#capitalism ruins everything

[sjbattleangel]

Lisa Simpson's sideshow presentation: "Video games as online-only live services are destroying every ounce of fun and creativity this medium is capable of."

#video games #gaming #games as a service stinks #anti-games as a service #games as a service is ruining games #lisa simpson #lisa simpson presentation #the simpsons #simpsons #simpsons meme #anti-gaas #anti capitalism #capitalism is a scam #capitalism ruins everything #late stage capitalism

[troythecatfish]

#social justice #community #political #political posting #politics #us politics #late stage capitalism #capitalism #anti capitalism #capitalism ruins everything

[ghostincorrectinternetedition]

Rain: *enters a creepy old shop* Oh wow! This shop has everything my heart desires! Spooky Shopkeeper: Yes. I will warn you though… Every item comes with a price Rain: Yeah, I know how shops work. Spooky Shopkeeper: The price may be more than you expect to pay… Rain: I’m familiar with US sales tax too. Spooky Shopkeeper: *increasingly exasperated* I’m trying to tell you that I’m evil and selling these wares with no regard as to the harm they might do! Rain: *also increasingly exasperated* Yes! I know what Capitalism is too!

#taintposting #shitghosting #ghost #ghost band #incorrect quotes #ghost bc #the band ghost #ghost fandom #nameless ghouls #ghost posting #rain ghoul #capitalism ruins everything #capitalism kills

[mckitterick]

we need an Internet of Consent

(OP turned off reblogs but this is important)

#enshittification #the internet #consent #capitalism ruins everything #my screencaps #OP turned off reblogs so

[thowawayuntilfurthernotice]

Fuck Netflix.

All my homies hate Netflix.

#Netflix #Fuck Netflix #Squid Game #Fuck capitalism #Capitalism Ruins Everything

[jessiarts]

I posted this in an art discord & they said it should be a post so others (both non-artists & artists) could see it too, so I'm pasting it here with a just few edits to add context:

Having feelings about capitalism and art.

Like, got an unexpected Redbubble sale today. Unexpected because I genuinely never expected to see another after I took some advice and did the whole "raise your margins to 50% in protest so people will use Redbubble less because 'prices are too high'" (For those unaware, Redbubble is introducing a tier structure for artist accounts, where Redbubble will now be taking up to 50% of an artist's monthly earnings as an "account fee" if they end up in the "Standard" tier. Artists are upset about this and are finding various ways to protest the change.)

And it got me thinking about margins, and what it takes to run the company, and how much CEO's take home and just-

Ok so say base price for a product is $10. If your margin is 20% it sells for $12 and you take home $2. Redbubble takes 80%, and uses that to buy materials/print/pay workers. Ok, no argument. I want workers to be fairly compensated.

But you look it up, and the highest paid Redbubble executive makes $950,000 a year. Average executive salary is around $235,000 a year. You can't really find the info for the positions of workers (meaning those who labor to print the products) only that "the lowest compensated makes $34,000" -aka roughly $16 an hour at 40hrs a week. And good on them for paying the workers a decent wage if this info is correct. Hope they keep it up. Or pay them more even.

But then I keep coming back to the fact that the company needs the artists' work to even exist. So why, if the CEO is making nearly a million dollars a year and the company obviously isn't hurting for any money to compensate it's workers or run itself, why does everyone make artists feel greedy just for asking to not have our cut eaten into with added fees? Why are we made to feel bad if we express any disappointment that a CEO makes so much money off the designs of so many artists in comparison to the artists' cut?

Idk how to say it right. It's like we're just expected to collectively fork over our work, let someone else get obscenely rich off it while we make barely anything from it (or in the case of many social media platforms, make literally nothing from it), then then smile about it. Anything else is seen as artists being entitled or 'lazy' or idk what else.

Or we're told to "just raise your margins" like competitive pricing isn't a thing that exists. Not to mention that fact that whenever prices do go up, especially with art, those same people complain that the prices went up and look for something cheaper.

