#no ethical consumption under capitalism etc etc

[luminarai]

when I look for new clothes it’s 99% of the time because I have a very specific idea of an article of clothing that I’d like, but I find that most times my online searching inevitably lead me to shein or shein-like sites, which is so annoying. like, they’ve had to have stolen the design from *somewhere* you know? and I’d like to not contribute to absolutely horrendous worker conditions and consumption landfills etc etc, thanks.

[julesdap]

thinking about how the rapture-and-bliss…… isn’t really hope. or maybe it is, but it’s hope corrupted, perverted. because it doesn’t give seb and dev hope, only fantasy. it’s escapism. that’s not what hope is, not the same hope that convinced hayward and paige to birth a god, not the same hope that makes carpenter work for a better world despite all her cynicism.

hope in its truest form is a driving, radicalizing force. what the man in the walls sells is the opposite. its victims literally live in a dream. it’s hope stripped of action. it’s forced optimism to the point of destructiveness. and it just drives home the point that no gods in this universe — the biggest metaphors for oppressive systems and capitalism and overconsumption — can take hold of anything good without corrupting it. because a god must feed.

[cipheramnesia]

so glad to see the resurgence of food based class discourse, it's always something that everyone gets real normal and polite about right away

[cloud-based-and-rainpilled]

Hey remember the time I was put on a terf Google Doc blocklist because I said Aziraphale is a bottom lmaoooo

[itshalstri]

do you think they used real brazilians

[tittyinfinity]

damn I just realized that out of the 1600 people I follow not one of them is a swiftie. I've never unfollowed anyone for liking her either. but i assume any swiftie that followed me blocked me after i got 50k on a post calling her annoying

[blondephil]

starting to think some of y’all don’t know what capitalism means,,,,

[norrkatt]

UNFRIENDLY REMINDER: HOTTOPIC ISN'T YOUR FRIEND, AND NEITHER IS ANY CORPORATION

[xxemo-hubrisxx]

most western non-poor people will be completely fine consuming less clothing, meat, trinkets, tech, etc etc. the uncomfortable feeling stepping down from an exuberant level of overconsumption to a more sustainable + circular approach is not "classism" nor actual harm. consumer culture and capitalism and factory farming has led us to believe that a certain (very high!!!) level of spending money and consuming products is healthy and moral and makes u a good citizen, this is not true, and is historically unprecedented at this scale. u can't consume ur way out of overconsumption. i love stuff as much as the next hoarder but come on

[homospockual]

I’m about to become a pillow princess fr. this topping shit is such a scam

[what-shitfuckery-is-this-ew]

BOYCOTTING FOR PALESTINE

The Official BDS Boycott Targets

Campaigns

Block the boat: End maritime arms transfer to Israel

Ban Apartheid Israel from Sports (FIFA, Olympics)

CAF get off Israel's train: Boycott CAF

Greenwashing Apartheid

Israeli Spyware

Military Embargo

Farming Injustice

Consumer Boycotts - a complete boycott of these brands

Cisco

Axa

Puma

Carrefour

HP

Siemens

Chevron

Intel

Caltex

Israeli produce

Re/max

Ahava

Texaco

Sodastream

Intel

Organic Boycott Targets - boycotts not initiated by BDS but still complete boycott of these brands

Disney

Macdonald's

Dominos

Papa Johns

Burger King

Pizza Hut

Wix

Divestments and exclusion - pressure governments, institutions, investment funds, city councils, etc. to exclude from procurement contracts and investments and to divest from these

Elbit Systems

CAF

Volvo

CAT

Barclays

JCB

HD Hyundai

TKH Security

HikVision

Pressure - boycotts when reasonable alternatives exist, as well as lobbying, peaceful disruptions, and social media pressure.

