Soph
Annalee Newitz 🍜I'm sick of people saying it's easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of #capitalism. I think about the end of capitalism every day. Today I imagined what it would be like to live in a community that valued me for being present rather than "useful" or "productive." In that world, I think I would spend a lot more time taking care of plants. I would tell stories when I felt like it, instead of on deadline. What do you imagine? #ImagineTheEndOfCapitalism
toreigninhell@annaleen Man, all the hobbies and skills I could try out and attempt to acquire just because I wanted to, and not because they were "valuable".
wonkie@toreigninhell @annaleen I'm an artist simply because I want to be one. I am also the author of three award winning books though I make very little money from sales. So, yeah, I separate effort from renumeration all the time! Tho, truthfully, I would like a bigger audience, but not for profit. Just to have a bigger audience.
Julia@wonkie @toreigninhell @annaleen this statement made me want to follow you. I cannot believe that there is such a thing as an unadoptable cat the idea breaks my heart!
@juliacreatesjoy @toreigninhell @annaleen MOst are either old, chronically ill ,feral or have bad habits like Frankie the Mad Pisser who refused to pee in a cat box. The facility is a series of one room cabins, each with a cat door to an enclosed outside space with bushes. The interiors have upholstered furniture and cat trees. I visit daily to clean, feed, and pet my favorites. The facility has also served as a halfway house for litters of kittens who were later homed.
Yoko's Asterisk 🏳️⚧@annaleen I think a lot lately about how much I would love being able to spend time appreciating other people's stories and being a nice aunty instead of having to worry about self promotion. #endofcapitalism
@annaleen also the fact that you think about this stuff so much is reason # 100000100000 why I adore you with all my soul
@charliejane awwww I am the luckiest goofball on Earth 😍
Tim Carmody@annaleen Star Trek, but more dirtbags (I would totally be a dirtbag in the Star Trek universe)
Bob Thomson@annaleen @tim have you read any Culture books? :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_of_Games
@tim dirtbag with a heart of gold, I'd say
caz@annaleen there are so many things I love but am too burnt out for.
More time for games and books and then long rambly conversations about those stories with other people who love them.
I have lived a lot of places, worked a lot of jobs, so I have all these little pieces of skills & interests that I never got to actually develop because it was on to the next thing. Take up woodworking properly, maybe.
Spend more time with friends, definitely.
Fabián Heredia 🌹 ☭@annaleen I think that phrase is very specific to the production of cultural artifacts (books, movies, shows, anime, etc) and from Critical Theory.
Cory Doctorow, Ursula Le Guin, and others can definitely imagine alternatives and a lot of anti/post-capitalist media gets produced every year.
Buy why does Children of Men / Mad Max / Cyberpunk: Edgerunners / etc have a broader appeal? Are general audiences more willing to suspend their disbelief with those dystopias rather than the anti/post-capitalist media?
I think that is mostly what is going at and something that can, should and is being worked on by anti-capitalists. (Shoutout to Boots Riley Sorry to Bother You)
@annaleen also, afaik that phrase is attributed to Frederic Jameson by Mark Fisher in Capitalist Realism. (Has great parts, other not so much, about 50 pages total)
At least that first chapter I consider a must read and is titled and devoted to discussing that phrase: "It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism"
General Strike@fabianhjr @annaleen Because Children of Men/Edgerunners etc aren't about the future and never really were, beyond the surface level. They were about the society as it was at the time they were made, and thus immediately relatable.
@GeneralStrike @annaleen I disagree, those two are def about futures. (Even if they criticize the present)
@fabianhjr @annaleen What futures do they examine? Children of Men looks at falling fertility, dehumanisation of refugees and non-Westerners, rising authoritarianism, and environmental degradation. They're all issues that were fairly identifiable in Western societies even when the film came out.
KindlyWizard@annaleen
I'd be able to take the time and effort to finish something instead of starting a billion art projects and getting none done.
I'd be able to take the time and effort to finish something instead of starting a billion art projects and getting none done.
alcinnz@annaleen I like imagining a world where I continue my work, but don't have to waste time worrying about how to fund it! Possibly even do more of it, its fun!
Money from my vantage point is a waste of time, and therefore a waste of money...
Hunter Perrin@annaleen I imagine how I could just write cool software without it needing to fulfill some business purpose. Coincidentally, that used to be what I did in my spare time, before my spare time became work time.
Cea Noyes@annaleen I dream of being able to study with students who are attending college for the joy of learning and satiation of their intellectual curiosity rather than simply wanting credentials.
Erik Moeller- Not having my sleep schedule tied to calendar appointments
- Maintaining a healthy balance of building, learning, exploring & playing
- Loosely federating with different groups of shared interest
- Finding more joy in a world in which we create those same privileges and freedoms for everyone.
Francesco Orsenigo (he/him)I would be writing videogames and accessible software.
