people rejecting these ideas as a whole as they continue to doomscroll online 👌
Imagine being this smug when yourself.
These are great but aren’t colorful sunsets (at least in part) a side effect of air pollution? ;)
Or when blood has been spilled that night
Sailor’s delight
Most of those shouldn’t be luxuries, but rights.
Would also add hugs to this list 🤗
I miss hugs. One of the nicest underappreciated aspects of human connection IMO
The other morning my dogs woke me up way too damn early, but it meant I got to watch a very fat pigeon on the power line behind my house, and I got to see the finch population rapidly increase around it. (I swear I saw one little bird and by the time I got out of bed there were 5 jetting around. Pigeon did not move.)
I agree that these are luxuries for a lot of people. Some of them can be found with mindset shifts (from “fuck you dogs” to “oh look, pretty birds” for example) but it’s also hard to shift your mindset to positivity when our society tries its damnedest to beat happiness out of you.
Using Linux
Oh fuck off
When I read this, my dyslexic read luxuries as linux
Same thats why i wrote the comment lol
That’s just good anti-capitalism practice, so yeah that tracks.
I agree these are the real luxuries but they CAN be supplemented by a little happy consumerism here and there. I love to have a good conversation with friends over a good lunch at a restaurant, or going to a nice dinner. Have meals out is a nice luxury also.
I agree although ideally we should create public spaces where you don’t need to pay for a meal to have good conversation if you don’t want to.
I don’t disagree, just a quite reminder that not everyone can afford this. The meme doesn’t say it but it gives “money doesn’t buy happiness” vibes and while this isn’t false, a certain amount of money is required for this.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the picture, but I thought that’s why they were called luxuries - because not everyone gets to have them. Though they aren’t what we usually associate with a luxurious lifestyle.
E: just to be clear, everyone should have them, but many are too occupied with the daily battle for survival.
Yes, I read it the same way, that’s why I said that I don’t disagree. Still there is this other reading I wanted to “debunk”
Re-reading your comment I see that I must have meant to reply to someone else. I apologise, my social media timer sometimes makes me hasty.
How much money does one need for a long walk and listening to birds?
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Time is money. If you work 2 jobs to provide for your kids alone, good luck finding the time and headspace to not worry about anything.
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Parks and forests aren’t evenly distributed. Not everyone can afford living near one or going there.
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How much money does one need to not have to choose between spending their evenings on a long walk listening to birds vs delivering pizzas as a third job to avoid eviction?
Roughly $75,000+ a year to live comfortably as a single person in the US. Depending on location.
Do you answer all rhetorical questions? Is that your thing?
Yes.
In capitalism, one must first pay for basic necessities like food and shelter before anything else. For some people who make low wages this requires an amount of time and effort that interferes with their leisure time.
That said, there are also some people who think they are in this category when in reality their stress is due to self-imposed standards of living that are higher than necessary. Or anxiety and other psychological problems that could be addressed through non-material strategies.
there are also some people who think they are in this category when in reality their stress is due to self-imposed standards of living that are higher than necessary. Or anxiety and other psychological problems that could be addressed through non-material strategies.
also encouraged and exacerbated by capitalism (the former - to create the illusion of a “middle class” for people to aspire to and vote against their own actual material conditions, the latter - by commodifying health care and pathologizing anything that harms “productivity”)
Yeah this is lowkey a boogie meme - the majority of people don’t live in a work situation that allows for day naps!
How do we call something that the majority of people can’t afford ?
A luxury
We call it expensive, which is a subtlety that the title of this meme poopooing on “consumerism” is missing out on.
Hence, a boogie meme. Those of us down here in the dirt don’t have time for these luxuries; we consume imitations.
You’re in solarpunk territory. They want to rid us of money entirely. Sounds pretty nice but requires huge cultural and lifestyle changes.
In a world where most must sell their time for money to survive, free time is true luxury.
Sell your kids on the black market. Poof! Free time.
President Milei I didn’t know you were on the fediverse!
Good man Javier wants to buy all the kids for his special orphanage in a secluded island, such a good guy!
And some contemptible people who have more free time and resources than they know that do to with - they must focus all efforts on acquiring more resources AND making it harder for others to catch up.
It would be reason to pity the emptiness of some lives, were they not so destructive.
