ranting here because i saw these on main and i don't want to explode directly at these people
yesterday i saw an anticonsumer thread where the op was talking about cancelling all your subscriptions, buying all your clothes secondhand, dumpster diving for what you need, and growing and foraging ALL of your own food to avoid paying large companies. this is fucking impossible for most of the population because you can't just eat the plants out of a community garden and expect to be healthy. you need either meat or equivalent proteins from certain plants (most that the average person can't grow in their backyard) in order to get the right proteins for your insides to actually function. you also can't just stop using soap/shampoo without making yourself and everyone around you sick. we're social animals, we're not designed to get every resource we need ourselves.
beneath that comment was someone proudly taking the diogenes stance and saying all you actually need is edible plants, a jug of water, cloth to protect from the elements, and a safe place to sleep, and that everything else was artificially added to the list of needs by capitalism. this is the biggest fucking load of giant steaming horse shit i have seen all fucking goddamn month and i cannot stress how many studies i could shove in this person's face showing that any animal more intelligent than a paramecium needs stimulation and variety. base survival mode is terrible for a person's mental health. hell, it would be terrible for the mental health of my fucking guinea pig. (and also, diogenes threw out his bowl when he realized you only needed your hands to scoop up water, so get that dumbass jug out of the equation.)
in a related thread someone said "humans will invent the atomic bomb but no mouse would ever invent a mousetrap." NO. STUDY ANIMAL BEHAVIOR PLEASE. a mouse would absolutely invent a mousetrap if it had the intelligence to. again, anything more intelligent than a paramecium is going to be consciously competing for resources. sometimes animals are bonkers clever about how they prevent the other members of their herd/flock/group from getting at food just to hoard it to themselves. be an animal lover, not an animal romanticizer. nature is cruel.
i just can't figure out how these people function when they know so little about how their own species works.
I see these kinds of discussions happen all the time, and they really do perplex me. Like dont get me wrong, I hate capitalism too, I hate that we're often priced out on the basic needs we have. But I live in the real world, theres just some things you cant deny without like you said, hurting yourself. It's already a struggle sometimes having a healthy amount of food in, trying to go out and fend for yourself in a sense is just dumb. I think people just get an idea in their head, but never stop to think further into how it would play into actual life before throwing it down someone elses throat to feel superior.
Like me personally, I dont want to go through those hoops, i dont want to grow and hunt all my food. I just want to afford the things i like and live my life with those closest to me and be happy. I mean so many of us live in places where growing shit is just impossible, I live in a city! Most of us dont even have gardens in this area, and the ones who do are all dangerous with pests.
Man people like this really grind my gears. I also have my gripes with capitalism, but there comes a breaking point where it becomes too risky to live like this, and many don't think of those risks.
Yes, if you look at your most basic needs in the broadest of senses, food, water, shelter, and clothing are all you need. However, as you said, we are complex creatures who desire stimulation and variety. Beside that, there are some health concerns that come from living a lifestyle like this. Many plants that appear edible can be incredibly toxic. Even if the fruit itself is edible, certain parts of the plant may not be, or the fruit itself may be poisonous if unripe. If you come across something like a garden or a farm, the crops there aren't for you to just take. That's stealing. Dumpster diving also comes with its own risks as well. You know what else frequents dumpsters? Raccoons, rats and mice. All three of these creatures are known to carry rabies, and rats/mice can carry hantavirus. Roaches are also common around dumpsters, and many of them carry horrible illnesses as well. Disregarding the pests, food thrown out may not be safe to consume. Any perishable good that requires refrigeration cannot be left out in an environment above about 3 degrees C/37 degrees F for longer than 2 hours, as they start to grow harmful bacteria.I do agree that we waste way too much food in this country, but dumpster diving for food is incredibly risky and not worth it. Even non consumable items could be covered in god knows what.
As for the mouse inventing a mousetrap thing, mice would 100% invent a mousetrap esque device if they had the intelligence and dexterity to do so. The ultimate goal of life is to survive and reproduce. Creating a mousetrap would reduce the competition, making survival and mating far easier. Atom bombs[and other WMDs] were not created for the sake of decreasing competition, but rather political leverage. However, those are sociopolitical concepts, and not strictly biological. It's like comparing apples to pork chops. Yes they can intermingle, but they are very different things.
Apologies that it's so long. I had quite a bit to say about people like this. The TLDR is that there are significant risks to one's health with this minimalist lifestyle, and that mice are not humans.
people really like to talk as if they could do the whole hunter-gatherer thing but i think they're hyping themselves up too hard. if you put most modern people nowadays in that situation i think maybe a small percentage of them would actually manage. i kept seeing a bunch of these return to nature "we don't condone ted kaczynski but we do agree with him" accounts on instagram and i always rolled my eyes. it's petty but i want to ask them "hey, how many of your favorite songs are dependent on modern conveniences?" or something like that because if you were truly committed, you'd dump all of that.
i certainly think there are a lot of problems with the system of capitalism, feudalism at this point, that we have, but i also think some of these people don't realize people are part of it too. not to be like "we're the virus", i think that's stupid because billionaire wealth hoarders are the virus, but have you ever tried thrifting as a fat person? it's difficult as hell, especially because all of the basic white girls have come and snatched up a lot of the good clothes since baggy clothes are a big thing. most people aren't willing to actually put in the effort to make their own food, vegan or not. they'll take some of the performative ways, but find someone willing to make one sandwich entirely from scratch with their own resources. those are called farms.
tl;dr weakass mofos are laaame
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