the comments here seem to suggest that it's a common view in america that one is not entitled to water unless they are a good slave. bad slaves are best left to dehydrate and die, as they are not producing anything for their masters.
you white racist dipshits are a bunch of fucking niggers.
John Galt
Just pay your bills and the water gets turned on. Do you somehow feel that you can demand the labor of others without paying for that labor?
deathtokoalas
what does an automated system of water distribution have to do with labour?
and why do you think that automated system has the right to charge a price, or generate a profit?
the real issue is parasitic investors converting humans into profit generating machines, and denying them the necessities of existence if they don't contribute to that extractive process.
so, why do you think that these parasitic investors ought to have the right to force independent human beings into non-consensual labour (which is difficult to even find) in exchange for the things they need to survive?
there's a very simple fix: common ownership. if the people having their water shut off owned the system, nobody would be able to deny them of what they owned, and they would maintain access to what they are entitled to.
the crime here is in private ownership of goods that nobody should have the right to own, or be able to coerce people into forced labour in order to gain access to.
until we collectively pull our heads out of our asses and work towards collectivizing the various ways we produce things, we will continue to live under the slavery of market capitalism that forces us to work or die.
the reality is that the vast majority of employed people do nothing of any substantial value to society, and most of them are going to lose their jobs in their near future to automation.
but, we should look forward to this as a step forward in human progress and seize the opportunity that is finally available to us to truly be free.
but, we have to change how we think about labour, first.
and, john galt is not helping us do that. john galt is keeping us locked in a system that has failed us as workers, artists and inventors - while benefiting a select group of people, most of whom have never done an honest day of hard work in their whole lives.
crowbird213
Never worked, never will. What does your fantasy system do about population explosion by the dumbest among us? Keep feeding them? If the whole world naught into your fantasy, what effect would that have on your lifestyle. As the dumbest continue to over populate, what continued effect would that have on your lifestyle? Are you prepared to meet at the lowest common denominator? Before answering that last one, I want you to get an apartment where all those lovely poor live. Then get back to me.
deathtokoalas
i actually live just about as close to detroit as a canadian possibly could. it's a five minute walk to the tunnel under the detroit river....
i've only been over once, and it was to get my border clearance, which should (finally) show up in the mail this week. and i can state that windsor is not as bad as detroit, but that it does have all of the same underlying economic problems stemming from massive job losses due to massive automation. i live in what is one of the poorest parts of windsor, which is no doubt roughly comparable to some areas in detroit. and, i moved here specifically to exist in the area that has the highest potential to move beyond capitalism in the near future.
starting in august, i will be over to detroit fairly regularly.
the basis of the plotline underlying the film idiocracy is not scientifically valid: there's no correlation between intelligence and genetics. brilliant people will produce dumb children, and dumb people will produce brilliant children. it has more to do with the environment that the children are raised in.
i would consider both of my parents to be stupid people - especially my father, who was a flat out imbecile. but, i was raised with a focus on learning that i've kept up with and have consistently scored in the highest percentiles, while both of my parents would consistently score in the lowest. i'm not a statistical anomaly. you just can't draw those connections, it's a myth.
it's a standard anarchist hope that one of the effects of mass automation and collective ownership of production would be greater community involvement in educating kids (as well as a greater focus on art and education, in general). that kind of freedom from repetitive, dull employment is going to allow parents and other adults to spend more time with their children. to most of us anarchists, this focus on art and education is the entire purpose and value of collectivizing production and resources.
further, the solution to overpopulation issues lies in increasing access to abortion and contraceptives and tearing down religious taboos against their use. it doesn't have anything to do with who owns the resources, it has to do with ensuring that people have access to the tools they need to avoid pregnancies.
intelligence is largely a function of brain plasticity. genetics are certainly passed down, but intelligence is not something that is genetic. there was thinking along those lines in the previous century, but if you move beyond the popular press and popular media and into real journals, you'll see that brain plasticity is now understood as the dominant factor, which places environment as the sole consideration.
this is actually a really important thing to understand in constructing the nature of what human beings actually are. you have to begin thinking of your brain as a ball of plasma that is constructed not by a planned genetic code but by the sum of it's reactions to it's experiences. it's consequently not the same organ that you had when you were born, and it consequently will be an entirely different organ by the time you die. genes code for quantifiable traits, like eye colour and physical sex. despite what the popular press would have you believe, genes don't code for things that arise in our minds like intelligence, sexual orientation or moral value systems.
just as an aside...
the reason people push this "dna is a plan for our lives" hogwash is that it aligns well with the christian idea of "god's plan". it's the genetic equivalent of cavemen hanging out with dinosaurs. the difference is that it cuts a little deeper, and even respectable scientists consequently have difficulty separating the ideas. but the media is relentless in ways that no scientist ever would be because it's seen as bridging a divide.
the reality is that there's absolutely no evidence that there are genes that code for behaviour, cognition, orientation or anything else outside of the basic bio-chemical functioning of our bodies, and anybody that suggests that genes do code for these sorts of things is pushing pseudo-science.
it's chemistry, it's not the magic wand of god.
QuartuvLarry
Collectivism: from the same assholes who brought us the Soviet Union
deathtokoalas
actually, we're the assholes that loudly denounced marx when he was still alive, split the socialist international in half because we thought he was a homicidal lunatic, did everything we could to prevent the russian revolution and then died in several theatres (spain, ukraine, germany amongst others) trying to fight them off when they stamped us out with force.