Google

Amazon

AirBnb

Booking.Com

Expedia

Teva

Here are some companies that strongly support Israel (but are not Boycott targets). There is no ethical consumption under capitalism and boycotting is a political strategy - not a moral one. If you did try to boycott every supporter of Israel you would struggle to survive because every major company supports Israel (as a result of attempting to keep the US economy afloat), that being said, the ones that are being boycotted by masses and not already on the organic boycott list are coloured red.

5 Star Chocolate

7Days

7Up

Apple

Arsenal FC

ALDO

Arket

Axe

Accenture

Ariel

Adidas

ActionIQ

Aquafina

Amika

AccuWeather

Activia

Adobe

Aesop

Azrieli Group

American Eagle

Amway Corp

Axel Springer

American Airlines

American Express

Atlassian

AdeS

Aquarius

Ayataka

Audi

Barqs

Bain & Company

Bayer

Bank Leumi

Bank Hapoalim

BCG (Boston Consulting Group)

Biotherm

Bershka

Bloomberg

BMW

Boeing

Booz Allen Hamilton

Burberry

Bath & Body Works

Bosch

Bristol Myers Squibb

Capri Holdings

Costa

Carita Paris

CareTrust REIT

Caterpillar

Coach

Cappy

Caudalie

CeraVe

Check Point Software Technologies

Cerelac

Chanel

Chapman and Cutler

Channel

Cheerios

Cheetos

Chevron

Chips Ahoy!

Christina Aguilera

Citi Bank

Codral

Cosco

Canada Dry

Citi

Clal Insurance Enterprises

Clean & Clear

Clearblue

Clinique

Champion

Club Social

Coca Cola

Coffee Mate

Colgate

Comcast

Compass

Caesars

Conde Nast

Cooley LLP

Costco

Côte d’Or

Crest

CV Starr

CyberArk Software

Cytokinetics

Crayola

Cra Z Art

Daimler

Dr Pepper

Del Valle

Daim

Doctor Pepper

Dasani

Doritos

Daz

Dior

Dell

Deloitte

Delta Air Lines

Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Telekom

DHL Group

David Off

Disney

DLA Piper

Domestos

Domino’s

Douglas Elliman

Downy

Duane Morris LLP

Dreft Baby Detergent & Laundry Products

Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream

eBay

Edelman

Eli Lilly

Evian

Empyrean

Ericsson

Endeavor

EPAM Systems

Estee Lauder

Elbit Systems

EY

Forbes

Facebook

Fairlife

Fanta

First International Bank of Israel

Fiverr

Funyuns

Fuze

Fox News

Fritos

Fox Corp

Gatorade

Gamida Cell

GE

Glamglow

General Catalyst

General Motors

Georgia

Gold Peak

Genesys

Goldman Sachs

Grandma’s Cookies

Garnier

Guess

Greenberg Traurig

Guerlain

Givenchy

H&M

Hadiklaim

Huggies

Hanes

HSBC

Head & Shoulders

Hersheys

Herbert Smith Freehills

Hewlett Packard

Hasbro

Hyundai

Henkel

Harel Insurance Investment & Financial Services

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

HubSpot

Huntsman Corp

IBM

Innocent

Insight Partners

Inditex Group

IT Cosmetics

Instacart

Intermedia

Interpublic Group

Instagram

ICL Group

Intuit

Jazwares

Jefferies

John Lewis

JP Morgan Chase

Jaguar

Johnson & Johnson

JPMorgan

Kenon Holdings

Kate Spade

Kirks’

