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We don't even have to zoom in, to be honest.

What children? What park? The presence of a park pre-supposes a political society that has prioritized parks, the budget to enact those priorities, and the space to do so. Any one of those can spiral into its own political microcosm.

How is that park maintained? Is there a special kids area of the park? Is it "for kids" or is it "The kids area", implying that kids aren't allowed in the rest of the park? Are the children not allowed in the park after a certain time - and who decides that time, and why? Sometimes the park is used for town events, but can get rented out. Who decides that?

Complexity is inherent, from the atoms to the galaxies. Any rejection of that is just plugging your ears, willfully or not.

> Some people hold a point of view that there is something other than democracy serves their agenda better.

Well, since they don't believe in democracy, I suppose they won't be too concerned when their opinions are discarded. What do they want, representation?

I also wonder if it includes the part where mark paraphrases the 14 words.

We're at the "White nationalists have some good points" stage of discourse.

Feels like the kind of headline that would briefly pause in front of the camera to establish how the world got "like this".

I disagree. Capitalism is a very specific, recent invention. You are living out the actual quote. I don't care if its nature - in my estimation, it fucking sucks!

Your argument works just as easily for Kings, Slavery, and every other horrible thing humans have done to one another. Capitalism is not in any way, shape, or form necessary to human existence. It would be like saying that Prime Time TV is "Nature" and worthy of almighty consideration. I pray I get to live to see the end of all of the above in my life time.

I've said my argument about as cleanly as I can! It's a complicated topic, and I encourage you to continue reading about it.

I am going to try to respond to the middle chunk later, because I don't really understand the lines you are drawing and how they map to my argument. In some sense, you are describing "The Market", which is another thing that exists outside of the means of organizing the resources. There are collective systems of governance that answer a lot of these questions, too!

To this, however:

> Separate line of thought (but to the same end), curious what you think: If humans are nature, and humans have capitalism, is capitalism not natural?

I don't care? Cancer is natural, Bifocals aren't. I don't think it's a useful framing on the question. My opinions would be the same on capitalism if it were a plot from the moon-beings of Andromeda IX vs. it being written explicitly written into our DNA. In the context of the quote, it is meant as in "It is not an objective facet of our existence, or something we must endure."

"“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.”

> Right now if I step out into the street, I can flag a taxi, I can buy a coffee. In each case these are direct peer to peer transactions, where the price is agreed between us based on what we both want out of the exchange

I agree that we can do this. I do not agree that this is, strictly speaking, capitalism.

Capitalism =/= the exchange of goods, services, and capital.

Capitalism is the system that says the people who own the property constituting the critical infrastructure of an organization - the "Means of Production" - should get to make all the rules. That's it.

If I own a big beef machine that turns cows into hamburgers, it doesn't matter that I need 50 people to run it and 200 people to box and ship and sell the patties, the fact that I am the person who had enough money to buy the big beef machine means that my word is law, period. If I don't like the way they touch my big beef machine, they go away. If they don't like how unsafe the big beef machine is, too bad. Doesn't matter how much I sell the patties for - I decide how much I pay you, and I keep the rest (not exactly peer-to-peer). I own the big beef machine, so my say goes.

I agree with you that trade will exist until the end of time, and has existed since the first time Ook had something that Grog wanted and Grog decided it was too much energy to kill Ook over it.

When I say I am "Anti-capitalist", I mean (among other things) that I do not believe Capitalism specifically is the best (most productive, least ethically repulsive) means by which to engage in trade.

None of these opinions relate to trade or even the concept of capital itself, but rather the means by which we organize it.

To the original quote: It is hard to imagine the end of capitalism, because people believe capitalism is a natural facet of human nature. It is not; it is a big beef machine.

Do you mean trade or mercantilism? Capitalism - a system by which the means of production are privately owned - has only been dominant for the last few hundred years, broadly exacerbated by the industrial revolution (where you could easily point to "Guy who owns the big Machine").

It is, at its most fundamental description, a Top-Down system of governance and ownership (I admit, probably not the way you mean, but it did tickle me).

Dragons hoarding wealth might be emergent human behavior, but, hey, so are brave knights.

IMO, this is the right idea. I've worked on small projects using Jira primarily as a means of ticket management, and I've worked on giant orgs with scrums and groomings and all that.

As far as a tool, it's perfectly fine. A lot of my bad feelings came as a result of wanting it to be simple ("What should I work on next") but it being twisted into a series of incantations and rituals by those looking to bend it for the purposes of more and more intricate views into how we spend every moment of our day.

> what for almost all of human history, is something so far beyond the imagination as to be bordering on the grotesque.

Citation needed

There are whole swaths of still living people who would gladly give up their wombs. Trans men, for example.

Not that there's any amount of polite progress that won't cause insane public discourse when it involves gender.

Damn, it's almost like Gender is largely vibes and any attempt to root it in a strict biological standard is as patently ridiculous as it would be trying to do the same to horoscopes.

Giving birth is already not a precondition of being a woman, as the category "infertile women" exist.

Racist fears of "replacement", mostly.

>You mean that when they send people back to their home countries because they're no longer welcome here?

> I don't like bullies, but when they do the "made you flinch" thing, part of me wants to smirk.

You like bullies, actually - you just don't like thinking you like bullies.

Imagine the organization you are imagining in your head.

Now imagine there is a Super-boss, who is exactly like the "people running the business" (attribution needed), but one level above them.

If the Super Boss were to look at the situation, I think it'd be pretty obvious that the issue would be "The people organizing the company at the highest level" who are responsible for the failures of the company. That may involve over-hiring, which is itself a bad practice that causes unnecessary pain and (personal, financial) suffering, and would be a good cause to fire them for almost crashing my beautiful super-company that I, the Super-boss, super-founded.

You're saying that if we return the Super-boss to the realm of the fictional, then suddenly it isn't the C-suite's fault anymore?

If we're discussing should, then yeah, their heads should be the first to roll. I agree its idealistic to imagine them having the sort of decency this requires, but I agree it should be the case!