Capitalism: the ultimate human hacker?
And so then I'm thinking, if romantic love goes back even further, like chicken and the egg, how much of what we think is quote unquote, real or the way things are is really just like conditioning and hacking that has been going on for ages? And that's really my ultimate question. Like, it upheaves everything. I'm going to look twice at so many more things now. It
Mark Francis Rahaman
@MarkR · 1:32
Hi. How are you? So this is such an interesting topic, and I was just walking along the road thinking, you know what? I just can't sorry. I'm in a noisy, I'm in noise. There's noise around me, but I'm in the street. But I was just like I can't think past it. I can't see where else it came from. Comes I've been so hacked. It's so entrenched
It's just mind blowing, right? I mean, these days when I watch something that has a romantic scene in it I wonder how much of this is just fabricated and how much of it is real, right? And then even still, if you ask how much of it is real, what is real? Because if whatever is real and what we think of as romance is based on a fabrication, then none of it is, right? I don't know. It kind of rocked my world
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Why don't we question them that often? Or we just roll with it? Because that's what the previous generation told us and that's what the previous generation told them. But there was a starting point. I don't know. Sends my mind be just wow
Mark Francis Rahaman
@MarkR · 4:54
It's like you've seen that in many scenes where somebody lights candles in a dark room, in a bedroom, maybe. But what if this is where it originally came because it's really hard to break out of? Where did that come from? But what's more important is what's behind it. Then this is how it should be. Right? So it's like the mystery, the excitement of not knowing what's going to happen
Mark Francis Rahaman
@MarkR · 0:05
Oh, sorry. And I meant warming her hands by an open fire like flames, you know?
J.L. Beasley
@Her_Sisu · 4:49
That was my indicator that, oh my gosh, there's such a huge capitalism component to our money making component to these holidays christmas, birthdays, Valentine's Day. And I made the decision from that point forward, I said I definitely want to be in a relationship where love is shown consistently. I don't have to depend on this special time of the year to know or get confirmation that I'm loved
I've seen this in TV and movies and books and so on and I know that this is what my boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever is going to want, right? But we've still been conditioned to think that this is what to do. Even toddlers, I was thinking about that a toddler that might pick a flower for their mom or dad has already seen flowers being consumed, not eaten, but like owned, taken or sold. They've already seen that concept
What else I was thinking is that not only do we not know, there's also cultural differences, right, depending on how far we go back of what was a matter of life and death and what was like extravagance or anything like that. And maybe the idea of extravagance wasn't really an option for the most part, right? Because efforts and time were really all about the living part of things. I don't know. So many things to consider
Yeah, there's a lot that ripples out from just the basic idea of the need to buy gifts or the need to do certain things in certain days and so on. And I think that choosing someone every day in word and action is more powerful than that particular day. Christmas, birthday, whatever. Choosing them every day is so much more powerful
Dewuan .
@FryedOreo · 4:31
You. Interesting premise. The idea of love itself as a modern concept built upon the backs of capitalism, not just in terms of the media we took in to which romanticized what an ideal relationship should be or maybe shouldn't be, but also within the very nature of love itself between you and a potential intimate or intimate partners. Plural? Yeah
J.L. Beasley
@Her_Sisu · 0:52
You hit it spot on. Christina it's the daily choice that it's the biggest gift more than anything than the gift, the object itself. And when you said that, I just had to respond back and echo it. I'm still at the nail salon, as you can hear my soundscape. I just had to respond back and echo that
That's a big reason why I am so against the idea of the one, not only the psychological damage it does to the individuals, but then capitalism gets involved and okay, well, what can you do to improve things so that you can find the one. And okay, well, women, make yourself look more whatever, palatable pleasing, et cetera men buy the fancier car, the bigger house, whatever. Do you know what I mean?
Mark Francis Rahaman
@MarkR · 4:13
And it kind of is. But if I didn't do it, we don't have to. But it would come over mean, I think. Some people don't do it, some people say, no, we don't do that. But I don't see that they do anything else either. So it's kind of like maybe they just it kind of almost comes over like they are not in any sense romantic. So I guess if we'll never know
This is a sort of example, but I don't know how I'll be able to articulate this very well. My brain and my mouth are not cooperating effectively. Efficiently is the word I want anyway. I watch sometimes those reality dating TV shows because I find them fascinating. They're kind of like anthropological experiments or whatever to watch how people behave, speak about romance, relationships, love, et cetera
Mark Francis Rahaman
@MarkR · 5:00
Was there ever a time when women didn't shave? It's interesting. Sometimes I've worked with clients, right, and I do sports therapy as part as one of my skills and sometimes I have to do some massage on them. So I bring my couch and I've had one or two clients which have said to me, oh, sorry, you'd have to just sorry, mind my legs. And they're just legs, hairy legs
Mark Francis Rahaman
@MarkR · 1:35
Oh, that's kind of who they were. It's kind of who they are. And you're expressing that you're expressing yourself through capitalism. So capitalism is the vehicle for us to express ourselves, but it all really comes from the meaning and
Mark Francis Rahaman
@MarkR · 4:30
Somebody designed something and then, little do you know, everything you see in the shop is really a diluted version of somehow that came from a designer. Sorry, I'm making orange juice here. That's what that noise is
And because there's no regulations involved in you can't use that kind of messaging because of the harm it will do to individuals, let alone to the harm it will do at a societal level. We have the Gillette marketing campaign that happened, right? We have what Facebook and other platforms have created with respect to the coding on the back end that keeps track of what you like and what you don't like and how long you pause on a particular piece of
And that's what frustrates me, is that people can do whatever they want and have the detrimental effects and sometimes we're not even aware of how damaging those ideas can be. Right? I think I said it in the other one where the idea of the one seems great, seems not harmful. And you talked about there can be joy in finding the person and grief and loss and pain in losing a person. Completely agree
Mark Francis Rahaman
@MarkR · 3:51
It. Yeah, I love that idea that you can't move through space and time without affecting it in some way. And energy, I've been reading a lot about that recently and how energy transference, how we can affect things, how actual consciousness affects matter. It's a really interesting subject and yeah, I love that. Different people, different same conversation, same question, different people, different chemistry, a whole different conversation can come about with a different energy. It's amazing