30 Tweets To Show How Dystopic Our Capitalistic Society Already Is, As Shared By ‘Existential Comics’
There’s nothing like a philosopher to set the record straight for everyone. Corey Mohler, the mastermind behind ‘Existential Comics,’ voices his razor-sharp thoughts about the world not just in webcomic form but also in spot-on tweets. And today, we’re featuring some of his best insights about capitalism, economics, greed, and just how unjust the entire system can seem living in the 21st century.
As you’re scrolling down, remember to upvote the tweets that you found to be particularly enlightening, dear Pandas. Meanwhile, tell us what you think of Corey’s ideas in the comments. And if you’ve got any insights about inequality, finances, and the job market, we’d love to hear what you have to say, too. Got your thinking caps? Good!
Bored Panda reached out for a chat about capitalism with financial expert Sam Dogen, the author of 'Buy This, Not That' and the founder of 'Financial Samurai.' We spoke about the pros and cons of capitalism, nepotism, and why some executives earn embarrassingly huge sums of money compared to their employees. Read on for the full exclusive interview.
More info: Twitter | Patreon | ExistentialComics.com
This post may include affiliate links.
"The people who tend to say capitalism is flawed are the poor or the extremely rich. It's an interesting dynamic. There is no perfect system. However, capitalism is the best system we've got that advances technology, increases productivity and efficiency, and gives people a chance to improve their financial situation. Capitalism provides people the most hope to get ahead based on hard work. Therefore, I believe capitalism will remain the system going forward," financial expert Sam shared his thoughts with Bored Panda. However, that's not to say that capitalism isn't without its flaws.
"The biggest flaw to capitalism is nepotism and family dynasties. This happens when the extraordinarily wealthy hoard their wealth and provide favors to their friends and children. This helps ensure the rich get richer and the powerful to stay powerful. Nepotism doesn't mean the rest of us can't get ahead as well. It just means that certain people will have a much easier time getting ahead than others," he said.
Firstly I have only read about half of this post but I feel that I have the general theme. And whilst I agree that capitalism is based on exploiting the workforce and that 'trickle-down' economics doesn't work, what is the solution? We can complain about it all we want - and we do - but in the end, all we are left with, is a bunch of exploited people agreeing with each other that we are being exploited. Whichever system we use, some people will always be 'more equal than others' because that is unfortunately, human nature. I hope a panda - maybe you, dear reader - can offer a solution to what has quietly become one of the biggest threats to our standard of living ever faced.
Pressure and vote for politicians willing to tax the rich and implement universal basic income (and in the US, universal healthcare)
Load More Replies...
I actually had a boss one time express that, if I was stressed out with trying to balance work/home life, I should hire a cleaner to come in once or twice a week to clean the house so I don't have to stress out about it. Nah..I think you got it wrong as to what I'm more stressed out about....
Those have always been perceived as "women's purview" and not considered real work because that's what women were meant to do.
"To hoard billions of dollars while there are so many people suffering in your very city doesn't sit right with most people. However, evolution has made humans naturally greedy to increase our chances for survival. Even elite private universities in the United States continue to provide huge advantages for wealthy legacy families. At the end of the day, we tend to take care of people who are most like ourselves," Sam pointed out that, unfortunately, real-life isn't perfectly fair or just.
Bored Panda wanted to understand why some executives earn huge sums of money while their employees might be left living from paycheck to paycheck. Author and financial expert Sam explained it all to us.
"Compensation is tied towards how much economic value you can produce or at least, appear to produce. Hence, if you want to make millions a year and be a top 0.01% income earner, then you've got to generate a lot of profits and shareholder value," he told us.
The part that blows my mind the most is how many of the people they oppress will staunchly defend the very system that oppresses them. Complete buy-in to the notion of some people deserving things and others don't; if you don't have X or Y it's because you "didn't work hard enough" rather than the system being somewhat stacked against most of us and REALLY stacked against some of us. We don't have to accept that system. We CAN make a better world.
"But let's be frank about CEO compensation for some publicly-traded companies. Their compensation packages in the hundreds of millions is a joke. There are plenty of people who can conduct meetings and tell people what to do for way less compensation."
He continued: "The biggest reason these CEOs get paid so much is because they work for companies with tremendous market capitalizations, e.g. Apple, Google, etc. If you're the founder of the company, getting paid a lot is one thing. But if you're just an operator, some of the CEO compensation today is egregious and embarrassing."
Maybe this is where capitalism will fail. To succeed it needs people with a disposable income to purchase it’s commodities. If the workers have no income, capitalism fails.
