#Mass Society

[galtzagorri-marrazki]

MASA GIZARTEAN SOLUZIOAK BETI ERREX

[sunder-the-gold]

Bloat and Rot and Whalefall

The industries became communities; private clubs for those at the top of the ladder, who had cut off the bottom rungs. Now they’re rotting in their own fat while everyone else is building a new market beneath them.

We will rise as they fall.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Soup solves everything.

[the-funtime-autocrat]

In another previous post, I wrote about how all these simultaneous declines in quality and quantity of personal relationships will leave many people in western countries very lonely- especially toward the end of their lives. And we are already seeing this in the form of a massive increase in older people living alone or warehoused in assisted living facilities over the past three decades. Given the continuously decreasing lower fertility and even looser family ties seen in each newer (and smaller) generation in the West, this problem is going to keep growing in the foreseeable future. By now, some readers might be wondering- what is my theory about the root cause of this problem? Well.. as I have indicated in previous posts, it is my opinion that most people in West have internalized the mindset of capitalism and neoliberalism to the point where they see every relationship and interaction through the lens of immediate personal profit and loss. They have thus effectively dehumanized everyone other than themselves or what they believe to be their own self- which is a whole other can of worms.

PharmaHeretic, “Why Are Relationships in Developed Countries so Ephemeral and Fragile?” (September 7th 2022).

[strawberrysamara]

"Kaidan Alenko is boring" WRONG. Kaidan Alenko is one of THEE characters of all time. He's Canadian, he's Schrodinger's man of colour, he's DOWN to fuck and still didn't manage to figure out that he's bisexual until his thirties, he killed a man as a teenager and almost caused a diplomatic meltdown bc of it, his tits are bigger than yours, he's constantly getting migraines, he has autism but doesn't know it AND he glows. What more could you want

[jujucomet]

Remembered I had this guy I made back in April while thinking of the Matoran Pit-prisioners.

He doesn't have a name, probably a ex-Barraki soldier, but he uses his spear/hook to fish junk and his strong tail to propel himself out of hinding spaces so to catch prey on his artificial jaw. I had other pit-matoran ideas somewhere.

[valka-arialitan]

Night out at the Afterlife

My chaotic ME2 trio 🫶

Chaos bonus under the cut.

[thundergrace]

I...I would like to go to the movies. Please and thank you.

[valeriesilverhand]

Commander Valerie Vakarian-Silverhand.

Happy N7 Day Chooms... I should go...

[fashionlandscapeblog]

Today’s society is no longer Foucault’s disciplinary world of hospitals, madhouses, prisons, barracks, and factories. It has long been replaced by another regime, namely a society of fitness studios, office towers, banks, airports, shopping malls, and genetic laboratories. The society of the 21st century is no longer disciplinary, but a society of the performance. Nor are its inhabitants called ‘subjects of obedience’, but ‘subjects of performance’. These subjects are entrepreneurs of themselves.

Excess work and performance escalate into auto-exploitation. This is much more effective than the exploitation by the others, because it is accompanied by a feeling of freedom. The exploiter is the same exploited. Victim and executioner can no longer differentiate. This self-referentiality generates a paradoxical freedom, which, because of the structures of obligation immanent to it, becomes violence […] In this society of obligation, each one carries with him his forced labor field.

What proves problematic is not individual competition per se, but rather its self-referentiality, which escalates into absolute competition. That is, the achievement-subject competes with itself; it succumbs to the destructive compulsion to outdo itself over and over, to jump over its own shadow. This self-constraint, which poses as freedom, has deadly results..

No-longer-being-able-to-be-able leads to destructive self-reproach and auto-aggression. The achievement-subject finds itself fighting with itself. The depressive has been wounded by internalized war. Depression is the sickness of a society that suffers from excessive positivity. It reflects a humanity waging war on itself.

Today, everyone is an auto-exploiting labourer in his or her own enterprise. People are now master and slave in one. Even class struggle has transformed into an inner struggle against oneself.

― Byung-Chul Han, extracts from The Burnout Society

[teal-fiend]

A pred that blends in with society, but is therefore constantly surrounded by their ideal prey. 

It’s like being offered up a fresh burger, and it happens wherever you go outside. There’s so much delicious food available all of the time. It can be overwhelming. It’s hard not to overeat, and it’s hard not to blow your cover.

It’s also kind of heaven. You’ll never be without food. You feast like a king every night. You have a lifetime supply, a free buffet every day.

