I'm sick of justifying ethical behavior in terms of profit. We use phrases like "adding alt-text brings more customers to your site" or "protected bike lanes increase revenue for local businesses."
You should add alt-text descriptions to images because it helps people.
We need to build bike lanes because it makes cities safer and more accessible.
Reduce carbon emissions because it's the right thing to do! Discussing these things in purely economic terms misses the point.
@docpop Well, of the infinite number of monikers this individual could have chosen to grace the world with, this person looked at "sicktitz" and thought, "Ah yep. That's the energy I want to project."
I mean, you're already starting the argument at a disadvantage given the context there. 😜
@docpop I think you should have argued in a more principled way and not let them frame the conversation.
It can be very hard to find a job in the first place and not being able to find one doesn't make it okay for you to be deprived of support.
@docpop I didn't see your first post when I typed that out!
This is relevant, controlling the frame, is a part of the alt right playbook. Fighting on their terms, validates and justifies their terms.
It may help to consider that many behavioural factors are social and exist outside of political / financial structures.
Many people's motivations are largely based on factors to do with personal interests.
E.g. Someone may join your group campaign in order to increase their dating or networking opportunities, rather than for just ethical reasons.
- 'Social Psychology - Group Dynamics' can probably give you more examples
@sashin
@docpop Also many homeless people have jobs!
...which doesn't stop them from returning to where they stay to find the City throwing away all their stuff. https://hostilearchitects.substack.com/p/bodycam-footage-reveals-devastating
@rasterweb @docpop @DEDGirl I was thinking along similar lines. So only working people should be able to drive or cycle on streets? Only working people should be able to walk on the sidewalk? Only working people should be able to use the library or enjoy the services of the fire department?
People like "sicktitz" (🙄) refuse to understand: once you remove public services from one group, you're removing them from everybody and we might as well use chamber pots & empty them in the streets.
@docpop
Guess that means all those retired people who live in the city get screwed, since they aren't working jobs (and clearly not buying food or other items in the city, or seeking medical care, keeping other people in the city working jobs).
There's just so much wrong with that thought process.
This is my objection to the abortion arguments that highlight adverse medical outcomes because an abortion was medically necessary, and legally prohibited.
The issue is one of bodily autonomy, not the above.
@Edelruth @docpop I think the abortion issue is mostly globalist driven divisive agenda. They work to find as many topics as possible where an individual has no power to fix it but where the mainstream media is used to promote opposing view points so that the population can be split into as many binary (loss of choices entrenches positions) camps as possible. Everyone you meet on the street will be at odds with you on at least one of the hot button issues that are not solvable by extreme positions.
I believe there are incredibly few women that plan for an abortion, this leads me to believe that the choice is hard enough to make by the woman and her creator with hopefully sage emotional support from partner,, family and friends and sound medical advice from an impartial healthcare provider.
Offer every possible prophylactic method for free to everyone, suitable counselling and a waiting period if the method is permanent. The globalists will be the only losers.
In a public forum sometimes you need to be bi-lingual and speak both the language of compassion and the language of capitalism so that everyone gets the message.
There's nothing wrong with highlighting win-win situations because things like welfare, bike lanes, UBI reducing carbon emissions are not zero sum games
Commodity Fetishism: personal relationships between things, thing-like relationships among people.
@docpop Yes, money facilitates trade of goods, but IMO the problem it really addresses (successfully or not) is trade of services. It's supposed to be an incentive to do things for people who have the money, or really need you to do the thing. Yes, it would be lovely if people were just genuinely engaged with the world, but the folks who wrote those scripts are just calling a spade a spade.
IMO, both should be stated. Doing the right thing can materially benefit the actor. it's that simple.
@punishmenthurts totally agree. I think that laziness or pre-determined beliefs will have more influence on a business owner's decisions than the promise (or proof) of increased revenue. I'm seeing that phrasing these things in terms of economic benefit does not often convince business owners to change.
If we focus on why these changes help people, I think that's a better way to get society to change... and businesses will drag their feet with the rest of society.
It’s enfuriating that we’ve been forced, over the last 40ish years, to accept that narrative that everything is a zero-sum game, everything is transactional, everything is valued in dollars and nonsense.
Money only means what it needs to mean. Too many people have been convinced it must needs mean everything, and we’re all suffering because money is a scoreboard, a tool, a proxy of worth and value, and not just a means to abstracting labour, the true wealth.
@PeteHall cheers! and if that fails, Plan B: "eat the rich"
----
art by Blair J. Campbell:
most def! i loved it so much that i bought a T-shirt to wear to Thanksgiving dinner last year 😈
there should be a link to the artist's TeePublic store in the alt text — lmk if that doesn't work for you, and i'll share again here!
@BillyJBryant
ah okay! sorry for making you dig, i should have just given the links when you asked:
https://linktr.ee/BlairJCampbell
https://www.teepublic.com/user/blairjcampbell
also appreciate your feedback about different fedi clients! i was second-guessing whether i should have just put the links in the body of my original message, instead of inside the alt text on the picture. you answered my question — yes, i probably should!
“Discussing these things in purely economic terms misses the point.”
… and it accepts the framing that economic value is the only or ultimate judgement of value. We’ll make better progress in society when we insist on our own values and framing.
@DavidM_yeg @docpop This. I just can't stand the fact that economic value has become the only value for so many people and governments.
My breaking point was Covid. Protecting lives was not good for the economy, so societies collectively decided to cancel the pandemic because it was not good for the economy.
It’s not new really: it’s a worldview that is at the heart of neoliberalism and fascism and authoritarianism. It says you don’t have value unless you create wealth for someone. At its core they all say you need to *earn* the right to exist, with all the awfulness that follows from that. It’s implied in the conservative led shift from ‘citizen’ to ‘taxpayer’.
1/
It’s why housing first and safe supply are so controversial, it’s how welfare became a bad word, it’s why disability and senior supports are so miserly, it’s why we only pay lip service to human rights when bombs land on the wrong people; because they need to *earn* the right to exist.
2/
We need to lead a society level sea change that rejects that framing - any framing that requires a person to earn their life - and replaces it with a framing that insists that every person is infinitely and uniquely valuable, that human rights are actually for all humans, that every single person has the right to a dignified existence independent of their utility.
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