• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

America Is Already There

PureX

Veteran Member
They have skills the majority don't. Those that make a lot of money. I'm about average with the teacher and social worker pay. Yes, it is more stressful mainly because we work for other people IMO. Folks telling you how you got to go about your job.

Someone has to be willing to pay these folks, I'd supposed the more skilled you are at a job, the more you can ask for. So they get paid more for their skills and don't have to work as hard to make as much. They still can work hard, make even more but they don't need to, to make a living wage. Low skills, you have to work harder. Average skills you get higher compensation for your work. Exceptional skills, well you get paid for those.

If only we all had exceptional skills we could all live exceptional lives.
You are very confused about how capitalism works.

This is how it works: the more money you make for the capital investor, the more money they will give you to keep you around. It has nothing to do with what you contribute to the well-being of society, or how skillful or honest or smart or inventive you are, or how hard you work. It's ALL ABOUT THE BUCKS, BABY! You make the rich, richer, and they let you have a little of it, to keep you around. You don't make the rich, richer; then you've become a worthless impediment to their bottom line. You're just another loser in their big monopoly game. You're out, and too bad for you. They'll tolerate teachers and firemen and cops and social workers the same way they tolerate the gas and electric companies. They'll pay their bill, if the can't avoid it, but they'll do everything they can to keep it as low as possible. And they really don't care if that causes anyone distress.
 
Last edited:

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Keep in mind that poverty is not so much a lack of money as it is a lack hope and opportunity. There are people all over the world who are living very comfortable and happy lives with far less money than most others have. The difference is that they have what they need, and have access to what they want in life. They feel secure and empowered.

While a great many others in this world who have more money live in constant fear and frustration, because they do not feel secure or empowered. Ultimately, wealth and poverty are not about the money. They are about those things the money represent to us: security, opportunity, and autonomy.

Right, so hope is about belief and positively. One has to side-step all of the negativity in the media these days. If the CEO of a company becomes negative, that really screws with the employees. Even if the facts show otherwise, the CEO has to blow rainbows up your backside. Success requires good moral/positive thoughts. So, yeah, maybe your goose is cook, but if you want any chance at overcoming the situation, you need hope.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
even exceptional skills do not get "rewarded" like that very often [personal observations]...
great idealism, but in reality it doesn't really work that way.

but sometimes it does as you point out, however who is like that....most are born 'normal' and struggle from there...most never put the obsessive efforts required to bust that curve
[peer humiliation perhaps keeping people down to the lowest common denominator]

allegedly the pinnacle of evolution and still not that impressive as a species...... planet full of pigling blands too scared to stand out, conformity brings security hmmmm

There is some truth to that. Folks afraid to risk what they have for a chance at success. I've always thought that if we had more successful people take an interest in helping others to succeed we be able to start making headway into the wage gap.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Right, so hope is about belief and positively.
It's also about realism. It's difficult to be hopeful when you are enslaved. And a lot of people in this world ARE enslaved. Not by chains, anymore, but by an economic system that gives all control to the wealthiest, and little or no control to everyone else. We call that system "capitalism".
If the CEO of a company becomes negative, that really screws with the employees. Even if the facts show otherwise, the CEO has to blow rainbows up your backside. Success requires good moral/positive thoughts. So, yeah, maybe your goose is cook, but if you want any chance at overcoming the situation, you need hope.
They don't want us to see ourselves as the slaves that we really are. And neither do we. So we're all buying into the Big Lie of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". All three of these are now commodities owned and controlled by the rich and sold to you and I as they please, for their own gain.
 

MNoBody

Well-Known Member
There is some truth to that. Folks afraid to risk what they have for a chance at success. I've always thought that if we had more successful people take an interest in helping others to succeed we be able to start making headway into the wage gap.
finding amicable benevolent mentors in life is what...easy, just find them on any corner?
All I really can relate are my experiences which was a difficult struggle with little opportunity..... however as tony robins said, it isn't a lack of cash, hell it is virtual.....it is a lack of resourcefulness, since the world is full of resources, only separated from us by an arbitrary mechanism called currency, which has been monopolized, thus the casino is rigged against everyone who isn't in with the house, who will always win that game....
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
You are very confused about how capitalism works.

