mass production

[NWforager]

"must not sleep ,..must warn others ..

[pennilesscripple]

you were born to serve the system

get back on the line....

[NWforager]

@pennilesscripple enter :carrot & stick ...Zzzz..

[Kirilltraceur]

point so well made.

[pennilesscripple]

don't sleep

[Kirilltraceur]

@pennilesscripple

one eye open!

[loopholezz]

awesome point your trying to prove

[pennilesscripple]

don't sleep

[ozjthomas]

Awesome. Although I think the Chaplin footage is funnier. ;)

[pennilesscripple]

oh yeah modern times is awesome

i watched it again not too long ago and was taken how it says it all and hasn't been bested

it really holds up--perhaps is even richer--over time

[zezt]

bin there bought the tshirt. well actually i used to sweat sooo freakin much in the sweatshops, and I used to wear that evil deoderant, i went thru loads of teashirts when the material dissolved under my pits!

[dnHooligan]

vitameatavegamin was my favorite'Lucy' episode. She got tanked.

[arbsystems]

this video makes me think of all the hostess twinkie factory ladies are super fat from eating so many twinkies

[GenScrewUp]

How can I give it 5 stars if you won't let me?

I Love Lucy...

[pennilesscripple]

you can't

i'm glad you liked it, gen

[Boucrate]

Ha! the good old days when we where happy to be slave.. now where not happy lol! Cool!

[pennilesscripple]

thanks boucrate but seems to me too many slaves today think they are free...at least in the 1800s they knew they were slaves....

[QuinnEGorges]

How you squeeze so much fodder for reflection into videos under 4 min. (or in this case, 30 seconds!) is mysterious and delightful to me. You have a gift. Thanks for sharing it :)

[pennilesscripple]

thanks for being the only person on youtube who notices, quinn ;^)

i go for maximum leverage for the 21st century attention span...

heh

something like that anyway

[QuinnEGorges]

Thatta girl. I've been thinking about trying to go in that direction myself. Like, resolving that every other video I post will be under 3 minutes.

But it's hard for me. I guess I'm retro. I think in paragraphs.

[pennilesscripple]

well you and i have very different approaches, and there's something to be said for letting thoughts unfold in time--it's a much-needed corrective to our soundbite culture. it's good to 'visit' with you as a human being in real time--you don't need to be a circus clown.

"there is no one right way to youtube." ~zzz33333

[not2tees]

"We're all caught in the devil's bargain, and we've got to get us back to the garden." - Joni Mitchell

[pennilesscripple]

yes tees

bless your heart

[lapislazuline]

Lucille Ball ain,t no robot

[pennilesscripple]

we are all robots in service to the machine

even lucy

even ethel

even, bless his heart, little ricky....

[lapislazuline]

Well then, rage against the machine..

that one in front of you for instance

[pennilesscripple]

i'm just raking my tin cup across the bars of my cell. i'm not wild about the cup, and i certainly don't like the cell, but they are all i have right now

"The purpose of an activist is not to be spiritually pure, but rather to confront and take down systems of oppressive power. Would you have suggested that the North Vietnamese be pure and not use captured US weapons? Should Tecumseh not have used weapons he stole from the whites?" -derrick jensen

[lapislazuline]

Hell penn, i,m just being my usual

cynical self. And talking of U.S. weapons

you know the "Hopi" indians are pacifists

and yet they join up to fight in "the" iraq.

[pennilesscripple]

yeah well it's interesting to look at lapis because this 'hypocrite' argument comes up a lot...but we're all trapped, so we're all 'hypocrites'...the hopi had their way of life taken from them, got forced into a wage economy, and some see, as many have before, the military as a way out. i can't abide plastic and yet i am responsible for more of it being made...civilization has robbed us of our simple right to live without harming

[lapislazuline]

I,m not calling you a hypocrite penn and i

apologise if it came over that way it,s just

that the way i see if the original Americans,

Australians, Africans et al with there

wisdom can be ground down then how can you

convince the average half-wit westerner

to change for the better?

[pennilesscripple]

no i know you're not lapis. i just am always trying to figure out a way to address those kinds of 'but you're on a computer so you're part of the problem' comments that come up. that's a good question you've asked there. i guess one thing i'd say is they haven't been ground down--just the dominant culture makes us want to think they have, and makes us want to think it's all hopeless to try. check out the video 'shadow puppets' this is a response to...that answers the question rather well....

[lapislazuline]

Yes, it does

[drschnaggels]

so true...thats how i feel

[pennilesscripple]

yeah i hear you

[dmio2]

a happy group of morons stacking bricks in an open field...

[pennilesscripple]

is that a reference to a monty python movie? i wish i could pop that scene in here for everyone right now--it says it all....

[dmio2]

Actually, its from a suicide note I read in Irvin Yalom's "Existential Psychotherpy;" I use the whole quote as my channel description if you want to have a look.