Maybe when you first arrived you couldn’t really help yourself. You ate too much, got a tummy ache, and you almost got caught. But now that you’ve settled down, you can dine at your leisure. You have no competition and no enemies. Only a whole lot of cute, friendly, trusting, tasty food.

[20s-turtle-posting]

2003 Donatello meeting the other various TMNT iterations and they all think he's just a level-headed Smart Guy with a quiet disposition and a tendency to snark from the sidelines, but then he pulls off some Fuckshit at random and scares the bejeezus out of everyone else and they're like "ah yes, that's the true Donatello Spirit, sorry for assuming otherwise"

He also tells his Raph to shut the hell up for some reason or other and gets absolutely 0 reaction, which also gets the other turtles like ???

[bogkeep]

it was always a strange dichotomy. every middle school classmate i had told me i'd be a millionaire when i grew up, a Famouse Artisté. it's easy enough to imagine as a teen, i suppose: skill equals fame equals money. i was doubtful about this prophecy, not because i wasn't confident in my ability to draw, but because it was hard to imagine a world where i'd be paid for it.

it was an ice breaker game at summer camp. horrible one, really - everyone in a group were given a character profile. now we had to imagine that it was the zombie apocalypse, and the helicopter to safety was two seats short and we had argue why we deserved a spot. the character i got was an asshole doctor of some kind. i don't remember if i argued my way into the helicopter or not, but i do remember the feeling that's been hanging over me my entire life - if the apocalypse happens right now, i have nothing to contribute.

there's something really painful about it. i have cultivated a skill for my whole life, i can make art and tell stories that are entirely unique to me, there is no way to get someone else to create in the exact same way i can, and yet - i've contributed more to capitalist society by sitting in an empty hotel reception for eight hours a day.

which made me develop anxiety, to boot.

i illustrated two children's books. they're some of my best work. the contract i signed was industry standard and the indie author who had hired me was incredibly kind... but even after stock sold out i had earnt little more than some pocket change.

in high school we had an outing to dig our own snow caves that we would spend the night in. in teams, thankfully. i have so little physical strength to speak of, most i could do to help was clear away the snow rubble and toss it outside. i know, i know, my classmates reassured me it was an important job to do, i was an invaluable member of the group, sure - but it's that feeling, you know?

what would my task be in the communist solarpunk commune?

a person cannot be useless. it's a human being. they just exist, no ifs and buts about it. one can only be useless in the eyes of an ableist, capitalist society that sees no value in being alive beyond production and profit.

sometimes i receive messages from internet strangers to tell me something i said - often several years ago - was helpful to them. maybe it was a throwaway comment on a forum. maybe it was replying to a question they could've googled the answer to. maybe it was an encouraging reply to someone's artwork. turns out it mattered to someone. huh.

of course you can learn new skills. i have learnt plenty over the years! i have also learnt that there are limitations to what i can do. that some of the obstacles i face are not in fact obstacles everyone faces. it's not that i can't break tasks into smaller steps, it's more that half of those steps are going to be "rinse your hands because you Touched a Thing and now you're going to have to touch Another Thing." i wonder if that's adding to my cognitive load or something.

i was never raised to be a man, so by all accounts i do not understand why i'm so haunted by the spectre of toxic masculinity - what would i do if i was a medieval peasant and a war broke out? what if i was in a pre-historic hunter gatherer society and i was expected to hunt? what if i was a humble farm boy discovering the sword of the chosen one and the world depended on my non-existing courage to face certain death?

look, it's stupid. these are not scenarios i will find myself in. besides, pre-historic humans depended on community and taking care of each other. that's how we survive.

i'm not useless and i decided to make peace with being useless anyway.

we're surrounded by digital clocks. we can't really escape them. do we need watchmakers? would they save me a spot in the zombie apocalypse helicopter? no, don't answer that. i'm just happy i found something that requires a light touch and an observant eye.

[oca-rinn-a]

i want to be a happy person in the vegan community who makes people feel unjudged and welcome to take their time to transition, because i know that's how successful transitions happen, i know that in the long run it's worth being patient. but the individual animals suffering right now are haunting me.

please try your best.

[elbiotipo]

car owner voice: my car is broken again I must take it to the mechanic (it's the 4th time this year)

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

“On the way from mythology to logistics thought has lost the element of self-reflection and today machinery disables men even as it nurtures them.” - Adorno/Horkheimer