Submitted 11 months ago by STRIKINGdebate2@lemmy.world to aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/7a2ec44c-29e3-4de3-a367-cacbf3379d0d.jpeg
What the fuck is with this thread being overrun with dickheads? Is this the breaking point, has Lemmy reached critical mass?
The image represents how capitalism uses the myth of scarcity. There’s a bed there, and there’s a human being sleeping on the ground. The lie is that there isn’t enough to go around; that somebody has to go without.
That’s bullshit. We have everything.
The message is that you deserve nothing and must earn everything, not that there isn’t enough to go around.
Well you dont deserve anything that someone else has made…
That’s not the message either. There are homeless shelters, mental and health services, and affordable housing being priotized all over.
Necessities are in large free to those who need them. Nice to haves and luxury beds are not.
The annoying thing is that there will very likely be a homeless shelter in this city that he’s not allowed to sleep in because they have a zero tolerance drug policy.
In what system would the homeless people sleep their nights in bed stores?
That’s just unfaithful interpretation of the argument, and you know it. US on average has 27 empty houses per a homeless person.
The scarcity isn’t primarily the beds.
Obviously not. The existence of homelessness isn’t due to scarcity at all, it’s to do with a system that tolerates (even necessitates) homelessness. The image could have just as easily been someone sleeping outside an apartment with a sign advertising available units; they sleep, freeze, and starve, because our economic model rejects their basic needs in favor of commodifying them.
It’s not that hard a concept to grasp, it just seems like people have ingrained the logic of the market in their brains and can’t conceptualize the issue of poverty beyond ‘stuff costs money’.
Bed stores are a problem. They sit there taking up space for what? To look pretty for people to try out different brands of bed because we like to not figure out a universal solution to the problem of making a comfortable healthy platform of material that we can lay upon for long term rest. On top of that, instead of supplying our nation with affordable housing and furniture, it is laughably ignored.
All these empty locations for these corporations to advertise products and “experiences”
Lemmy recently had a swarm of conservative sign ups and/or bot accounts in the last few days.
Has been for a while. During the big exodus from reddit we brought with us lots of typical redditors that think being a contrarian dickhead makes them cool.
As well as lots of the usually sad little losers from across the internet that see people enjoying themselves and get the irresistible urge to make things worse.
“irresistible urge”, sure, but I wouldn’t give them credit for making things worse. Sure, they snicker at sticking their old gum under the desk, but it’s a whole set of other issues that’re burning down the building in the meantime.
What the fuck is with this thread being overrun with
dickheadsliberals?
Fixed.
You’ll shit your pants when you will learn that liberal is center right on anywhere else but the US.
There’s a ghastly number of people who are aggressively ignorant assholes.
The point is that we don’t have people sleeping on the street for a lack of… anything, really. Including beds. The point is that, when nearly everything is run for-profit, and it’s even slightly more profitable to let people suffer and even die, then people will suffer and die. We do a better job selling beds than we do making sure everyone has a bed to sleep in. We could make sure everyone has access to a warm bed, shelter, food, medicine, etc., but we don’t, and it’s less and less acceptable to just accept the status quo just because it’s the status quo. If someone thinks the status quo is defensible, it’s on them to defend it.
That doesn’t mean the mattress seller is evil, or (and I can’t understand the logic in one of the other comments) that wanting people to be housed makes you a hypocrite if you have your own housing. And the absolutely shameless comments that openly admit they won’t (really can’t) explain their position, but are going to condescend anyway.
So do you let homeless people sleep in your house with you? I’m sure you have plenty of extra space…
We have more empty homes than homeless people.
I have. Also sheltered illegals before. Which at one point involved me having to stare down and bluff a process server. Not a moment I would like to revisit but proud of myself for doing.
Just because someone may or may not want homeless people sleeping in their house, doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t support social safety nets to make sure people aren’t freezing to death sleeping in indignity on the streets.
I think people’s issue with it is it’s just not very well thought out.
The bed store would never under any circumstance provide the bed for homeless people to access what world would that ever happen in? The problem is the homeless person doesn’t have access to shelter but that’s not the fault of the bed store that’s the fault of the state.
The image seems to suggest that the bed store are holding all the beds for some kind of weird show of economic supremacy rather than you know the fact that it’s a display room. No one’s buying those beds they’re display models.
No one is arguing that homeless people shouldn’t be held but that particular image isn’t really anything.
Why don’t we just convert all the bed stores into homeless shelters?
That way you can try out a bed, get some feedback from actual users (the homeless sleeping on the bed), all the store profits can go to pay for housing the homeless, AND government won’t have to provide public housing!
It’s a win-win, kill 2 birds with 1 stone.
