And it's not just capitalism, living beyond their means was rather common for many civilizations in the past and some of them paid dearly for it. And look at who ruled the area when the aral sea started to dry up, which fucked the entire area to hell. That wasn't capitalism, just a short-sighted communist (or "communist", but that definitely wasn't capitalism) regime.
It's definitely possible for humans to not suck in this aspect, but once you get to a certain level of technology and organization it gets pretty hard.
People often conflate capitalism with greed because the core of capitalism depends on people acting selfishly. But other systems can also reward the greedy.
I think it even goes beyond that. e.g. the sowjet union genuinely had issues with food security, but they still fucked up when they dried out the aral sea because they were acting shortsightedly.
Supporters of socialism/communism/anarchism/whatever-ism don't believe that their system will never make mistakes or that it prevents all bad people from having power. But it lessens it, hopefully. If a capitalist nation were in charge during the time the aral sea disappeared, you can bet your sweet ass it would have just the same or faster.
It's true that capitalistic societies don't do any better for the environment (which was the point of my comment, they're BOTH bad in this aspect), but at least in capitalist Europe the common people got relative wealth out of it. In the soviet union, people were oppressed by the state, poor, and got their environment destroyed.
We have many decades to go until our common people are as poor as they were in the soviet union (at least in countries that were on the capitalistic side of the iron curtain), though that does seem to be the general trajectory. But soviet poverty went beyond not being wealthy - there was always a very distinct risk that the local store was out of basic necessities, and I really don't think this is going to be common in most western european countries in this century.
I completely agree, other systems have the potential to screw the environment as well. But capitalism is inherently like that and reached environment destroying records. I believe these things are simultaneously true.
You are still shifting the blame away from capitalism. If we acknowledge capitalism as the problem, then we can change things. If we claim humans are inherently the problem, then it seems pointless to improve.
A bunch of people thinking they outsmarted the meme by asking "who made capitalism".
A better question is "when you say humans are a virus, which humans exactly do you propose to exterminate in the name of saving the planet?" Because the bunker-state ethnonationalist, the trumpists, the Peter Thiels and the Mark Andreesens, the Dark Enlightenment and Network State and Tech Zionism neofascists, they know exactly what they mean.
The earth is big enough to support modest human life. It's not big enough to support billionaires' delusions of singularity. So they imagine to purge the parts of humanity that are not their particular version of white.
When I said "humans are the virus," I think people heard "so we should kill the people I don't like," and missed the part where I don't like all humans.
I don't say it anymore, because I don't want to be overlapped with fascists who apparently say the same thing.
I'm sure the rhetoric stems from propaganda, I won't disagree there. But I don't think that trying to logic the analogy itself is the way to outline the problem with it.
Calling humans a 'virus' may not mean an extermination is the intention of the person regurgitating it. You can control a virus instead of just exterminating it, for example. It's just a term people are familiar with that they associate with abusing resources and multiplying beyond a sustainable level, thus creating a toxic environment around them.
I disagree, there are some psychotic people in power and they don't care one iota about anyone but themselves and maybe a small handful of like minded people. To me they should be wiped from the earth.
You are correct that the planet can support a certain number (whatever that number is), but not with these people in power.
Now will we be able to truly figure which ones are the correct ones, probably not but we need to keep looking and root them out, expose them to the world and then let nature take its role once they are all hanging from the highest most visible place for all to see what happens when you are the virus that is continuously trying to destroy the world.
If humans weren't greedy dicks then capitalism or any other form of government would work perfectly. You can't force humans to not be greedy dicks. No matter what system is being instituted it is susceptible to greedy dicks.
Yes we can, via laws & regulation (which are also laws). You have no clue about what unrestricted greed does to people especially, on the recieving end
You can't even understand your own mother and here you are making bold assumptions about the personal values of someone you met on the internet half an hour ago. Fucking classic reddit right there man
Greed is the source of nearly all human misery and it is not necessary for life at all, and I have personally witnessed what it has done to people
I do not love greed in any form and the fact you just stated that with such effortless confidence tells me our society really isn't worth saving.
And now these statements, despite being only minor glimpses into my value system will of course immediately fill you with ten thousand assumptions as to who I am or what I think.
@page "/lemmy-reply"
@using HypocrisyManifest
<p>Complaint about bold assumptions of individuals values</p>
<p style="font-weight:bold">Bold assumption about all of humanity</p>
<p>Assertion of personal perspective</p>
<p>Further complaints about assumptions</p>
<p>Name calling/Labelling</p>
I mean, nobody has to reply on a public internet forum.
Unless you are being forced to reply...wait...that would explain a lot.
Ok, if you are being forced to reply to internet messages against your will, try and add some sort of code in the replies so we can try get you out of that environment, it sounds awful.
Also electrons don't die, don't be silly.
There is, of course, the electron cycle of transmigration of states.
It's like they don't even teach basic electrotheism in school anymore, smh.
Are you familiar with anti-trust laws ? Anti-corruption laws ?
According to you they shouldn't exist, because a crafty psychopath will get in anyway & yes you do love being greedy as long as it benefits you, why else would you be defending capitalism.
Socialism HAS been tried & it works. You see I want everyone to get welfare, because with it you can have a safety net against the abusive owner-class.
BTW, I've never been on reddit (I don't even have a twitter account)
Cuba, Laos, Vietnam & the state of Kerala in India.
China too (but they shifted to state-capitalism).
Most of Latin America were electing socialist leaders as well. (Until some coup came along)
Which ones? Which ones don't damage their land or steal children from enemies or rape or steal? Please don't try to say any indigenous tribes because they are all guilty of one or more these.
Survivorship bias is so important to remember when talking about human societies. Even our perceptions and knowledge of indigenous tribes is limited by survivorship bias. Consider that there may have been many more "peaceful" or "non-greedy" tribes, but they were conquered by groups of people that were more violent and selfish. There must be so many tribes that have been wiped away without a trace, tribes we know nothing about.
But the real barrier to this hypothetical "non-greedy population" idea is the matter of scale. A peaceful village of 100 people is easier to create and maintain than a peaceful global population of 8+ billion. Even if indigenous villages managed to build such utopias where greed doesn't exist, their models wouldn't easily scale to the world we live in now.
The majority of humanity are not greedy or obsessed with profit
The problem is that the few ridiculously greedy sociopaths that do arise per-capita are just so FUCKDAMN good at amassing power and wealth that we assume it's the natural lot of all people
So we just test and dispose of sociopaths at birth, problem solved. We already have the tests for it.
Yep, which is why we need to use nontraditional power tactics like leveraging drones and cyber attacks as well as flashmob tactics and social media control
Money buys you a private army but not loyalty, we need to start early and get idealists positioned in those private armies
Make inroads with the children of billionaires tired of their parents' excesses, this was a valuable vector during the French Revolution that almost no one talks about
More than anything we need to accept the fact that no amount of signs or shouts are going to stop the ultra wealthy from destroying everything for more imaginary numbers in an already unspendable bank account
I feel like you can't blame the corpos 100% and then proceed to do nothing to help the environment. Like I get that capitalism and unnecessary waste driven by it are by and large the problem, but it feels like people just use that as an excuse to put in zero effort personally and continue to live their lifestyle of overconsumption. It's very defeatist imo.
