Seize the memes of production
Citizens of the Fediverse unite!
Raises and crosses a computer keyboard and a rubber chicken over their heads
I've always been partial to this one
I miss the IT Crowd.
I have a weird relationship with The IT Crowd. I haven't watched a lot of it, and didn't really enjoy it when I watched it, hence why I stopped.
...but having watched it, I find myself really enjoying when people made references to it. Like it was more enjoyable referentially than it was to actually watch.
Honestly it's not all great, lots of it I kinda check out through, but there are some great bits that make the whole show worth it for me at least.
But yeah being in on references to it is honestly great because of how original/memorable some of the bits are, I think.
Similar situation with some of the less popular Monty Python movies or sketches, while watching I'm just like, ok this is weird, then while you're explaining it or talking to someone who knows you're just cracking up...
that sounds like something a communist would say...
You wouldn't steal the means of production
What if I just download the means of production?
no need, i'll simply keep the surplus value of my labor
no, but I'd pirate it.
You don't know me
You've got Aunt Irma visiting?
No! I'm a man! You're a man! We're men! pounds on chest like gorilla
… you think the carpet pissers did this?
Man, I absolutely love that show.
It's the IT Crowd, for anyone wondering.
British humor can be weird sometimes, but it can also be brilliant like in this show :)
Sorry, are we on the same platform? All I see from the communists are cringe memes and even cringier “debates” that would get them laughed out of a middle school debate club.
I'll bite.
Communism has always been about the future. When Lenin and Marx wrote their books and birthed their movements, they wrote about manufacturing processes EVENTUALLY eliminating material needs and displacing most people from work. They were kinda right at the time seeing the textile industry replace thousands of weavers with machines and the advent of powered farming equipment. What they didn't account for was the industrial revolution actually adding jobs to the workforce and for a time, jobs being replaced were reliably being replaced with other skilled positions.
But that hasn't been true since the 90s, since then there has been a marked trend towards automation replacing jobs, and slowly, a lot of the human populace is becoming useless.
I think most serious full on commies like myself understand that it's still a future form of governance that's inevitable if we want livable conditions. If we continue to have the almost pure and unbridled capitalistic system we have in the US when automated driving, AI, and general purpose robots really kick off, there will be some pretty serious issues.
Without getting too into doxxing myself, my family runs a construction company and builds houses. Have you seen the concrete 3d printers by chance? My dad was smart enough to get 2 a few years ago. Not only did it cut material costs by about 50% in construction, we went from running a 20 man crew to a 4 man crew when running those things. On top of that we can do what we did in weeks in a few days at best. We still run traditional crews, but those days are numbered, for sure.
We'll need communism because, one day very soon, a huge number of us are going to be unemployable. Hell, DEEP BLUE out of IBM already has a higher diagnostic rate than human doctors. The US Department of Labor and Goldman Sachs are estimating 300mil - 600mil will be replaced with current AI tech, the biggest losses will be in call centers, and what's left of secretarial workers.
This is my one obsession. Fear of how we can't possibly all be employed, because of automation, and how the resources and power will keep concentrating in the hands of those who own the automation. I've had this argument with friends that aren't as left leaning as me, and what i'm told over and over again is that i just lack the vision. That this has been a scare since forever, and yet look at how new jobs keep popping up. "There'll be jobs you can't even imagine right now", they say. "Fearmongers like you have been around since forever". "Employment is actually going up".
In my mind though, we're like the horses when the engine was invented.
It's funny that the people who usually say someone else lacks vision are the people keeping themselves blind. They assume that things must stay good because that's what they've experienced. They can't imagine the case where things are different, which most of the evidence is pointing towards.
Great plain language breakdown for the uninitiated. Doesn't disregard socialism as a solution to the problems outlined, but that's a whole other discussion. Frankly at this point in history, it's largely academic IMHO.
a lot of the human populace is becoming useless.
Emphasis mine. This would be my only edit. Useless only as a consumer and worker. Still imbued with dignity and capable of generating meaning and experiencing a worthy life.
My bad, I did mean useless in terms of a production standpoint.
I've never personally had a problem with being useless. The time I value most in my life is the time I spend idle because it feels like I have so little idle time.
Now it's my bad. I didn't mean to imply anything about your intent. Your goodwill is pretty clear from everything else you wrote. Just wanted to add a little asterisk there, for other readers.
Great plain language breakdown for the uninitiated. Doesn’t disregard socialism as a solution to the problems outlined, but that’s a whole other discussion.
I've always pictured socialism as more a middle step toward full blown communism. I also recognize the value of private enterprise and competition. So whatever communist society we end up with still needs to find ways for that healthy competition to thrive.
