this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
622 points (100.0% liked)

memes

14765 readers
3172 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to [email protected]

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/AdsNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.

A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment

Sister communities

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 49 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

If that doesn't hit close to home.....

[–] [email protected] 55 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

The commons is the one that hits hardest for me. In Washington State, you have to pay to use our state parks as well as the federal parks. They're saying that we're paying to park.

The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)

Yes everyone who ever wants to go to a truly set aside, lovely natural park is a Tour de France level bicyclist.

Fuck disabled people, why should they enjoy nature?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Two common strawmen in favor of car dependency.

There are cheap electric bikes out there (at least much cheaper than a car). No need to be an athlete.

Disabled people are among those who suffer the most under car dependency. There should exist public transportation to go to parks for everyone, including disabled people.

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

There should exist public transportation to go to parks for everyone, including disabled people.

Yes that would be wonderful.

Unfortunately that world doesn't yet exist.

Let me know when the light rail, or even a bus goes from Seattle to the Hoh Rainforest.

At the rate the light rail is expanding, maybe 2250.

Maybe a bus by 2075?

There are cheap electric bikes out there (at least much cheaper than a car). No need to be an athlete.

Actually motorcycles are still more performant (greater ranges, better suspension, greater speeds) and cheaper than the kinds of eBikes you are talking about, capable of making a 100+ mile journey.

One of those kinds of eBikes is about 1/4 of my yearly income from SSDI.

Before rent, before food.

Not that it would matter anyway:

How is my crippled ass, who literally cannot even balance on a stationary bike, due to the nature of my injuries, nor grip the handle bars, who would topple over within 30 seconds...

... who can barely walk 10 minutes at 1mph in braces and with a cane before I have to lie down, not sit down, lie down...

How am I gonna ride this eBike 160 ish miles to the Hoh Rainforest? Up a literal mountain range?

...

I am not in favor of car or ICE dependency.

Far from it.

But you are acting like all your proposed ideas just... already exist. That they could basically magically be implemented at the snap of a finger.

This is nonsense.

You have to actually transition to the new paradigm in a way that doesn't just immediately fuck over people who are the edge cases that are not compatible with your vision.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Ebikes/trikes can help for the elderly or some disabilities. Plenty of disabled people can cycle but not drive too.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

And plenty of them can't, and can barely tolerate being in even a mobility scooter.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

Cool.

Anyway, my right wrist, and arm and right leg are royally fucked up.

What about amputees?

People with muscular dystrophy?

People prone to seizures, spasms, fainting?

People with unhealthy hearts?

People who are blind, or deaf?

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Plenty of disabled people ride adaptive bikes in nature. Also electric assist bikes exist nowadays so level of fitness is less of a limiter.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago

... The thing being discussed here is the problem of parking passes being used as your ticket in to a national park.

The suggestion was... have you considered bicycling?

... Presumably, bicycling to and from the park, so as to avoid using a car, and the parking pass.

... It is 160ish miles from Seattle to say, the Hoh rainforest park.

Up a literal mountain range.

I think you climb up about uh... yeah, very steep hills, most of the way, up from sea level to 5330 ft, a total of about 11000 feet travelled uphill and 11000 ft traveled downhill in the whole 18 hour journey.

Sure, put your bike in the car, drive it there, ride it around the park, go home in the car.

But then you'd still be using a car, and its parking pass.

... You can't expect everyone, muchless disabled people... to just put in 18hrs of strenuous bicycling to get to a national park, which currently has no real public transit method of getting anywhere near it from most actually concentrated population centers.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Have you tried cycling to Deception Pass or Hurricane Ridge? Let me know how much fun that is.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Super fun and challenging, most likely. Some of the roads are likely difficult on a bike.Lots of other state parks that are accessible by bike besides those two. Heres a great list that includes a bunch.

Paying in $35/yr so the state parks can be maintained and improved is a very reasonable cost, especially with all the damage people and cars do to them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Like Paradise at Mt. Rainier, Hoh Rain Forest, 4 Caves, and Wallace Falls. Actually at Wallace Falls, you can ride your bike once you get it there, but you might be chased and killed by a mountain lion. You can be killed as a hiker too, but people on bikes look like prey.

https://www.outdoorlife.com/survival/washington-bikers-fight-cougar/

I'm not anti-bike, I'm anti bike for everything and all situations. A lot of bike enthusiasts are not living in reality.

Edit: Also, because your poor and can't afford parking, you can't take your family? Or do you expect everyone to have bikes?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Neat article. Can you link me to one about the tens of thousands of mountain bikers in Washington that were not chased by cougars?

All outdoor activities in nature carry risk, some more than others. By far the most dangerous thing for cyclists is motorists, not wildlife. If you can safely navigate the roads to get to a park, your other risks are minimal in comparison.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I can't get over your sense of entitlement on this. You think everyone is healthy enough to ride a bike and be excluded from the amazing views and experiences of national and state parks because they're poor and drive a car? You are in a bubble. I'm glad you like bikes and feel that sense of superiority when you don't have to pay parking. The point is, the commons have to be paid for.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

Ha, sense of entitlement eh? That's a quick pivot away from your weak point about "bikes are dangerous because of rare mountain lion attacks" i guess. Now trying to call me abelist and classist as a random jab? Sure thing, pal.

The common is the commons and has to be paid for. Without funding the commons falls to "the tragedy of the commons," where the common good is destroyed by overuse and neglect. Washington has opted to protect the parks with a minimal, once a year fee to the people doing the most damage to the commons, drivers, that you are complaining about.

So you think the people using a common good and doing the most damage to it should not pay for that use? Why should the poor people without cars, the people who aren't able to bike or drive, pay for your visit?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

So you think the people using a common good and doing the most damage to it should not pay for that use? Why should the poor people without cars, the people who aren’t able to bike or drive, pay for your visit?