"Humans are the virus" is related to the racist "overpopulation" myth which leads straight to eugenics. Sure, many words are overused, but "political ideology that combines environmentalism with fascist principles, often advocating for authoritarian measures to address ecological issues" is a bad thing.
on the other hand when a virus like flu or covid replicates, it produces thousands of its variants but it is only defined by the one that causes the most damage
That metaphor doesn't work. It be more accurate to compare humans to in general bacteria and most bacteria are not harmful, there are even some know useful viruses
good point on the usefulness, I agree the analogy is not an exact one between humans and viruses as an individual per se but the fact that in both populations damages caused takes precedent over damages not caused (and in the case of humans also takes precedent over the good things humans try to do)
nope I am talking about the top billionaire class, %1 immigrant criminals are nothing compared to the damages caused by these people. you are forcing a racism twist to the topic to win the argument but local level criminals are unfortunately irrelevant in this conversation.
We live in a religious society that promotes a culture of bigotry. Does this mean we shouldn’t blame bigots?
We live in a patriarchal society that doesn’t take violence against women seriously. Does this mean that wife beaters aren’t to blame?
We live in a capitalist society that promotes selfishness and greed. Does this mean we shouldn’t blame selfish people? (Which is most of them.)
We live in a racist society… etc.
You are responsible for your actions and your beliefs. Step one to improving our society is accepting the reality that most humans have a poor (nearly non-existent) relationship with morality. They’re easily swayed by fallacious arguments because they are irrational and stupid. These are empirical facts about human beings that we ignore (with memes like this) at our own peril.
so what exactly is your solution, magically making people not be gullible?
you're just perpetuating the idea that there's nothing to be done, you're saying these things so you don't have to think about the uncomfortable reality that things are as they are for a reason, that we can and should be taking action to change the systems that promote misery.
I do think that teaching empathy and logic so that the children may understand the world and society is a good idea that would drastically reduce the number of people that fall into the category of "gullible idiot."
How do we do that? What are the specifics? No clue. But teach people how to learn for fucks sake.
Also you are projecting a lot of your own shit onto me I think. I made a pretty simple comment and you read a fucking fanfic.
And this right here folks is why nothing will ever change. Because phantasmagorical ideological abstractions get blamed instead of actual features of reality, such as psychopathy, ignorance, greed, selfishness, and so on.
Moral progress! It takes a long, long time to convince average people to accept moral claims, such as the badness of slavery. There’s a kind of tipping point when normative facts are FINALLY absorbed into the culture and propagated through non-intellectual means (such as media and social pressure).
Democracy is actually the best vehicle for moral progress in that respect, as democratic scholars have been pointing out for the last century or so.
Blaming individuals is ok of course, but after we’re done we should look what situation gave their lacking personalities power to have any individual impact upon our society. And change that. The blaming of actors is one thing, but there are shitty scripts, too, you know?
Redirecting blame attributable to human foibles to an abstract concept like “capitalism” is shortsighted and self-defeating. Analogously, the problem over the last 10,000 years hasn’t been slavery (the concept); the problem has been slavers (their ignorance, psychopathy, and greed).
There’s no period in human history when people weren’t unfathomably stupid, because people are literally just animals (and many would happily end the world in order to get access to cheeseburgers). They make bad choices because the average person is not capable of moral deliberation. All hyperbole aside, this is an actual empirical fact.
if the structure of society is set up in such a way that practically every action I need to take to keep myself fed and sheltered ultimately contributes to climate change, then it's fucking inane to say it is the fault of individuals being stupid.
Humans are selfish, and that’s precisely why we need an alternative to capitalism. Because if we don’t force people to act intelligently they’ll act like the animals they are and obliterate their environment until they are living on mountains of shit and corpses. This has happened throughout history over and over and over again, long before the advent of any economic ideologies.
Global warming can be fixed tomorrow if people stopped eating meat and stopped buying giant pickup trucks and stopped worshipping celebrities, and so on.
And every armed conflict in the world would end if everyone put down their guns right this instant.
We're talking about structures that reach across the globe, with a momentum that existed before either of us were born, and with a trajectory that will be traced long after we are dead. You don't shift that trajectory by Wishing Upon a Star that everyone Becomes Better overnight. That's not a practical approach.
And every armed conflict in the world would end if everyone put down their guns right this instant.
This is actually true. There’s an important lesson about human nature hidden somewhere in this sarcastic sentence.
The reason we need to get rid of capitalism is that it empowers people’s most horrible greedy impulses. However, that’s precisely because people are horrible and greedy. If people were saints, then capitalism wouldn’t matter because nobody would do dumb shit like buy pickup trucks or eat meat.
Again, long before the advent of any abstract “structures” and economic theories, before Hollywood and global communication networks, when humans were still living on random islands, they behaved like total and utter morons. They were not rational. Because 90% of humans are — and again, this is an empirical fact — incapable of moral deliberation.
That’s why we had slavery for 10,000 years. That’s why people torture billions of sentient animals to death in abattoirs every year to eat their carcasses. That’s why Donald Trump won the last election.
Yes. Of course. But I get the sense that you guys are in this weird ideological-purity-testing mode right now. If you actually seriously want to engage with this fascinating research topic in good faith, feel free to message me.
Oh, but since you brought up good faith. In response to simply asking for a source, you attacked my character, tried to gaslight me into thinking I'm in the wrong, and then tried to move the topic into private DMs so nobody else can see it and so you can look like the adult here. This wasn't even a real offer though, because nobody is going to politely DM you after getting their character attacked out of nowhere like that.
The fact that you're not willing to publicly show your source about the things you're claiming in bold are empirical facts tells me that you don't actually have a source, and are in fact the one not engaging in good faith.
funny you keep coming back to slavery when so much of it was justified by claiming huge chunks of people were, empirically factually, incapable of being fully human
standing in the middle of a system that incentivizes, necessitates even, that people act against our collective shared interest; a system that, half through deliberate intention and half through the selective pressure of market forces, makes sure they have just enough education to be profitable workers -- and to say, "We've always been this stupid. Just innate, innit?", well you're either missing the forest for the trees or for whatever reason you'd rather believe some people can just be written off altogether.
Our system is just slavery with PR and programming to convince us to be helpless to change anything for the better and to look at various distractions instead of the reality.
I am not just talking about first-world exploitation, I am talking about literal slavery and child slavery, which our economies rely on — which we unknowingly rely on for many of our goods.
If you factor in 40% (or more) of US agricultural workers being undocumented immigrants, you don't really have to look hard to see that slavery is literally everywhere. It may not be the chattel slavery of past, but it's still modern slavery.
Almost all employment revolves around exploitation, hard hours, asking you to give more than you have for the sake of the business, and so forth, all the while many participating individuals are unable to afford health care or housing. I still liken that dynamic to be modern slavery, even if the individuals reside in the first-world.
We can rise above this, but we must identify what is blocking or stagnating progress to be able to change — such as accepting the reality at hand instead of turning our gaze away.
Doesn't mean we have to play the blame game or reduce nuanced issues down to word-play and labels. A new system is likely the best solution.
I agree. And any plan to move forward has to confront the fact that humans are obstreperous ignoramuses. So, what do we do? One strategy is to leverage democracy, which has already led to unbelievable moral progress over the last century. Another option is to leverage a populist outreach. Any other ideas?
