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On average the world is better than it's ever been. Higher life expectancies, less war, better quality of life; it's all generally on the up. Would you rather go back to the last financial crisis? When the ozone layer was being depleted? The interment threat of nuclear annihilation? Race riots? Women not being able to vote? High infant mortality? etc, etc
Of course, certain groups of people have been trying to reverse these trends in the name of...money? Tradition?
The newer generations are no longer becoming smarter (I believe it was the Flynn effect). Education is being defunded at all levels.
The cost of living in many parts of the world has been outpacing wages... especially now, but for decades. Yet we have more wealth hoarded into fewer hands.
Anti-vax and anti-science movements have been reintroducing measles and have been making it hard to fight other diseases.
We are seeing the effects of these things in action, and they will only get worse over time.
They’re trying to reverse those trends because acknowledging those trends means giving up on their theory that our dominant economic system is defunct.
It's cancer and it's killing us all.
Exactly. That kind of thinking doesn't work when you realize the "cancer" is producing situations like:
Do you disagree with those statements? Do you need to see evidence before you'll believe them?
Or do you acknowledge the statements, but disagree that they justify the "cancer" of our current economic system?
I disagree with them.
Higher life expectancy - I wouldn't attribute that to capitalism. Further more life expectancy in the US is declining afaik.
Less war - What do you mean? There's a war in Ukraine, one in Palestine, and there's been perpetual war since ...forever. The US war machine always bombs some country, assassinates a democratically elected leader, etc.
Better quality of life - For the 1% at the expense of all the others maybe.
Capitalism is all about profits, not about better products, better quality of life, etc. In fact it's easily against those things if they get in the way of profit. You can see enshittification everywhere.
For example it would be against their interest for a pharmaceutical company to sell the permanent cure for a disease instead of life-long medical treatment. The latter would be subscription-based therefore create more profit. The cancer comparison is quite fitting imo.
Some people argue that humanity was never freer, happier and healthier than before the agricultural revolution. Everything has gone to shit since we decided to settle down on a small plot of land.
It was much simpler when you were born, miraculously survived childhood, hunted, gathered, then died before your back even had time to get sore
Honestly it probably was a far more meaningful and fun life. Terrifying too, but super meaningful. The environment your brain evolved for. No old age horseshit, just a painful moment of death followed by your family mourning you. But no pictures or nothing, and everyone's tripping on shrooms so you're still there in spirit form. I'm joking as a reflex but I'm serious here. It was probably a better life overall. Seeing a worm and thinking of it as food, having no problem eating that little bastard because your stomach's gnawing at ya. That's life boy. Just raw dogging for all the jungle to see why the hell not. It's prehistory baby. Anything goes.
Sorry I am trying to make a point. I think it would be better probably. Except for all the misery. The good parts would be super good. The non-awful parts would be super good.
Sounds like it would be cool for some kind of quantum-leap holiday, but I think in general I'd rather have the relative comfort and lack of preventable pain that modern technology provides!
How's the argument go?
For about 60k years, between the cognitive revolution and the agricultural revolution, Sapiens was the apex predator of every ecosystem he lived in. People would move from pace to place, foraging and hunting a vast variety of plants and animals. They had the most diverse diet, didn't rely on a small number of food products that would have exposed them to famine in case of collapse (like crops). Women had few children because they had to carry the younger ones and child mortality was not a challenge to the group survival: there were fewer diseases because they lived in small groups. People lived in tight communities and didn't have to cope with the mental strains associated with long-term planning. Of course you could get killed by another tribe, eaten by a tiger or die from an infection. But your teeth and gums were healthy, you had the best diet, great overall physical health and people actually lived into their 60s.
Less war?
There's a genocide going on in the middle east right now by settler colonialist fully backed by the western powers to destabilize the region and I'm sure you know that, it's just irrelevant to you.
There're too many neoliberals on lemmy, I can't even deal fam
There were at least 2 other genocides in progress the last October when this mess started. You only care about this one because you have been told to.
Neoliberalism is really an economic philosophy. It doesn’t really have a lot to say about how a nation ought to position itself toward foreign wars. It’s not an all purpose slur for people who disagree with you.
Which ones are those? What?
The darfuri people in Sudan and the uyghur people in china were what I had in mind. But honestly, war that disproportionately impacts one ethnic group or another is a fairly common sort of war.