History - learn from it

Now, before anyone comments on, or makes any knee-jerk reactions to the comic, I'm going to need you... the person reading this sentence right now... to ask yourself some questions:

Are you living paycheque to paycheque?
Would it be nigh-catastrophic if even a single paycheque was missed?
Are you in debt up to your eyeballs (said depth being a matter of perspective)?
Do you worry about if you will have food next week?

If you answered 'No' to any of the above, CONGRATULATIONS, you're offically better than the majority of the human race, WOOH!

And before you have any knee-jerk reactions to THAT, ask yourself if what you were going to respond with is directly related to where you personally live. If the answer is 'yes', keep it in your pants and keep reading. I'll also be supplying a list of online videos to watch at the end of all of this, so be sure to watch all of those fully through, so that we're at least starting on the same basic pages. If you bring up something that's well-explained in one of the videos, I'm just going to tell you to go watch them. The internet has vidoes explaining the problems FAR better than I ever could myself, strange as that may be. It's almost as though different people know different things or something.

Now... let's break this down into very simple chunks that even a child could understand. Because y'know, some already do. I'll try to avoid using specific numbers, because people LOVE jumping on those if some source somewhere says they're even slightly wrong, and the issue then becomes about the accuracy of the numbers, not what they represent.

The global economic system is a debt-based pyramid scheme, designed to concentrate wealth away from the majority. It's that simple.

What's that, the USA builds all kindsa stuff, and so do other countries, and everyone is flourishing with the sheer over-abundance of all of the products available? One walk into a store will tell you that?

Where do you live? Is it a city, with big stores? Did you answer 'no' to those questions at the top? That's why all you're seeing is over-abundance. You walk into a grocery store, and you're greeted with wall after wall of food, covering every possible surface. You walk into a mall, and see room after room bursting to the seams with products of all colours, shapes, and sizes? When you walk around, is all you see extravagance and opulence?

What else do you see? When do you go? Gonna take a shot in the dark here, I'm guessing you go shopping on the weekend, or after work. See lotsa people? Yeah? Y'know why? Because during the MAJORITY of the day... when everyone's at work... those stores are almost entirely devoid of life. Just 1 or 2 clerks, being paid minimum (or near) wage, to stand around (not even *sit*, I still have no idea why society refuses to allow people to rest), who are there to turn on the utilities full-throttle all day long, so that maybe one or two people can step in, pick up and put down a shirt that they don't want or can't afford, and walk out.

Take a day off work, go to the mall in the middle of the day. I dare you. I'm talking regular city-mall, not like... Mall of America or whatever that's basically a city in and of themselves. Normal malls. The majority of malls.

That's another thing I've noticed. Whenever I try bringing something up, inevitably someone will point out the exceptions to the rule, and scream and shout (figuratively) that the data is flawed, and therefore everything is wrong. Just... don't. Take a day off work, go to a regular-jackoff mall, and people-watch.

Now ask yourself. Does it make sense for full utilities to be running, and for a store to be fully-staffed, when it sells all of a half-dozen items over an 8-hour period? And yes, numbers exaggerated, store-specific, blah, blah, blah, you get the gist. Overall, stores mostly empty, complete waste of resources in all possible respects.

Now ask yourself this... WHY are the stores so goddamn empty (and if you still think they're not just... skip to the bottom and start watching those videos)? Because everyone is at GODDAMN WORK! And we ALL know that a significant number of these jobs are absolutely pointless and can be eliminated. Any driving position at this point (thanks Google), virtually any data-entry position, and more or less most office jobs. Bet if you work in an office, you've been seeing it happen over the past few years. Things being shuffled around, fewer people having to do more work. Longer, harder hours, learning new things, a few more people disappear here and there with nobody new being hired to take up the workload. Where do you think these laid-off people are going? News flash: It's not to greener pastures. There ARE no greener pastures for most, if you haven't noticed. If your particular pasture is nice and green and you can see greener, good for you, see those questions at the top. And if you're seeing those greener pastures as a result of nepotism or other connections unavailable to the vast majority of society, don't even bother trying to argue that the system works.

So, we've got hundreds of thousands of stores open, brimming with more product than one could ever dream, that stay more-or-less empty much of the time. Do you honestly believe that they're actually selling all of those products by the way? I've ranted about that somewhere or another as well, so I won't go into too much detail. But when a store doesn't sell something and it's out of season, they ship it away. Where's it go? Doesn't matter to the store, they've gotta get new shit on their shelves. Lotta the food is just wasted.

Oh, what's that? You didn't think about the fact that when you have walls full of product as far as the eye can see, some (most) of it isn't going to move? Remember, majority of society is in debt. We can't afford all of this bullshit. We're buying rice and potatoes. We get to spend our lives barely scraping by, while having endless product that we could never hope to own paraded in front of us at every possible turn.

And then full-well knowing that much of it will just be thrown away, because we personally didn't have the money needed to bring it home.