So, besides an entirely new system, human rights for all, and direct democracy, I'm calling for a rise of decentralized media (like the fediverse) and holding "news" organizations accountable for their propaganda, misinformation, suppression of opposing/critical perspectives, and omission of key facts. If they mess up too much, they can no longer peddle themselves as a news organization.
When we are misinformed or uninformed to this degree and are simultaneously subjected to this level of propaganda and tribalism, we inevitably become very polarized against each other. We stop making sense. We aren't focusing on anything productive. We can resort to hate and violence. The key is to recognizing this manipulation and recognizing the kind of world we want to live in.
Do you want to hate or fear your neighbor? Do you want to live in a community or country that is disconnected, where many are dehumanized and suffering to extreme degrees? Do you want to be oppressed or tolerate the oppression of others? Or do you want the opposite?
That clarity and focus is the light at the end of the tunnel. What kind of world do we want to live in?
I want to live in a kind world, that has human rights, freedom, and a system that works for human benefit - instead of against it. I want to focus on solutions and help others to do the same. I want to thrive and to thrive alongside the planet and every living being on it!
Plenty of bacteria and viruses are beneficial, and contribute to the overall health of their hosts.
If humans are diseases, then it is because through learned behaviors that we act in a deleterious manner towards the overall ecosystem. We are entirely capable of shifting those behaviors, of creating social structures that select for behaviors that promote co-existence and symbiosis with that ecosystem.
There are some symbiotic bacteria, but I'm unaware of any beneficial viruses. Their entire nature is to hijack cells to replicate themselves, typically resulting in the eventual death of the host cell.
Researchers are looking into bacteriophage that infect gut bacteria. It seems that over time, the viruses select for and introduce genes to bacteria that play nice with our intestinal health, rather than run amok.
Unfortunately they don't seem to be on course at all, with coal production and new coal power plants rising in 2024 to an all-time high.
While they have been implementing green energy, which is laudable, they aren't phasing out coal at all. China seems to crave energy and has no bias about where it comes from.
Why do I need to put guard rails on things? People can just choose to not fall off. All people are perfectly rational/knowledgeable and other physical pressures do not exist, so people must want to fall off of cliffs!
There actually is no way to change this. We can't do anything about it because we're just too stupid. People create systems of violence, and there's just nothing that can be done to help that because there is no way to change that. No sir, no way at all. It's pointless to even try.
We are all sinners filled with sin so anything that we do is bad. There is no hope. Your grandmother is a virus actually.
Wolves observed within the conditions of captivity organize under so-called "alphas" who maintain leadership through frequent bouts of violence. This is not their inevitable state, as wolves in other conditions commonly organize into family structures and exhibit little infighting. Were one to observe wolves only in captivity, one might conclude that their system of violence is unchangeable.
Humans have the capacity to shape their own environment. Our imagination of the future is often (but not always) constrained by our environment as it exists. History displays a non-exhauative sampling of societal configurations, each of which is influenced by past configurations and that which was beyond human capacity to change.
The inevitability of tyranny may seem likely, but cannot be known. Likewise, we cannot know that a better world is or is not possible. This does not mean that we should not try.
So, let me get this straight: animals work like this, we work like this, there is not a single example in 10000 years of human history that proves it otherwise but “cannot be known” if we are pathetic evil creatures.
Right right… well, text me when it works ok? I rather not wait for “other conditions” but point my finger at the problematic people today and work from evidence.
Yeah I hope that we get there some day (and double hope that I might still be alive to see it). It seems like we have so many terrible people today, and they're quite prominent.
Yeah I know what you mean man. I gave a bunch of children some knives and the one with the biggest knife coerced the others into hurting a bunch of people. They still would have found a way to do that without knives! Don't you know that rocks exist?? Them having knives is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to the outcome!
Sometimes I get frustrated with people and I think this. But then I quickly snap my mindset out of this because I know really what's the problem. Capitalism.
Destruction of nature & unwise use of resources, or even just multiplying to a point where even the most prudent resource management & minimal environmental impact per capita is the absolute goal could still destiny biodiversity.
This has to do with economical tendencies of living beings, not a particular socioeconomic system.
(Yes, capitalism is accelerating the process by taking away freedoms from the masses - but even a commune can decide to chop up the whole forest for wood. World is a fuck.)
"Virus" might not be the best word for it tho (infestation maybe? Fits the capita growth statistics), but successful animals that oversaturate their environment (eg lots of food, no predators, longevity after procreation, tech) cause biodiversity loss (anything from local collapse to a global extinction event with cofactors like climate change or air structure change - what is novel with humans is how rapidly we are developing in our last 0.5% of existence, and how rapid the global impact we case is, it won't take us 10s of thousands of years, we can speedrun in less than a millennia).
The lack of empathy and true understanding of reverence is the issue.
People do not respect the meat that befalls their plate, the bacteria that ferments their beers, the trees that warms their homes.
Capitalism has two routes, horde through meekness or horde through exploitation. When you horde through meekness, any worth is solely yours - you submit and embrace this moment of life wholely separate from you. You cannot control the world.
Humans are a virus, because we reach for the stars as we eviscerate our host. Lest we learn compassion and empathy, we will consume this earth. The flooding isn't biblical this time, it's predicted by science as man decays.
except eco-fascism isn’t "fascism but we save the planet! :D" it’s "fascism but to justify the genocide of brown people we add a bit of green sprinkles on the white supremacist rhetoric"
Also kings, gods, holocaust, slavery asf. So, we have to remind ourselves that we can take back anything we thought up. If humans are the problem it’s those that say we can’t do that.
The funniest thing about the Lizard people conspiracy, which started as an antisemitic dogwhistle, is that David Icke by all accounts just believes in literal lizard people.
Marx certainly didn't see capitalism as merely metaphorical. Marx recognized that capitalism existed in material reality, that it was a system constructed and operated by real, flesh and blood human beings.
They are the same piece of generic rhetorical label you slap on or argue you can't slap on whenever it conveniences you. If your solution is just a sentence long, you are an over-simplifying things.
So what happened to the ancient civilizations that collapsed before capitalism existed? Ducks. It's the ducks that need to be shot.
Humanity: Living with nature and not causing global ecosystem crisis for thousands of years.
Capitalism: Starts the industrial revolution and the need for eternal Exponential growth, resulting in massive environmental destruction over the last ~250 years.
"Clearly, the humans are the problem."
I think you vastly underestimate exactly how much impact humans had on the enrollment environment all the way back to the stone age.
Any animal causes changes to an ecosystem. The bigger the numbers, the bigger the changes. In general, it never reaches crisis because something else comes along and shifts things into balance.
But the current crisis wasn't, and isn't, solely caused by the industrial revolution. We caused issues with megafauna waaaaaaay back. We shifted waterways and changed ecosystems during the earliest agricultural development. Everything today is stacked up on top of that, not some kind of distinct thing.
Our distant ancestors weren't some kind of noble and mystical race, perfectly balanced with all around them.
Capitalism wasn't even around as a distinct system back when we first started dumping pollutants and waste into the world. Money wasn't always in place.
The industrial revolution changed the scale, but it would have happened without capitalism because us monkeys have always refined our tools and technology over generations. Stone, bronze, iron, steam, petroleum, silicon, it's a progression that was damn near inevitable.
