lesrid@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Turns out to have warring tribes you need to be organized enough to carry out a war.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Jericho had walls when most of the rest of humanity was nomadic hunter-gatherers.

            City walls generally weren’t built because people feel safe and secure already.

            • rchive@lemm.ee
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              I think it sort of depends on what time period we’re talking about. Jericho and other walled cities came about after a certain point. By then, there certainly were societies that lived off raiding the less nomadic agrarian societies, not very peaceful or egalitarian.

          • Rediphile@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            The only real solution is intentional population control. But I don’t have high hopes we ever get there though.

            Everyone could have way more resources than we’d ever want to even use. But instead, we seem focused on maxing out the world population leaving the least amount possible for each person.

            • ChewTiger@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              The problem is the improper distribution of resources, not overpopulation. If we truly tried we could sustainably support our current population and work on healing the world.

              Talking about intentional population control is a fat too slippery slope.

              • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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                1 year ago

                Are you suggesting that there’s no limit to how many people the resources we have available to us can support?

                • masquenox@lemmy.world
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                  Oh, there probably is. All things being equal (and that’s the important factor) there is next-to-no chance of us ever reaching such a bizarre amount of people - you could triple the amount of people on earth, and, all things being equal, we still wouldn’t be “overpopulated.”

                  However, things are not equal - which means we are already existing way beyond that which our ecology can support. And it’s all thanks to capitalist parasites - a very small group of people sucking everything dry at the expense of everyone and everything else.

              • rchive@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Malthus and Erlich, right wingers?

                I don’t see many right wing people on this list. Thoughts?

                • masquenox@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Whether Malthus himself was a right-winger or not isn’t really important… it doesn’t change how the trope of overpopulation has been used to protect power and privilege (ie, the whole point of right-wing ideology). For instance, there is a very good reason why white supremacists support the criminalization of women’s health care in (supposedly) “white” countries while demonizing 3rd world countries for their (supposedly) “explosive population growth.”

                  It’s a very old trope that flattens human consumption and therefore camouflages the reality that certain classes of people consume resources at astronomical rates in comparison with the rest. It’s utility in shielding class hierarchies from scrutiny should be perfectly obvious.

      • Grayox@lemmy.mlOP
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        1 year ago

        The Agrarian Revolution really was where humanity started going downhill.

          • Grayox@lemmy.mlOP
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            The first written evidence of slavery in the ancient world comes from ancient Mesopotamia. However, slavery was in practice much longer than that. Slavery most likely began when the first cities needed labor to keep food production up to feed growing populations.

      • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id
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        1 year ago

        And your point is?

        Simply trotting that out as a truth tells us nothing about how you propose to build a modern system that respects how we’ve evolved as a species.

    • angrystego@lemmy.world
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      It’s not just about systems, It’s about conditions. Certain conditions make certain strategies more profitable - see game theory. I think low population density and hard life conditions cam lead to kindness being among the winning strategies.

      • Flumsy@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Yeah well we dont have any of those conditions and it would make sense to make oue life conditions harder or to lower the population density so drastically so this meme doesnt make any sense

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          Fortunately, we’re doing our best to make our life conditions harder in the future and possibly to lower the population as well!

          Of course, there can be other sets of conditions that lead to kindness win. Like probably heavy cultural persecution of selfishness. The conditions can also be pretty complex. I wonder whether those things have been studied in some meaningful way.

    • Holzkohlen@feddit.de
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      Some veil of ignorance everyone is part of the ruling class for a week type stuff? Or maybe just anarcho syndicalism.

        • Grayox@lemmy.mlOP
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          1 year ago

          So why not have a system specifically designed to mitigate greed in lieu of one that incentivizes it?

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            Because with capitalism, the greed is out in the open. Everyone understands it. It is clear and legal to push against the greed of those who have more.

            In a system that incentivizes “virtues”, greed will hide behind those virtues. And when you then fight against that greed, you are accused of attacking those virtues instead.

            • daed@lemmy.world
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              Absolutely. Greed will always exist and evil people will always take advantage of others. May as well lay everyone’s cards on the table.

              • Jtotheb@lemmy.world
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                Hey, that makes sense. Now, in this capitalist system that exists in real life—the one that you think is working out better than any alternatives you can think of—are everyone’s cards laid out?

