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[JoshuaFH]

Do we have to drag an innocent deep sea crab into our corporate hellscape?

[nenjin]

We'll be looking up to that deep sea crab.

[scriver]

That was very nice LW

I think you would really enjoy that book I mentioned. I know it sounds ridiculous but it exists, I swear. I just can't remember the name and I don't know how to find it

Shouldn't be too hard to find. I think once (if?) I am ever done with my burgerpunk books I'll post them somewhere in the creative forum

Found it

Unfortunately the parts about Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse was a mixup, I've blended parts of the one above and another satire called Duck City together in my head. I remember borrowing both of them from my uncle and aunt (or rather they had left them at our summer place and I, like a vulture of the written word, opportunistically benefited) and probably read them over the same summer.

[A Thing]

Less of a likely future and more of a present reality, really.

Yes! I use present reality to make burgerpunk. There's not even a need to satirise or exaggerate, real life provides enough inspiration

That is the essence of burgerpunk. I love this shit

I feel like I just hit that bit of Germinal where they finally resolve to strike the mine.

[Loud Whispers]

Do we have to drag an innocent deep sea crab into our corporate hellscape?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Found it

Unfortunately the parts about Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse was a mixup, I've blended parts of the one above and another satire called Duck City together in my head. I remember borrowing both of them from my uncle and aunt (or rather they had left them at our summer place and I, like a vulture of the written word, opportunistically benefited) and probably read them over the same summer.

I'll give it a look, alongside Germinal

[MrRoboto75]

Speaking of burgpunk literature, I read one called Qualityland recently.  It had to do with ad/shopping algorithms taking over major aspects of society, to the point that Amazon buys things for you before you know you'd want them.  Also everyone having a social ranking of sorts, and having sufficiently high rank allowed you to skirt rules every now and again.  The main plot revolves around a loser type who collects flawed robots, he gets a dildo and tries returning it in spite of everyone insisting the algorithm knows better.

There was also a B plot about a presidential race between an android trying to run by appealing to logic, vs a rather obvious trump expy who appealed to peoples emotions.

It was halfway decent and a bit absurdist, and would recommend it.

[Loud Whispers]

Speaking of burgpunk literature, I read one called Qualityland recently.  It had to do with ad/shopping algorithms taking over major aspects of society, to the point that Amazon buys things for you before you know you'd want them.  Also everyone having a social ranking of sorts, and having sufficiently high rank allowed you to skirt rules every now and again.  The main plot revolves around a loser type who collects flawed robots, he gets a dildo and tries returning it in spite of everyone insisting the algorithm knows better.

There was also a B plot about a presidential race between an android trying to run by appealing to logic, vs a rather obvious trump expy who appealed to peoples emotions.

It was halfway decent and a bit absurdist, and would recommend it.

...I am literally editing someone else's book right now about how big tech companies are planning to use AI and blockchain technology to anticipate consumer demand and replace the Order - deliver - purchase model with the analyse - deliver - confirm/return model. The burgerpunk is real

[A Thing]

I'll give it a look, alongside Germinal

I haven't finished it yet, but from what I've read, and considering I got it on the recommendation of the Disco Elysium devs I'd say it's worth a look.

Here's the full list of recommendations by the way. Definitely not all socialist, but some are relevant, like Germinal, and of course Disco is very much socialist literature in of itself. Or at the very least socialist adjacent, I'm pretty sure the devs have said they are Marxist-Leninists?

[Imic]

I’m probably going to stop reading this thread. Everything I find within its walls makes me feel hopeless, crushed, trapped, depressed, and filled with an uncontrollable longing to move to the Highlands and live the rest of my life herding sheep and farming potatoes from a stone cottage with a sod roof.

[Naturegirl1999]

There was also a B plot about a presidential race between an android trying to run by appealing to logic, vs a rather obvious trump expy who appealed to peoples emotions.

