EDIT: I’m actually a believer in Basic Income, but this is a silly argument. Bad arguments do a disservice to the idea of Basic Income and make the battle uphill that much harder.
I read this two days ago when it was posted, and it didn’t sit well with me because it didn’t make sense. I hand to think about it for while about why it didn’t make sense, but I have it now.
Lets break this down:
We’re the only species who must pay to exist
We’re really the only species that uses money regularly. So at first glance the literal statement is true but irrelevant: We’re the only species that must pay, because we’re the only species that uses money. So the literal definition is that other species don’t have to pay. True, but they don’t get to use money to store work. Our society has determined that “money” is a method to store “work”.
What the author is saying in spirit is: We’re the only species who has to work to exist.
If indeed I have the author’s meaning right, then this is clearly false. Every other species has to do some level of work to exist. Even parasites will not have a second generation without working to procreate. This brings us to the author’s next statement:
In a private property system where all the land was claimed by others before we were born, and everything we need to stay alive costs money....
If you’re willing to lower yourself to an animal that doesn’t use money with all of the freedom and consequences that comes with that, you don’t need to spend a time on land, food, shelter or ANYTHING. There are huge swaths of land all over the world where you could live in the wilderness likely your entire life and never see another human being who will bother you. Most of northern Canada and northern Russia and completely unpopulated for hundreds of hectares. Same with lots of the middle part of Australia. If you’re willing to live off the land without modern medicine, communication, entertainment, or societal infrastructure then there’s no one out there to force you to pay for anything.
The author goes off the rails in suggesting an non-human species, which has no benefits of humanity, has to pay for nothing but lives and dies off the land and at the will of other predators and nature, is equal to the life of a human in modern society with modern medicine, agriculture, law, defense, technology and entertainment.
To the author: If you want to live like a non-human species (an animal) there are plenty of places you can do that. No one will stop you. No one will make you pay anything. Have at it!
If you want the benefits of other people’s work in a society, then you have to contribute something back to that society that society values.*EDIT: I’m removing the last sentence because it needs more context for a much larger argument. The rest of my post stands.I hate when people clap alongside every word they say. It’s so damn obnoxious and annoying, it makes me disregard whatever input they want to give.
I agree. It’s trashy as fuck.
Eh, it’s for emphasis, it’s just a style that gives a visual along with the words that indicate a specific physical movement that some people interpret in a specific way and changes how they are communicating, thus changing the message in a minute way. It’s not hurting you, if it’s enough to make you want to disregard what they are saying that seems pretty petty of you. Just because people communicate differently from you isn’t enough of a reason to disrespect them or what they have up say. Now, if they’re saying something abhorrent, that’s a different story, but you’re not an idiot, just judgemental
It’s not hurting you
No, but it’s highly irritating and jarring. Almost even threatening, as if they want to smack you because you disagree with them. If they can’t have a calm, reasonable discussion then I don’t think it’s petty of me to not want to listen to them.
100% with you. It’s like writing “Period” at the end of what you said, as if that makes it more true. And, ironically, it’s almost always some take that requires ignoring all nuance.
Okay, but other species aren’t even able to pay to exist. If a human wants them dead, they dead —unless they the property of another human being of course.
They’re also at the mercy of nature and all it entails. And nature is fucking brutal.
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You act as if paying to exist is a privilege. It is a requirement of being a human in our society. A requirement that functionally requires you to be exploited by those who won the birth lottery.
It is a privilege in contrast to other species, the exact juxtaposition done by the OP. It’s like complaining that the free man has to pay for room and board while the slave doesn’t. I’ve heard exact arguments like this from slavery apologists, that slaves had it really good actually.
How exactly are other species relevant to how we structure our society? It is true that humans are the top dog in the circle of life, but how is that relevant?
I said nothing about slavery, why are you changing the subject?
EDIT: I guess I missed the first sentence in the OP about species. I think caring about how other species do things is just a red herring to draw attention.
This is fucking dumb. Even in the very ancient of ancient of time, people were working to survive. They had to go out, and farm the fucking berries out of the bush and hunt deers and what not. If you couldn’t do that, I don’t think you could be a part of the society. And then, another fucking tribes comes in and try to fuck you up.
What a fucking stupid statement to say. Nothing is free. Even if you remove everyone and everything, you still have to work to survive. And what a good way to survive than to be in a society that separates this burden. Some people farm, some people defends, some people heals and some people educate. Woooow, such a free tribe, they have to work to survive.
Also, claiming land is what all territorial animals do. They maintain high resource areas with violence. We are not so different. Nature is scarry.
If you couldn’t do that, I don’t think you could be a part of the society. And then, another fucking tribes comes in and try to fuck you up.
Literally bullshit you could easily look up and debunk for yourself in about 5 minutes (here, I’ll even save you making any effort and share this link again https://theconversation.com/humans-arent-inherently-selfish-were-actually-hardwired-to-work-together-144145).
