#like I need this abolished from existence

[probskay]

I dis some light reading on Chinese property law and the state of their property development. Be wary of my sources. While their information may be accurate, the opinions of China and its government are often less than charitable.

Communist movements in China caused extreme difference between property law in the United States compared to China. For starters, back in the 1930's the Chinese Communist Party worked on abolishing private property entirely, and private property was effectively in a state of limbo up until a constitutional amendment was passed in 2004 stating that private property rights were to be protected under all circumstances. In that same constitutional amendment, also put into place their own version of eminent domain, allowing them to purchase private property for government use if such a need arose.

However, while those protections for private property were created, Chinese land is still lawfully required to remain in the possession of either the Chinese state or a Chinese collective. No foreign investors allowed! If you want to own in China, you've gotta be a Chinese citizen.

(gleaned from insights from the Property Law in China Wikipedia page)

So, we get into Chinese development companies. I didn't do the research to figure out what legal precedent allows them to exist, so let's just not worry about that for now. They do exist and that's what matters.

Back in 2021, the biggest Chinese development company, Evergrande, announced that they were defaulting to the tune of $300 billion USD (which was still only half the debt of the 2008 Lehman Brothers). Other development companies were soon to follow.

After a history of high-risk borrowing and development, the companies' methods of attempting to generate profit just simply couldn't be kept up with. Back in 2016 there were reports of ghost towns built by developers and abandoned by citizens. (Inside China’s ghost towns: ‘Developers run out of money’, Aljazeera)

Evergrande had only existed since 1996 (China Evergrande’s Founder: From Rags to Riches to Under Investigation, New York Times), meaning that this era of development and collapse had been going on for around 25 years before it finally collapsed. Meanwhile, the U.S. has had development companies like The Durst Organization since 1915 (The Durst Organization, Wikipedia).

(source that also gave a bunch of info: A Peek into China’s Property Crisis: How It Happened and What It Suggests About China’s Domestic Economy & Xi’s Legitimacy, International Relations Review)

It seems to me that China has simply not had landlord companies and development for quite as long, they've had far less power to enact the kind of widespread housing exploitation we've had in the United States due to various power shifts thanks to Communist movements and laws, and lastly their developments were primarily focused on building new properties that were often abandoned rather than just recycling properties that already existed.

If any of these properties are from ghost towns, decay happens swiftly when a building is abandoned by humans. I've seen first hand how swiftly a home with shoddy architecture can fall to the elements. If these properties are not abandoned, then age paired with long term economic neglect may be to blame for the decay of the homes.

Either way, the struggles that the impoverished Chinese experience do not seem that much different than our own. Exploitation by rich landlord companies, a government that seems largely indifferent to their struggles, and a lack of savings to just put some cash into fixing things when they break. Neoliberal capitalist real estate dystopia hellscape

to be honest those all photos from china are just... so much of a different types of posts comparing to any other place you posted. why they live like this?

I'm not that familiar with China. It's pretty confronting to see how many people who have helped power the world's global consumer engine are forced to live (just as it has been confronting for me to see the circumstances in which many people in the US are forced to live). I might be reading too much into it, but I think you can see echoes of recent history and how, as late as the 80s, the majority of people in China lived in extreme poverty, and I guess much of what you see in these photos is the lingering infrastructure and grime from that period and the rapid transition away from it. There's also the fact that it's a massive and very complicated country, and that in the west we don't often have a clear window into that complexity. Jia Zhangke's film A Touch of Sin has some interesting insights.

[hungergameshyperfixation]

Absolutely cursed idea: Haymitch being called ‘Mitch’ by his peers or family.

[uncanny-tranny]

Honestly, attachment to sex rather than gender as a social construction won't create a utopia without the subjugation of one's presentation, background, or experience from existing. Recognizing that sex and gender are both socially constructed and while they sometimes inform one another, they won't always, and that trans people absolutely can attest to this and are integral to making change for a better world are insurmountably important. If your desire for a "better world" coincidentally doesn't include us, what you desire isn't a better world where people are free - it is subjugation by a different name.