Now, we're going to dive in a slightly different direction here, so buckle up. Put yourself in the shoes of that poor asshole who's stuck living paycheque to paycheque, wondering if they'll have electricity next month, and are running low on rice. You know, the majority of society. The ones you don't like to think about. Now hold it, hold it, I can already see you pulling out the 'well, if they managed their money better' card already. Put that back in your pants too, that's irrelevant. We're looking at THIS EXACT MINUTE. This exact second that you're reading this sentence. Look at the clock and date, that's when we're talking about. Not "coulda, woulda, shoulda" with their money. We all know that commercials and the drive of society has been filling everyone's heads with disinformation telling them that what's bad for them is good, and tricking people into signing away their lives. Just put all of that aside, you want to be in their shoes.

Y'there? Lemme help. You're in a small room, without many furnishings. Your fridge is mostly empty. The bank just charged you another overdraft fee, and your hours either got cut back at work, or you're working twice as hard but getting the same pay, pick one. Whether you have children or not is irrelevant, but if you do, imagine you're having a damn hard time finding a way to keep them fed.

Now, this is what you have to work with. You don't have family connections getting you high-paying jobs. You grew up under shitty circumstances, and are left with the shitty deal that's in front of you. What do you do?

If your first thought is "Well, just get another temp job or something and pull up my bootstraps", BZZT, wrong answer. You're already working as many hours as you can find with the skills that you have, and seeing as transportation is so ungodly expensive, the locations that you're capable of finding employment are limited to working around whatever you currently have, and what you have as transportation. Got a vehicle or two? No you don't, you're in this poor bastard's shoes, remember? Better hope the bus system can drag you back and forth across the city so you can earn a few measly dollars at minimum wage working for a fast-food joint that will lay you off the moment they're capable of automating your position.

Which brings me to exactly what you, this poor excuse for a person attempting to scrape by in a world explicitly designed to drain them of as much of their time and life as possible, are looking forward to down the road. Again, let's continue to ignore their past, and what put them in this position. If you're richer than the majority, you're probably really good at forgetting history anyway. What's down the road?

What's that, a technological wonderland? We've got self-driving cars just around the corner (why that hasn't gone mainstream, at least in the USA, is an entirely different rant, but still tied to the same base problem). We've got robots that are capable of doing virtually anything you could possibly want, nearly effortlessly. The frontiers of the computational, biomedical, and medicinal worlds are discovering new things almost DAILY. We're on the cusp of LITERALLY designing artificial intelligence... see neural networking, and dive into that subject on your own if you're interested. It's quite interesting where that's going... self-learning computers!

So, being this poor bastard with virtually no hope of ever climbing out of debt, you're seeing a world emerge before you in which virtually every job that you could get has every possible chance of being replaced by a programmed machine somewhere in the relatively near future

And when I say relatively near, I'm talking next few years. Have you been paying attention to how far technology has come in the past say... decade? I'll remind you that your smartphone would make the computers of the past look as laughable as an etch-a-sketch.

Now lets deviate slightly. All them jobs I keep saying are going to be replaced... why aren't they already? I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you... the person reading this, who's currently pretending to be poor... know that a ludicrous number of jobs could be eliminated. Most office jobs? Hell, half the people spend half their time in fucking meetings, or otherwise dicking around at their desks on Facebook or Voat or wherever else. What's that, YOU'RE a hard-working person who would never shirk their employmental obligations, and give their 100% every single day without exception? Well good for you, you get a cookie for being a good little sheep. Or is it that you happen to have stumbled across your absolute dream of a career, fulfilling everything that you've wanted to in your life? Ok, now put yourself back in that poor bastard's shoes. You don't have that, remember? You're poor, and wondering how you can stretch those two cups of rice out for a few days.

Y'ever notice how the essentials required to stay alive are by far the most expensive? Shelter... don't get me started on the housing market. Food... one step into a grocery store should wake you up. If it didn't, go back to pretending you're bank is in overdraft, and you have $15 in change in your pocket. Utilities? If you own a house, I bet that's a pretty big number. Otherwise, go and turn off all the lights and turn the heat down to just barely tolerable. Gotta save every penny you can if you want to climb your way out of this downward spiral into debt. Fuel? Oh god help you if you have a car. Nobody even comments on the fuel prices any more. $1/liter jumped to $1.15? Doesn't matter, everyone just accepts it now. Remember a few years ago when crude oil prices were at $100/barrel and gas was at about $1/liter? Crude oil's still under $50/barrel, and gas is still about $1/liter by the way. If that went over your head, don't worry about it. Gas is expensive, and doesn't follow crude-oil's lead. And before you say "it takes time", it's been over a year, and we all know that's bullshit. Stop buying their corporate propaganda and think for yourself.

And speaking of which, do I even need to remind people that all the major media outlets are owned by 5 megacorporations? They're not looking out for your best interests, you know that, right? They're looking for profit at all costs. Your life is meaningless to them.

