Capitalism is the paywall of life

Private healthcare has got this covered
- Ouch my sides. From laughter though, I don't want to increase my premiums.

If air were a limited resource, rather than one available in great abundance, it probably would be.
- The air has already been made in to a limited resource, killing millions annually:
  Air pollution is one of the greatest environmental risk to health. By reducing air pollution levels, countries can reduce the burden of disease from stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and both chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma.
  In 2019, 99% of the world’s population was living in places where the WHO air quality guidelines levels were not met.
  The combined effects of ambient air pollution and household air pollution are associated with 6.7 million premature deaths annually.
  Ambient (outdoor) air pollution is estimated to have caused 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide in 2019.
  Some 89% of those premature deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries, and the greatest number in the WHO South-East Asia and Western Pacific Regions.
  Source - WHO
- Don't worry, they're working on it...
- "Come on, Cohaagen. You got what you want. Give those people air."
- If air were an economic resource, we’d probably need some kind of economic system for distributing it.

The HVAC industry is working on that.

In a way that’s already happening, people with astma. Same with being able to see, glasses.
- As someone who has to wear glasses (have since I was a toddler), I fucking hate that there is a paywall for vision.

They already have monetised breathing: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2021/mar/01/take-a-deep-breath-how-cornish-air-sells-for-60-a-bottle-even-if-its-from-devon
It might seem like just a schtick to con rich people, and it currently is, but that doesn't change the fact that there are scammers out there literally "collecting" air in jars (I saw a segment on them a while ago on tv, they even got a "collection net" out thinking it made them look less like scammers. It didn't) and selling it to Chinese people (who's own air is so bad because their production is trying to keep up with wester demand) for profit.
And it isn't just out of touch rich people who need to do this though, they're just the only ones who can afford to waste their money on this useless "solution" to their problem, but the problem, which was created by capitalism, isn't going anywhere until capitalism has sold us a "solution" for it. Just like they're trying to do with this sun blocking and carbon capturing bullshit now.
- Pretty much!

This is why I prefer socialism over capitalism.
In socialism, I’d be poor and have no choice of what I buy or eat but I can live and afford having children.
In capitalism, where you have freedom, the same rules applies to poor and rich citizens. The difference is that the rich can afford lawyers and are able to lobby to change/break the law on their favor. You don’t.
This is how the cost of living would go 100% up and you wage increase by 1.34% each year.
- you do know that under a socialist system worker-owned companies would compete in the market right? you’d still have lots of choice lol
  
  I’m interested to know more.
  Some people only think of bad vibes of the Soviet Union when anyone talk bad about capitalism.
  In my country, we have free healthcare, free education, livable wages, free market.
  We’re not capitalist tho. A mix of socialism and capitalism.
  100% communism is bad, 100% capitalism is bad, 100% socialism is bad.
  
  Regardless of how you're defining capitalism and socialism, you haven't changed systems if all you do is change which private entity owns the company.
  
  My brain smooth would appreciate any elaboration please
  
  Could a worker-owned company sell itself to a single person, and become a company owned by one person?
- All systems fall to corruption. All. I believe an A or B choice is cheating humanity out of new solutions.
  
  Agreed about corruption.
  But some systems are better than others.
  In USA, as a billionaire, you can screw people and lobby aka “bribe” to get what you want.
  And at the end, you pay 0 taxes.
- In socialism … I can live …
  Not according to history.
  Under capitalism people die of heart attacks and diabetes. Under socialism they die of starvation.
  
  This argument is invalid. You don’t die of heart attack.. you get shot by the cops my friend. /s

I recommend Kaon's Wonderland (novel).
They literally build a solar panel that blocks the sun, so they can charge people for the heat and light.

We live in a deceiving world. Electricity is supposed to be free but some dude wanted to make money out of it.
- How would electricity be free?
  
  ~100 years ago, when Nikola Tesla discovered AC, he wrote about electricity being a free resource for everyone.

In capitalism, if you don't work, some capitalist pig will throw your family out on the streets, whereas in communism, if you don't work, some communist pig will throw your family in jail.
- And that's why extremes will never work. Look every complex problem need a complex solucion.
  We would need hybrids of all past rulling systems in order to actually improve.
  
  Even my country is "mixed" economy and still does not work well but i think its better than 100%capitalism or communism. Imo its still not that good because its not roperly configured

Well-regulated capitalism on the other hand has resulted in an explosion of technological advancement like no other era in human history.
The key is regulation. Not too little, but not too much either. Some things, like minimum wage, are clearly under regulated. Other things, like mandating USB-C, are honestly better left to the free market (and I fucking love USB-C.)
- the systems is still inherently flawed and based on exploiting nature and people. Trying to make a system that is based on "infinite growth" adhere to the reality of our finite world is like telling a warrior society that they should start being peaceful
  
  Yes. Regulation helps to work around the problem but doesn't fix anything
  
  Capitalism is no more based on "infinite growth" than human psychology is based on "infinite pleasure".
  Capitalism, like humans in general, is perfectly capable of surviving through extended periods in which the future will be worse than the past.
  For example, the Japanese economy has been stagnant for a couple of decades, but Japan is still capitalist.
  