- I am not talking about people that find their work or their career fulfilling and keep working hard at it. That’s different than a billionaire who spends millions every year to bust unions and prevent raises to the minimum wage. (Or assassinate whistle blowers, as the case may be)
I’m on the fence about hearings birds singing. It is really annoying to get woken up way too early by a bird who just knows two tunes and sings it over and over and over again. Like what the fuck?! Didn’t they teach you a third tune at bird school to make your song a bit more melodic and less irritating? Fucking twitter.
The birds here are really confused lately and have just been singing all night without a break, it’s driving me crazy.
Light pollution?
There’s this big male cardinal who lives in my rhododendron. He’s not the problem. The problem are the loud, brash younglings who show up and try to muscle in on his territory. They start before dawn, screaming at the top of a tree, making up for their lack of style with sheer volume.
Plus they sound like fucking car alarms. The Big Boy has a gorgeous call, and perches on the fence between the houses to take advantage of the acoustics, and starts at least an hour after dawn because no lady wants to be woken up early by a fuckboy.
He must be back early this year because there’s only been one asshole bird who woke me up.
Gigachad birb. O7
Whenever I see him in the summer he’s got at three or four females following him around.
But my time for fun and play is spent on mass media and consumerism!
Fuck solarpunk. I buy carefully, not mindlessly, based on what I’m getting and for how long, with the intent of not having to replace what I buy. So let’s get that out of the way, this isn’t about the merits of environmental preservation or efficient use of our resources.
I need mass media because I ENJOY PLAYING VIDEO GAMES. I don’t want to live in the fucking “gay space commune”, I want to live in a world that feels good to me, and you solarpunk assholes seem to say people like me who escape from reality because they’ve NEVER been capable of supporting themselves should start a fucking garden?!
Newsflash. I. Don’t. Like. Your. “Utopia”. I never will. If you ever succeed in making your idea of a future a reality, I’ll burn it to the fucking ground as my revenge on you bastards. I hate your idea because all it does is change how I am oppressed as a disabled adult to how I was oppressed as a special needs child illegally taken from my parents by a corrupt mental health system.
Cool story, bro.
So you think hurting people to make things the way you want them is acceptable? Because of video games? You are a dangerous man child (or maybe just a child).
You build my dystopia, you’re imprisoning me. I am a cornered animal, do not fuck with me.
Ah confirmation.
Confirmation indeed. It’s really too much to fucking ask that you NOT build another fucking prison? You, not me, are the sociopath. At least I reserve my angry rampage for if you succeed.
You judge me for liking what I like? You are literally trying to control my life by redefining society, and no, I’m not some rich skullfucker nor do I think people aren’t entitled to the same basic level of comfort I enjoy regardless of race, gender, eromantic orientation or anything else; they may not have it, but if you wanted real equality then you NEED to uplift people’s minimum living standard.
Apparently you care more about organic produce and trees than children or the homeless.
Who’s talking about building a prison? You’ve imagined an enemy in solarpunk that has nothing to do with solarpunk and are getting upset at an internet stranger that has made no claims about wanting to stop you from playing video games.
You’ll understand when your 13.
Then don’t build it and we’re fine. I’m angry because I’m disabled and Solarpunk is usually Ableist yet everyone is obsessed with social media detox and lumping all technologies in with it.
The solarpunk you’ve imagined in your head is ableist. Solarpunk is but an aesthetic. Don’t assume so much and try to understand more nuance.
Bro, what does any of this have to do with solarpunk?
Just normal stuff…
No one is talking about you, mass media and consumerism has nothing to do with anything you described. Video games as a whole does not equal consumerism or mass media. Micro transactions and other terrible patterns do.
When was the last time you saw a video game in a solarpunk story?
I didn’t even think there were serious solar punk stories, and even if so, aren’t all of them like technological utopias? Why would entertainment ie video games be gone from them? Even if they aren’t the focus (which makes sense) what reason would a solar punk society have to do away with video games?
Simple. Because most solarpunk is written by people who hate technology corporations.
To be fair, big tech is evil. Doesn’t change my point.
Um, but the majority of video games are not made by big tech? What is your point? Indie games are usually just better overall anyway. I’m really failing to see why any solarpunk society would stop people from making video games
Because solarpunk writers are rarely, if ever, gamers. Gamers are a niche subculture in the solarpunk works I’ve seen and as you’re seeing, people in the solarpunk community seem to like it that way.
My confusion continues to compound. Many of the people in this thread have zero issue with video games or actually play them. I really gotta see a source for
solarpunk writers are rarely, if ever, gamers.
