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mueritos · 2 months

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i hope we continue to see more protests within the US military. i see a lot of leftists and folks who are anti-military who have such an open disdain for the people who are in the military, yet neglect to considering the conditions this country makes to produce ideology, poverty, and the illusion of choice to make all kinds of people choose to enlist in the military. You ever see those videos of ROTC kids recording each other asking why they joined the military and everyone's like, "healthcare", "it helped me go to college", "I was bored" or "free ptsd lol". I hate to remind everyone but folks who are in the military are people, too, and they are the same victims and perpetrators of violence as the rest of you, we have all been shallowly conditioned to view each other as enemies just because one person is wearing army greens and the other is not.

some of the biggest anti-war advocates are those who engaged in war. Veterans who genuinely believed they were protecting the US against "terrorism" come back with blood on their hands, and they choose to realize that it was US imperialism that forced them to carry out violence, instead of doubling down and shielding themselves from the fact that they too are capable of atrocities... This is a class of people who are intentionally conditioned to be as poor and as ideologically aligned to US imperialism so that the military has a never-ending pool to send their youth to destroy other country's youth. The only people I have ever heard say "do not join the military" are those who ARE military.

This is in no way to ever excuse or explain away any of the atrocious war crimes and violence this industry and its people have committed against others. What I am saying is that we absolutely cannot cast aside the individuals who have been victimized within US imperialism, even if they are wearing army greens. I was speaking with my Palestinian classmate last week and another classmate--a member of the US air force-- walked up to me and struck up a conversation. My military classmate showed me her new bird, bid both of us goodbye, and left. My Palestinian classmate asked me if I was close with her, and I said we talked quite often, and she said, "I never met a person who's in the military. I still hate the military, but I never knew that they did, too. I didn't realize that they were also victims."

If my Palestinian classmate--one who is actively watching her own community die--can understand that it is not individuals who are the problem but it is in fact systems, US imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism...why can't we all? And she has EVERY reason to hate any individual military member. A lot of online activism just creates more barriers. if your optics look bad, complicated, or contradictory, you are cast aside. Everyone has got the be the perfect activist, you can never make a mistake or share a half-baked thought, you should always believe every word from a marginalized persons mouth (because being marginalized doesn't mean you're not entrenched in white supremacy too!) and you should never question what you see...Do you know what you sound like? The very imperialists who are convincing poor whites to vote against themselves. Perfectionism is white supremacy. Black & white thinking is white supremacy.

I'd rather have a military member who genuinely believed in the US imperialism machine but was disillusioned after being deployed as my comrade than some leftist who cherishes the performance of "being a good person". I don't want "good people" in our movements. I want humans who care. I want humans who make mistakes and who learn from them. I want humans who accept the messiness of a person. I want humans who hold others accountable and allow themselves to take responsibility for their actions. I want people who change for themselves and others.

fight systems, not individual people. we can change each other, but if we're too preoccupied looking like the World's Perfect Activists, we will only consume each other alive. Connect to your fellow humans, forever and always.

#muertotalks #a mind dump after seeing so much come out after the self immolation of the us air force member #i know hes not the first one to self immolate for palestine #and he might not be the last #i hate the military #i really fucking do #but i choose to see the people within them as victims within the overall system just like the rest of us #i will never go through what they did to make them choose to enlist #i never struggled with poverty homelessness healthcare or social acceptance #i wont shame them #shame is not productive #i want them to know there are civilians who support their protests #i want them to know that we their allies too #a note on my palestinian classmate #if youre arab or also a colonized person impacted by the us military feel free to hate every member of the military #i dont intend to police yall in how you choose to feel your anger #im angry with you #the point i mean to make is about understanding and compassion #someone who has every right to hate these people still chose to see them as the people they are #yes i even want the best for the “bad” people in the military too #i dont want these people to continue the ideology but we cant stop that without dismantling these systems #and we cant do that without creating spaces for healing and reform and growth #so many thoughts so many thoughts #none of this is easy #i fight daily against impulsively hating the world #everyday is a fight to choose compassion and understanding #but being a leftist and doing leftism is not fucking easy #if you genuinely think it is it isnt #and you may be missing the point of what leftism is #anyway

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acti-veg · 6 months

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something interesting about people arguing that boycotting mcdonalds is really easy and how you don't need mcdonalds is that these are the same people that argue that being able to buy mcdonalds meals is necessary for the survival of poor people. like I regularly see people argue that their dollar menu is cheap and makes it possible for poor folk to eat 'well'. so like if that was true (which, lets be honest, the people arguing this have never been poor a day in their lives are you kidding me I couldn't afford to spend a dollar on only 6 nuggets that's not even a full meal and has limited nutritional value. I would rather spend a dollar on a pack of pasta and at least get multiple meals out of it. but that's besides the point) then trying to tell people that they are being selfish if they can't afford to eat something other than mcdonalds (again, we know that mcdonalds is not the poor persons paradise they want us to think it is but I'm using their logic) is so messed up. shaming people who (by their own arguments) cannot afford to eat anything else for not giving up their (theoretical) only source of food.

the contradiction of their world views is so confusing like they are out here arguing that vegans are classist for demanding people give up mcdonalds for the sake of others then turning around and doing the same thing. I'm all for voting with my money but unlike these people I actually apply it to all aspects of my beliefs and activism not just when it's convenient for me/my message damn.

I've been doing this for a long time but it is still quite jarring to see this play out, over the past few weeks especially. The sudden widespread acknowledgement of the power of boycott, the rapid development in understanding of what it's aims are, and the frankly miraculous sudden realisation that asking someone to boycott a brand to the extent that they're able to is not actually classist, or racist, or whatever else they've decided boycotting animal products is for the last decade of discourse.

I am also depressingly certain that as soon as the current boycotts leave the media cycle and people stop talking about them, they'll go right back to 'no ethical consumption under capitalism tho' and insisting that individual purchase decisions or collective boycotts don't make any difference.

This is something we should be used to, we have all observed the fact that people (and especially leftists) don't apply their existing logic or values to animal agriculture. So much of it really is just talk, because as soon as you ask someone to examine their own beliefs and how they themselves may be contributing to worker exploitation, animal exploitation and environmental destruction, they slip about six grades in basic comprehension and go back to spewing rhetoric that they themselves would laugh at in any other context.