I’d vote for the android

[Loud Whispers]

I’m probably going to stop reading this thread. Everything I find within its walls makes me feel hopeless, crushed, trapped, depressed, and filled with an uncontrollable longing to move to the Highlands and live the rest of my life herding sheep and farming potatoes from a stone cottage with a sod roof.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

We're survivors mother fucker

snip snap the claws go

[Dostoevsky]

I’m probably going to stop reading this thread. Everything I find within its walls makes me feel hopeless, crushed, trapped, depressed, and filled with an uncontrollable longing to move to the Highlands and live the rest of my life herding sheep and farming potatoes from a stone cottage with a sod roof.

At the risk of skirting too close to an oversharing post, there are always more definitive and final ways to get out of the wonders of the modern era. But they have pills for that, so I can continue to be productive.

I think a lot of this thread is overly idealistic, not from a whole 'socialism / X alternative doesn't work' angle but more of a 'there will always be a sufficient number of powerful jerks to ruin anything' angle. My centrism comes from largely from cynicism and fatigue, not righteousness. There's no real hope to make things significantly better, but maybe one can help make things a little bit less terrible.

But hey, I wouldn't mind being wrong.

[nenjin]

Over the last few years I've just come back to one simple reality time and again: money.

It's the lever for everything. From all the shills, the mis and disinformation, people saying patently untrue things in order to sway people's opinions, destroying the future for a small advantage in the present.....it all comes back to money. People will betray themselves and others simply for the chance to be rich and famous. Fuck everyone else as long as I get mine.

It's not enough to just have some. It's not enough to have enough. Once you've crossed this variable threshold of "enough", all your left with is to accrue more. It's the essence of capitalism, the unchecked growth of a tumor that has embedded itself and now draws from everything around it to propagate and spread and swell and grow.

I've seen money override even people's supposedly deeply held beliefs and prejudices. What's your price tag? How much would it take for you to abandon your morality, shit on the social contract and actively work to make the world a worse place for everyone else? I sort of fantasize about the idea of someone offering me more money than I'll ever earn in my life, to get me to do something I know is wrong and violates my core principles.....just so I could set it on fire and watch their disbelief that anyone can put something above being rich.

[Egan_BW]

At the risk of skirting too close to an oversharing post, there are always more definitive and final ways to get out of the wonders of the modern era. But they have pills for that, so I can continue to be productive.

I think a lot of this thread is overly idealistic, not from a whole 'socialism / X alternative doesn't work' angle but more of a 'there will always be a sufficient number of powerful jerks to ruin anything' angle. My centrism comes from largely from cynicism and fatigue, not righteousness. There's no real hope to make things significantly better, but maybe one can help make things a little bit less terrible.

But hey, I wouldn't mind being wrong.

The shape of how things are now is completely alien to the way things were when the mountains were and inch taller, and by the time the mountains are an inch shorter than they are now, the state of things will be completely alien to the way things are now. Our world wasn't inevitable, and it's certainly not eternal. Why not have hope when everything around us is evolving too fast to keep track of? In fact, if that evolution is going to happen anyways, don't we have a duty to help it evolve in the direction we want it to?
There has not always been humans, and they have not always acted the same way they do now. The way things are right now is not the "normal", it is only the way things are right now.

[SalmonGod]

I've seen money override even people's supposedly deeply held beliefs and prejudices. What's your price tag? How much would it take for you to abandon your morality, shit on the social contract and actively work to make the world a worse place for everyone else? I sort of fantasize about the idea of someone offering me more money than I'll ever earn in my life, to get me to do something I know is wrong and violates my core principles.....just so I could set it on fire and watch their disbelief that anyone can put something above being rich.

Thing is......... when people do reject wealth in favor of keeping their souls, how likely are you to hear about it?  You have no way of even knowing how many people in the world have the integrity to do so, do you?  They're not the ones getting signal-boosted in this society.  We're bombarded all day every day by the spectacle of wealth and power, which makes us feel like trying to have integrity is pointless if we're the only ones.