I don’t agree. Capitalism is and has always been about greed. It’s why people invest, to get maximum profits and externalise all the negative side-effects.
I think capitalism works if it’s balanced with socialism and strongly restricted by law as we used to do in the Netherlands and some EU countries still do. Unfortunately the Netherlands was lost to the neoliberals and now to the fascists :( But luckily I don’t live there anymore.
I dont think capitalism is even the whole tree. Its actually greed and selfishness which needs to go.
This is because capitalism glorifies greed and selfishness and considers it the primary driver or human behaviour. Which it isn’t for everyone. Many of us leftists vote left despite it not being in our personal financial beat interests. Sharing is caring etc.
Unfortunately the system is so damn rigged in favour of the multi billionaires.
Came here to say this but you beat me to it. I bet some of it is because people were skimping on heating last winter. Now that the prices are back to normal I think people will heat (and cool) more again. I know I have not watched my heating as scrupulously as last winter (even though I use very little energy 😇)
It’s kinda good for humanity to shrink a bit though. We can’t keep expanding as we will eventually run out of space and natural resources. Most western countries aren’t really growing in population anymore either and I think that’s a good thing. We’re already suffering the consequences of too high growth in the past. Not enough housing, resource constraints, pollution.
Also, why spend your life raising babies if you can enjoy yourself. Yes, for some people that constitutes enjoyment, but not for everyone. Certainly not for me. Let them have at it. Humanity absolutely isn’t going to become extinct, plenty of people will want to have them. Not families of 6-10 anymore but that’s all good. It would actually be amazing if the world population declined a bit and stabilised at say 2 billion. Sustainability is not infinite growth but stability.
The problem is the inverse demography pyramid, less young people to take care of the old. The boomers have this issue and China will now too. But at least this problem is temporary and the world will be much more sustainable with a lower birth rate. Reducing economic issues, less risk of conflict as resources aren’t quite as scarce per person, less CO2 emitted etc.
Not really. Russia has a strong orthodox influence. They suppressed it during the soviet times but it is back in full force.
You can say something similar about ultra conservative Catholics, since the Pope has called for tolerance. Yet, they would rather denounce the Pope than tolerate LGBTQ+.
That’s a small splinter group though. Most catholics are pretty open. Even Ireland allowed gay marriage now by popular vote.
The key idea is that bigotry is not driven by religious affiliation, but rather by authoritarian attitudes. That’s what’s common between China, Russia and the ultra conservatives in the US. Tolerance of LGBTQ indicates freedom and liberalism in some sense. And both are challenges to the stakeholders of authoritarianism. They want a world where people live within the framework they dictate - and thus the bigotry.
Aha that does make sense. The LGBTQ movement is indeed very progressive and liberal. I do think there is often a religous component as well (though that seems to be missing in China) but this sounds like a good explanation.
She is also feminist and lesbian and has an Uyghur girlfriend, which was blatantly published by Vice after promises not to do so, which suddenly put her on the radar 😭 It’s a shame because I have big respect for her and her content.
I don’t really understand why China is so against LGBTQ+, I don’t think they have any religious basis for this. But I assume it has a lot to do with their demography crisis (rapidly falling birth numbers). Even though it seems counterproductive to me, them being against LGBTQ+ does not really make it disappear, I think facilitating IVF for happy LGBT couples to raise loved children would be more productive. But anyway…
I used to love reddit. Especially because it was so diverse. So many communities living side by side generally pretty well (except the well-known toxic communities of course that we all knew to stay away from). And the everything-goes attitude, like people discussing religion on the same site as people exhibiting their sex lives :P I used to love seeing that kind of diversity (ok and the exhibitionism too, I admit 🤭, I’m just into that.). I just loved the everything-goes feeling about it.
But two things went wrong as I see it. One was that US society got more and more polarised and toxic due to Trump and most of reddit’s users are from the US. Even the people who used to be pretty nice are so triggered by anything you say “wrong”, they always think you’re trying to pull them into an argument for the “other side”. It’s like they have PTSD from being constantly attacked by the other side and it causes that knee-jerk reaction on anything that doesn’t fall 100% into their narrative. I got so sick and tired of that hostility especially because I was not used to it locally. That thing you mention, where you say something and someone always claims you’re making it up to make a point or karma or whatever is so familiar and tiring.
And the other thing was of course that idiot spez. Trying to clean up reddit for his precious investors by removing (or locking away) anything not above the belt, killing third-party apps, etc. I still go there once in a while to gather some information but I stay away from discussions and I rotate my accounts every couple of months. So I don’t give a crap about karma because I kill my accounts anyway. In fact even when I did have a long-term account I used to “shreddit” it every couple of months so karma was not something I ever cared about.
The sad thing is that this Trump toxicity has now even blown over to my country (Holland). They elected a total fascist 2 months ago and the same thing is happening there now, there are lots of people claiming they were never heard and now their hero is going to drain the swamp and kick out all the refugees and all that same old blahblah. Several of my “friends” were caught up in this BS and I’ve had to break off all contact with them. 😡
Even Lemmy is not free from this, I joined lemmy.ml for a while but I found it pretty toxic too. Lemmy.world looked similar. This is why I came here and it’s been great so far.
Well Iraq, the first time, yes. They invaded Kuwait which in my opinion did legitimise the first gulf war (though opinions may vary). Though IMO it should have happened under UN flag but of course the security council is forever locked into a stalemate.
The second war, no. Whatever it was… Made-up WMD’s, funding of military industrial complex, Dubya’s desire to finish daddy’s pet project, whatever. A real reason there was not.