#ask #vegan #anti-vegans #carnism #boycott

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phoenixyfriend · 9 months

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Ko-Fi prompt from @kayasurin:

Just rant about the stock market, whatever you want to say about it!

'just rant' is such a prompt for uhhhh my distaste.

LEGALLY NECESSARY DISCLAIMER: I am not a licensed financial advisor, and it is illegal for me to advise anyone on investment in securities like stocks. My commentary here is merely opinion, not financial advice, and I urge you to not make any decisions with regards to securities investments based on my opinions, or without consulting a licensed advisor.

So here are a few things:

1. Stocks are unreliable.

For the layperson, there is nothing that can be done about the direction a stock takes. Unless you are a majority shareholder, or one of several who can work in concert, you cannot affect the direction a company takes, which means you cannot affect the decisions that might cause a stock to increase or decrease in value. This is a rich man's game. The average investor is just along for the ride, god help them.

Between Random Walk Theory, the dart-throwing monkeys study, and the fact that mutual funds do not beat the market, there is just... it's a crapshoot. Anyone who tells you to invest to make a lot of money is drinking the Kool-Aid. You can invest to make a small return, to keep your money in a lot of places in case your bank gets digitally robbed or whatever your worries might be, diversification is good for safety nets, but for pity's sake, don't expect to become a millionaire, and be aware you can lose a lot, even listening to experts.

2. Stocks can be manipulated, and it's ridiculous and stupid and fucks over perfectly normal companies

Do you remember the GameStop reddit thing? I do. If you don't, please take a quick look at this record of the GameStop stock price.

See that spike in 2021? That was Reddit.

This post did a great job explaining it, but you told me to rant, and so I shall.

A large investment company had decided to make a lot of money for their clients by destroying GameStop. They did this by selling more shares than they actually owned (more than actually existed), force the market to absolutely tank the price, with plans to "buy back" the stock once it was dirt cheap, thereby making a profit for their company. This is a common form of stock manipulation called shortstelling, and investors had been doing it to GameStop for years, without the general public noticing.

Except Reddit did notice. And they decided to Fuck It Up, buying up stock at higher and higher prices, forcing the stock price to skyrocket, and the mutual/hedge funds still had to buy them back, but now it was at a massive loss, and it made headlines across the country because of how incredibly ridiculous it was.

The things to note here is that the market can be manipulated without any regard to the actual profits or health of the company, and that attempts to do so can backfire spectacularly.

3. Returns are minimal

There are two ways to earn money on stocks. The first is returns on capital investment; you buy the share at $10, sell it for $20, and you've thus received $10 profit. This is part of the incredibly unreliable bit I mentioned, because you cannot control the direction the stock takes, and generally can't predict it.

The other way is dividends, which like... profits made over the previous quarter (after paying employees, bank loans, rents, etc.) can be either reinvested to grow the company, or paid out to shareholders. But if you invest $150 in a single share of Walmart stock, your quarterly dividend is $2.25, which is $11/yr.

So unless you're investing hundreds of thousands of dollars, or get really lucky with what you choose to invest in, dividends aren't going to get you much of anything.

And when your stocks do give you healthy dividends, it's because there's money left for shareholders! Which, if you remember a few lines back, is left over after paying employees.

If an investor wants a return on their investment, and they can vote to change policy, and policy that pays employees dictates that they get a smaller dividend, do you think that the investors are going to vote to pay their employees fairly?

Yeah, didn't think so.

4. Rapid, Consumptive Growth

There was a really good post recently that described how and why the Chicago School of Economics, colloquially Reaganomics, has completely fucked over the entire US economy by encouraging the absolute worst state for the market to be in, which is seeking eternal parasitic growth. I urge you to read that one if you can, because the bloggers did a good job. Basically, screw Reagan and screw the Chicago school. The economy still would have been a capitalist hellscape without them, but they sure did hasten it!

(Prompt me on ko-fi!)

#economics #stock market #stocks #phoenix posts #ko fi prompts #ko fi #economics prompts

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alpaca-clouds · 7 months

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You cannot fix a broken System (but you can build a better one)

Let me finish the entire week on politics and revolution with one thing that I wish for people to understand: Sometimes systems are too broken to fix them. Sometimes they are so broken, that any fixes are basically just ducttape on a car that is slowly breaking down. Like, sure, it will allow it to somehow rattle along for a couple more months, but in the end it is going to break down and no amount of ducttape is gonna prevent that.

For example, I see the current western education system as such a case. We can fix the curriculum in one way or another, but that does not change the fact that the system itself is very broken. We need to completely rethink how we do schools and education, instead of fixing little issues here and there.

And, yes, democracy I consider the same case. Our democracy is broken. In some countries (like the US) more than others. But it is broken everywhere. Part of the reason it is broken is capitalism. Because capitalism in any degree on a long run is going to make democracy into a plutocracy. There is no way around here.

And of course, our economic system is broken. Well, to be honest, it is not broken. It works as intended. The issues are not bugs, but features. But it does not work in favor of most people participating in it.

People always look like easy, quick fixes for all those things. Maybe one more rule will fix the economics. Maybe one more law will make democracy fair. But it never does. On the contrary. Often it ends up getting worse. Because the system is so broken, that those who make the changes have an interest in keeping the system broken in this way. So their fixes actually entrentch the issues existing within the system already.

This is also where the entire thing with sabotage and respectability politics come in. Because when people just go onto peaceful protests and all those things... Well, the system is so broken that it does not really concern the politicians.

A couple of years back on one of the climate protests in Germany about 5% of all Germans were on the streets on the same day taking part in the protests all over Germany. Which is huge. In some cities it was even a bigger percentage. In my own city there were 12% of all people on the streets that day according to the police!

So, how did the politicians react to that? Well: "95% of all Germans were not on the street, so they agree that our current way of dealing with this is good." Ignoring that of course a lot of people were unable to go out to protest on a workday. While at the time I was working at a company who decided that companywide we would get the day off to go to that protest... that was not true for most people. So, yeah, 5% of all people being on the streets that day is MASSIVE.

