#the existential horrors of capitalism

[gutsfics]

my aunt asked me if Bugsnax is apropriate for kids (shes got two grandkids under 10) & my response has just been "yes but no but yes but no but yes but no but yes. but no." and im afraid it is Very unhelpful

[forgot-how-catflap-works]

Don't waste your life. Consume.

Wake up! You’re wasting your life. What are you doing, reading this shit on the internet!? You should be out there, in the world, among the people. No, don’t stop to feel the cool breeze against your skin. Definitely don’t smell those roses. Those roses have nothing for you. They are ephemeral, they will rot and die just like you. Your mortal form will soon be ash, all memory of you scattered to the wind, your name lost from the lips of future generations. Soon you will be just a great grandparent or uncle or aunt or distant cousin. Everything that you ever were will cease to exist. 

But I’ll tell you what you need, right this fucking minute. Something that will dull the yawning, existential ache of your own mortality. It’s a free Hasbro board game worth up to £39 RRP when you buy four qualifying BirdsEye products. 

That’s right, lap up that information like the greasiest hog at the shit snarfing contest. Let it fucking settle in your brain, sit with it and let it ferment. It could be yours. Something that will outlast you. Something that will live on for thousands of years, long after civilization has collapsed and all that remains are towering pillars of rubble. An artefact, proof that you existed. Evidence that you were here. The box may rot, but the contents will remain. Leave your mark on this fallen earth. Let it be known that you lived, that you laughed, that you loved. 

Don’t think about it. Just do it. It’s a limited time offer. You could go out today, right this minute, and buy four bags of frozen peas. Or some chips and nuggies, like the little slut you are. You could do it, and then within 30 days you could play Hungry Hippos alone in your room, doing silly voices for all of the individual hippos, making up little stories about their messy polycule. Or you could be playing Connect 4, alone in your room, trying to outwit yourself but failing every time because you are the smartest person you know. You are the only person you know. 

Operation, Guess Who, fucking Bop It?! Are you seeing this shit? The list goes on. It’s all there for you at the end of a grocery line and a 30 day wait. Think of how different your life could be. An entire board game, worth up to £39 RRP. Unthinkable. 

This is your opportunity to get a copy of fucking Monoply with your fish fingers. Now that’s a bargain. That’s a life worth living. Think of all the family gatherings you could ruin by whipping that out. Is that an evil glint you spy in your grandmother’s eye? Of course it is. She knows how this will end. In tears, like it always does. And she loves it. She craves it. That will be you one day. Smiling a wicked smile, safe in the knowledge that the copy of Monopoly you acquired through a promotional scheme between a board game company and a frozen food producer will be the trauma that bonds you through yet another miserable christmas.

Don’t think about what it took to make this happen. Don’t think about the long email chains, the meetings and pre-meetings, the spreadsheets and powerpoints, the circling back or where the pins were put. Don’t think about the thousands of work hours that were invested or the money spent. Don’t think about the finite resources that were extracted from the earth using heavy machinery, the vast and incomprehensible supply chain required to refine, process and transport those delicious balls for which the hippos crave. Consider not how our life on this earth is fleeting and how this moment, this exact slice of history that you are living right this very second, is the only thing you truly have. Do think not about the immutability of the past and how each second that slips your fingers is another moment lost. Do not think about how the future does not exist, and how tomorrow is not a guarantee. 

Think only about how you could own a copy of Trivial Pursuit, all you have to do is act now. You might even still be here when it arrives.

[scary-movies-on-netflix]

GWEN (2018)

Gwen is a young woman who lives on a farm in Wales with her mom and sister.  Dad has been sent off to war.  As she’s going home one day she sees that the family in a nearby house have all died of cholera!  Things pretty much go downhill from there:

Gwen hears someone poking around their house at night, and the next morning all of their sheep are dead!

Gwen goes to look at the house of the dead family, but her mom catches her and sends her home.  Gwen thinks that the local coal mine owner got the family sick so he could take their land.

