Protestation

Yeah but... Humans created capitalism, so again the root issue is that humans suck. Just think of it this way: No humans, no capitalism.
- And it's not just capitalism, living beyond their means was rather common for many civilizations in the past and some of them paid dearly for it. And look at who ruled the area when the aral sea started to dry up, which fucked the entire area to hell. That wasn't capitalism, just a short-sighted communist (or "communist", but that definitely wasn't capitalism) regime.
  It's definitely possible for humans to not suck in this aspect, but once you get to a certain level of technology and organization it gets pretty hard.
  
  People often conflate capitalism with greed because the core of capitalism depends on people acting selfishly. But other systems can also reward the greedy.
- Humans are a product of evolution in nature. So nature sucks, right?
  
  Nature makes a lot of things that suck, including viruses
  
  Nature is a product of atoms. So atoms suck, right?
- For them is capitalism for other is the immigrants.
  Some people just don't get nuances.
- You are still shifting the blame away from capitalism. If we acknowledge capitalism as the problem, then we can change things. If we claim humans are inherently the problem, then it seems pointless to improve.
- Thank you for putting it well, I had similar thought that I wanted to express but I can never write it so coherently.
- so you're just saying we should all kill ourselves? yeah that sounds great, i assume you're willing to go first since you believe it so strongly?
  I for one don't want me or others to die, and so i don't go around saying poorly thought-through things on the internet.

You don't need capitalism to suck, though. The Spanish conquistadores were slavers and genocidal murderers but they certainly weren't capitalists.
- There's a bit of a fundamental difference between capitalism and other systems. Mercantilism sucked but conquistadors got some level of pushback for their atrocities. The Spanish crown fought a war over illegal slavery and the vast majority of conquistadors died poor or in obscurity.
  Modern capitalism has no such brakes. Naked avarice is the mathematically correct play, exponentially growing the power of an individual at the expense of literally everyone else.
  It's not likely that other economic systems could result in this level of global instability and ecological collapse. A king used to have some incentive to keep his society functioning; his personal power was tied to the power his kingdom could project, not his personal wealth. Our modern overlords have no problem destroying their country or environment, their wealth is fungible and can be taken wherever they want.
- Every system finds ways to shift the blame. What they need are folks who drink the cool aide. Currently it‘s capitalism.
- That doesn't mean capitalism isn't any less cruel
  In fact it allows for blind institutional cruelty that no one has to take responsibility for.
  In a very real way, more people have died from capitalism than ever suffered at the hands of the inqisition
  But go ahead and keep trying to handwave the horrors of capitalism

A bunch of people thinking they outsmarted the meme by asking "who made capitalism".
A better question is "when you say humans are a virus, which humans exactly do you propose to exterminate in the name of saving the planet?" Because the bunker-state ethnonationalist, the trumpists, the Peter Thiels and the Mark Andreesens, the Dark Enlightenment and Network State and Tech Zionism neofascists, they know exactly what they mean.
The earth is big enough to support modest human life. It's not big enough to support billionaires' delusions of singularity. So they imagine to purge the parts of humanity that are not their particular version of white.
Don't fall for their fascist propaganda.
- When I said "humans are the virus," I think people heard "so we should kill the people I don't like," and missed the part where I don't like all humans.
  I don't say it anymore, because I don't want to be overlapped with fascists who apparently say the same thing.
  
  fascists have never left power without violence in all of human history, so keep dreaming about a peaceful solution
- I'm sure the rhetoric stems from propaganda, I won't disagree there. But I don't think that trying to logic the analogy itself is the way to outline the problem with it.
  Calling humans a 'virus' may not mean an extermination is the intention of the person regurgitating it. You can control a virus instead of just exterminating it, for example. It's just a term people are familiar with that they associate with abusing resources and multiplying beyond a sustainable level, thus creating a toxic environment around them.
- A better question is “when you say humans are a virus, which humans exactly do you propose to exterminate in the name of saving the planet?”
  I don't propose to exterminate anyone. I think it's inevitable that the human virus will eventually kill its host.
  
