Vitruvian man of the modern age:
- Right hand: iPhone 15 Pro Max with TikTok autoscrolling feed
- Left hand: cramming junk food into mouth
- Heart area: acute guilt
- Belly area: dangerous amount of visceral fat
- Wallet: zero dollars zero cents, plus seven maxed out credit cards
- Wardrobe: come on, who am I kidding. Let’s try again:
- A pile of clothes near the bed: overpriced fast fashion bought to compensate the guilt
- Lifespan: dying right before retirement, so they don’t have to pay you a penny back.
They got everything figured out. Every aspect of your life is profitable to someone. The system is perfect and very beneficial to everyone but yourself.

in germany, the self-proclaimed-liberals-but-factually-just-disguised-ferengi have a saying "the market will regulate it".

technically, it's true. but "The Market" will never regulate it for our benefit.

@tosensei exactly the same thing in Russia: “рыночек порешает”

@tosensei

> self-proclaimed-liberals-but-factually-just-disguised-ferengi

rofl 😂

@jestdotty that's the idealistic theory, yes.

but in reality, it's different, especially in a system that basically boils down to "more, more, MORE!".

unregulated capitalism is the glorification of greed - or do you think amazon warehouse workers have to piss in bottles because bezos "has enough money"? (the grand nagus would be proud)

@jestdotty and once again that old, boring "there's only two extremes" mindest.

have you considered that "criticising one extreme" is not the same as "endorsing the other extreme", and that the best (or - least bad) solution is a careful balance between them?

and giving the current situation of "there are some crazy nutjobs who could just buy a small country - while millions of people are starving due to external circumstances" - i'd say we need a bit of a course correction away from pure capitalism.

plus: even if ninety nine point whathaveyou percent of "rich" people are "good" - the zero point whathaveyou one that aren't "good" are what makes our current situation so problematic.

just like with a cup of tea - the 99.9% of it that _aren't_ strychnine are totally okay, but you still wouldn't wanna drink it.

@jestdotty no, we are not in pure capitalism.

never said that.

but we are much farther along in the "pure capitalism"-direction than in the "pure communism"-direction, at the moment.

@jestdotty "governments are bribing corps" - in my book, "corporations being powerful enough that governments need to bribe them" is a clear sign that the market got too much power.

with a core problem being: money isn't democratic, and CEOs are not elected..

and while it's true that way too many governments don't give half a shit about their obligations and the limits that their power should have, corporations laugh because they don't even have those constraints.

if a politician spies on your personal life, it's called "surveilance state". but if a CEO does, not is the exactly same thing just "business" - but usually, you're paying for the surveilance hardware yourself.

@jestdotty "also wtf you're pro surveillance state?" - no.

once again, you seem to fail at grasping basic english. i never at any point said or implied anything of the kind.

just try to get out of your binary mindset, would you? because saying "this crappy option is garbage" is NOT the same as "this other crappy option is great".

also: "the business taking a photo of you" is not at all what i meant. "people stuffing their home full of echo dots and ring doorbells etc." is what i meant.

@jestdotty did i say that was my solution?

once again: no. not in any word, said or unsaid.

you gotta work on your reading comprehension skills. a lot. didn't they teach you proper english at Rich People School?

@jestdotty to quote: "coming from a rich family".

i didn't imply that you are rich now. i merely built on the fact that you yourself said that you came from a rich family, which greatly increases the likelihood of special, more expensive education.

while the quality of your comments increase the likelihood of "special" education...

@jestdotty that's good advise you should take.