Being social nowadays is like exercise - it not longer naturally happens frequently in our lives and so we have to consciously choose to do it. Also like exercise, it seems impossible when you start and takes months of effort to really feel comfortable about it.
Given only ~25% of the US population exercises regularly, this bodes poorly for actively being social. I suspect we need to "artificially" engineer living conditions to push people together naturally.
Walking, hiking, paddle boarding, skiing, biking on recreation paths all have existed for years. People can choose to do activities that have normal social interaction. Or not. Don't blame a particular economic system.
When people write anti-capitalist articles like this, I wish they would state a credible alternative that solves the problems they attribute to capitalism.
It's easy, lazy, and politically opportunistic to attribute social problems to capitalism.
And ultimately wrong - because capitalism isn't some complex system of social organisation.
It simply means the efficient allocation of capital.
Criticism and theory are different disciplines, and it's not necessary or likely that people skilled in one are necessarily skilled in the other.
Dismissing criticism based on this arbitrary criterion is lazy. Someone being unaware of or unwilling to present an alternative doesn't mean there isn't one, but especially it doesn't mean they're wrong about their criticism.
> And ultimately wrong - because capitalism isn't some complex system of social organisation.
> It simply means the efficient allocation of capital.
Have you ever played the game go? One of the really incredible things about it is that has very few very simple rules, you can adequately explain them in 5 minutes. But the ways they interact with each other, and create and resolve influences and constraints is incredibly complex and it takes years to develop a full and reliable intuition for all of the consequences of those simple rules. Even then it's common to see a pattern and understand that it is true, and must derive from the rules, but be unable to articulate the mechanism precisely.
When we talk about capitalism we are talking about all of these second and third order effects on power and influence and selfhood and our lives, not the handful of simple rules they may derive from. People aren't generally much stupider than you; what you find simple we do as well. And yet we still find value in discussing it in these terms, find that it can reveal understanding more than just "simply efficient allocation of capital."
So speaking of "easy, lazy, and politically opportunistic" that's exactly what I will accuse your comment of. A shallow dismissal based on your own sense of intellectual superiority.
I don't think the article, despite the title, is suggesting we look for an alternative to capitalism and make everything slower or less convenient. It's just observing a consequence without passing judgement and then saying that now more deliberate effort needs to be made to make human connections.
If having friends and community is truly valuable to people then there is a huge business opportunity to provide that value. What I'm hearing instead is that folks are complaining that something doesn't exist and then not being willing to pay for it. If you're not willing to pay for something then it's not really that valuable at the end of the day.
Community doesn't commodify well because it doesn't scale. You can't hire 100 more workers to produce 1000 more communities every day, so there really is no ability to sell it. It's basically the only thing you legitimately can't pay for, you have to "earn" community by being actively involved with many people over the span of multiple years, nothing else will produce the right neurochemical response of safety in people's minds.
blacksmithgu|3 years ago
Given only ~25% of the US population exercises regularly, this bodes poorly for actively being social. I suspect we need to "artificially" engineer living conditions to push people together naturally.
numtel|3 years ago
https://gist.github.com/numtel/28ffb7181ad1a296a077db76c474b...
landemva|3 years ago
Life has choices.
cbeach|3 years ago
It's easy, lazy, and politically opportunistic to attribute social problems to capitalism.
And ultimately wrong - because capitalism isn't some complex system of social organisation.
It simply means the efficient allocation of capital.
giraffe_lady|3 years ago
Dismissing criticism based on this arbitrary criterion is lazy. Someone being unaware of or unwilling to present an alternative doesn't mean there isn't one, but especially it doesn't mean they're wrong about their criticism.
> And ultimately wrong - because capitalism isn't some complex system of social organisation.
> It simply means the efficient allocation of capital.
Have you ever played the game go? One of the really incredible things about it is that has very few very simple rules, you can adequately explain them in 5 minutes. But the ways they interact with each other, and create and resolve influences and constraints is incredibly complex and it takes years to develop a full and reliable intuition for all of the consequences of those simple rules. Even then it's common to see a pattern and understand that it is true, and must derive from the rules, but be unable to articulate the mechanism precisely.
When we talk about capitalism we are talking about all of these second and third order effects on power and influence and selfhood and our lives, not the handful of simple rules they may derive from. People aren't generally much stupider than you; what you find simple we do as well. And yet we still find value in discussing it in these terms, find that it can reveal understanding more than just "simply efficient allocation of capital."
So speaking of "easy, lazy, and politically opportunistic" that's exactly what I will accuse your comment of. A shallow dismissal based on your own sense of intellectual superiority.
PM_me_your_math|3 years ago
[deleted]
shric|3 years ago
kelseyfrog|3 years ago
SQueeeeeL|3 years ago
barbazoo|3 years ago