  If you think we are getting out of this worldwide authoritarianism surge without violence, you are a shitty student of history
- Can I achieve something by exterminating myself? It should do something, right?
  Maybe not having to live in depressing world itself would be a great achievement.
- It's easy, mulch all the sociopaths. Problem solved
- Ah, so just exterminate the correct people. Got it.
  
  Nobody has to die if we just make billionnaires millionnaires again.

If humans weren't greedy dicks then capitalism or any other form of government would work perfectly. You can't force humans to not be greedy dicks. No matter what system is being instituted it is susceptible to greedy dicks.
- Yes we can, via laws & regulation (which are also laws). You have no clue about what unrestricted greed does to people especially, on the recieving end
  
  Nope, doesn't work because power obsessed sociopaths worm their way into government and change the laws
  How naive are you?
- We can regulate greedy dick behaviour
  
  Madame Guillotine can help with that
- capitalism or any other form of government
  But capitalism isn't a form of government tho.
  \ Nor is communism of even feudalism.
  
  Oops you're right I meant economic system
- There are human societies were greed is not accepted.
  
  I welcome you to inform us of this utopia you speak of.
  
  Which ones? Which ones don't damage their land or steal children from enemies or rape or steal? Please don't try to say any indigenous tribes because they are all guilty of one or more these.
  
  duck chasing meme Which human societies?
- Our entire schtick is co operation, it's literally why we're the dominant life form
- Your generalization is false
  The majority of humanity are not greedy or obsessed with profit
  The problem is that the few ridiculously greedy sociopaths that do arise per-capita are just so FUCKDAMN good at amassing power and wealth that we assume it's the natural lot of all people
  So we just test and dispose of sociopaths at birth, problem solved. We already have the tests for it.
  Don't look at me like that
  
  and thankfully those sociopaths have enough money to get rid of idiots with those ideas that get too close to power.
- You're putting the cart before the horse. Capitalism uses the threat of poverty and the profit motive to condition humans into being greedy dicks.

I've been called eco-fascist for suggesting anything that might help the environment, no matter how small. I'm not impressed by this buzzword.
- I feel like you can't blame the corpos 100% and then proceed to do nothing to help the environment. Like I get that capitalism and unnecessary waste driven by it are by and large the problem, but it feels like people just use that as an excuse to put in zero effort personally and continue to live their lifestyle of overconsumption. It's very defeatist imo.
- "Humans are the virus" is related to the racist "overpopulation" myth which leads straight to eugenics. Sure, many words are overused, but "political ideology that combines environmentalism with fascist principles, often advocating for authoritarian measures to address ecological issues" is a bad thing.

We live in a religious society that promotes a culture of bigotry. Does this mean we shouldn’t blame bigots?
We live in a patriarchal society that doesn’t take violence against women seriously. Does this mean that wife beaters aren’t to blame?
We live in a capitalist society that promotes selfishness and greed. Does this mean we shouldn’t blame selfish people? (Which is most of them.)
We live in a racist society… etc.
You are responsible for your actions and your beliefs. Step one to improving our society is accepting the reality that most humans have a poor (nearly non-existent) relationship with morality. They’re easily swayed by fallacious arguments because they are irrational and stupid. These are empirical facts about human beings that we ignore (with memes like this) at our own peril.
- We should blame religion, patriarchy, racism and capitalism.
  
  Those are perpetuated by the stupidity and gullibility described above.
  