The same goes of course for stuff like elections. It does not matter what you vote for. Like, of course you need to vote for the lesser evil, but in the end... It will not change much about how politicians act.

And that in the end is the issue. See, those who currently hold the power and use it for their own advantage want you to do those nice and peaceful little thingies, because they can just ignore it. I do not remember who said it, but there was a nice thing one civil rights leader said once: "If they allow it, it will not get us anywhere." And that is the thing.

The system is broken. But it is build in a way that people cannot fix the system from within it. The system is broken. But we can build a better one. One that actually works for the people. One that is actually just and actually democratic.

We cannot be too afraid of the system to change. Because right now the horror of the system is too large to ignore.

#anarchism #solarpunk #democracy #direct democracy #revolution #politics #protests

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lokisasylum · 1 year

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Someone on twitter said that ‘FACE’ brought out the true ugly face of the Music Industry--

But I think that it also brought out the true ugly face of the ARMY fandom.

So much so that from locals, casual listeners, to even the most hardcore Jimin biased OT7s finally realized that everything PJMS have been pointing out FOR YEARS was true all along.

That a great chunk of the fandom simply doesn’t care or downright HATES Jimin without reason and they will go to the most disgusting lengths to keep others from seeing the light as well under the constant harassment/threat/gaslighting of being called a “solo anti”.

They’re STILL doing it today, because somehow someone else failure is Jimin’s fault for some reason (but not the laziness of the ones who talked big and then did absolutely NOTHING to support all members solo projects the same way. And people showing full support for Jimin is considered some type of capital Sin).

And the shippers were the worst part of the deal, because most only cared about maintaining the integrity of their delusional narrative rather than protecting AND supporting both ends of their ship EQUALLY.

Yoonminions wouldn’t stop bitching and moaning a week before the pre-release of “Set Me Free Pt.2″, about some one-sided beef against Jimin for not “properly crediting” Yoongi IN A SONG & ALBUM THAT WERE NOT HIS TO BEGIN WITH. And only when Jimin said in an interview that the song was a nod to D2, BUT NOT DIRECTLY RELATED TO IT. Only then did they finally STFU and started supporting.

Vminies... its time to wake up and smell the coffee, mi cielas, this cannot go on. We cannot continue with the crying-parties & embarrassing hashtags on twitter 24/7. You cannot claim a divorce when there was never a marriage to begin with. Do like Elsa and Let it go~♫

Jikookers... where to start with all of you lol... many of you were CHILL and constantly gave updates on Jimin, achievements, streaming parties and methods, voting, buying, funds, ect.

So yes, THANK YOU for your service & undying support to Team Jimin.

The other half, however, were downright DISAPPOINTMENT upon disappointment. I swear if I could shove ya’ll in a blender on Max Speed I’m pretty sure that blender would malfunction and we’d all die together in a Nuclear Explosion. Because what do you mean you didn’t even bother listening to the whole album in support of Jimin but you suddenly gave a shit when it was revealed that there was a hidden track called “Letter” (also known as “DEAR. ARMY” as it is registered on KOMCA) where JK just did some backing vocals near the end??

And don’t even get me started on the ones who were caught dragging other members, knowing this would get Jimin dragged as well. Those are the worse and already reaching a level of delusion I’ve only seen in trashcookers on the bird app.

But you know what tho? That’s okay, ‘cause outside of stan twitter, outside of tumblr, FB, IG, ect... None of that shit matters, Jimin's still loved, still winning, Those “other fandoms” that always shaded him got a rude awakening recently, and those individuals that always tried to discredit his achievements ALSO got a rude awakening themselves. And that’s on Karma.

So remember: “Everyone wants to see you doing good, but not better than them.“

#FACE #Face by Jimin #it was called face reveal for a reason #Jimin face #jimin #park jimin #bts #bts jimin #PJM #jimin solo album #bts solo careers

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schraubd · 11 months

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Why Did The Law Constrain Them Now?

Way back when, I spotted a great parodic bumper sticker during the 2008 presidential campaign. It read: "Bush/Cheney '08: Why Should The Law Stop Us Now?"

Yesterday in Allen v. Milligan, the Supreme Court defied expectations and, in a 5-4 ruling, preserved some semblance of a Voting Rights Act by striking down Alabama's congressional maps as illegally racially gerrymandered. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh "crossed the aisle", so to speak, and now everyone is trying to figure out why (for Roberts in particular, whose hostility to voting rights long predates his time on the Court).

It is a sign of our cynical era that virtually nobody thinks the answer is "because they felt this was the right legal answer." This is especially striking because, when a justice does vote against their presumed ideological proclivities, that would seemingly spawn a greater inference that they genuinely believed in their position's formal legal correctness. If they faced the happy coincidence of "the law supports the defendant" and "I, personally, support the defendant", why wouldn't they raise a glass to their good fortune and vote accordingly?

But on the constitutional law listserv I'm a member of, everybody seems to think that this is some political legitimacy play. The conservative members cannot fathom that their preferred outcome is not legally correct; they think that Roberts and Kavanaugh voted in some ill-conceived attempt to "store political capital" and stave off allegations that the Court has become a six-member right-wing wrecking ball. Needless to say, they hold such a practice with nothing but contempt; they think Roberts and Kavanaugh are squishes. The liberals in the group, of course, do think the outcome is legally correct, but they too seem to think it's fanciful that something as trifling as "the law compels it" motivated Roberts' and Kavanaugh's votes. After all, they might ask, after years of taking a flamethrower to settled judicial doctrine and longstanding precedents in service of a hard-right agenda, why should the law have constrained them now? They also don't give much, if any, credit to the justices for any "legitimacy" chits they might have thought they earned.

It is hard for me not to credit the cynicism here. But if I were to craft a non-, or at least less-, political explanation for Roberts' and Kavanaugh's votes, it would be to distinguish between the millenarian and Burkena conservative impulses seen on the Court.

