I can think of no starker demonstration of commercialisation destroying culture than the fact that Rickrolling doesn’t work anymore because YouTube plays an unskippable two-minute ad first.
Capitalism is so insanely evil it’s honestly kind of impressive
“if you force companies to pay their staff more than starvation wages they’ll just fire people and then those people will starve even faster and that’s just how it is and there’s literally no way to change it or fix this serious problem of people starving”
“if you force landlords to maintain their properties instead of allowing the buildings to decay around their tenants then they will just charge higher rent which will price people out of housing and then they will be homeless, this is an incontrovertible fact and is both inevitable and a morally neutral phenomenon”
??????????
“helping people is bad, actually, and hurting them is objectively a good and positive thing 100% of the time, the world would be worse if nobody was suffering and dying for stupid, preventable reasons”
adults, while forcing all children above the age of 5 to sit still, be silent, and obey orders for 7-8 hours a day with minimal breaks, reducing their exposure to fresh air and sunlight to almost nothing, forcing them to alter their natural sleeping patterns to increase productivity, and repeatedly telling them their self worth depends on their being able to follow these instructions perfectly for 13 or more years: kids these days are so lazy! they never go outside! they never want to do anything! clearly it’s not because of us!
The way we treat children is extremely inhumane, but so many adults want to dismiss it because it’s so normalized
You… You do realize that’s what it’s like to be a working adult…? And our days are even longer.
thats because an 8 hour work day is extortion and should be illegal. next question.
Either you’ve never had a job or you’re just lazy af. There’s nothing wrong with 9 to 5 jobs. Nobody is forcing people to work them and people need the hours to make more money. People get breaks too.
Please take a biology class & get some help. People shouldnt have to do work 80% of the day to survive.
2. capitalism is forcing people to work. i could just quit my job and hang out at home – but then i would lose my house and most likely starve to death, because of the way our economy works.
3. breaks for most establishments are a mere 30 minutes for an 8-hour shift; at my first job, for a 6-hour shift, your break would only be 15 minutes and any longer shift would only get 30. studies say people are more productive if for every hour you work, you get a 15-minute break – meaning, for an 8-hour shift, you’d need an hour-long break, and so on and so forth.
the way modern society views work is unhealthy for loads of reasons, not just what i mentioned here. the fact that we’re preparing children for such a torturous lifestyle is horrific.
not to mention in florida its not legally required for them to give breaks at all !! ive been forced to work for 13 hours with no breaks to eat even because of that shit
Full time work should entitle someone to enough pay for rent, food, bills, and leisure activities. Full time work for a full life wage. You put in your 8 hours a day, 5 days a week? You should be able to afford the basic shit you need in life, no matter where you work.
pisses me off that this is considered a radical statement.
I do agree with this but from economic standpoint if you are working at a job like McDonalds as someone flipping burgers and making fries you are getting paid for the amount of skill needed for the job. But if its any other job that requires you to have an actual skill that you can make a career out of then yeah you should be getting paid enough to live a standard life.
If you work FULL TIME you should be able to afford to fucking live. No, it doesn’t matter if it’s flipping burgers, these people contribute to our fucking economy and they MATTER. They should be allowed to be alive.
Jesus fucking Christ do you people hear yourselves?
People like this are why we can’t move on to issues like reducing how many hours is full time, or working out UBI.
We’re going to need to do that. Most people just don’t know what’s coming down the pipeline, without a major change to the structure of the economy, we’re looking at large scale permanent unemployment, even in the “skilled” labor force.
Also? Making food is a fucking skill. Running a fast food kitchen is a fucking skill. Operating a drive-thru is a goddamn fucking skill.
I do not know how to do these things. I have a masters degree and I have no fucking clue how to operate a deep fryer or make coffee drinks. I’d probably not be very good at it, because that kind of hands-on, fast-paced work is very hard for me.
But thankfully, there are people who are good at it, so I can do my job, and they can do theirs, and we can benefit one another by putting our skills to use in different areas. People who work in fast food are not less deserving of comfort and security in their lives just because their skills aren’t valued like they should be. That is a myth developed to deprive people of rights.
My friend works as a medical assistant and I’ve worked at McDonald’s and Starbucks. You know there’s a lot of things you gotta learn in this typa job?