Gwen’s mom gets sick.  The doctor, who works for the coal mine owner, loans her a bottle of “tonic wine” as medication.  Gwen sees her mom draining her own blood, which obviously isn’t helping her condition.  Gwen goes to market to try to earn enough money for more medicine, but no one wants to buy from her.  The doctor takes pity on her and gives her some more medicine, but on the way home the horse is spooked and runs off, breaking its leg.  Mom puts the horse out of its misery because Gwen is too distraught to do so.  Oh, also, the coal mine owner accuses Gwen of stealing the bottles of medicine.

Gwen’s mother is laid up in bed, and she confesses to Gwen that her father is dead.  We also see the coal mine owner looking at the house and handing a knife to a dude!  That night, Gwen burns her cross and follows her mother outside.  The dude appears and drags mom back inside, locking Gwen out.  The man tortures mother, but Gwen uses an axe to break down the door and get inside.  The man takes the axe and begins to choke out Gwen, and mother grabs his knife and stabs him once in the side and then slits his throat!  Mother sends Gwen and her sister away as a mob, led by the coal mine owner, approach.  The man slaps mother to the ground and burns her alive.  He instructs the mob to burn the house, and only one person, a young man who showed some interest in Gwen earlier, looks perturbed.

Gwen and her sister escape.  Little sister asks where they’re going, and Gwen says, “to find dad.”

This was marketed as folk horror, and there are certainly elements to that in this film.  The acting is sold.  Many shots are nicely composed, little works of art.  There’s a generally creepy atmosphere, along with a rising sense of dread.  There's maybe the slightest hint that maybe Gwen or her mother are witches who will visit righteous vengeance on the coal mine owner, but, alas, no. They are just poor people. Our frights aren’t supernatural.  They’re human.  At one point Gwen’s mother laments, “steal a sheep, and they’ll take your hand.  Steal a mountain, and they’ll make you a lord.”  This is another form of existential horror.  Our villain, the industrialist, the capitalist, the horror, is a person who has everything, but it still isn’t enough.

[bweeeeeeeee]

Having a job doesn't answer the question though?

I have other things to worry about. Like my job.

[silkyloathe]

i have got to figure out what absurdities of life are cool and how to deal with the rest which are so magnificently horrifying that trying to wrap my head around them makes me stop believing in "reality"

[rosswood]

The initial contract had been refreshingly frank about the conditions of your employment. The high mortality rates among Company employees have been exceedingly well-documented, but you figured it would be nice to die somewhere off-world at the very least - to see a bit of the universe and get to visit the handful of exomoons that humanity managed to colonize before the inevitable downward turn of your species began to catch up with you.

The real problem is that nothing, not even mortality, can triumph over legal technicality. And until your contract is up, you belong to the Company.

No matter what.

[malamilkbeats]

PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS A PLOT OF SOME OTHER FICTION OR IF THIS IS ORIGINAL

Had a dream the working class and poor were replaced by synthetic humans, as they are more efficient and require less resources for self sustaining. (Before bed, I saw Protoclone's demonstration by Clone Robotics Co-founder Dhanush Radhakrishna. Shouldn't have done that.)

Ultimately, this creates another socioeconomic class ("Remnants") for the working class and poor left over from basically being eradicated by both natural and mechanical forces. For example:

Cost-Driven Shifts

Market Consolidation and Capital Accumulation

Social Darwinism in a Technological Context ("Survivor classes")

Corporate Narratives and Propaganda

Social Strain and Identity Crisis

Natural Die-Off of the Displaced Class

I'm not sure this was already written about, but...I guess I'd want to write yet another tradition of speculative fic exploring technology, capitalism, and social stratification.

I know people are gonna say Cyperpunk!!!! But here's some key differences:

Cyberpunk focuses on oppression under corporations, where people still work but in exploitative ways (e.g., corpos, mercs, hackers).

My dream was about the irrelevance of humans—the working class isn’t just oppressed but outright replaced, making resistance harder and more existential.

The Decline Feels Natural, Not Forced by Dystopian Control –

Cyberpunk has corporations controlling the world with an iron fist.