The former is the pull of reactionary revolution -- you see the promised land, and are ready to chop down anything in your path that poses a barrier to reaching it. In this mode, the Court's conservatives will burn down precedent, torch settled expectations, and tank the Court's political legitimacy in pursuit of a vision of idealized legal conservatism that they insist is right and true. "The heavens may fall that justice be done." Millenarianism is the impulse that yielded Dobbs, Bruen, and Kennedy, the new "major questions" doctrine and the possible overturning of Chevron, the prospective end to affirmative action and the stunning plausibility of adopting the Independent State Legislature doctrine. Radical alterations of law with unknown and unknowable consequences, in deference to abstract right-wing legal theory and/or concrete right-wing political results. Thomas, Alito, Barrett, and Gorsuch all seem to be in thrall with the millenarian vision, albeit with perhaps slightly different visions of what utopia should look like.

The Burkean mode, by contrast, is the mode of caution, prudence, and restraint. It shies from radical change, it is cognizant of the many things it doesn't know. Recognizing the complexity of the legal machine it oversees, the Burkean conservatives are reluctant to fiddle with the dials too readily. They're willing to trim and cut, but look skeptically upon sweeping change. This impulse, at least, is found in Roberts' Dobbs concurrence, the mifepristone stay, and the so-far unwillingness to endorse any of the yearly crackpot attempts to kneecap the Affordable Care Act. It is not about liberal outcomes (as my placing Roberts' Dobbs opinion in the category should make clear); in other times, Burkeanism might operate as a voice of restraint against sweeping progressive legal victories (recall Roberts' Obergefell opinion). But on this Court, the realistic choices are between radical right-wing change and upholding the status quo -- it's hard to think of a single example of a Court ruling since Barrett's ascension that actually represents change (radical or otherwise) in a progressive direction (the liberal "victories" have generally taken the form of "managing to hold the line against a conservative assault").

On the current Court, Roberts and Kavanaugh have been most susceptible amongst the conservatives to the Burkean impulse, albeit typically in no more than halting fashion. But it's more than just naked political appeasement or trying to impress the libs (neither justice, I think it is fair to say, has shown either much interest or much success in garnering even begrudging liberal admiration). Burkeanism is a branch of conservatism too, and it shouldn't surprise that within the conservative coalition there would be those who find it comparatively more appealing. Some conservatives look at the messianic fervor that has gripped their compatriots and get antsy. They certainly feel the temptation. But ultimately, they are not quite so keen to smash the machine; they are not quite so confident they understand the fallout. And so, periodically, they step back from the abyss, and restrain themselves. Perhaps that's what happened here.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2dey7Kq

#democracy #supreme court #voting

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beardedmrbean · 2 months

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced Tuesday that he would resign once a transitional presidential council is created, bowing to international pressure to make way for new leadership in the country overwhelmed by violent gangs.

Henry made the announcement hours after Caribbean leaders and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met in Jamaica to discuss a solution to halt Haiti’s spiraling crisis and agreed to a joint proposal to establish a transitional council.

“The government that I’m running cannot remain insensitive in front of this situation. There is no sacrifice that is too big for our country,” Henry said in a recorded statement. “The government I’m running will remove itself immediately after the installation of the council.”

Henry has been unable to enter Haiti because the violence forced the closure of its main international airport. He arrived in Puerto Rico a week ago, after being barred from landing in the Dominican Republic, where officials said that he lacked a required flight plan. Dominican officials also closed the airspace to flights to and from Haiti.

It was not immediately clear who would be chosen to lead Haiti out of the crisis in which heavily armed gangs have burned police stations, attacked the main airport and raided two of the country’s biggest prisons. The raids resulted in the release of more than 4,000 inmates.

Scores of people have been killed, and more than 15,000 are homeless after fleeing neighborhoods raided by gangs. Food and water are dwindling as vendors who sell to impoverished Haitians run out of goods. The main port in the capital of Port-au-Prince remains closed, stranding dozens of containers with critical supplies.

The meeting in Jamaica was organized by Caricom, a regional trade bloc that has pressed for months for a transitional government in Haiti while violent protests in the country demanded Henry’s resignation.

Guyana President Irfaan Ali said the transitional council would have seven voting members and two nonvoting ones.

Those with votes include the Pitit Desalin party, run by former senator and presidential candidate Moïse Jean-Charles, who is now an ally of Guy Philippe, a former rebel leader who led a successful 2004 coup and was recently released from a United States prison after pleading guilty to money laundering.

Also with a vote is the EDE party of former Prime Minister Charles Joseph; the Fanmi Lavalas party; the coalition led by Henry; the Montana Accord group; and members of the private sector.

Henry served the longest single term as prime minister since Haiti’s 1987 constitution was approved, a surprising feat for a politically unstable country with a constant turnover of premiers. He was sworn in as prime minister nearly two weeks after the July 7, 2021, assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

Critics of Henry note he was never elected by the people or Parliament, which remains nonexistent after the terms of the last remaining senators expired in January 2023. That left Haiti without a single elected official.

As Haiti prepares for new leadership, some experts question the role that heavily armed gangs who control 80% of Port-au-Prince will play.

“Even if you have a different kind of government, the reality is that you need to talk to the gangs,” said Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia. “You can’t suppress them.”

He said officials will still have to deal with them and try to convince them to give up their weapons, “but what would be their concessions?”

Fatton noted that gangs have supremacy in terms of controlling the capital. “If they have that supremacy, and there is no countervailing force, it’s no longer a question if you want them at the table. They may just take the table.”

On Monday, Blinken announced an additional $100 million to finance the deployment of a multinational force to Haiti, plus another $33 million in humanitarian aid. He also announced the creation of a joint proposal agreed on by Caribbean leaders and “all of the Haitian stakeholders to expedite a political transition” and create a “presidential college.”

He said the college would take “concrete steps” he did not identify to meet the needs of Haitian people and enable the pending deployment of the multinational force to be led by Kenya. Blinken also noted that the U.S. Defense Department doubled its support for the mission, having previously set aside $100 million.

While leaders met behind closed doors, Jimmy Chérizier, who is considered Haiti’s most powerful gang leader, told reporters that if the international community continues down the current road, “it will plunge Haiti into further chaos.”

“We Haitians have to decide who is going to be the head of the country and what model of government we want,” said Chérizier, a former elite police officer known as Barbecue, who leads the gang federation G9 Family and Allies. “We are also going to figure out how to get Haiti out of the misery it’s in now.”