This is how it works: the more money you make for the capital investor, the more money they will give you to keep you around. It has nothing to do with what you contribute to the well-being of society, or how skillful or honest of smart or inventive you are, or how hard you work. It's ALL ABOUT THE BUCKS, BABY! You make the rich, richer, and they let you have a little of it, to keep you around. You don't make the rich, richer; then you've become a worthless impediment to their bottom line. You're just another loser in their big monopoly game. You're out, and too bad for you. They'll tolerate teachers and firemen and cops and social workers the same way they tolerate the gas and electric companies. They'll pay their bill, if the can't avoid it, but they'll do everything they can to keep it as low as possible. And they really don't care if that causes anyone distress.

Capitalism needs a successful economy. The more people who succeed the better it is for everyone. Capitalism is not the problem, greed is. Folks who count their success by the failures of others. That's a problem with human nature, not capitalism. Greed is the bane of any economic system. The problem is that capitalism is a system of balance not a system of enforcement. When there is an imbalance capitalism fails. Capitalism presume it is up to each individual to enforce balance. For whatever reason, this doesn't always happen. So we have our legal system for enforcement. The legal system should bring about the balance which is needed by capitalism but it's not doing its job.

Unfortunately, we keep electing type of people who cater to everyone's self-interest instead of enforcing balance. If you want to bring about balance in the economy people would have to forgo their own self-interest. No one seems to want to do that, not on a large enough scale to make a difference.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
If I am mischaracterizing him, I apologize. But he hides his objections to the insanity quite well, I think.
He's saying life doesn't have to be all doom and gloom. Because even now it's not. A lot of things suck right now, but being grateful and appreciating even just a few things in your life is a basic block of coping with hard times and finding more than an existence full of crap. Yes. We are concerning themselves with dinner. Most people do because they need to unless thier own personal situation at the moment prohibits it. Especially if you can chose what you're going to eat for dinner. That makes you way better off than a significant chunk of the world's human population. Enjoy it.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
They have skills the majority don't
They chase balls. They don't teach. They don't heal. They don't risk their lives and safety to keep us safe. They dont feed us or grow our food. They don't build our homes. They play a game.
that make a lot of money. I'm about average with the teacher and social worker pay. Yes, it is more stressful mainly because we work for other people IMO. Folks telling you how you got to go about your job.
That's regular job stress. Social work comes with a mountain range of stressors and responsibilities that many jobs lack.
Low skills, you have to work harder. Average skills you get higher compensation for your work. Exceptional skills, well you get paid for those.
That's not how it works in the real world. More typically, things such as likeability and charisma get you further.
If only we all had exceptional skills we could all live exceptional lives.
The average should set the bar for average if we go by that. But we let the rare exception set the bar for everyone elses livlihood. And we don't care if those who contribute the least make the most.
 

halbhh

The wonder and awe of "all things".
I Lived Through Collapse.
America Is Already There.

How life goes on, surrounded by death - by Indi Samarajiva

I lived through the end of a civil war. Do you know what it was like for me? Quite normal. I went to work, I went out, I dated. This is what Americans don’t understand. They’re waiting to get personally punched in the face while ash falls from the sky. That’s not how it happens.

This is how it happens. Precisely what you’re feeling now. The numbing litany of bad news. The ever rising outrages. People suffering, dying, and protesting all around you, while you think about dinner.

If you’re trying to carry on while people around you die, your society is not collapsing. It’s already fallen down.

What Life Was Like For Me

I was looking through some old photos for this article and the mix is shocking to me now. Almost offensive. There’s a burnt body in front of my office. Then I’m playing Scrabble with friends. There’s bomb smoke rising in front of the mall. Then I’m at a concert. There’s a long line for gas. Then I’m at a nightclub. This is all within two weeks.

Today I’m like, ‘did we live like this?’ But we did. I mean, I did. Was I a rich Colombo ****boi while poorer people died? Well, yes. I wrote about it, but who cares.

The real question is, who are you? I mean, you’re reading this. You have the leisure to ponder American collapse like it’s even a question. The people really experiencing it already know.