The fact that you in your ableist ageist mind moulded by capitalism to only see humans for the value of what they can “produce” for you, doesn’t actually mean that any of the bullshit you’ve been led to believe (and are comfortable believing) is true, it just means you’re a bit of an ageist ableist boot licking wilfully ignorant asshole… ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Forgot I had this
“As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.”
Modern rent seeking is rooted in a feudal concept. The lord maintained an army that protected the land, and the workers paid the lord for the upkeep of the army that protected them.
Modern landlords provide absolutely nothing but exploitation of their tenants. They take rent and provide nothing anywhere near equal in value.
They are parasites on the working class. Our labor gives them profit, and they offer only what should be ours by right.
We pay to live here. It’s our home. You only rent seek, you fucking parasite.
Not sure why you’re being so heavily downvoted, it’s true. Landlords, due to their position in society benifit from high poverty, less rent control, etc. Working class people want the exact opposite. It’s a clear and obvious dielectic contradiction
Hold up, is that guy suggestion we just fight or kill to take what we want like an animal would?
He contends that all the clay on Earth was claimed long ago. The competition for resources now unfolds according to rules set by individuals, groups or organizations. In some cases, this struggle is even more intense than animal behavior, particularly when it occurs at the organized state level.
Clearly you haven’t seen much of animals.
Some are doing warfare. But we are much better in that.
I mean, I’d totally fight and kill a billionaire if it was by the rule of the jungle, since that way I can’t be incarcerated.
The Billionaire has better odds, tbh. He has more guns, cars, fuel, connections, etc. You’ll have to fight off all his armed guards and family first. If the power structure of mankind stopped working, a whole new one would pop up overnight. One much more brutal where your value is not decided with your input taken into account.
The Billionaire has better odds, tbh. He has more guns, cars, fuel, connections, etc
Not under the rule of the jungle.
In the jungle, you are alone. The people you step over don’t owe anything to you.
Fight a gorrilla or a lion and see if all the others just stand back and watch you attack their boi. The rule of the jungle protects those who have immediate access to resources.
Those handclap emojis trigger the fuck out of me.
We’re just the only ones who pay to exist with money.
We’re born slaves to society. We are not free. Everything in the end has the threat of violence if you don’t do what society wants you to do.
Best case you can go forage in the “wild”, but its claimed wild. There is no free land. The freest people are perhaps homeless people, because there is almost nothing you can threaten them with, they have nothing to lose, in a way, its the only freedom that exists.
If you stop paying rent or your mortgage, you will be forcibly removed by a trainer killer. If you resist, you may be killed in an altercation and become a statistic. If you don’t pay taxes, you may end up in a cage, or perhaps killed by another trainer killer in a mishap.
When you “buy” a house, you are renting the land, sure it temporarily has your name on the deed, and you own the house itself, until you stop paying property taxes, then another trainer killed will come take it from you, perhaps put you in a cage. Don’t even get me started on HOAs, the wrong color paint could cause you to lose your life’s savings because a Karen thinks it might lower her property value.
If you don’t raise your kids perfectly, a trainer killer can come take them away from you. Even someone falsely reporting you for improperly raising your kids can cause you to end up losing them. Your kids don’t belong to you, they’re your cute little liabilities, one misstep and the most important thing in your life is taken away from you.
What if I just want to do nothing? Where can I go and just chill, and eat berries, and like the occasional squirrel or whatever? Society won’t permit it, you might end up in a cage, or again killed by a trained killer. Those are someone’s berries, those squirrels are probably a protected species.
Freedom is an illusion.
The freest people are perhaps homeless people
This is one of the most ridiculously privileged things I’ve ever read
They’re not wrong. I think your reply bothers me more. Only someone truly privileged would reply like that.
I’ve been homeless, and they’re completely wrong
That is one ‘Wtf first sentence’ if I ever saw it… All other species shit literally anywhere and do not have ready made food. And parents eat children or fling them out of the nest if they can’t feed them all. There are no doctor rats. Watch a documentary or two.
Communists are the only people who believe that we are the only animals that can completely upend and violate the rules of nature that all other animals have to live by.
Literally every living organism must work to live. It’s called surviving. This is just wrong lol.
They didn’t say nothing else has to work
They said we’re the only species that has to pay to live. Pay = working to survive. Pay is reward for effort. It’s just false.
We are also the only species not threatened to be hunted down and eaten at the whim of another species. Sometimes, you get what you pay for.
Universal basic income does not fix inequality, it doesn’t take existing accumulated wealth into account. You get X amount per month, yay, food. Jeff Bezos gets the same and throws it on the money pile without blinking an eye. It will lead to more inflation and you’ll still be poor compared to who’s wealthy. Socially corrected incomes are a way better tool for battling inequality, and in today’s world’s, it shouldn’t anymore cost a million-person bureaucracy to run a wealth-distributing system either.