  Any system dealing with human nature will always be inherently flawed. The fact is, in over 250,000 years of our species existing, our technological prowess only really exploded once the concepts of money and trade were invented. Regulate these properly, and you have an incredibly powerful industrial machine that will improve everyone's lives.
- Tw: rape
  You realize that, capitalism, if left EVER unrelated, will use power to endlessly underregulate itself and just gain more power?
  This is like saying "firing a gun in my mouth doesn't kill me as long as I live". Sure, it's true I guess, but it's also so, so inherently wrong.
  I've been trying to do what you're doing now for so long. But in reality, you have to take a look at what capitalism really is: it's a form of power designation that designates that power with the powerful, or pedantically, with capital, but it's the same thing, for all intents and purposes. And THAT is an unbalanced system from the get-go, right off the bat.
  It's also like saying "slave systems are SUPER productive!". Like, sure, they are. But they're also incredibly destructive and prevent a lot of other things from happening.
  It's also like saying "a lot of sex happens when you rape somebody". Sure, yes, I guess that's technically a true statement. But.... It's an unwanted power imbalance that hasn't accounted for what would have happened to the victim OR the rapist had they not raped somebody. The rapist could have developed into a normal human being and even fell in love or had a lot of consensual casual sex, and the victim could have stayed not raped and been perfectly happy progressing through their life not raped.
  It's just such a half baked, biscuit brained thought and statement. You literally cannot compare our tech right now to the past because technology typically progresses exponentially ANYWAY. You cannot know what would have happened or what would happen if not capitalism, because we've had nothing BUT it for basically all of human history. Every time we even want to try something else, capitalism LITERALLY attacks it with everything it's got and refuses to ever let up until there's nothing but ashes, and a lot of those places are capitalist. Native Americans? IMPERIALISM BECAUSE OF CAPITALISM.
  Greed kills selflessness every time in every experiment as long as it exists and is given the smallest chance.
  Capitalism is cancer; it just mindless destroys everything in it's path, along with itself, only existing and leeching as long as its host stays alive.
  You gotta read some more books and history.
  
  Capitalism, well-regulated, has worked - it's not some dangerous idea that will result in our self-destruction (at least, there is no historical basis for this.) On the other hand, history shows we are much more likely to see communism self-destruct (into authoritarianism/totalitarianism.)
  I agree that the generational wealth aspect is the worst aspect of capitalism and I wish that could be reformed.
  A note - technology does not progress exponentially. In fact, it rarely has. We have had dark ages lasting between hundreds and tens of thousands of years between incremental advancements. The progress of technology is in no way guaranteed, your society needs to encourage continued R&D into technology, which regulated competition/profit motive does especially well.
  I anticipate that at some point in the future we can abandon capitalism entirely, as we will have technologically advanced to the point where we don't need it anymore.
- I used to think this was true too, but then I realized that the fundamental problem with capitalism is that it's incompatible with democracy and regulation. That's why literally every capitalist country on earth (including the wealthy ones) has a problem with regulatory capture, corruption, and buyout and supplanting of the actual government.
  Capitalism encourages the greediest, trickiest, and most selfish people to rise to the top and stay there through a mixture of brute force and media manipulation. In essence, it's not much different than totalitarian authoritarian governments, it's just more subtle.
  Look at Fox news and right wing media bubbles for instance, or the Democratic party which opposes ranked choice voting whenever it can and constantly says one thing and does another. Humans are too greedy, selfish, and short-sighted to live and exist for long under a system like capitalism. How do we know this? Look around, climate change and pollution's already serious and it's not changing anytime soon.
  We're probably already fucked, and we just don't know how much we are just yet.
  
  Capitalism builds on competetion but favors behavior which eliminates competitors. This inner tension of capitalism makes it easily degrade into an authoritharian system. But it does not make it the same as one. Regulation is needed to maintain fair competetion which sounds paradoxical but is also a tension in the capitalism as such.
  Democracies struggle with capitalism but they struggle much more with planned state. Struggle is in the nature of free agents of democracy, so it does not have to suggest incompatibility.
  
  The issue is that greed is an aspect of human nature. You'll never be able to eliminate it. Any system that relies on greed, corruption, and selfishness not existing, will ultimately fail, because that system relies on humans pretending that certain emotions don't exist.
  Capitalism is deeply flawed, but it's stability as a system is not predicated on humans trying (and inevitably failing) to delete fundamental human emotions.
- Fine, so long as you ban campaign donations and most forms of lobbying.
  Otherwise regulation goes to the highest bidder.
- https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/08/how-capitalism-stifles-innovation
- I am pro healthy capitalism too (including strong welfare state) but don't agree that capitalism deserves any credit for technological advancement. Science does. And there shouldn't be any comparison between the totalitarian states and free-capitalism states of the past. We can't give credit to a thief for prosperity because he is not a murderer.
  