[thebendsbyradiohead]

having a wedding genuinely sounds so scary to me like it's one of those personal hell scenarios the devil would concoct specifically for me if he existed

aside from the fact that i'd be agreeing to a legal contract that involves the state in my personal relationships & that i'm highly likely to break in the future (with an unnecessarily bureaucratic & long process may i add), doing it IN PUBLIC in front of multiple people for whom i have to provide food, entertainment, and place, sounds like a nightmare

and that's not even getting into all the details and bs that people i see who are getting married have to sort out, it's just incredible stress for the stupidest reason on earth

[coratatum]

I will once again use this as an opportunity to exclaim we should abolish daylight savings and just pick one time thing and stick to it. I don't even care which at this point. Just pick one and stop arbitrarily changing the clocks

(also it's even more heinous that we all don't have the same daylight savings date. Missed some morning work meetings last week because Poland has daylight savings a week earlier and the Poland team has made the meetings which pushed the morning work meetings into OTHER ones that I couldn't reschedule and it was really confusing and dumb)

(and some places don't do daylight savings!!!)

The whole time system is insane and whoever came up with it should be punished

[eightdoctor]

i think along with abortion rights which are of course an absolute must for everyone’s bodily autonomy referrals should also be abolished. why do they exist. why do you need a Permission Slip from a Chaperone to go see another doctor. like oh i guess i am just a baby. a shitty little itty bitty baby idiot who doesn’t know what specialist would be helpful for my condition. only the Big Smart Primary Physicians knows that. only tjey would know that i Need to go to a joint doctor if i have problems with my joints. wow who would have thought thank You so much im glad i had to pay you actual money to tell me something i already knew. you’re so Wise and Kind do you want me to perhaps suck you off as well? play with your hole a little bit? get fucking real

[schattenhonig]

The A in LGBTQIA+ doesn't stand for aspec because they're not repressed!

(please read the disclaimer at the end of this post)

Ummm, excuse me? Would you mind telling me what your definition of repression is, then?

Because I feel repressed when a doctor asks me about my sex life, and if I say I have none, it gets marked down as a symptom without being asked if I suffer from it.

I feel repressed when my gyn tells me I can't get a hysterectomy yet despite losing so much blood on every period that I need to take iron supplements all the time, because I could change my mind about not wanting children (which is a whole other post, I know, but it's most likely linked to sex).

I feel repressed if I can't use dating apps or platforms because my sexuality doesn't even exist there, and the one time I tried, I got called names because I didn't want to meet for because it was clear where this date would go, despite my explicit "what I'm looking for".

I feel repressed when I think about how recently a paragraph was finally abolished in my country that considered sex a vital part of a marriage, basically entitling the spouses to having sex with their partner (both gender neutral, because entitling people to having sex with somebody else by law is wrong. It's basically a rape permission).

I feel repressed when I can't watch any film or show without it being about love and/or sex, no matter if it fits the narrative and furthers the plot.

I feel repressed when I plot my own stories and automatically put a romantic couple in there as main characters, even though I have no idea why this would be important for the plot. Not even my own stories, my own thoughts are mine.

I felt repressed when I was asked accusingly in a relationship if I wasn't missing something before I even knew asexuality as a spectrum was a thing, and having to lie about this being a side effect of my medication instead of genuinely not feeling attracted to someone in this way.

I feel repressed when I can't tell people I'm not sexually attracted to them because they will take this personally no matter how well I explain myself.

I feel repressed when everywhere I look there's advertising relying on naked skin, suggestive posing and objectification. Why are expensive cars still presented by women considered beautiful and tempting? It's not like that's necessary to convince people of spending so much money on a thing that gets you from A to B. Couches with women in smart dresses and high heels. That's not what a normal person looks like on a couch. But the worst is a truck in the town where I live: it's from a small fruit and vegetable stand, so whenever I see it, it comes from the warehouse, delivering groceries. On it is a woman clad in very little, presenting fruit. I'm sorry, but why? Does a misogynistic picture convince you of the necessity to avoid scurvy?

I feel repressed when I tell people and get the answer "you just haven't found the right person yet", because there are two possible assumptions from that point: I'm either not trying hard enough (so it's basically my own fault) or something about me is not right, appalling even (which circles back to I'm not trying hard enough or frames me as a victim of my genetics, upbringing or circumstances to be pitied).

