NlGHTW0LF
36073
2870
50
May 17, 2023 3:24 PM
NlGHTW0LF
36073
2870
50
Myrealnameisunusual
Credit cards enter the chat. You can keep dancing while we lend you money.
ArkoneAxon
Corporations are essentially "Paperclip maximizers." Those actually DO have value and utility. But you need to keep them under rigid safeguards or else they WILL turn everything into a paperclip. Under our current system food corporations consider feeding people to be an unavoidable secondary condition to achieve the primary goal of making money. As opposed to a more sensible policy of making the primary goal feeding people the best food possible, and then rewarding those who make that happen.
TeelMoobeel
but it is sustainable, because our game of life is far more complex & has far more players. it IS rigged against us, and that's why WE hate it so much. this re-post is horribly reductive.
Mehdals
You will own nothing and like it.
nclu
Another reminder, Monopoly was invented by followers of the American economist Henry George that advocated for Land Value Taxes to prevent this extractive centralization of wealth and power
djangojazz
But surely Elon Musk can get people to sleep and work at the same time.
Myrealnameisunusual
You no longer need sleep, thanks to the all new musk-bezos sleep negation device. Thanks to our benevolent rulers, you can now work 24 hours a day. Praise be unto them.
kowcatchan
That was the whole point behind monopoly. It was an art piece
ButteryBiscuitBass
That's a perfect description of the housing market in the UK.
ageek3000
Pretty much everywhere else too my friend. I hear you've got it worse than us though -- good luck out there.
adiving
Nope, not even remotely close to the reset yet... It's gonna have to get much worse first.
HINMAN
The choice between rent and food is a simple one. What is har, is what to do when the majority of people just stop paying bills. Im not starving so my land lord can feast. Evict the majority of the working classes and see how long your property is quietly enjoyed.
TheFastpaws
Eat the rich isn't just a slogan. It is instructions.
iliketosayBURN
Technologie stops in Monopoly. (When you can't make your hotel bigger) it makes a huge difference. You can't simplify too much. Nevertheless, I'm still agree with OP's general idée that capitalism will fuck us
GTimgur
Only thing that can change it is us. :) All the sad sack talk and not nearly enough people doing jack shit. Just waiting until someone starts a revolution for them.
callocosplay
If you want to make everybody totally love you and not want to murder you, you can never place down hotels and only max out your houses on all properties. There's a cap to the amount of houses that can be built on the board. So if you hoard all the houses then nobody else can build them. That my friend is how you Monopoly. By exploiting an artificial scarcity. Quite literally...
w1k2
Wasn’t monopoly a game that was used to teach about socialism before it was bought by capitalists?
goboltz
The 1% are doing like your Brother or Sister did, they were the bank & cheated/changed the rules as they went along . . I thing we're ALL getting "B & O Railroaded" , I doubt we'll be able to "Pass Go" much longer !
senseicombs
Yes, but then the person that owns everything can say they won, and to them, all the death and suffering of millions of other people is worth it. That is why we need better laws to define the minimum levels of morality that can not be crossed. The Geneva convention of business war.
OriginalSyn
And one of the best strategies is gobble up as much good property as possible and then stay in jail for the rest of the game so you don't spend your own money
TheRidg
The best strategy is not to play, much better games out there.
Kasemoch
Oh if only. What a life we could live.
idiotsonfire
No, it isn't. Its to buy out an entire lane of the board, the yellow side of the board is usually what I focus on, and then just buy houses.
idiotsonfire
You buy St. Charles Place all the way to New York Avenue, then just start throwing houses on them until they're all full.
idiotsonfire
Then you don't put hotels on them. You just buy enough houses, and when you buy enough, nobody else can buy any. Then you drain their cash.
scootwhoman
Winners end up alone. No matter how many homes you have, you can only live in one at a time.
UncleRat
Everyone plays Monopoly wrong. Everyone thinks they know the rules. But when you play by the official rules it is mind-blowing. It is fast fun and really intelligent. When you are done you can just sit there and look at the board and know each time you screwed up. Unlike Life.
tinyfootprints
1/ I've been saying this for a few years. It's time to clear the board, redistribute the wealth, and start over. Actually, no. I'd much rather have a completely different societal structure with a guaranteed minimum standard of living for all, socialized medicine, and a work structure that takes advantage of the fact our ancestors built machines to do the heavy lifting. It seems that every technological advance that has made work easier has been met with not more leisure time but with the >
tinyfootprints
2/ discovery of even more work that needs to be done. Screw that! When we make our work easier, let's kick back and enjoy it. Imagine what life would be like if everyone who wants to work could work, but instead of looking for more stuff to do, we work shorter hours. How about 20-hour work weeks all around? We have the technology for it.
