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klysanderelias · 2 years

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I mean to be fair historically a lot of political and social change did in fact work off the fact that the established power base would rather accept reforms rather than capitulate to extremist demands so technically, if you want to change things reliably, there's actually a lot of precedent for having an extremist wing cooperating with a more moderate political structure to drive positive change.

The problem is that 'left disunity' is often (from what I've seen, at least) a code for 'we have failed fundamentally to address the concerns of a group of people who see us as a threat because they don't fit in our worldview.' I've seen a lot of complaints about anarchists that rightfully ask questions like 'if I am disabled or chronically ill, what happens to me in your ideal world?' and the answers are lacking or disturbing - like yeah, a lot of anarchist thinkers have tackled this and much like 'what does a world look like without cops' there's a lot of very good answers, that work has been done, but often not by the people who are arguing methods. If I'm being asked to support a political organization that has no understanding of my needs, it's kind of on that organization to do that work to bring me in instead of expecting me to just blindly hope that when/if they start to make progress, they'll remember that I exist.

But also, as an anarchist, I also know that the state apparatus inherently requires violence to function and even as a 'fellow leftist' I am just as likely to have that violence deployed against me if I dissent, and again, if my needs aren't being represented by the state, do I become disposable in your political structure?

The problem is that 'real friends' and 'real enemies' is a very nebulous distinction when we realize that a lot of the left is made up of marginalized people and just because we've all been marginalized in some way doesn't mean we don't have biases or outright disgust when it comes to other groups. And a lot of this drives political action in a way that we often don't think about. I remember during the 2020 primaries seeing an article about the way that Biden started to overtake the polls, and there's a lot of discussion we could have about that topic but the argument this article made was that older black folks especially were voting for Biden because they simply did not trust white people to do the right thing. That Biden was the 'safe' option because they thought (and maybe correctly) that if it came down to it, white people would vote for a fascist who wouldn't raise taxes than for a progressive who would, regardless of ideology.

And those people aren't the 'enemy', they're people who genuinely do not believe that the high minded leftists would follow through because they've been burned so many times. And like, yeah, there are a lot of organizations that come to mind who, when push came to shove, I would bet money would happily throw me or other marginalized groups into the fire to consolidate power. I'm not partnering with the KS Red Guard, y'know? Regardless of what they claim, I don't trust those mother fuckers an inch.

And arguably the original post is right by saying 'we need to discuss those lines and hammer out unity instead of sniping at each other' but I think the topic of 'left unity' often hides that there's some fucked up assholes out there who are mad that people are against supporting revolution because yes people will die but nothing will change without violence and it's better than the sustained violence it takes to maintain the status quo etc etc but it's very clear that their acceptable casualties include like, all disabled people.

I'm kind of just rambling but over the years, watching some of this discourse go back and forth, a lot of the 'lack of unity' arguments really fail to understand that the right is united partially because they can all agree that SOMEONE should die or be marginalized as an intended outcome, and often marginalized people within that ideology either think that they'll get a pass for being 'one of the good ones' or accept that marginalization because yeah, women should stay in the kitchen and serve their husbands, like God intended me to do.

And that is inherently rejected by leftist ideology, even if not by individual leftist groups, so I'm ideologically opposed to an organization that wants LGBTQ+ rights at the cost of indigenous people, or whatever the flavor of asshole is, and asking me to support them because 'we both want the same thing' just isn't true.

#i screenshotted the original post to avoid getting dragged into the discourse too much #sometimes you got dumb thoughts aboit the fistfight you're watching #but don't want to wade in yourself #anyway I'm not saying i have perfect ideology #i rad that quote from the jakarta method and it fundamentally changed me #but also i follow a lot of black anarchists

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calliesmemes · 2 months

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ABSOLUTELY UNHINGED COMEDIC RELIEF

ASSORTED QUOTES FROM TUMBLR TEXTPOSTS, X (formerly known as twitter) POSTS, TIKTOK, MEMES, AND OTHER SOURCES AROUND THE INTERNET

CHANGE gendered words and in-universe phrases as needed.

SPECIFY muse for multimuses.

