[Doomsday Economics] Life itself is the original recommender system, and man is the query

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Doomsday Economics] Life itself is the original recommender system, and man is the query

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(Thread IKs: skooma512)

RadiRoot: Feb 3, 2007

FlapYoJacks posted:

Anybody who complains about the olds is doing exactly what the capitalists want. Way to be good little lemmings.

the capitalists don�t want you all to give me moneys. not one of you is giving me moneys. that makes mao very sad.

# ? May 16, 2023 04:45

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# ? Jun 11, 2024 10:43

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

it's housing related so it kinda plays into demographic change of cities but The City Authentico book just came out a few weeks ago. David Banks has been on trueanon a couple of times and has been interesting to listen to. book seems good so far. it's about the pinstagram aesthetic of doughy white wisconsin transplants performing cultural seeking something "authentic" in hellscape america by moving to the big city n consuming The Right Products to find meaning in an alienated america. and how cities change and market themselves to The Whale demographics

pirate link: http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=31A6D30E6F68E605453A174DEF1149DB

quote:

All these entities compete with one another for resources and attention. They must scrape together whatever competitive advantage they can find to attract just the right amount of residents, businesses, and tax dollars. Often enough, that means drawing comparisons to neighbors and describing what sets them apart. I was surprised to read on the Fulton County IDA website that �in Schenectady, Saratoga, Albany and Troy, the kind of space we�re talking about usually comes at a premium.�11 When I moved to Troy just nine years ago, people were still using �Troylet� sneeringly, and college tour guides warned families against going downtown. Those warnings had always been little more than thinly veiled racism, but when did we become �premium�?

My neighbors and thousands of other people in the Capital Region are asking each other that same question. How did these forgotten backwaters become �historic,� �grand,� and �distinctive�? Who cares how old our bricks are? Maybe another way to ask all these questions at once is to wonder what exactly is being sold when you sell the character of a place? Not just the amenities or the architecture per se, but how do you put a price tag on the vibe of a town? Literally, where does the price tag go? Do you put it on the buildings themselves? On the people who�ve spent decades building and maintaining the physical and cultural infrastructure of the place? Or is it the land itself that bears the price?

Where to put the price tag or, to put it in a more academic way, where value is stored is one of the central quandaries in the City Authentic, a term I use not only to title this book but to describe a set of policies, practices, and ideas that leverage our modern desires for meaning and belonging to drive economic development. Paradoxically, the search for meaning in cities� amenities and landscapes within today�s attention economy begets a cynical, postmodern tapestry of symbols, brands, and algorithmically selected aesthetic motifs that are anything but unique or meaningful. Rather, cities are encouraged by governments and businesses to act like reality TV stars and social media influencers�to become cartoons of themselves. Often this means bars that dress themselves up like what used to occupy the building a century ago or festivals that honor a romanticized past with trinkets and twee souvenirs for sale to tourists and new transplants.

A hundred years ago there was a City Beautiful movement. Then, civic leaders used big monuments, new buildings, and the press that followed to attract even more investment and drum up interest in the city. Today the City Authentic uses images of the old, rather than building something new, to grab attention. Civic leaders do this not just because attention is increasingly a precursor to profit, but because people and places mutually shape one another and so much of that shaping happens online and in media, where images are often (though not always) free from the constraints of historical context.

No one uses the term the City Authentic yet. I made it up to describe a phenomenon that has only grown since I started writing this book amid the pandemic and its concomitant economic impacts. Despite its ambiguity, authenticity has become a watchword in urban planning and economic development. The infinite interpretability of authenticity is fertile, valuable ground for speculation and Lyle Lanley salesmanship. The City Authentic is defined by a nostalgic approach to both building preservation and new construction that foregrounds authenticity and uniqueness over mass production and conformity. However, rather than herald a shift toward slowing growth and bringing economic activity more in line with human needs, the City Authentic gives rise to a ravenous real estate market that mines the delicate patina of history for profit. The City Authentic renders neighborhoods and entire municipalities into brands consumable through not just purchasing or renting real estate but through the conspicuous sharing of artifacts and symbols on social media.

