My partner and I were talking recently about apple watches and how if they existed under a different system then they could really be for the greater good. What are some other things that would have been very good under communism?
Video games. Good indie games tend to be better then good AAA games.
Art in general. Less artists being forced to produce soulless corporate art would be a good thing.
Science. No more scientists begging for grants from corporations and having to be beholden to private companies. No more being paid to pretend that lead is safe so you can keep your job type scientist.
:lmayo: <—like for real. Good mayo is delicious and that mass produced stuff is shit.
where can I get good :lmayo: ? I love mayonaise https://youtu.be/Vbu_K41efvY
Farmer’s market will have good stuff. Ask the person who sells fresh eggs!
But making it yourself is :chefs-kiss: like @JuryNullification said
@JuryNullification is a great username.
Movies, youtube, and the internet. The actual interesting stuff fueled by genuine interest would be predominant rather than buried under a mountain of soyface thumbnails, react videos, disney/marvel products, paywalls, and astroturfed reviews and forums.
the internet
Such promise. I remember all the buzz about the information superhighway and the early internet utopians that thought we were headed to a golden land along with neoliberalism. Boy that didn’t turn out well, did it?
Social media.
Fast food.
Maybe a bit controversial, but: markets?
Social media is inherently abusive, fast food is inherently exploitative, and markets are really inefficient.
They’d probably be a lot less bad under socialism, but would probably be quickly replaced by something infinitely better.
Social Media isn’t inherently abusive - as that would essentially be saying that if people are allowed to communicate to other people, they would be abusive, because people are inherently abusive.
Social Media issues come down to a lack of empathy towards others, and systems designed for addiction and keeping your eyes on screen/“engaged”.
The problem with being dumb on social media versus being dumb in person is that EVERYONE can hear you clearly, and you can keep going instead of registering the social pressure around you that maybe you are on the wrong path and might want to zip it. Which also loops back into the lack of empathy people have online.
People are mean online, because they don’t have empathy towards those they are posting at, and people become main characters as they don’t have empathy for their readers.
Fast Food was originally making a few popular food dishes in a less made to order way to cut down on waiting time, and having increased throughput. The original McDonald’s had a small menu and basically decided on waste (unsold but cooked burgers being tossed because they were nasty) versus wasting time waiting. Fast Food would work without capitalism in some aspects. Fast Food could be argued as Street Food modified for suburban living.
Markets are inefficient but can also be human (depending on what we mean by Market, stock market like NYSE or do we mean a swapmeet market?) Markets go back thousands of years in human history around many parts of the globe. Some of the “inefficient” parts have benefits of human interaction, connections, and helping ideas flourish. As I am very big on one of the key evils of Capitalism is it’s way of isolating people by need and greed to look at others as an exploitable resource/victim or as someone who is a threat of exploiting us. A good deal in the market should be a win for everyone involved.
Amazon is unironically based as fuck, it’s just the union busting and other capitalist bullshit (dumping product to maximize profits) that make it really evil. When you consider what they did to get big, most of it is just infrastructure stuff. You can’t really say that about a lot of companies who base their value on extraction rather than creation. Socialist-alternate-reality Amazon is probably universally adored.
This is why I always say that the idea of breaking up Amazon is stupid, and what we need to do is nationalize Amazon. And Walmart too while we’re at it.
Breaking up monopolies is socdem nonsense about “competitivity” and “big business oppressing small businesses”, while having infrastructure from a monopolized company built up is likely to make the transititon to socialism easier.
A case could be made that Amazon is proof positive that, with modern technology and logistics, a planned economy could actually work.