[pennilesscripple]

oh yeah i had read that before now i see...

coolio dmio

somewhere in my favorites is that monty python scene--it speaks to the same thing

[pennilesscripple]

reminds me of an 18th century suicide note i saw that said 'too much buttoning and unbuttoning'

[medicinesocks]

the closest i come in real life to that assemblyline mentality is when i'm editing video. click, drag, click, drag, click, drag... render and repeat... what a drag! lol i thought i'd hate it (technological things scare the *!@& out of me)

but it is weirdly soothing, hypnotic, even. structure binds anxiety. i can see how the masses got hooked

[GrandNarrative]

'At a certain point, routine becomes self-destructive, because human beings lose control over their own efforts; lack of control over work time means people go dead mentally.'

"The Corrosion of Character" by Richard Sennett.

[pennilesscripple]

thanks for that quote grand

checking that book out....

[GrandNarrative]

Yeah Sennett is good for some things but not others. He kind of sees modernism as a Golden Age as things were more stable, and that the problems we have now are because everything in flexible and in flux. But I don't personally see how you can seperate the two; modernism ultimately creates flux...

[pennilesscripple]

yeah i'd agree with that. i sampled his book on amazon, but am going to take a pass. that's a good quote, though. his book strikes me as a sort of alternative self-help book, if that makes any sense. not my style. oiggg modernism was far from a golden age....

[sprichbeeke]

Tanks for this prcious oldie!!!

[DecentralizedTommy]

fembots!

[mistaspot1]

*deep-seeded shame*

[pennilesscripple]

don't sleep

[angrypaulander56]

i loved lucy when i was a kid.

[pennilesscripple]

and she loved you

[angrypaulander56]

that pointy-arm machine doesnt love me. booo hooo

[pennilesscripple]

sure it does

robots are your friends

they'll tuck you in

and wish you sweet sweet dreams

[angrypaulander56]

i want a robot lover.

[ReliableInsider]

Mass. production. only. accelerates. the. harm.

[pennilesscripple]

get back to work

[angrypaulander56]

what's work?

[pennilesscripple]

it's that thing that is destroying the planet

[angrypaulander56]

yes, well it ruined my week.

[pennilesscripple]

see?

multiply that by 6 billion

[fr3thinker]

Yeah, but the two women there were not robots - isn't that the point missed here? The two women have feelings, thoughts, but the mechanical replacements do not. Sure, the women were part of the production line staff and most of us would indeed find that monotenous work. So, in a sense aren't the use of robots freeing the people from monotony? No, the women on the production line in this video were not robots.

[pennilesscripple]

ironic username you have there. no surprise to see the conventional pieties of the industrial age regurgitated once again, just sadness

how anyone can look at our current serious decline in all areas of life on this planet and call it 'progress' is beyond me

technology takes us further into the abyss every day, yet people hold fast to their evangelical faith that it will 'save us some day'

believe. believe. robots will save us. robots will save us.

[j0eg0d]

Too much of technological "progress" has become the replacing of nature with synthetics.

Rather than humanity adjusting to the world we're changing the world to fit us.

We remove soil, grass, trees, mountains, rivers all to make way for our cities.

That isn't progress ... it's destruction.

[pennilesscripple]

as always, mr. god, very well put

we need to recognize that our faith in "progress" is a delusion--if enough folks could drop that one false belief, half the battle would be won

[QuinnEGorges]

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day. We were speaking Spanish, and he brought up this "technology will save us" nonsense. I was was like "La nanotechnologia y todo de esto parecido es bullshit!" It's really hard to translate curse words, so I generally just use English.

But, my (communist) friend thinks that once the revolution happens and the technology is in the hands of the people, it can be used for good, rather than evil. I think he's very naive.

[pennilesscripple]

yeah jerry mander addresses that point (and many other important points) beautifully in his book 'in the absence of the sacred' (cheap used on amazon). if you haven't read it, it's essential, especially for when you're trying to articulate these difficult issues (in another language, nonetheless). yeah i resort to 'it's all fucked up' or 'it's all bullshit' a lot, which isn't very persuasive....

[pennilesscripple]

one of the main points mander makes is that the technology is all for forwarding the military/corporate machine, and then when the masses receive personal 'benefits' from that technology in the form of video games, cell phones, etc., they think of it as benign because they identify with it. it always amazes me how personally people take any kind of criticism of technology...it's like you're insulting their mother....

[fr3thinker]

No need to get personal. I would also ask you to read what I said originally again. I so hate people misinterpretating what I say. But I hate more when someone becomes personal like you did on top of that.

[pennilesscripple]

i'm reading again, fr3thinker

and i'm seeing you say that technology has freed the workers from mundane tasks and given them more leisure time. and i'm saying that that is a myth. people are now working over 40, sometimes 60 or even 80 hours a week. it's been shown that with the advance of civilization, more work, not less work, is required. people in indigenous cultures spend and average of 12-15 hours a week getting their needs for food, clothing, and shelter met.