Embedded in the term City Authentic is an acknowledgment that authenticity is both crucial to urban redevelopment and nearly infinitely interpretable. In the first quarter of the twenty-first century, I argue, it is the crucial concept that everyone is trying to shoehorn into their development projects. But in the past, other equally interpretable words fit the bill. This next section will go through that history and give us a better idea of where the City Authentic came from.

CITIES OF MOVEMENTS
The history of capitalist urban development is a story of competition for attention and money. This is how we should understand the changes in architectural style, governance, and financing that have defined cities for over two centuries. These changes were brought about through professional reform movements�internecine arguments among elites, not grassroots political campaigns�where powerful people, for both selfish and egalitarian reasons, sought to clean up the city by making it more beautiful or efficient. Above all, these movements sought to reorganize the city for the benefit of wealthy real estate holders, though they are much more complicated�morally and materially�than just that.

The two movements that I want to highlight are the City Beautiful and the City Efficient.12 With each successive change in urban governance came a new cast of practitioners touting new theories of not only what made for a good city but what society itself should be like. A central thesis of this book is that we are living amid a third great movement of city building warned families against going downtown. Those warnings had always been little more than thinly veiled racism, but when did we become �premium�?

My neighbors and thousands of other people in the Capital Region are asking each other that same question. How did these forgotten backwaters become �historic,� �grand,� and �distinctive�? Who cares how old our bricks are? Maybe another way to ask all these questions at once is to wonder what exactly is being sold when you sell the character of a place? Not just the amenities or the architecture per se, but how do you put a price tag on the vibe of a town? Literally, where does the price tag go? Do you put it on the buildings themselves? On the people who�ve spent decades building and maintaining the physical and cultural infrastructure of the place? Or is it the land itself that bears the price?

Where to put the price tag or, to put it in a more academic way, where value is stored is one of the central quandaries in the City Authentic, a term I use not only to title this book but to describe a set of policies, practices, and ideas that leverage our modern desires for meaning and belonging to drive economic development. Paradoxically, the search for meaning in cities� amenities and landscapes within today�s attention economy begets a cynical, postmodern tapestry of symbols, brands, and algorithmically selected aesthetic motifs that are anything but unique or meaningful. Rather, cities are encouraged by governments and businesses to act like reality TV stars and social media influencers�to become cartoons of themselves. Often this means bars that dress themselves up like what used to occupy the building a century ago or festivals that honor a romanticized past with trinkets and twee souvenirs for sale to tourists and new transplants.

A hundred years ago there was a City Beautiful movement. Then, civic leaders used big monuments, new buildings, and the press that followed to attract even more investment and drum up interest in the city. Today the City Authentic uses images of the old, rather than building something new, to grab attention. Civic leaders do this not just because attention is increasingly a precursor to profit, but because people and places mutually shape one another and so much of that shaping happens online and in media, where images are often (though not always) free from the constraints of historical context.

No one uses the term the City Authentic yet. I made it up to describe a phenomenon that has only grown since I started writing this book amid the pandemic and its concomitant economic impacts. Despite its ambiguity, authenticity has become a watchword in urban planning and economic development. The infinite interpretability of authenticity is fertile, valuable ground for speculation and Lyle Lanley salesmanship. The City Authentic is defined by a nostalgic approach to both building preservation and new construction that foregrounds authenticity and uniqueness over mass production and conformity. However, rather than herald a shift toward slowing growth and bringing economic activity more in line with human needs, the City Authentic gives rise to a ravenous real estate market that mines the delicate patina of history for profit. The City Authentic renders neighborhoods and entire municipalities into brands consumable through not just purchasing or renting real estate but through the conspicuous sharing of artifacts and symbols on social media.

Embedded in the term City Authentic is an acknowledgment that authenticity is both crucial to urban redevelopment and nearly infinitely interpretable. In the first quarter of the twenty-first century, I argue, it is the crucial concept that everyone is trying to shoehorn into their development projects. But in the past, other equally interpretable words fit the bill. This next section will go through that history and give us a better idea of where the City Authentic came from.