So I’m telling you, as someone who’s been there, in similar shoes to yours; this is it. America has already collapsed. What you’re feeling is exactly how it feels. It’s Saturday and you’re thinking about food while the world is on fire. This is normal. This is life during collapse. Just read what it says on the tin:

LIFE! Now with 20% MORE DEATH!

Collapse does not mean you’re personally dying right now. It means y’all are dying right now. Death is sometimes close, sometimes far away, but always there. Usually for someone else, but someday, randomly, for you. I used to judge those herds of gazelle when the lion just eats one of them alive and everyone keeps going but, no, humans are just like that. That’s the real meaning of herd immunity. We’re fundamentally immune to giving a ****.

It honestly becomes mundane (for the privileged). As Colombo kids we used to go out, worry about money, fall in love — it all went on. We’d pop the trunk for a bomb check. Turn off our lights for the air raids. I’m not saying that we were untouched. My friend’s dad was killed, just gone with a land mine. RIP Uncle Nihal. I know people who were beaten, arrested, went into exile. But that’s not what my photostream looks like. It was mostly food and parties and normal stuff for a dumb 20-something.

If you’re waiting for a moment where you’re like ‘this is it’, I’m telling you, it never comes. Nobody comes on TV and says ‘things are officially bad’. There’s no launch party for decay. It’s just a pileup of outrages and atrocities in between friendships and weddings and perhaps an unusual amount of alcohol.

Perhaps you’re waiting for some moment when the adrenaline kicks in and you’re fighting the virus or fascism all the time, but it’s not like that. Life is not a movie, and if it was, you’re certainly not the star. You’re just an extra. If something good or bad happens to you it’ll be random and no one will care. If you’re unlucky you’re a statistic. If you’re lucky, no one notices you at all.

Collapse is just a series of ordinary days in between extraordinary bull****, most of it happening to someone else. That’s all it is.

One Ordinary Day
One day, I was at work when someone left a bomb at the bag check at NOLIMIT. It exploded, killing 17 people who were out shopping. I experienced this as the phone lines getting clogged for an hour. My wife experienced it as, well, a bomb, it was 500m from her house. 17 families experienced it as the end. And their grief goes on.

As you can see, this is not a uniform experience of chaos. For some people it destroys their bodies, others their hearts, but for most people it’s just a low level hum at the back of their minds.

What’s that buzzing sound you hear now?

Today I assume you went to work. Bad news was everywhere, clogging up your social media, your conversations. Maybe it struck close to you. I’m sorry. Somewhere in your country, a thousand people died. I’m sorry for each of them. A thousand families are grieving tonight. A thousand more join them every day. The pain doesn’t go away, it just becomes a furniture of bones, in a thousand thousand homes.

As a nation you don’t seem to mourn your dead, but their families do. Their communities do. Jesus, also, weeps. But for most people it’s just another day. You’ve run out of coffee. There’s a funny meme. This can’t be collapse, because nothing’s collapsing for me.

But that’s exactly how collapse feels. This is how I felt. This is how millions of people have felt, including many immigrants in your midst. We’re trying to tell you as loud as we can. You can get out of it, but you have to understand where you are to even turn around. This, I fear, is one (of many) things Americans do not understand. You tell yourself American collapse is impossible. Meanwhile, look around.

In the last three months America has lost more people than Sri Lanka lost in 30 years of civil war. If this isn’t collapse, then the word has no meaning. You probably still think of Sri Lanka as a ****hole, though the war ended over a decade ago and we’re (relatively) fine. Then what does that make you?

America has fallen. You need to look up, at the people you’re used to looking down on. We’re trying to tell you something. I have lived through collapse and you’re already there. Until you understand this, you only have further to fall.
This is well written and interesting, though to me personally 'collapse' (being a relative and subjective line) is more towards the....general starvation or disaster without recovery or such: where few to no families are immune. It's more general. It's not something at a distance, that is observable nearby, but a pressing immediate reality for each family.

But the article is still very useful -- we are nearer the tipping point than we often know, closer than we had best go, so that things could worsen in that direction to collapse.
 

