What Would Constitute a "Meager Lifestyle"?

[Speaker to Animals]

Speaker, there is a lot to unpack in that post, but to bullet point it:

1. Western Civilization exists as we know it today for a LOT of reasons, some good, some bad, most basically neutral.

2. How is being forced to do meaningless work in exchange for welfare better or worse than being forced to do meaningless work in exchange for a paycheck that doesn't cover your expenses?

3. "Establishing" rural communities for honest, hardy, but largely unnecessary work-off-the-land labor sounds a lot like some of the Communist and Fascist plans that were a total cluster-fuck. Don't fall into the trap of romanticising primitive living, and then trying to force it on people for some imagined moral benefit like self-sufficiency.

which comes to,

4. Self-sufficiency is an illusion. Collaboration, reciprocity, et cetera, are the rule because humans aren't really fucking good at anything. We don't have the fur, claws, teeth, vision, sense of smell, or strength to live like big cats or bears. Humans are not self-sufficient.

1. And chief among the reasons for our success has been the search for meaning and the devotion to making our individual lives actually mean something. That's not a universal trait. Much of our great cultural works are literally about finding and creating meaning in our lives. To make our lives matter. To make our sacrifices matter. You don't see that in China, for example. The lives of the people whose bones are buried in the Great Wall meant nothing to Chinese society at the time. There is a reason why human kennel farms are a thing of Asia and not the West.

2. The only difference being that most people in such jobs are able to maintain the fiction that their contributions matter, and there exists a reason for all the pointless office work they do. The reality of the meaninglessness of such a life has been the subject of much cultural debate. It's a specter in the backs of many peoples' minds and one of the chief causes of anxiety and hopelessness in the workplace. So let's have more of that, because..?

3. Herding people into kennel farms and forcing them to dig pointless holes in the desert is pretty much par for course in communism. I don't know what you think you are trying to argue here. You seem to just want to add an extra point by pointing at me and screaming HITLER!

4. That's just ridiculous.

[Speaker to Animals]

Even at the military level, historians like Victor Davis Hanson argue the reason for our enormous success was the fact that, relative to everybody else, the lives of individuals in western armies mattered a great deal. We honored their sacrifices in ways that was unheard of in cultures like that of Persia or China.

Athens, for example, sacked and banished their greatest naval commander for pursuing the Persian fleet instead of turning around and recovering the bodies of Athenian sailors in the water. Without that drive for meaning in our individual lives, you don't get stories like Anabasis, where a small Greek mercenary corp is able to march clear across the SW Asia against several armies and actually succeed in reaching the Ionian coast. The entire trip was done by electing a leader from amongst the ranks (Xenophon) who acted in the interests of the corp.

Without this you don't get Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the entire concept of human rights, equality before the law, or even the idea that the rule of law should apply to the rulers as much as it applies to the ruled.


And back to the earlier point that people didn't want to address, you absolutely do need to consider the impact of societal changes on the evolution of the human population that live under those changes. This future where everybody competes cut-throat-style for the last remaining jobs, and the losers must live in human kennels digging holes in the desert, will have significant impact on the genetic behavior of our people. You might select for the smartest and most disciplined workers, but you selected against the very things that keep civilization running -- i.e. nurture, art, music, compassion and charity, and more.

[TheReal_ND]

I just came for the budgeting tips

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Speaker, there is a lot to unpack in that post, but to bullet point it:

1. Western Civilization exists as we know it today for a LOT of reasons, some good, some bad, most basically neutral.

2. How is being forced to do meaningless work in exchange for welfare better or worse than being forced to do meaningless work in exchange for a paycheck that doesn't cover your expenses?

3. "Establishing" rural communities for honest, hardy, but largely unnecessary work-off-the-land labor sounds a lot like some of the Communist and Fascist plans that were a total cluster-fuck. Don't fall into the trap of romanticising primitive living, and then trying to force it on people for some imagined moral benefit like self-sufficiency.

which comes to,

4. Self-sufficiency is an illusion. Collaboration, reciprocity, et cetera, are the rule because humans aren't really fucking good at anything. We don't have the fur, claws, teeth, vision, sense of smell, or strength to live like big cats or bears. Humans are not self-sufficient.

