Mastodawn

Does #capitalism still deliver, or does it only destroy our living space for #profit?

Anyone who is not completely blind can see the slope is getting steeper. We are like on the Titanic. The iceberg is right ahead. Everyone stares at it like a deer in headlights. Frozen. Or weirdly fascinated. No one moves.

Capitalism does not even need #democracy. It runs just fine in #China. The #rich get richer at breathtaking speed. They gain more power every day. Meanwhile, many people are exploited. Some even go hungry.

#Infrastructure falls apart where it brings no profit. Gains are privatized. Losses are shared by everyone. Capitalism works great for arms races and wars. It also works great for rebuilding after. Only #peace seems to bring too little profit.

#Diseases without profitable drugs are ignored. Human suffering does not always sell well. But social-media #algorithms that shake democracy? Very profitable. Public goods, #privacy, data protection, #ethics — all side characters. Hard to monetize. The #future and sustainability also feel optional when today’s shareholder payout boosts #power and profit.

Why do we believe that people driven by greed and contempt will build a better future? Maybe #humanity does not really care about democracy or ethics. Maybe it only cares about #consumption. Ads promise that buying things will make us #happy. And of course, anyone against capitalism should throw the first #smartphone.

Running water, electricity, full supermarkets — all nice. Until you notice the food is packed with sugar and salt. Fresh fruit and vegetables carry poison. The oceans are overfished. The fish comes with #microplastics as a bonus. Wild animals vanish, pushed out by humans. Only farm animals multiply by the millions. They #suffer. #Nature breaks.

This story does not feel like it has a happy ending. Not if we keep scrolling and call it progress.

#civilization #question #news #system #matrix #politics #economy #business #freedom #mankind #collapse #apocalypse #war #terror #military #crisis #pollution #extinction #emissions #climate #disaster #security #fascism #earth #food #poison #problem

@scriptkiddie Please credit the artist of the picture you used (and write an #alttext about it). Unless you used AI, then just delete your post, as posting about the horrors of capitalism while using AI to kill the climate is really bad form.

Script Kiddie Feb 24

@kritischelezer - still searching for someone who can explain me how to use alt-text with friendica ...

Neil E. Hodges Feb 24

@kritischelezer @scriptkiddie I can help with that. :3

Neil E. Hodges Feb 24

@kritischelezer @scriptkiddie You just do this:

Script Kiddie Feb 24

@tk @kritischelezer - it worked and I changed the post with alt-text. You are the first and only one who ever answered my question. Thank you very much 😀 I searched so long for the solution and couldn't find it ...

Neil E. Hodges Feb 24

@kritischelezer @scriptkiddie I think I just figured it out based on my experience with BBcode back in the widespread Web forum days. :P

Script Kiddie Feb 24

@tk @kritischelezer - that was much before my time ...

requeteChe Feb 26

thx @scriptkiddie for imposing onto me the necessity to seek deep into my trickkiste, catually I had better things to do ..

@kritischelezer

Jupiter Rowland Feb 28

@Script Kiddie See here.

Basically, you have to edit the image embedding code from
[img]https://server.tld/ImageURL[/img]
to
[img=https://server.tld/ImageURL]Alt-text[/img]

Also, I think Friendica has an alt-text input field when adding an image directly to a post without first uploading it to the file storage.