I just don't buy the idea that human ingenuity and technological progress would have just stopped when factories were imagined and built. Best case, maybe it would have been slower, more careful under something like an anarchist structure (or lack thereof). But there's nothing saying it wouldn't have been worse either. It's a big game of what if, and there's no current way to test technological progression theories. We can't just set up an experiment somehow on mars and let it play out while preventing capitalism to see what happens.
Shit, there were non capitalist systems in place during the industrial revolution, and they didn't exactly reject it all.
Ok, I'll say that I'm being too myopic. But I do believe the scale is definitely different from back before technology was a major concern. Humans caused destruction to the environment, but I don't believe we had the capacity to make it a global existential crisis for our species until modern production and infinite consumption was considered the best practice for humanity. I don't think nixing capitalism will solve the problems overnight, but reigning it in with reasonable expectations isn't a bad idea.
Holy shit dude... stop trying to be a victim all of the time.
I'm not being a bigot, you dweeb. I'm saying social media isn't exactly known to improve one's mental health and it seems, judging by you tirade through this post's comment section, you could stand for a break.
Just because you can pronunce a word it doesn’t mean you understand it. By definition eco-fascism is fascism, because it wouldn’t make sense otherwise.
I don’t get the meme but allow me to clarify: if you think this meme will prevent me from punching a fascist in the face, you are wrong.
It's clear you didn't understand the meme because your reply is almost a non-sequitur. The comic is saying phrases like "human are the virus" fail to understand a lot of damage done by humanity was incited, sustained, and furthered by capitalism. Those phrases are pushed for "eco-fascist rhetoric" about controlling or even eliminating humanity when ecological/societal damage could be remediated by swapping to an economic system that nutures less destructive and more pro-social tendencies.
I don't know where you got the sense that the comic was telling you that fascists were okay. Honestly, I don't even know what your first paragraph is talking about.
Yes, I think the meme is dumb and I didn’t get it, I wrote it too. “Eco fascist rethoric” is normal fascism. You don’t “swap” economic systems like you swap pants.
A true fascist doesn’t go back to normal, like true antivaxer will die cursing vaccines, like nazi dying doing the salute.
So, yes some “humans are the virus” and it’s not eco-fascism. It’s called resistance.
If I'm not wrong, English is not your first language. I think you should look up "eco-terrorism" and "eco-fascism" as words and try to understand them. "Eco-fascism" is meaningful different from normal "fascism" and can't be swapped out as you want.
Ecofascists often believe there is a symbiotic relationship between a nation-group and its homeland. They often blame the global south for ecological problems, with their proposed solutions often entailing extreme population control measures based on racial categorisations, and advocating for the accelerated collapse of current society to be replaced by fascist societies.
Thanks for cherry-picking the one paragraph I expected you to. Instead of the many other lines stating how eco-fascism is a subset of fascism concerned with authoritarian control of populations for the "presumed" betterment of the ecosystem. While a normal fascist state can use ecological rhetoric to propel their fascism ideology, eco-fascism also provides a trap for radical environmentalists. The difference, and prime point of conflict, is that protecting the global ecosystem is a good thing and passionate environmental activists run the risk of radicalizing into, or being derogatorily labeled as, eco-fascists. Whereas, I don't see a well-meaning person falling into traditional fascism.
But you seem pretty intent on misunderstanding so this will be my final comment to you.
To reiterate. The comic is not espousing fascist thought or telling people to let it slide. It's saying: don't say shit like "humans are the problem" because you sound like a(n eco-)fascist when a less genocidal solution is "give up capitalism and try a different way of trading for necessities and luxuries." I hope I don't have to explain that "humans are the virus" is not a phrase easily carried by connotations, so a listener cannot just infer "oh yes, the speaker clearly means 'all the fascists unrepentantly making the world worse are the virus and should be purged'." They will instead hear "humans are the virus" and think 'this weirdo wants all humans to die.'
If you want to (paradoxically) use eco-fascist phrases to espouse your anti-fascist ideology, you are allowed to but you'll waste a lot of time, like today, trying to confirm that you and they are on the same side. Because you'll just sound like an eco-fascist.
Yeah but... Humans created capitalism, so again the root issue is that humans suck. Just think of it this way: No humans, no capitalism.
And it's not just capitalism, living beyond their means was rather common for many civilizations in the past and some of them paid dearly for it. And look at who ruled the area when the aral sea started to dry up, which fucked the entire area to hell. That wasn't capitalism, just a short-sighted communist (or "communist", but that definitely wasn't capitalism) regime.
It's definitely possible for humans to not suck in this aspect, but once you get to a certain level of technology and organization it gets pretty hard.
People often conflate capitalism with greed because the core of capitalism depends on people acting selfishly. But other systems can also reward the greedy.
I think it even goes beyond that. e.g. the sowjet union genuinely had issues with food security, but they still fucked up when they dried out the aral sea because they were acting shortsightedly.
Supporters of socialism/communism/anarchism/whatever-ism don't believe that their system will never make mistakes or that it prevents all bad people from having power. But it lessens it, hopefully. If a capitalist nation were in charge during the time the aral sea disappeared, you can bet your sweet ass it would have just the same or faster.
There are a lot of people who do believe that these systems could do no wrong or repeat the narcissist's prayer to justify any wrong doing.
True. But I suppose I should have clarified it as "intelligent, thoughtful supporters of those ideas"
It's true that capitalistic societies don't do any better for the environment (which was the point of my comment, they're BOTH bad in this aspect), but at least in capitalist Europe the common people got relative wealth out of it. In the soviet union, people were oppressed by the state, poor, and got their environment destroyed.
And now that is happening in capitalist societies.
We have many decades to go until our common people are as poor as they were in the soviet union (at least in countries that were on the capitalistic side of the iron curtain), though that does seem to be the general trajectory. But soviet poverty went beyond not being wealthy - there was always a very distinct risk that the local store was out of basic necessities, and I really don't think this is going to be common in most western european countries in this century.
I completely agree, other systems have the potential to screw the environment as well. But capitalism is inherently like that and reached environment destroying records. I believe these things are simultaneously true.
Humans are a product of evolution in nature. So nature sucks, right?
Nature makes a lot of things that suck, including viruses
Point still stands. Nature doesn't owe anyone a logical explanation.
Its actually my point. Just because we dont like it, it does not mean that nature is wrong.
Nature is a product of atoms. So atoms suck, right?
For them is capitalism for other is the immigrants.
Some people just don't get nuances.
You are still shifting the blame away from capitalism. If we acknowledge capitalism as the problem, then we can change things. If we claim humans are inherently the problem, then it seems pointless to improve.
so you're just saying we should all kill ourselves? yeah that sounds great, i assume you're willing to go first since you believe it so strongly?
I for one don't want me or others to die, and so i don't go around saying poorly thought-through things on the internet.
Thank you for putting it well, I had similar thought that I wanted to express but I can never write it so coherently.
You don't need capitalism to suck, though. The Spanish conquistadores were slavers and genocidal murderers but they certainly weren't capitalists.
Every system finds ways to shift the blame. What they need are folks who drink the cool aide. Currently it‘s capitalism.
That doesn't mean capitalism isn't any less cruel
In fact it allows for blind institutional cruelty that no one has to take responsibility for.
In a very real way, more people have died from capitalism than ever suffered at the hands of the inqisition
But go ahead and keep trying to handwave the horrors of capitalism
A bunch of people thinking they outsmarted the meme by asking "who made capitalism".