[fr3thinker]

But don't you think that many of them who choose to work 40, 50, 60 or even 80 hours a week do so out of greed or career? Personally I do not. I can only relate to the people I work with. I choose to do 37 hours and no overtime. Others do overtime then go sick on their normal working week (so they still get paid full pay plus overtime). Others do overtime - they want their big houses they buy on credit, their big plasma tvs, to spend thousands at Christmas, etc.

[pennilesscripple]

there's no "choice" about being in the system. the degree of your involvement is a false choice.

[fr3thinker]

I have a choice of whether I pursue money and more money at the expense of other areas of my life. There again I am not married so that probably makes it easier for me. I imagine that married men and women, particularly men still, feel very under pressure tacitly from their wives. That is sad.

[fr3thinker]

The so called "Great Communist Experiment" failed. Capitalism, not my favourite thing btw, continues a pace and most countries are going along with it seeing no viable alternative. Anyway, if they opted out they'd become pickings for those armed and supported by the capitalists. And to hold on to powered they'd become repressive regimes. We've seen it all already have we not?

[pennilesscripple]

well you're taking a political perspective--the dance that is part of politics

i like to focus on the roots as clearly as i can

i guess what i'd say here is that if everyone wants certainty about outcomes, they'll stay in fear and not take the leap. lots of people are out of capitalism. we need to stand in solidarity with them and learn from them. capitalism is only one form of organizing a society, based on violence of course....

[fr3thinker]

So, have you opted out?

[pennilesscripple]

if you're in the system, you're in the system.

the people who are out of the system were born into tribal societies with a healthy landbase. their existence is threatened, to say the least. if you are in the system, you do your best to keep your mind free and to find the best ways to resist/create some sort of life that doesn't serve the machine, or serves it as little as possible.

[fr3thinker]

This message of yours here brought up the image of us all being in The Matrix, and I had the vision of Neo unplugging himself. Then I had the image of us all in there considering whether to unplug ourselves.

[SohoSquare]

"if you're in the system, you're in the system"... I think I'll print that comment out and stick it somewhere where it can serve as a constant reminder. Got sucked into a commercial Christmas and instead of being sad about that, I'm happy that I managed to put my foot down on a number of issues. It's all in the spin!

[pennilesscripple]

yay soho

some folks chant it down from outside the walls

and some from inside the walls

the trick is in picking the most effective battles

[pennilesscripple]

(i'm still working on that challenge)

[pennilesscripple]

the above comment was to quinn, fr3, & i apologize if my comment was out of line. i get frustrated as i have been on youtube for over a year and hear the same things repeatedly. many of them seem to come from the mass delusion that we are experiencing "progress" despite the evidence to the contrary. it angers me how deeply the brainwashing seems to have sunk in, how very few seem to even be aware of, much less questioning (or judging), what is really going on.

[fr3thinker]

That's ok, I get irate too at times.

Yes, I realise that many people work plus 40 hours when they are impoverished. But I'd say as many if not more do so to up their life ciricustances - to get MORE luxury. These people often do not work with technology at all but work as cleaners, labourers, nurses, mechanics, sales people, executives, managers, employees, etc.

[fr3thinker]

I passed no judgement for or against the capitalism system and robotisation of technology. I was just stating what I thought were facts - namely that the women were not robots - they have thoughts, feelings, and were even jiving to the radio when the robots had none of these. What has happened has happened - capitalism and human activity. I make no judgement.

[pennilesscripple]

yes people are not robots but they are turned into robots (or cogs or what have you) in service to the machine. check out 'mario savio' on youtube. i make judgments. everyone makes judgments. reserving judgment on capitalism or technology is a pretty scary thing...that means you're just letting it run over you, unchecked.

[fr3thinker]

I don't have the power to affect / effect the capitalist system in my opinion. All of this is driven by the capitalist system which everyone is agreeing to by living and working in it. Whether these people do 80 hours a week working out of greed or out of impoverishment, they are all supporting the capitalist system. Even if a person draws a pension he/she is supporting the system.

[pennilesscripple]

yeah that's a sad thing there when people think they are powerless...they've got you right where they want you

i agree it looks like a trap, but in the big scheme of things it's really quite a house of cards

'everyone is agreeing'

okay, not everyone. so stop agreeing if you don't agree. and talk to others about it. we need to all stop agreeing, and have faith in humanity to be able to do that.

[jesuswonthelottery]

i agree

[pennilesscripple]

heh heh

i agree with your agreement that we need to stop agreeing

--

"open up some new paths we never knew were there

i'm not going without knowing you wanna be there too...

please promise you'll float away from all you've gained

(and all youve lost)" ~jesuswonthelottery

[jesuswonthelottery]

:-D