And I don't know if I'm missing your point, but I still agree with Le Guin: our current society suffers of a limit of the imagination, there is where we need to push the culture, we who have imagined it, must help everybody else to imagine.
@xarvh @annaleen Something I do find broadening my entertainment horizons: Works not funded by capitalists are significantly more likely to explicitly say "capitalism is wrong" as opposed to depicting it as an issue with particular cartoony individuals.
I hear Illumination's The Lorax & its preproduction is a good illustration of this!
But I still see, with a few exceptions, that there's a lack of imagination for alternatives...
DigbyImagining the end of the world requires no work and little imagination. We are feed various versions of it constantly. The end of anything else, requires we work for it. Few can envision a change to something they do not really understated.
Callisto@digby @annaleen I think a lot of people miss the great comfort that apocalyptic visions provide. We don't have to worry about our loved ones going on without us, or vice versa. We don't have to finish all that end-of-life planning we keep putting off. We don't have to declutter for our survivors. Just poof, all of us gone, it's over.
Ⓐ Consciousness Revolutions 🏴@annaleen I would cook (even) more, especially for and with children.
Effie Seiberg@annaleen think how much healthier we'd all be! Mental health: boosted. Physical health: you get the actual rest you need. It'd be magical.
joe•iuculano 
@annaleen I imagine you're absolutely right!
Joe@annaleen I loved Oscar Wilde's vision in "The Soul of Man Under Socialism". His version was a form of libertarian socialism in a post-scarcity society where everyone would be free to create, and no one would need to work for a living. Not sure how to get there from here but would love to live in that world.
Eliza@annaleen I think I’ll follow you.
Erika Ensign@annaleen Ironically, I would be so much more productive!
I could take the time to get closer to healthy, quit the hamster-wheel job that really is a lot of wheel-spinning, and Do So Much More. (Creating, helping, playing -- the good stuff I have little time/energy for now.)
🍵@annaleen
I would spend more time outdoors with friends, food gardening, and probably collaboratively building random things to solve problems. Maybe find people to make music with.
I would spend more time outdoors with friends, food gardening, and probably collaboratively building random things to solve problems. Maybe find people to make music with.
Siona@annaleen I love this so much. I'm mostly living it these days-- prioritizing physical care and rest and healing above all else; supporting and nourishing people and communities I love; backing art and artists I believe in; walking and cycling instead of driving; making time for napping and dreaming and reading. It meant a radical leap of faith in trusting my body above all else (and sometimes it still feels scary) but sometimes there's no choice but to create and live alternatives. ♡
Curt Wilson@annaleen mutual aid as a foundational component of a new society. Art, music, performance, robust scholarship. Integrated sustainability as a foundational component. The ability for educational pursuits to evolve into and feed a mutual aid society where all have their needs met, and harmful industries evolve into beneficial ones, as the nurturance of human rights, ecology, wise science, and ethics lead to big-picture thinking. No more poverty, and no more war profiteering.
lolonurse@annaleen
I'd teach toddlers to read because they are excited to decipher our hieroglyphics, & I'd teach people how to raise happy, well-adjusted, cooperative dogs. Also, cooking & baking - how to play with food.
I'd teach toddlers to read because they are excited to decipher our hieroglyphics, & I'd teach people how to raise happy, well-adjusted, cooperative dogs. Also, cooking & baking - how to play with food.
55aw@annaleen I imagine a world where I didn't have to cry at the end of every month because I don't have the vig for my landlord or putting off trips to the dentist because I have to keep the power on.
I imagine a world where we looked after people rather than incarcerate or punish them when they need help, a world where default assumption on un-homed people was not that had "brought it upon themselves" or were some how to blame for their inability to be good capitalists.
I imagine a world where we looked after people rather than incarcerate or punish them when they need help, a world where default assumption on un-homed people was not that had "brought it upon themselves" or were some how to blame for their inability to be good capitalists.
Outi🦊🌱🌍🌈@annaleen A slower paced world without hyper consumerism.
Razorblade Snowflake@annaleen I honestly would probably work as much as I do, but I would be able to spend more time doing things that I personally find useful, rather than what capitalism finds useful.
Max Kaehn@annaleen I imagine spending about 20 hours a week helping out with our technological infrastructure with a to-do list based on quality-of-life improved rather than money earned.
(Every morning in the shower I am grateful for all the things that had to go right for me to enjoy a shower in clean, hot water, and I want *everyone* to have great infrastructure.)
Tony Miller@annaleen there are so many things that I could be learning about instead of generating capital for people who don’t care if I live or die.
I could be gardening, cooking, wood working, making mead, designing games, playing with my son, snuggling my dog, and sharing what I create and have with as many people as possible.
I can do some of that now, but it is like constantly swimming upstream…
Spencer@BeardedRogue @annaleen I feel this so much. I'm even lucky enough to have a job I don't greatly dislike, but I'd much rather do it a few hours, maybe a day a week, and spend the rest of my time on other pursuits.