  And this right here folks is why nothing will ever change. Because phantasmagorical ideological abstractions get blamed instead of actual features of reality, such as psychopathy, ignorance, greed, selfishness, and so on.
- Blaming individuals is ok of course, but after we’re done we should look what situation gave their lacking personalities power to have any individual impact upon our society. And change that. The blaming of actors is one thing, but there are shitty scripts, too, you know?
- blame is a nearly useless concept
  How about we start fixing the problems instead of pointing fingers
  
  Yes, let’s fix the problem of men beating women by not blaming anyone for beating women. Brilliant plan.
- "it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

humans invented capitalism, soooo....
- humans also invented socialism, communism, fascism, monarchy, democracy so on and so fourth.
  like, you can't just take the worst and be like "you see this is why we need to get rid of them!". its literally the point of the post. thats what is going on right now in the US with literally any person below the top square on the family guy race card. Would you say just because less than 1% of immigrants that are in the US have committed violent crimes, that all of them are violent criminals? If you do, I have bad news for you.
  
  on the other hand when a virus like flu or covid replicates, it produces thousands of its variants but it is only defined by the one that causes the most damage

Redirecting blame attributable to human foibles to an abstract concept like “capitalism” is shortsighted and self-defeating. Analogously, the problem over the last 10,000 years hasn’t been slavery (the concept); the problem has been slavers (their ignorance, psychopathy, and greed).
There’s no period in human history when people weren’t unfathomably stupid, because people are literally just animals (and many would happily end the world in order to get access to cheeseburgers). They make bad choices because the average person is not capable of moral deliberation. All hyperbole aside, this is an actual empirical fact.
- if the structure of society is set up in such a way that practically every action I need to take to keep myself fed and sheltered ultimately contributes to climate change, then it's fucking inane to say it is the fault of individuals being stupid.
  
  Humans are selfish, and that’s precisely why we need an alternative to capitalism. Because if we don’t force people to act intelligently they’ll act like the animals they are and obliterate their environment until they are living on mountains of shit and corpses. This has happened throughout history over and over and over again, long before the advent of any economic ideologies.
  Global warming can be fixed tomorrow if people stopped eating meat and stopped buying giant pickup trucks and stopped worshipping celebrities, and so on.
- There are games that don’t cause brain damage in students and there is American Football.
- Capitalism is slavery with PR and programming to convince us to be helpless to change anything for the better and to look at various distractions instead of the reality.
  I am not just talking about first-world exploitation, I am talking about literal slavery and child slavery, which our economies rely on — which we unknowingly rely on for many of our goods.
  If you factor in 40% (or more) of US agricultural workers being undocumented immigrants, you don't really have to look hard to see that slavery is literally everywhere. It may not be the chattel slavery of past, but it's still modern slavery.
  Almost all employment revolves around exploitation, hard hours, asking you to give more than you have for the sake of the business, and so forth, all the while many participating individuals are unable to afford health care or housing. I still liken that dynamic to be modern slavery, even if the individuals reside in the first-world.
  We can rise above this, but we must identify what is blocking or stagnating progress to be able to change — such as accepting the reality at hand instead of turning our gaze away.
  Doesn't mean we have to play the blame game or reduce nuanced issues down to word-play and labels. A new system is likely the best solution.
  
  I agree. And any plan to move forward has to confront the fact that humans are obstreperous ignoramuses. So, what do we do? One strategy is to leverage democracy, which has already led to unbelievable moral progress over the last century. Another option is to leverage a populist outreach. Any other ideas?
- What progress do you get by blaming humanity instead?
  
  Reality is always the best starting point.

- Yep, those are all capitalist states.
- Gotta hand it to China. They're a few years away from being coal free. A decade at most if they stay on course.
  
  Unfortunately they don't seem to be on course at all, with coal production and new coal power plants rising in 2024 to an all-time high.
  While they have been implementing green energy, which is laudable, they aren't phasing out coal at all. China seems to crave energy and has no bias about where it comes from.

Plenty of bacteria and viruses are beneficial, and contribute to the overall health of their hosts.
If humans are diseases, then it is because through learned behaviors that we act in a deleterious manner towards the overall ecosystem. We are entirely capable of shifting those behaviors, of creating social structures that select for behaviors that promote co-existence and symbiosis with that ecosystem.
- There are some symbiotic bacteria, but I'm unaware of any beneficial viruses. Their entire nature is to hijack cells to replicate themselves, typically resulting in the eventual death of the host cell.
  
