Those in the Imperial Core will never understand that what they consider unbearable hardship and boredom is actually a life of luxury that the vast majority of people on Earth cannot even imagine.
The international division of labor is 1000x more important and impactful than the domestic one.
I don’t think I agree with either of the positions being presented here. :grillman:
He’s hardly getting crushed to death in the gears of industrial capital, but I don’t think the thought-terminating cliche that there are starving kids in Africa is a good enough reason to fail to recognize alienation when it’s staring us in the face every day.
Yeah this is definitely capitalist alienation. There’s almost no difference between this video and Nintendo’s advert for Tears playing on exactly the same emotion.
This is exactly what communist should be seizing on in the imperial core. That there is more to life than… This. That this is not fulfilling for human beings, that we need more than repetitive daily labour to lead happy lives.
What is missing in this video? The product of this man’s labour. He is divorced from it. He has no pride or fulfilment from his daily routine, he is not connected with the output of his work.
As soon as you put that into the mixture it becomes impossible to see it as depressing, because the fruit of all that work becomes an accomplishment. The issue is that we’re disconnected from it so it never feels like our accomplishment, it belongs to the capitalist owner, the Elon Musks of the world. Even the person designing rockets feels this way when Musk takes that accomplishment for himself.
It probably looks like the Nintendo advert because that’s the vibe the video is deliberately going for, with the music, framing, etc. For instance, in the first seconds of the video you can see a ring on his finger, but you never see his partner, nor do they ever get a mention. I don’t think a 60 second TikTok is an accurate representation of the guy’s life.
It’s not a thought-terminating cliche, it’s a Marxist analysis of the international division of labor lol. The only reason he gets to live this “empty” life is because of the billions of slaves experiencing actual deprivation. Read Open Veins of Latin America and try to argue with a straight face that a miner who’s going to die at 35 when his lungs cease to exist lives the same kind of life as this guy, and that they warrant the same analysis.
It can be that and still be employed as a thought terminating cliche. The fact that this dude’s PMC lifestyle comes at the expense of the global south doesn’t make it any less hollow and alienated, and we do our analysis no favors by pretending you have no reason to be depressed if you’re in the core and not starving.
OP is a guy who’s said explicitly in past posts that he doesn’t care about the suffering of people in the imperial core. This is not an argument worth having, he already has his :zizek: staked out.
Hollow and alienated compared to what? An imagined ideal that lives in the ether? A more gentle past that only existed because of even greater economic coercion in the periphery?
Sure, workers in the Imperial Core are alienated. But revolution has only ever happened at the points of greatest deprivation. Workers in the Imperial Core would benefit from a global revolution that would bring about Communism, but that’s 1000x harder sell than “continue to support the status quo and get treats.” People will only ever lay their lives down where present conditions are no better than death itself.
Organizing in the Imperial Core is, in my opinion, only useful in mobilizing the very bottom of the hierarchy and to lay the groundwork for what comes when Americans start to experience real hardship, and trying to turn people whose lives are basically fine into committed Communists is a complete waste of energy.
Men like this used to lead legions into battle. Now he sits in traffic, on the way to the same cubicle every day. Where he will listen to some HR harpy lecture him on how he is the problem, while he watches as his society slowly decays. He may have brief moments of happiness with his pup, but these moments are fleeting.
This is the hell of modernity for a lot of men.
This is what zero understanding of history does to a mf.
Men like this used to lead legions
Who made up the legions, dipshit? Was it all women? Or were the majority of men still under the thumb of the ruling class and got no say? God I hate these people.
No no you don’t understand, I wouldn’t be one of the peasantry, obviously I would be a lord or a general or something
:horror: marble bust twitter users when i take them in a time machine back to 400 BC Rome and they see that 98% of Roman men are ordinary day laborers like the guy in the video and not epic masculine barbarian fighters with cool swords
Ha! Day laborers! Why do you think the Roman elites were so big on open immigration of slaves! Citizens, you have to pay them! They’ll even revolt and form mobs and lynch you if you try to screw them over! Much better to import more and more slaves and give them bread & circuses so they stay calm while you’re doing it.
‘you should be killing and dying 1,000 miles from home at the ripe old age of 30’ is not the compliment they think that is
History factoid time: Legionaries mostly lived freakishly long and healthy lives compared to the rest of the population. Apparently they generally had better food, health, and dental care than normal people, they got lots of exercise but not the kind of heavy manual labor that breaks you down, and they didn’t do much actual fighting, so most of them made it through their 25 year term and retired
:the-more-you-know:
??? What the fuck the motherfucker owns a house with a waterfall shower jesus christ he’s probably in the top 10% of wealth in the country.
If you don’t have one, I highly recommend getting a cheap waterfall shower head and an extension arm. Huge quality of life thing, almost as big as a bidet. They’re like $30-50 online and if you pull the little flow adapter out they’re amazing.
I rent and can’t make any changes. Someone got evicted for installing a bidet. :bawllin-sad:
Someone got evicted for installing a bidet
Wtf? Like a full on one, or the toilet attachment? Either way that’s fucked.
Wtf. I also rent, usually you just need to hook things up to the pipes, and the landlord wouldn’t even know unless you made a huge mistake or they do a zillion inspections or something. There are also handheld bidets which are really good and super cheap too. Awesome for travel. I take mine camping.
They are huge water-wasters and I’m amazed they’re not illegal.
King of the Hill was making jokes about low-flow toilets and that was 25 years ago.
Honestly, they do have a higher flow rate, but I’ve cut down the amount of time I spend in the shower thanks to mine by enough that it more than offsets the increased water usage. Also I live in an area where groundwater is our primary source, and the aquifer levels are rising, rather than depleting.
There are low-flow waterfall style ones, but you’re sacrificing water pressure for area.
People are calling it dystopian because of the sad music. Switch the music out and you could sell it as “a day in my life! :))” kind of video and you could even get some stans. :shrug-outta-hecks: Editing is very suggestive.
Watched it without sound and could only think “what’s the problem, this guy has it fucking made” - I didn’t know this was supposed to be dystopian? Like I get that corporate/office work can be monotonous and grey but this dude seems to get a ton of time off, lives in extremely nice conditions, has a car and a dog, is healthy…
Legit thought there would be a twist half way through and they would compare his life favorably to someone in real dire conditions but no, everyone is boo-hooing about this?!
Change the music to “All Star” by Smash Mouth and suddenly it’s an uplifting dudes rock video
I still think it’s dystopian I hate white walled suburban people cubes. Like look at that place, it’s a box for storing your P-zombies. That man has no connections to life or culture and probably owns rock climbing shoes but doesn’t drink PBR. Like he’s not suffering, he has biceps and pants that fit. He may not be capable of experiencing angst. But huge numbers of people are suffering to make that specific kind of subjective void possible.
Source; I am related to these people. They seem happy and I find that both uncanny and distressing. The Stepford Wives was a documentary (about spousal abuse weirdly enough, featuring a Disney engineer as the primary villain. Great movie, definitely worth watching for insight about middle class feminism in the 1970s)
It’s depressing he has to drive everywhere