                • daed@lemmy.world
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                  Yes…? We are aware of how bad we’re being fucked. We saw the Panama papers. Rich people dodge taxes with loopholes. War is waged to line pockets. Senators practice insider trading. Huge, major problems exist with capitalism and of course, we can’t know the full extent. What do you think would be different under your preference?

                • mayoi@sh.itjust.works
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                  I’m allowed to go take out a loan and start my own business to be a piece of shit like every other business owner and noone will stop me from doing so.

                  Noone will stop you either, question is why you aren’t dealing your cards.

      • interolivary@beehaw.org
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        I’m a leftist but I’m not much of a fan of the Soviet Union. I’m Finnish and middle-aged so I know a bunch of people who had to escape from there and I’ve heard first-hand stories about the shit that went on, and I’ve visited Soviet Estonia who got the short end of the stick with Russian imperialism compared to us. At least we stayed independent although had to grant a lot of power over eg. our foreign policy to the Russians – ie. Soviets, but it’s not like it wasn’t essentially a Russian project since they pretty quickly forgot about korenization and went for Russification instead – to keep them from invading (again…)

        • Grayox@lemmy.mlOP
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          One of the biggest failures of alot of leftists spaces is failing to criticize the failures of the USSR. Yes they had alot of Ws but they also took their fair shares of Ls due to external and internal forces. That being said there arent many leftists that geninuinly want to recreate the USSR. We are merely trying to pierce through the veil of Capitalist propaganda to recontectuallize what they did right and incorporate it into the modern political discourse.

          • interolivary@beehaw.org
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            That was well said. Recontextualization is exactly the thing; it’s not that I think the Soviet Union was absolute evil with zero redeeming features. They got more right during the early years although I’m not necessarily a huge fan of that period either, and to a large extent it was Stalin who fucked them up pretty severely with the frankly sociopathic system that the Union turned into.

            Russian political culture has been outright brutal for a long time. Eg. these KGB-like secret police organizations have been around for a while and have invariably had brutal methods of dealing with politically displeasing individuals or just who-the-hell-ever in many cases. This, coupled with the cultural ethos that Russia and Russians – and specifically meaning ethnic Russians – are superior to anyone outside their borders and a tendency for imperialism, means that Russian rule has nearly invariably been a shitty time, with Finland being one of the few exceptions as we mostly faced little repression or cultural erasure compared to other Russian “colonies” and this was done intentionally; most of the Russian Emperors during our time as a Grand Duchy in some ways thought of Finland as way to show the European powers that they can run things in a “western” way, and to work as a kind of window to the West. For the last 20 or so years they did try to Russify us, which we – being stubborn fucks – did not take well. We also kept our previous Parliament for the most part even though even starting from Alexander I the Emperors wanted to have autocratic rule, but – again in parts thanks to us being stubborn fucks – it took something like 4 emperors for it to happen. Their other historical or the currently existing colonies (nobody seems to think of Russia as a colonialist empire because their colonies are inside contiguous borders) weren’t quite so lucky, as Russification and “Russian supremacy” has been the standard.

            This political culture played a large part in the problems with the Union. It was nominally multicultural (and korenization was briefly a thing until they went back to Russification as usual) but it wasn’t exactly unclear who were ultimately in charge.

            And before some smartass barges in asking me why it’s OK if the US/UK/France/whoever does this stuff: I don’t like imperialism any more regardless of who’s doing it.

      • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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        Jokes aside communism is just as bad because it does nothing to prevent power from congregating at the top. The only difference is the type of corruption.

        Talk to anyone who grew up in the eastern block about bread lines. Communism is a failure in comparison to capitalism.

        • RichCaffeineFlavor@lemmy.world
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          This is the dumbest comment on this entire page.

          You posted a photo of fully stocked shelves and every word you said is a straight up trope. “Corruption” does so much work with politically illiterate westerners to paper over why ‘bad thing is bad’ without a lick of knowledge about either the bad system or the good one in your mind. And I always love hearing about how bad socialism is from people who suffered from the end of socialism.