A better question is "when you say humans are a virus, which humans exactly do you propose to exterminate in the name of saving the planet?" Because the bunker-state ethnonationalist, the trumpists, the Peter Thiels and the Mark Andreesens, the Dark Enlightenment and Network State and Tech Zionism neofascists, they know exactly what they mean.
The earth is big enough to support modest human life. It's not big enough to support billionaires' delusions of singularity. So they imagine to purge the parts of humanity that are not their particular version of white.
Don't fall for their fascist propaganda.
When I said "humans are the virus," I think people heard "so we should kill the people I don't like," and missed the part where I don't like all humans.
I don't say it anymore, because I don't want to be overlapped with fascists who apparently say the same thing.
fascists have never left power without violence in all of human history, so keep dreaming about a peaceful solution
I'm sure the rhetoric stems from propaganda, I won't disagree there. But I don't think that trying to logic the analogy itself is the way to outline the problem with it.
Calling humans a 'virus' may not mean an extermination is the intention of the person regurgitating it. You can control a virus instead of just exterminating it, for example. It's just a term people are familiar with that they associate with abusing resources and multiplying beyond a sustainable level, thus creating a toxic environment around them.
I don't propose to exterminate anyone. I think it's inevitable that the human virus will eventually kill its host.
If you think we are getting out of this worldwide authoritarianism surge without violence, you are a shitty student of history
Can I achieve something by exterminating myself? It should do something, right?
Maybe not having to live in depressing world itself would be a great achievement.
It's easy, mulch all the sociopaths. Problem solved
Ah, so just exterminate the correct people. Got it.
Nobody has to die if we just make billionnaires millionnaires again.
Sorry no, some billionaires have to die
There's no chance in hell that would happen non-violently.
Good that you clarified that :D
I disagree, there are some psychotic people in power and they don't care one iota about anyone but themselves and maybe a small handful of like minded people. To me they should be wiped from the earth.
You are correct that the planet can support a certain number (whatever that number is), but not with these people in power.
Now will we be able to truly figure which ones are the correct ones, probably not but we need to keep looking and root them out, expose them to the world and then let nature take its role once they are all hanging from the highest most visible place for all to see what happens when you are the virus that is continuously trying to destroy the world.
If humans weren't greedy dicks then capitalism or any other form of government would work perfectly. You can't force humans to not be greedy dicks. No matter what system is being instituted it is susceptible to greedy dicks.
Yes we can, via laws & regulation (which are also laws). You have no clue about what unrestricted greed does to people especially, on the recieving end
Nope, doesn't work because power obsessed sociopaths worm their way into government and change the laws
How naive are you?
Yes if you don't enforce it, but you don't want to enforce it now, do you. You love greed until you are on the receiving end
You can't even understand your own mother and here you are making bold assumptions about the personal values of someone you met on the internet half an hour ago. Fucking classic reddit right there man
Greed is the source of nearly all human misery and it is not necessary for life at all, and I have personally witnessed what it has done to people
I do not love greed in any form and the fact you just stated that with such effortless confidence tells me our society really isn't worth saving.
And now these statements, despite being only minor glimpses into my value system will of course immediately fill you with ten thousand assumptions as to who I am or what I think.
That's mental illness friend
< Bold assumption about all of humanity >
<Name calling/Labelling>
They're coming out with some really weird blazor libraries these days.
Dammit, missed the code tags
I mean, nobody has to reply on a public internet forum.
Unless you are being forced to reply...wait...that would explain a lot.
Ok, if you are being forced to reply to internet messages against your will, try and add some sort of code in the replies so we can try get you out of that environment, it sounds awful.
Also electrons don't die, don't be silly.
There is, of course, the electron cycle of transmigration of states.
It's like they don't even teach basic electrotheism in school anymore, smh.
Are you familiar with anti-trust laws ? Anti-corruption laws ?
According to you they shouldn't exist, because a crafty psychopath will get in anyway & yes you do love being greedy as long as it benefits you, why else would you be defending capitalism.
Socialism HAS been tried & it works. You see I want everyone to get welfare, because with it you can have a safety net against the abusive owner-class. BTW, I've never been on reddit (I don't even have a twitter account)
So I'll be upfront and say i don't know shit about socialism as a concept.
Do you have any examples of socialism that has worked (or is currently working) at modern nation scales ?
I'm genuinely not picking a fight, just looking for examples to read up on.
Cuba, Laos, Vietnam & the state of Kerala in India. China too (but they shifted to state-capitalism). Most of Latin America were electing socialist leaders as well. (Until some coup came along)
We can regulate greedy dick behaviour
Madame Guillotine can help with that
There are human societies were greed is not accepted.
I welcome you to inform us of this utopia you speak of.
Which ones? Which ones don't damage their land or steal children from enemies or rape or steal? Please don't try to say any indigenous tribes because they are all guilty of one or more these.
Proof that lemmy is a failed experiment already, this asshole has five upvotes
Any indigenous tribe. But seriously it was not long ago that no professional fishermen anywhere would ever overfish.
Only because they weren't capable of it lmao.
There's at least some evidence supporting human driven extinctions as far back as some of the earliest 'modern' (ie Homo sapien) hominid populations.
Amish
The Amish are highly discouraged from getting an education of the high school level and beyond.
Members are shunned by the community and family of they decide to leave the faith.
this is only true to the smallest of extents, there were plenty that had those behaviors, survivorship bias is not a good footing for an argument.
Survivorship bias is so important to remember when talking about human societies. Even our perceptions and knowledge of indigenous tribes is limited by survivorship bias. Consider that there may have been many more "peaceful" or "non-greedy" tribes, but they were conquered by groups of people that were more violent and selfish. There must be so many tribes that have been wiped away without a trace, tribes we know nothing about.
But the real barrier to this hypothetical "non-greedy population" idea is the matter of scale. A peaceful village of 100 people is easier to create and maintain than a peaceful global population of 8+ billion. Even if indigenous villages managed to build such utopias where greed doesn't exist, their models wouldn't easily scale to the world we live in now.
duck chasing meme Which human societies?
But capitalism isn't a form of government tho.
Nor is communism of even feudalism.
Oops you're right I meant economic system
Our entire schtick is co operation, it's literally why we're the dominant life form
Your generalization is false
The majority of humanity are not greedy or obsessed with profit
The problem is that the few ridiculously greedy sociopaths that do arise per-capita are just so FUCKDAMN good at amassing power and wealth that we assume it's the natural lot of all people
So we just test and dispose of sociopaths at birth, problem solved. We already have the tests for it.
Don't look at me like that
and thankfully those sociopaths have enough money to get rid of idiots with those ideas that get too close to power.
Yep, which is why we need to use nontraditional power tactics like leveraging drones and cyber attacks as well as flashmob tactics and social media control
Money buys you a private army but not loyalty, we need to start early and get idealists positioned in those private armies
Make inroads with the children of billionaires tired of their parents' excesses, this was a valuable vector during the French Revolution that almost no one talks about
More than anything we need to accept the fact that no amount of signs or shouts are going to stop the ultra wealthy from destroying everything for more imaginary numbers in an already unspendable bank account
It's still objectively eugenics to target people based on genetic conditions, especially if the genetic condition has a not wholly undesirable result.
You're putting the cart before the horse. Capitalism uses the threat of poverty and the profit motive to condition humans into being greedy dicks.
I've been called eco-fascist for suggesting anything that might help the environment, no matter how small. I'm not impressed by this buzzword.