#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #BBcode #Friendica

Neil E. Hodges Feb 24

The US is Collapsing Like the USSR – So What Comes Next

Stagnation of Innovation: Real innovation in the West is increasingly disincentivised; the entrepreneurial dynamism that once drove growth has given way to rent-seeking and monopolisation. In a mature system nearing collapse, new ideas and adaptations are stifled by entrenched incumbents. The industrial-era institutions resist change, even as conditions demand fresh solutions. We see this in technological stagnation: for example, despite the economic superiority of sustainable technologies, legacy interests (fossil fuel companies, conservative bureaucrats) slow their adoption. The result is an innovation drought. Incumbents double-down on the old and familiar in search of certainty amidst escalating uncertainty. This explains policy choices like subsidising coal and oil while defunding clean energy R&D – short-term clinging to obsolete industries that forestalls innovation. Such stagnation is characteristic of the release stage, as the system’s internal complexity and rigidity prevent it from adapting, leading to breakdown.
Technological Conservatism: Related to innovation stagnation is a broader technological inertia. The West shows reluctance to deploy radical new paradigms (e.g. decentralised energy, open source AI governance frameworks) and instead keeps reinforcing hierarchical 20th-century infrastructures built for increasingly obsolete industries. This halts progress just when bold innovation is most needed. In the release phase, this manifests as clinging to incumbent technologies and business models even as they become unviable, or shoehorning genuine technological innovation into stagnant old paradigm governance frameworks that restrict their benefits to a few. Incumbents respond to chaos by maintaining prevailing hierarchical structures that are in decline, rather than embracing the new. For instance, the 2025 Trump administration’s policies aimed at reviving coal mining or protecting Big Oil echo this mindset. Such policies attempt to resurrect or preserve dying industries instead of investing in emerging alternatives, reflecting a fear of change. This conservatism exacerbates collapse: by refusing to evolve, the system becomes more brittle, unable to buffer shocks or leverage new opportunities.

The US is Collapsing Like the USSR – So What Comes Next

We are facing the end of 'the West'. Some of our best science shows the US empire is following the collapse-path of the USSR - but this is also the precursor to the emergence of a new life-cycle for civilisation.

Age of Transformation

Script Kiddie Feb 24

@tk - if capitalism and communism are both ending in collapse, why don't we change?

Neil E. Hodges Feb 24

@scriptkiddie I think the only change that'll prevent societies collapsing is the elimination of societies as a hole. So, probably the extinction of humanity. :/

@tk @scriptkiddie Well hurray for *your* optimism. That'll help, I'm sure. We need systemic change, not destruction.

Neil E. Hodges Feb 24

@kritischelezer @scriptkiddie I mean, if humanity is around, societies will continue to be born and collapse. Just now it is. :P

Script Kiddie Feb 24

@tk - sounds like very dark future without hope. The next generation will be the last ...

Anders Cornelius Madsen Feb 24

Sooo...social democracy is out of the question? I mean, it works pretty well for us here in Scandinavia, but it seems that the world is going all in on one or the other, with no room for compromise.

Well, I guess you all do you, and we will do our best to help you pick up whatever pieces remain.

Script Kiddie Feb 24

@madsenandersc - I do not deny that Scandinavia has some of the best democracies in the world. People there are also among the happiest. Still, my view of the future turned me into a small, cynical beast.

Take Norway. It may have the best welfare system on Earth. Sounds great. But it is funded by oil pumped from the sea. Oil that feeds climate change. And let’s not even start with the seal pups that were killed for years. Like many places, Norway also has a twisted elite. Some were even linked to Jeffrey Epstein.

Then there is Sweden. The country hurt its own image in the case of Julian Assange. Its military sometimes feels like it runs its own side quest. Submarines appear near the coast. Fear spreads. The public watches like extras in a tense thriller.

Denmark treats refugees harshly. Food there is also very expensive. And Denmark could have treated the people of Greenland much better, much earlier.

Can I count Iceland as Scandinavia for a moment? During the banking crisis, Iceland behaved badly too. It never fully dared a true reset. Even though it saw, more clearly than most, how ugly capitalism can get when criminal bankers run the show.

Sometimes the “happiest region on Earth” feels less like a utopia. More like a shiny Black Mirror episode — bright surface, dark plot, and a warning hiding in plain sight.

Anders Cornelius Madsen Feb 24

You can find issues with every government on earth at some point in time, and I am not denying that we have had our fair share of failures for sure, and some are still ongoing.

However, you were talking about fundamental structures, not individual governments, and I think that is an important distinction.

We have had governments trying to rectify failures of the past, trying to make amends for the things that have been done to others, things that should never have happened. All of that has nothing to do with capitalism or communism.

What I am trying to say is that our societies are trying to make sure that everyone has a bed with a roof over it, tha nobody goes to bed hungry and nobody dies from easily treatable diseases.

