Darkover
Archangel
- Jul 29, 2021
- 5,376
In today's world, it is heartbreaking how much people are forced to work just to survive. Imagine a reality where working part-time could easily cover basic needs — where existence itself wasn't tied to constant labor. Instead, we live in a society where survival demands full-time effort for decades, often at the cost of our health, happiness, and freedom. It feels fundamentally wrong that simply staying alive comes with a lifelong bill — for food, water, shelter, and healthcare — all locked behind a relentless paywall.
From the moment we are born, the meter starts running. No one consents to this system; no one signs a contract agreeing to trade most of their waking hours for basic human needs. Yet, the expectation is clear: grind for 50 or more years just to maybe, if you're lucky, enjoy a small slice of rest at the end of your life. By the time retirement arrives, if it arrives at all, many people find their health deteriorated, their dreams deferred, and their best years already spent on the treadmill of survival.
Existing today feels less like living and more like serving a sentence — a debt we inherit at birth and are expected to pay with our time, energy, and sanity. Worse yet, there's no easy escape. Winning the lottery is a fantasy for the few, and stepping away from society entirely comes with immense personal risk and hardship. Most people are left trapped, simply trying to survive within a system that was built without their input and continues without their consent.
At the core of this problem lies the role of corporations. These entities are often structured not around promoting human well-being, but around maximizing profit at any cost. Even when companies could afford to pay higher wages or offer humane working hours, they often choose not to. Many actively lobby against policies that would improve people's lives — such as universal healthcare, living wages, and stronger worker protections — because these measures threaten to shrink their profits. With immense influence over governments and media, corporations have helped engineer a system where overwork and underpayment are normalized, and where basic survival remains tethered to employment.
The tragic irony is that, by any logical standard, we already have enough. Thanks to advances in technology and automation, productivity in wealthy nations has skyrocketed. We produce more than enough resources to meet everyone's basic needs several times over. But instead of using these gains to reduce working hours or ensure security for all, the benefits have been hoarded by the few at the top. The average person still labors full-time — or more — just to scrape by, while the dream of a freer, more balanced life drifts further out of reach.
The world we live in was designed — and it can be redesigned. Existing should not come with a subscription fee. Survival should not be conditional on selling the majority of your life. Food, water, shelter, rest, and safety should be basic human rights, not luxuries to be earned through endless labor. It's not radical to dream of a society where life is for living, not just for working. It's necessary.
From the moment we are born, the meter starts running. No one consents to this system; no one signs a contract agreeing to trade most of their waking hours for basic human needs. Yet, the expectation is clear: grind for 50 or more years just to maybe, if you're lucky, enjoy a small slice of rest at the end of your life. By the time retirement arrives, if it arrives at all, many people find their health deteriorated, their dreams deferred, and their best years already spent on the treadmill of survival.
Existing today feels less like living and more like serving a sentence — a debt we inherit at birth and are expected to pay with our time, energy, and sanity. Worse yet, there's no easy escape. Winning the lottery is a fantasy for the few, and stepping away from society entirely comes with immense personal risk and hardship. Most people are left trapped, simply trying to survive within a system that was built without their input and continues without their consent.
At the core of this problem lies the role of corporations. These entities are often structured not around promoting human well-being, but around maximizing profit at any cost. Even when companies could afford to pay higher wages or offer humane working hours, they often choose not to. Many actively lobby against policies that would improve people's lives — such as universal healthcare, living wages, and stronger worker protections — because these measures threaten to shrink their profits. With immense influence over governments and media, corporations have helped engineer a system where overwork and underpayment are normalized, and where basic survival remains tethered to employment.
The tragic irony is that, by any logical standard, we already have enough. Thanks to advances in technology and automation, productivity in wealthy nations has skyrocketed. We produce more than enough resources to meet everyone's basic needs several times over. But instead of using these gains to reduce working hours or ensure security for all, the benefits have been hoarded by the few at the top. The average person still labors full-time — or more — just to scrape by, while the dream of a freer, more balanced life drifts further out of reach.
The world we live in was designed — and it can be redesigned. Existing should not come with a subscription fee. Survival should not be conditional on selling the majority of your life. Food, water, shelter, rest, and safety should be basic human rights, not luxuries to be earned through endless labor. It's not radical to dream of a society where life is for living, not just for working. It's necessary.