Do not tell me how I feel. Do not try to tell me everything is fine and I shouldn't complain or ask for acknowledgement if everywhere I look, I'm reminded of how odd, how weird and how not normal I am. How much it inconveniences you to even acknowledge my existence, let alone respect any of my traits, views and choices.

And while I can only write from my own asexual point of view, I wrote this with all kinds of flavours of aspec in mind, so I'm explicitly including aromantics, aroace people and every shade of the spectrum in this. Not all my examples may apply to you, but I hope you can find something to relate to.

ETA: please feel free to add your own experiences of repression!

[metamatar]

i have a question and sorry if it sounds incoherent. why is it so important to marxists to distinguish that marxism is not “moral” or “ideological”? i understand that marxism is grounded in historical materialism and that it aims to understand how existing structures and institutions function with the specific goal of abolishing them in favour of a marxist state, but when it comes to understanding how to move forward past capitalism, how can MLs claim that it’s entirely objective and scientific? isnt the fundamental purpose of marxism (abolishing the oppressor class and putting the proletariat in power) a subjective one, given that it to support that you need to believe that abolishing the oppressor class is desirable in the first place? how would ML “scientifically” help people decide where the line is drawn on subjects like the death penalty and incarceration if its committed by a communist party (given that the decision that the cost of killing/imprisoning people is worth the boon it would give in establishing a communist state is still based on subjective goals?)

i don't think modern marxists should claim they're not ideological. im sure some do, but imo the correct claim is marxism is not idealist. i think some of this confusion comes from a popperian view of science as "neutral" or "objective" outside of time. how the political economy affects the propagation of ideology and the process of science as practiced in reality is very standard marxist analysis now. some of the claim to objectivity is something that most people claim belongs to their favourite philosophical project see the rawlsian veil of ignorance in liberalism. marx is also writing in a world where theological and religious reasoning have a lot of primacy in philosophy and he is drawing a clean break from that by hewing to scientific characterisation of his methods.

idealism, in the kantian sense is a philosophy that argues that our ideals (about say, fairness, justice etc) inform how we organise society. marxism, as philosophical project develops in response to kant and hegel to argue that the political economic base, ie the productive relations of society actually inform superstructure of ideals. to quote marx in the preface to critique of political economy: "it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness."

for clarity's sake the idea that changes in the mode of production (mostly due to technology) transform the relations of production which is the main driving force of history is historical materialism. the analysis of why existing structures and institutions must be abolished therefore has to be grounded in analysis where such structures are considered variously – unstable, internally contradictory etc. if you view historical materialism as true, your theory of change cannot be that you'll change the world because it is unfair (an idea.) you can view the world as unfair as a marxist and talk about it to propagate the necessity of your project but that doesn't actually give you a blueprint on how to change it.

capitalists are oppressors, but marxism doesn't view the problem in their oppressive or evil natures. capitalist economies demand even the most moral capitalist to exploit the proletariat. but! it is desirable to abolish there class relations not merely because they are unfair and exploitative but because these class relationships cause workers to develop class consciousness, recognise their power and abolish capitalism.

on your specific example, i don't think marxism can or should claim their are no moral dilemmas. historical materialism doesn't assert that there are no conflicting understandings of history. walter benjamin's theses on the philosophy of history is imo good reading here.

so i dont think your concern about why it's important for marxists to believe this makes sense, because this is what marxism is. if you don't find this convincing, you're not a marxist. you could be an anarchist, or a social democrat or a radical liberal.

[the-delta-quadrant]

since rishi sunak talked about wanting to ban transgender people from using public bathrooms, i see a lot of talk about "transgender people deserve to feel safe in the bathroom that aligns with their gender".

completely ignoring that such a bathroom doesn't exist for a big chunk of transgender people?

transgender men and women being allowed in the men's and women's bathroom respectively doesn't really do much for nonbinary people at all.

a lot of us feel unsafe in such binary gendered spaces no matter what, already because we can't use them without misgendering ourselves. but it's barely ever taken into account because people love to act like the "transgender bathroom issue" will be solved if we just allow transgender men and women in the men's and women's bathrooms.

even some transgender people act like all gender bathrooms are too much to ask for now, they're something to implement "at some point", they're not a priority, etc. nonbinary people are yet again to wait our turn for safety and comfort. nonbinary people are still basically told even by other transgender people that we shouldn't exist in public spaces if we can't even piss safely. i've seen binary transgender people straight up say nonbinary people who bring this up are "derailing the conversation from what's important", like nonbinary safety doesn't matter.

transgender bathroom ban or not, i feel unsafe in a binary bathroom either way.

for *all* transgender people to safely exist in public life, gendered bathrooms need to be abolished. no safety for some of us without safety for all of us.