  Researchers are looking into bacteriophage that infect gut bacteria. It seems that over time, the viruses select for and introduce genes to bacteria that play nice with our intestinal health, rather than run amok.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbvAaDN1bpE

As we all know, communist countries would never harm the environment for productivity.
- Ah yes, the only two systems. Capitalism and communism. There is nothing else or any form of nuance out there.
- Of course, thanks for admitting it

Why do I need to put guard rails on things? People can just choose to not fall off. All people are perfectly rational/knowledgeable and other physical pressures do not exist, so people must want to fall off of cliffs!
- There actually is no way to change this. We can't do anything about it because we're just too stupid. People create systems of violence, and there's just nothing that can be done to help that because there is no way to change that. No sir, no way at all. It's pointless to even try.
  We are all sinners filled with sin so anything that we do is bad. There is no hope. Your grandmother is a virus actually.
  
  I really don’t get this positive attitude some people have.
  No, there is no way to change this. Have you read any part of history? This is naive at best.
- Yeah I know what you mean man. I gave a bunch of children some knives and the one with the biggest knife coerced the others into hurting a bunch of people. They still would have found a way to do that without knives! Don't you know that rocks exist?? Them having knives is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to the outcome!

- That's ok, we are not all born to fight, let alone see the enemy.

Who do you think made capitalism? Space aliens?
- If I'm not mistaken, Marx describes capital as "dead labour". So, to answer your question: who made capitalism? Vampires, zombies, liches. The undead.
  
  Marx certainly didn't see capitalism as merely metaphorical. Marx recognized that capitalism existed in material reality, that it was a system constructed and operated by real, flesh and blood human beings.
- Lizard people, obviously
  
  The funniest thing about the Lizard people conspiracy, which started as an antisemitic dogwhistle, is that David Icke by all accounts just believes in literal lizard people.
- It was a stop on our journey. Historians say it was a better stop than the ones before. But it doesn’t have to be our last one!

If there are no more humans than no one will care about the environment.

Idk if we're gonna have fascism we might as well have eco-fascism.
- except eco-fascism isn’t "fascism but we save the planet! :D" it’s "fascism but to justify the genocide of brown people we add a bit of green sprinkles on the white supremacist rhetoric"
- But also we could have neither, fascism isn't a fatality

Destruction of nature & unwise use of resources, or even just multiplying to a point where even the most prudent resource management & minimal environmental impact per capita is the absolute goal could still destiny biodiversity.
This has to do with economical tendencies of living beings, not a particular socioeconomic system.
\ (Yes, capitalism is accelerating the process by taking away freedoms from the masses - but even a commune can decide to chop up the whole forest for wood. World is a fuck.)
"Virus" might not be the best word for it tho (infestation maybe? Fits the capita growth statistics), but successful animals that oversaturate their environment (eg lots of food, no predators, longevity after procreation, tech) cause biodiversity loss (anything from local collapse to a global extinction event with cofactors like climate change or air structure change - what is novel with humans is how rapidly we are developing in our last 0.5% of existence, and how rapid the global impact we case is, it won't take us 10s of thousands of years, we can speedrun in less than a millennia).
- The lack of empathy and true understanding of reverence is the issue.
  People do not respect the meat that befalls their plate, the bacteria that ferments their beers, the trees that warms their homes.
  Capitalism has two routes, horde through meekness or horde through exploitation. When you horde through meekness, any worth is solely yours - you submit and embrace this moment of life wholely separate from you. You cannot control the world.
  Humans are a virus, because we reach for the stars as we eviscerate our host. Lest we learn compassion and empathy, we will consume this earth. The flooding isn't biblical this time, it's predicted by science as man decays.
  
  hoard

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign

Sometimes I get frustrated with people and I think this. But then I quickly snap my mindset out of this because I know really what's the problem. Capitalism.

Also kings, gods, holocaust, slavery asf. So, we have to remind ourselves that we can take back anything we thought up. If humans are the problem it’s those that say we can’t do that.

