/hobby/ - Hobby

It's not that it's easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. The end of the world is indeed the end of capitalism. For many people the only way to imagine the end of capitalism is to imagine the end of the world. Post-apocalyptic media usually doesn't depict people rebuilding after the apocalypse, so much as fighting over the scraps left over. The conceit is that without the current system everything descends into chaos. Supposedly, if we ditch capitalism we will look back upon the current times fondly as the antediluvian golden age.

This kind of fiction is what some call "nostalgia for the present." Unlike the supposed role of dystopian fiction as warning or satirical, the point of disaster/apocalypse porn is to make us feel like things aren't so bad after all. What little good exists in these world is not built or discovered, but salvaged from the present. As commodities without capitalist production, these things are an ephemeral reminder of the supposedly great past that has been lost by human folly. They will all disappear eventually, and the best the characters in these settings can do is hold onto these artifacts for as long as possible. You hardly ever see anyone building new things, beyond jury-rigging some scraps.

But why shouldn't people in the post-apocalypse build anything? Sure, in a disaster the supply chain will break down in the short term, but it's not like it's impossible to reconnect the raw materials and the processing centers. And with a sudden halt in manufacturing there would be huge piles of materials at all stages of production just lying around waiting to be used. It's not exactly logical, but do you think bourgeois film studios and other gatekeepers of mass media are going to allow a story where the workers just start using the means of production of their own accord? That would mean that the capitalist class are totally unnecessary!

The illogical nature of the standard post-apocalypse extends even farther than this, to a truly absurd degree. It's unusual in, for instance, a zombie apocalypse that somebody builds a wall or a fence to keep the zombies out. This would be a practical solution generally speaking, but where it does show up (as the writers have more recently become aware of the silliness), it's guaranteed to fail. Not just for "dramatic effect" (you can find other sources of drama besides humans failing to deal with the situation), but because in these kinds of stories rebuilding effectively simply isn't allowed. It's not part of the genre. The nature of the story is that humans are necessarily reduced to wanderers, hunter-gatherers killing each other and salvaging what little is left of the old world. When capitalist production stops, building new things stops too. And worse, previously built things often stop working. It's a very common trope in apocalyptic fiction where things break constantly. Even things that logically should not break. Even very shortly after society breaks down. There's no reason that cars would just stop working a couple of months into the apocalypse. There's no reason buildings would start falling apart within a couple of years. But the point of these stories is that if the world comes to a stop, it's all over. If these things didn't immediately start falling apart it would undermine the vision being created. If buildings just stood on their own (like they always did) and the world kept turning without the status quo continuing, that makes people ask questions. Just look at how people have responded to the corona virus impacting the economy. Reality is being clarified, illusions dispelled. In order for the ideology of dependence to be conveyed, a massive dose of unreality must be injected. And of course it does. The ideology is ridiculous, so too is its rationalization.

The sheer volume of this kind of fiction should raise eyebrows, and so should its uniformity. This is the only vision of the future we are supposed to have, other than things continuing essentially as they are. The only deviation we are supposed to imagine is disaster, and we are supposed to imagine it often. We are supposed to be too afraid of the alternative to seriously consider it. This is why not just post-apocalyptic fiction, but sci-fi, fantasy, anything not set in the present has developed the tendency to be relentlessly bleak. Where we experience hope it's supposed to be in some version of the present, even if it's a heightened one like the superhero movies or a near future where the basic model hasn't changed. If people feel hopeful looking at any alternative to this world, they might develop some desire to change things. Post-apocalyptic fiction takes this illogic all the way to its conclusion, saying that if things change everything will go to shit and you will long for the world as it is now. This is the kind of mentality used by domestic abusers to keep people in line too: make people fear leaving the situation and grow dependent upon and comfortable with their abuse.

>>4494
FUCK, that is heavy. I want to know if you know of any genuinely uplifting stories about the post-capitalist future, other than Star Trek.

Don't we already have a dystopia/post-apocalypse thread, why is there another one?

>>4500
There’s plenty of it. The Noon, Culture are explicitly post capitalism.

I wonder if there's any pro-socialist post-apocalypse stuff out there

>>4577
A pro-socialist post-apocalypse story would just have the people rebuilding society and trying to preserve technology. It would be so different it was functionally a different genre.

>>4523
I guess Dystopia is more for an actual existing yet dysfunctional society, rather than the lack of a real society.

>>4586
>>4577
>>4494
This is why New Vegas is based. People literally complain it isn't apocalyptic enough, but it's pretty much post post apocalypse.

>>4494
I think you're kinda overthinking it anon, the post-apocalyptic setting without any rebuilding of civilization is just a fun and interesting setting, and it lets people escape the monotony and safety of everyday life by imagining themselves as a rugged, badass survivor fighting off bandits or whatever

>>4586
Would you say that perhaps Horizon Zero Dawn is such a story?