[hannieehaee]

omg hi!!! i love ur writing and ur always so detailed with emotions and reactions when u write!! that’s why i have a req for u i rly hope u accept it!!

could i please request a seungkwan drabble!! just a very domestic fluffy one like the two of u waking up to each other and he’s watching u as u sleep, tracing ur face just things like that!! hehe

content: bf!seungkwan, established relationship, fluff, etc.

wc: 387

a/n: hii thank u so much <33 this was such a soft premise it was so cute to write :c

masterlist

it was in moments like these that seungkwan truly felt no cares in the world.

there was nothing but you and him. nothing could disturb nor interrupt the peacefulness he felt in this moment. nothing compared to how happy he felt in watching you at your most relqxed state (well, maybe holding you in his arms as you slept was a big contender).

seungkwan liked to keep this to himself, but he had begun a new routine as of late.

after figuring out your sleeping schedule, he had made it a goal to train his body into waking up a few minutes before you got up and started your day. it had taken much effort to wake up without any incentive other than his instinctive need to see you, but it seemed like his incurable addiction to you had made it possible.

and this new little routine had become a favorite of his. he would wake up, turn to look at your side of the bed and simply watch as you remained asleep. sometimes he would keep count of your breaths, while other times he would lightly trace his fingers along the soft curves of your body. his fingers would sometimes stray away from your body and trace your features, hoping to commit every ridge of your face to memory.

this would only go on for about fifteen minutes or so as he took you in and enjoyed your sight in ways he knew no one else ever would. nothing else mattered to him other than knowing how irrevocably his you were. he felt a pride that could never be abolished.

he would occasionally end up waking you up, smiling at the way you scrunched up your nose as your slumber got interrupted. but he would play none the wiser any time you questioned why he was already awake, claiming he had woken up a minute or two before you did. in most of these occasions, he would entice you into falling back asleep, sometimes falling asleep along with you, while other times staying awake to admire you once more.

this was one of the greatest joys in seungkwan's life, as it allowed time to freeze and for everything around you to cease to exist. all there was was you, him, and his irrevocable love for you.

[toskarin]

i really dont know how to tell people that Copyright Laws Are Good, Actually. every time a company like disney or nintendo abuses copyright laws people always start talking about how copyright should be abolished, and in an ideal world, copyright laws wouldnt be necessary. but in the world we live in copyright laws are very much needed for creatives. while it's easy to be reactionairy when nintendo unfairly removes a fangame or disney threatens people over mickey mouse, people really need to understand that copyright laws are the only things stopping corporations and even other people from exploiting smaller ips. like, imagine if hasbro started making toys of your projects with no consent or contract or payment. that's what copyright laws are stopping

taking this in best possible faith, this is still an opinion completely unmoored from any material understanding of how IP works to the point where I can't take it seriously.

if hasbro started making toys out of my project without my consent, in the world we currently exist in, I would have little to no recourse simply because I could not win a court case against hasbro. they would drag it out and I would be in financial ruin long before I could achieve anything

if I made something similar to a hasbro property without infringing on their IP and they came down on me under the pretense that I had infringed, I would likely have to reach a settlement and shutter my project. it would not matter whether or not I was right

copyright does not protect you: it protects people who can afford to wield it

and making an assumption that you and I are more likely to be economic peers than not, we cannot afford to wield it

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

An underrated health and wellbeing tool is play. 

When you think about playing, you may immediately picture little children - but by definition, play describes “any activity engaged in purely for enjoyment and recreation with no definite practical purpose” and those activities stay important throughout your whole life. 

Why are those activities important? 

Play is good for your body. Intentionally doing something just for fun helps to activate the “rest and digest” mode that is necessary to recover and heal from stress. It signals that you’re safe and helps your body relieve tension. 