I am not saying that we are in any way perfect, but we sure as hell do not let banks throw people on the streets and leave them there to freeze to death, or let hospitals deny treatment to people who cannot pay or allow companies to work people into the ground for profits without throwing the book at them.

In my view, capitalism is money before people. Communism is power before people. Neither is acceptable in 2026.

requeteChe Feb 26

@madsenandersc @scriptkiddie

Are the both of you implying that democracy and (any form) of Martkwirtschaft are mutually inclusive, or mutually exclusive, and or that none of them have the capability to create a permanent culture?

Anders Cornelius Madsen Feb 26

@requeteche @scriptkiddie

I have no idea what you are asking, to be honest. 🙂

As for what I wrote, I'm not implying anything - I'm simply saying that neither pure capitalism nor pure communism works, and to be frank, it has been more than proven already.

The problem is that neither takes the human nature into account. Human nature is to be instinctively trying to make your offspring better off than the neighbors.

If you live in a society where everyone earns the same, regardless of what you do (the theoretical communistic society), the only way to do that is to use your position (political power, if you like) to make that happen.

If you live in a society where buying your way through things, making money becomes the only factor that matters, even at the expense of others and their well-being, whether it be legal or not.

In either case, corruption will follow with a certainty very close to 100%. You can't abuse power or make money at the expense of others, without someone having to turn a blind eye at some point.

I'd say that both the USSR and the USA have proven both sides of that coin in spades.

If what you are asking is whether you cannot have a market economy in a democracy, or only can have it in a democracy, I have no idea - I'm a simple photographer, and that question is waaay above my paygrade. 🙂

requeteChe Feb 26

Anders wrote:

both sides of that coin in spades
I'm not aware of that saying, what does it mean?

Anders wrote:

I'd say that both the USSR and the USA

Are we actually really talking about US vs USSR

Aren't these concepts, tales and issues kinda as old has the written story of human kind?

Anders Cornelius Madsen Feb 26

@requeteche @scriptkiddie

Both sides of the coin - the United States of America is probably the ultimate example of how ruthless a society can get, if money is the only thing worth pursuing, while the former USSR was the insanely corrupt poster child for the original communist society.

In both cases most people was thrown under the bus by either billionaires with a bunch of politicians in tow, or power hungry politicians who would throw dissidents and political opponents in the deepest jail cell available or simply "disappear" them for good.

Were there good people in both societies? - yes. Were they able to hold on to power long enough to prevent a deep corruption of their society? - clearly not.

You're right that this is not something new per se, but the way modern communication works makes it so much easier for the ideals, the concepts to get in front of a much, much larger audience than ever before - and with much more impact, not least because of the sophisticated way the communication can be done.

It's getting harder and harder to spot AI generated content that is designed to manipulate and persuade in ways the world has never seen before. Yes, we had manipulated photos, audio, and later video, but the tools for creating manipulative content has never been this widely available to ruthless people.

requeteChe Feb 26

Looking at the beginning of this take by @scriptkiddie with a way to broad brush stokes in an actual zeitGeist of idiocratic discourse of generalized BS talking points like capitalism and seeing the direction your observations are taking I can't see any real forthcoming outcome right here an now.

I do agree with the main observation painted by the initial post and entered in any case into your comments because I do agree that the European perspective is in any case an example from within europe but at the same time mainly for Europe, as things are acceptable and go well as long as the main status quo is not questioned or put at risk.
That's simply the main goal of systems, societies as well as democracy, to begin with.

To paint and start the proposed discussion by the Kiddie as she did, is honoring what she represents, from the beginning of her cheeks till the end of her eyebrows, nothing more and nothing less.

In this culture of reactive discourse, you drop a stone into the middle of the lake and the very same chain reaction of rings, reflecting the kind of water body the stone is sinking into, happens over and over again ..
Start with capitalism, and you'll en up with the words communism, socialism on a sandbox playground of the past and there for terms like USSR, USA and of course China.

Ultimately it's catering to the same stuff that leads to nowhere and leaves everything as check mate as it is.

To begin with, that's fine, let the children play.
Maybe, more like hopefully, they'll get something out of it and learn for the future, that's how it's supposed to be.