Am I the only one who disliked Mad Max Fury Road? I mean its effects were great and they had some fun moments of weird shit, but a lot of it made no fucking sense or was just plain stupid without actually needing to be. Also the increased use of CGI was a bit jarring coming off the older Mad Max films.

>>5144
What didn’t make sense in your opinion?

>>5151
2 examples
The massive water taps that Angry Joe or Tartan Joe or whatever controls. It just opens up from high up and then fucking splatters onto the ground, not even a fucking pool or a water-recollector but the ground where people like animals try to get a few bycket fuls from thsi mess.

The second example is more a nitpick but when Furiosa gets pinned down "Max" takes a conveniently hidden gun and shoots half a dozen rounds near her head… why? Why waste it like that?
1) a single bullet near the ear will already set it ringing
2) bullets are valuable resources
3) Why did he know the hiding spot of a hidden gun.

>>5154
>The massive water taps that Angry Joe or Tartan Joe or whatever controls. It just opens up from high up and then fucking splatters onto the ground, not even a fucking pool or a water-recollector but the ground where people like animals try to get a few bycket fuls from thsi mess.
It came from an underground acquifer, Joe had them fight like animals to dehumanize them and keep in place their dependence
>3) Why did he know the hiding spot of a hidden gun.
Just a cool moment
>2) bullets are valuable resources
Not his bullets
>3) Why did he know the hiding spot of a hidden gun.
Experience

>>5156
>an underground acquifer
That doesn't make it ny smarter to waste it on the ground, especially when the baking sun would evaporate a bunch of it. If he wanted to do the whole "dehumanize" shtick (which is pretty meh already), then do it at dawn or dusk, where the water wsted would just sink into the ground before evaporating.
>a cool moment
Alright, accepted
>Not his bullets
They are when he takes possession of them and has nothing else to his name. Bullets are a precious commodity in self-defense in the desert
>Experience
Ok I can accept that.

>>4494
What do you think about the new TLOU2

>>5043
The funniest part of FO:NV is that the barrenness of the setting makes sense because it's the fucking Mohave. Las Vegas is only not a barren desert now because people set up a city there. Meanwhile Fallout 3 is set in the DC metro area with the Potomac cutting through the map and basically nothing has regrown since the bombs fell. Like with inanimate objects no longer working (often for no reason) you never see the fucking plants regrowing. Look at Pripyat or the Bikini Atoll. Massive radiation and explosions fucked things up for a while but it was only a few years before the life came back. Shit, the bikini atoll has probably suffered more from climate change than from nuclear testing, what with ocean acidification causing coral bleaching.

I think Mad Max sort of loses charisma without Mel Gibson as the lead.

>>5609
You mean The Last of Us 2 right? Pretty shit in terms of story but not as bad as the trailers seemed.

I'm surprised there are so little entries in this thread.

List the best (and worst) Post-Apocalyptic films and books you know.

This looks fun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_and_Monsters_(film)

>>4494
>If these things didn't immediately start falling apart it would undermine the vision being created. If buildings just stood on their own (like they always did) and the world kept turning without the status quo continuing, that makes people ask questions. Just look at how people have responded to the corona virus impacting the economy. Reality is being clarified


Yes this is related to the point one of our writers makes about the age of 'coronacapitalism'. In order to respond humanely and save lives we have to rethink what purpose of the economy is/should be. However Capitalism as an autonomous system reacts against this new ontology and thus the only avenue left to it is to demand death instead

https://newmultitude.org/demonic-capitalism/

I've been following the conversation about Snowpiercer and thought it was a good one, especially the debate as to whether the train is capitalism or the state. Would like to put up an summary article about it. Will do it myself unless someone here wants to do it.

"The capitalist realism of post apocalypse fiction" is also good, anon. Would you be interested in having this published on the site? If so, and you want to develop your essay more, just make it a pastebin, or if not, just let me know what your name is so I can credit you.

>>10397
Put it on the multitude, fam!

Book of Eli

>>10422
What a waste of epic quads

>>10576
Speaking of Christianity and Christian Communists;
We're vastly outnumbered and have to avoid talking politics with 90% of our fellow believers so I feel that the latent frustration will probably force all of us off the grid by the end of the decade, joined up with whatever Amish commune or traditional Christian community that is still active.

You guys can enjoy the hopeless fight against the liberals. Also as a very visible ethnic minority I can confidently state that the mainstream church isn't racist and hasn't been for a long time. America may be an exception since they're uniquely retarded and the legacy of the civil war still hangs over them but I've been to multiple churches in different countries and my most recent church provided for and hosted refugees from Syria even though they were muslim. And this church is in a solidly right-wing voting district so it's not like they're heretics or universalists or whatever. Atheist perception of the church is about as informed and honest as the rightoid perception of communism/socialism/etc.