It’s also good for your brain. It can stimulate your imagination, visualization and critical thinking skills, which can help you build skills like resilience and adaptability. 

Play can also foster empathy and understanding of others as it can help you see things from another’s perspective. 

Playing can make you laugh, and laughter comes with a whole sleeve of health benefits, such as decreasing blood pressure and even improving your immune system! 

Playing together can strengthen relationships. Positive, fun social interactions are important for your emotional wellbeing. 

Now some of you may think “that’s all nice, but how do I even play as an adult?”. While play is a natural behavior of human beings, many adults need to re-learn how to play - it depends on your specific environment and social circles but you may feel a lot of pressure to be productive all the time and play is by its very nature not productive. So, the first step in re-learning play is to give yourself permission to just *be* instead of *do* (and that can be a huge step!). 

Some ideas on how to ease back into play: 

Think about your childhood. (Or if you can, ask a parent, sibling or childhood friend, that can be a great way to bring back memories!) What were your favorite ways to play back then? What did you love about your favorite game? Does any particular memory immediately give you that “I wish I could do that again” feeling? (You may not necessarily find anything that you want to just replicate as an adult as-is, this is just meant to kick-start your imagination!) 

Gameify everyday tasks. Try to spot as many yellow items as possible on your commute to work. Make up a silly song about laundry while putting away the laundry. Pretend to be on a cooking show while making dinner. Do what you always do, just allow yourself to be silly about it! 

Do something creative, even (and especially) if you’re not good at it. You may not think of drawing, writing etc. as playing but those are activities you can do for pure entertainment! 

Moving your body doesn’t need to be purposeful exercise (and certainly not hating yourself in the gym), it can also be playtime: Do a silly little dance to your favorite song! Tippytoe, crawl, jump, walk backward.. from your bedroom to the kitchen, just for the fun of it! 

Rethink toys. While it is fully okay for a grownup to buy, own and play with toys, and we should abolish the negative stereotypes about it (it’s creepy, it’s inherently a sign of poor mental health etc.) these stereotypes do exist and you may simply not feel comfortable. Luckily, there are a few toys that are generally considered socially acceptable for adults or are even marketed towards adults, such as board games, stress balls, adult coloring books, certain Lego sets or fan/collectors toys (like action figures). And when there are no judgy eyes watching, you may also have fun just playing with household items such as cardboard rolls! No need to go out and buy something! 

Keep in mind that play isn’t a competition to win. You can’t play wrong - that’s the beauty of it! Just let your curiosity and enthusiasm guide you. 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad 

[wheelie-sick]

I was talking to some friends about a phenomenon in the POTS community where someone will share their heart rate and someone else will immediately try to one up them with theirs. simultaneously, these people would try to drag down anyone with more severe symptoms because they'd feel invalidated by their existence. it got me thinking about the broader problem of both competitiveness and willful erasure of people with more severe symptoms within the chronic illness community.

I wanted to dump all the thoughts I had out here.

it's easy to say that everyone in the chronic illness community has struggled with competitiveness, whether internal or external. society teaches chronically ill people that we must scream the severity of our symptoms from the rooftops in order to be seen, in order to be given any scrap of accommodation. chronically ill people are taught that only the sickest can receive any accommodations.

when people enter the chronic illness community they bring that same attitude. they feel the need to shout from the rooftops that they are truly sick, that they belong in the community. too many people spend no time deconstructing their need to be the worst even when the community tries to call them out on it.

you don't need to prove how sick you are

simultaneously it's important to acknowledge that there is a spectrum of severity. that cannot be forgotten. acknowledging that some people do truly have it worse is not the same as competitively comparing yourself to others.

going back to POTS as an example- there is a huge difference between someone who gets dizzy and has a heart rate of 130bpm at its highest and someone who faints multiple times a day and has a heart rate of 200+bpm at its highest. you cannot ignore that in favor of trying to abolish the "sick olympics" because that diminishes the difference in experience.

too many people with more mild conditions try to drag down people with more severe conditions in an attempt to feel like they are sick enough. they feel invalidated by the existence of people who have it worse than them. instead of working on their internal need to feel like they are sickest they attempt to destroy the spectrum of experiences, reducing it down to one flat layer where everyone has the same level of disability.

