I think we’re “supposed” to destroy ourselves for the sake of advancement for a few reasons:
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To preserve the myth of Western egalitarianism. Supposedly, we have a classless society. Anyone can make it if they just put in the effort. Mind you, this isn’t true: plenty try and fail, and even those who succeed sacrifice their life to advance from one class to another. But we’re supposed to believe that the only reason we don’t have certain things is because we don’t want it bad enough, and/or lack the discipline to succeed. The goal: get people to always look inward for the source of their suffering, and fail to recognize the very real economic parasitism that prospers at our expense.
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A manifestation of that old but persistent notion that to be righteous is to suffer. If you are happy, if you aren’t suffering, you must be doing something wrong. Good food tastes bad. Good exercise hurts. Good work is miserable. To be good in spirit is to mortify the flesh. Put on your hair shirt, run five miles, drop and give me twenty, and then complete a twelve hour shift. Sleep is for the weak.
What offends people who take this advice more than anything is someone who hasn’t lived this way, and yet is happy when they are not.
Bots are cheap, and Lemmy is growing. It would be foolish for them not to get in on this early.
You are right, of course, that leftism != liberalism. But just saying that doesn’t count as an argument. I haven’t yet seen what Menachem is complaining about, but I will be paying attention.
EDIT: On further read, you guys kind of feel at the very least like the left-wing equivalent of somethingawful.com.