I feel like you can't blame the corpos 100% and then proceed to do nothing to help the environment. Like I get that capitalism and unnecessary waste driven by it are by and large the problem, but it feels like people just use that as an excuse to put in zero effort personally and continue to live their lifestyle of overconsumption. It's very defeatist imo.
"Humans are the virus" is related to the racist "overpopulation" myth which leads straight to eugenics. Sure, many words are overused, but "political ideology that combines environmentalism with fascist principles, often advocating for authoritarian measures to address ecological issues" is a bad thing.
humans invented capitalism, soooo....
on the other hand when a virus like flu or covid replicates, it produces thousands of its variants but it is only defined by the one that causes the most damage
That metaphor doesn't work. It be more accurate to compare humans to in general bacteria and most bacteria are not harmful, there are even some know useful viruses
good point on the usefulness, I agree the analogy is not an exact one between humans and viruses as an individual per se but the fact that in both populations damages caused takes precedent over damages not caused (and in the case of humans also takes precedent over the good things humans try to do)
nope I am talking about the top billionaire class, %1 immigrant criminals are nothing compared to the damages caused by these people. you are forcing a racism twist to the topic to win the argument but local level criminals are unfortunately irrelevant in this conversation.
We live in a religious society that promotes a culture of bigotry. Does this mean we shouldn’t blame bigots?
We live in a patriarchal society that doesn’t take violence against women seriously. Does this mean that wife beaters aren’t to blame?
We live in a capitalist society that promotes selfishness and greed. Does this mean we shouldn’t blame selfish people? (Which is most of them.)
We live in a racist society… etc.
You are responsible for your actions and your beliefs. Step one to improving our society is accepting the reality that most humans have a poor (nearly non-existent) relationship with morality. They’re easily swayed by fallacious arguments because they are irrational and stupid. These are empirical facts about human beings that we ignore (with memes like this) at our own peril.
We should blame religion, patriarchy, racism and capitalism.
Those are perpetuated by the stupidity and gullibility described above.
Gullible to believe that we can‘t change anything? Who told you that? Capitalists!
I was saying that the gullible are to blame for us still having those problems.
so what exactly is your solution, magically making people not be gullible?
you're just perpetuating the idea that there's nothing to be done, you're saying these things so you don't have to think about the uncomfortable reality that things are as they are for a reason, that we can and should be taking action to change the systems that promote misery.
Did I claim to have a solution..?
I do think that teaching empathy and logic so that the children may understand the world and society is a good idea that would drastically reduce the number of people that fall into the category of "gullible idiot."
How do we do that? What are the specifics? No clue. But teach people how to learn for fucks sake.
Also you are projecting a lot of your own shit onto me I think. I made a pretty simple comment and you read a fucking fanfic.
And this right here folks is why nothing will ever change. Because phantasmagorical ideological abstractions get blamed instead of actual features of reality, such as psychopathy, ignorance, greed, selfishness, and so on.
So how have things changed?
Moral progress! It takes a long, long time to convince average people to accept moral claims, such as the badness of slavery. There’s a kind of tipping point when normative facts are FINALLY absorbed into the culture and propagated through non-intellectual means (such as media and social pressure).
Democracy is actually the best vehicle for moral progress in that respect, as democratic scholars have been pointing out for the last century or so.
Democracy is great. We should really aim for it, instead of giving political power to the wealthy.
Blaming individuals is ok of course, but after we’re done we should look what situation gave their lacking personalities power to have any individual impact upon our society. And change that. The blaming of actors is one thing, but there are shitty scripts, too, you know?
"it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
How dare you say something that requires self-reflection in a meme thread made for ideological-purity testing.
How dare you say something that requires self-reflection in a meme thread made by MAGA-style ideological-purity-testing imbeciles.
blame is a nearly useless concept
How about we start fixing the problems instead of pointing fingers
Yes, let’s fix the problem of men beating women by not blaming anyone for beating women. Brilliant plan.
I block everyone who strawmans me, you aren't an exception
You: “Blame is pointless.”
Me: BlaMe iS pOinTLesS
You: “how dare you strawman me!!”
Redirecting blame attributable to human foibles to an abstract concept like “capitalism” is shortsighted and self-defeating. Analogously, the problem over the last 10,000 years hasn’t been slavery (the concept); the problem has been slavers (their ignorance, psychopathy, and greed).
There’s no period in human history when people weren’t unfathomably stupid, because people are literally just animals (and many would happily end the world in order to get access to cheeseburgers). They make bad choices because the average person is not capable of moral deliberation. All hyperbole aside, this is an actual empirical fact.
if the structure of society is set up in such a way that practically every action I need to take to keep myself fed and sheltered ultimately contributes to climate change, then it's fucking inane to say it is the fault of individuals being stupid.
Humans are selfish, and that’s precisely why we need an alternative to capitalism. Because if we don’t force people to act intelligently they’ll act like the animals they are and obliterate their environment until they are living on mountains of shit and corpses. This has happened throughout history over and over and over again, long before the advent of any economic ideologies.
Global warming can be fixed tomorrow if people stopped eating meat and stopped buying giant pickup trucks and stopped worshipping celebrities, and so on.
And every armed conflict in the world would end if everyone put down their guns right this instant.
We're talking about structures that reach across the globe, with a momentum that existed before either of us were born, and with a trajectory that will be traced long after we are dead. You don't shift that trajectory by Wishing Upon a Star that everyone Becomes Better overnight. That's not a practical approach.
This is actually true. There’s an important lesson about human nature hidden somewhere in this sarcastic sentence.
The reason we need to get rid of capitalism is that it empowers people’s most horrible greedy impulses. However, that’s precisely because people are horrible and greedy. If people were saints, then capitalism wouldn’t matter because nobody would do dumb shit like buy pickup trucks or eat meat.
Again, long before the advent of any abstract “structures” and economic theories, before Hollywood and global communication networks, when humans were still living on random islands, they behaved like total and utter morons. They were not rational. Because 90% of humans are — and again, this is an empirical fact — incapable of moral deliberation.
That’s why we had slavery for 10,000 years. That’s why people torture billions of sentient animals to death in abattoirs every year to eat their carcasses. That’s why Donald Trump won the last election.
90% of humans. Really. Do you have a source for this claim?
Yes. Of course. But I get the sense that you guys are in this weird ideological-purity-testing mode right now. If you actually seriously want to engage with this fascinating research topic in good faith, feel free to message me.
I'll have you know I despise trump.
Oh, but since you brought up good faith. In response to simply asking for a source, you attacked my character, tried to gaslight me into thinking I'm in the wrong, and then tried to move the topic into private DMs so nobody else can see it and so you can look like the adult here. This wasn't even a real offer though, because nobody is going to politely DM you after getting their character attacked out of nowhere like that.
The fact that you're not willing to publicly show your source about the things you're claiming in bold are empirical facts tells me that you don't actually have a source, and are in fact the one not engaging in good faith.
funny you keep coming back to slavery when so much of it was justified by claiming huge chunks of people were, empirically factually, incapable of being fully human
standing in the middle of a system that incentivizes, necessitates even, that people act against our collective shared interest; a system that, half through deliberate intention and half through the selective pressure of market forces, makes sure they have just enough education to be profitable workers -- and to say, "We've always been this stupid. Just innate, innit?", well you're either missing the forest for the trees or for whatever reason you'd rather believe some people can just be written off altogether.
