Memes

Which was the point of civilization. To isolate us from that hell.

Less than two steps between that and eugenics, and one step between eugenics and genocide. We’ve seen and documented that. It’s a logical but sociopathic mentality.

Conversely, when we realise that we’re stronger together and act empathetically as a society, every one of us and all of society benefits. When we care for the least of us, crime goes down and we find geniuses who improve life for us all, who would otherwise die in anonymous poverty.

Living like barbarous animals – not rising above the ‘brutality of nature’, as you said – helps sociopaths who take advantage of our better nature to enrich themselves. Indeed, if we structure our society around that, as we have done lately, our society will devolve around the lowest common denominator (people like Musk or Trump).

We can and must do better than that.

I would say most of them are working harder than the people above them.

They're working just as hard as the people above them

Woah woah woah, let's not get out of hand here. We all know they're working way harder than the people above them.

I mean it does make sense if you keep in mind that we traded having to hunt and forage for a system that let's you buy these things indirectly with currency.

You just need to leave out the whole thing of empathy and morality and reduce the whole system to a exchange of goods and services for money.

There is a difference between believing everyone owes a debt to the society and civilization you participate in to support those who cannot support themselves, and not deserving to live if you didn't fit into the rigid hierarchy structures we've built for work. But often these sentiments get mixed together.

It’s more like you haven’t earned the right for other people to do the work of keeping you alive.

Human life requires work to sustain. Someone has to do that work. The most fair system is one in which that responsibility falls on the person benefitting from it.

ie, to be alive, you must contribute work. Because your life requires work to maintain.

"Earning a living" doesn't state that people should die if the choose to be a grifter or a thief or some other dishonest person that takes from others and doesn't contribute to society. It just means those people didn't earn their living.

In a functional society everyone should contribute to better the society. "Earning a living" is a statement of pride in contributing to society value equal to or greater than the value you get from it. If someone is making a living through dishonest means so isn't earning a living, it can be something they should be ashamed of

Note that socialist societies have similar expressions like "from each according to their ability to each according to their need". The intent is the same, encourage people to contribute to society. What if I don't contribute according to my ability and just want to take what I need? Does that statement imply I'll be sent to a gulag if I don't contribute according to my ability? OMG socialism says I don't deserve to live!!!

This meme is mainly talking about workers who are worked to death to "earn a living". Capitalists who leech off of workers do not deserve to be alive.

Of course, that's not the case for those who are physically unable to work to the same extent as others. Basically, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

We have more than enough resources for everyone, so long as the working class can control the means of production instead of the capitalists who try to hoard all the wealth.

If able, you should provide enough to society to make it worth meeting your basic needs. They give you food, water, shelter, you give them back enough to compensate them for that effort.

At its root, this is what cash should be, a measure of what society owes you. You make other people's lives X much better, and they do the same for you.

We should really be trying harder to get cash to meet this goal. A person making 60k a year for 45 years is $2.7 million dollars. You can buy a person's lifetime of effort for $2.7 million.

Bill Gates is worth $131 billion. That's the lifetime effort of 48,500 people. He hasn't improved our lives that much. Something is clearly out of sorts. There's nothing one person can do to deserve the lifetime effort of a thousand people.

It's also true in the woods, if you don't do anything useful you'll just die.

... or by your ability to steal from others and getting away with it.

This is the natural order, yet paraplegics live, why? Because we live in a society that attempts to circumvent the natural order in many ways, for the good of all.

You should take a broader materialistic look on society, who does the work (the working class), who benefits from the work (the owner class), and instead of focusing on amping up people to devote their lives to serve the interests of capital, instead focus to reframe the goals of society to serve the interests of workers, which includes working less, or even not at all. Work is not labor.

Thank you brave friend. I came here to say this.

I’m so fatigued by the sentiment behind this meme and so many others.

Ergh… there’s something intruding on my video game playing… what an inconvenience… boo hoo…

That's exactly how it happens.