A firehose in the sky that sucks the rain back in.

But it does describe the control of resources and to an extent force, which is “political” in addition to economic.

That’s a valid point, though I still wouldn’t call it a pyramid scheme.

You’re not forced to take on that debt though, nor is the debt unpayable unless you take on more debt. Some people put themselves into a ponzi-like situation either through poor financial decision making or circumstances so shit that they can’t do any better, but the average person doesn’t need to take out a loan on a freaking pair of nikes or even a car or house. It’s a cultural norm to get a mortgage, but if you do the math it often doesn’t make sense to and isn’t anywhere close to mandatory. At most you could argue that the US government debt works that way, but even that’s iffy and depends on your geopolitical outlook.

How so though? This sounds like a statement that’s meant to be flashy but doesn’t actually hold up. Pyramid schemes are characterized by a) an eventual lack of ability to recruit more people, b) recruitment rather than a product or a service being the driver, and c) a person at the bottom left with nothing, including recourse. Capitalism, even completely free capitalism, doesn’t work like that unless you specifically rig it to do so. That’s called “corruption”.

I think there’s two subsets of these people.

One subset is actually really smart, book smart even, but just doesn’t have a personality that aligns with the format of the education system. Those people tend to do really well in a different environment where they have more intrinsic motivation to succeed. For example, I know someone who didn’t do well in school even though he had the ability to because he just didn’t really see any reward, so he had no motivation. He went into finance and got through uni and his first few job with flying colors, because there was a reward at the end of the tunnel to pursue.

The other subset just doesn’t do well with any sort of “bookish” stuff - math, sciences, finance, engineering, etc. just don’t really fly. A lot of them I find feel a bit lost because they feel pressure to find a passion or orient themselves around a career when they just don’t have anything that sparks an interest. I find that those people tend to do well when they pursue “active” jobs that don’t feel like school. A person I know in this category struggled with school throughout his life, but was really good at working with people and interacting on that emotional plane. He went into social services and now works as a crisis counsellor. Most of the “schooling” was basically just situational training, and the job itself is so intuitive to him. Honestly if he didn’t have bills to pay I swear he’d do that job for free. Other people in this category are ok with a job just feeling like work, so any high paying trade tends to work well because they can go to work, do their hours, and then enjoy life.

I’m sure this isn’t the biggest thing, but I used to work at a big chain grocery store and “accidentally forget” to scan certain items. Old woman with a food stamp in her hand vs. u/spez-level arrogant billionaire CEO? You pay me $10/hr you fuckers, if you want me to notice the toilet paper in the bottom of the cart you’d better up my pay or help that chick out. I was far from the only one.

The doc “Ivory Tower” really got me interested in alternatives to traditional higher education, i.e. the kind that will get you the same income without $100000000000000000000000000000 in debt compounding at a rate of 100% daily. Fuck colleges man, honestly.

I’m sure everyone has had at least a couple of cases. For me it was when a bank employee performed a cash advance, which I have never, ever consented to in my life, and then claimed I had given her permission to do it. Read: she fucked up and blamed it on me. I requested the contact info of her supervisor, who had the audacity to suggest that it wasn’t a large sum of money and I should essentially suck it up. That branch manager got an earful and a half and a phone call from the competition bureau (which was great, because it usually takes multiple complaints for them to take action).

Now this is the Karen-y part. Whenever a company that I’m a regular customer of does something morally wrong (as opposed to a mistake or a less than competent employee), I boycott them until, in my estimation, I’ve cost them 100x the sum of the initial disputed amount (I have substitute actions for cases that don’t have a clear dollar value). In this case I cancelled my credit products with them. My boycott is set to expire (i.e. reach the 100x mark) in February of 2024. The rationale behind this is that if 1% of consumers do it, it’ll no longer be worth it for them to continue the practice, and it gives you a satisfying end goal. You can’t boycott every company that wrongs you indefinitely - I only have a handful on my permanent blacklist - but I can make my peace with it if I know I’ve comfortably done my part.

But then everything’s all wet. What do I do then?

We have a huge amount of resources for very little effort though. Back in the day you could work your ass off in the field all day, but there was no medical technology to cure illness, no vast swaths of entertainment options, no heating to keep you warm (unless you made a fire), and no hamburger that could be delivered to your door with the touch of a button. If you could not starve, lose a toe to frostbite, or die during childbirth, you were doing pretty well.

Right now you’ve probably never had to deal with hunger - even those under the poverty line can sustain a nutritionally decent diet (albeit an insanely boring one) in the developed world, your life expectancy is somewhere between 75 and 90, the water you drink is clean, there are no soldiers looking to skin you to death, and you’re lying on a fluffy mattress stuffing popcorn into your face. If you’re an average person, you probably have access to luxuries that were completely inaccessible just a few generations ago, and your working conditions are far better even if you find them boring.

It’s also worth pointing out that a lot of the suffering you might argue exists is preventable. You’re not obligated to eat unhealthy foods, watch crummy netflix movies all day, have children (well, unless an old white dude decided otherwise), smoke, etc. The balance of individual choice vs. external influence is debatable, but certainly preferable to having no choice at all.

Why could “getting you” not be a person’s most important to-do item? Would Putin not benefit greatly from getting Zelensky? Would the person up for a promotion not benefit from sabotaging their competition? Would a drug lord not benefit if his competition accidentally slipped and fell and died? There are so many instances in which a person would very logically (not to mention emotionally) benefit from targeting you personally - that’s basically the foundation of politics and resource distribution.

You can also ask an adjacent question, which is whether we should attempt to continue to exist as a species. My personal take would be a hard no - I think it would be preferable to seek to end our species within the next few generations - but some would argue that we should attempt to colonize space and maximize our presence.

I also lost weight, mostly out of stubbornness. We were sitting at the dinner table and people were making fun of my “mathleticism”, I responded by jokingly saying that I could be super athletic if I chose to, and my sister then said she’d give me $1000 if I ever became “athletic”. She still hasn’t paid me. They still make fun of me, except now for going “from mathlete to athlete”. So really I didn’t accomplish much.

I’ll contribute mine: I’m pro-extinctionism. In basic terms, I think it would be preferable for our species to slowly start to pack up shop.

That’s an interesting thought experiment.

That’s a political view though, not a philosophical one, unless it has a philosophical underpinning.

“He’s so gay” was far less frowned upon in 2003. Shit changes.

Eating factory farmed meat. With the way politics is headed there will be some politician at some point in the future trying desperately to defend his high beef consumption in what will become known as Burgergate.

Also, islamophobia in the context of defending religious nutjobs. For instance, it is islamophobic to complain about a muslim (Sikh, in reality) man at an airport because he “looks like a terrorist”. It is not islamophobic to suggest that female students should be allowed in public schools just like male students. Both of these things have actually happened, very recently, and the latter was defended because people were scared shitless of being called islamophobic. We have to have some minimum human rights standards that religion cannot interfere with, and blatant sex-based discrimination is one of them. I do not give a flying fuck what your religion teaches you.

Underrated comment.