But like... We can easily meet human needs at this point for everyone. It's unjust and stupid not to do so
Have you seen the concrete 3d printers by chance? My dad was smart enough to get 2 a few years ago. Not only did it cut material costs by about 50% in construction, we went from running a 20 man crew to a 4 man crew when running those things.
This is where the gaps in your perspective start, concrete 3D printing is incredibly niche, and would usually take more higher paid labor to be used in places that replace concrete methods. That's not to mention the significant labor in their design and production.
That's the same with medical AI, AI in general has a massive hallucination problem, but for diagnosis especially, just as many doctors are actually needed for the core part of their job- treatment and running the tests to gather the data for the AI in the first place.
The economy functions on people exchanging the product of their labor for the product of other people's labor. The amount of useful things produced per hour of a humans labor going down is a good thing. It means we have to work less to live comfortable lives. Capitalism has been remarkably effective at that, it allows people to be as lazy as possible. Communist societies on the other hand, have had no incentive and therefore have not minimized human labor. Why invest in ways for people to work less? What benefit would the planner see in that, if they already have the people to fill those positions?
The one of the most arguments in favor of capitalism is innovation, and then people point to the several clear examples of centrally planned countries inventing something- but that forgets the equally important innovation. Innovation in production, which no centrally planned society has ever excelled at.
Your probably the only serious communist I've came across. So I'm curious how do you expect innovation to happen in a communist world. I know we live in a corrupted capitalist society. But while we have had many counties try and fail to make a thriving socialist society. We have had capitalism thrive and make everyones lives better. We've had many people call amarica today late stage capitalism, but that implies that it's inevitable that society will be corrupted by blind brand loyalty and companies will buy out compition. So why do you think we should change to communism, instead of eradicating blind brand loyalty and cracking down on wealth gained through stifling others.
I want to comment on this first:
... while we have had many counties try and fail to make a thriving socialist society. We have had capitalism thrive and make everyones lives better.
First, socialist countries haven't been allowed to thrive. They're a threat to the established capitalist status-quo. That's what the entire red scare period was about; undermining leftist nations so they fail. See the Guatemala coup for example. The country removed their dictatorship and formed a democracy. It happened to elect a leftist president who implemented a minimum wage and began granting land to peasants. This pissed off the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) who were benefiting from cheap land and exploiting labor. They had the US overthrow the democracy and instate a dictatorship (which ended up committing a genocide).
This has happened many times. The only leftist nations that were able to survive this are ones with strong governments and cultural hegymony (basically dictatorships with strong restrictions on citizens). This doesn't mean that's the only possibility because that's the only ones that survived, it just means those are more stable when undermined by a powerful external force. It's like asking why everyone who has been shot in the head has died. It's not their fault someone else shot them.
(Also, many capitalist nations have failed, and that equally is not a sign that capitalism is destined to fail.)
Now for this:
So I'm curious how do you expect innovation to happen in a communist world.
Innovation happens all the time without capitalism. In fact, capitalism often hinders innovation. The requirement of capitalism is profit seeking. If you don't think something will make a profit, you shouldn't invest in it.
I think it's penicillin that almost didn't exist because of capitalism. (This is from memory, so some parts may be wrong) The company was trying to create a certain drug. During the experiments penicillin was found. The company told them to move on, but the people running the experiment saw an opportunity and continued developing it on their own. Under capitalism, you shouldn't persue unlikely but potentially beneficial, though possibly not profitable, possibilities. Can you imagine the number of times this has happened and the people involved listened to what they were told?
People like to innovate. Just look at makers online. They make all kinds of stupid shit that won't ever make money just to see what will happen. Profit is not the thing that creates innovation. Human ingenuity is. If you give humans enough resources to persue what they want, they will innovate.
Also, generally communism or other leftist ideals aren't advocating for equality in outcomes. They're advocating for equality in opportunity. If you're born wealthy, you shouldn't get special access to thing that an average person doesn't have access to. You shouldn't be allowed to persue your goals when an average person can't. However, if you create something that makes your life easier or better, that's not going to be removed from you. There's equal opportunity to improve your life, but not everyone will persue things equally.
So why do you think we should change to communism, instead of eradicating blind brand loyalty and cracking down on wealth gained through stifling others.
Personally, I'm more towards anarchism than communism, but I see value in both and they share so much in common.
How would you go about eradicating "eradicating blind brand loyalty and cracking down on wealth gained through stifling others"? Those are fundamental aspects of capitalism. The goal of capitalism is to increase profits by any means possible, which includes breaking laws when it's more profitable to do so. Eradicating brand loyalty is only possible if you elemenate labels, but that also creates the opportunity for cheap alternatives to undercut on quality. Exploiting labor is also fundamental to capitalism. If the goal is profit then you should pay as little as possible for as much as possible. If you don't then someone else will undercut you and you'll fail while they exploit.