Father Heathen

Veteran Member
So much doom & gloom.
I favor cultivating more positive attitudes to lift us from this mess.
this-is-fine.0.jpg
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Capitalism needs a successful economy. The more people who succeed the better it is for everyone. Capitalism is not the problem, greed is.
Capitalism is systematized greed. It is a system that gives all the control of economic enterprise to the capital investor, who's ONLY AGENDA is to maximize the return on the capital he's invested. Exploitation (greed) is the sole motive being acted on, and rewarded. And it forces everyone else involved in the economic enterprise to respond in kind, just to try and protect themselves.
Folks who count their success by the failures of others.
It's worse then that. It rewards selfishness and exploitation with increased wealth and power (control).
Greed is the bane of any economic system. The problem is that capitalism is a system of balance not a system of enforcement.
There is nothing balanced about capitalism. It is a 'monopoly game' designed to create one big winner and leave everyone else broke. Which is why it has to constantly be reigned in by socialist policies before it destroys any society foolish enough to engage in it.
When there is an imbalance capitalism fails.
Imbalance is the capitalist system's ultimate goal. It seeks that one big "winner" who gets to own and control everything.
Capitalism presume it is up to each individual to enforce balance. For whatever reason, this doesn't always happen. So we have our legal system for enforcement. The legal system should bring about the balance which is needed by capitalism but it's not doing its job.
Capitalism seeks to exploit and abuse everyone and everything for maximum profit. And the better you are at it, the more it rewards you for it. It's an absolutely amoral system that seeks the destruction of the very society of humans that's stupid enough to engage in it.
Unfortunately, we keep electing type of people who cater to everyone's self-interest instead of enforcing balance. If you want to bring about balance in the economy people would have to forgo their own self-interest. No one seems to want to do that, not on a large enough scale to make a difference.
That "balance" you keep referring to is called "socialism". It is a political and/or economic system that seeks to give equitable control of the political and/or commercial enterprise to the people within the society that are engaged in it and effected by it. It;s a system that seeks that 'balance' you keep referring to, through mutual cooperation rather than competitive exploitation.

Imagine a commercial enterprise being controlled either directly, or by representatives of everyone who participates in it: the investors, the producers, the customers, and the community within which it operates. That's socialism.
 
Last edited:

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
The few who actually become wealthy do contribute.
They entertain.
You hate artists & entertainers!
I find the problem to be in how wealth is distributed. I don't entertainers should be paid more than a teacher, doctor, farmer, those keeping us basically alive and passing to us the knowledge to keep things going.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
They chase balls. They don't teach. They don't heal. They don't risk their lives and safety to keep us safe. They dont feed us or grow our food. They don't build our homes. They play a game.

That's regular job stress. Social work comes with a mountain range of stressors and responsibilities that many jobs lack.

Ought to be part of the training. I don't get that kind of training. However in that kind of job it is important enough to warrant the training.
That's not how it works in the real world. More typically, things such as likeability and charisma get you further.

Likeability and charisma are skills people ought to invest in. Not really taught in schools. Something I teach my kids. They didn't really get it at first but life reinforces it. Maybe it's not fair but people are going to be biased more towards those they find likable. :shrug:
The average should set the bar for average if we go by that. But we let the rare exception set the bar for everyone elses livlihood. And we don't care if those who contribute the least make the most.

They've managed to convince somebody they are worth what they are being paid. People are free to pay someone else whatever they feel they are worth. That's no skin off my nose. That's up to the person paying to make sure they are getting their money's worth.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
I find the problem to be in how wealth is distributed. I don't entertainers should be paid more than a teacher, doctor, farmer, those keeping us basically alive and passing to us the knowledge to keep things going.