Crystal Huff (they/them)@annaleen the past couple of years, I've needed mutual aid and had time to do mutual aid work so much more than any previous time in my life. So I think I'd be doing the mutual aid work without the guilt -- without feeling like a burden on my spouse, my household, my mutual aid network itself.
And I'd learn how to make a ton more foods. My kimchi is now top-notch, but it's basically the only Korean food I know how to make. 😋
Manu "Against Mars" Saadia@annaleen I want to bake a lot of different types of bread and share with friends, close and far, and compare notes. I really want to try the so-called bush bread people baked in Australia 36,000 years ago, as well as all kinds of injera bread etc etc, a Grand Tour of all the boulangeries of the world.
Field Full of Fireflies@annaleen I would take (willing) people into the woods to experience the forest; I would give some time to helping town governments build resiliency plans for our local area, but also I would want to make good things--writings, art, music. And I would want to keep reading/studying. Most of this stuff I do now, but it's shoveled like mortar into thin cracks between bricks, barely holding me together.
I do useful work now, but somebody else could easily do it.
Dr.Mckensy@annaleen being validated just for existing is super selfish expectation, in any model since dawn of the ages individuals were valued for being useful for the community, and that could be taking care of the plants and surroundings making it more appealing for everyone but still an objective for the greater common good
Omar Sakr@annaleen I would write poems sometimes, but mostly I would be able to be a better dad to my son, and better care for my extended family.
ellen_hawley@annaleen That quote's the epigraph for my forthcoming novel. I run into it so seldom I'd started to think I was the only one who'd ever read it.
What do I imagine? I'm retired, so time isn't my issue, but I'd love to stop worrying about the kids (and former kids) in my life: Has this one found a job? Will that one find a place to live? Can they carve out small, stable spaces for themselves in society? It's not much to ask. It's a lot to ask.
vidbina@annaleen taking care of plants sounds very useful and productive. 😌
A system optimizing for usefulness or productivity could be a wholesome environment if we defined those terms beyond just some financial component, I guess. Maybe some of the more financial-output oriented folks will come to the storytelling plantkeeper to get grounded and more.
Don't believe me though. Systems involving humans are challenging to parse and/or understand for me, so I really don't know enough about this. 🤷🏿♂️
The BirdThat's exactly what my Elivera world is about. A world where capitalism has never existed. Got a few short stories coming out soon that take place there, and hopefully will get some of my novels published that explore alternate ways of living and being in community.
#ImagineTheEndOfCapitalism as community-based building that is rooted in accessibility, equity, justice, and sustainability. Where we have a horizontal democratic system in which the people work together, sharing responsibilities for maintaining the community. Where there is a library of things that can be shared and checked out as needed, and a library of repairing, library of books, library of all sorts of things. I'm very much influenced by solarpunk to be honest.
WHY☎️5555<3
earlier today i read a random toot about the difference between commerce and capitalism. i think about doing the work that needs to be done to advance the human condition instead of work that wants to be done for the wallet.
Jojje 
@annaleen The funniest thing about all this is reading people saying "but why would anyone work without a profit incentive" and at the same time reading heartwarming news stories about a plumber's invoice going viral because he charged a dying 90 year old woman 0 dollars, and come to find that he does pro bono work for his community often. Work that's worth doing will always be done by somebody, profit or not.
Hein Ragas@annaleen
“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
L'égrégore André ꕭꕬ@annaleen When I #ImagineTheEndOfCapitalism I see myself building stuff, repairing things, learning and teaching.
Doing both what's needed (I'm not squeamish) and what's fun in a far higher degree than now with a (quite frankly wholly unnecessary) office job.
(edited to CamelCase the #)
bridgetmck@annaleen A world where it’s illegal to run a company that hurts & exploits living beings, creates weapons, or pollutes & destabilises oceans & climate. There is gentle conversational vigilance to ensure that these transgressions don’t happen, and citizen-led governments are prevented from manipulative shenanigans with companies for personal or corporate profit.
Bustrouffi@annaleen I like to imagine I will do less of my job for less hours a week and more people will get to be involved with what we do. I like my job - I’d prefer to do it a little less though. I could enjoy looking after my home more. I could use more of my limited social energy on giving it to people who need more TLC.
🅲🅷🆁🅸🆂 🅷@annaleen I imagine having healthcare easily accessible. Between seizures, depression, Autism, and ADHD, I sometimes feel like my parents got my central nervous system at the dollar store.
Wiredfire 
@annaleen I think about this now and then. We’d need to consider the end of capitalism would absolutely not be the end of “work”. We would still need food, water, shelter, power, transport & many other necessary things.
We would all need to contribute towards this, it would not be the perpetual “free time” we imagine.
It would be less manipulative though and the value of those toils would be seen more by those doing that work, of course.