Kinley Water

KKR

KFC

KKW Cosmetics

Kurkure

Keebler

Kolynos

Kaufland

Kevita

Knorr

KPMG

Lemonade

Lidl

Loblaws

Levi Strauss

Louis Vuitton

Life Water

Levi’s

Levi’s Strauss

LinkedIn

Land Rover

L’Oréal

Lego

Levissima

Live Nation Entertainment

Lufthansa

La Roche-Posay

Lipton

Major League Baseball

Manpower Group

Marriott

Marsh McLennan

Maison Francis Kurkdjian

Mastercard

Mattel

Minute Maid

Monster

Monki

Mainz FC

Mellow Yellow

Mountain Dew

Migdal Insurance

Marks & Spencer

Mirinda

McDermott Will & Emery

Motorola

McKinsey

Merck

Michael Kors

Mizrahi Tefahot Bank

Merck KGaA

Micheal Kors

Milkybar

Maybelline

Mount Franklin

Meta

MeUndies

Mattle

Microsoft

Munchies

Miranda

Morgan Lewis

Moroccanoil

Morgan Stanley

MRC

Nasdaq

Naughty Dog

Nivea

Next

NOS

Nabisco

Nutter Butter

No Frills

National Basketball Association

National Geographic

Nintendo

New Balance

Nutella

Newtons

NVIDIA

Netflix

Nescafe

Nestle

Nesquick

Nike

Nussbeisser

Oreo

Oral B

Old spice

Oysho

Omeprazole

Oceanspray

Opodo

P&G (Procter and Gamble)

Pampers

Pull & Bear

Pepsi

Pfizer

Popeyes

Parker Pens

Philadelphia Cream Cheese

Pizza Hut

Powerade

Purina

Phoenix Holdings

Propel

Ponds

Pure Leaf Green Tea

Power Action Wipes

PwC

Prada

Perry Ellis

Prada Eyewear

Pringles

Payoneer

Procter & Gamble

Purelife

Pureology

Quaker Oats

Reddit

Royal Bank of Canada

Ruffles

Revlon

Ralph Lauren

Ritz

Rolls Royce

Royal

S.Pellegrino

Sabra Hummus

Sabre

Sony

SAP

Simply

Smart Water

Sprite

Schwabe

Shell

Soda Stream

Siemens

StreamElements

Schweppes

Sunsilk

Signal

Skittles

Smart Food

Sobe

Smarties

Sephora

Sam’s Club

Superbus

Samsung

Sodastream

Sunkist

Scotiabank

Sour Patch Kids

Starbucks

Sadaf

Stride

Subway

Tang

Tate’s Bake Shop

The Body Shop

Tesco

Twitch

The Ordinary

Tim Hortons

Tostitos

Timberland

Topo Chico

Tapestry

Tropicana

Tommy Hilfiger

Tommy Hilfiger Toiletries

Turbos

Tom Ford

Taco Bell

Triscuit

TUC

Twix

Tottenham Hotspurs

Twisties

Tripadvisor

Uber

Uber Eats

Urban Decay

Upfield

Unilever

Vicks

Victoria’s Secret

V8

Vaseline

Vitaminwater

Volkswagen

Volvo

Walmart

Wegmans

WhatsApp

Waitrose

Woolworths

Wheat Thins

Walkers

Warner Brothers

Warner Chilcot

Warner Music

Wells Fargo

Winston & Strawn

WingStreet

Wissotzky Tea

WWE

Wheel Washing Powder

Wrigley Company

YouTube

Yvel

Yum Brands

Ziyad

Zara

Zim Shipping

Ziff Davis

[sharkface]

Everyone on this site is obsessed with being an anticapitalist activist and will judge you for buying inexpensive necessities off of amazon because you're poor and can't get them anywhere else but then if their racist transphobic etc cozy Media Product has a new installment they're being told to boycott because the proceeds are going straight to the ammunition of genocide suddenly there's no ethical consumption under capitalism anyway

[vegance]

online rapture leftists love to pretend as if their leftism is the most enlightened one. as if „no ethical consumption under capitalism“ >> hating on people who shop second hand or go vegan, people who vote or make small positive changes in their community etc. is somehow the superior stance.

as if giving up hope and refusing any action is not the literal easiest thing you can do.

black and white thinking is not hard. refusing compassion is not hard. saying that everything is ineffective is not hard. not changing you habits and saying everything is futile anyway is not hard.

you know what is hard? gray areas. complex situations that tear you compassion in 10 different directions. making a change to your everyday habits.

but the cool thing is that making these changes and accepting the complexity of reality is also rewarding, and will give you a sense of peace that many people are searching for. and also it’s, y’know, something that will actually change things for the better.

