Simple Living

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Live better, with less

Ideas and inspiration for living more simply. A place to share tips on living with less stuff, work, speed, or stress in return for gaining more freedom, time, self-reliance, and joy.

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Your value is not determined by your productivity. (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In a capitalist world, it can be hard to remember this. But despite what you are pressured to think, your value as a person does not come through what material value you create for others.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But people who cannot do those things are not "valuelesss." That is ableist and still informed by the Protestant Work Ethic. People can still have value even if they can't do labour.

People do work in non-capitalist situations for the betterment of the community. The value is not measured by metrics, but by how fulfilled people feel by it.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They probably don't care, they just said the quiet part out loud - society, and many in it, simply see us (disabled people) as having no value whatsoever and as being nothing but a burden.

A perfect example of why fighting the class war without also fighting all the other oppression capitalism relies on (ableism, racism, sexism, and so on) will never gain equity and equality for all, but only for those already more privileged than others.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That's a bit of an uncharitable assessment considering they're just stating how things operate now.

We don't have post-scarcity yet (even if we could somewhat) and neither do we have survival lifestyle where strength-in-numbers means practically anyone will boost survival of the group as has happened in the past (see healed fractures in ancient bones). Plus land ownership/availability and resources are much different, money and process tangle everything now.

Particularly in USA, it also doesn't help that preventable/treatable health issues are such a big problem (also public transportation, zoning, wages/benefits, law, lack of socialization, and 100 other issues combining together), leaving people behind to suffer.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just FYI, I agree that materialist value is not the only value to look for in other people, but “The value is not measured by metrics” doesn’t make sense because metrics are by definition measured.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I'm saying it isn't measured quantitatively.