Because that's what our taxes are for. That's what we're paying for, the commons. Drivers licenses, car registrations, etc., yeah sure, I can see why we pay for that.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

... You are the one who jumped from:

Cougar attacks are a legitimate concern for hikers and bikers.

(which is absolutely a true statement)

to...:

Oh yeah? 10,000 bicyclists get attacked by Cougars each year in National Parks?

SOURCE PLEASE!

...

Bro you astonishingly hyperbolized and strawmanned pele and then got mad about shit you made up in your head that they didn't say.

This is the most twitter brained 'discussion style' I've seen on lemmy in a while.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

TIL I am entitled for being too poor to ever learn to drive.

Fortunately I live in the UK so it is pretty easy. Grew up in a small town, easy to get anywhere in under 15 mins by bike.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Do you understand how far everything is in the US and how much there is a lack of public transportation? Again, you are acting entitled because you have an amazing infrastructure that we don't have.

The US, Washington State specifically, is incredibly gorgeous but these amazing parks are 4 hours away from Seattle by car sometimes. It would probably take you days to get within 2 hours distance with public transportation.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Just make sure you never leave your F-150, in case a bear or cougar gets you. Wal-Mart parking lots are the most dangerous.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This was an alternative to defunding the state parks completely.

Republicans didn't want to pay for parks at all.

Requiring payment to enter the parks is a way to fund them without "taxes".

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 weeks ago

Yes, all of that is what we are complaining about.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What are “the commons” in this case?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 weeks ago

Sorry but saying a 13th century high medieval peasant owned their hovel is just incorrect. Yeomen did, they owned their own land, but they didn't live in hovels. Serfs and villeins were bound to their land, owned by a lord, and had to do uncompensated labor on the lord's land for the "right" to live on the land they could not leave.

Also, saying high medieval serfs paid "1/10 annual produce" completely ignores all the other feudal duties owed to their lord. Usually, serfs owed a third of their land value in produce to their lord off the peasant's land, as well as not owning anything, while having to use the lord's flour mill which was also heavily taxed. @[email protected] has it right.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Doesn't know how to use a Venn Diagram (twice, not in the intersection)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

Elaborate if you're educated about it

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Bit we have social media.now

So things are MUCH better.... right?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

And no plagues!

oh wait

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Progress will never fail landlords

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

Well, if we go for economic contraction, shrinking population, automation and even wealth distribution, then the landlord will need to find other work.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You know serfdom basically still exists in parts of the world. Why not go to one of those places and ask if they'd rather live there or in the USA?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

One person's pain does not diminish another's.

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

I'm just saying the whole premise of the meme is extremely flawed. It's made to imply that modern life is in any way as bad as medieval serfdom and that is just not true. For example, did you know that most medieval peasants didn't own their own ovens and were forced to take the food they produced to someone else to cook it if they weren't eating something that could be cooked on a simple hearth? Or that they literally weren't allowed to leave the land they were assigned to without permission from their lord? Yeah things are bad today but they were way worse back then.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago

The meme isn't literally saying modern life is 'just as bad' as medieval serfdom - it's highlighting that despite almost unimaginable progress and development since then, economic and social conditions for the average person are becoming increasingly shit - and that the overlap in this venn diagram is a shameful rebuke of our complacency and the failings of the current system/those which are disproportionately benefiting under current uncertainty and exploitation.

In any case, suffering isn't a competition - someone who's circumstantially stuck in their shitty apartment paying off a lifetime of debt might be (more) free from the TB concerns and formal landlord permissions that medieval serfs had, but it doesn't for a second mean that people are guaranteed a healthy, happy, prosperous life - or that anybody in a developed country has the ability or the capital to do what they want or go where they please. Shit, I can't have 2 days to my fucking self without the ordained holy approval of my moron manager, in practice I'm no more free to venture or travel without affecting my livelihood when it comes to needing someone's say-so.

Amazon workers pissing in bottles to raise their children in a society which increasingly expects the individual to bear all costs of life but will gladly subsidise corporate malpractice is a crappy situation - and farmers in 12th century England having it worse doesn't diminish the shittiness of the situation for people alive today. I agree that historical literacy is important, but the meme doesn't exist to insult the serfs, it begs us to avoid their plight with infinitely more resources, having won hard-fought battles to avoid that sort of lifestyle.

I don't want to wait for the economic outlook gets even worse until we're all living in Meta/Tencent company towns and sleeping in pod hotels eating gruel for a comparison to become fully valid.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

I’m just saying the whole premise of the meme is extremely flawed. It’s made to imply that modern life is in any way as bad as medieval serfdom and that is just not true.

The image is just drawing a few parallels between modern life and medieval serfdom, not implying that one is equally as bad as the other. I think the larger point that the image is trying to make is that landlording is something we should have abandoned when we got rid of serfdom.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Many would own neither their land nor their hovel. The lucky ones would own themselves, at least; the unlucky ones would not only not own themselves nor their hovel, but also not own their own fucking children - nearly half of England's population was unfree. Of the free half, a majority of them would not have owned any land in any real sense. They lived on their lord's sufferance.

Their access to the commons was dependent on the goodwill of their local lord, and, indeed, as the 14th century comes into play, that access is stripped as soon as it becomes more profitable for the local lord to sell the rights off.

10% of their harvest would go to the Church alone - not optional. Much more would go to their local lord simply for the privilege of existing - around 25% if you were free, closer to 50% if you were unfree. And that's not getting into various other taxes, such as for anything sold, or to get permission to marry. And if you were unfree, you'd owe nearly half of your working days to your lord's needs - without any recompense, in money or produce. On top of that, many taxes levied were irregular - ie whenever your lord thought he could get away with it.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›