As I fell asleep, I reflected on how this is actually a great example of what Jung meant by the collective unconscious. It was never anything mystical or inherently new age. The mechanism is simple:

A significant portion of the population has had common experiences that shaped us, particularly to do with being taken for granted and exploited by abusers and capitalism now in late stage collapse, and feeling generally powerless to defend ourselves. Add this to our common cultural background (Aesop, Grimm, Untitled games with a previous meme cycle), and our knowledge of the properties of reality (cute animals but loud and fast with long necks and built-in weapons and will attac).

These ingredients mix together similarly for each of us, such that we instantly understand a meaning that wasn't intended by its out-of-touch corporate creator. This validation, in addition to a particular irony that makes our oppressors look like fools, gives us a common emotional and creative response.

(There's a similar effect that underlies the concepts of the "zeitgeist" (also a Jungian idea) and the attitudes of generational cohorts.)

Of course there are exceptions. Some may lack one or more of these ingredients due to diverse experiences, backgrounds, sensory processing, trauma copes, sense of humor, and exposure to the source materials. But that doesn't change that it happens, or why.

And I'm here for it.

#goose #goosetodon #gooseWasNotValued #AbuseCulture

@inthehands @jimfl I think there's also an aspect where the deck exposes how much the kinds of people who effectively run economies the world over have absolutely cooked their own brains.

Nothing seems to make sense right now, but we keep getting told that very serious businessfolks who know what they are doing are making rational and reasoned decisions... the deck puts the lie to that in very memeworthy fashion.

@jimfl
I think the reason the deck really hits so broadly is (like Luna said) we relate to the unvalued goose, and then the deck says “Hey billionaires, you can value the goose •by owning it•”

…which is…the world’s present moment, the world’s history, all of it.

People may not be articulating all that, but I do think we’re feeling it at some level.

@inthehands @jimfl Like, the AI bubble is manifestly absurd if you know literally anything about LLMs. And yet we keep getting told that AI is the future, that there is no bubble, that entire countries need to restructure around energy production for AI data centers.

And then this deck comes along and proves that the investors driving the bubble are complete fools.

@inthehands @xgranade @jimfl Part of the labor theory of value is that exchange value and use value are two very different things, and capitalists keep trying to reduce use value to exchange value.

Exchange value is what you can put a number to. It's the number in "line goes up". Use value is everything we actually care about. "Use" is itself already a bit misleading.

So, "the goose is unvalued" feels like a metaphor for our own feeling unappreciated and alienated. Those are social lacks. "Goose value is 71" doesn't solve that problem at all, and is comically precise.