....

When I taught introductory urban geography, I would start my lecture on cultural commodification by asking students to give me examples of things they would consider to be authentic. The answers are not much different from the quotes above. They talk about homemade food, classic artworks, and honest stories. Home-baked apple pie, a musician with an old guitar in a dive bar singing the blues, and grandma�s stories strike us as genuine expressions of human talent, creativity, and care. They are not mass produced, which makes them feel both very intimate but also agnostic to our existence. An old pie recipe that existed before you were born could not have possibly been designed to appeal to your desires the way a frozen pie at the grocery store is taste-tested before showing up on the shelf. Authentic things just are�no pretentions, no gimmicks.

It is strange then, that food blogs will sometimes call a dish an �authentic� expression of a specific cuisine, even if it is made by a famous chef with no personal connection to the social world that produced the dish. There must be then, some element of authenticity that can be fabricated or intentionally produced, even if authenticity is all about originality. In short, authenticity may seem like a descriptor of how something was made, but what if it is actually describing how we feel?

Things get even more confusing when famous people and places get described as authentic. Donald Trump, quite possibly the most famous person to ever live, is routinely described as authentic.9 How can someone who practically wrote (well, had ghostwritten for him) the book on being a celebrity businessman be described with the same word as a handmade Din� tapestry? Maybe nothing is authentic.

Trump is said to be authentic because he is, to put it more charitably than he deserves, �unfiltered� and expresses emotions like rage and joy in places and situations that are usually reserved for solemnity and poise. He also flaunts his power and wealth while other politicians make attempts at approximating a �normal person� by eating a corn dog at the state fair. Even people who see Trump for what he is�a media-savvy demagogue�usually acknowledge that he is a more honest version of the Republican Party�s long-standing value set. Authenticity isn�t always pleasurable. But both Trump�s supporters and his opponents acknowledge that the way he uses media confers a sense of authenticity.

Media, then, is a crucial component of our competing notions of authenticity. This checks out given all the tourism industry�s advertisements for authentic experiences that let you see the �real� Hawaii, Los Angeles, or Thailand. These enormously popular destinations�along with famous people like Trump�appear to have some claim on authenticity, but how can this be? How can someone or someplace be intimate and famous or genuine and purposefully contrived all at the same time? This poses a paradox: how can Instagram posts with thousands of likes�for President Trump or Los Angeles�be authentic because of their media saturation? Doesn�t that fly in the face of all that talk of apple pie and dive bars? One way to square this is to say that some people are just dupes who fall for marketing and see things as authentic when they�re clearly not. But this explanation creates more problems than it solves. If there is a �real� and a fake authenticity, then we would have to have some objective measure of authenticity. But just the thought of creating such a metric seems perverse. Are you going to take out your authenticity detector and measure Aunt JoJo�s pierogi recipe? Measuring something means you can easily compare it to something else, while the whole point of authenticity is uniqueness.

Another way to look at it is that there are multiple kinds of authenticity. Some people, places, and things are naturally authentic, while famous people and mass-produced objects are designed so well that they seamlessly fit into a culture and are thus perceived as authentic. Here we�re treating authenticity like diamonds�something that can be produced through natural processes and be discovered�but also conceding that it can be manufactured so perfectly that the only way you can tell the difference is through authenticating something�s origin. The problem here is we�re still left with a natural/artificial dichotomy that can easily slip back into real/fake.

Perhaps, then, we should return to our initial supposition: authenticity isn�t about a person�s or a thing�s origin; it is about how we feel. What if authenticity emerges out of a relationship between tourist and destination, audience and celebrity, or, generically, subject and object? Rather than struggle to understand why some thing, place, or person is authentic, we might be better off understanding the contexts and relationships between things and people that create authentic experiences in the first place. Authenticity is a feeling, not a characteristic of an object. After all, the entire CapNY campaign is predicated on the idea that a place can be authentic but still need a �story� or cohering brand to convey this fact to the public. If authenticity is an experience, then advertising the things and places that will give you that experience is just shortening the discovery process.

