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South Korean companies are offering workers $75,000 to have babies amid the country's desperate bid for more children
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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I actually think life, for all its faults, is a beautiful and amazing opportunity. It's a special blink of existence where we get to witness the unimaginable beauty in our universe.
Perhaps our lives (in the West, at least) have gotten too easy. Not that I want to go back or live a harder life - I don't. But for most of human history, there was a pretty solid chance you were going to live a sick, miserable, religion-filled life as a soldier, slave, or peasant. All the while, you'd have pretty much no control over what happened to you. Even the wealthy and powerful were shitting in holes and sweating in the heat. Today, it costs you about two hours of easy labor to get a bidet and maybe 10 hours of labor to get an air conditioner that will keep you cool for many years. People still found meaning and reasons to keep going through the thousands of years of famine, plague, war, and slavery. They kept seeing something that made them want to have babies and love them.
The world isn't perfect but it's better than it's ever been in most ways. Even if we don't survive climate change and late-stage capitalism, I think the time I've already had with my son has been beautiful and meaningful. I only hope he gets to experience love, satisfaction, simple pleasures, etc. Even just a comfortable nap or the feeling of accomplishment after completing a task. It's all so fragile and temporary. We are the universe experiencing itself and it's really beautiful despite the miserable parts.
Talk for yourself. When you're healthy AND lucky, yes life in the the West is maybe easy. But the minute you get disabled, you're being systematically pushed into poverty. And despite saying free healthcare to pester Americans, we all know it's not 'free.'
The latest dentist I called asked me to transfer 400€ before I even got an appointment. So stop pushing this narrative that life's too easy. Maybe for you.
I don't really want to play adversity Olympics with you but since you insist.
My parents were on food stamps and going to food pantries when I was a kid. Father was an absent alcoholic and drug addict. I myself struggled with heroin addiction in my teens and 20s and ended up ruining my life - or so I thought.
I managed to climb out of that hole (using Obamacare and the support of my family) to find a whole new perspective on my life.
I was angry, bitter, nihilistic, and selfish. I was obsessed with how bad and unfair the world is, and it gave me every excuse to keep buying bundles and nodding into oblivion.
Once I got clear of the horrible opiate withdrawal and paid back the considerable money I owed - once I stopped wanting to overdose and kill myself - I realized how nice it is to be able to take a walk on a warm day and just check out the birds. I realized a cup of coffee and a sandwich is a blissful experience, especially when shared with a friend or loved one.
When I think about the eternity I will spend in non-existence after I die, I know that I have very limited time to enjoy this strange and beautiful trip I'm on. I know this little blip would be the envy of the non-existent. If ghosts were real, I bet every one of them would kill to come back and just feel the sensations of smell, taste, touch, and sound. Or to look at something pretty.
Like dude, I've had parts of my life that were fucking miserable. Please don't tell me it's so easy. I've just decided to enjoy it and practice gratitude. Whatever happens to me, I remind myself that it's better than going through opiate withdrawal on a plastic cot and wishing I was dead while everyone was disgusted with me.
Life, on average, is much easier now than it's ever been. The wealthiest men alive didn't have access to basic over the counter medicine that we have today. If you die of some horrific disease tomorrow, you've still had a higher quality of life than most of the richest people who have ever lived.
You know why my ramblings about the beauty of life sound so corny? It's because a lot of people have realized it before. Because it's so often said that it sounds cliche. There is a reason so many people have come to these conclusions.
My advice to you is to touch grass. No joke. And if you don't want to touch grass, go watch a movie that makes you feel awe. Go read a book that moves you. Otherwise you're going to have your eyes opened on your death bed and wish you had lived differently. Happens all the time man.
A 10h of labour airco will create a vacuum and not keep you cool.
Two hours of labor is like 30 bucks, a bidet on the other hand is at least 10 times that.
An old friend had a funny Dutch thing he used to say: het smoesje is goed, maar het praatje deugt niet. Basically pointing out the fact that you're talking out of your ass.
I have to admit that life indeed has gotten too easy for most, making them lax and unmotivated to live it while blaming "high costs" (bad spending habits). I see loads of people getting excessively priced food deliveries multiple times a week when their wage barely allows to afford it once a month. They will stroll around barely doing any work at all while claiming they are either too smart for their job or deserve a ceo's wage.
Then you wonder when an employer pets them on the back, how businesses are going down left and right when 85% of their workforce consists of these useless beings.
Rant over.
Bidet attachment https://www.amazon.com/Bidet-Non-Electric-Mechanical-Attachment-Self-Cleaning/dp/B00P2XZDGG
And I grew up with window unit air conditioners. They kept a couple rooms cool no problem.
I don't see how I'm talking out my ass.
Ok Carl Sagan you have a way with words and rock the leisure suit turtleneck combo but this isn't the 90s anymore. It is 2024. The Middle East is on fire over who has the best skydaddy, American democracy has under a year left before the evangelicals start opening concentration camps, Russia is about finished up in Ukraine, and the PRC is going to make sure that there is one China soon.
So excuse me for not being hopeful when I am having to spend money and time making sure my daughters have citizenship in another country to flee to before we go all Gilead.
Imagine having all the collected knowledge of the human race and its history in your pocket and not thinking that the world is safer and more secure than it's ever been.
Imagine not knowing what a mean is. Doesnt really do much good for some kid in Jerusalem or Gaza with dead parents to know that the population of Kenya is doing slightly better off, as a whole, compared to fifty years ago.
So sick of neoliberal bullshit