All video games are made by technology corporations! Except for Open TTD of course.
Asshole, I never said that. I’m well aware TTD was originally a commercial product, that’s my entire point. You can’t make games for free, and yes, I value video games more than continued lifespan because art allows me to ignore a reality I despise for being defined by everyone else.
You don’t have the right to fucking judge me for the tiny little quirk of liking a game, I only mentioned it because it was mildly relevant.
Actually, I believe you can make games for free to consumers, and I believe systems inspired by solarpunk would, if anything, do a better job of encouraging this over our current political system. Art, including video games, doesn’t just disappear in solarpunk societies.
I’m not judging you for liking a game, I never said anything of the sort, lol. Although I find it hard not to judge you if you just bark insults.
@TeryVeneno I can’t imagine a solarpunk universe *without* games honestly. In my head-cannon they’re a vital part of education.
Agreed, it seems really odd for any such society to do away with something so beloved
Read “Project Hieroglyph” and the way one of its “optimistic” stories (“Girl in Wave: Wave in Girl”) shows a multiplayer superhero game and the main character hates it. That’s not how mental illness works, computers used to be GOOD for providing social contact. That’s not education, that’s “fix yourself”.
I am not broken. I am unhappy because I don’t want to live in a world where I face reality, whether that’s “IRL” or “social media”. You know why I like the 4th Matrix movie? It reminds us that this image isn’t what the world provides, it’s what the Matrix - real life - forces us to work towards. The Matrix isn’t just the fake world, it’s the fake world on top of a real one and the real escape is to change, not break, the system that binds us because there is nothing in the real but vast lifeless desert. Mars, the Moon… Dead rocks. There is no evidence of an afterlife nor any point to “accepting” a secular life you hate because you will still hate it and “scientific evidence only” doesn’t fix anything or change who you are.
Also are you ok? I find it rather odd to be this intensely invested about what is generally a fairly niche community in solarpunk. Not that the mission and ideology aren’t worth being passionate about, but I mean we are talking about video games and green societies nothing crazy.
I’ll definitely have to give that a read, though some quick reading of opinions about that work are fairly mixed.
Also no one has said you’re broken or that you need to face reality. The whole point of solarpunk is that will be no world to face unless we take action. And none of that has anything to do with video games or anything you have described.
Murder in the tool library
This is a Wendy’s
I’m a shut-in, with untreated health issues, someone who partakes in escapism, and even someone who likes the idea of programming but can’t really do much (I tinkered on rendering polygons from text input last September and didn’t even finish it enough to be usable for me).
I haven’t seen much solarpunk but I’ve never thought to myself that it’d be worse for me. If I existed in an environment like that (particularly from birth or at least for a long time) I don’t think I’d be the same escapist shut-in. I could see open-source games still existing, and maybe programming being better even if people are less likely to have videogames as their most common activity. I’ve taken care of already-growing plants before, but it seems to me like a lax solarpunk environment would offer more options/opportunity than employment currently offers. Probably actual opportunity to travel, too.
Even carrying over my current mindset and (lack of) capability, I can’t see a solarpunk environment being even half as restricted as my experience now. I mean the whole idea is better community and technology used to help people (not strictly for money) so it seems to me you wouldn’t be required to garden.
To be fair, it seems like I may have had bad luck in the first three solarpunk works I ever experienced. My issue against the whole idea is “this is a society that can no longer afford to value non-practical pursuits, it is the future we are headed towards, therefore our present society can no longer afford to value non-practical pursuits” that was somehow in all three solarpunk works I encountered.
The three in question were Girl in Wave: Wave in Girl, the Necroverse by “RichM”, and a story that a fair-weather friend wrote that I no longer have a copy of that showed a dystopian cybersolarpunk hybrid where “Covid-19 has ended the modern age and now everything is powered by wind turbines because most of us are dead”.
As a result of such bad luck, I may have overestimated how central that theme of “self-sufficiency or die” is to the genre.
Most of these should be rights
This. Especially in modern first-world nations. There are plenty of resources for the wealthy to still be wealthy and everyone to have at least economic security.
“The ability to freely express yourself”
—with fire.
Yeah, truth. Nobody has complete freedom in a world of other people. I don’t get to run around being an ax murderer, for example (not that I want to be). There are plenty of guardrails and rules and laws, many for good reason.
I was talking about how the image above “express yourself” looks like fire.