1. And chief among the reasons for our success has been the search for meaning and the devotion to making our individual lives actually mean something. That's not a universal trait. Much of our great cultural works are literally about finding and creating meaning in our lives. To make our lives matter. To make our sacrifices matter. You don't see that in China, for example. The lives of the people whose bones are buried in the Great Wall meant nothing to Chinese society at the time. There is a reason why human kennel farms are a thing of Asia and not the West.

2. The only difference being that most people in such jobs are able to maintain the fiction that their contributions matter, and there exists a reason for all the pointless office work they do. The reality of the meaninglessness of such a life has been the subject of much cultural debate. It's a specter in the backs of many peoples' minds and one of the chief causes of anxiety and hopelessness in the workplace. So let's have more of that, because..?

3. Herding people into kennel farms and forcing them to dig pointless holes in the desert is pretty much par for course in communism. I don't know what you think you are trying to argue here. You seem to just want to add an extra point by pointing at me and screaming HITLER!

4. That's just ridiculous.

Don't be such a raw nerve. I wasn't calling you Hitler. I was just referencing all the weird, mid century primitive romance nonsense that was en vogue. Quit taking every opportunity to play martyr, it is unbecoming, and hysterical. If anything, I was calling you Stalin or Mao.

The 4th point is not ridiculous at all. Everything, the technology, the production of goods that simplify survival, that allow you to believe in self suffiency is made possible through division of labor. Self suffiency is a fantasy. You are the one who is always promoting forms of tribalism and the importance of shared culture and community, I should think this simple point wouldn't be lost on you, of all people.

Dont be such a Hitler.

[Speaker to Animals]

Speaker, there is a lot to unpack in that post, but to bullet point it:

1. Western Civilization exists as we know it today for a LOT of reasons, some good, some bad, most basically neutral.

2. How is being forced to do meaningless work in exchange for welfare better or worse than being forced to do meaningless work in exchange for a paycheck that doesn't cover your expenses?

3. "Establishing" rural communities for honest, hardy, but largely unnecessary work-off-the-land labor sounds a lot like some of the Communist and Fascist plans that were a total cluster-fuck. Don't fall into the trap of romanticising primitive living, and then trying to force it on people for some imagined moral benefit like self-sufficiency.

which comes to,

4. Self-sufficiency is an illusion. Collaboration, reciprocity, et cetera, are the rule because humans aren't really fucking good at anything. We don't have the fur, claws, teeth, vision, sense of smell, or strength to live like big cats or bears. Humans are not self-sufficient.

1. And chief among the reasons for our success has been the search for meaning and the devotion to making our individual lives actually mean something. That's not a universal trait. Much of our great cultural works are literally about finding and creating meaning in our lives. To make our lives matter. To make our sacrifices matter. You don't see that in China, for example. The lives of the people whose bones are buried in the Great Wall meant nothing to Chinese society at the time. There is a reason why human kennel farms are a thing of Asia and not the West.

2. The only difference being that most people in such jobs are able to maintain the fiction that their contributions matter, and there exists a reason for all the pointless office work they do. The reality of the meaninglessness of such a life has been the subject of much cultural debate. It's a specter in the backs of many peoples' minds and one of the chief causes of anxiety and hopelessness in the workplace. So let's have more of that, because..?

3. Herding people into kennel farms and forcing them to dig pointless holes in the desert is pretty much par for course in communism. I don't know what you think you are trying to argue here. You seem to just want to add an extra point by pointing at me and screaming HITLER!

4. That's just ridiculous.

Don't be such a raw nerve. I wasn't calling you Hitler. I was just referencing all the weird, mid century primitive romance nonsense that was en vogue. Quit taking every opportunity to play martyr, it is unbecoming, and hysterical. If anything, I was calling you Stalin or Mao.