Powerful gangs have been attacking key government targets across Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince since Feb. 29. When the attacks began, Henry was in Kenya pushing for the United Nations-backed deployment of a police force from the East African country after it was delayed by a court ruling.

Late Monday, the Haitian government announced it was extending a nighttime curfew until March 14 in an attempt to prevent further attacks.

#nunyas news

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newkiqx · 2 months

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Nearly every single modern computer utilizes cobalt, a mineral whose supply chain is so heavily dominated by slave labor that it's practically impossible to ethically source. Ignoring AI, it is even ethical to do digital art at all? The production of a drawing tablet is not a victimless crime.

I feel you when you want to reduce this to something as simple as a comparison. But bear with me (or alternatively, I put a tl;dr/conclusion at the end).

Much of capitalism is unethical - yes. I agree with this point completely. It's impossible to completely avoid unethical consumption in the world we live in. But it's good to be thoughtful of it and I think businesses and governments responsible for bad practice should be held accountable. Sadly I can't change the world on my own in any meaningful way, but i'll do my part where I can & vote people into power that care about this too.

Taking your comparison for a second, I feel like the art project of that OP was asking a much more direct "I bought cobalt I didn't need and then turned into a children's toy, could this be art?". And my reply was basically yeah sure it could be art, but was it worth it? My point is that I'm not sure on that last part, and leaning towards a 'no'. They specifically sourced it unethically and made that the center piece, which is distinct from the utilitarian nature of consumer electronics we need to get through our lives. Unethical sourcing of art can be a goal or statement (like here cw dead pets) but will then of course still be a part of it. I don't think ethics were considered for the post we're discussing though and it instead only discussed the very unproductive 'is it art' discourse. This, of course, matters about as much as my "dick" being objectively "long" or not.

Maybe getting a little sidetracked, but I also want to mention that cobalt is an extremely useful metal, whereas AI.. well.. i've mentioned the very human cost of mturk and the wholesale theft of the entire internet. There's also:

the power required

the jobs in art it threatens and therefore the skilled labor we stand to lose if we're not careful

the inevitable price hike and betrayal of the public as soon as alternatives are out competed (this will happen)

the risks of biases (racism, ableism, sexism) in an opaque weighted system like AI & the fact we cannot deal with this except for slapping some extra prompts in front

AI poisoning our actual collective knowledge with untrue shit. Recent cases in point being the hilarious fake mouse dick science being published and the ai generated inaccurate servals on google, but there's a lot more going on

the risks of companies and people in power using AI to more efficiently screw everybody over and hide behind 'machine told me so' accountability loopholes

the risks of AI being used in all sorts of malinformed use cases

But what are the gains? What do we stand to win? Call me cynical, but we already had an infinite amount of pictures at our fingertips, as well as all the mediocre writing you could ever want (but actually much better because someone loved writing it). I feel like all these general AI's are good for is filling the pockets of some very rich robber barons and grifters, as well as diluting everything that's beautiful and true in the world.

Quick sidenote - Some specialist AI have genuinely already improved the world, like with medical screenings, but even then it's hard to really call it a win because reverse engineering the reasoning of an AI is so fucking hard. And again, they're a slippery slope with insurance companies wanting a piece of that pie badly, just so they can apply their 'justified' penalties to people not even sick yet.

tl/dr; So in conclusion, no, I don't think your comparison holds up. I agree that it sucks that so much of necessary consumption is unethical in ways we can't easily fix as consumers. But one thing bad does not equate other thing good. If anything, it should inspire you to do better where you can make a difference and hold the ones responsible for the exploitation in this world accountable.

Don't let it eat you up though. I'm not even saying you can't use it for inspiration ever. But any art based on these generated pictures cannot be divorced from the ugly side we'd rather not see: the underpaid army of technically not slaves and the wholesale theft of everything.

also sorry but i couldn't not include this (source: matt bors)

#long post #txt #ask #fuck ai art #ai #ethics #negativity

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feminismisstillahatemovement · 1 year

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What do you think about the commercialized sexualization of women and girls (esp. under capitalism)? How do you explain the disproportionate percentage of violent/sex crime committed by men, especially on women? Or things like BDSM and in general the lack of empathy men display for women, how they get off to women being hurt?

Genuine questions

There's a bunch of assumptions here that I don't know that you're aware of, stemming from the ideologically-created false-reality tunnels (specifically, Marxism/Feminism) you are looking at human relationships through. It would take a very long time to go into all of them deeply so I'll just try be brief.

"the commercialized sexualization of women and girls (esp. under capitalism)"

Prostitution is often called "the world's oldest profession": women have been exchanging sex for favors, goods and services tens of thousands of years before what Marx termed "Capitalism" came along. I would say the advent of various forms of mass communication, from the printing press to the cinema and television and then especially the internet, has caused that to explode and enter all parts of life more than any political explanation. The decline of religion probably plays a large part too.

I really don't like seeing adolescent girls dressing up like hookers, but I dont have kids so there's not much more I can do about that than express my distaste and disapproval: it's up to the parents of those children to watch over them and monitor what they're watching and how they dress. And you have to ask yourself what side of the political spectrum is pushing for these things: is it religious conservative types who are pushing for taking 5-year-olds along to watch adults simulate sex at drag shows? What political agenda does Hollywood openly promote? What political parties do "sex-positive" feminists vote for?

"the disproportionate percentage of violent/sex crime committed by men, especially on women?"

In intimate partner violence, the reality is both sexes lash out at each other at about equal rates, with women self-reporting hitting their partners more than men. The question you need to ask yourself here is who repeatedly told you to believe something different to that, and why.

When it comes the R word, it's not surprising that more women are counted as victims of that crime than men, when in most of the first world, women simply cannot be charged with that crime when they coerce a male to have sex with them, or initiate sex with a boy under the age of consent.

"Or things like BDSM and in general the lack of empathy men display for women, how they get off to women being hurt?"

Women like and fetishize BDSM as much or more than men. That's pretty self-evident if you look at who wrote and bought the millions of Fifty Shades of Grey books, or even at girls' blogs on Tumblr showing the things they find erotic, their fantasies, etc. The last time I went into the subject of women's self-reported sexual fantasies in detail, my blog was terminated, so I'll avoid going further, if that's ok with you.