We don’t have everything. But we have plenty of lazy people who don’t want to contribute to the society.
And what did this thought contribute to society?
What does the society you dream of look like? Because at the moment, it’s shit.
And what do you contribute to society?
But there being a salespoint for bed does not take home from the homeless. The issue is them being without shelter.
This is Symbolik, but not the issue at hand. Also turning commercial buildings into flats does not seem like a good/efficient solution to a complex issue like homelessness. (Disregarding living out of a car homelessness)
The other guy said it perfectly:
There’s a bed there, and there’s a human being sleeping on the ground.
It really isn’t more complicated than that. Any explaination why this person is not allowed to sleep in this bed or why this person should not be able to sleep in this bed is absolute bullshit.
There’s a bed there, and there’s a human being sleeping on the ground.
Well, bed is not necessary since you can sleep anywhere as long as you can lie down. To make bed - trees were cut, the ecosystem were damaged. The birds who had their nest in those trees lost their home. Is this worth it?? /s
I don’t get it… is that store supposed to let people in to sleep on their beds?
Lemmy. Huh. It gets tiring aftet a while.
Go outside then.
Just a statement about how we have the resources readily available yet unobtainable to some.
It’s a critique on capitalism, where we have the technology and products to improve our quality of life but restrict access to them for a considerable percentage of humas. You’re welcome.
Even in a utopian communist society there would be showrooms for products, to help people select what best meets their sleep/medical needs. Those beds would be unused too.
It is a separate issue, that the showroom is not responsible for, that resulted in a homeless person not having a bed.
Systemic issues have systemic solutions. If you try to apply a local solution to a systemic problem, you just kicked the can. (As in, letting homeless people use the showroom beds).
According to all the kids here, yes.
“kids”
You are not superior for not having empathy for homeless people
Guy can’t even take a nap without being abused by propagandists.
Yeah, we should own those dirty communist propagandists by housing every homeless person.
The commies will be sooo owned if we do that.
Lemmy try not to blame capitalism challenge/s
Please see image, it’s really that simple /s
It gets tiring huh.
Why? I’m not going to avoid pointing to the source of a problem just because people don’t want to hear it.
Yeah you’d think most of our societies problems are a direct cause of late stage capitalism cresting a system where only profits matter and once its not profitable to feed or house someone then they are left to starve and go homeless or something. Haha I’m so glad that’s not the case, haha…
You don’t benefit from it, so why are you defending it? You don’t think you’re going to be a millionaire one day, do you?
Lemmy try not to give a correct answer to a problem…chalenge for some reason
Wasteful is the wrong word.
Capitalism truly is all about efficiency, literally at the expense of basic humanity.
This isn’t unintentional waste, this is intentional separation of the poor from resources. This is intentional artificial scarcity. The fact that many are literally separated from and thus lack a bed (or a roof, or food, etc) is what makes a bed a more valuable commodity for those with enough capital to purchase one from the private owner class through vendors like this one.
Under market capitalism, there need to be people dying in the streets, otherwise people won’t appreciate the capital value of purchasing what they need to live.
We Americans cast our sub-optimal capital batteries out to die of exposure. This is by design. If, as an American, you refuse or are unable to generate value for the owners directly, you will still have an important economic function you will be forced to fulfill: a capitalist scarecrow, meant to scare the wage slaves back to work on Monday, making money for the owners in exchange for minimal subsistence.
We could house and shelter all our fellow Americans, it isn’t a matter of resources or space. We choose not to, and we also antagonize our powerless homeless as the villains selfishly lowering our property values by continuing to exist while destitute. We don’t, because market capitalism incentivises cruelty for profit, and we refuse to reign it in for fear of slowing its self serving growth/metastasis at the expense of the society it is supposed to serve.
Depends on your definition of waste. Capitalism produces a lot of waste, arguably part of what has gotten us into this pickle with climate change.
This should have more up votes. Well said.
“Capitalism is when stores aren’t hotels”
You know what’s so sad about something like this?
The conservative seeing this will opt to blame the individual. This conservative will most frequently espouse themselves to be a Christian nonetheless. “Jesus-like” in aspirations and idolatry.
And yet, they’ll have the knee-jerk reaction to this image that is saying, “Well they put themselves in that position.”
“It wasn’t the happenstance of birth locations,.”
“It wasn’t the culmination of external forces and externalities building to this moment.”
“It wasn’t the fact that their life was harder than my own.”
“Or perhaps my life was hard and I’m using the survivor-bias fallacy to justify kicking the ladder out from under me.”