Like in addition to it being physically demanding (standing up for 4-6 hours straight, carrying heavy ice/coffee, constantly getting burned by boiling water and an oven, a lot of reaching and squatting (like a lot a lot I lost 40 FUCKING pounds in a year okay this job demands a lot from the body)), there are actual skills required. Also your skin splits from using so much antibacterial soap.
Do you know what temperature different foods have to be to prevent contamination? If it’s a “cold” or “hot” plate?? Do You know how long food can be out before bacterial contamination can happen?? Do you know the difference between say 1% and heavy whipping cream? Can you teach a chemistry class using milk????? That’s p much what you gotta learn to be able to do. My friend who works as a medic was surprised, because I do more in my day than they do, and THEY told me that. They were shocked how much I actually do; I am on my feet more, talking to more people, I have a working knowledge of food germs food born illnesses and chemistry, I gotta do the same shit with sterilizing my tools the same exact way a doctor sterilizes theirs. Etc etc.
There’s no such thing as an unskilled job. There are only undervalued skills.
“There’s no such thing as an unskilled job. There are only undervalued skills.”
Okay, let’s brake this down. How long does it take to train someone to work fast food? What are the repercussions of that person fails to do their job?
Now, how long does it take to train a structural engineer? What are the repercussions if they fail at their job?
How long does it take to train a plumber? What are the repercussions if they fail their job?
How long does it take to train a ditch digger? What are the repercussions if they fail their job?
Someone of these things are not like the other, some of these things a little more important then the others.
“If you work full time you deserve a living wage”
No you dont. You deserve to be paid according to the value you bring to the job/company/economy. If you do not want to upskill and increase this value, that is your problem.
Capitalism is inherently immoral, exhibit A.
I still can’t quite fully fathom that there are people out there saying that even if you work a full-time job, you don’t deserve to be paid enough money to survive.
It boggles my brain there are people out there who acknowledge that there are kinds of jobs that are essential for businesses, that there are positions that need to be filled in order for a business to function properly and sanitarily- such as fry cooks and janitors and wait staff- but still hold the position that the people working those positions DON’T DESERVE TO MAKE ENOUGH MONEY TO COVER THEIR BASIC COSTS OF LIVING.
Even if a person moves to a better job, that job still needs to be done. Someone is still going to be hired to do that job. Someone is still going to be in poverty doing that job, even if they are working full-time at it. Someone is still going to need government assistance in order to NOT DIE because that job doesn’t pay them enough money to feed themselves and their family, keep a roof over their heads, and cover the other costs to keep them in reasonable health. So your tax dollars are going to support them instead of their cost of living being covered by the business who employs them because without that support the streets would be full of homeless, starving, desperate people.
Don’t you think that the better way of keeping the streets empty of homeless, starving, desperate people would be to require that minimum wage, which was started SPECIFICALLY to ensure that those doing “unskilled” labor would make enough to live on, pay an amount that allows them to do so? Rather than paying so low it requires additional money from the government to avoid that outcome?
Because I guarantee you, if you think you’d be fine with cutting welfare to people who don’t make enough to live on even though they’re working full-time jobs, the riots that will ensue when those people are forced to find other means to ensure they and their families survive will change your mind pretty quick.
People who are working a full-time job should not be paid so little by their employers that they are living in poverty. End of story.
People who aren’t capable of working a full-time job also need to be taken care of rather than be forced to live in poverty. End of story.
There isn’t a single person out there, even those I despise, who “deserves” to live in poverty conditions.
Nobody deserves to live that way.
That there are those who DO work full-time hours- at grueling, exhausting jobs- and STILL legally get paid so little they’re living in poverty is disgusting, particularly in a society that claims to be as advanced and enlightened as the one we live in.
That you think the people employed in positions you personally undervalue literally don’t deserve to live is pretty gross, too.
…Especially when a lot of aspects of your day-to-day life depend on the people working in those positions doing their jobs, and doing them well.
@pfcanimal
“Okay, let’s brake this down. How long
does it take to train someone to work fast food? What are the
repercussions of that person fails to do their job?”
Challenge fucking ACCEPTED asshole.
So a fast food worker takes anywhere from twenty to thirty hours to train. In that time they have to learn:
How to operate the point-of-sale. This is a LOT of data crunching. They have to know where to find items in a computer interface, usually touchscreen, and fast. I’ve worked with six or eight different point of sales and it’s not easy. Then you’ve got system updates that fuck with your spatial memory of where orders live.