We are going to spend this entire chapter understanding how and why authenticity is such an important force in our lives. In so doing it�ll become clear why the authentic character of people, things, and experiences are tightly interwoven. This is a fairly fundamental investigation, so we�ll have to zoom way out from the present-day Capital Region and instead look back in time and outward across multiple theories of what it means to be or experience the authentic. We�ll begin with what it means to be an authentic person, but we will quickly find it is inseparable from being an authentic thing or experience.

Xaris has issued a correction as of 05:01 on May 16, 2023

# ? May 16, 2023 04:50

SKULL.GIF: Jan 20, 2017

VomitOnLino posted:

Reminder that Hoots went to the cinema at the height of covid to watch some marvel movie or other bulllshit (with his family!) and then got hit. Dude is lib brained as gently caress, probably also covid-induced brain worms ..

pathetic attempt at character assassination

# ? May 16, 2023 04:58

RadiRoot: Feb 3, 2007

Willa Rogers posted:

it was sidetracked by neolib freaks blaming it on generations instead of class, and idiots like you buying into it.

gently caress neolibs, gently caress the upper class, and gently caress BOOMERS

# ? May 16, 2023 05:03

thalweg: Aug 26, 2019

Xaris posted:

it's housing related so it kinda plays into demographic change of cities but The City Authentico book just came out a few weeks ago. David Banks has been on trueanon a couple of times and has been interesting to listen to. book seems good so far. it's about the pinstagram aesthetic of doughy white wisconsin transplants performing cultural seeking something "authentic" in hellscape america by moving to the big city n consuming The Right Products to find meaning in an alienated america. and how cities change and market themselves to The Whale demographics

pirate link: http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=31A6D30E6F68E605453A174DEF1149DB

Me shouting "DEBORD WAS RIGHT, YOU KNOW" for the 69th time while my friends roll their eyes

# ? May 16, 2023 05:04

holefoods: Jan 10, 2022

VomitOnLino posted:

Reminder that Hoots went to the cinema at the height of covid to watch some marvel movie or other bulllshit (with his family!) and then got hit. Dude is lib brained as gently caress, probably also covid-induced brain worms ..

lmao didn�t someone in the covid thread go apeshit over this and red text him?

# ? May 16, 2023 05:06

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

thalweg posted:

Me shouting "DEBORD WAS RIGHT, YOU KNOW" for the 69th time while my friends roll their eyes

debord wasn't really right because while there is indeed a society of the spectacle, it is not divorced from material conditions. the spectacle, and behavioral participation of the masses, arises out of the environment that includes material conditions.

but he still had some good ideas

# ? May 16, 2023 05:06

RadiRoot: Feb 3, 2007

SKULL.GIF posted:

pathetic attempt at character assassination

how dare you, they potentially murdered the whole theater

# ? May 16, 2023 05:09

Woke Mind Virus: Aug 22, 2005

VomitOnLino posted:

Reminder that Hoots went to the cinema at the height of covid to watch some marvel movie or other bulllshit (with his family!) and then got hit. Dude is lib brained as gently caress, probably also covid-induced brain worms ..

I think you got him mixed up with Gene Park

# ? May 16, 2023 05:11

VomitOnLino: Jun 13, 2005; Sometimes I get lost.

Woke Mind Virus posted:

I think you got him mixed up with Gene Park

Different garbage movies same behavior. Also Gene Park is repentant after covid took his health and livelihood

# ? May 16, 2023 05:12

thalweg: Aug 26, 2019

Xaris posted:

debord wasn't really right because while there is indeed a society of the spectacle, it is not divorced from material conditions. the spectacle, and behavioral participation of the masses, arises out of the environment that includes material conditions.

but he still had some good ideas

I don't remember where he said it was divorced from material conditions. But yeah he was just taking Marx and filtering it through the lens of media and culture rather than capital and labor. Like a few times even taking the language of Marx and replacing words iirc? Which is a cool idea but also not a recipe for being completely rigorous and correct.