The 4th point is not ridiculous at all. Everything, the technology, the production of goods that simplify survival, that allow you to believe in self suffiency is made possible through division of labor. Self suffiency is a fantasy. You are the one who is always promoting forms of tribalism and the importance of shared culture and community, I should think this simple point wouldn't be lost on you, of all people.

Dont be such a Hitler.

Oh for fuck sake. Just respond to the argument with a rational post. Nobody is playing martyr.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Speaker,

I don't disagree with most of what you are saying. I just don't think most of it has anything to do with the topic at hand, or is largely a pedantic difference over trivial details.

Any more arguments would just be restating arguments already in this thread. If you don't understand them, re-read them.

And come on, you know you can be a little sensitive.

My word as a gentleman, I am not the moral or ideological enemy you seem to think I am.

Now quit your dang Hitlering and relax.

[Speaker to Animals]

Speaker,

I don't disagree with most of what you are saying. I just don't think most of it has anything to do with the topic at hand, or is largely a pedantic difference over trivial details.

Any more arguments would just be restating arguments already in this thread. If you don't understand them, re-read them.

And come on, you know you can be a little sensitive.

My word as a gentleman, I am not the moral or ideological enemy you seem to think I am.

Now quit your dang Hitlering and relax.

Oh get over yourself. Nobody is being sensitive except you.

Your insinuation that my proposition that we encourage homesteading and independence instead of a welfare state being "communist" was met with the obvious retort that your proposition that we move welfare recipients into human kennels and force them to dig random holes in order to earn their food is exactly what communism used to do. You didn't like that, so you started playing the "why you so sensitive?" game instead of admit you were wrong.

You two are the last characters in this thread who should be accusing others of wanting to see communism in America. You just defended the idea of forcing the indigent into human kennel / labor camps to dig holes in the desert in order to continue living.

Maybe consider giving people hope instead. Give them the tools to survive without welfare. Welfare sucks. We could easily open up land for homesteading again. This is how America traditionally dealt with this problem -- and it WORKED!

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

This has nothing to do with communism.

Think of it more like encouraging Museum Fremen. I didn't think of that analogy at the time, but I should have since you got all bent out of shape over the analogy I used, and wandered off into the weeds.

It's about believing that imitating the way people used to do things in the good old days is a solution or moral poultice.

Pretending to homestead when it isn't needed for survival is just Disneyland. And it isn't even prohibited by what Hash initially proposed unless you are being a hyper literal pedant... and a little bit of a Hitler.

You are arguing against positions no one stated.

[boethius]

If meaning in life comes from work, then work hasn't been meaningful in about half a century. Probably explains (partially) why we are all up to our eyeballs in anti depressant meds.

Doing TPS reports in a cubicle is less meaningful than digging ditches and filling them up again--at least ditch digging gives you exercise, fresh air, sunlight, and camaraderie with your fellow ditch diggers.

If AI takes the TPS report writing jobs, and machines/robots take the ditch digging jobs, then humans can do something else. Like take art and karate classes and jerk off to porn.

Still more meaningful than 90% of white collar office work.

[Speaker to Animals]

If meaning in life comes from work, then work hasn't been meaningful in about half a century. Probably explains (partially) why we are all up to our eyeballs in anti depressant meds.

Doing TPS reports in a cubicle is less meaningful than digging ditches and filling them up again--at least ditch digging gives you exercise, fresh air, sunlight, and camaraderie with your fellow ditch diggers.

If AI takes the TPS report writing jobs, and machines/robots take the ditch digging jobs, then humans can do something else. Like take art and karate classes and jerk off to porn.

Still more meaningful than 90% of white collar office work.

I would prefer that we transition to a better economic model that capitalizes on the technological gains we have made so that more people can spend their labors developing culture, science, philosophy, and so on. Capitalism as we know it cannot do this, much less mitigate the growing numbers of jobless members of society. A welfare state would be an awful solution.