What we shouldn't, allow us to do, is to say:
"I have no idea - I'm a simple XYZ, and that question is waaay above my paygrade."
.. because:
a) That's simply not true. Your comments already have shown that you belong to the class that is part of the soil that creates the vision and is able to depict the viable options, even more having in mind the cultural background you mentioned already.
b) It's up to us, it's our turn, if we want to accept it or not.
c) None of us will be the hero, the one that finds the solution, for the simple reason that it doesn't exist.
There is no silver bullet.

.. and last but not least, nobody will or can save the world, and those who'll try to do will fail. For us, in most cases and best case scenarios that means a lot of pop, worst case scenario the savior will take us all with him, like Adolf Nazi and efing Goebbels did.

What for sure is a total waste is if people like us spend what we have, our daily life time, with discussions that don't belong into our means of action and to our world.

As an example, we already found our harbor over here in our streams. Are we really going to waste that space with their BS day in day out?

.. doesn't sound to reasonable to me ..

@[email protected] DM 1 week of the coliflor for the photographer.

Tag Your Toe Feb 25

@scriptkiddie Capitalism is the worst system, except for all the others we've ever tried.

utopiArte Feb 25

Tag Your Toe wrote:

Capitalism is the worst system, except for all the others we've ever tried.
@TagYourToe
That's actually a sentence about democracy, apparently by Churchill and paraphrased y others.

Paraphrasing it using the term Capitalism is as BS as it can get.
(sry)

Than there is the general BS confusion using the term capitalism as in "freie Marktwirtschaft" and pinpointing it on every nail at sight. That's ultimately just creating international SLOP conversation.

On the Titanic depiction @scriptkiddie and the slope:
We already hit the iceberg, the slop is the inclined deck raising slowly but steady up high into the sky.

Tag Your Toe Feb 25

@utopiarte None of that is a compelling rebuttal for anyone who knows anything at all about human history pre-Capitalism and its disastrous alternatives that ultimately get abandoned, usually after people get tired of digging mass graves.

Sorry. 🤷‍♂️

utopiArte Feb 25

define "capitalism"

Script Kiddie Feb 25

@utopiarte @TagYourToe - why? Look into Wikipedia ...

Tag Your Toe Feb 25

@utopiarte No thank you, that's a dumb exercise when Google is free.

utopiArte Feb 25

Hey @TagYourToe,
sounds like you are getting this into the wrong channel, "den falschen Zeh" as germans say.

This is the net so we over here are lot's of people from lot's of different places, back grounds, on all levels and in the broadest meaning of it's sense.

Actually there isn't even use in wikipedia, unless you literally write:
""Capitalism" as defined in wikipedia!"

So "define capitalism" was not mend to mean:
"The definition of #capitalism as in first class of high school and you'll get an "D" or a "good boy! good boy!""
.. at the end of another discussion in the internet where every one is wrong except the genius on the side of the screen that is actually typing, but to say:
"Unless you explain what you mean by "capitalism" what "capitalism" means to you, there is no basis for a reasonable conversation out here.

.. except being right and Besserwisserei, as germans would say ..
(ok here, in that last line, I ran out of [italic])

\\ leans back and tell's @mina that the water for the newly sinchando mate is about to boil.

Tag Your Toe Feb 25

@utopiarte Actually I'm pretty sure Capitalism is fairly consistently described in terms most people understand and agree with and isn't a nebulous philosophical quandary like trying to define "high art".

requeteChe Feb 26

@utopiarte
¡Contra!

jeSuisatire neindochohh ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ Feb 26

@mina @scriptkiddie @Kona8

Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC Feb 26

@scriptkiddie I think we hit the iceberg some ten years ago, but so far we've been sinking so slowly that we can still pretend it isn't happening.

atopoeia-o Feb 26

@[email protected] If we can eschew feudalism then capitalism will be fine.

For instance, when boomers croak houses will either become (a) cheap or (b) accured into portfolios for rentals at fixed prices, [prices artificially set for decades in Manhattan, etc]

Probably will depend on the area, as now.

Housing prices went very low in the late 1970s, when demand fell. I knew a Fortran programmer who was buying a house every year.