Some of the early passages like this one seem to imply a relationship to material conditions, at least to my reading. But I haven't read the whole thing and am not a philosophy understander

quote:

17
The first stage of the economy's domination of social life brought about an evident degradation of being into having - human fulfillment was no longer equated with what one was, but with what one possessed. The present stage, in which social life has become completely occupied by the accumulated productions of the economy, is bringing about a general shift from having to appearing - all "having" must now derive its immediate prestige and its ultimate purpose from appearances

Anyway debord was right

E: fixed phone post formatting

thalweg has issued a correction as of 05:16 on May 16, 2023

# ? May 16, 2023 05:13

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

RadiRoot posted:

gently caress neolibs, gently caress the upper class, and gently caress BOOMERS

rude

# ? May 16, 2023 05:22

RealityWarCriminal: Aug 10, 2016

Mr Hootington posted:

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1658268527764070401?t=PVwrrq69mnO6rJgsycMwiQ&s=19

drat a second recession on top of the current recession? can you imagine

# ? May 16, 2023 05:24

RadiRoot: Feb 3, 2007

Xaris posted:

it's housing related so it kinda plays into demographic change of cities but The City Authentico book just came out a few weeks ago. David Banks has been on trueanon a couple of times and has been interesting to listen to. book seems good so far. it's about the pinstagram aesthetic of doughy white wisconsin transplants performing cultural seeking something "authentic" in hellscape america by moving to the big city n consuming The Right Products to find meaning in an alienated america. and how cities change and market themselves to The Whale demographics

pirate link: http://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=31A6D30E6F68E605453A174DEF1149DB

i dunno but that sounds like a load of bullshit. wtf are they going on about, nothing makes sense.

how about an authentic place before colonial times?

RadiRoot has issued a correction as of 05:36 on May 16, 2023

# ? May 16, 2023 05:25

RadiRoot: Feb 3, 2007

Willa Rogers posted:

rude

its ok i am ready to accept my generation's failing too.

# ? May 16, 2023 05:26

Smythe: Oct 12, 2003; no meds = f4

thalweg posted:

Me shouting "DEBORD WAS RIGHT, YOU KNOW" for the 69th time while my friends roll their eyes

this is my gimmick as well

# ? May 16, 2023 05:30

ArmedZombie: Jun 6, 2004

more like Gay DeBoring

# ? May 16, 2023 05:42

VomitOnLino: Jun 13, 2005; Sometimes I get lost.

RadiRoot posted:

its ok i am ready to accept my generation's failing too.

Such as?

# ? May 16, 2023 05:45

Mr Hootington: Jul 24, 2008; I'M HAVING A HOOT EATING CORNETTE THE LONG WAY

https://twitter.com/C_Barraud/status/1658327763613253634?t=i8oaP5yOAfh6qJAIZwEvOw&s=19

# ? May 16, 2023 05:50

FlapYoJacks: Feb 12, 2009

Consolidated Ed posted:

boomer is a state of mind, does that untangle this very complicated subject for you? its a state of mind that allows you to own multiple homes, multiple vehicles, and still complain about ungrateful lazy millenials and zoomers. like every single one of my multiple boomer bosses has done, multiple times.

What does it feel like to be a patsy for capitalists talking points?

# ? May 16, 2023 05:52

FlapYoJacks: Feb 12, 2009

RadiRoot posted:

the capitalists don�t want you all to give me moneys. not one of you is giving me moneys. that makes mao very sad.

Marx said to give me all the moneys. Marx is above Mao.

# ? May 16, 2023 05:53

RadiRoot: Feb 3, 2007

VomitOnLino posted:

Such as?

i failed to save the planet.

