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Pumped gas at some station in the middle of nowhere. Thing that holds the handle up on the pump is broken or deliberately removed. Ads playing with sound on the pump, all car and gambling ads. No mute button was labeled, so I just pushed each of the buttons until I found one that turned off the sound.

The ever increasing monetization of people is emblematic of the terminal decline of western civilization. *Particularly* the legalization of gambling. I used to think that legalization of both gambling and drugs was a sign of liberalization, but it's not *at all*. It's a sign of an ever-increasing desperation for tax revenue without having to tax the rich.

PetterOfCats

@PetterOfCats@mastodon.world replied · 3 weeks ago

@freakazoid it’s not new. There are so many billboards up and down 75 in Georgia that you can’t see anything other than what they’re hawking. There’s even a song about it “signs” by the Five Man Electrical Band.

Charles U. Farley

@freakazoid@retro.social replied · 3 weeks ago

Which is not to say drugs and gambling should be illegal, just that our governments will only ever legalize them for the wrong reasons, and policies will always be optimized toward maximizing revenue, never minimizing harm.

Charles U. Farley

@freakazoid@retro.social replied · 3 weeks ago

Take "sin taxes" as an example: you tax cigarettes and alcohol and then use those taxes to pay for treatment, under the theory that the taxes will also reduce consumption. But taxes only reduce consumption by those with self-control. For those without, it only harms their finances and makes them poorer. And treatment only benefits those who actually seek treatment. So a sin tax is just another form of exploitation, and on net it's a wealth transfer from the poorest to people who are better off than them.

Charles U. Farley

@freakazoid@retro.social replied · 3 weeks ago

I use the phrase "terminal decline" rather than "end-stage capitalism" because I don't think capitalism and western civilization can be disentangled from one another. It's far too ingrained in our culture. The cancerous parts of our culture will need to be physically cast off, through for example splitting the USA, Europe, and Canada, which will almost certainly involve civil war and millions of deaths.

Charles U. Farley

@freakazoid@retro.social replied · 3 weeks ago

Another reason I call it "terminal decline" is because I know for sure we're not going to pull out of it, because there are multiple root causes that are each individually difficult to reverse. Trump and the move to the right are merely symptoms of a deep underlying illness.

* Climate change
* Pollution
* Biodiversity loss
* Population growth leveling off or reversing
* Insufficient investment in infrastructure including maintenance
* Waaaay too little investment in education
* Loss of motivation by the working class due to massive increases in inequality
* Loss of bureaucratic expertise including statecraft
* Running out of technological low-hanging fruit from computers, the Internet, and smartphones (which is why tech is grasping at AR, VR, and AI straws)

The AI bubble is yet another symptom, and it is causing the main macroeconomic indicators to lie to us about the true health of the economy. It's also causing huge malinvestment that will result in *massive* amounts of wealth destruction as GPUs that depreciate over 3 years (or less!) fail to ever pay for themselves. It's not even clear they'll be able to pay for the electricity they consume.

The Janx Devil

@janxdevil@sfba.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@freakazoid I used to harbor similar dark expectations about the trajectory of capitalism until I read #TECHNOFEUDALISM by @VaroufakisDE and came face to face with a serious argument that capitalism has already been supplanted by an even more terrible system, and it’s just getting started in the consolidating phase.

Charles U. Farley

@freakazoid@retro.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@janxdevil I feel like that's sort of orthogonal to what I'm saying. Arguments that technology will be able to produce something substantially different from the wealth inequality of the US etc in the 1920s hinge upon whether it's possible to maintain a similarly complex civilization despite everything I mentioned. I suspect we're plunging headlong into WWIII. If not, then perhaps we are heading toward a new equilibrium where most people are struggling just to survive but things aren't quite bad enough that they revolt. But I imagine it won't take too large of a shock to make it so that large subsets of the population suddenly lose a lot and rise up against the system.

The Janx Devil

@janxdevil@sfba.social replied · 3 weeks ago

@freakazoid I don’t think it’s a complete departure from what you’re saying, but I’d agree that I’m offering more of a counterpoint to your opinion than a complete agreement.

I think @VaroufakisDE (and others) have written up a framework thinking about how the new system we are facing now works. It helps to know that this new thing has defeated capitalism at large and is now consolidating power in a mopping up operation.

We used to say the revolution will not be televised, but I think the truth is that the possibility of a revolution has become increasing distant. More likely what we’re going to see is a series of peasant revolts, put down brutally, and accompanied by a circus funhouse of video representations of it from every possible angle.

The slogan that pays right now: free your mind and your ass will follow.

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