Fall and Winter are typically the season for this, but I’ve noticed more people than usual have taken up interest in what amount to gyms. These very, very expensive gyms, which market themselves as almost exceptional in how they can help you regain yourself. All the while these “miracle body regimes” are advertised everywhere. Suspicious industry much?
Some neighbors of mine were headed there. I remember this because they were about to get into their vehicle, and I asked “the location is right around the corner, you don’t want to walk and maybe save transport money” and they responded “no, we’re old, we can’t do that” before they rode there and gained entry so they can run on the machine, and returned having used their whole wallet due to the journey/destination. Though not as memorable as the fact they came back with a brand of potato chips with the same name as the place they went to. Nothing like feeding into what you’re there to fix.
How about you though?
The battle for autonomous citizenship in a democracy was lost decades ago. Its true roots are the move to venture capital to avoid the WW3 that the previous military centric system would have created by around the 1980’s. The ideals of a warmonger state lend meaning to citizenship. Venture capital is feudalism. It is a system where autonomy and citizenship are in principal opposition to the interests of capital. A military must justify its cost with action. A feudal lord needs a mechanism of servitude but the name is irrelevant. Slave, and serf have been used in the past. No one will ever try to call you one of these loaded terms. They will alter the meaning of citizen until it is functionally equivalent. The feudal serving class are not owners of their tools, land, or means of survival. They have a theoretical right to legal recourse, but mechanisms bar them from doing so in practice.
I disagree that we had a transition from a military… democracy?.. to a venture-capital fuedalism.
Our militarization has only increased since the time you mentioned.
Wealth and capital have run America since they set up the colonies.
The military and the feudal-capitalist lords feed and build off of each other. They are part and parcel of the same oppression.
Autonomous citizenship in a democracy is an idea that America has flirted with but never fully delivered on.
This part was not my opinion, but is instead based on the history of silicon valley and how it evolved. It was started as a military research and development program to get R&D away from Washington’s meddling influence. Most of the key events surround William Shockley and people under his tutelage. Military couldn’t fund semiconductors scaling to meet its potential. Everything blew up from there. Look up the computer history museum and take a very deep dive into the early history of semiconductors. You will learn a lot about the reality of politics and the basis of venture capital.