“The system is set up against me” by giving me free housing and income
(media.scored.co)
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (63)
sorted by:
The system gave her free money and free housing and she went on to make millions shaking her ass and making terrible music, in what world was the system against her.
If you really want to know...
Humans are designed to suffer. Suffering is an intrinsic quality of life. As mortal, finite, imperfect creatures suffering is inevitable, as we can't perfectly control our surroundings, and since we're at the mercy of our surroundings, we're sometimes harmed by it (i.e. naturals disasters, or merely chance bad luck).
However, it goes deeper than that. We don't have perfect memories. What happens to people over time? We get used to our current condition. Over time, we take what we have for granted. Interestingly, this subject also partly answers a fundamental question/challenge to religion (usually aimed squarely at Christianity): if God is all powerful and loves us, why does he allow us to suffer? So, I'll frame it to answer that question, and then connect it back to how society and people operate.
Let's pretend that humanity is suffering, and we cry out to God "woe is me". God comes down and eliminates the worst half of human suffering from existence. Now, people can only experience the top half of human experience, from neutral to pure bliss/happiness. People are overjoyed. They praise and thank God for his mercy. Then, over time, the joy, praise, and thankfulness wanes. They get used to their current condition. They take it for granted. Over people's lifetimes, perhaps over generations of not properly passing on their knowledge, wisdom, and memories, people forget how well they have it. Over enough time, people begin to equate the new scope of human experience within the suffering vs joy frame. People can see there is variance in human experience, that some live better than others, and some experience the (new) worst things. How dare God let people suffer such affronts, such horrible things as these? If God truly loved us, he would intervene, and prevent our suffering. God relents again, and comes down to remove the (new) worst half of human suffering, such that now only the top 25% of human experience is possible. People are overjoyed. They praise and thank God for his mercy. The cycle repeats.
We get used to our current condition. We take all that we have for granted. We compare differences in experience, and lament when things don't go our way. Our imperfect memory and ability to pass on knowledge betrays us. It doesn't matter how much God could intervene and remove any amount of suffering. Unless all human experience is made equal, at some point, someone would complain. Equality of experience, of outcomes, is impossible. In an infinite universe, where different locations result in different variables, equality of experience would require, either all positions and variances within the universe to be the same, such that, ultimately, the universe had no effect on people or was equal everywhere, or that all people inhabit the same location at all times, such that each person experiences the exact same thing. Both are impossible (at least for us), is some variant of a hellish existence, would completely unravel the universe, and/or would completely defeat the purpose of there being more than one of us, and for each of us to be unique and different.
Notice how this jealous forgetful mindset pervades modern Western thought? We're at the peak of civilization. We have all manner of technology, wealth, wonders, conveniences, safeties, and barriers to nature. And yet, people still lament their suffering, take what they have for granted, and want for more. Look at what our ancestors had and what they had to deal with only 100-200 years ago. No running water. No indoor plumbing. No electricity. No air conditioning or central heating. Most had to grow, slaughter, and cook their own food. No cars. No computers. No phones. No video games. No TV. Medicine was primitive by comparison. Untold suffering was abundant. And yet, they persisted, thrived, and overcame. All the things they built, invented, and achieved, we now take for granted.
This leads to another observation, that the more our suffering is removed and redefined upward, the weaker we become. I'd argue, quite easily that our ancestors were tougher than us. They could endure far more and thrive in spite of it. However, also notice how the insulated political left perpetually bitches about greater and greater minutiae? Nothing is ever enough for them (or for us). No matter how much we prostrate and bend to their demands and lamentations, it's never enough. This mindset is wholly connected to our ability to take things for granted. The current political left is philosophically focused on equality, the equalization of human experience, even though it's impossible. They've even framed unequal outcomes as somehow being the result of oppressors being at fault, and White people being forever labelled as those oppressors, as we seem to always have it better than non-whites. Most here (in right wing spaces) see what the left is doing, reject it, and in some small way try to do the right thing, of not taking for granted what they do, of bitching about infinitely small minutiae. But, if people were being honest, even right wingers would have to admit they still take a great many things for granted. It's just that the left is much farther along the "woe is me" path, and cemented the premise of it (the search for equality) into their politics and philosophy.
Still, the mindset of the quoted person in OP's screenshot goes a step further. Greed. It's a motivation associated with someone who intentionally forgets what they have, who intentionally isn't thankful, and always wants for more, every second of their lives. It might be one of the worst ways to live, where one's own mind is always stealing their joy. But, it's obvious that most/many of these people are happy, in some way. Currently, the rich just have to put on a charade to pretend they're suffering, to artificially insert themselves back into that false oppressor/oppressed globalist paradigm. "I'm suffering just like you", says the spoiled brat millionaire.
A lot of this is artificially pushed, false philosophies that keep us weakened, but a lot of it, the lion's share, is just natural human behavior. It's also a natural consequence of the rise and fall of civilizations. We're currently past the peak, have forogtten our forefather's lessons, became corrupted with comfortable falsehoods and lies, and now we're sliding toward collapse, under the weight of all the anti-truth. The higher a civilization climbs, the faster and harder it will fall, generally speaking.
The only way I can conceive of preventing this process, is by concrete societal institutions and traditions that pass on knowledge and wisdom, to make it much harder to forget how far we've come, implementing methods to somehow instill what it means to truly suffer (like rites of passage for the young, or annual events designed to take away all our comforts), and to pray every day, to remain cognizant and thankful for all the things we have. But, given human nature, these are probably just delaying tactics for a future civilizational collapse.
Well written thanks. One point I would disagree with though is the suffering of the rich being pretend.
As you said, hedonistic adaptation and the like are part of human nature. If you objectively live a pampered life, but your brain says "you're depressed", then you're depressed. Our subjective feelings are not based on facts. We feel what we feel, whether or not it makes sense.
It's not unlike how a 2 year old can have everything: Warmth, love, safety, and freedom to play all day. Yet they can still be devastated when you won't give them ice-cream for dinner. There's nothing pretend about it, I assure you.
I only meant that many rich people, at least nowadays, pretend to suffer to play into the victim narrative that current globalist Western philosophy is pushing. The above quote of Cardi B is proof of that, and I've seen all manner of "woe is me" remarks from incredibly rich people who want for nothing. But...
I also agree with this. Self inflicted depression, whether factual or not, is a terrible experience. I would know, as I've been through it, so severe that I was about a millimeter away from killing myself (quite literally), when I was 15. The only thing that stopped me was love for my dad. I didn't want him to find me like that. Depression is terrible, but it's also a symptom of improper living, or improper society. That doesn't mean all depression is, but the depression rates for modern society are astronomically larger than when our ancestors lived harder lives. Proper diet, getting enough sleep, getting sunlight and being out in nature, getting exercise, having neighbors and a healthy community of people that are like you, having a loving wife and kids, these things engender well being and stave off depression. But modern society is designed to not produce, condone, or prosper these things, in fact modern society tries to achieve the antithesis, to keep people weakened and easily controlled.
I couldn't agree more.