Thanks for the reasonable response. I’ll admit part of my attitude displayed is because i feel so beaten down here on lemmy from so many interactions with people at a level of toxicity strong enough to kill a bull. I’m surprised at how many downright reasonable comments there are in this thread for the most part. I’ll read more in depth and respond another time.

There’s actually some good discussion in this thread. You should try thinking of something constructive to add, or show yourself out.

So raise minimum wage to $20-30/hr. You don’t need to toss capitalism out the window to do that. It’s overly simplistic to blame these problems on one ism and naive at best to think these problems will go away for swapping it with another ism.

My example shows all three parties benefitting from the arrangement. Everyone would lose if I, the worker, quit. It’s not exploitation at all. I willingly enter into this agreement because I literally can’t do this on my own. So I benefit from company resources. My clients can’t be serviced by a small one man show so they choose a bigger company too. The firm owners make the most because it’s their company and none of this would be happening without them. It’s not exploitation and it’s not parasitic, it’s symbiotic. We’ve got loads of issues with legislation and enforcement, minimum wage should be like $20-30, corporate governance needs to address all stakeholders and not just shareholders, and so on. But that won’t be resolved by swapping capitalism for any other -ism. It’s overly simplistic to think one ism is the only problem and another ism is the only solution.

This might be the first discussion I’ve had on Lenny in good faith as you say, so thank you for that.

My position summarized is that we definitely have massive issues with inequality, injustice, lack of rights, etc. But these are issues of legislation, corrupt government and leadership, enforcement, corporate governance, media disinformation, and so on. As you said any system can and will be abused. Swapping capitalism for any other -ism won’t change anything. (What would that even look like?)

Some of my meandering thoughts for potential solutions include controlling media disinformation, campaign finance reform, term/age limits, and ranked voting. It would be great to somehow change corporate governance to require leadership to prioritize stakeholders and not just shareholders, but I don’t really know how to do this. Maybe a requirement that all public companies be owned at least maybe 10% by non-officer employees, enough to get a seat on the board of directors.

It’s extremely complicated and there’s no clear solution. I’m not saying capitalism is perfect, I’m saying it’s overall ok and it’s very childishly naive to make a shitty comic about swapping it for another -ism to solve all of our problems. I really don’t want to argue about it though or get into a flame war, I just can’t handle the vitriol on this forum.

I’m done with you. Come back if you have something constructive to add to the conversation.

Yes, precisely this.

Workers are absolutely exploited by plenty of shitty companies. But that’s not caused by capitalism, nor is it solved by any other -ism. The causes are complex and the solutions are even moreso, if there even are solutions at all. To sit here bitching about it in the form of a stupid anti capitalism comic is just childishly naive.

Ok, I make 7.25 an hour and my employer bill me out at $25/hr. My employer walks away with 30% or about $7.50, etc etc. The sample numbers are meaningless.

Ok I’ll bite. God help me.

My employer bills me out for $400/hr and I make about $100/hr. I wouldn’t be able to make that much on my own because I don’t have the resources and infrastructure my employer has: admin, IT, expertise, manpower, marketing, legal, and so on. I have zero interest in being self employed. So this is a good arrangement for me.

My clients are happy paying those prices because we provide good service at competitive rates.

My employer is happy because they usually net about 30% profit margin so the partners walk away with $120/hr after paying me and other overhead.

It’s the very definition of capitalism doing exactly what it is supposed to do: providing valuable goods and services to people who want to buy it from people who want to sell it, and everyone walks away happy from the transaction.

I fail to see how this is a violent and exploitative war on civilization itself. Fuck everything about this comic. Why is it even on my feed? Gah.

Oh it’s definitely sci fi. I just meant it’s not exactly sci horror as OP requested.

I saw the original John carpenter version at a friends house at ~2am after a rare night out drinking with some old college buddies in town. My friend has a big HD projector and sound system in his house and when everyone heard I’d never seen the thing it was instantly agreed that’s what we are doing later. I had absolutely no idea what to expect and was blown the fuck away!

Then I got all excited a few weeks ago when I saw the thing was on Netflix so I could see it again. Then I realized it was the recent remake from idk 2012 maybe? Watched five minutes of it and ragequit, then paid $3 to see it on Prime.

Primer damn well might be the most confusing movie I’ve ever seen, but in a brilliant sort of way. Relevant xkcd

Friggin love Tremors man, it’s redneck Dune, awesome example of a low budget movie made amazing by good writing and creativity.

Being John Malkovich is easily one of the weirdest most different interesting movies I’ve ever seen. The writer, Charlie Kaufman, also wrote Eternal Sunshine, another great one.

Adaptation is worth watching too, with Nicolas Cage playing two roles, based on the book The Orchid Thief by Susan Orleans.

Enemy Mine was pretty trippy. I saw it when I was a kid though so I’m not sure if it was any good or if it fits.

Vivarium was quite odd and different. I appreciated the original take on the age old concept of how alien and weird the suburbs are.

I’m not sure if it counts as smaller but The Thing, god damn, finally saw that one for the first time recently and it really is one of the GOATs.

It definitely has its moments and it scratches that itch when you really want classic 90s Trek but you’ve watched TNG/DS9/VOY a zillion times each and want something new.

The comforting ambient hum of the engines really does the trick. That sound is conspicuously missing from New Trek (besides, you know, creative integrity?).

Enterprise is watchable and has that classic 90’s trek feel to it. That said, I can barely name or identify a single character on the show or tell you anything about their character, personality, hopes fears dream strengths weaknesses etc.

Captain Archer, has a pet dog, is pretty down to earth and chill I guess…that’s pretty much it…

There’s a guy with a southern accent from I dunno maybe Louisiana? He likes catfish. Those are pretty much his only defining features.

T’pol is a stoic emotionless boring Vulcan. There’s a pretty sexy and out of place scene with her and some other scantily clad attractive characters in a space sauna that didn’t seem appropriate for Star Trek but whatever. She seems annoyed and judgmental about humans. That’s about it for her personality.

The bird like doctor guy is kinda weird. Can’t tell you much about him.

That’s pretty much all I got. There’s really just nothing else to say about any of these characters. I can write books about Captain Picard, Janeway, data, sisko, et all.

Tl;Dr Poor character development bugs me the most about enterprise

My office’s IT helpdesk guy had a similar comic in his office. 3 panels of a guy at his work computer miserable, and the last panel he’s at home on his own computer happy as a clam. So true

A 10 hour movie 🙄

So annoying the way all these shows are just stretched out into series when they can and should be a movie. And vice versa too, movies are all 3+ hours now I feel like, even friggin Indiana Jones was 2.5 hours, if you got that much to say just make it a miniseries or something jeez.

Now if you’ll excuse me I got some clouds to yell at.

I still haven’t watched it. I think I might be done with Trek. There’s just been too much damage in the last decade with those godawful jj abrams movies, discovery, picard, blech. It’s clear to me the franchise has moved in a different direction and we’ll always have tng and ds9, but I just can’t follow it anymore.