You walk out onto the street. People are milling around happily. Buildings are no longer designed with imposing security features. Violence has all but disappeared thanks to sudden material abundance. People are no longer forced to purchase a beverage just to sit down and talk in public spaces. The architecture has been redesigned to be more accommodating for pedestrians. Seating areas seem widely available. People sit and talk among themselves. Even strangers seem capable of breaking into conversation easily.
You feel as if you’ve wandered into a massive public museum, or some other noncommercial public space, but even that analogy doesn’t feel quite right. You realize that you’ve never been to a place quite like this.
You decide to take the train to your old home, but you’re confused as you reach the train station, and find the turnstiles have disappeared. You walk in unobstructed. The screen indicates that your train will arrive shortly. You assume that you’ve arrived just on time, but then you realize that the track has been expanded massively. Automated maglev trains glide silently in and out of the station every thirty seconds. No advertisements are pasted on the station’s walls - these have been replaced with noticeboards informing commuters of gatherings or work opportunities.
Commuters occupy themselves with tablet-style devices, but unlike in the capitalist era, they do not seem to be distracting themselves with facebook or games. Some seem to be reading complex scientific and philosophical treatises. Unburdened by the mind-numbing hours of work, they have the time and energy to expand their minds. Others seem to be watching live-feeds of independently produced entertainment. Total automation has apparently allowed people to spend their time more creatively.
You ask a fellow commuter about recent events. You ask about unemployment. You ask about financial collapse, austerity, the wars in the Middle East, and the possibility of inter-imperial conflict. He smiles wisely, and says, “Those are all things of the past now, comrade.” He speaks with a thick German accent. His snowy-white beard makes him look like a professional Santa Claus. His fashion sense seems anachronistic in this future era. It is then that you realize who he is.
It’s Marx.
You begin to sob as you feel a burden lift from your body. A weight disappears that you didn’t even know was there. Marx places a paternal hand on your shoulder, and as he draws you into a loving embrace, he says, “I told you it was inevitable, comrade.”
No advertisements are pasted on the station’s walls
i remember seeing pics of pongyang and the lack of ads and stuff was one of the things that stood out to me especially since where I live is particularly BurgerPunk
well i just learned a new phrase to describe interstate offramp hellscapes.
This is what hacker culture could have been, instead it turned into weirdo CHUD libertarians
tfw no wolf furry cyber punk gf with a robot arm :deeper-sadness:
Right! I think about this so often the creativity and imagination corrupted by capitalism...
I wonder how much peoples moods would improve if we didn't have constant advertising everywhere.
Most ads are so viscerally unpleasant. I use adblock almost everywhere, and when one manages to make it through, like on the smart tv's youtube app or something, I tense up for a (very) brief second like somebody just drew a knife.
Capitalist culture is needing to buy highway billboards in a PSA campaign to warn people about the dangers of distracted driving and to remind them to keep their eyes on the road.
I know I would be happier. I just want to see the god dammned sky, fucking billboards
I li trerally have to read studies on this for my job and the answer is a lot.
Just imagine Jeff Bezos in an incandescent despairing rage as he goes walking around a Culture Orbital full of happy people doing cool things.
I love the image of having all the billionares live in a commune together. lmao what do you mean you don't clean?
Even if they were living in New Berniegrad though you just know they'd manage to feel nothing but resentment, regardless of how much joy they were surrounded by.
:meow-bernie:
every day i wake up and think about this and it makes me feel :deeper-sadness: but then i remind myself that the possibility of this is what reading theory and doing praxis is all about :heart-sickle:
I instantly shoot him for invading my private space and violating the NAP.