But generally, I think it's obviously the case that men are far more empathetic and caring for women than women are for men. Again, it's likely you don't see that because of the ideological bubble you are in, but if you really make an effort to objectively note men and women's behaviour, words and actions in your day-to-day life, making a concerted effort to treat both sexes equally and tallying up their scores, I think you will find what I say to be true.

Hope that helps.

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boanddonatetoblacktranspeople · 5 months

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|| Stop the Motherfucking Genocide in Gaza ||

This should not be controversial. “Do I support Hamas?” No. Anyway.

My language?- What language is harsh enough to convey the actual habitual, violent, CELEBRATED death and mutilation of civilians in the Gaza Strip?

What language am I ‘supposed’ to roll out for the systematic ethnic cleansing of millions upon millions of people? There is no biting our tongues. We are not stilling our fury for sensibilities and honest conversation.

The United States is helping Israel commit genocidal annihilation of the land belonging to Gaza citizens because they want to defeat a terrorist sect. No. No this cannot be fucking forgotten. Blood in the first place is not cleansed by twice the blood.

In the state of Florida, one of the legislators with ANY balls to stand up to what’s been happening asked the Florida Capital “what will be enough?”, and the response was “All of them” “All of them”

ALL OF THEM

MOTHERFUCKING

ALL

THEM

That’s massacring a people, they are referring to. That’s the death of a civilization. Apparently we have done nothing of value or consequence since the Crusades, yes? Apparently we are ok with ritualistic slaughter but only when its colonizing forces against ''animals'', yes?

'If you think this is bad, you’ll see how bad it can get when the conservatives takes over.’ Oh, so, you mean like how bad it has been with the right-wing gov. in Israel, then? ‘How much worse it can get’ is something Democrats actively voted to support & fund, you mean? Fuck off

So often I want to say the ‘Perfect Thing’ but now I know there *IS* no perfect thing because Zionists and nationalists and xenophobes and those blinded by rage have already made up their minds, so my words are Enough.

I know this is nothing new. I know my friends might be surprised to see this, especially those of you who know I am Jewish and have seen me work in advocacy. THIS is advocacy. *THIS* is advocacy.

Protect each other, and protect my Jewish siblings who would be affronted by antisemitism, but ALSO protect the people of Gaza from the way terror that is an Invasion against them.

STOP the motherfucking genocide in Gaza.

#palestine #genocide #palestinians #palestinian genocide #israel #ceasefire now #from sea to shining sea #palestine will be free

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gayvampyr · 8 months

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Do you support prison abolition /paying prisoners a living wage / making being able to vote more accessible to everyone?

I like your stances and opinions and your jokes but I'm genuinely curious on this one.

(This is inspired by some of the comments under one of your posts talking about how we should just make democracy more livable under capitalism, and while I disagree with that being the ONLY thing we need to do, it does kinda make me think about how many people think we need to get better without abolishing prisons or at least treating our prisoners better than we are treating them currently.)

hi! i'm not sure which post you're referring to but I'm actually anti-capitalist. I think we need to dismantle capitalism as a system because it is inherently inhumane, working exactly as intended and therefore cannot be "fixed" without restructuring it entirely from the ground up; the devaluation of human labor and environmental destruction for profit is not a bug, it's a feature. i could delve into the kind of economic system that i think should replace it after dismantling it, however it's more of a thought exercise and until it becomes a plausible reality, i would rather focus on how we can make capitalism livable for the time being because we have no other choice. for example we could start by lowering rent, instituting a 4-day work week, and establishing support networks for homeless people. i'm not an economist so it's not like i have all the answers but according to the results from other countries who have applied these practices, it improves quality of life and the economy significantly.

as for prisons, i'm pro-abolition. you can check out my prison abolition tag for more information, but essentially prisons exist in this day and age as an industry that profits off of slave labor. many of our laws and their enforcers unfairly target minorities and lower class people, and the denial of convicts the right to vote is just another way our government strips vulnerable communities of their political power, autonomy, and supposedly inalienable rights. aside from the conviction of innocent people and people who did commit a crime but ultimately did no harm, i don't think it's the right of any individual (or government, for that matter) to imprison others. i think people tend to forget that "criminals" are human beings and deserving of the same rights as everyone else, and it is human nature to make mistakes. the important thing is the opportunity to do better. militarist propaganda has done an incredible job of convincing us that convicts are amoral and undeserving of our sympathy, turning society in general against them and destroying any sort of safety net they might have had or needed otherwise. and people are too busy clinging to the notion that criminals are subhuman and deserving of whatever punishment is dealt that they can't see that this is a slide into fascism, and that they can just as easily become "other" should they find themselves on the receiving end of the system. we are very close to living in a surveillance state, which means any minor offense or slip-up has the potential to completely decimate your chances at getting a job, applying for college, getting a loan, receiving housing, and especially being able to have a say in elections. it also makes you more likely to be arrested again on account of "suspected illegal activity", so your record follows you around for the rest of your life.

sorry this got so long but yeah, essentially capitalism and the prison industry are inhumane and should be abolished.

#voter suppression #prison abolition #militarism #capitalism #52018 #racism #classism #1312 #also before anyone brings up r/pe or other genuinely awful crimes that endanger people i have to posit the question:#how can we account for those crimes when the people arrested for them are are mainly minorities?#need i remind you that white women used to accuse black men of assault just to weaponize their white privilege?#to exert power over them out of fear or hatred? people convicted for violent crimes are disproportionately trans poor and POC #while the rest of people actually committing those crimes walk free because of the privileges of being cis/het/white/upper-class #and like. thats not to say that those crimes should go unrecognized. but the system we have and the people enforcing it are just not #capable of doing so fairly. they look for signs of abusive behavior in race. gender. sex. age. class. sexuality. religious beliefs.#very little investigation is performed and hardly any empirical data is used in ruling. if they cared about victims at all they would focus #on preventing abuse before it happens and giving us support and access to people and services who can help. as a victim and survivor #the gov did not give a shit about my abuse. we cant make a system built on suffering care about any of us.#and like. yall are so confident you'll be able to decide who is 'good' and who is 'bad' but you can't. its like the shit with amber heard.#everyone was so caught up in defending their favorite actor they disregarded a woman's account of her abuse and made her out to be crazy an #evil #and i know you think youre different and we can do it differently but it happens over and over and over again #tldr we cant use a system to prosecute the ''evil people of society'' that is built on defining those traits through a racist misogynistic #etc lens #if we could we wouldnt even be in this mess

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 9 months

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Are you an anticapitalist? you are good either way just curious

No, I'm not.