There are games that don’t cause brain damage in students and there is American Football.
Our system is just slavery with PR and programming to convince us to be helpless to change anything for the better and to look at various distractions instead of the reality.
I am not just talking about first-world exploitation, I am talking about literal slavery and child slavery, which our economies rely on — which we unknowingly rely on for many of our goods.
If you factor in 40% (or more) of US agricultural workers being undocumented immigrants, you don't really have to look hard to see that slavery is literally everywhere. It may not be the chattel slavery of past, but it's still modern slavery.
Almost all employment revolves around exploitation, hard hours, asking you to give more than you have for the sake of the business, and so forth, all the while many participating individuals are unable to afford health care or housing. I still liken that dynamic to be modern slavery, even if the individuals reside in the first-world.
We can rise above this, but we must identify what is blocking or stagnating progress to be able to change — such as accepting the reality at hand instead of turning our gaze away.
Doesn't mean we have to play the blame game or reduce nuanced issues down to word-play and labels. A new system is likely the best solution.
I agree. And any plan to move forward has to confront the fact that humans are obstreperous ignoramuses. So, what do we do? One strategy is to leverage democracy, which has already led to unbelievable moral progress over the last century. Another option is to leverage a populist outreach. Any other ideas?
There's a reason people are chronically misinformed or uninformed - here's a comment I wrote the other day:
https://slrpnk.net/post/21939259/15608857
So, besides an entirely new system, human rights for all, and direct democracy, I'm calling for a rise of decentralized media (like the fediverse) and holding "news" organizations accountable for their propaganda, misinformation, suppression of opposing/critical perspectives, and omission of key facts. If they mess up too much, they can no longer peddle themselves as a news organization.
When we are misinformed or uninformed to this degree and are simultaneously subjected to this level of propaganda and tribalism, we inevitably become very polarized against each other. We stop making sense. We aren't focusing on anything productive. We can resort to hate and violence. The key is to recognizing this manipulation and recognizing the kind of world we want to live in.
Do you want to hate or fear your neighbor? Do you want to live in a community or country that is disconnected, where many are dehumanized and suffering to extreme degrees? Do you want to be oppressed or tolerate the oppression of others? Or do you want the opposite?
That clarity and focus is the light at the end of the tunnel. What kind of world do we want to live in?
I want to live in a kind world, that has human rights, freedom, and a system that works for human benefit - instead of against it. I want to focus on solutions and help others to do the same. I want to thrive and to thrive alongside the planet and every living being on it!
What progress do you get by blaming humanity instead?
Reality is always the best starting point.
Plenty of bacteria and viruses are beneficial, and contribute to the overall health of their hosts.
If humans are diseases, then it is because through learned behaviors that we act in a deleterious manner towards the overall ecosystem. We are entirely capable of shifting those behaviors, of creating social structures that select for behaviors that promote co-existence and symbiosis with that ecosystem.
There are some symbiotic bacteria, but I'm unaware of any beneficial viruses. Their entire nature is to hijack cells to replicate themselves, typically resulting in the eventual death of the host cell.
Researchers are looking into bacteriophage that infect gut bacteria. It seems that over time, the viruses select for and introduce genes to bacteria that play nice with our intestinal health, rather than run amok.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbvAaDN1bpE
Yep, those are all capitalist states.
Gotta hand it to China. They're a few years away from being coal free. A decade at most if they stay on course.
Unfortunately they don't seem to be on course at all, with coal production and new coal power plants rising in 2024 to an all-time high.
While they have been implementing green energy, which is laudable, they aren't phasing out coal at all. China seems to crave energy and has no bias about where it comes from.
Why do I need to put guard rails on things? People can just choose to not fall off. All people are perfectly rational/knowledgeable and other physical pressures do not exist, so people must want to fall off of cliffs!
There actually is no way to change this. We can't do anything about it because we're just too stupid. People create systems of violence, and there's just nothing that can be done to help that because there is no way to change that. No sir, no way at all. It's pointless to even try.
We are all sinners filled with sin so anything that we do is bad. There is no hope. Your grandmother is a virus actually.
I really don’t get this positive attitude some people have.
No, there is no way to change this. Have you read any part of history? This is naive at best.
Wolves observed within the conditions of captivity organize under so-called "alphas" who maintain leadership through frequent bouts of violence. This is not their inevitable state, as wolves in other conditions commonly organize into family structures and exhibit little infighting. Were one to observe wolves only in captivity, one might conclude that their system of violence is unchangeable.
Humans have the capacity to shape their own environment. Our imagination of the future is often (but not always) constrained by our environment as it exists. History displays a non-exhauative sampling of societal configurations, each of which is influenced by past configurations and that which was beyond human capacity to change.
The inevitability of tyranny may seem likely, but cannot be known. Likewise, we cannot know that a better world is or is not possible. This does not mean that we should not try.
source (fake) source (real (jk its fake too)) source (haha got u again)
So, let me get this straight: animals work like this, we work like this, there is not a single example in 10000 years of human history that proves it otherwise but “cannot be known” if we are pathetic evil creatures.
Right right… well, text me when it works ok? I rather not wait for “other conditions” but point my finger at the problematic people today and work from evidence.
Yeah I hope that we get there some day (and double hope that I might still be alive to see it). It seems like we have so many terrible people today, and they're quite prominent.
Yeah I know what you mean man. I gave a bunch of children some knives and the one with the biggest knife coerced the others into hurting a bunch of people. They still would have found a way to do that without knives! Don't you know that rocks exist?? Them having knives is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to the outcome!
If there are no more humans than no one will care about the environment.
Sometimes I get frustrated with people and I think this. But then I quickly snap my mindset out of this because I know really what's the problem. Capitalism.
That's ok, we are not all born to fight, let alone see the enemy.
Destruction of nature & unwise use of resources, or even just multiplying to a point where even the most prudent resource management & minimal environmental impact per capita is the absolute goal could still destiny biodiversity.
This has to do with economical tendencies of living beings, not a particular socioeconomic system.
(Yes, capitalism is accelerating the process by taking away freedoms from the masses - but even a commune can decide to chop up the whole forest for wood. World is a fuck.)
"Virus" might not be the best word for it tho (infestation maybe? Fits the capita growth statistics), but successful animals that oversaturate their environment (eg lots of food, no predators, longevity after procreation, tech) cause biodiversity loss (anything from local collapse to a global extinction event with cofactors like climate change or air structure change - what is novel with humans is how rapidly we are developing in our last 0.5% of existence, and how rapid the global impact we case is, it won't take us 10s of thousands of years, we can speedrun in less than a millennia).
The lack of empathy and true understanding of reverence is the issue.
People do not respect the meat that befalls their plate, the bacteria that ferments their beers, the trees that warms their homes.
Capitalism has two routes, horde through meekness or horde through exploitation. When you horde through meekness, any worth is solely yours - you submit and embrace this moment of life wholely separate from you. You cannot control the world.
Humans are a virus, because we reach for the stars as we eviscerate our host. Lest we learn compassion and empathy, we will consume this earth. The flooding isn't biblical this time, it's predicted by science as man decays.
hoard
Thanks!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign
Idk if we're gonna have fascism we might as well have eco-fascism.
except eco-fascism isn’t "fascism but we save the planet! :D" it’s "fascism but to justify the genocide of brown people we add a bit of green sprinkles on the white supremacist rhetoric"
But also we could have neither, fascism isn't a fatality
Also kings, gods, holocaust, slavery asf. So, we have to remind ourselves that we can take back anything we thought up. If humans are the problem it’s those that say we can’t do that.
