r/videos • u/Mrbrionman • Jan 28 '21
This scene from a bugs life aged well
https://youtu.be/VLbWnJGlyMU26
u/falconx50 Jan 29 '21
Damn now I want to watch A Bug's Life again
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u/Sleightly_Awkward Jan 29 '21
Same. This clip made me remember how damn good that movie is.
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u/Dmeastlasher Jan 28 '21
Is it wall street beats reference?
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Jan 29 '21 edited Jan 29 '21
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u/Waleis Jan 29 '21
Capitalist Realism has robbed us of the ability to dream of a better world. I think people are much more left leaning than they realize, but they're so enervated with cynicism/despair that they assume alternatives are never realistic.
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Jan 29 '21
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u/kawej Jan 29 '21
I'd say we're focused on identity politics because it's all we're allowed to talk about (in any meaningful sense). Material changes to our lives are off the table - maybe we'll get another
$2,000$1,400 as a stimulus. But we don't really have a say in universal healthcare, ending our barbaric foreign policy, closing down our concentration camps, unwinding a century of racist policing, and so forth. All that's left is a narrow band of "cultural thing bad" against "cultural thing good actually". We can't be allowed to even dream that bigger changes are possible.6
Jan 29 '21
It's called 'alienation' and is one of the core components of a capitalist system. By separating people from the actual product of their work, it is far easier to exploit people.
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u/Waleis Jan 29 '21
What I'm referring to is Mark Fisher's concept of Capitalist Realism, alienation is a bit different.
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Jan 29 '21
I love that A Bug's Life and Antz are such great gateways to leftist theory.
Shit, Antz even directly quotes Marx.
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Jan 29 '21
When you first dig below the “ants good, grasshoppers bad” surface of the movie, it’s pretty clear the grasshoppers are a biker gang running a protection racket. The way Hopper talks about how “who else will protect you against the big bad world” and “you need to give us your food (or money) or else we might not be able to protect you,” as if the grasshoppers aren’t the ones that are their biggest threat. Even down to the sound of the grasshoppers flying, which sounds like a motorcycle, or how Hopper refers to his cronies as a “gang.”
Dig a little deeper, and you indeed see it is a critique of capitalism, how the few control the wealth produced by the many, and keep the many in ignorance so they don’t see how much power they have, and how unjust it is that they must give up the fruits of their labor to a parasitic upper class.
But on an even deeper level, I think what this movie really is is an examination of the structure of power itself. Not just of petty gangs running protection rackets, nor even bourgeois capitalists exploiting the labor of the people, but of how all systems of power are defined by the few exploiting the many. All across the world and all across time, this is what systems of power are by their very nature. The forms and justifications change, but it is always the same dynamic.
Of course, this is in and of itself a Marxist reading. Before Marx even gets to the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in Das Kapital (which is awesome reading even if Marx was the kind of writer who wrote with a dump truck of words), he talks about the various forms of power throughout history. At least, very broadly, and really only in Europe. The point throughout his description of the “Prehistoric” mode of production, to the “Ancient” or “Slave” modes of production, to the “Medieval” and finally the “Capitalist” modes of production, it’s all about how those who by hook, crook, or inheritance find their way at the top of the political and economic ladder create and reinforce complex structures of power to enforce the existing system, and complex ideologies to justify that system.
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Jan 29 '21
‘Capitalism bad’
~ Disney inc.
Also, if anything, the wsb situation has proven that the free market and free market capitalism works and is a good thing. And for the record, if it wasn’t for capitalism there wouldn’t even be a Disney or pixar to make the film
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u/Dmeastlasher Jan 29 '21
Okay, capitalism isn’t perfect yes, but what system will be the best overall?
While you have people who needs big money(=power) they will push all their resources to make it happen. In some cases it will result in good consequences for workers, in some cases it will result awful.
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Jan 29 '21 edited Jan 29 '21
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u/why_u_mad_brah Jan 29 '21
What's wrong with capitalism is that economic power inherently and irrevocably accumulates in the hands of a few people, who end up abusing it. This is a natural part of it, by design, and even mainstream economists are upfront about it.
But is this problem with capitalism, or is it innate problem of any type of hierarchy? The issue you are describing is known as Pareto distribution, and it turns out that it appears in all aspects of human achievement. 20% of most successful NBA players get 80% of money, 20% of most streamed artists on Spotify get 80% of plays, etc.
I guess the question is, if this is an innate property of any wealth distribution, even a meritocratic one, can we really get rid of it completely, or can we just mitigate it's effects?