Also in regards to modern cyberpunk-tier developments like neural implants;
I've been thinking about this, and if this becomes mainstream, I will become a hard core Christian, not because I actually believe in the shit, but for legal protection. I can likely get out of being micros chipped by my job for a religious exception, weirdo evangelicals are against micro chipping and considering their political influence they might win a supreme court case about it.

>>10580
>Christcucks would rather join a reactionary community, as long as it believes in the same delusion as them, then fight for a better world
Further proof that there are no commie christians and christianity is an inherently reactionary ideology.

>>10639
>completely misunderstanding the post and its point
&ltMuh christ cucks
Stay mad
>christianity is an inherently reactionary
&ltBeing seclusive and avoiding government indoctrination through loopholes is "reactionary"
Ok buster, try reading the bible before blabbing your mouth
>join a reactionary community
The fuck are you talking about?
>fight for a better world
And yet Christians, Muslims and other religious people have been parts of socialist revolutions and movements… but you'll ignore that because it's convenient to be a "New Atheist" contrarian edgelord.

>>11172
Post-Apocalyptic adventure movie, worth watching.

The Dead Don't Die is a pretty funny post-apocalyptic/zombie movie. Thought I might suggest it.

Mad Max Fury Road; an Allegorical America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCIyq0ikaSw

>muh doomsday scenario
Capitalist elite will inherently have more survival chances in any scenario(search "neo-feudalism"), even if half the plankton goes extinct(plankton : the primary source of oxygen in the atmosphere).
https://earthsky.org/earth/how-much-do-oceans-add-to-worlds-oxygen

As the pollution(microplastic) and CO2(ocean acidification) start killing off plankton in large amounts, the percentage of oxygen will begin dropping,
which will start killing animals, starting with less efficient lung-less supply system - sort of a "canary in the coalmine", such as insects( we live in a world with 'dwarf insects' because larger insects died off due inefficient oxygen supply system. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101029132924.htm ) (human might create a "bottled air" economy or domed cities to prolong civilization) and eventually life on the "unprotected" surface will either die or adapt to low oxygen levels(think spacesuits and oxygen balloons):
populations which can't afford to buy bottled oxygen will slowly choke to death and die from anoxia. The elite might survive with robotic industry and automation in some way, but there will be no "consumer economy" or grand-scale civilization with billions.

The future is not looking good, even if you stop most CO2 the pollution in the ocean will takes decades to clear off(microplastic is especially vile stuff that poisons the marine food chain
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4420992/Shocking-photos-reveal-plankton-consuming-microplastics.html )

The scale of pollution, the plastic-filled oceans is not known, the microplastic is invisible, tiny specks.
Here is how the marine food chain collapses:
Plankton eat microplastic.
The fish bio-accumulate plastic by eating plankton.
Sea predators eat plastic-filled fish.
They all receive a hefty dose of endocrine disrupting chemicals and various plastic-bound toxins( https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/5/1509/htm ).

Now trees: you see articles everyday about forest fires, amazon burning, but it doesn't occur to you its oxygen-generating capacity burning off: the "oxygen capital" of entire planet is systematically wasted and destroyed. With no trees and no plankton, the planet dies.

Find a flaw:
1.plankton produces oxygen
2.plankton eats microplastic
3.plankton dies. Plankton breed less due acidic, warmer water and chemicals in plastic -filled water.
4.Trees produce oxygen.
5.Trees are burned off.
6.Remaining sources of oxygen are insufficient to sustain the current ecosystem.
7.Mass extinction of oxygen-dependent life begins.
8.No economic solutions will stop the process.
9.Oxygen becomes a commodity product.
10.Hyper-capitalism develops where oxygen is a currency.
11.Oxygen producing factories become critical industry.
12.People need to live in domed cities and use spacesuits to travel.
13.Eventually the elite class holds the entire(remaining) population on stranglehold by monopolizing oxygen supply and controlling society with Strong AI.

>>12822
You are a massive faggot who consumes pop culture depictions of robots and climate change. Guzzling down children's movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger films is bad for your mental health, I'm surprised.

Plankton aren't the most important thing determining the health and temperature of the ocean. They are an incredibly important part but a decent portion of them sying won't be world ending. It'll make things worse but it won't fucking suffocate us if some shrimp get killed in the waters solely around the USA pollution zone.
Trees aren't all going to magically burn down or get cut away. People are trying to stop that shit and if the people ruing forests don't, they will die when the are flooded or otherwise suffering as a result.