          Ultimately the only actual reason the west has for why socialism is bad is “We’ll kill you”

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                Point taken. I am not for communism as I’ve seen first hand what it looks like. All communism does is congregate the power in the government instead of private hands. It’s still corrupt just in a different way.

                Doesn’t matter the form of government. Power will narrow and corrupt IMHO. It’s human nature.

                A lot of it, as a “Westerner” is also the devil you know.

                • RichCaffeineFlavor@lemmy.world
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                  You can’t use personal experiences as evidence when you’re staying anonymous and won’t say what those experiences were. If you’re 60 years old you got a solid 10 years of socialism in the last phase of being overtaken by the west to make adult brained judgements about it.

                  Let’s start with how old you are. Are you 60 or older? And what country are you talking about?

  • Damaskox@kbin.social
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    I’m glad that there is goodness in the world as well!

    It might be a bit hidden away, but I encourage y’all to look closer and feel its might! ❤
    And go ahead and create some more yourself!

    • LinkOpensChest.wav@lemmy.one
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      They’ve always been handed everything, so they lack any useful survival skills, and they would definitely perish in the desert.

      So I say it’s a great idea.

        • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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          Yes, but the ones who haven’t even had to develop modern skills are especially screwed. Don’t miss the point just because you want to be pedantic.

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            What fantasy land are you living in where working class individuals are learning survival skills? What the fuck is even a modern skill?

            I’m well off and spend thousands of hours being a mechanic for fun. You think someone with less time and resources than me can fix their car better because they had to figure it out to get to work a few times?

            You think some random dude working two jobs is going to be better prepared than a guy with the time to have a dedicated hobby?

        • LinkOpensChest.wav@lemmy.one
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          I can honestly say that being poor forced me to learn how to survive under adverse circumstances. Rich people lack even that. They’re completely useless to themselves and to society.

          That’s not capitalism, lol.

          What a snide fucking remark brimful of ignorance. I never even mentioned capitalism, yet here you are to defend it. Bootlicker or capitalist?

          Edit: Dude bought a car for 35k. Rich person detected, opinion discarded.

          • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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            You think buying a car for 35k makes me rich? You do realize that even middle class people are just as much a few missed paychecks away from being homeless just as much as you are?

            Actual rich people make so much money they’ve never worked a day in their life, and they most definitely want us distracted fighting eachother instead of thinking about how they assfuck us ever day with this fucked up system.

            Edit: Just to drive my point home. I grew up poor as dirt with a single mother, and eventually a drunk violent asshat step father. The only reason I have any money at all is bcz I went to university and have a decent job now.

            • cannache@slrpnk.net
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              Scales of relevance here, further societal complexity opens new doors to different forms of poverty, hidden by structural differences

            • LinkOpensChest.wav@lemmy.one
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              Oh, you’re one of those rich people who think you “worked hard” for it or “deserve” it. Even worse than I thought. Blocked.

              • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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                What does that even mean? Why are you mad at people who work just like you. I didn’t say anything about working hard for it and deserving to have what I have.

                We should both be pissed at the jackass billionaires that own everything, not the people getting by just like you. My struggles may be different than yours, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand what being poor means.

                • daed@lemmy.world
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                  I think you’re speaking to a young person who has a lot of heart, just misplaced. The lower class and middle class are much closer together than they realize. You handled yourself well.

              • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                Complaining about the rich does not mean people that pay 35k for a car. This is exactly the type of attitude that keeps us proletarians stuck in the mud. A person that makes 100k a year and a person that makes zero a year are in the same class. There are the workers, and the rich capitalists. A doctor or lawyer who can buy a nice car is not ‘the rich’.

                • LinkOpensChest.wav@lemmy.one
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                  Another rich person defender? Damn, we poors don’t need your help. We’ll just take what we need from you lot. Blocked.

                  With every reddit-tier account I block, my experience on Lemmy keeps getting better

            • LinkOpensChest.wav@lemmy.one
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              XXXD you don’t say well :P maybe you LOL could have replied LMAO to the post OwO itself instead of jajaja replying to me with XD sheer ignorance

          • ililiililiililiilili@lemm.ee
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            Reading through people’s comment history and judging them based on it is super toxic. Let’s leave that behavior on previous platforms? Also, $35k for a new car is unfortunately lower than average ($46k). I wouldn’t call anyone rich merely because they bought a modest car.