Who do you think made capitalism? Space aliens?
Lizard people, obviously
The funniest thing about the Lizard people conspiracy, which started as an antisemitic dogwhistle, is that David Icke by all accounts just believes in literal lizard people.
If I'm not mistaken, Marx describes capital as "dead labour". So, to answer your question: who made capitalism? Vampires, zombies, liches. The undead.
Marx certainly didn't see capitalism as merely metaphorical. Marx recognized that capitalism existed in material reality, that it was a system constructed and operated by real, flesh and blood human beings.
It was a stop on our journey. Historians say it was a better stop than the ones before. But it doesn’t have to be our last one!
As we all know, communist countries would never harm the environment for productivity.
Ah yes, the only two systems. Capitalism and communism. There is nothing else or any form of nuance out there.
Of course, thanks for admitting it
They are the same piece of generic rhetorical label you slap on or argue you can't slap on whenever it conveniences you. If your solution is just a sentence long, you are an over-simplifying things.
So what happened to the ancient civilizations that collapsed before capitalism existed? Ducks. It's the ducks that need to be shot.
Easter Island comes to mind. They showed up, took every tree on the island, then the vegetation went away and the island had nothing left to give.
Could dumb shit like this be in lemmy.ml exclusively?
Humanity: Living with nature and not causing global ecosystem crisis for thousands of years. Capitalism: Starts the industrial revolution and the need for eternal Exponential growth, resulting in massive environmental destruction over the last ~250 years. "Clearly, the humans are the problem."
I think you vastly underestimate exactly how much impact humans had on the enrollment environment all the way back to the stone age.
Any animal causes changes to an ecosystem. The bigger the numbers, the bigger the changes. In general, it never reaches crisis because something else comes along and shifts things into balance.
But the current crisis wasn't, and isn't, solely caused by the industrial revolution. We caused issues with megafauna waaaaaaay back. We shifted waterways and changed ecosystems during the earliest agricultural development. Everything today is stacked up on top of that, not some kind of distinct thing.
Our distant ancestors weren't some kind of noble and mystical race, perfectly balanced with all around them.
Capitalism wasn't even around as a distinct system back when we first started dumping pollutants and waste into the world. Money wasn't always in place.
The industrial revolution changed the scale, but it would have happened without capitalism because us monkeys have always refined our tools and technology over generations. Stone, bronze, iron, steam, petroleum, silicon, it's a progression that was damn near inevitable.
I just don't buy the idea that human ingenuity and technological progress would have just stopped when factories were imagined and built. Best case, maybe it would have been slower, more careful under something like an anarchist structure (or lack thereof). But there's nothing saying it wouldn't have been worse either. It's a big game of what if, and there's no current way to test technological progression theories. We can't just set up an experiment somehow on mars and let it play out while preventing capitalism to see what happens.
Shit, there were non capitalist systems in place during the industrial revolution, and they didn't exactly reject it all.
Ok, I'll say that I'm being too myopic. But I do believe the scale is definitely different from back before technology was a major concern. Humans caused destruction to the environment, but I don't believe we had the capacity to make it a global existential crisis for our species until modern production and infinite consumption was considered the best practice for humanity. I don't think nixing capitalism will solve the problems overnight, but reigning it in with reasonable expectations isn't a bad idea.
The good old slavery and crusade days.
Big "and yet you participate in the system" energy.
No?
What the fuck gave you that impression?
I'm saying the comic is shit because they are just multiplying causes, not that they're being hypocrites.
Everyone just makes up shit to hear their own voices
You need to chill the fuck out dude.
No one has to suffer your existence but you.
If you can't chill out then you maybe need to not be on social media.
I find it hilarious that you have zero clue how much of a fragile bigot that makes you
Holy shit dude... stop trying to be a victim all of the time.
I'm not being a bigot, you dweeb. I'm saying social media isn't exactly known to improve one's mental health and it seems, judging by you tirade through this post's comment section, you could stand for a break.
Wat
are you just randomly putting words together now
Oh wait the comic was earnest? I literally thought it was making fun of people who say things like this. Goddamn.
Just because you can pronunce a word it doesn’t mean you understand it. By definition eco-fascism is fascism, because it wouldn’t make sense otherwise.
I don’t get the meme but allow me to clarify: if you think this meme will prevent me from punching a fascist in the face, you are wrong.
It's clear you didn't understand the meme because your reply is almost a non-sequitur. The comic is saying phrases like "human are the virus" fail to understand a lot of damage done by humanity was incited, sustained, and furthered by capitalism. Those phrases are pushed for "eco-fascist rhetoric" about controlling or even eliminating humanity when ecological/societal damage could be remediated by swapping to an economic system that nutures less destructive and more pro-social tendencies.
I don't know where you got the sense that the comic was telling you that fascists were okay. Honestly, I don't even know what your first paragraph is talking about.
Yes, I think the meme is dumb and I didn’t get it, I wrote it too. “Eco fascist rethoric” is normal fascism. You don’t “swap” economic systems like you swap pants.
A true fascist doesn’t go back to normal, like true antivaxer will die cursing vaccines, like nazi dying doing the salute.
So, yes some “humans are the virus” and it’s not eco-fascism. It’s called resistance.
You don‘t get it, that's too bad. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with that meme.
I’m here to understand more, you can try eh. I’m happy to embrace a different theory that doesn’t involve wishful thinking and forced optimism.
If I'm not wrong, English is not your first language. I think you should look up "eco-terrorism" and "eco-fascism" as words and try to understand them. "Eco-fascism" is meaningful different from normal "fascism" and can't be swapped out as you want.
I did and I think you should too.
Ecofascism
Maybe I’m dumb 🤷♂️
...
Thanks for cherry-picking the one paragraph I expected you to. Instead of the many other lines stating how eco-fascism is a subset of fascism concerned with authoritarian control of populations for the "presumed" betterment of the ecosystem. While a normal fascist state can use ecological rhetoric to propel their fascism ideology, eco-fascism also provides a trap for radical environmentalists. The difference, and prime point of conflict, is that protecting the global ecosystem is a good thing and passionate environmental activists run the risk of radicalizing into, or being derogatorily labeled as, eco-fascists. Whereas, I don't see a well-meaning person falling into traditional fascism.
But you seem pretty intent on misunderstanding so this will be my final comment to you.
To reiterate. The comic is not espousing fascist thought or telling people to let it slide. It's saying: don't say shit like "humans are the problem" because you sound like a(n eco-)fascist when a less genocidal solution is "give up capitalism and try a different way of trading for necessities and luxuries." I hope I don't have to explain that "humans are the virus" is not a phrase easily carried by connotations, so a listener cannot just infer "oh yes, the speaker clearly means 'all the fascists unrepentantly making the world worse are the virus and should be purged'." They will instead hear "humans are the virus" and think 'this weirdo wants all humans to die.'
If you want to (paradoxically) use eco-fascist phrases to espouse your anti-fascist ideology, you are allowed to but you'll waste a lot of time, like today, trying to confirm that you and they are on the same side. Because you'll just sound like an eco-fascist.