Almaadin
The key is to restart the game and do it again but keep all the money from 'winning' the previous game.
DriverIRQnotlessOrEqual
I mean that’s the message of the game though
NateintheNorth
The half that got published.
IPlayForBread
Yall have finished a game of monopoly?
SageSalven
Monopoly=fair chance. We're entering some form of endured servitude. Is there a game for that?
Tboy09
Sure.... But let's do that in the Star Wars version!
Kilsta
It ends when someone flips the board and now we have to start all over.
paigezero
I don't think what we're doing in the real world is sustainable either but I also don't think that pointing out what happens in a board game is a convincing argument.
u2braindead
not quite accurate. the monopoly rules I grew up with had the game ending when one person owned everything. which I think is probably way worse...
LissyCo
Am I the only one that got a Monopoly ad under this???
ibethere
I got one too
JaXm
"ad"? What's that?
CaptainPawfulFox
Yes, you are. They targeted you specifically. Run.
Raventhief
The initial form of the game was designed to illustrate the futility of living in a capitalist society.
doctorId
And it was stolen and sold unironically as a celebration of it.
nonCanadianGoose
What ppl don’t realize is the reason capitalism is failing in the USA is the same reason communism never worked….ppl making business decisions should not influence public doctrine. Plenty of capitalist countries with healthy socialist policies because the companies can’t influence gov’t. Ppl complain about “late stage capitalism” as opposed to what “late stage communism”?
AntiJen360
We played this game in my government class in high school and Everett we would play with a different set of rules for each government. ie communist rules, socialist rules. Etc. It was really eye opening
wiresnake
There was a copycat game in the USSR called Retro. It was supposed to serve that exact purpose. It would have been more successful at it if the USSR wasn’t such a corrupt, depressing, demoralizing, shithole. Instead all of us kids just thought capitalism would be awesome. Little did we know that it doesn’t matter what system you live in, it’s the assholes endemic in every society who end up ruining everything for everyone.
maxstout808
To be fair, capitalism had a huge role in the downfall of the USSR, as well.
wiresnake
If the CIA is capitalism, then sure. That said, I’m pretty sure the Soviets were doing just fine at destroying the country on their own. Western propaganda was just another gentle nudge.
surprisinglynotmyrealname
Only cream and bastards rise
Farzhad
The problem is that they made it actually pretty fun trying-to and possibly being the winning monopolist. Sort of sends the wrong message accidentally: "Damn, it's great owning shit and forcing my opponents to pay for it."
Raventhief
The problem is someone stole the concept and changed the game, so that instead of group futility it became competitive.
TheZacAttack
"From its inception, the Landlord’s Game aimed to seize on the natural human instinct to compete." Even in the anti-monopolist rules, there was a competitive nature and a winner, games aren't intriguing or entertaining without motivation and competition is the most common
meganical
They failed when they expected Americans to naturally be intelligent enough to understand satire; I don’t think we ever will be at the level they expected
mebe21
Idk if it's really satire so much as am open and honest point. I don't know a single person who ENJOYS playing monopoly. Just people who are chasing the high of the one time they were big dog in the game.
Hereagain
I mean, that's kinda the point. Those who do the best get there not because they're any better at the game, but because they got lucky.
mebe21
Yes. That's not satire though.
Hereagain
Also the game was essentially stolen and changed just enough to obscure the criticism.
ageek3000
Ya, the people I know who love Monopoly should hate it, and the people who hate it should love it. But, people understandably get caught up in whether they personally won or lost and not what the game is actually teaching us.
charliethewizard
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/11/secret-history-monopoly-capitalist-game-leftwing-origins
Kigliwoth
Thank you sir/lady.
Krytture
That was a very awesome read
FuckmotheringxVampire
Honestly, the most concerning thing to me after entering the business world is how many people see no issue with the concept of unlimited growth and no one ever has a plan for when growth stops.
texanheathen
Yeah, our entire economy and a lot of lives are built entirely on an impossible "infinite growth" idea. I think it's the major reason for most of our problems. We need to get people to understand sustainibility is the more desireable option. If you can do something you don't hate and earn enough to live your own life, that should be enough. If a company can earn enough to pay everyone and stay afloat, that should be enough.