I always see people saying that artists are just jealous that they don't make more sales, or saying "well maybe you'd make more if your art was better" but they're completely missing the whole point that is: Maybe if a company literally depends on the creative 'content' of individuals to exist/profit, maybe don't treat them all as disposable?

#art #artists #redbubble #capitalism #fuck capitalism #capitalism ruins everything #capitalism ruins art #print on demand #social media #artists on tumblr #redbubbleartist

[goodgrammaritan]

The most ridiculous, unbelievable part of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation isn't:

Driving under an 18-wheeler

Digging out an entire tree by the roots

A store clerk showing her lack of pantyline to a customer in full view of the store

250,000 lights on the house

250,000 lights on the house necessitating nuclear auxiliary power for the city

The bullet-speed sled

An elderly woman being able to giftwrap a cat

A turkey looking lovely on the outside but being dried out on the inside

A Christmas bonus paying for a pool

A cigar burning an entire tree in seconds

Everyone being TERRIFIED of a squirrel

A man being able to kidnap someone without knowing their complete address

An entire SWAT team being sent, including a helicopter

Said SWAT team bursting in through all the windows

The kidnappee not pressing charges

No, the most ridiculous, unbelievable part of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is:

A CEO, faced with the reality of what his bottom line has done to actual people, realizes the error of his ways and has a change of heart

#national lampoon's christmas vacation #ceos #bad bosses #capitalism ruins everything

[abouttwocats]

we really thought the mcu was gonna be good forever, huh?

#anti mcu #mcu #marvel #marvel cinematic universe #marvel comics #i was thinking about 2012 tumblr and post avengers and idk we really thought this was gonna be good forever or rather it would get BETTER #the mcu is a bloated mess with over worked/under paid VFX artists #and not telling your actors the plots and giving them fake scripts so theres no leaks and therefore the acting is subpar #capitalism ruins everything

[rainbowsky]

Strap yourselves in, folks!

#and prepare for another influx of people from twitter #twitter is a cesspool #capitalism ruins everything

[silmarillion-ways-to-die]

Steve Wozniak: We're going to make the world a better place!

Steve Jobs: We're going to ship jobs to China and put everything behind a predatory firewall.

Google Founders: We're not going to be evil!

Venture Capitalists: Yes you are.

YouTube Founders: We're going to educate the planet!

Google: About how great Fascism is, yes.

Facebook Engineers: We're going to bring people together!

Also Facebook Engineers: Holy shit, what have we done???

OpenAI: We're gonna be a non-profit and create AI for everyone!

Microsoft: Nope.

#capitalism ruins everything #capitalism is a death cult #late stage capitalism #capitalism #anti capitalism #leftists #leftist #leftism #big tech #technology #democratic socialism #socialist #socialism

[winklebeebee-art]

I started a new sketchbook a few months ago, and I’ve been spending a lot of time in it recently. Like every time I go to a cafe to do work, I end up drawing in it, and I couldn’t figure out why I kept feeling like I needed to even though I have “actual” work I need to get done most days.

Then I had this really weird revelation that it was because I was just really enjoying the drawing process. It’s been so long since I’ve worked on anything that wasn’t a freelance thing or something made to be marketed and profited off of, that I legitimately forgot that I got into art because it makes me happy to do it sometimes.

So yeah. Capitalism is a soul-sucking nightmare and needs to be destroyed probably.

#capitalism ruins everything #md notebook #midori notebook #Arteza markers #marker illustration #sketchbook tour #sketchbook pages #my art #artists on tumblr #this is sort of sad

[knitasha]

Untitled Solarpunk Story Excerpt

I pulled something in my back while ironing 2 days ago (yes, really) and I've spent most of my time since trying to sit very very still so it stops spasming.

On the down side, it's kept me from my sewing, baking, and socializing plans. On the plus side, it's been good for storyboarding a short solarpunk story I'd like to get out.

Here's a little piece of it. Mostly a brain dump, very little editing. Also you will never convince me that names aren't going to be absolutely ridiculous in the future. Lean into it.

