this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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Showerthoughts
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Capitalist propaganda
Yes and no. I mean most of us enjoy a climate controlled living situation. Four walls and a roof that doesn't leak on us. Indoor plumbing. Multiple ways to travel long distances in short lengths of time. We have these things better than royalty of 125 years ago did.
On the other hand there's probably never been this much collective anxiety among humanity at any point in history. We have a very small group of very wealthy individuals working very hard to ensure only them and their chosen enjoy the fruits of mass labor when we're at a point where everyone's quality of lives could be improving at a much faster rate if everyone was on the same page.
The only difference is social media let's us see the anxiety. I'm sure during the bubonic plague, the stock market crash, and the world wars plenty of people had high anxiety.
Globally, crime is at all time lows, extreme poverty is at all time lows, in most countries people can say they are gay without being killed.
Yes we have major problems but I stand by my statement that the average human is better off today than any other time in history.
Bread and circus. There are some fundamentally broken aspects of society that can't be glossed over with a Mitsubishi SVZ-KP12NA 1 Ton 18 SEER Ducted Central Air Inverter Heat Pump Split System.
At no other point has the population been forced to labor as much as it does today, and yet we're still being asked to work more. We are enjoying none of the fruits of our labor aside from minor conveniences that we still have to pay for. Income inequality is worse than ever in modern history.. Year-to-year fluctuations don't counter the fact that we are on a centuries-running downturn that shows no sign of turning course anytime soon.
People had to routinely work 12 hour days up to the 1930s. Labor conditions are bad now, but it's wrong to say they were never worse.
Do you think there aren't billions of people in the world still working 12+ hour days today? Hyundai cars and Tyson foods are employing actual children in their factories and slaughterhouses in America and getting a slap on the wrist. We just wrote a few laws to make it so that white men didn't have to work that much as often and said we fixed it.
Is that true? Hyundai and Tyson using child labor?
Income inequality is the one statistic you can point to when all the other economic stats show things getting better.
Are you not considering the time before the 40 hour work week was implemented?