PROTIP:
Ebooks are trivially easy to find online, or you can check them out from your local library.
There’s a free and open source program called Calibre that can manage your ebook library, change file formats, edit visual formatting, and even remove proprietary DRM.
Don’t let Amazon being a bad company prevent you from using your old Kindle.
It just seems like this system is capitalism with extra steps, but the extra steps involve replacing the exchange of money with the peddling of influence. The capitalists are replaced by administrators, the hierarchy of wealth is replaced by rank in the decision-making apparatus. I get that it’s supposed to be democratic and protect the interests of the public, but so too is our regulated hybrid public-private system and we see how well that’s going. It also seems like, where our market system began as distributed and decentralized, which was a strength, and began to be ever more concentrated as businesses consolidated and corrupted government, this new system starts consolidated and married to government. A lot of people would say this is too much power in the hands of the state, and ripe for theft by an autocrat. I’m not saying it’s impossible for this to work, but the systems I have seen work best are those where the market does what it does and the government reigns in its worst tendencies when the motive of profit conflicts with the needs of people.
This all sounds philosophical. How does this system actually solve problems in a society where scarcity exists? Do people still have property rights? Who enforces those rights? Who makes the decisions on where scarce resources are allocated? Our current system has answers for all of these questions, it’s just contaminated by the influence of powerful scumbags. The thing is, the powerful scumbags are going to be scumbags in every system, and at least a decentralized market economy limits the ease with which they can exert control.
This is basically it. Classic liberalism is everything from Margaret Thatcher to Bernie Sanders. The MAGA movement has regressed to fascism–a form of corporate authoritatianism.
So are almost all progressives.
You can’t. He’s trying to use liberal as an epithet when he means neoliberal. If we’re being pedantic, liberal refers to the full gamut of people who think there should be an open and free society, which usually includes a market and certain property rights. The conservatives use liberal as an epithet to decry the left and now the left is using it to decry the middle.
It would be funny if it wasn’t being used to convince naive progressives to sit out elections and let fascists seize power because the center left “only” wants 85% of what they want. You’re seeing it really ramp up because the US is closing in on a big election, and convincing dipshits to sit out elections is easier than convincing anyone the right can govern.
They’ve really managed to enshittify the site beyond even what I expected back when the API changes went live. I guess it was expected. First Digg shot itself, now Reddit…
I just don’t see why they had to make X Men woke? Why does everything have to be about a persecuted minority group finding its standing in a society that fears it?
(tee hee)
And also Instagram and whatever other Zuck products are in your life. I’m happy they wasted so many billions of dollars setting of virtual Mii meetings lmao…
Japan is honorary Western.
(So is Korea.)
I want the latter, and tariffs are not the only way go about protectionism. There is also subsidization, which is how the US has maintained its defense and agriculture industries. If we want stuff made domestically, we’re going to have to pay for it. Subsidies are generally preferable to tariffs because they can be paid through progressive taxation instead of regressive taxes on consumers.
I think what makes Flock (and Axon, Motorola, etc.) particularly repulsive is the inability to opt out. I can leave my phone at home. I can choose not to bring Smart Devices into my home to spy on me. If there’s a Flock camera at the exit of your neighborhood, your comings and goings are being monitored 24/7. (Before anyone mentions it, I can completely disable and deenergize the “SOS” feature in my car.)
I could imagine plenty of normal people going to work for a company that purportedly wants to use technology to improve the security of communities. A naive person may not think, “wait, isn’t this turning my country into a dystopian surveillance state?” Nobody that works for ICE got there naively. They were selected from the worst America has to offer.
As stupid and lazy as they are, their main problem is being infinitely, shamelessly corrupt.
“We can’t let the environment be a deciding factor” is a preposterous take. There’s practically nothing more important that preserving the environment. Even the Chinese are looking beyond their borders for raw materials these days. If it costs more to extract raw materials in a way that doesn’t fuck up the environment, then subsidize it and pay for it. We can fund the subsidies with a carbon tax.
There are always trade-offs. All polymers deteriorate when exposed to that kind of thermal cycling and chemical exposure. A metal alloy fit for the job can last forever.
Workers in Detroit might get paid union wages, but many auto factories have relocated to the South where they can underpay and abuse workers much more easily. I just did some quick googling and it seems like being a factory worker in China isn’t bad compared to in the US. They work in highly automated, clean, air-conditioned spaces like would be found here. Dirty conditions and manual labor are no longer compatible with today’s automotive quality requirements. Low level workers make modest wages, but they employ a bunch of engineers and technicians just like here in the US, and they have subsidized cafeterias and some provide housing or stipends for housing. You might criticize the expectation of working significant overtime, but I’ve worked in factories which had mandatory overtime in the US, so that sort of structural coercion isn’t unique to China. Compared to a “right to work” state, Chinese workers have stronger protections from being laid off or fired. The main downside seems to be lax enforcement of safety standards. If the government doesn’t notice something unsafe on its own, there isn’t a Chinese version of dropping a hint to OSHA.
Now further upstream in the supply chain? No thanks. That’s where you’ll find abysmal working conditions. Just remember there are good reasons our government wants us to believe everything sucks for workers in China.
A crossover is a station wagon but the entire thing is raised up for no reason. It’s funny how averse the public is to driving a minivan. I drove one as a rental for a week and it was snappy, convenient, comfortable, and could hold a ton of stuff or people.
But I like being able to see over everyone else
At this point I’m planning to see under everyone else.
It feels like we’re losing ground. Why does 8GB of RAM feel totally insufficient to browse the same websites I used 12 years ago with 4? I’m so happy I maxed out my motherboard’s RAM (32) when I built a PC in 2021.