There's no avoiding it under capitalism because the fundamental goals are misaligned with morality. The only choice is a system that favors morality, potentially by making moral options profitable or just not prioritizing profit. You can't really "fix" capitalism. The fundamentals are rotten. You can improve it, but it'll always be misaligned with what we want. There may be a place for capitalism under another system, but capitalism as the foundation is never going to prioritize humanity, good, and doing what's right.
Kudos on the respectful questions instead of dissolving into rhetoric. I love these sort of conversations.
But while we have had many counties try and fail to make a thriving socialist society. We have had capitalism thrive and make everyones lives better
Hold the phone. We have thriving socialist societies today, unless the EU is doing a lot worse than I thought. In fact in France and Germany they're nearly 100% nuclear and renewable and in France's case have secured enough nuclear fuel to power their society for centuries. All of them have socialized medicine, and judging by the new heart surgery techniques out of France lately they're not lacking for innovation just cause the government is footing the bill. Furthermore, have ALL capitalist countries stood the test of time economically? I can name quite a few that exist right now like Fiji, which is certainly capitalist, but does NOT help their people in being capitalist (selling their water has harmed their environment, and the profits really are not passed along to their people).
Why would you think innovation would disappear?
Let's take the socialist (communist) medical systems in foreign countries. There is still IMMENSE value in winning the government contracts that use your medicine. And I'm a weird communist who still values personal property and intellectual property, I still see that as integral to the process. So like, if you invent the cure for cancer you can still demand $X per treatment, we're just talking about who's footing that bill in the end. I'm just cool with the government being able to design a competing product/treatment. That's kinda really it.
NASA is purely government funded and non-profit. If NASA had been able to charge for half the stuff they gave the world for free they'd be the richest corporation on the planet, since the MRI, CAT scanner, and a whole ton of other technology was made by them. Yet NASA doesn't profit on any of it, and is one of the most innovative entities in the world. Kinda puts a dent in your 'well there'd be no innovation' right? I dunno man, have you ever met scientists and engineers? I'm convinced if you just gave them all unlimited budgets and material all our problems would be solved overnight, and most of them would refuse anything beyond the satisfaction of having made something new and decent living wages and conditions.
And that seems to be working wonderfully for the EU countries who've already adopted this system, and for the Chinese, it's not like innovation just dissipated from there, hell they're beating us in a few areas right now.
I'm not a communist, but I agree. I think most people would agree communism/socialism would only work if there is abundance, which in this case will be brought by automation. This is exactly what Star Trek predicts-- if global warming doesn't get to us first.
Are you talking about people who critique capitalism and its bandaids from the left, or people who chose a collection of countries with red flags to simp for?
Everyone on hexbear and lemmygrad is already a communist, so they don't spend a lot of time trying to convince each other that communism is good and capitalism is bad, although they do post specific examples. It's mostly current events, venting, and shitposting. A lot of the serious discussion is either in the weekly news megathread or buried in the comments under some shitpost begging xi jinping to nuke the white house.
He probably refers to the hexbear/Lemmygrad Members. Aka the latter
isn't there an irony that this comment itself would get laughed out of middle school debate club?
Its just a meme mate
This is an unedited exchange from the show IT Crowd while she's trying to subtly tell them she's on her period and they just don't get it.
Resistance is futile ☭☭☭
Welcome to the party!
I do not get the communist comment as Lemmy really is about everything.
Decentralization appeals to leftists, and the founder of Lemmy is a vocal Communist. As such, there are lots of leftists of various flavors, be they Marxist or Anarchist.
I feel the OP. Communists are more active around the fedi I think. Nothing wrong about it. It's just a fact. Everyone should be heard in my opinion. Even thought the majority is still stuck in an ideology with almost 200 years that failed miserably every time it was implemented. Socialism is a bit more evolved. A mix of capitalism and socialism seems to be the sweet spot. My 2cents.
edit: typo
Couple things here: Communism is Socialism, a form of it. Communism has never been "implemented" either, as it's specifically a post-Socialist stage. The ML states you're referring to were Socialist, and didn't reach Communism.
Secondly, the ML states were ML states, and as such were deliberately adapting new theory proposed by Lenin and distilled by Stalin.
I'm in no way a Stalinist, or a simp for the USSR, your comment is just wrong.
By your very same logical chain, Capitalism is an ideology 400 years old that failed miserably every time, as well as Socialism. It's meaningless word salad.
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