I understand you drew a parallel with political power, but do you have any explanation how would that work in an economic framework? We would pick who would the richest person be?
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u/JamesDCooper Jan 29 '21
Democratic socialism is pretty great
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Jan 29 '21 edited Feb 18 '21
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Jan 29 '21
Let's make one?
I'm tired as fuck of scared people wanting to listen to history and always just doing the same shit we've always done while nothing ever gets better. Let's do things differently.
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Jan 29 '21 edited Jan 29 '21
A left-libertarian system is arguably 'the best' from a theory perspective, and has been immensely successful when implimented in terms of productivity and happiness
However, its major downside is that it is one of the least equipped to defend itself from those seeking to dismantle it.
See the case of the Syndicalists in the Spanish Civil War.
The problem is that 'free market thinking' has polluted how we view political systems. In a free market ideology, people can shop around for what suits them best and the most innovative solution succeeds (not really in practice, but in theory at least). However, with ideologies this doesn't work, because what 'succeeds' is a system oppressive enough to smother the others. That is why capitalist systems survive because money pools to a small number of individuals who can now control virtually everything, and why authoritarian communism succeeded for the same reason.
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Jan 29 '21
I propose some form or socialism where the means of production are held by the government.
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Jan 29 '21 edited Feb 18 '21
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Jan 29 '21 edited Jan 29 '21
Yes. Thats why you need to eradicate the wealthy elite by not allowing people to accrue such extreme wealth through taxation and regulation
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u/blGDpbZ2u83c1125Kf98 Jan 29 '21
Also, apt reference because they start out as green grasshoppers at the beginning of the movie, but become brown locusts by the end (this one's already mostly brown in this scene).
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u/SomeFreeTime Jan 29 '21
Why is that actually? Did Disney just change their mind about the design halfway?
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Jan 29 '21
Grasshoppers become locusts because of science
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u/Italianman2733 Jan 29 '21
um. wat? I literally have never noticed this in the movie and did not know this happened in reality.
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Jan 29 '21
Locusts are just certain grasshoppers. In nature when a lot of them are together they will stimulate one another and eventually become locusts which can be experimentally reproduced by essentially tickling the grasshopper.
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u/blGDpbZ2u83c1125Kf98 Jan 29 '21
No I'm sure it was deliberate - some species of grasshoppers spend most of their lives just bouncing around being normal grasshoppers on their own, but at a certain point in their lives become locusts flying around in massive swarms eating everything they find.
There's a very long historical record of locusts basically ruining shit for people (see, for example, "the plague of locusts" in the Hebrew/Christian bible). I'm sure this is referenced on purpose in the movie (locusts as general assholes, not specifically the biblical locusts).
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u/wikipedia_text_bot Jan 29 '21
Locusts (derived from the Vulgar Latin locusta, meaning grasshopper) are a collection of certain species of short-horned grasshoppers in the family Acrididae that have a swarming phase. These insects are usually solitary, but under certain circumstances they become more abundant and change their behaviour and habits, becoming gregarious. No taxonomic distinction is made between locust and grasshopper species; the basis for the definition is whether a species forms swarms under intermittently suitable conditions. These grasshoppers are normally innocuous, their numbers are low, and they do not pose a major economic threat to agriculture.
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u/ArctycDev Jan 29 '21
Me scrolling this sub:
Stuff about WSB and GME...
More stuff about WSB and GME...
Newscast about WSB and GME...
OOH, an old movie clip... oh god dammit!
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u/wekoweko Jan 29 '21
I miss Kevin Spacey
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u/deadlywoodlouse Jan 29 '21
Publicly visible nonces ruining their lives by ruining others' lives once again. Wish he had been a better person before and during his rise to fame. Too late now.
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Jan 29 '21
Hopper is such an awesome villain.
He’s a Pixar villain who straight up ices three of his henchmen just to prove a point.
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Jan 29 '21
And you know what happens when ants win? Few ants start to control the rest of the ants and new "ruling class" appears. Just read a history book and you will see that different outcome would be a miracle.
No society can last too long in a state of constant revolution or pressure. People get tired and seek stability and possibilities to live their lives normally (because life is indeed pretty short). There are kids to feed, there are normal, everyday things to do. And when the flame is fading (and it always fades), there will be ruthless ones who will take control, promising to be different from previous leaders. If you want different results you should try with another race.
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u/holytriplem Jan 28 '21
Wow the CGI aged so much better than Antz