The conservative believes there are lesser people who deserve what they get coming. It’s seemingly incomprehensible to them that we humans are quite literally of the same species, and that you must come to the conclusion one of two possibilities: Either (1) We are all a blank slate from the start and thus products of our environment. Nurture comprising the vast majority of what influences us. Which means those left out on the streets; those who take drugs in an ideal state of mind don’t want to be there, but are already too far broken from past experiences to reconcile their immediate choices (and need saved; protected; rehabilitated by the same outside forces that put them there in the fist place). Or (2) It is genetic, which means there is a predisposition incompatible with the inherently-flawed system we’ve built for ourselves. They’re a circle in a square system, and it’s thus just the same not their choice. And so again, the system should adapt and accommodate them just the same to promote a healthier society overall.
THAT would be more Jesus-like. Not the lazy cop-out that casts them off as degenerates. Such people lack empathy and cannot comprehend the bigger picture.
Grossly oversimplified. Dumb meme that adds nothing substantive
What a stupid post
The real capitalist crime is that a mattress sells for such ridiculous prices that they charge thousands of dollars for a chunk of foam and some springs.
Most mattress stores print money, and only need to make 4 sales a month to stay in business.
They are insanely overpriced. Why doesn’t everyone just buy cheap beds from Costco and IKEA?!
But the shareholders need to be able to extract a return in return for no work - we couldn’t give others a shot at dignity.
Who tf need 8 pillows of various sizes on their bed?
In a wasteful system there’d be some factory churning out obsolete mattresses to fill a warehouse that nobody needs because that’s the quota to be met.
Meanwhile the workers can’t eat enough because resources were allocated by a bureaucrat last year who’s got no personal incentive to see either system work smoothly.
Sacrificing the needs of the many for the wants of the few.
Society isn’t created for everybody. That’s by design. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, not saying I agree or disagree, just calling it how it is. If we want it to change, we have to be the ones to do it.
This just makes me sad. I tried to donate my old foam mattress and nobody would take it. It’s fairly clean, non-smoking home, we don’t have bedbugs etc. I get why it could be a liability but still. Seems like such a waste to throw a king sized foam bed into the landfill. We only replaced it because I started having severe rib pain from sleeping on it but it’s better than nothing
The same problem exists with coffin makers and funeral services.
I think this post struck a nerve.
glad to see Lemmy has brought over the Reddit tradition of hating homeless people. I bet you’re all also really afraid of mugging and love violent vigilante justice
Maybe we haven’t evolved to be 8 fucking billions around, and smaller communities are actually happier
can I get the image without “capitalism” written on it?
I bet whoever’s sleeping there is doing so because they can better pretend they’re in a bedroom. It’s shameful we’ve let things get this way.
Abolish property and let the guy walk 2 yards and be in a warm clean bed.
Fal@yiffit.net 11 months ago
You’re not using your bed right now. Are you letting a homeless person sleep in it?
rockSlayer@lemmy.world 11 months ago
That’s not a contradiction. Your, my, and everyone’s bed is for sleeping in. The beds in that store are for accumulation of wealth. This displays the harsh efficiencies of capitalism, because the people in the most need for a bed cannot afford to have one.
dwalin@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I belive the beds in a store that sells beds are either to be sold or to help you choose a bed. They are not “fuck you, see how many beds i have” beds
bioemerl@kbin.social 11 months ago
...selling people beds so they have beds to sleep in. Beds that aren't riddled with bugs thanks to the store not being a homeless shelter.
workerONE@lemmy.world 11 months ago
So beds in the store are for accumulation of wealth but then when someone buys them they’re for sleeping in? Deep
echodot@feddit.uk 11 months ago
I do understand the sentiment but the thing is a lot of homelessness isn’t because people don’t have money not exactly. They may have support systems that they can make use of but if they have other problems they may not be inclined to use those support systems.
You can’t just blame capitalism for homelessness, not exclusively.
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Who are the people in most need for a bed? Isn’t that need relatively equal? I mean, I guess when I was younger I didn’t really need one, but now I’m a wreck without one. I know some guys with copd that only sleep in chairs, so maybe their need is on low end.
Pratai@lemmy.ca 11 months ago
ROFL!
crashfrog@lemm.ee 11 months ago
If anything this guy is a lot less in need of a bed than someone who hasn’t trained themselves to be able to sleep in a doorway (to wit, me.)
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Is there like an Uber for this?
papertowels@lemmy.one 11 months ago
Don’t give Airbnb ideas
Patches@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Zehzin@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I think that’s just called splitting rent with someone who works nights
dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 months ago
Why are you so intent on defending the ruling class? You aren’t in their group. You’re a broke ass like the rest of us and you never will achieve anywhere near enough wealth to forget that.
Fal@yiffit.net 11 months ago
So just because the “ruling class” is shitty and there needs to be change, we should just be allowed to make stupid, embarrassing statements that show a complete lack of understanding of society or economics?