# ? May 16, 2023 06:00

RadiRoot: Feb 3, 2007

FlapYoJacks posted:

Marx said to give me all the moneys. Marx is above Mao.

fuuuuuuuck :argh:

# ? May 16, 2023 06:01

RadiRoot: Feb 3, 2007

Mr Hootington posted:

https://twitter.com/C_Barraud/status/1658327763613253634?t=i8oaP5yOAfh6qJAIZwEvOw&s=19

look at you still posting number at the wee hours. you're doing the lords work my friend.

and factory activity can't fail in ny now that we have MICRON motherfuckers!!!!!!

RadiRoot has issued a correction as of 06:08 on May 16, 2023

# ? May 16, 2023 06:05

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

thalweg posted:

I don't remember where he said it was divorced from material conditions. But yeah he was just taking Marx and filtering it through the lens of media and culture rather than capital and labor. Like a few times even taking the language of Marx and replacing words iirc? Which is a cool idea but also not a recipe for being completely rigorous and correct.

Some of the early passages like this one seem to imply a relationship to material conditions, at least to my reading. But I haven't read the whole thing and am not a philosophy understander

Anyway debord was right

E: fixed phone post formatting

so in in debord-ian terms, there's the reality: who owns what, who can afford what, and that's what really matters, but reality has disappeared. it's there but don't think about it OK?? the spectacle is a super reality, or a tumor reality that's taken over the host and the spectacle artifice becomes our consciousness and full of stuff that doesn't matter. like the fresh new products you don't need, or what celebrity gossip. even when reality is brought up, it's mixed in with the whole morass and drowns out.

where marx would say: the wealth of those societies in which capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as an immense accumulation of commodities. Debord takes this and instead says the wealth of those societies in which capitalist mode of production prevails, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. The reality, true production, is now who owns what and seduces all the attention from the rest of it. moving from the conspicuous consumption of commodities to the conspicuous consumption of images

so that's kind of a Situationalist Institute framework. like yeah it's true, but also power and spectacles are still derive from commodities. although the two are indeed very intertwined

imo I kinda like baudrillard's expansion of SI into the simulacra, it takes debord and puts it on LSD: there is no reality, there is only hyperreality. only simulations (not in the computer sense) of what we think constitutes reality and all signs and symbols are subverted to suite the capital organism while selling it back to us. it is not a prescription nor a remedy: it's an eulogy for the real that is permanently lost and cannot be returned to

i'm probably wrong since im not a philosophy-knower but that's my understanding

# ? May 16, 2023 06:18

fanfic insert: Nov 4, 2009

Elman posted:

If all the billionaires died tomorrow, the world would come to a grinding halt while everyone parties for a full week

this would kill the sanitation workers

# ? May 16, 2023 06:30

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

Xaris posted:

it's an eulogy for the real that is permanently lost and cannot be returned to

the Real has always been ineffable.

https://youtu.be/TEap3IVX_kg

but we are all in it together..

# ? May 16, 2023 06:48

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

jesus christ willa you're old enough to know the stove is hot at this point

# ? May 16, 2023 07:08

Zodium: Jun 19, 2004

willa's right

# ? May 16, 2023 09:08

Zodium: Jun 19, 2004

RadiRoot posted:

its ok i am ready to accept my generation's failing too.

posters like this will switch to whinging about zoomers in ten years

# ? May 16, 2023 09:10

DancingShade: Jul 26, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

Zodium posted:

posters like this will switch to whinging about zoomers in ten years

Why are these young people doing all these dumb things and ignoring my good advice?

"Shut up old timer!" - every generation

# ? May 16, 2023 09:22

Pidgin Englishman: Apr 30, 2007; If you shoot
you better hit your mark

krispykremessuck posted:

Willa’s right

Thread title

The dumping on an obvious comrade is just fuckin dumb

# ? May 16, 2023 09:37

Taima: Dec 31, 2006; tfw you're peeing next to someone in the lineup and they don't know

Xaris posted:

honestly, do whatever makes you happy while the shoe is on. stay at a four seasons in venice, have fun with your wife, snowboard while there�s still snow. personally, I think it�s somewhat funny, I�m perhaps too good at compartmentalizing (ptsd ftw), and declining material conditions are the vine of change to the grapes of wrath, so I think it�s interesting. I find it more of amusing and doesn�t phase me because the system should not continue. but definitely some people want to continue living in the status quo and that�s quite all right, not a knock, I get it I�m pretty comfortable despite not being a computer toucher and really don�t want that upset but also the capital hegemony has to change; one way or another. it�ll probably be for the worse but we shall see, which is why tis interesting times

I appreciate your perspective friend, thank you. You've always been cool.