Automation has it's logical limits. Saying robots will take over is both technophilic and against the theory of capitalist technological stagnation. Falling profits coincide with enviroment self destruction, is this not clear? There is no logical reason technology would even advance under dire circumstances, dire circumstances would mean a return to human slavery since you wouldn't have to intricately design and fuel the thing.

You are not even a leftist. This is malthusian neoliberal reddit talk that you are parroting verbatim.

>>12823
Most water pollution is disproportionally American and western (as are all types of pollution)
Once the contradictions between the polluting west and third world occurs, most of the world will safe from breathing or drinking poison.

https://www.ecowatch.com/amp/malaysia-plastic-waste-2644881004
https://www.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1T10BQ
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/07/18/asia/cambodia-rejects-trash-intl-hnk/index.html
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/12/plastic-waste-indonesia-pollution-health/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/29/western-consumers-fuelling-tens-of-thousands-of-air-pollution-related-deaths

Countries that still pollute and ruin ecosystems will have to pay the price. Backlash will come from both people and the earth.
Take Brazil for instance. They intensified the destruction of the rain forrest and have allowed every type of pollution. They are on fire and drowning in smog amidst unprecedented social decay and unrest. Brazil is now on fire and engulfed in riots and all of south America is building towards an actual revolution against the right wing.

The United States has even turned to suicidal wars in the middle east because it doesn't want to face the domestic backlash of exploiting it's own land. They aren't willing to implement massive fracking operations and they aren't willing to tear down forests to sustain urban growth. The result is cities on edge that will riot if the power goes out and need to fight abroad. Once America is in dire need you will see a breaking point in the death cycle we are in.

>>12823 (me)
>>12824 (me)
Marxism-Maoism-Kaczynskism is the science that guides proper theory

>>12823
>Guzzling down children's movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger films is bad for your mental health
>I'm surprised
SO much random bullshit where only 1-2 lines are even remotely relevant
>This is malthusian
The fuck are you on about? How is pointing out the current tendency of our own self-destruction Malthusian? Utter dolt.
>You're not leftist
As if you are

>>12824
You're just stating facts about the environment that I neither disputed and are in fact confirming my point… to what purpose besides information?
>>12825
Good luck with that.

>>12824
You mean American and Chinese while everyone in the southern hemisphere must deal with its effects.

The Crazies remake is a pretty good film

>>12826
Where did you get the idea that we are going to buy air and or be ruled by machines, were else but movies.
The idea of a feedback loop was popularized by malthus. Population and development would keep growing forever despite any imminent reason to stop.
The stuff you said is ridiculous and pushed by psychopaths idk.

>>12827
The Chinese don't pollute to ridiculously disproportionate levels.

>>12837
>The Chinese don't pollute to ridiculously disproportionate levels.
They do, but it's being cleaned up and unlike the USA, they are developing and growing, so the amount of waste is expected. Still they're far worse than the USSR in many environmental regards.

>>12837
>The idea of a feedback loop was popularized by malthus
That does not intrinsically make it untrue or Malthusian. The bible holds lines that are similar to Communist theory, that doesn't mean Communism is Catholic or Catholicism is Communist. Positive and Negative Feedback loops are observed in biology and are undeniable.
>Where did you get the idea that we are going to buy air
1) If you were a bit more aware, there is plenty of cynical humor common discussions that, after water and everything else is turned into a sold commodity, the next will be clean air/filters. FFS, even the shitty Lorax movie portrays this (also the Celestial Dragons from One Piece). It also has precedent in real life, given the toxicity of the current air. In India there are Oxygen 'bars' (pic related).
>From movies
No actually. My work is environmental science, and a common discussion for policies is the allocation of resources, with serious ideas about making water only a sold commodity to "reduce wastefulness" with discussions involving. Films and books reflect reality, not the other way around, The writings of Huxley and Orwell did not dictate the current progression of capitalism, they reflected the then future prospects.
>Population and development would keep growing forever despite any imminent reason to stop
Exponential Growth metrics come to a hard stop because of carrying capacity. If a species does not adhere to the capacity (or in humanity's option, raise said capacity), they will rocket up exponentially past it, and then crash just as hard, and given that Porky always benefits from crises, what do you think will happen?
>The stuff you said is ridiculous and pushed by psychopaths
No, it's reality, while everyone else struggle, Porky will sit high and dry, and use the strife and misery to profit more, to control more, to solidly make the lower-classes wretched, afflicted people who serve their own oppressors, forever. Psychopaths? Corporations and the 1% have no single face, but if they did, it would be that of a psychopath indeed.

>>12846
>with discussions involving
*involving Air/oxygen commodification as a future concept. The easiest way to control someone is to not only control a vital resource, but also convince them that you control it rightfully, a la the head of Nestle, who stated that water ought not be free, but controlled (by corporations) all while Nestle is abusing water supplies far more than any city population.