Corey has been making ‘Existential Comics’ about philosophy and “the inevitable anguish of living a brief life in an absurd world” since December of 2013.
The software engineer from Portland in Oregon took an amateur interest in philosophy and decided to make it a more popular, approachable subject through the skillful use of comedy. The comic is educational, fun, and it’s something that we’ve been sneakily reading for years and years.
If you’d like to see some of Corey’s latest webcomics, you should definitely check out his website or social media. Or you could take a peek at the ones Bored Panda featured in a recent article right over here.
True, but I feel like that's more of a theme with certain characters (Like Tony Stark and for example) while other characters (Like T'Challa) realized that there were problems with society that needed to be changed. And of course there are villains that had some damn good points (Like Killmonger and Hela) while other villains are just psychos (Like Thanos and Harrow) So I think it kinda just depends on the movie.
Yes. The " best we have " has destroyed entire ecosystems and is gonna wipe us all if this planet. I swear humans are actually really dumb animals.
Does anyone ever think that leaving America is the quickest way to solve all these problems? Because I sure do now.
Way back in 2014, Corey told ‘Critical Theory’ that he first learned to draw by practicing drawing his ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ character in high school.
“Some time in college I pretty much left it behind, and I never used any kind of comic style to begin with (the first comic is roughly how my high school art looked). So it was a lot of learning and rough patches at first as I learned how to draw in a comic style, as well as drawing digitally for the first time,” he shared some insights into his interest in art.
“Essentially I wanted to write or do something, and I took a look around the internet and realized that if you want to be popular online you have to draw some [bad] cartoons next to what you write. I figured I had enough drawing skill to pull it off, so I might as well start a webcomic,” he explained how he first got started with ‘Existential Comics.’
“I got my tablet and started practicing and writing, but it took me about a year and a half before I published my first comic. The first serious comics took a long time to produce, but I’ve gotten much more efficient now, and the art generally looks much nicer now. It was originally intended to be mostly serious comics with a few jokes thrown in, but it turns out jokes are much easier and more fun to make, so it ended up being the reverse.”
The point of this tweet *isn’t* that everyone who makes a lot of money doesn’t work hard to earn that. That’s obviously not always true. The point is that we live in a country where meritocracy is held as gospel (re: the American Dream! Work hard enough and you’ll make it! And if you’re not making it then you’re not working hard enough!). We do not live in a meritocratic society — if we did, all of the people who do back-breaking, thankless labor everyday for minimum wage would be the real capital owners.
Just been made redundant from a job I loved, they ground me down so much I am more than happy to grab the last pay cheque and run.....
They won't admit it.......kinda like how America won't admit who REALLY built their country
Earlier, Bored Panda spoke about the benefits and drawbacks of capitalism with a couple of financial experts. According to finance writer and financial independence expert Rick Orford, the main issues arise when capitalism is taken to the extreme. Both extreme greed and extreme capitalism thrive when a large enough part of the population is willing to take risks.
"Remember though, greed is widely accepted to be the reason for the two largest financial crises in the last century; namely 1929 and 2008. It also creates the income inequality that’s largely seen in the United States. Indeed, while everyone, in theory, has an equal opportunity to flourish, the scales seem to tip to those with the most money," Rick explained to us during a previous interview.
"[Capitalism] allows folks like you and me to succeed by creating or investing in businesses. Indeed, one looking to borrow money from the banks today won’t have to pay much for the loan. As such, it encourages growth. However, extreme capitalism creates a scenario where greed overtakes reason, and it risks the financial system," he suggested that capitalism isn’t ‘bad’ in and of itself.
We're all lowly hourly unskilled laborers until a pandemic hits, then we suddenly become "essential" (but disposable) workers.
That's because we have surpassed Capitalism and become a Corporatocracy that is in danger of becoming a theocratic autocracy/dictatorship.
Rick pointed out that on the other end of the scale from capitalism you have social democracy, aka modern socialism. At its core, the system differs from capitalism by taxing citizens more.
"However, in return, citizens are given services such as free and (easily) accessible healthcare, child care, social welfare, etc. Conversely, highly capitalistic societies charge for these services, making it incredibly challenging for the poor," Rick told Bored Panda.
A banking and investment expert who wanted to remain anonymous because of the sensitive nature of his job explained to Bored Panda that capitalism disproportionately rewards individual incentive while punishing a lack of it.
"As someone acquires more capital, it—on average—becomes exponentially easier to acquire even more of it, which adds to extreme wealth inequality," he shared with us.