[hidingoutbackstage]

Resident Evil Tumblr Simulator

☸️ biohazheard Follow

Friendly reminder that Tricell was found guilty of dealing with bio organic weapons so if you buy from them you’re a piece of shit

💊 raccooncitywasfaked Follow

oh sure it’s all “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism and people who are poorer might sometimes buy from unethical companies in order to stay alive” but the line is drawn when it comes to companies that sell medical supplies i just can’t with this hellsite today

📷 terrasavedd Follow

there are multiple posts going around this site of alternatives to tricell for buying medical supplies but all you wanna do is bitch on other people’s posts i see how it is

📷 terrasavedd Follow

Update: apparently @raccooncitywasfaked is literally a former Tricell employee lmaooo no wonder you’re so butthurt

5.8k notes

👩‍🦰 sarahjp Follow

Girl help why the fuck am I seeing blacklisted posts with the tags “#sex and the city spoilers” AND “#umbrella pharmaceuticals” in the same posts hello???

🍒 carryingbradshaw Follow

The Sex and the City finale aired tonight, and like five minutes later the official ruling of the Umbrella Trials was closed with a guilty conviction

💕 regenblue Follow

only on tumblr would we be finding out about world events like this

15.6k notes

💖 biowesbian Follow

the media is so fake sometimes i swear there’ll be a whole live debate on “should we call them z*mbies or ‘infected individuals’?” bro people are dying this is not the time for semantics

2 notes

🐻 don-kinxoite Follow

every time i think “the kinning community isn’t THAT toxic” i get hit over the head by some new out of this world discourse. today it’s people trying to kin actual real world fucking viruses

🐶 stolenface Follow

i’m sorry…REAL VIRUSES??? like ignoring the irl implications of that aside how would you even fucking do that?

🐻 don-kinxiote Follow

yeah real viruses. someone tried to claim they were the t virus and said to someone who tried kinning t veronica that they were copying them. what has this community come to

🌡️ engineered-kinning Follow

y'all are JUST now seeing this discourse? damn. i was mutuals w/ someone who claimed they kinned a (made up) virus that gave them all of the symptoms of alphas in the omegaverse

🐻 don-kinxiote Follow

horrible information, thank you

145 notes

💙 grahamscracker Follow

Look ik we're all "fuck the government and the dogs that work for em" but like come onnn look at Ashley Graham's new bodyguard he is fineeee

27 notes

🧬 bowliving Follow

important confession

i lied about my BOW status and all aspects of my identity (marital status, science experiment past, family, etc.) on this blog and i truly apologize

☎️ brbabow Follow

a) why is this tagged breaking bad

b) what the fuck is going on

63.7k notes

[envirogoth]

"there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" "you can criticize capitalism while participating in it" are both true and valid statements. but if you care about anti capitalism, your hands aren't wiped clean. acknowledging the problem is only the first step

yes, you can make money to survive & buy things to have fun. you can get things that aren't necessary to treat yourself. you can work your way up the corporate ladder.

some people resign themselves to their fate, as though capitalism is the way that things must be forever. but there's still questions you should ask yourself before deciding to drop all attempts at working against the system:

do you support/promote the culture of excessive buying?

how do you treat poor or otherwise disadvantaged people?

do you support local libraries, local businesses (if you can afford to), or other local organizations?

do you vote in favor of social services and education?

do you vote at all?

do you buy things in quantity over quality(lifespan) when you have the money to do either?

not everyone is an activist, but everyone has the power to vote with their money and with their ballot. telling yourself that there's no ethical consumption isn't a get out of jail free card. you don't have to be perfect or have to shop outside of your means or really go out of your way at all to take actions against capitalism. the main thing is that you care about people, your community, the environment, etc enough to care about your behaviors. that's all we can ask of anyone. to care

(this post is written about the US, I'm unclear on the situations in other countries)

[practicalsolarpunk]

is material consumption ok if it's for hobbies?