----

The oxygen mask bumped rhythmically against her left leg as she walked down the narrow passageway. She synced her breathing with her steps, keeping her mind on the brief echo of her footsteps and the bobbing of the light from her headlamp and definitely not on the question of just how much dirt and questionable infrastructure sat above and around her.

2 steps, breathe in. When was the last time a real earthquake had come through?

2 steps, breathe out. When was the last time someone had checked the walls down here?

2 steps, breathe in. How long ago did those cracks show up?

2 steps, breathe out. How long would the air down here last if the air pumps stopped? How long would she last until her tank ran out?

Olive’s nails bit into her palms, bringing her mind back to the job, and she quickened her pace.

The next section of lights blinked on as she passed the motion sensor. A cold wave of anxiety churned in her stomach at the idea of the now-empty sections behind her going dark, a seemingly endless tunnel of blackness. Even after a decade of working in the pipes, Olive had to force herself not to give in to the ancient instinct whispering urgently for her to run from the dark and whatever watched and waited in it.

Her eyes scanned for the latest section number. She’d gone deep enough that she should be getting close to the offshoot. 220Z, 221A, there – 221B. Digging her pad out of her tool bag with one hand, she wiped years of grime off the code beneath the number with her other.

The screen flashed to life and the EcoSphere logo appeared, its 10 colored rings pulsing around the Earth, one for each of the services the utility company oversaw globally. Her foot tapped impatiently as the logo dissolved only to be replaced by the AquaTech sector’s logo. Her finger was already hovering over the screen as the authentication prompt appeared. She pressed firmly against the screen protector that was already peeling in the corners and WELCOME OLIVE MCGARDEN greeted her.

“Come on, this century already,” she muttered as the pad struggled to find its connection to the wireless this far from the hub.

Finally in the system, she quickly scrolled to her active work order and scanned the code beneath the section number. She made sure the check-in had registered before stowing the pad back in the bag and pushing the old offshoot door open with a resisting creak that echoed down the hall.

She recalled Apple’s teasing when they had received their work orders that morning. Apple was overseeing the installation of the main pipes for the new office wing on the north side of town – “I’ll bring you back a bar from the fancy new replicator they just installed” – with its brightly lit corridors and smooth automatic doors.

Olive, on the other hand, had been assigned to one of the oldest pipe sections on the flow. Not that she minded. She’d take grimy doors and stale air over running into whatever found a way to survive just under the subscape any day. Nothing survived this deep in the sections.

Stepping into the offshoot, Olive widened the scope and increased the brightness of her headlamp. The AquaTech system could determine there was an issue in the section, now it was up to her to figure out where it was coming from, what was causing it, and get it fixed. The newer pipe areas could self-service most leak alerts, but the maze of aging pipes and narrower tunnels this far down hadn’t been worth the trouble – and cost – to upgrade and so required manual inspection and maintenance whenever a leak alert was picked up.

She spent the next hour walking through the tunnels, looking for puddles and other telltale signs of a leak significant enough to trigger the alert. As the tunnel began branching, she pulled colored flags out of a pocket in her bag and began to mark the forks. Blue for main pipe. Green for first offshoot. Yellow for third. They helped keep the paths organized for future maintenance needs while also making sure she could find her way out when she was done. The fact that there were none down here already here told her she was the first to come down this offshoot in a good, long time.

Expecting the leak to be deeper in the flow grid, she walked past the first dozen branches and picked one at random to begin flagging.

Olive had just pulled out a purple flag to mark the newly found fourth offshoot in her branch when her foot stepped on something soft. Flinching back, she shone her light down where she’d stepped, expecting to see some long-dead remains. Instead, she found a small green patch of moss.

She strained her hearing, listening around the sound of her pulse knocking in her ears. There it was. A thin but steady dripping noise echoed dimly down the branch towards her.

“Found you.”

She quickened her pace, stopping only to hang a fresh flag as new branches popped up to show her path forward. As she hung the last of her purple flags, she made a mental note to pick up more when she checked back in at HQ later and forged ahead regardless, determined to find the source of the leak after coming so far.