other people having it worse than you is not invalidating your struggles

and I think this is the core of what the "sick olympics" is about. it's about comparison, yes, but most importantly it's about dragging people down in favor of feeling like your experience is real. comparison can be harmful in some situations, but that's not really the point. that's not what drives the true harm that this behavior does to the community.

the dragging down of people in an attempt to create one flat layer of experience harms the most vulnerable members of the community. often this behavior is done in the name of abolishing the "sick olympics" but it is the core problem. trying to turn the experience of disability into a uniform level of severity is done because of that exact feeling of invalidation. deconstructing that feeling of the need to be worst involves accepting that some people do have it worse. it is not the fault of people with more severe conditions that you feel invalidated by their existence.

bringing down people with more severe conditions will not fix your need to be the worst.

[alpaca-clouds]

Solarpunk is not archievable under Capitalism

Okay, let me make one thing very clear: We will never have a Solarpunk future as long as we live under capitalism. Again and again I will find people, who have fallen in love with the idea of Solarpunk, but are unwilling to consider any alternative to capitalism. So, please, let me quickly explain what that just is not gonna work out that way. There will be no Solarpunk under capitalism. Because the incentives of capitalism are opposing anything that Solarpunk stands for.

So let me please run over a few core points.

What is capitalism?

One issue that a lot of people do seem to have is understanding what capitalism even is. The defining attribute of capitalism is that "the means of production" (e.g. the things needed to create things) are privately owned and as such the private owners will decide both what gets created through it and who will get a share in any profits created through them. The ultimate goal in this is, to generate as large as a profit as possible, ideally more and more profit with every year. In real terms this means, that most of those means of productions in the way of companies and the like are owned mostly by shareholders, that is investors who have bought part of the company.

While capitalism gets generally thaught in schools with this entire idea of the free market, that... actually is not the central aspect of capitalism. I would even go so far to argue something else...

The market is actually not free and cannot be free

The idea of the free market is, that prices are controlled by the concept of supply and demand, with the buyer in the end deciding on whether they want to spend their money on something and being able to use that power to also enact control on the supplier.

However... that is actually not what is happening. Because it turns out that the end consumer has little influence, because they are actually not actively participating in the market. The market mainly is something that is happening between multimillionaires. It is their demand (or the lack thereoff) that is the influence. Investors, mainly. Which is logical. In a system, where the power to buy is deciding, the person who can spend multiple millions is gonna have a lot more power, than the person who has twenty bucks to their name.

Hence: 99% of all people are not participating in anything resembling a free market, and the remaining 1% are not interested in such a system.

Money under capitalism

One thing everyone needs to understand is, that for the most part money under capitalism is a very theoretical concept. It might be real for the average joe, who for the most part will not have more than maybe ten grand to their name, but it is not real to multi millionaires, let alone billionairs. Something that is going to be thrown around a lot is the concept of "net worth". But what you need to realize is that this net worth is not real money. It does not exist. It is the estimated worth of stuff these people own. Maybe houses and land, maybe private jets, maybe shares in companies and other things. These people's power and literal worth is tied to them being able theoretically able to sell these assets for money.

In fact a lot of these very rich people do not even have a lot of liquid money. So money they can spend. In fact there are quite a few billionairs who do not even own a million in liquidated money. The money they use in everyday life they borrow from banks, while putting their assets up as a security.

Why capitalism won't abolish fossil fuels

Understanding this makes it quite easy to understand why the capitalists cannot have fossil fuels ending. Because a lot of them own millions, at times billions in fossil fuel related assets. They might own a coal mine, or a fracking station, or maybe an offshore rig, or a power plant burning fossil fuels. At times they have 50% or more of their net worth bound in assets like this. If we stopped using fossil fuels, all those assets would become useless from one day to the next. Hence it is not in the interest of these very rich people to have that happen.

But it goes further than that, because politicians cannot have that happen either. Because the entire economy is build around these assets existing and being used as leverage and security for other investments.

Why capitalism won't build walkable cities and infrastructure

The same goes very much for the entire infrastructure. Another thing a lot of people have invested a lot of money into is cars. Not physical cars they own, but cars manufacturing. So, if we were building walkable cities with bikelanes and public transportation, a lot less people would buy cars, those manufactoring factories becoming worthless and hence once more money... just vanishing, that would otherwise be further invested.