Speaking of which, let's get back to that poor bastard who's worrying about paying for those essentials to survive, while watching another commercial telling them that it's an EXCELLENT time to get another loan, because the interest rate is so low. And if you don't see the problem with THAT, holy shit watch those videos below.

So let's get to the long and short of it. If the current system does not change dramatically, we will all work until we die. And by "we", I mean most younger generations. Personally I peg it at anyone 50 or under. We will all work until we die. Remember a few years ago when the retirement age was cranked from 65 to 67? Now why would that be? We're living in an era where jobs are being eliminated daily through progress and innovation, and they're still trying to get the ENTIRE population to work 40+ hours a week... somewhere... and are being told it will take them even longer to retire.

Have you SEEN the current crop of politicans? For the most part, they're just as corrupt or moreso than their counterparts, who will still bow to big business in the name of profit above all else. You and I both know that if the concentration of the wealth continues, more and more money is taken from the bottom 99% and given to the top .001%, that retirement age will just keep being raised, the money that's supposed to be there waiting for you will have long-since been spent on other things, and we will all work until we die.

Taking this to the logical conclusion though, that probably wouldn't take too long. With more and more people starving, more and more riots happening due to lack of work and elite corruption, and more and more jobs being automated and eliminated, we will simply have thousands of people starving and dying in the streets.

There IS no magical future industry that's going to pop up and "employ everyone". That was a system that worked until mankind became efficient enough to eliminate the need for most human labour. Most jobs nowadays are just filler positions, to try to keep the system from imploding due to too many unemployed and poor people seeking assistance. These assistance programs are worthless... they completely ignore the problem at its root. There are more people than there is jobs. It's that simple, and you would have to be bafflingly brainwashed or wilfully ignorant to not see that. You can say "Oh, there's jobs out there, you just need to look for them", but when you multiply that sentiment by the hundreds of thousands of people that are out of work, that argument breaks down. Sorry, but there isn't hundreds of thousands of "help wanted" signs in the store windows, nor is the minimum wage even remotely enough to keep people alive. You can say that it is all you like, but I'm just going to refer you back to those questions at the very top, and tell you to put yourself back into that poor bastards riceless shoes. You're pretending you have *nothing* right now, not *everything*.

There will never BE enough jobs for everyone. Ever again. The only way that possibility can exist is if those in power decide to nuke significant portions of the human race, purely to give us a reason to rebuild something, and keep the slave class as the slave class.

And you ARE a slave. If you're reading this, you are a slave to the economic system. Revel in it. If the system does not change, labour for the elite is all that you will ever know, until the day you die. The wonders of the natural world exist for the elite to consume and enjoy. You exist merely to assist them, and *MAYBE* get a teensy, tiny crumb of a taste for yourself. If you save your money hard enough, and work hard enough for them that they reward you with a glimpse of their opulence.

So hey, who wants to watch some videos? WOOOOOH, PARTY TIME! Again, if you want to debate any of the above points with me, feel free to, but if what you're debating is addressed in these, just expect a link to it as a response.

Hidden Secrets Of Money - by Mike Maloney
Humans Need Not Apply - by CGP Grey
Last Week Tonight - Wealth Gap - by John Oliver
What is Basic Income and why do we need it - by Flying Koi
Million Mask March 2015 - Anonymous
Also, reading my previous rant on the economy is probably also a good idea.


After a point, you have to ask yourself. What's more important to you... equality, or inequality? If taken to the extreme, which would you rather side with? If your answer is inequality, then at least have the balls to admit that you're perfectly fine with billions of people dying so that you can have more than them. After a point, it's no different than murdering them all yourself in order to get further ahead. LOL, why do you think we're basically in another cold war?

And don't get me started on the proxy wars happening between the USA and Russia, that's a rant for another day.



-
Greetings and salutations, I come to you with a simple message, followed by a rant below.
Also an attempt to make the comics more mobile-friendly. The site itself... we'll see how well that part goes.
But the message is simple. Most everyone that I communicate with is too goddamn into themselves to pay attention to the bigger picture.
And remaining wilfully ignorant is about the worst thing you could ever do to yourself.
Like... this isn't rocket science. This is BLINDINGLY, STUPIDLY OBVIOUS! History repeats itself, economic conditions are worse than before the Great Depression, and debt is at an all-time high and skyrocketting. What part of any of this is confusing to you people?!?
Whatever. You're all caught up in your own little lives, enjoying your own little luxuries, treating yourself to your own little rewards, all the while ignoring that the world is falling apart around you.
Don't worry, soon you'll have no choice but to learn how the world really works.




Most sprites are property of Nintendo, who are awesome and and amazing and stuff, and also this is a parody and also it's free and stuff.
Comics, ideas, Kabutroid, and other custom content owned by KatieLynne Jackson. I'm pretty easygoing, and really don't mind all that much if you make content based on my content and stuff. Just don't go impersonating me and we're cool.