The dream leans into a slower, more “natural” decline through economic shifts, making it feel more like an economic extinction event than outright oppression.

Cyberpunk AI and cyborgs often coexist with humans, sometimes even merging into society

In this story, synthetics aren’t competing with humans—they replace them entirely.

and lastly, and more relevant how I've seen the world dealing with recent conflict,🤔

The Working Class Isn't Fighting for Freedom—They're Fading Away

In Cyberpunk, people fight to survive against the system.

In this story, there’s not a lot of people who survive, but few that have learned to simply adjust. Overall, there’s an eerie sense of inevitable disappearance, where humans don’t matter enough to even be oppressed. Because the process was very slow and mostly over looked.

[leresq]

The Jurassic Park novel is very obviously existential horror and capitalism killed it like it does all things by turning it into a billion dollar cash cow survival adventure thriller franchise of death.

[soapdispensersalesman]

Watching this video right after finishing my rewatch after not having watched (or thought about the show) while still remembering things like mixed signals and such

[cthulhucultrevivalunit]

Reality.exe

Reality.exe by Batzrov

The man woke up and felt something was off. He couldn't quite place it, but the world seemed… He got out of the bed and walked to the kitchen.

As he reached for the coffee pot, his hand passed through it. He tried again, but his fingers slipped through the solid object as if it were mist.

Panic… he looked d0wn @ h1s b0dy. Pixelated chunks… missing… like… like… a corrupted image file. Tries to scream… no sound…

Walls… flickering…

Reality glitching in and out of existence.

C0de scr0ll1ng across the ceiling…

Sudd3nly, everything froze.

A dialogue box:

“ERROR: Hu^an.exe has encountered a fatal exception. Reboot universe? Y/N”

With trembling fingers, he reached out to make his choice, knowing that either option would [Redacted]

[END OF FILE]

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[bibibitchery]

boss gets a dollar, i get a dime, that’s why i process my existential dread on company time

[scribbled-dream]

My opinion on this might change, but:

For those who say HDG is purely psychosexual horror, and the wish fulfillment detracts from the setting, and for those who say the opposite:

They’re making out sloppily.

But for real—the point of the Affini is that they are the direct opposite of the Terran Accord. The Accord wants one story: Humanity under their control, with everyone stripped of their potential for the greater war machine, lives cut short by faulty implants and capitalism.

The Affini are the opposite. We see this time and time again. For every story like Abcission, there’s another like Wellness Check. The Affini do want control—but for them, control means giving Humanity freedom. Freedom to be a needy, Xenodrug adoring Petal, or a witty, deeply romantic Sophont that’s adoring all on their own without coercion, and broken, ruined souls who need xenodrugs and gentle, utterly gentle care to get back on their feet.

The Affini are a future where people can work for the pure enjoyment of serving their community. Of course people who are under the heel of the Accord would be afraid, resist, or fight. Fear is natural.

But for every time I see people decrying the Affini—they forget that the Affini are the closest to heaven Humanity might ever get.

The horror of your body wasting away for a state that despises you—or the potential, existential horror of having a choice—and either shirking it out of terror, or accepting it with an open heart.

The Affini are a haven for so many trans people, disabled people, all telling stories in their own, unique way. The gentle love of the Affini leading to individuality in all but name means so much to me as someone who struggles with disability and mental health.

Thanks for reading!

[love-ardour-anarchism]

Clinically relevant anxiety is the result of a brain that was forced to remain in a state of caution and fear for too long without respite.

We live in a world where we are increasingly aware of the constant danger we are exposed to.

Climate change, COVID, wars, bigotry, terrorism, poverty and human suffering, the once-more rise of far right power are all persistent sources of concern and worry. Capitalist society however tells us that these things are simply without alternative. Capitalism says there is no way but to live like this. Some people tried to be cautious about COVID for a while and then started repressing their worry and stopped being cautious. Some people repressed it all along and pretended COVID never existed. They lost themselves in conspiracy ideologies to escape that dread.