It's not a perfect system, but one need only look at indexes like the Global Freedom Index and the Human Development Index and observe which countries are at the top and which are not. One need only look at the correlation between economic growth and the decline of illiteracy, decline of child mortality, decline of reproductive burden on women, lower hunger, higher education, higher life satisfaction, and many other things.

An imperfect liberal system is still better than a perfect illiberal system.

“Beware the cult that sells you a utopia, because any dictatorial action can be justified by such a false vision.” -- Rio Veradonir

Heaven is a utopian, perfect system. And what can you do there? Nothing. It's ruled over by a tyrant and nothing you do matters. It's perfect before you arrived, and it's no better (or worse) after you arrived. You can't change anything, you can't innovate, you can't make an impact. Something that is already "perfect" cannot be made more "perfect."

Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it can be improved. Free speech + the marketplace of ideas is not a perfect system that ensures truth and sanity always prevail, but attempts to "fix" it always make it worse. No one screws things up more than utopians. -- Colin Wright

Maintaining that "perfection" requires authoritarianism. We see this every single time. How else do you maintain a "perfect" system? How else do you protect that "perfect" system from imperfection? And what can't be justified in the name of maintaining that "perfection"? History has a bodycount of the horrors arising from attempts to enforce "perfect" systems. Yes, it has been tried. Many times.

So I'd much prefer an imperfect system that nobody controls than a perfect system enforced with an iron fist.

Philosophically, I'm not an anti-capitalist for the same reason I'm not anti-democratic or anti-science. I'll let Jonathan Rauch explain this.

Liberalism’s great contribution to civilization is the way it handles conflict. No other regime has enabled large and varied groups of people to set a social agenda without either stifling their members’ differences or letting conflict get out of hand. Bertrand Russell once said that “order without authority” might be taken as the motto both of political liberalism and of science. If you had to pick a three-word motto to define the liberal idea, “order without authority” would be pretty good. The liberal innovation was to set up society so as to mimic the greatest liberal system of them all, the evolution of life. Like evolutionary ecologies, liberal systems are centerless and self-regulating and allow no higher appeal than that of each to each in an open-ended, competitive public process (a game). Thus, a market game is an open-ended, decentralized process for allocating resources and legitimizing possession, a democracy game is an open-ended, decentralized process for legitimizing the use of force, and a science game is an open-ended, decentralized process for legitimizing belief. Much as creatures compete for food, so entrepreneurs compete for business, candidates for votes, and hypotheses for supporters. In biological evolution, no outcome is fixed or final—nor is it in capitalism, democracy, science. There is always another trade, another election, another hypothesis. In biological evolution, no species, however clever or complex, is spared the rigors of competition—nor are the participants in capitalism, democracy, science. No matter who you are, you must conduct your business in the currency of dollars, votes, or criticism—no special fiat, no personal authority.

[..] Order emerging as each interreacts with each under rules which are the same for all (order without authority): just as that idea links the great liberal systems, so it also links the great liberal theorists. Darwin is known to have been strongly influenced by the economic ideas of Adam Smith. “The theory of natural selection,” writes Stephen Jay Gould, a paleontologist and historian of science, “is a creative transfer to biology of Adam Smith’s basic argument for a rational economy: the balance and order of nature does not arise from a higher, external (divine) control, or from the existence of laws operating directly upon the whole, but from struggle among individuals for their own benefits.

[..] The disadvantages are serious, and must not be passed over lightly. First, the notion of empowering a vast, amorphous, unsupervised mass of voters and traders to make crucial social decisions defies all common sense and intuition. Instinct sides with Plato: it makes more sense to have the wisest man decide who gets what or who should rule. That is why learning democratic values and market values, which make the judgments of democratic and market systems “feel” right, takes centuries of cultural development and years of personal education; it is why people who are used to an authoritarian moral climate have such a hard time switching to the mechanisms of democracy and markets, and so often make a botch of it. Second, open-ended, decentralized decision-making systems are perpetually unsettling. They cannot be counted on to reach any particular result, and often, since they put no one in particular in charge, they reach results which don’t particularly please anyone. The only constant is change, and change is unnerving and sometimes painful and wasteful. Leaders go in and out of power, sometimes too quickly to hold any course; markets shut factories and move jobs. No one can count on staying on top. But the advantages of the two systems are enormous. They are flexible, which means that they adapt readily to change. They are broadly inclusive, and so make the most of human diversity. (Anyone can vote, anyone can own.) Yet by and large they are stable, despite being both flexible and broadly inclusive. And so they are liberal in this important sense: they allow us to be relatively free to be ourselves, each to make the contribution that suits him, with comparatively little risk of upending the whole system. -- Jonathan Rauch, "Kindly Inquisitors"

In principle, if I've got a great idea, I could topple McDonald's or Microsoft or Amazon. You may scoff, but where are MySpace, Kodak, Blockbuster, Blackberry and whoever ended up with Palm? These were once some of the biggest organizations in the world. Look at the impact of Tesla. Any company is only as good as the last product or service they released, and past performance is no guarantee of success in the future. If you don't stay relevant, your business dies. Just as any political leader is only as good as their latest ballot, and any scientist is only as good as their latest ideas.

Evolution is behind the market game. At any point, you could be obsolete and at the wrong end of "survival of the fittest." After the rise and fall of all the purported "iPod killers," look who actually killed the iPod: Apple. It doesn't really exist any more, it's just the Music app on your phone.

People looking for a perfect system are looking for certainty. They want to know what the future will be, and more importantly, be able to control it to suit their preferences. They want to circumvent the rules of the game which apply to everyone (equality) and have the authority to decide - and enforce - what the result should really look like (equity). And they will decide what people really deserve.