You’ve got to teach them proper sanitary procedures. Where and when to wipe down, and with what. Certain sanitizers will make people VERY sick if they’re not rinsed off of tools, but you must sanitize your tools. Sweeping a floor? Dude can you sweep a fucking fourteen-table floor in ten minutes or less? I can do it in six minutes, if there’s nobody in the dining room, and I can do it with getting the corners too.
They have to know how food borne illnesses work, and how to prevent their spread. They have to maintain temperature for ALL their ingredients. They have to operate very dangerous equipment. (A deep fryer improperly operated can cause third-degree burns or worse.) They have to lift anywhere from 10-50 pound boxes regularly.
They have to learn all of this, usually in the space of four to six shifts.
The repercussions of them failing at this? An outbreak of food borne illness in the working population, the youth population, and the elderly population, because fast food is a universal point of contact for these demographics. Every time you eat a burger, you’re trusting that these people did their job right.
“Now, how long does it take to train a structural engineer? What are the repercussions if they fail at their job?”
Four to eight years degree in field, and that means they’re learning a fuckton of math. These are the people who have to not just understand, but live and breathe their profession. A structural engineer builds roads, bridges, and buildings. Infrastructure is important, and these people keep it running.
If they fail at their job, death and dismemberment may happen, property damage is pretty much a guarantee, and hey guess what, how often is it the structural engineer that takes the fall for that shit?
A shitty structural engineer is someone who does not understand that the people doing the ‘menial’ labor on their construction sites are in fact some of the most important. A more expensive education means that yes, they get paid more, but that does not mean that other peoples labor is devalued by proximity.
How long does it take to train a plumber? What are the repercussions if they fail their job?
About two years. They have to learn the construction codes, the tools, the flow of water in the city. They have to be aware of structural integrity, they have to be aware of materials and costs, and they have to be able to measure multiple pieces accurately. Can you re-plumb a house? A school? Can you replace a septic system, a toilet, a sink?
If these people fail at their jobs, the least of the repercussions is property damage. If they fail on a big enough scale? Oops your water supply is contaminated with sewage.
How long does it take to train a ditch digger? What are the repercussions if they fail their job?
For a really good company: About six to eight weeks. This includes the operation of heavy equipment, safety gear, and reading survey lines.
Ditch digging is heavy labor. Without the proper equipment and oversight of the company (That’s the company being monitored, not the employees) you’re looking at injured people. If you think that risking injury isn’t worth proper pay, then buddy have I got a job for you in the middle east.
Ditches are essential to the drainage systems of a city. Shitty ditches mean that if your drainage system downriver backs up, then you’ve got flooding. If you’ve got a muddy construction site, you’re not gonna get very far. Ditches also serve as micro ecosystems for riparian area fowl and fauna, since we just built on their fucking river.
Also, the people digging these ditches are still people.
Someone of these things are not like the other, some of these things a little more important then the others.
How important is your job, that you feel that anyone not doing the same thing you do isn’t worth human dignity? All of these jobs seem pretty important to me, buddy.
Also: It’s ‘Break’ not ‘Brake’ this down. Go back to fucking grammar school you entitled capitalist-worshiping tool. If you’re making shitty spelling mistakes like that, you can’t be very good at your job.
I’d like to add that, thirty hours is the maximum of time the fast food workers are ALLOWED to learn all these necessities. Just because this is the current standard doesn’t mean it’s the time that should be allocated for teaching – it’s that short because the work is undervalued and a lot of time pressure put onto these people, and moreover fast food companies don’t want to pay for teaching personal so they have to learn on-shift and then swim or sink.
Rage, rage, against the dying of the light and maybe punch a few of these “people deserve poverty” ignorant motherfuckers at the same time.
Anyone who says ‘people deserve poverty’ has a) never worked a minimum-wage job, and b) does not understand how FUCKING IMPORTANT minimum-wage jobs are.
how can some people look at the fact that insulin is cheap to produce, yet extremely costly and not think corporations have pricing power especially on inelastic goods such as insulin lmao.
they talk all day and all night about how “supply meets demand” and then casually forget that inelastic goods are a thing that corporations can gut people with.
believing supply meets demand at some fantastic idealist equilibrium in real life is so childish and ignores the realities of the lives we live. supply does not and has not met demand at your magic equilibrium since the dawn of capitalism. it’s just not a real thing.
and on top of this, they genuinely want people to die because they believe a corporation has a right to kill people by withholding cheap goods to make another couple billion? that’s inhuman.
