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I really don't see how you draw that conclusion, except unless you consistently forget the wanting part where it suits you. A person really wants a pancake, they will support the system that gives them the pancake, even if the pancake is made from the flesh of newly born babies. They might be very unhappy about the babies but they want the pancake more than they don't want the dead babies.

We can of course point out the boiling frogs thing. Oppressive systems gradually increase discomfort, but they stay within the realm of human capability of adaptation. The pancakes didn't start off as babies, they started off as normal pancakes, then animals, then perhaps some human matter, then old people, then sick people, then just people, then babies. However here too you still operate within what people want. And most people don't want to be shaken out of the trance where they're constantly just comfortable enough to tolerate the (often abstract) negatives that enable their life. If they did, they would.

... I mean this isn't really a conversation about pants but I truly don't care about nudity. I'm from a culture that isn't anywhere near as neurotic about it as certain others. I still prefer some kind of covering on the privates though simply because I don't want ball sweat, urine traces, fecal matter or vaginal discharge on my things.

Yes.

So I have I.

Some people really do just need to burn down the pancake factory and then get upset that they can't get the pancakes from that factory anymore. There's a certain country doing exactly this right now. Some people just need to learn by experience.

At every point people can always want whatever they want, but that doesn't mean it can come to pass as it may not be in the realm of possibility. I could want to go to the moon right this minute but it obviously isn't going to happen. A person about to die in a prison cell may want to get out but that's probably not going to happen. They are free to want it and by that, they necessarily also want to suffer from the perceived lack of freedom. Or, they can want what is in the realm of possibility, and have their wants met. Prison or the mundane existence of earth's gravity, you have the option of wanting what is possible or what isn't possible. Wanting the suffering of the lack, or enjoying what is given. But neither I nor anyone else can make someone want what they don’t. I can just point out that there are options and it's on the individual then to then weigh if the options are truly in the realm of possibility for them - I can't make that choice for them either.

I’m not sure how this point has any relevance to this discussion. No one brought up demands.

I'm just trying to rephrase "can't have your cake and eat it too" as I'm starting to suspect that idiom is either too... abstract or too worn out to really land for people anymore. Maybe both. If you want two mutually exclusive things, at least one of your wants will necessarily go unmet. If you don't want both mutually inclusive things, you're in for a bad time. Wanting what isn't the realm of possibility will lead to suffering. Not wanting the unpleasant but unavoidable part of something you really want will also lead to suffering.

Extrapolate a bit why don't you? If a group of people create a space with certain rules, it is a "public" space for people who agree to follow the rules.

People are not animals. You have opted into being controlled. There's plenty of ways out but people generally want the benefits of living under certain control more than they want freedom.

You can't resist a system and simultaneously demand the right to enjoy the fruits of that system. Like I said, the more you are willing to tolerate inconvenience, the freer you are. This includes acceptance of anything from having less luxury, to acceptance of premature death. Everyone is absolutely free to live in accordance to their tolerance - they have no choice in the matter.

It's not actually, it's exactly as simple as I made it. Enough people wanted to violently coerce. Not enough people wanted to resist.

You are right that in your space you are free to be pantsless and as such I wouldn't impose my presence and sensibilities upon you. In fact I would defend your right to be pantsless in your space. However if you decided to come to my space, I would insist on pants - failure to comply would be you imposing your wants on me without consent, putting your wants above mine. If you think that I should be okay with you being pantsless, why? Who are you to tell me how to live my life? Why aren't you accepting people living differently from you? Me not wanting pantslessness in my presence only impacts you if you force yourself into it.

oppressive systemic forces that dictate the society he lives in necessitating him having one or else his access to material necessities be threatened.

The fact that the society was built to work like this shows that enough people wanted it more than they wanted something else. Why should one individual's wants matter more than the wants of a collective? Isn't that just you trying to impose your wants on everyone else?

Here's a conundrum: what if most people wanted to organize the society in a certain way? They are doing what they want. Are they not allowed to do that? People who make complaints about not being able to do what they want rarely seem keen to grant others the same privilege.

Also, the guy in the comic is doing exactly what he wants - it's just that he probably wanted a job more than he wanted to not wear pants. The issue isn't not being able to do what one wants, the issue is that people don't want any inconvenience for doing so. The more you learn to tolerate inconvenience, the more free you are to do whatever you want. But you can't have your cake and eat it too.

You can't both resist a system and then demand to be able to enjoy the fruits of the system you are resisting.

I'm going to make a guess that majority of people looking at this question have grown up in countries with Christian cultural background. Meaning even if they aren't religious, their more or less subconscious believes about the nature of reality may involve some vague ideas about souls, absolute good and evil and so on. Separate entities in a hierarchical world. From that perspective, reincarnation is never going to sound anything but magical.

But if you drop your belief in you as a separate entity, literally everything is a "reincarnation" of you, if you want to use that word. But it's not the "you" that you think you are. Reality is prior to your thought about it, as thoughts are just imperfect reflections of reality.

You get a disconnect when you try to take a concept like reincarnation from a thought-framework such as Buddhism, without being REALLY FUCKING INTIMATELY STEEPED IN IT, and then try to fit it into whatever dualistic worldview you're likely holding in this largely Chisto-capitalistic world that is hell bent on making sure you always feel separate, alone and not enough.

It really is like taking a power plug from the EU and then being surprised it doesn't fit in the socket in the USA. And then going off about what a stupid design EU has while not ever even considering if the socket is even meant to receive that kind of a plug (because in YOUR opinion, your socket must be perfect in every way and could never ever be questioned).

Get Waking Up by Sam Harris... Or read Adyashanti, Rupert Spira, Loch Kelly, Jayasara, Kiran Trace, Christopher Wallis, Bernardo Kastrup, many more. It's all available out there but unfortunately a lot gets dismissed because "nooo muh materialistic worldview that is required for the current capitalistic hellscape that's slowly destroying our world can't possibly be wrong". So many people are pushing the collective cart towards doom, complain about the doom and the cart but never question what they so deeply believe that they won't just stop pushing.

Reasons vary between people. It's not important. If you want to know, ask the people in question.

Don't think everyone SHOULD be doing it like you. If you feel like being upbeat, be upbeat. ACCEPT not everyone is but they don't get to force their view on you either.

It's naive to think one way is more "right" than the other.