StormBurnX
It's because everyone knows the growth isn't truly unlimited and, in the same vein, everyone assumes the growth won't stop until after they've reaped the profits. Covid was a horrifying surprise to those people.
whatsisname
Their plan is "hopefully that happens after I'm dead"
ztygs
That can be arranged.
damnshame24
Because each and every one of those people are expecting to get theirs before it becomes a problem
Vengeraxe
Was an eye opener years back when I moved up into managing a location for a company years back, and learned that every year, the metric goals for profit were always raised. Every year, higher and higher, and if you did not meet them, you got written up/leading to expulsion. Busted ass to make insane goals for teh year? your reward is a higher goal next year! That this was a industry standard. Always gotta make 20% over previous years. Insane.
SirenBrick
And then the stock gets too high, they fear a buy/sell run or a pump play and do a split and sell to get it to a manageable level again so they can keep growing... and it means literally nothing and has 0 effect other than letting them keep increasing profit expectations.
MasterMookie
I believe it's an initiate desire to propagate that has transferred to companies. All species want to grow more numerous to stay alive else we would have gone extinct. But we as a logical species can see that if we outgrow our environment we will die. We are not like wolves who overhunt an area and eventually die out because of lack of food and boom they have too few members in their pack after starvation to continue their pack.
kittyanya
Big Bis shoves the debt into business failings and keep growing with short sales, borrowing against it until teens with RobinHood laugh.
PoopSammich
The solution to that is simple, fire everyone and give yourself a quarter billion $ raise
Pliznot
Isn’t it because everyone runs on credit and the interest keeps going up and needs to be paid? I recently read that if the housing market stops growing it could crash the economy for that particular reason
ThatTransformersDude
I'm a designer so far from attending business school but as I kept learning about the different sectors and industries I worked myself into, the sad realization is that they don't care for the long term, they just wanna get paid tomorrow and the growth stop is someone else's problem because they'll cash out.
OmgOptimized
Those who want to take it easy get outcompeted by those who continue working to make progress. Until things implode but then everyone is hit
giraffinator
Numbers gotta go up, there is no other way
PenguinNamedWobbles
The plan with growth slows or stops is to move to an environment that will limit costs and growth can continue. This is why so many corps have relocated offices out of CA, including; Oracle, Verizon, CBRE, Charles schwab, chevron, McAfee, Hewlett Packard, ect ect. The 32 bil state deficit here now is due to overtaxation and poor economic policies.
PicassoCT
Oh, thats easy, we just make ever cheaper lousier products, until you have to buy 3 pairs of shoes every day, with money lent by omni-shoe corp. Its gonna be only shoe buisness..
GuysJustWannaFish
But Squggle go up! Squiggle go up? Squiggle go up.
ArkoneAxon
Corporations are essentially "Paperclip maximizers." Those actually DO have value and utility. But you need to keep them under rigid safeguards or else they WILL turn everything into a paperclip.
endfreq
Infinite growth paradigm
NotSomoneElse68
Yes they do. Ask the government for a bailout.
itztimeforyourmedicine
Unlimited growth of cells in living things are called cancer. We need to work towards balance and harmony.
ImaginaryMamboNumber5
Company grows, shares go up, growth stops, investors sell, company shrinks, company is sold/turns itself around, company grows again, investors buy. Rinse and repeat as required.
spiderjohn36
See: Allen Greenspan and the mid 2000s housing market. HELP US, BIG BROTHER, YOU ARE OUR ONLY HOPE.
PirateRubberDuck
You grow the business, until it slows down, then sell it before it stops growing. Then the buyer milks it for all it is worth and runs it into the ground while lining their own pockets. Simple stuff.
Elbowdeepinabeepbeepsheep
There’s like, one other thing on this planet that follows the growth foe the sake of growth idea. Cancer cells.
emenelopee
And plagues of things.
damogen
Every single living organism on the planet spreads and multiplies until something stops it.
shoshana
"growth" is unlimited by definition. We're like any bacterie on this point. We growth because it's the only thing we, as living creature, are programmed to do.
HylianFox
Except that for healthy being they do stop growing eventually. When you're 80 you're not going to be 200 feet tall.
AntiProtonBoy
Look, let’s not invest too much credibility in a shitpost that appeared on a meme aggregation platform. Reality is nothing like monopoly and never will be. People who are delusional about unlimited growth are typically the first ones to go bust when the economy suffers a downturn.