Well, you're not the one paying them. :cool:

Wouldn't you want the freedom to pay a person whatever you feel they ought to be paid? I mean if you have the money. Maybe you see a lot of value in this person. Something the rest of us can't see. Especially someone you want to keep doing whatever job they are doing for you. Otherwise, someone else may offer them more are they are gone.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
He's saying life doesn't have to be all doom and gloom.
But when it is doom and gloom for a lot of people, then it IS DOOM AND GLOOM FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE. Even if you may not be one of those people, at this moment in time. And pretending it's not, or minimizing their suffering by calling it "unnecessary negativity" is the equivalent of LYING. It's the kind of willful ignorance that has been allowing and enabling our slide into the abyss, all along. Because we cannot stop and change our behavior by pretending that our behavior is not a SERIOUS problem that is KILLING PEOPLE and destroying the security, opportunity, and autonomy of a great many of our fellow citizens.
A lot of things suck right now, but being grateful and appreciating even just a few things in your life is a basic block of coping with hard times and finding more than an existence full of crap. Yes. We are concerning themselves with dinner. Most people do because they need to unless thier own personal situation at the moment prohibits it. Especially if you can chose what you're going to eat for dinner. That makes you way better off than a significant chunk of the world's human population. Enjoy it.
No one is suggesting otherwise. The point of the essay is that this is what a collapsed society looks like. Not everyone is being killed and impoverished. It doesn't work like that. But more and more people are being killed and impoverished every day. While everyone else hides their eyes and hopes it won't be them, tomorrow. Or blames the victims so they can feel they are safe and superior in themselves. This is what the abyss looks like. And it can and will keep getting worse and worse and worse, until we wake the F up and make up our minds to put a stop to it.

And that isn't going to happen by pretending it's not what it is. Or by pretending that it's not as bad as it is, and getting worse every day.
 
Last edited:

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Capitalism is systematized greed. It is a system that gives all the control of economic enterprise to the capital investor, who's ONLY AGENDA is to maximize the return on the capital he's invested. Exploitation (greed) is the sole motive being acted on, and rewarded. And it forces everyone else involved in the economic enterprise to respond in kind, just to try and protect themselves. It's worse then that. It rewards selfishness and exploitation with increased wealth and power (control).
There is nothing balanced about capitalism. It is a 'monopoly game' designed to create one big winner and leave everyone else broke. Which is why it has to constantly be reigned in by socialist policies before it destroys any society foolish enough to engage in it.
Imbalance is the capitalist system's ultimate goal. It seeks that one big "winner" who gets to own and control everything.
Capitalism seeks to exploit and abuse everyone and everything for maximum profit. And the better you are at it, the more it rewards you for it. It's an absolutely amoral system that seeks the destruction of the very society of humans that's stupid enough to engage in it.
That "balance" you keep referring to is called "socialism". It is a political and/or economic system that seeks to give equitable control of the political and/or commercial enterprise to the people within the society that are engaged in it.

Imagine a commercial enterprise being controlled either directly, or by representatives of everyone who participates in it: the investors, the producers, the customers, and the community within which it operates. That's socialism.

Do you think people are going to stop being greedy if socialism is implemented? That somehow socialism is going to change basic human nature?

You would rather blame the system and not the person. Ok, good luck with that idealism.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
We're in terrible shape as a nation, but we're not quite at charred-bodies-in-the-street level yet.
Is that what it has to come to for us to finally stop blaming each other and DO SOMETHING to put a stop to it? The bodies may not be 'charred', but they are piling up on a daily basis. Not just from the virus that our wealthy elite overlords don't seem to care about as much as they care about maintaining their profit margins, but also from gross police misconduct, and from gross economic neglect and abuse, and from the gross incompetence and corruption of our failed political representatives.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Do you think people are going to stop being greedy if socialism is implemented? That somehow socialism is going to change basic human nature?
Socialism is not trying to change human nature. It's simply trying to make the systems we humans use to function in our societies function for everyone in the society, and not just for the wealthiest few.
You would rather blame the system and not the person. Ok, good luck with that idealism.
Blaming humans for being human is a fools pastime. What I'm suggesting is that we recognize ourselves as the imperfect beings that we are, and implement political and economic systems that mitigate the damage.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Socialism is not trying to change human nature. It's simply trying to make the systems we humans use to function in our societies function for everyone in the society, and not just for the wealthiest few.
Blaming humans for being human is a fools pastime. What I'm suggesting is that we recognize ourselves as the imperfect beings that we are, and implement political and economic systems that mitigate the damage.

I just don't see socialism as a magic pill to fix economic issues. Maybe the issues would be different but not necessarily better.
 
Top