And those of us that are still cautious about COVID are gaslit constantly. The reality is this: the world is dangerous. COVID is a danger to us all. But as long as society (capitalism) claims that there is simply no way to change or remove that danger (this is false, of course) most people see no other way than to repress their own fears and gaslight those that don’t. The reason people lash out at those that are still cautious (like when we wear masks in public) is because it hinders their attempt at repressing this otherwise seemingly inescapable mental torture.

And when we as COVID cautious people struggle with the clinically relevant anxiety that constant caution breeds we are gaslit once more. We are told that our anxiety is clinically relevant and requires treatment and all too often clinical professionals claim that our anxiety stems from irrational worries and caution unnecessary. The truth is that our fears ARE rational. We live in a dangerous world and its NOT a healthy thing to repress it. The natural and healthy thing would be to CHANGE conditions to not be a source of constant worry but as long as capitalism blocks that it appears that the most prevalent coping strategies are either repression or taking constant psychological damage. And when we seek support for that sustained damage its the opposite of helpful that our reality is invalidated and we’re told our fears are clinical. The way we live is unhealthy. The way we live is not natural. The way we live is damaging. But we still need to find ways to manage our anxiety and our existential dread WITHOUT damaging ourselves but also WITHOUT closing our eyes to the horrors of this world entirely. To be aware and awake and STILL find ways to destress and live because it won’t help the world NOR us if we destroy ourselves and burn out. 

[idiopathicsmile]

the real horror, as always, is capitalism

My first-ever job was at a small indie bookstore, which was in the process of getting run out of business by Borders. (Yes, I am dating myself. I am about to date myself more.)

We sold books (naturally), puzzles, and stuffed animals. One shift in October, we received a new shipment of specialty Autumn-themed Beanie Babies. There, I beheld a sight that consumed my mind for the rest of my shift.

Haunted me, you might say.

(I have included a photo re-creation.)

That’s right, friends, it was unmistakably a vampire—a foul bloodsucker, a revenant—Nosferatu, in Beanie Baby form. I mean, it had LITTLE FELT FANGS. And I had QUESTIONS.

What does this accursed creature of the night drink? Do Beanie Babies canonically have blood? Are we meant to believe he is biting creatures and sucking out plastic beans?

What’s to stop this tiny Dracula from hungering for more potent fare? If vampirism can spread to Beanie Baby bears, where’s the limit? Where does this end? And what, dear god, did the poem on the tag say?

One mystery, at least, could be answered. Eventually, during a free moment (of which there were many, because we were going out of business), I picked up him, opened the tag, and read:

"When the Halloween fun ends, I like to gather with my friends, Into a pile we'll put our sweets, so that we can count our treats!"

That’s right: it was a Beanie Baby of a trick-or-treater. The vampire, safely relegated to the world of legend, even within the Greater Beanie Baby Universe (GBBU).

And in retrospect, of course the TY corporation lacked the necessary boldness, the vision, to release a true creature of the undead into their collection. But for one shining moment I lived in a world where it was all possible, and honestly, that was worth the mini existential crisis.

[tactical-shovel]

The absolute existential dread mixed with capitalism horror and womanhood horror of the new chi episode knocked the air out of my chest… Romani girl oppressed by the dawn who is so capitalism and materialism pilled to the point of moral corruption out of existential anxiety who, at the end of the day, cannot even trust the man who taught her to survive, to outsmart the hivemind mentality, to think and get cultured in order to gain more possibilities and chances at life… that was horrifying

[memekeymouse]

Welp, Mickey's getting the same horror movie treatment as Pooh. I'd say no one say this coming, but let's be really here, we all did.

Disappointing yet literally no one is surprised.

Sad thing is: I would LOVE to see Mickey Mouse horror content, I just wish they actually put some more thought into it beyond “Mickey goes on a killing spree for shock value”.

Where’s my existential dread? Where’s my spiral into madness under the pressure of capitalism??? There is so much about Mickey that’s horrifying in a meta sense and no one is jumping in on that and it SUCKS