AltruisticMoron
We shouldn't judge the shitposter commenting on a shitpost that appeared on a meme aggregate platform too harshly for their woefully delusional... but here I am.
AntiProtonBoy
Textbook imgur.
AltruisticMoron
Oh I am not Imgur, I'm just a tribute
Kingdomonsterdeath
You're right. Monopoly isn't like real life. In Monopoly, everyone starts as equals. Imagine trying to play monopoly against someone who is allowed to build 5 hotels right off the start.
thatwoodguy
There's a small 5 story walk up apartment building in Vancouver British Columbia right in the middle of the downtown core. The entire block was bought up years ago for BC Hydro to create their corporate headquarters for the province. They were the only one that refused to sell to them. On the plinth above the main entry is a phrase done in metal lettering. Unlimited growth increases the divide.
beauFORTRESS
What street is this on? I wanna see it
thatwoodguy
If you Google it, there's a story and a photograph of it.
thatwoodguy
https://covapp.vancouver.ca/PublicArtRegistry/ArtworkDetail.aspx?ArtworkId=311
pgdave
Growth shouldn't be limited though, so long as either we have more workers or we have more ways of improving efficiency. I'm not sure why you'd think that we should only be as productive as some time in the past without the tools we have now or the numbers we have now.
SomeSorcerer
Well, the thing is. We only have one planet. And it’s warming. What happens when the sea level rises? What happens when the last coal or iron is mined or the oil runs out. We can not grow exponentially forever. There are very real physical limitations in place.
pgdave
It's true - we can't grow exponentially forever, only for the next few thousand years
Dasiana
lol if you think we can do that for a few thousand years, you lack an understanding of the term "exponential"
pgdave
No, I do - I just have (actually recently) done the math about how much energy we use, how much minerals we use, and how much room for growth there is - particularly when you factor in exponential improvements in efficiencies.
perrygeo
Most know damn well that it's not sustainable. But instead of trying stop, their plan is to keep it going, or even accelerate it, long enough to amass the largest stockpile of profits while it's still possible. It's not that they're ignorant, they're simply lacking a moral compass. To normal people, its a problem to be solved. To psychotics, it's an opportunity to exploit.
Thorketil
Awaras
JumpTheCheeseburger
Even when growth isn’t as large as anticipated they still see that as a failure. God forbid they lose a fraction of a percentage YOY, heads will roll. Not necessarily of the executives but everyone else who makes them their fortunes. To expect more and more every quarter is just straight up greed, something that makes me reconsider my place in the corporate world.
kilgoth1
Reality HAS to beat antcipated growth, otherwise you are doing it wrong. /s
Desertp1
And it's not a real loss anyway. But then they force an actual loss on workers.
datester35
Morw and more is always expdcted due to inflation. You can always sell or advetise more with new strategies.
ZachariasWolfe
You have that backwards. The more and more is what drives the inflation
datester35
Yes because companies want their share prices to go up? And the only way that happens is if they keep growing. All companies want growth and should because that's what's good for their board of directors and stakeholders
greentights
And that's the real reason that inflation is needed. Number needs to go up and to the right. Also gives the benefit of the poors needing to work more to get the same things.
spiderjohn36
Ryebread91
Yoy is year over year I'm guessing?
ableck
My ex-employer fired whole teams to lower expenditure officially saying it was due to profit (not revenue!) growth being only 8% in a Covid year when they had hoped for 12% pre-Covid.
NappaTheFriendlyGhost
My favorite example of this was activion-blizzard. World of Warcraft had about 12 million subscribers in 2012 (a number that seems impossible considering the niche market). Over the next few years as competition started taking some they dropped to 9 million and activision went nuts trying to “save” the game, further hurting it. You had 9 million people paying 14.99/mo and were still the most profitable mmorpg in the world but wasn’t satisfied. Now they’re begging someone to buy them
Ryebread91
That's what I've never understood. It's working. How can you not have enough money? Maybe stop paying yourself based on projections for next year?
NappaTheFriendlyGhost
They weren’t even losing. WoW was and still is a massive cash cow that has almost no overhead relative to its income. It’s the same with most social media sites like Facebook. There really isn’t a way to lose once you get a certain number of users unless you pull an Uber and borrow billions against your potential (would not be surprised to learn activision did this).
DMSledge
Borrowing to buyback stocks etc is a pretty standard tactic. Look at what happened to Sears.
Ryebread91
Shame. Activision made some of my absolute favorite games in the 90's. Now look at them...