People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
Human productivity has exponentially increased since the beginning of the industrial revolution. We produce far more food and clothing than can be consumed and there are more than enough homes for people to live in. Generic medicine can often be produced for pennies.
There is no reason that we as a society cannot guarantee at least a basic standard of living consisting of sustenance, a safe place to rest and relax, treatment for common ailments, etc.
Still, there are farmers working to produce that food, using fuel, hiring mechanics, etc. Literally millions of people are involved in the research needed to make insulin so efficiently. Millions more are currently involved into making AIDS, Cancer and other diseases less fatal. And obviously homes don't grow on trees, from raw materials to specialized geologic knowledge, lots of people have to work very hard to build (and maintain) a home that is safe and pleasant.
That's being said, many countries do guarantee all of that. Capitalist countries, before lemmings jump out with bullshit.
In Germany even if you are unemployed you get your health insurance paid for, your rent covered - up to centra in surface area depending on the family size - utilities paid for, and a certain amount of cash for groceries and basic needs. The only condition is you have to be looking for a job and accept any reasonable offer - and make a good faith effort to keep it. Sometimes the government will ask you to work for them (usually unskilled laborike cleaning parks or something like that).
I mean, you picked like one of the handful of socialist market economies that does that.
Canada nominally provides you with money in the form of social assistance if you're unemployed. It's not enough to pay for rent on a studio apartment. Let alone food.
The point is that being alive is not a voluntary contract. We don't ask to be born, and we are continually told by society that suicide is unacceptable. This is fine, I think that it's generally a good idea to promote being alive. But capitalism has actually decided that being alive is only half of it. You can't kill yourself, but you can't exist if you're not useful to the capitalist system either.
So basically if you're mentally ill, if you're disabled in any way, if like me you have medical conditions that make routine employment significantly harder than it is for people without these conditions - you're just screwed. Here's your 600$ a month social assistance check. Rent is 1000$ on the absolute most basic apartment in your area. Bare minimum groceries for a single person are close to 300 a month. You might be able to afford to live in a multi bedroom dwelling with strangers without central heating and lead plumbing that often doesn't work. At that point, your best bet to eat is at food banks, which are overcrowded and underfunded. Every single person, company, and political group across the entire country will demonize you as being essentially worthless and openly talk about how you should be forced to output labor that you are unable to output.
All this while like 10% of apartments sit empty, we throw out like 30% of the food we produce, and most labor in society has become about capitalist maintenance (office job, desk job, working for companies that essentially do nothing to feed or house people, that produce unnecessary goods in mass quantities for profit motives). Like capitalism has openly determined that we are worthless. We're worth less than garbage. They'd rather throw food away than feed us. They'd rather leave perfectly functional working apartments empty than give us homes. Capitalism has no use for people who cannot produce capital. This isn't new, and it is a fundamental aspect of the system. They call it merit. How much merit do you have? How much do you deserve to be alive and be happy?
And I work 40 hours a week and have for years. I take medications that make that possible, and I'm very lucky that medications exist that can essentially make me compatible with the capitalist labor system. But I lived that life before, and have many friends who still do. Barely surviving because society has decided that it's not worth it for them to live.
Not everyone can output labor. The point of society should be to ensure that all members of society can live healthy safe and happy lives. There is no reason this cannot be the case. It has just been decided by those with majority power that it shouldn't be the case. Suffering is legally mandated.
We produce far more food and clothing than can be consumed
millions of people sarve to death despite this, what a shame this is for us as society
We actually do provide those things.
I’ve been homeless twice and when I was willing to ask and receive it without flinging shit or attacking people, I was provided with all of those things for free.
I live in the USA. Maybe in other places these things aren’t provided, but they were given to me in Boston and Denver.
Those are rich, educated, liberal cities, not typical of larges swathes of the U.S.
!ubi@leminal.space
I wish this community were more active.
Most things die unless they do stuff to not-die
Except for plants. They're lazy as fuck.
When was the last time you fixed any carbon, you lazy, entitled heterotroph?
They still do stuff, just a bit slower.
EIGHT HOURS A DAY I’M PHOTOSYNTHESIZING AND I HAVE TO COME HOME TO THIS?
12 for those hardworking tropical chads
(Did I use that right? It was uncomfortable.)
I can relate.
We carve our living out of an uncaring and hostile universe.
Earning a living means doing your share of that.
Yep. It’s amazing how many people think all this should be handed to them. If everyone thought that no one would have anything.
There's a certain balance we've yet to strike. Not necessarily having a living handed to you, but being in a situation where if a rough couple weeks knocks you out on your ass, you can meet your basic needs while you get back up on your feet.
That implies that we should all expect and deserve a status quo that is uncaring and hostile
It's not we shouldn't strive for a society that's caring. It's just that it isn't a given. We have to work to have that kind of society.
Entropy is a bitch. Nothing lasts forever without doing work to maintain it.
Being alive wasn't my choice and I'm seeking compensation.
It's more like "you haven't earned the right to have other people keep you alive". I daresay it's related to how, after 40ish years of working and raising a family and being a good citizen you can retire and have the bar for "staying alive" set a lot lower for most.
Or and hear me out, the universe we live in isn't going to cater to you . What an absurd meme.
That's certainly what people who expect you to earn your living think. Most of them have inherited their money.
True... However within this universe we have constructed a society that is capable of doing this very thing if we choose to. It's people with attitudes like yours though, that prevent that from happening.
Or hear me out, humanity has collectively solved nearly every resource shortage problem but poverty is artificially created to compel people to work for others.
It should be a human right not to starve to death, do you disagree?
There are people in my family that would hear this and agree 100%. They think Musk is changing the world too and they will vote for Trump a third time.
Musk is changing the world. Some changes are good. Other changes are... not so good.
I think the implication is meant to be getting the living standard by your own effort instead of through dependency on a supporting figure like a parent.
Does it make people who can't reach that standard for any reason not of their own failing feel shitty? Sometimes yeah, but it's not like it's to say that you're earning the right to keep living itself.
I mean, yeah, it's true. Death is the default. If you do nothing, you just die.
By default, you don't deserve to be alive. But you can't earn it either. It's a gift.
Imagine thinking anyone 'deserves' to be alive when literally everyone ends up dead.
Like if someone deserved to be alive, wouldn't they...you know, stay alive?
You are making a confusion between society (especially the government) doing whatever is reasonably possible to keep people alive as long as they can and being able to defy the second law of thermodynamics.