OC [Disc] Wanderer in the Vortex Ch 6 - The Breaking Dawn (spoilers)

OpenStars, 10 months ago

It was very deep. And as you said, it may be even harder for those not from Japan to grasp it as readily - although the basics are there, in every Western society (which is what Japan modelled itself after, post-WWII). If you are interested, here is a very interesting video talking about how the USA (along with the global trend at the time) switched to this current economic style, and the effects it had: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNftCCwAol0&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtMwmepBjTSG593eG7ObzO7s&index=13. TLDR: we switched from "everyone" wanting to be farmers and crafts/tradesmen and thus grow things that at the end of the day made people feel a certain sense of personal satisfaction at having PRODUCED SOMETHING, to then helping a machine make a cog, which by itself sorta felt so useless, thus making people feel like they themselves were merely one among many, aka a proverbial "cog in a machine" - i.e., interchangeable and thus while not entirely useless, lacking that PERSONAL connection to your work. I see this played out in so many stories, Yakumo's included (he PRODUCED stuff? he just did not care about said stuff; unlike a craftsman that would e.g. spend weeks making a single chair - to sell to a rich someone who could afford to pay for all that labor for a singular product - and after all that time & effort, would feel an immense sense of true accomplishment, as a farmer would as well at producing a sufficiently large crop).

Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. While those of us who listen to the wisdom of the ages can do different: we can change our lives - as Yakumo did - and become craftsmen. It is not easy, it requires enormous sacrifice, and all that said in some fields maybe it really might not even be possible after all (at least, at a salary level that would be considered sufficient, like to raise a family or own your own home in a nice area where you currently live), but it is something to be thought about. I do not know how that might work in Japan - if it were possible at all - and it might also not be possible in most of the USA as of the last 5-10 years when healthcare costs and other metrics of inflation have jumped sky-high.

Thus, maybe like Yakumo, maybe the alternative is not to change our circumstances, but rather ourselves. Like if you have to go to work, at a job that you hate until you can make a connection or something to help change your circumstances, then what about going to breakfast first? :-D

niantre, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

here is a very interesting video talking about how the USA (along with the global trend at the time) switched to this current economic style, and the effects it had

although i was familiar with some US history and the influence of trade, there were some new insights there i didn't know about. it's interesting that these changes in the US to trade and free markets probably brought about changes in Japan during this time period (19th century). Japan was forced opened to US trade by Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853. That was followed by the Meiji Restoration (1868), which changed the country from a feudal political system to a centralized political government in order to resist colonialization and influence of western countries. This brought about a rapid industrialization of the country, modernizing industries like cotton and silk where women (and other types of workers) worked long hours in factories, changing daily life and the nature of work. global trade has had a huge ripple effect over the entire world, which doesn't allow you to simply ignore it.

TLDR: we switched from "everyone" wanting to be farmers and crafts/tradesmen and thus grow things that at the end of the day made people feel a certain sense of personal satisfaction at having PRODUCED SOMETHING, to then helping a machine make a cog, which by itself sorta felt so useless

I am not sure that farm work was that great either, because sometimes the outcome of crops meant life or death. I saw this quote in regard to women in Japan during that time:

Yet still, most women preferred the factory to the farm. Farm labor was far more demanding than the factory work. Also, the diet offered at the factory was far better to the girls as compared to a life of malnourishment and starvation with their families on the farm. (source)

That's not to say that working life in factories were good (they were very bad in fact). But it says a lot if people preferred that over life on the farms.

However, I do agree with your general sentiment. industrialization brought about a loss of personal meaning to the average person in various ways:

• loss of agency (long work hours dictated less by day/night and more by market demands and the use of indoor lighting) - livelihood dictated by employers
• loss of community relationships (life organized around factories rather than villages)
• disruption of the nuclear family (kids or parents working in factories)
• loss of personal meaning (work becoming menial or disconnected from its final outcome)

anyway, i think since then labor conditions have improved comparatively and we've had more time to try to grapple and struggle to find an answer to find meaning in the modern age. in exchange for efficiency, it helps to revisit what was lost to question what is truly valuable.

changing topics... i was curious, you mentioned that this was your favorite chapter in the "wanderer in the vortex" apocrypha. what makes this your favorite chapter? (edit: did i remember that incorrectly? maybe you didn't say that now that i look back on earlier posts.)

OpenStars, 10 months ago

Part 1 of 2.

I am not sure that farm work was that great either

Right, I did not go into the other side of the issue, in part b/c it was a TLDR and in part b/c I do not know as much about that myself. I do know that in WWII, half of all American "recruits" were turned away, the cited reason being "malnutrition". To some extent I disbelieve the exact figure b/c that was often the reason written down on paper to explain someone who was CLEARLY under-age (like 14) but who wanted to enlist anyway, and yet images including videos shown of people from the time clearly do show that many were what we would consider malnourished. Since that era, farming capabilities have more than tripled, and the USA now produces more than enough to feed itself and export a great deal more besides to the rest of the world, plus giving away a lot for free for charity. But back then... things were a bit different.