          • LemmyIsFantastic@lemmy.world
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            Your blanket opinion of “rich people” is naive and reductionist. There are plenty of smart and capable rich people. They also have the resources to actually go out and train in hobbies, which commonly include survival shit. I’m sure whatever bullshit survivalist skills you are trying to be vague about are pale in comparison to a rich person with time and resources.

  • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id
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    Meanwhile, the problem with communism is that it relies on everyone having aligned incentives on a nation-state level, which is a pleasant fiction and can only be achieved through authoritarian coercion.

    • Grayox@lemmy.mlOP
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      There is a reason they call him the Intimidator of the Burgouis.

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    Capitalists would argue that between capitalism and socialism, capitalism is the one that better accounts for greed, as it generally has laws to con strain it but otherwise uses it to generate all the production that’s the hallmark of modern society, division of labor, economy of scale, technological advancement, etc. Socialism doesn’t really deal with greed, it just sort of wishes it away. That’s why so many societies that have started down the socialist path have become at best poor and at worst authoritarian murder factories like the Soviet Union, Maoist China, Chavist Venezuela, the Khmer Rouge’s Cambodia, etc.

    • Grayox@lemmy.mlOP
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      Communism quite literally exists to mitigate greed, and there is nothing stopping Capitalist countries from becoming authoritarian Murder Factories like Modern Russia, The United States, Britain, France, Belgium, and countless other examples of colonial powers that have exploited and murdered native populations. Billionaires get arrested and taxed all the time in modern China. While they almost never suffer the same fate in Capitalist countries.

      • rchive@lemm.ee
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        No European country or the US is anything like Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Orders of magnitude different.

        Billionaires get arrested and taxed all the time in modern China.

        They don’t get arrested for the reasons you or I would arrest them, they get arrested for crossing the CCP. Billionaires do face punishment in the capitalist West.

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      Literally no economic system or political science yet has managed to prevent the internalised drive for familicide or authoritarian violence funnily enough, one can only hope that rationality prevails over bad thoughts, but not on the basis of civilization or self preservation, but through the collective conscience of humanity coming to understand how best to maximize the available entropy and energy within society to produce the most jobs, the most utility, the most potential sex, the most systems of funding and all other human desires.

      Consider thot the US is a very rich democracy yet has many school shootings, Saudi Arabia has had to deal with corrupt funding of terrorists, China uses AI to bait people into crime and arrests people on false charges and then plays catch and release while Israel funds Hamas, imports overseas Jews and then exports violent “settlers” into the Palestinian borders.

      Consider that even millionaire dictators who go on holiday will occasionally commit mass genocide. All of these bad things… Are not going to disappear because of capitalism, but we can at least say that they would become more foreseeable and preventable in a world where we have movies or stories that discuss our present these monstrosities to light

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        Given the choice between greed with poverty vs greed with wealth, I choose greed with wealth aka capitalism. Like I said, capitalism at least does some good with the greed. Socialism, etc. pretends it can make greed go away, but it obviously can’t.

        Sidenote, a vanishingly small portion of people in the US are killed or injured in school shootings. They’re obviously bad, but when comparing societies on the societal scale, they make basically no impact.

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        Well to be fair to hating the west for committing genocides to accomplish this, it’s not like a lot of them had a choice.

        • Grayox@lemmy.mlOP
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          Very Similar to how Christianity became a world religion at the end of a spear. However Capitalism is about as anti-Christ as any economic system can be.

        • DarthFrodo@lemmy.world
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          The good ones tend to do something in-between, with a market based economy, but good regulations, solid welfare, and democracy. Scandinavian countries have the happiest populations in the world, maybe we should try to learn from them.

          Unfortunately corporations get more power over time instead of less. They have an ever growing pile of money to buy media and politicians to push their interests, that’s probably the greatest challenge of democracy.

          • rchive@lemm.ee
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            Sometimes corporations get bigger, sometimes they get toppled by new competitors. A lot of them that we think of as unstoppable are barely hanging on by a thread. Twitter/X and Facebook are examples that come to mind. People don’t realize how much power they as consumers have.

    • mayoi@sh.itjust.works
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      It’s a meme because some people don’t understand that monetary system isn’t political.