and don’t give me this bullshit that it’s the governments fault because regulations or whatever else garbage you want to spew.
you truly honestly believe if there were less regulations corporations would ignore an opportunity to screw people over when they know they can?
you truly think corporations out of the goodness of their cold dead hearts would throw away an opportunity to make a lot more money than they should just because people are desperate and will die without the goods they hoard?
and you truly think that there would be enough insulin making competition to stop this from happening? that’s honestly fucking wild. you call communism wild but to think this is genuinely … the most absurd thing i’ve ever heard.
you really don’t think these corporations would oligopolize to beat out everyone else? you don’t think their endgame would be to make the most money possible?
and you say I don’t know anything about economics …
And they say the millennial generation is lazy and entitled.
Here’s a secret: it’s not OUR JOB to adapt to the market. It’s not OUR JOB to buy napkins and golf clubs and drive to the mall on the other side of town to make sure it doesn’t go out of business.
Did previous generations kill the horse and wagons after the car was invited? Did those lazy citizens kill the town crier by buying into that newfangled newspaper business?
What people want and are ready to spend their money on will change over time. Today we have different goals and different standards – like I will invite my friends over for dinner and instead of napkins I’ll put a roll of paper towels on the table. And my friends won’t clutch their pearls and hiss “you uncultured swine” at me, because we value that paper towels are cheap and efficient! Napkins may be pretty but some of them end up being unused, and I’ll have to throw them away after the dinner and it’s a fucking waste.
Did your mall end up as an empty husk outside of town because those pesky millennials buy all their clothes online now? You lucky son of a gun. Now you get to use your ~*IMAGINATION*~ and repurpose that ugly windowless box into something actually useful. Why not a nice office space? (x)
Or how about you make the old stores into cute micro apartments? I WOULD LOVE TO LIVE IN ONE OF THESE! (x)
Are the stores fine but the parking lot empty because those cheap hipsters would rather take a bus or bike to the mall instead of buying a car like regular people? Do like they did in Seattle and turn it into a fucking beautiful water treatment facility and park. (x)
This thing collects storm-water runoff to create and provide nutrients to small pools and green areas. It works like a natural creek that ALSO filters out pollutants that would damage the salmon population! AS A MILLENNIAL I CAN SAY THAT THIS IS SO FUCKING UP MY ALLEY YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I WOULD GO TO THAT MALL, BUY A COFFEE AND GO OUT TO LOOK AT THE BIRDS.
Actual fucking plovers. When was the last time a parking lot did something for the environment except gathering upp more roadkill for the scavengers?
I could also go into why no-one is watching shitty sitcoms or boring movies because we have access to so much media that we can filter out the generic stuff that doesn’t appeal to us, but that is an essay in itself. We are extremely capable on spending it on media that speaks to us though (hey this is unrelated but did you know that Wonder Woman has passed 570M$ worldwide?)
TLDR: Market powers are entitled and used to people spending an ever-increasing amount of money on their shitty products. When this trend turns they are too unimaginative and lazy to do something about it so instead they’ll whine about how their former customers are “killing” them.
They can either DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT or spend the rest of their days crying into their surplus napkins.
Yes.
Also, the idolized lifestyle of the 1950s-2000s was unsustainable. The bubble burst, and my generation inherited a ruined world whose elders refuse acknowledge that their prosperity came at our expense.
I misspoke when I said we have gone 24 hours without a Trump twitter controversy. This one’s less likely to start a war, though in some ways it’s more disturbing.
So, at around 8:00am this morning, Trump fired off a tweet which suggested he was going to take the contract for Air Force One away from Boeing. When I say ‘suggested,’ what I mean is that the tweet ended with the words, “Cancel order!” Boeing’s stock began dropping.
Evidently, Trump read this article, got pissed off, and decided to punish Boeing because its CEO dared to oppose him. I’ve figured out, incidentally, why Trump is so addicted to Twitter. It provides him with an instant gratification that he cannot obtain in any other way. He thinks it, he tweets it, he basks in the attention. The attention is what’s important to him, not the consequences. No wonder “Trump’s Unpredictable Style Unnerves Corporate America.”
All right. Let me see how succinctly I can explain why, in a capitalist economy, when you are the incoming or actual President of the United States, Words Have Consequences, and why even those of us who kind of hate corporate America share some of their unnerved-ness.
Steel Phoenix Studios 