Also, friends of mine from China say similar things are happening there now, like young people choose to work in those dehumanizing factory environments (the same way that young Americans would choose to work in a service job such as McDonalds or other fast-food worker) b/c the only other alternative for them is to work in their rural farms, but the factory offers a quicker & easier source of income (the down-side being their rates of suicide are notably high, and looking into the treatment they receive it is not that hard to understand why - e.g. the workers can be roused from sleep and given a buscuit and immediately work a shift, plus they are encouraged not to use people's irl names, plus any complaint is not mere talk but justification enough to call the actual police, etc.).

So I am sure that decision of farmers+craftsmen vs. factory workers was not undertaken lightly, in any country that made it and regardless of the era in which it was made, and while it would be extremely naive to focus exclusively on the emotional consequences of that without also considering the rest of the story, if we want full understanding in the historical context, nonetheless that was exactly what I was doing in terms of a first-look, reaching back to the origins of that ennui even among employed people in the modern world. Like even artists, at lets say Disney, may feel dispossessed when they crank out that assembly-line whimsey and cannot even take a moment to either celebrate or so much as take a breath before moving on to the next project. AI art then is just the next logical step for such a corporation, to remove the human element entirely, after having already stripped out the humane / humanity.:-(

And lo and behold, for some odd reason, that seems to make people depressed? :-P It was shocking to me to read that literal peasants in England were happier than people today. Not healthier mind you, but happier, b/c they knew their place and had no expectations of like "keeping up with the joneses", they expected to live for a brief while and then die with little to no help from their lords, and they had made their peace with that. This idea then of working 80+ hours per week to try to secure access to healthcare & such, really is somewhat new (I...think, if I am understanding sources correctly? and complicated by requirements for daylight, physical exhaustion and thus need to rest, and even then I am speaking of free peoples not slaves, etc.), as Western culture changes from one set of expectations to another, significantly lower set and people keep trying to hold onto the past, to the point of stressing themselves out enough to lower their health & QoL. It is so weird now to live in a land of plenty, and be told that if you do not have "enough" it is somehow your fault, even if circumstances were beyond your control (e.g. picture a steel mill worker or welder - a highly skilled trade - replaced by automation or a factory sent overseas, going from a salary that was like 3-5x the poverty rate so well into middle class, and suddenly being asked to do unskilled labor b/c you can find nowhere left in most of the nation even that wants what you were trained to do for most of your life, oh and add in being like <5 years away from retirement as well).

This is too long, I'll have to continue in part 2.

OpenStars, 10 months ago

Part 2 of 2.

Labor conditions... is another matter entirely. I think it highly depends on the WHERE, as well as the precisely WHAT - basically industries that have unionized now have it better, and all of society to some degree benefitted from that e.g. a 2-day weekend - while on the other hand, non-unionized labor and to a large degree even those (e.g. the writers and actor's strikes currently going on in Hollywood surrounding AI story text + AI CGI videos) is reverting backwards to pre-union standards. The railway workers strikes in the USA this past year provide another inside peek: President Biden used a strike-breaking technique 1st pioneered by Reagan (if journal writers are to be believed) to prevent them from demanding better treatment, citing the cost to the economy if they were to strike. That may cost the Democrats the next election even, as many people feel deeply betrayed.

Also, Elon Musk's workers may have an office setting with A/C and indoor lighting & plumbing, but are those conditions really so much "improved" from yesteryear? Maybe, in some ways, even while being worse in others.

My favorite chapter was the second one Fatum Argentauri, b/c of its focus on books and learning and the whole storyline with Alma, and perhaps most of all the puzzles that were not mere "fetch quests" or battles as was the case with e.g. ch. 1, it was really a bit of a departure and more enjoyable to me than the others. Ch. 3 did have a good story, ch. 4 I found a bit over the top "YOU can be my friend TOO!", ch. 5 was deep but rambled too much at the end (and I REALLY hate heading towards some goal, then being locked away in seemingly unending cut-scenes for like an hour, and then not being able to head back to where I wanted, until like literally several irl days later when I had slogged through all the talking, done all the end battles, started and ended the True Ending, and FINALLY could go walking around where I had wanted to check out originally). Ch. 6 was really cool - I loved the story, I thought the music was just FANTASTIC! and I really enjoyed it overall, but ch. 2... it just spoke to me more:-). Especially seeing all the crappy content that came before, around, and during it - such as the Ocean Palace 3000 where the ending did not explain itself well, and harpooning that un-did all the fishing QoL (like, did they learn NOTHING at all about our preferences there, or do they simply not care!?), and the extremely crappy UI of the TTM, etc. Anyway, you might have recalled me saying how much I loved the music of ch. 6:-).