I want to start by thanking you for asking this question. It's an important one, and it leads to an idea that we don't really address much on practicalsolarpunk. But we definitely should discuss it more, and this is a good place to start. This may or may not be what you want to hear, anon, but I hope this helps a little bit. (Long post ahead.)

When I started this blog, most of the solarpunk content I could find was aesthetic, fiction, and political action. All of those are very important! Political action and resistance is how we will actually make changes on a systemic level. Aesthetic and fiction content are essential because it lets us imagine a better future, and it's impossible to create a future we can't imagine. But what I wanted was a blog of small things I could do right now or soon to reduce my consumption in general, learn new things, opt out in tiny ways, and make both the world and my own life a little better. This blog is about little things (and sometimes slightly bigger things) that we can do as individuals. Composting, gardening, foraging, and building community may make your life and the lives of those around you better, but they won't change the exploitative and destructive foundations of capitalist society.

practicalsolarpunk is not the definitive guide to solarpunk. It's not even the end goal. In my view, solarpunk has three interlocking aspects: Individual actions towards making a better future, building communities to make a better future together, and political action and resistance to move societal structures and systems towards a better future. On this blog, we mainly focus on individual actions and a little bit of community-building. Individual actions are great, but they can only go so far.

Coming back to your main concept, consumption: It's easy to come to the conclusion that consumption is bad, evil, wrong, destroying the environment, etc. If you hang out in solarpunk spaces, you've probably heard the "There is no ethical consumption under capitalism." And that's true - it is impossible to find anything created under capitalism that is not somehow exploiting the environment or people. However, consumption is required to survive. Eating food is consumption. Wearing clothes is consumption. Living indoors is consumption. Using any method of transportation besides walking is consumption. Even outside of capitalist systems, we must consume to live.

We are prone to black-and-white thinking. We want to sort things into "entirely good" and "entirely bad." When we have those boxes, we can do all of the things that make us good and none of the things that make us bad. It seems especially important to know what's good and what's bad to do when the future and the fate of the world are at stake. But in reality, almost nothing is fully good or fully bad. Everything is somewhere on the spectrum in between.

My guess is you want permission to buy things for your hobbies. (That's my guess because I have wanted the same thing - I hoped permission from someone who knew more than me about what was going on would help me feel less guilty about consuming.) And the reality is that I cannot give you that permission. There are reasonable arguments for either side. Material consumption for hobbies is good because hobbies are great for mental health and you can't change the world if your mental health is terrible. Material consumption for hobbies is bad because even though the consumption reduced is small it can build up to a greater effect over time.

Overconsumption is destroying the planet. We must consume to survive. There is no way to consume ethically under capitalism. All three of these statements are true. That means there is no "right" answer to your question. You can only make a decision based on your values, your needs, and your knowledge. I know what my choice would be in your situation, but I can't say what the best choice is for you.

I'm a huge fan of Maya Angelou's quote,: "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." Make the best decision you can with the information you have. If and when you get more information, you may need to reevaluate it. Perfection is impossible. Even when the stakes seem terrifyingly high, your best is good enough.

And one final note, because this question has reminded me a lot of myself and I don't want you to fall into the same trap I once did: Don't let guilt dictate this decision. Guilt tells you that you're doing the wrong things, you're not doing the right things, and you're definitely not doing enough. It says that making yourself happy is a moral failing, that it's wrong to do things just for fun while people are suffering and the world is burning, and that you are partially to blame for the state of the world because you chose to consume. Guilt is a liar, and you will destroy yourself before you ever do enough or sacrifice enough to satisfy it.

Ultimately, solarpunk is about creating a better future for people. A future where humans are extinct might save the environment from human overconsumption, but that's not a solarpunk future. Excessive material consumption isn't solarpunk, but denying yourself consumption that would improve your life isn't solarpunk either.

- Mod J