Not a Children posted:

I'm not joking when I say take a break from C-SPAM

It may feel like you're gaining control by staying up-to-the-minute informed but you're really just ruminating on how out of your hands the world is. Disconnect a while, focus on things you enjoy, and just try to mellow. If the world ends it won't be because you stopped reading this thread, but when you're reading this thread you're not generally getting as much out of your time as reading a book or talking to loved ones

I think you are probably right. Unfortunately (fortunately?) I am a tech layabout who has at most like 4 hours of real work a day. Even that is a stretch, probably averages like 2-3 hours a day. Even though I work out/exercise every day, do pretty extensive cooking and such, there's only so much on my agenda and I can't play video games for 10 hours a day anymore at age 37.

It gives me a weird complex where I know I contribute very little to society, but what am I supposed to do, get a shittier job on purpose? I completely sympathize with people in this thread who hate people like me, but it's not like I chose this, it just kind of happened because I'm good at computers like a lot of people who grew up on here. Of course, who knows, the way tech is going, maybe getting a shittier job is in the cards soon.

I was just thinking about this the other day - as much as I hated my commute over highway 17 5 days a week, I miss going to the office and seeing people who I genuinely liked to be with. All of those people have quit or have been laid off (yay tech in 2023, we have laid off like half our entire office) but idk if work from home has been healthy for me despite how incredibly idyllic it looks on paper.

I also had to move from the beach in santa cruz to the Seattle suburbs which has totally hosed up my outdoor recreation (was a consummate surfer and beach bro). On top of that I feel isolated, especially since my wife works in healthcare, she almost never works from home for obvious reasons. We live next to a bunch of olds, so we don't really have local friends. It's been 6 months though so it's not like we just moved here.

I have nothing against old people but they legitimately (on average!) don't understand what the world is like these days. It's like they live in a different universe. Which is fine but how are you supposed to get on the same page with those people. It's also been hard to find like minded friends in general since we don't plan for children- don't get it twisted we really like kids, just not something we're trying to do ourselves. I guess if people have ideas on this front I would be curious to hear them as long as it's not like "go on Meetup.com my guy"

The whole thing is depressing because I should be thankful and honestly deserve the guillotine but you would be surprised at how lame it can be sometimes in practice.

Sigh idk I gotta figure my poo poo out. Anyways, thanks. Definitely spurring me to work on things. I'm not afraid of the world ending btw. It's the ceaseless "everything gets worse and nothing gets better, forever" that is wearing me the gently caress down, constantly. Anyways I won't post about it anymore, no one should give a poo poo about me when people have real problems. Cheers.

Mola Yam posted:

correct your thought

Hah, trust. I play my share of games.

Taima has issued a correction as of 11:09 on May 16, 2023

# ? May 16, 2023 10:04

Mola Yam: Jun 18, 2004; Kali Ma Shakti de!

Taima posted:

and I can't play video games for 10 hours a day anymore at age 37.

correct your thought

# ? May 16, 2023 10:47

Zodium: Jun 19, 2004

Taima posted:

I appreciate your perspective friend, thank you. You've always been cool.

I think you are probably right. Unfortunately (fortunately?) I am a tech layabout who has at most like 4 hours of real work a day. Even that is a stretch, probably averages like 2-3 hours a day. Even though I work out/exercise every day, do pretty extensive cooking and such, there's only so much on my agenda and I can't play video games for 10 hours a day anymore at age 37.

