Kyle 🌹I just realized that the American vision of freedom from the wage system is for everyone to be their own small business owner. Instead of having solidarity, and developing an equitable society, we are all autonomous competitors and petty tyrants. That's the American vision of a free and equal society. An endless hell of searching for customers and competing with each other, each maximizing their own power and wealth, where growth is constant and explosive.
I kind of always knew all of those pieces, but I've never quite stepped outside the system and belief to truly see the whole shape of it. Thank you Gilmore Girls.
The Doctor@kcnightfang Exactly why Extropianism has all but vanished.
Aslan French@kcnightfang While I agree that's the reality of the situation, I think the framework that people like TJ and Paine were working from was admirable. Time goes on and we learn that good intentions don't make true ideas.
@thedonquixotic Totally. They were working from a pre-industial, subsistence agricultural perspective. Well, not TJ as much. The yeoman farmer makes sense when you can grow your own food, but these days, that vision has been warped into the small business tyrant.
neville park@kcnightfang *pulls up in social.coop*
get in, loser. we're going s̶h̶o̶p̶p̶i̶n̶g̶ to form a co-operative
johanna, at the cafe counter@kcnightfang pretty sick, inn’t it?
@Johannab Yup. It's messed up if you look at it clearly. What really makes me sick is how I could say that to most people and they'd respond "Yeah, America is the best nation ever!" *shudder*
@kcnightfang I read a book once where common get-to-know-you conversation wasn’t “what’s your job” but “what is your contribution”? It was nuanced, but the assumption was everyone had something valuable for the community. Commerce was an exchange of gifts and service.
Such a horrible communist scenario.
Greg Kamprath@kcnightfang I think small business kissers want to go back to pre-society life where someone could actually be self sufficient and do whatever they want. There's no returning - once any decent size group of people cooperate as one entity, individuals have to similarly organize or face subjection/extinction. We'll never be 100% independent, but large scale cooperation is counterintuitively the best way to maintain individual autonomy
Silversalty@kcnightfang You drive a cab, as an 'independent contractor.'
Adam Bredenberg@kcnightfang We could all be in co-owned businesses / collective enterprises. That's a bit better.