Furthermore, even stuff like investing into EVs is a touch call to get to happen, because the investors (whose theoretical and not real money is tied to those manufacturers) want to see dividents at the end of the quartal. And if the manufactuerer invested into changing their factories to build EVs for a while profits would go down due to that investment. Hence, capitalism encourages them not doing that.

Why capitalism won't create sustainable goods

A lot of people will decry the fact that these days all goods you buy will break within two years, while that old washing machine your grandparents bought in 1962 is still running smoothly. To which I say: "Obviously. Because they want to make profits. Hence, selling you the same product every two years is more profitable."

If you wonder: "But wasn't that the same in 1962?" I will answer: "Yes. But in 1962 the market was still growing." See, with the post war economic boom more and more people got more divestable income they could spend. So a lot of companies could expect to win new costumers. But now the market is saturated. There is not a person who could use a washing machine, who does not have one. Hence, that thing needs to break, so they can sell another one.

The market incentive is against making sustainable, enduring products, that can be repaired. They would rather have you throw your clothing, your smartphone and your laptop away every two years.

Why workers will always be exploited under capitalism

One other central thing one has to realize about capitalism is that due to the privitization of the means of production the workers in a capitalist system will always be exploited. Because they own nothing, not even their own work. Any profit the company makes is value that has in the end been created by the workers within the company. (Please note, that everyone who does not own their work and cannot decide what happens to the value created by it is a worker. No matter whether they have a blue collar or a white collar job.)

That is also, why there is the saying: All profit is unpaid wages.

Under capitalism the profits will get divided up under the shareholders (aka the investors), while many of the workers do not even have enough money to just... live. Hence, good living standards for everyone are explicitly once more against the incentives of capitalism.

Why there won't be social justice under capitalism

Racism, sexism and also the current rise of queermisia are all a result of capitalism and have everything to do with capitalist incentives. Because the capitalists, so the people who own the means of production, profit from this discrimination. This is for two reasons.

For once having marginalized people creates groups that are easier exploitable. Due to discrimination these people will have a harder time finding a job and living quarters, making them more desperate and more likely to take badly paid jobs. Making it easier to exploit them for the profit of the capitalists.

A workforce divided through prejudice and discrimination will have a harder time to band together in unions and strikes. The crux of the entire system si, that it is build on the exploitation of workers - but if the workers stopped working, the system would instantly collapse. Hence the power of strikes. So, dividing the workforce between white and non-white, between queer and straight, between abled and disabled makes it easier to stop them from banding together, as they are too busy quaralling amoung themselves.

Why we won't decolonize under capitalism

Colonialism has never ended. Even now a lot of natural ressources and companies in the former colonies are owned by western interest. And this will stay that way, because this way the extraction of wealth is cheaper - making it more profitable. Colonialism has never ended, it has only gotten more subtle - and as long as more money can be made through this system, it will not end.

There won't be Solarpunk under capitalism

It is not your fault, if you think that capitalism cannot end. You have been literally taught this for as long as you can think. You never have been given the information about what capitalism is and how it works. You have never been taught the alternative mechanisms and where and when they were implemented.

You probably look at Solarpunk and think: "Yeah, that... that looks neat. I want that." And here is the thing: I want that, too.

But I have studied economics. Literally. And I can tell you... it does not work. It will not create better living situations for everyone. It will not save the world. Because in the end the longterm goals are not compatible with a capitalistic system.

I know it is fucking scary to be told: "Yeah, change the world you know in massive ways - or the world will end." But... it is just how the things are standing.

You can start small, though. Join a local party. Join a union. Join a mutual aid network. Help repair things. Help people just deal. Our power lies in working together. That is, in the end, what will get us a better future.

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

I've spent the past couple years hearing from the American left that prisons, police, the death penalty, etc. should be abolished. However, recently I've heard a number Communists saying that these things shouldn't be abolished. I understand the argument put forward by my fellow Communists, that abolitionism is unrealistic and prisons, police, the death penalty, etc. are necessary for a socialist state in order to combat Fascism, but I find it hard to believe that a truly just justice system which benefits society is possible given the nightmarish acts of state violence and police brutality which I've seen.