It gives me a weird complex where I know I contribute very little to society, but what am I supposed to do, get a shittier job on purpose? I completely sympathize with people in this thread who hate people like me, but it's not like I chose this, it just kind of happened because I'm good at computers like a lot of people who grew up on here. Of course, who knows, the way tech is going, maybe getting a shittier job is in the cards soon.

I was just thinking about this the other day - as much as I hated my commute over highway 17 5 days a week, I miss going to the office and seeing people who I genuinely liked to be with. All of those people have quit or have been laid off (yay tech in 2023, we have laid off like half our entire office) but idk if work from home has been healthy for me despite how incredibly idyllic it looks on paper.

I also had to move from the beach in santa cruz to the Seattle suburbs which has totally hosed up my outdoor recreation (was a consummate surfer and beach bro). On top of that I feel isolated, especially since my wife works in healthcare, she almost never works from home for obvious reasons. We live next to a bunch of olds, so we don't really have local friends, yet, or whatever. It's been 6 months though. I have nothing against old people but they legitimately don't understand what the world is like these days. It's like they live in a different universe. Which is fine but how are you supposed to get on the same page with those people.

The whole thing is depressing because I should be thankful and honestly deserve the guillotine but you would be surprised at how lame it can be sometimes in practice.

Sigh idk I gotta figure my poo poo out. Anyways, thanks. Definitely spurring me to work on things. I'm not afraid of the world ending btw. It's the ceaseless "everything gets worse and nothing gets better, forever" that is wearing me the gently caress down, constantly. Anyways I won't post about it anymore, no one should give a poo poo about me when people have real problems. Cheers.

if you sell your labor to live, you are a worker. you don't deserve the guillotine, regardless of what idiots here or elsewhere say, and even if they aren't necessarily existentially threatening, your problems are real. you share them in some form with millions and millions of people, probably including most everyone around you. you're not supposed to get a shittier job on purpose, whatever that means. what job would you even get? there's no job you can get in the imperial core that doesn't facilitate the reproduction of capitalism. assess your resources, like the free time you have available as a tech layabout. use your free time to read marxist books, or hell, the marxism/re-education/organize your workplace threads if the books are a bridge too far, to organize the disjointed events you read into a coherent model instead of an endless cavalcade of horrors you can only passively watch. organize your coworkers. join a socialist organization. use whatever capabilities and knowledge and money you have to find people around you who need help, and help them. wallowing in guilt over your position in a system you had no business establishing and no control in helps no one, and it doesn't matter if you express that guilt with an approach strategy through doomscrolling c-spam or with an avoidance strategy through video games and other distractions. at best it allows the problem to fester, at worst it actively hurts yourself.

# ? May 16, 2023 11:19

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

that is good advice.

# ? May 16, 2023 11:21

Egg Moron: Jul 21, 2003; the dreams of the delighting void

RealityWarCriminal posted:

drat a second recession on top of the current recession? can you imagine

Dueling recessions

# ? May 16, 2023 11:24

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

I would say actually a certain amount of doom acceptance is a good thing, one shouldn't be trapped by complacency, but you can't let it entirely crush you either. Cspam in particular does have a habit of "overdoing" things (I think everyone knows the threads that go too far), but it is good to be aware of what is going on to protect yourself.

Also, organizing your workplace/joining a socialist organization is good in all, but honestly, I think you also have to protect yourself to some extent since retaliation is often likely in the US and also I honestly don't really think any Western socialist orgs are really worth it at this point, especially the United States. They seem to be 99% front organizations/libs/social democrats etc.

I would say take a break.

# ? May 16, 2023 11:34

mycomancy: Oct 16, 2016

Jesus Christ, another Boomer back and forth? Boring. I expect better from you jackasses.

# ? May 16, 2023 11:35

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# ? Jun 11, 2024 10:43

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

Doomsday Economics thread, please welcome your new thread IK, Vox Nihili

# ? May 16, 2023 11:35

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Doomsday Economics] Life itself is the original recommender system, and man is the query

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