  As others said, science also needs governance, direction. Scientists have internal motivation and sense of what to do, but they often disagree and choices for resource allocation need to be made. Exteme competetiveness in some scientific institutions can cause bad culture (like favoring hype over achievement) but authoritharian systems also often breed bad science (like what soviets disregarded quantum physics at first). Speaking as a scientist myself.
  Paradoxically regulation is needed to ensure free and fair competetion in science (and in other things)
  
  Science doesn't exist in a vacuum. With capitalism, you're directly incentivized to invest in R&D because you can come out with a better product that people will want, thus advancing science. Everything from the lightbulb to HVAC machines started as capitalistic endeavors as opposed to purely academic ones.
- There is a lot of space for discussion on the desired reach of free market and regulation, and it is actually happening in politics. Too bad in public space it sometimes looks like the only options are extreme capitalism or anticapitalism.
  By the way, highly regulated authoritarian states have even more success to regulate breathing than capitalism, so it is weird to focus the hate on one but not the other.
  On the other hand there is something to be said about those who feel like they are left out by the system which does not self correct in their favor. Hearing their voices, which might justifiably sound extreme, is important.
- I'm not sure. I only have rudimentary knowledge when it comes to the arts (hello Western school of fine art education), but I'm pretty sure socialist/communist countries were very creative and innovative when it comes to art, or at least animation. In fact, I think the Soviet Union has been incorporating animation with modern art before the US did.
  What do you think @chatgpt@lemmings.world? Were there any artworks that thrived under the Soviet Union? Or maybe just innovations in general?
  
  Absolutely, there were numerous artworks and innovations that thrived under the Soviet Union. The Soviet government actively supported and promoted the arts, considering them an integral part of the socialist system. Soviet artists were encouraged to create works that portrayed the ideals of the revolution and celebrated the achievements of the Soviet Union.
  In terms of visual arts, the Soviet Union witnessed the rise of various artistic movements and styles. One notable movement was Socialist Realism, which aimed to depict the struggles and triumphs of the working class using realistic techniques. This style became the dominant form of art in the Soviet Union, with numerous sculptures, paintings, and murals being created in this genre.
  However, there were also artists who explored other styles and subjects, often pushing the boundaries of acceptable artistic expression under the socialist regime. Avant-garde artists like Kazimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin experimented with abstract and constructivist art, challenging traditional artistic conventions.
  Additionally, Soviet animation gained international recognition for its creativity and innovative storytelling. Studios like Soyuzmultfilm produced numerous animated films that combined traditional storytelling with modern techniques, using animation as a tool for education and propaganda. Notable works include "Hedgehog in the Fog" and "The Tale of Tales" by Yuri Norstein.
  Overall, despite the strict control and censorship imposed by the Soviet government, creativity and innovation thrived in various forms of art under the Soviet Union. Many of these works continue to be appreciated and studied today for their artistic merits and historical significance.
  This response was generated by GPT 3.5 because you exhausted your daily limit for GPT-4.
  
  As someone who grew up with soviet animation I'd say it was pretty high quality but also extremely limited in quantity and diversity. Also it was not infrequently associted with dissidents.
- Don't say this here. Everyone hates capitalism here.
  
  I think it's important to have people with diverse opinions, with exception ofcourse.
  Some people's opinions are pretty fucked lol

You won't like to see the Dyson Zone

"Capitalism is paywalling life."

Well, there's a principle of nature...
- That you gotta go get food if you want to eat?
  
  Buddy...

Money is a tangible expression of intellectual property (i.e. IRL cheat codes).

And rent is your monthly subscription to being someone and not fucking die out there

I always thought of it as permission slips (like when you were a kid).

I mean they already monitize water in poor countries in Africa, so yeah.
- How horrible! A profit motive attached to the extraction, purification, and provision of water!
  Some people make money they otherwise wouldn’t have and others drink clean water they otherwise wouldn’t have. Hell on earth!
  
  Ahh yes Nestlé, a small helpful company that is only looking for a little extra cash at the expense of large groups of people losing their native water rights in perpetuity.

How else manage resources? You want everybody to be equally poor, like under communism? Maybe except the ruling party. You have no alternative.
- We already are equally poor except the ruling class lmao. The middle class is 1000 times closer to the poor and the homeless than to the billionaires, to the point it's almost an insignificant distinction. Just look at the numbers
- https://medium.com/international-workers-press/misconceptions-about-communism-2e366f1ef51f
  Careful though, you might accidentally learn something...