You are making the mistake of preceding from an ideal, i.e. "a truly just justice system", rather than the material facts of reality. We can sit here all day and come up with what the features of a "just", "abolitionist", etc. society would look like and state our desire to move from the currently existing society to that one, but if we do not pay attention to how we can begin to move from this one to another one it is literally worthless. This is why anarchism and (rad)liberalism are political dead ends with nothing to offer - there is no coherent roadmap from "capitalist death cult" to "tolerable for human life" beyond the desire to abolish, to do away with, to say "this is what a just society looks like" and think if people stay on the streets long enough it will manifest.

Communists don't manifest, they build power to protect the interests of the working class against the bourgeoisie. Building that power under the material conditions as they presently exist means utilizing the raw power of the state (i.e. the military, police, and prisons - the "special bodies of armed men" in Lenin's words) to defend against the onslaught of the bourgeoisie and counter-revolutionary forces, which as history has shown, will immediately and relentlessly assault a DOTP from the moment of its inception. No socialist society has lasted more than a year without exercising its ability to defend itself.

So yes, we can sit here and say "in a truly just society there will be no cops, no prisons, no death penalty" and I'd agree with you. My hatred for the "justice" system and how nakedly it acts as an instrument of suppression of workers, anti-fascists, land defenders, and marginalized people is what initially radicalized me away from liberalism to begin with. However we must contend with reality and the need for socialist projects to defend themselves. I want a revolution that last more than a day.

[hyperlexichypatia]

can you elaborate on why you don't think nursing homes should exist? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to engage in bad faith, but i do feel like many elders do need a level of medical care that can't be provided well in a home environment, and benefit socially from being surrounded by their peers. is it more a matter of eliminating the huge staff-"client"(-billpayer, generally a younger relative) power differentials and potential for abuse that exists there, the way nursing homes tend to be relatively isolated from the surrounding community & many restrict certain freedoms, or is there something else more inherent to the structure (i.e., incapable of being reformed or mitigated) that I'm missing? i guess i'm wondering how different a more just model for elder care would look from nursing homes

Yeah, it's everything you said -- nursing homes inherently restrict their residents' freedoms (how many would pass the burrito test?), don't see the residents as the decision-making clients, infantilize and segregate their residents, etc.

As for socializing with their peers, if older disabled people lived among the general population, they could still socialize with other older disabled people if they wanted to, and also with younger people, abled people, and others. "This population that has been systemically excluded from society should live among themselves in a congregate setting so they can socialize" isn't a particularly good argument for nursing homes; it's an argument against the ageist/ableist segregation that exists in the rest of society.

Could nursing homes be reformed/mitigated? I mean, I'm a strong harm reductionist; I believe every harmful institution should be reformed and mitigated as much as possible. That might mean more freedom for residents, more privacy for residents, more transportation to and from other places in the community. But if a nursing home were "reformed" to the point that it was no longer harmful -- if it no longer exerted coercive control over its residents, if its residents had the same freedom and privacy and autonomy and freedom of movement as anyone in the outside world -- it would functionally cease to be a "nursing home" and would just be... well, an apartment building. Or, if it's an apartment building specifically for older disabled people, without the coercive control, a "retirement community" (although sometimes coercive-control nursing homes are also called "retirement communities" so who knows?).

Home and community based services for disabled people, if properly funded, can replicate most of the assistance a nursing home provides -- now, I do say most, but people who need multiple-times-a-day medical care from a medical provider might choose a living situation that involves specific proximity to medical care. That doesn't mean a nursing home; it might mean, for example, an apartment building near a hospital that caters to people undergoing regular treatment. But it's important that many nursing home residents don't need daily medical care from medical providers. They they need accessible assistance with activities of daily living, which can easily be made accessible outside a medicalized setting, and, in particular, without the coercive control of a nursing home.

Or, short version (sorry, I have a fever) -- the problem with nursing homes is the coercive control. Fund home and community based services. Hire CNAs and install accessible features in the homes of disabled people who need them with the money governments and families can save by abolishing nursing homes. Not everyone in a nursing home is there because they need medical treatment, but even for those who do, there are ways to situate housing and medical needs in proximity to each other that don't involve residents being forcibly drugged or given a bedtime or needing permission to have sex. Let Grandpa fuck (if he wants to).