Lobbying and party donations should be totally scrapped. Each candidate should be awarded £x for their campaign paid for by the government. Whichever candidate is the most popular with the electorate should win. Isn't that what a fair and transparent election looks like? They will never do it though, because the political parties are hungry for cash and the corporations are hungry for political influence. It's all a big con.
Mainly when it's a Democrat in office. With Republicans it's always someone else's fault and therefore not their responsibility to try to fix. Well, at least nowadays. I don't remember it being this bad in the 60's and 70's.
Ohhhh that "you're lazy and want free stuff" argument pisses me off. I will litteraly spend an hour explaining how i worked my ass off and got ripped off and some idiot will spout that off at me. Do they have a stroke and just blank out the description of what i did to earn the thing I didn't get? It it just their automatic response as opposed to thinking? Are they just all trolls enjoying how much more pissed off i get when they dismiss my efforts?
"It really bothers me when trillions in pension funds are wiped out only for a couple of bankers to get slapped on the wrist. Making sure that the costs of financial crises are borne by financial institutions that manufactured them (even if unintentionally), as opposed to transferring the burden to other members of society, would increase accountability,” he said.
I get the sentiment, but who pays the construction workers? And where does the money for those paychecks come from? This one is not all black and white. Of course scooping up real estate (especially after the housing crisis), evicting, renovating and renting out at an insane markup is despicable. But if someone invests his money to get an appartment to rent out for passive income/retirement safety, he's not necessarily a bad landlord.
And corporations dont want you to own anything, only rent it. Music, books, movies, your house, your appliances, your phone...
I've explored my creative potential despite poverty. I've written over ten books. I'm an illustrator. I'm a blacksmith. I'm a woodcarver and a carpenter. Nobody cares.
The expert firmly believes that free markets have led to high standards of living that are “unparalleled in human history” and believes that the system works. However, instead of pure capitalism, he advocated for capitalism with “effective social programs.”
Meanwhile, he urged critics of capitalism to consider whether there are viable, practical alternatives. "Ask yourself—do you really want to help the poor, or do you simply hate people richer than you?"
capitalism is good at solving certain types of problems, whereas it generates a hole lot of other problems, and there are certain types of problems that it sucks at solving (climate change is one of them). I do not believe in unrestricted capitalism since it is basically a way for specialists to screw over the average joe. The world has become so complicated, that there is simply not enough resources to do a thourough analysis for every choice we have to make, and hence we have to rely on rules of thumb and simplifications in order to not become paralysed. Homo Economicus does not exist as anything outside the model of a capitalist, and that opens for all sorts of ways to hack the system in order to get an advantage. This is most often the case for issues, we have little experience with and only get a few costly tries to learn, and where the effects will only become visible down the line. Mortages or cigarets are examples of such an issues, where regulations produce a better result
Imagine having enough money to end world hunger but instead you go off and play space man
That's already happening. Companies are profiting off of being climate woke and the renewable energy industry is drawing a lot of investment. It's not enough though, to truly make a difference we need degrowth which is absolutely never gonna happen, at least not in my lifetime.
No..but the alpha female in wolf packs may take or kill the pups of a subordinate female. Sound familiar?
however we currently se a revolt against softerware companies overcharging for their products by competing freeware "clones". Despite those mainly being developing by volunteers in their spare time, some of them are actually really nice products of nearly the same quality as proffesional pendant. For start ups and hobbyist, this is a real blessing, as the professional versions are so expensive that they are impossible to get your hands on in a legal way.
Yeah..I remember hearing that argument in my economics class. I was being told that there weren't enough resources to feed everyone. Then I showed them a picture of a landfill with piles of lettuce, cabbage, and other food rotting. The only problem I see is giving people access to the food. Whether through affordability or just physically bringing it to them.
I don't think this person understands what communism really means. No wonder, he was educated in the capitalism utopia of the USA
So the answer is to make a personal default on their mortgage and have tenants become homeless. Most "good" landlords just wanted the same extension on forgiveness of their mortgage. It was only the db investment corporations and wanna be flippers that wanted to be able to collect or evict.
A certain Corporate owned party (well, owned a lot more than the other one) found the idea of paying someone to stay home to better life for everyone abhorrent. "Pay people to do nothing? Heavens No! That's only for rich people"
Guillotine is inappropriate. I would go for putting them in a below minimum wage job working with the public, zero hours contract, rented accommodation where the rent is enough to pay the landlord's mortgage. Oh, and a most unbecoming polyester uniform
I think we learned that from Europe. I don't think Native Americans have the same ideals.
