Angry at Math

[Tzan]

rigged game

Yes, you have it right.

The only way it changes is a complete rewrite of the capitalist system.
That should be rather easy, I don't know why no one has done it so far.
I'll do that on day one of my Presidency.
Who knew changing human behavior would be so easy?


I had a conversation with a friend of mine about this back in the 90's.

[sahasrahla]

motion to rename thread "angry at capitalism"

[dilanski]

Capitalism isn't the problem, the problem is that it bought the world while we weren't looking. You could be crowned god emperor of mankind, and you'd still ultimately be at the whim of the megarich. Only the people trapped in this system have a chance of breaking it, not the person at the top. The president is like a prison warden, sure from the view of the prisoners he is the ultimate authority, but the warden knows that even if he wanted to open the cells and let the prisoners go free, they'd quickly be rounded back up, and he'd just be replaced.

What we need are more people like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, only we need them not leaking the US military murdering journalists, but the secrets and plans of the mega corporations. Maybe then people will go out of their way to achieve a more open, transparent and direct democracy.

[Brikguy0410]

If the world were completely evil then we wouldn't have Brikwars, French Pastries, Anime, or Kittens.

[Tzan]

the problem is that it bought the world while we weren't looking. etc...

I was really just mocking President Trump, he says everything is super easy, then he actually looks into it and says.
"Gee, who knew world peace would be so hard to get"?

[Natalya]

That's cute. You'll probably end up changing to something else and become a lawyer or doctor or sell your soul to Google, Goldman, McKinsey, Exxon Mobil, or some other cushy company if you really are that capable.

Quit projecting.

What we need are more people like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, only we need them not leaking the US military murdering journalists, but the secrets and plans of the mega corporations. Maybe then people will go out of their way to achieve a more open, transparent and direct democracy.

A: Let me go get my tinfoil hat...
B: You think people will actually do anything? You've got a lot of faith.

...but I honestly don't care about the money, as long as I have enough to live on and to buy a semi-steady stream of bricks with...

You know, I used to be almost exactly the same way. Many of the smartest people I know, the ones that I really acknowledged, were like that too. So many of them, myself included, wanted to be doctors or researchers or scientists or some other respectable occupations. And now I check where they are on LinkedIn and they're at Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley or Blackrock or some VC firm or the White House or something like that. Or maybe they stuck to their original aspirations but now they're working for Exxon Mobil or Big Pharma (I know someone who literally worked directly under Martin Shkreli).

Colette this kid has motivation and discipline. That's what you lack. You gotta go back to your primary goals: Acquire more briks and wage war. Look at me, I'm 28 and I'm buying briks and making a huge battlefield. I'm living the dream here.

This is the part where stubby comes up with a clever retort for everything and tries to convince you the world is a better place than that. Fuck that shit. No amount of clever forum posts will change what I have seen with my own eyes in my short life so far. It's true that I probably view the world inaccurately - it's probably worse than I give it credit for, I'm probably still in disbelief and clinging to some shreds of childish naïvete.

Jesus Christ, quit being such a weakling. I get that your parents basically forced you down a path in life and you assimilated it and adopted it as your own, but you're seriously screwed up if you can't get your head out of this despair tunnel. Acquire some agency.

...

I wasn't even trying to do this, but I feel like Vriska yelling at Shinji.

[Cakeman]

(it does say "angry" in the tonic)

[Cakeman]

Seriously though. Society doesn't advance in leaps and bounds, it's a slow crawl upwards over millennia. Sometimes we advance, sometimes there are setbacks, often progress is not evenly spread, but ever so slowly it's getting a little better, on average. If we all do our part and keep our wars to minifigs, humanity is a little better off. Because really, imagine us in charge of the various nations we portray here...

[Duerer]

I'm about to get a CS deg in half a year or a few month's later, yet I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. I considered research but I'm still not sure if I'm suitable for it. Generally, I'd be happy with a job whose result the general public can appreciate and/or draw long term benefits from.

So yeah, Darkstorm, go for research if that's what would suit your personal tastes the most. Don't let yourself intimidate by armchair discussions on a plastic toy forum!

[Darkstorm]

So yeah, Darkstorm, go for research if that's what would suit your personal tastes the most.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Don't let yourself intimidate by armchair discussions on a plastic toy forum!

Isn't it hilarious the places I get advice from

[cleanupcrew]

[]

[sahasrahla]

i got a degree in liberal arts and it doesn't look very impressive on my resume but it has made me a way better person and given me a lot of widely-applicable job skills


also i'm not tens of thousands of dollars deep in student debt

[stubby]

This is the part where stubby comes up with a clever retort for everything and tries to convince you the world is a better place than that. Fuck that shit. No amount of clever forum posts will change what I have seen with my own eyes in my short life so far. It's true that I probably view the world inaccurately - it's probably worse than I give it credit for, I'm probably still in disbelief and clinging to some shreds of childish naïvete.

Jesus Christ, quit being such a weakling. I get that your parents basically forced you down a path in life and you assimilated it and adopted it as your own, but you're seriously screwed up if you can't get your head out of this despair tunnel. Acquire some agency.

...

I wasn't even trying to do this, but I feel like Vriska yelling at Shinji.

Sounds like my work is done here

But yeah, in a system where you judge people's value by economic productivity and academic achievement, your despair is appropriate. A dumb person doesn't realize that it's impossible to achieve anything of real value in that system, and so has hope. A smart person does see that it's impossible, and despairs. A wise person sees that economic utility was a bullshit measure of value to begin with, and finds a new basis of human value based on anything other than the amount of wealth you can generate for your owners.

And then you start to see how normal people work together to make things better incrementally, rather than fantasizing about being big mythical heroes and geniuses who save everyone unilaterally with giant betterizing breakthroughs.

Because the world does get better. It's cruel, but it's less cruel than a hundred years ago, and that was less cruel than a hundred years before that. We're still all terrible people, but slightly less terrible with each passing century.

Nothing wrong with capitalism; it's a tool to achieve specific economic ends, and it achieves them well. But if it's the basis of your self-worth then you've failed before you began. Being angry at capitalism for not making the world better is like being angry at a hammer for not being a very good toaster.

[Omega Prime]

This thread got really depressing for a moment... But this is all good advice.