Reality Is An Inherent Problem

I paraphrase, but not by much:

It started, since you ask, with chappie being annoyed by the existence of a cruise ship. Says he,

The amount of money and resources wasted on this abomination could have changed uncountable lives across the globe for the better. 

Readers will note that the word wasted is doing some heavy lifting there. That the building of said cruise ship paid the wages of thousands of people, in several cities, for years, and that the crewing and maintenance of said ship pays the wages of thousands more, and that the thousands of passengers aboard it at any given time will be spending large sums of money in any number of tourist destinations, making lives better across the globe, seems to have escaped our indignant chappie’s attention.

But still, he has “he/they” pronouns in his bio. So some markers of status are totally okay, apparently. Chappie tells us that he’s a “Black communicator,” whose podcast “paints a multi-faceted picture of the Black, brown, and Native American experience through story-telling.”

Relevant footnote.

Relevant meme.

Lifted from the comments, which you’re reading, of course.

Update:

In the comments, EmC quotes this,

The fact that people have to work to eat is an inherent problem.

And adds,

So the socialist wants to be an aristocrat?

Or an owner of slaves, perhaps. Some arrangement in which he, Our Obvious Better, doesn’t have to do things that others find of value. Something non-reciprocal.

From the thread above:

It’s certainly a mindset that’s quite telling. For instance, this came to mind:

So, for some, the very idea that a grown-up person should pay their debts – or keep their word, or honour their promises – is something to be “defeated.”

Or, adulthood is such a drag.

Update 2:

It’s curious how often such complaints boil down to, “Other people, less fabulous people, should labour for free, for my benefit, until I say otherwise.” Which, it has to be said, is an odd construal of righteousness.

We’ve been here before, of course. As when an unhappy young madam realised, belatedly and with some annoyance, that bills have to be paid, and livings have to be earned. A seemingly overlooked detail that prompted much umbrage and baffled indignation, on grounds that cars and food and houses are things “which we should just be able to have.”

As I said in reply,

The emotional assumption that Things Should Just Be There For Me, Forever, In Unlimited Quantities is, I think, something best addressed before one’s children venture out into the world.

Children who, as adults, may then make TikTok videos of themselves bemoaning the fact that they aren’t simply being given a free house, and free food, and a free car, and free petrol for the free car. Children who, as adults, may then seem genuinely bewildered by the prospect of being responsible for the feeding and clothing of any children that they, in turn, might have.

Another thing occurs to me. If pretty much everything you need, or want, should just somehow be there anyway, on an indefinite basis, via some oddly unarticulated rearrangement of the universe, then it’s not obvious how gratitude might fit into such a mindset.

Answers on a postcard, please.



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