Olive pulled up short as she came to a fifth branch, her head whipping around to stare down the narrow tunnel. Her headlamp showed nothing and yet she could have sworn… Taking a deep breath, she turned the light off.

But where she expected suffocating darkness, a dim glow greeted her at the end of the branch and the trickle of water sounded like laughter calling her name.

#creative writing #writeblr #writing #ecopunk #solarpunk #hopepunk #short story #capitalism ruins everything #but there is still hope #story excerpt #olive mcgarden

[mckitterick]

OpenAI previews voice generator that produces natural-sounding speech based on a 15-second voice sample

The company has yet to decide how to deploy the technology, and it acknowledges election risks, but is going ahead with developing and testing with "limited partners" anyway.

Not only is such a technology a risk during election time (see the fake robocalls this year when an AI-generated, fake Joe Biden voice told people not to vote in the primary), but imagine how faked voices of important people - combined with AI-generated fake news plus AI-generated fake photos and videos - could con people out of money, literally destroy political careers and parties, and even collapse entire governments or nations themselves.

By faking a news story using accurate (but faked) video clips of (real) respected and elected officials supporting the fake story - then creating a billion SEO-optimized fake news and research websites full of fake evidence to back up their lies - a bad actor or cyberwarfare agent could take down an enemy government, create a revolution, turn nations against one another, even cause world war.

This kind of apocalyptic scenario has always felt like a science-fiction idea that could only exist in a possible dystopian future, not something we'd actually see coming true in our time, now.

How in the world are we ever again going to trust what we read, hear, or watch? If LLM-barf clogs the internet, and lies pollute the news, and people with bad intentions can provide all the evidence they need to fool anyone into believing anything, and there's no way to guarantee the veracity of anything anymore, what's left?

Whatever comes next, I guarantee it'll be weirder than we imagine.

Here's hoping it's not also worse than the typical cyberpunk tale.

PS: NEVER ANSWER CALLS FROM UNKNOWN NUMBERS EVER AGAIN

...or at least don't speak to the caller. From now on, assume it's a con-bot or politi-bot or some other bot seeking to cause you and others harm. If they hear your voice, they can fake it saying anything they want. If it sounds like someone you know, it's probably not if it's not their number saved in your contacts. If it's about something important, hang up and call the official or saved number for the supposed caller.

#cyberpunk dystopia #artificial intelligence #robocalls #capitalism ruins everything #where's the utopian future we dreamed of? #I vote for that instead

[thowawayuntilfurthernotice]

Companies are trying to phase out physical media because they hate the idea of people owning things, they would rather you pay a subscription fee to watch all your favorite shows and movies until the day you die.

The future sucks.

Cherish your VHS, DVD, and Blu Ray collections.

#Physical Media #Media Preservation #Fuck Capitalism #Capitalism ruins everything

[alwaysbewoke]

#private equity firms #capitalism #capitalism ruins everything #capitalism in medicine #late stage capitalism #healthcare #veteran emergency room doctor #ming lin #peacehealth st. joseph medical center #bellingham washington #coronavirus pandemic #hospital preparedness #social media criticism #teamhealth #blackstone group #private equity #healthcare industry #physician staffing #peer review process #due process rights #patient safety #financial entity #acquisitions #rural hospitals #physicians' practices #nursing homes #hospice centers #air ambulance companies #healthcare billing management #debt collection systems

[goodgrammaritan]

I'm currently* only a casual fan of Green Day. I only have one album (American Idiot), but I like everything of theirs I hear on the radio.

They're touring in my area this year, and planning on playing straight through the entirety of both Dookie and American Idiot, to celebrate the 30th and 20th anniversaries of those albums, which sounds kinda odd epic, so the question is:

*I can see myself becoming obsessed in the next 8 months, and thus forever regretting not seeing them if I don't go, because I have an obsessive personality and sometimes end up with severe FOMO about lots of things

#green day #american idiot #dookie #saviors tour #capitalism ruins everything