They are the same piece of generic rhetorical label you slap on or argue you can't slap on whenever it conveniences you. If your solution is just a sentence long, you are an over-simplifying things.
So what happened to the ancient civilizations that collapsed before capitalism existed? Ducks. It's the ducks that need to be shot.
- Easter Island comes to mind. They showed up, took every tree on the island, then the vegetation went away and the island had nothing left to give.

Humanity: Living with nature and not causing global ecosystem crisis for thousands of years. Capitalism: Starts the industrial revolution and the need for eternal Exponential growth, resulting in massive environmental destruction over the last ~250 years. "Clearly, the humans are the problem."
- I think you vastly underestimate exactly how much impact humans had on the enrollment environment all the way back to the stone age.
  Any animal causes changes to an ecosystem. The bigger the numbers, the bigger the changes. In general, it never reaches crisis because something else comes along and shifts things into balance.
  But the current crisis wasn't, and isn't, solely caused by the industrial revolution. We caused issues with megafauna waaaaaaay back. We shifted waterways and changed ecosystems during the earliest agricultural development. Everything today is stacked up on top of that, not some kind of distinct thing.
  Our distant ancestors weren't some kind of noble and mystical race, perfectly balanced with all around them.
  Capitalism wasn't even around as a distinct system back when we first started dumping pollutants and waste into the world. Money wasn't always in place.
  The industrial revolution changed the scale, but it would have happened without capitalism because us monkeys have always refined our tools and technology over generations. Stone, bronze, iron, steam, petroleum, silicon, it's a progression that was damn near inevitable.
  I just don't buy the idea that human ingenuity and technological progress would have just stopped when factories were imagined and built. Best case, maybe it would have been slower, more careful under something like an anarchist structure (or lack thereof). But there's nothing saying it wouldn't have been worse either. It's a big game of what if, and there's no current way to test technological progression theories. We can't just set up an experiment somehow on mars and let it play out while preventing capitalism to see what happens.
  Shit, there were non capitalist systems in place during the industrial revolution, and they didn't exactly reject it all.
  
  Ok, I'll say that I'm being too myopic. But I do believe the scale is definitely different from back before technology was a major concern. Humans caused destruction to the environment, but I don't believe we had the capacity to make it a global existential crisis for our species until modern production and infinite consumption was considered the best practice for humanity. I don't think nixing capitalism will solve the problems overnight, but reigning it in with reasonable expectations isn't a bad idea.
- The good old slavery and crusade days.

- Big "and yet you participate in the system" energy.
  
  No?
  What the fuck gave you that impression?
  I'm saying the comic is shit because they are just multiplying causes, not that they're being hypocrites.
  Everyone just makes up shit to hear their own voices
- Oh wait the comic was earnest? I literally thought it was making fun of people who say things like this. Goddamn.

Just because you can pronunce a word it doesn’t mean you understand it. By definition eco-fascism is fascism, because it wouldn’t make sense otherwise.
I don’t get the meme but allow me to clarify: if you think this meme will prevent me from punching a fascist in the face, you are wrong.
- It's clear you didn't understand the meme because your reply is almost a non-sequitur. The comic is saying phrases like "human are the virus" fail to understand a lot of damage done by humanity was incited, sustained, and furthered by capitalism. Those phrases are pushed for "eco-fascist rhetoric" about controlling or even eliminating humanity when ecological/societal damage could be remediated by swapping to an economic system that nutures less destructive and more pro-social tendencies.
  I don't know where you got the sense that the comic was telling you that fascists were okay. Honestly, I don't even know what your first paragraph is talking about.
  
  Yes, I think the meme is dumb and I didn’t get it, I wrote it too. “Eco fascist rethoric” is normal fascism. You don’t “swap” economic systems like you swap pants.
  A true fascist doesn’t go back to normal, like true antivaxer will die cursing vaccines, like nazi dying doing the salute.
  So, yes some “humans are the virus” and it’s not eco-fascism. It’s called resistance.

Could dumb shit like this be in lemmy.ml exclusively?