I’ve definitely turned into the paranoid nutcase within my friend group in recent years, I hate that everything is “smart” nowadays requiring an app/internet connection & account, just to do basic things that didn’t require any of that before.
What’s some things currently making you ramble like an old man?
Capitalism is growing, it has successfully seeped through every aspect of our life, creating consensus and effectively becoming more and more the norm in the social fabric. Right now there are many opinions against capitalism that are beginning to become almost taboo.
I absolutely look like a boomer typing this, and I am fully aware of this. I hate absolutely everything about contemporary culture, except for the much higher attention to mental health, broader acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community, more attention on the problems of feminism and a few other things that I think are a net positive to out society. I think capitalism is fully to blame for most of the things that are going to shit right now.
I am with you on a lot of this, but I will never and I mean ever understand the impulse that so many people have to say that online dating has made life worse. Dating is much better now because of online dating. Instead of constantly needing to be vigilant for an opportunity to find a mate and then pursuing them only to often be shut down or find out about a huge deal breaker on the second date, we can filter out a lot of those cases simply by reading a profile. Yes I’m aware people lie and hide things. But if they’re on a dating site they probably are looking for a relationship of some kind and if they wrote 3 or more sentences you probably can get a feel for what they generally value in life.
I also think it’s quite a stretch to try and say online dating = capitalism because “marketed as products” and “throw people away like trash”. It sounds like you were broken up with by one too many online dates?
Are you somehow intelligent enough to write all of this so thoughtfully, yet somehow unaware that relationships have ALWAYS been highly “transactional”? One of many aspects I could focus on to illustrate this is just the concept of marriage period. In many cultures, since thousands of years ago, you literally paid a family for a bride. It still continues today if I’m not mistaken, you just call it “paying a dowry” instead of buying a wife because it sounds better.
If we are talking about r/datingadvice I think there it’s a legit complaint to say that people seem to be more in the “throw that person away” camp but I don’t think there’s actually a shred of evidence that anything is new about this. We just now have a conduit for public opinions about dating to end up in our faces while we doomscroll.
I also blame capitalism for a lot, but I think it gets tricky to link capitalism to everything bad. I’d say it’s more like all these things are symptoms of a condition and all somewhat related. Greed is what a lot of this is, and yes capitalism is all wrapped up in that but I don’t think if you somehow took it away that every problem goes away.
First things first, throwing people away and online dating are in two different camps entirely. For the throwing people away it’s something that I have seen a lot: the Reddit dating advice is also more and more common and spread on social media, and it’s becoming to be eaten up by people. Ask random friends in your social circle in general, and you’ll find that - at least the younger ones - are susceptible to this trend.
As for online dating: we can meet in the middle and say that I think it would be a net pro on something that is structured differently than Tinder, which represents the embodiment of what I think is bad about it. There is, of course, value in being able to have access to a wider pool than “your friend group and social circle”. This is how I would structure my own dating app:
Yes, I am aware this would not work for open relationships or stuff like couples looking for a third unicorn for kinky stuff, but that’s by design, as existing apps already work well for that. Tinder, for example, is more widely used for casual sex that it is about building romantic relationships, and it is perfectly adequate for that.
Yes, you are pointing to combines marriages - but I am not suggesting we go back to the 50’s, I am talking about the past few years. Capitalism has already been an upgrade over feudalism, I agree. My point is that, lately, we have been overdoing it and everything that started off as a positive innovation, like social media and dating apps, is starting to lose its soul and become more Draconian or anti - capitalism.
I have a question for you: why is it that billionaires and big capitalists have been amassing more profits and pushing this more intensive version of capitalism? I know this argumentation all too well, I have once had a long discussion with a friend who argued capitalism or not wouldn’t change anything because greed exists. My counter point is that, while greed exists and has always existed, it’s never been quite that bad in recent times and, for second, greed and capitalism feed and reinforce each other. It’s an endless loop that keeps reinforcing itself.
Also, do consider the fact that while I was highly upvoted here on Lemmy, the same wouldn’t be true at a random table with some friend group out there in the world. These opinions of mine that are popular here are fringe in the real world, so if you get the impression my comment is disconnected from reality and what people think when you touch grass, yes, that is precisely the point why I wrote it. This is my own little grumpy old man yelling at a clown view of a lot of modern things that I talk about in spaces like these online, but mostly shut up about when I’m out there having a drink.
Absolutely agree. I am afraid of where capitalism will bring us one day If I am being honest.
By the way, to be precise and pedantic, they are the results of neoliberalism and not purely capitalism. From the outside, it seams not very different but it’s. Capitalism is only a part of neoliberalism.
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Damn there’s so much to agree with. The way you’ve found a common thread in all this, it puts into words many criticisms I’ve started to foster. growing up in capitalism with such a far reach (into our private lives) and high speed is absolutely leaving it’s mark on the culture.
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I think it’s especially the money and LGBTQ+ and non sexual norms that are driving people to the right. I notice when I talk to a lot of younger guys theyre tired of hearing about it.
Because it’s pushed on so much of their TV shows and things they like that they side with political candidates that are conservative at a young age and they further grow into it. These are conservative candidates with lots of money usually.
I hate to say it but it was universally cool to defend LGBT people when the media and TV shows didn’t push it. Because you were defending an oppressed person. Now it more so feels like it’s popular which means it’s no longer an obscure thing, the anti culture is the new trend.
I want to disclaim that I don’t agree with any of this other than to say this is my observation of the behavior. I play rainbow six ranked on Xbox and use the looking for group party finder with a buddy of mine. We group up and encounter a lot of guys in the army and Marines, a lot of teenagers and this is cumulatively the culture I’ve heard. Same thing on like world of warcraft classic and using discord to raid but those guys run older typically.
This infuriates me more than I can express. How is the existence of lgbt people in media “pushing it”? I that case, I’m sick of the “straights” who have been “pushing it” since I was born.
A few months ago someone I considered a friend came to me and was like, I know you’re trans, but what’s your opinion on all the trans stuff in the media, I don’t want my kid exposed to it. Like, wow, the only reason you know I’m trans is because I told you and now my existence has become political, something her kids need to be shielded from. Fuck all these people to hell and back.
You wanna know how that kind of shit makes you feel? This is what I wrote in a comment yesterday:
Playing the victim is the right wingers favorite pastime. Crying that someone’s right to exist is a burden for you to hear about. Fuck on off back to 4chan or whatever