But evolution has no certainty, as it's undirected. Changes to the environment are unpredictable. As soon as you try to direct evolution, you have an authority figure creating something that suits their own particular purposes, and the natural, erratic process of evolution has stopped. You now have creationism and the authoritarianism that goes along with it.

The beauty in these liberal systems is the same beauty in evolution itself: uncertainty. We need to get more comfortable with that.

One particular area where I'd argue the system is imperfect is where the evolutionary process has been short-circuited. Companies with questionable ethics put #BLM or a rainbow flag on their Twitter account for free, trot out a statement riddled with fashionable social shibboleths, and people look away from their business practices, tacitly deciding that they're comfortable with them by buying the next product, the next service, the next update.

Kind of like Passover, but with hashtags instead of lamb's blood. If you make the right offering, the Hand of God will pass by you and not look beyond the blood on the door.

We've already seen what can happen with consumer backlash. Netflix, Disney, Bud Light, Target. You don't have to agree with the basis for the reaction, but all bore the brunt of consumer dissatisfaction and paid the price. Some adjusted course, some doubled-down, some have committed to gaslighting the consumer, putting ideology above their core business.

The point, though, is this: what do you put up with as a consumer to have what you want? If you're discontent with a business' practices, then what have you done to force the pressure on them to adapt, to evolve? And why not?

Evolution requires pressures for survival.

To those who have a "smash capitalism" sticker, where did you put it? The bumper of your hybrid SUV? The case of your iPhone 14 Pro Max? The back lid of your ASUS Zenbook Flip?

Now imagine a world where this actually came to pass. Capitalism has been smashed. The means of production has become public, part of the government. The telecommunications companies, the tech companies, the automotive companies, the manufacturing companies are all no longer privately owned and in competition, but by the government. The same government which runs departments that function like the DMV, creates a Ministry of Truth, and which can't get a healthcare website to stay up.

The government doesn't need to compete against itself, so it doesn't need 5 mobile services. One will do just fine. There's no competition for customers who want faster speed, so 6G, which would have hit in 2030 is no longer a priority. Where is anyone going to go? 5G will be good enough for the next 30 years. The government's not a corporation, so it doesn't need to - and shouldn't - make a profit from its services.

It doesn't need to make a better, more feature packed phone next year, because it's not competing with anyone. It can just keep producing the same one for the next 10 years. And there's only one because who needs all those brands when they're all now under the government umbrella? Phase out Google Pixel, phase out the iPhone Pro/Max/Plus models that are status symbols of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie classes, and cut it back to one iPhone SE. Since the telecommunications and tech companies are now government entities, there's no longer any pushback to putting monitoring software on every phone the government makes in the operating system the government installs, on the network the government controls.

There's no longer a need for 10 different compact SUVs competing with each other, so it cuts this back to one. And some government bureaucrat who doesn't really understand cars doesn't see why you need an SUV anyway, since it's just a jacked-up hatchback, so a pen-stroke from somebody in a government office sees those go away in the name of efficiency. The factories can all produce the same design, not a multitude of different ones, because that's a bureaucratic headache.

The streaming companies are all no longer competing against each other, since they are all subsidiaries of the government now. So, why do we need so many shows in production? And why do they need to earn money anyway, other than to fund more productions and line the pockets of shareholders? And what sort of content do you think they're going to play now that the government has a monopoly?

I could keep going.

Now, where are the evolutionary pressures? Every sector now functions at the speed, efficiency and innovation level of the government (i.e. very, very low).

If you doubt any of this, look around at the automotive and technology industries of non-free market countries. And I don't mean "western company X has a factory in Y." I mean, what is Y's own industry like? What is it producing?

The idea that anyone would want the government in charge of innovation and industry, rather than merely enforcing the liberal rules of the market game, is disturbing. Seriously, has anyone who is an anti-capitalist ever actually looked around at their life and realized what it would be like for there to be no market competition, and for the idiots in government to be in control of the means of production?

The core driver of the free market, as with biological evolution, is competition. Competition for survival and relevancy. It drives innovation, efficiency and downward pressure on prices. Take that away and what do you have? Which countries best exemplify a system with no competition? What are you willing to give up to eliminate free market competition and become more like them? Or, perhaps, why haven't you already moved there? What's keeping you living in this oppressive regime? Not enough frequent flyer miles?

When the Berlin Wall fell, in which direction did people migrate? When people risk their lives on ramshackle rafts to escape from one country to another, in which direction are they fleeing?

If you ever wonder which system is better, ask someone who immigrated from their country of birth to your country of birth why they went to the trouble. Buy your Uber driver, your Amazon carrier, or your dorm's cleaning staff a coffee and an hour of their time to tell you their story. The idea that a free market, where you can work your way up in the world, improve your situation for yourself and your family, needs to be taken away and torn down, is something that only the privileged and well-to-do have the luxury of proclaiming.

"Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes." -- Rob Henderson

And once again, I know it's not perfect. I said so up front. I think many of these corporations need to be better ecologically and in terms of their manufacturing personnel practices. But how you do that is by creating market pressure.

But as far as I can tell, at least some of the blame for this can be laid at the feet of consumers who have become complacent, respond to the distractions of empty virtue signalling, and are too comfortable to make sacrifices for their high and mighty principles. People lose their nerve when it comes to criticizing China ("what are you, a racist?"), and get distracted when the culprit makes cheap, easy LGBTQWERTYALPHABETWTF signals, because now they're an "ally," and personal interest supersedes the greater moral mission.

If you want the market to go in a certain direction, then you have to generate the evolutionary pressure that forces it to do so. You have to play the game - just as you have to play the science game, the politics game - not throw a hissy fit that you should be exempt from the rules or get to steal the ball so nobody else can play. If that sounds too hard, then it's probably not as big a priority as you'd like to believe is it. But how hard do you think it would be to live in an economy completely devoid of any evolutionary pressure whatsoever?

It's much easier to whine about "the system" while standing in line with your Apple Watch out to pay for your next Venti decaf soy pumpkin-spice latte with extra whip. But just know that everybody around you is rolling their eyes.

#ask #liberal ethics #liberalism #liberal market #free market #utopianism #anticapitalism #anti capitalism #religion is a mental illness

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