Some people on this website don't like to hear it, but there is a landlord crisis. Both individual and corporate landlords. They are the reason people can't afford to rent or buy houses. The truth is, if you make profit from the basic human right of having a safe place to live, you are immoral.
This is one where his take becomes too simplistic. Profit and interest, for instance, can be about hedging against risk. Without interest, literally no one would ever lend money - there'd be no point. You would risk default with no benefit to offset the risk. As long as some borrowers default, then some interest is necessary - the work being done is "the absorption of risk." Same for profit in *some* instances. Simple example: I'm a mechanic with one employee. They make a wage while I keep the profit left at the end of the month. If there is no profit, the employee still gets paid while I get nothing. He makes less if everything is good, but is not responsible for losses if they occur - less reward but also less risk. It's when we remove the risk that there's a breakdown - like with bailouts. If you keep the profits when it's good and the taxpayer bails out your losses, there's no risk, therefore there should be no rewards. 'Capitalism for profits, socialism for losses' = bad.
The problem is there is not a lot of daylight between these two things.
Load More Replies...
Two commentors below say this is not capitalism it is US policy. Yes and no. I'd have to exhaustively go through each tweet above to show which is US-specific and which is generally applicable to capitalists, but here's an example: 1370472075...9697b1.jpg 
I'm so sick of life-ing. Why don't we all just live in remote farms, and grow our own food, and only go out once a year? Wouldn't that be better?!
They would be mere Cluster B patients without continuous immense fuel from millions upon millions of hypnotized, addicted, easily groomed and manipulated, hopeless, helpless, buttoms-of-imbecillism-pressing sheeple with completely hijacked cognitions, sexuality, sanity, health, dignity and truly, everything. We live grand coda of humanity. The game is over for a while now. It doesn't take a genius to forsee what happens when a vehicle at impossible speed is about to make a sharp turn. Decades ago, some paid attention we entered narcissistic/psychopathic narrative. Car-free advocates were mocked as losers, living one with nature were called dirty hippies, free of credit cards folks were laughed at for having false believes about money, people who were pointing out how porn destroys human brain were called prudes, sane women were called boring and ugly, sane men were called simps, ppl who didn't like psychopathic artists, movies weirdos. Cluster Bs would be nobody without most of you.
Why are you bringing mental illness into this... you can just say they’re assholes
Load More Replies... A lot of platitudes and lack of reflection in all these posts. We must not forget that if there are "so wicked rich" it is because, in the first place, we buy, consume their products and we want more. It is easier to blame the rich than to question our own behavior and habits. And I am not saying that there are no abuses either, but let's avoid too Manichean visions...
I don't think you understand just how rich the "wicked rich" are.
Load More Replies... 
It's necessary while they are in a capitalist society.
Load More Replies... The problem is there is not a lot of daylight between these two things.
Load More Replies... Two commentors below say this is not capitalism it is US policy. Yes and no. I'd have to exhaustively go through each tweet above to show which is US-specific and which is generally applicable to capitalists, but here's an example: 1370472075...9697b1.jpg
I'm so sick of life-ing. Why don't we all just live in remote farms, and grow our own food, and only go out once a year? Wouldn't that be better?!
They would be mere Cluster B patients without continuous immense fuel from millions upon millions of hypnotized, addicted, easily groomed and manipulated, hopeless, helpless, buttoms-of-imbecillism-pressing sheeple with completely hijacked cognitions, sexuality, sanity, health, dignity and truly, everything. We live grand coda of humanity. The game is over for a while now. It doesn't take a genius to forsee what happens when a vehicle at impossible speed is about to make a sharp turn. Decades ago, some paid attention we entered narcissistic/psychopathic narrative. Car-free advocates were mocked as losers, living one with nature were called dirty hippies, free of credit cards folks were laughed at for having false believes about money, people who were pointing out how porn destroys human brain were called prudes, sane women were called boring and ugly, sane men were called simps, ppl who didn't like psychopathic artists, movies weirdos. Cluster Bs would be nobody without most of you.
Why are you bringing mental illness into this... you can just say they’re assholes
Load More Replies... A lot of platitudes and lack of reflection in all these posts. We must not forget that if there are "so wicked rich" it is because, in the first place, we buy, consume their products and we want more. It is easier to blame the rich than to question our own behavior and habits. And I am not saying that there are no abuses either, but let's avoid too Manichean visions...
I don't think you understand just how rich the "wicked rich" are.
Load More Replies... It's necessary while they are in a capitalist society.
Load More Replies...