“ Currently considering becoming a bother and a nuisance, maybe even a menace or a rascal. ”

“ Hungry? Eat the government. ”

“ Yes, I wanna fuck after every argument. ”

“ Silence, you uneducated peanut! ”

“ They should invent a being alive that isn’t so difficult. ”

“ Women have to think I’m hot or none of this matters. ”

“ Due to personal reasons I will be named an enemy of the state. ”

“ Being overdressed is a myth made up by people who didn’t want you to have fun and be sexy. ”

“ What even are daddy issues? Just traumatize your father back. ”

“ I LOVE complaining! You can’t take that away from me! ”

“ I went to the silly goose convention and they all knew you. ”

“ I’m simultaneously ‘I’m tired of this grandpa’ and ‘that’s too damn bad!’ ”

“ The word ew coming out of a pretty girl’s mouth holds so much power … I think that it can tear apart nations. ”

“ Someone made fun of my shoes and the whole time I just thought of ways to push them out the window. ”

“ If you’re short, simply get taller. ”

“ I better think twice? Buddy I don’t even think once. ”

“ My off putting looks, awkward demeanor, and strange behavior have captivated you. ”

“ There’s something deeply, fundamentally wrong with you. Can we kiss? ”

“ You are a fool. When you walk, clown music plays. ”

“ I mean yeah he’s evil and all but what if I were his favorite? ”

“ I really do hate thinking. ”

“ In my defense, I simply do not vibe with the law. ”

“ I’ve done nothing wrong. Except all the atrocities. Besides that, I’m innocent. ”

“ Sorry I couldn’t hear you over my internal monologue. ”

“ Of course you have white hair and trauma. ”

“ So apparently the bad vibes I’ve been feeling are actually ‘severe psychological distress’. ”

“ Stop calling me a bad person just because I’m orchestrating your downfall! ”

“ The more lip gloss I collect the longer I live. ”

“ Sorry that I am obsessed with you in the unhealthiest way possible. As if it's my fault ”

“ The multiple failed assassination attempts against me have helped build both character and self esteem. ”

“ I could be your loser boyfriend. Do you ever think about that? ”

“ Accidentally went and got myself killed yesterday, but god wont let me die so I’m back ”

“ What do you mean napping isn't a good coping mechanism? What do you mean my problems are still here? ”

“ Academic validation is required for my sanity. ”

“ RIP to everyone killed by the gods for hubris but I’m different and better. Maybe even better than the gods. ”

“ Researching the stages of grief to see if I can get them finished in ten minutes tops. ”

“ My parents were like I’m gonna make a child that is so beyond help. ”

“ It’s not easy to admit when you’re wrong, and that’s why I won’t do it. ”

“ Why can’t this family ever have a funky good time? ”

“ How do I show people that I’m more than my unethical career choice? ”

“ I fucked my way into this mess, and I’ll fuck my way out. ”

“ You look so biteable today. ”

“ Why am I suffering? I have so many correct opinions and takes. ”

“ I AM HAUNTED BY A PAST THAT I CANNOT GO BACK TO! anyways ”

“ Challenging authority, angering gods. The family business. ”

“ Third base is me telling you about my father. ”

“ Hey girl. Plagued by terrifying visions? ”

“ Got caught giving a fuck. Embarrassing. ”

“ I didn’t ‘miss’ the red flags; I saw them and thought that they looked sexy. ”

“ Do my dark circles and deteriorating health make me look hot? ”

“ I get my news from the only reliable source, cryptic symbolism in my dreams. ”

“ Another day of being a bisexual disaster. ”

“ I’m going to let myself be a little unhinged today, as a treat. ”

“ Some of you act like murder is such a big deal. ”

“ You wanna hunt me for sport so bad that it makes you look stupid. ”

“ You’re not a girlboss unless you’ve killed someone. ”

“ It’s so weird how no one ever has correct opinions about things except for me. ”

“ Hello, my love — I mean, my rival ”

“ No one is calling me baby and it’s outrageous I can’t believe it. ”

“ No talking stage. Mutual obsession and you see god in my eyes or nothing. ”

“ I DON’T UNDERSTAND HOOKUP CULTURE DIE IN MY ARMS ”

“ Yes baby your emotional walls are high and impenetrable can we kiss now? ”

“ Affection is disgusting. Drown me in it. ”

“ I am gatekeeping my respect from you. ”

“ Well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions. ”

“ I am equal parts fuck around and find out and please don’t yell at me I’ll cry. ”

“ Short legs, big butt. I’m a corgi. ”

“ Fuck being the bigger person; I’m going to start biting people. ”

“ Well that wasn’t very slay of you! ”

“ May I please get a crumb of affection? ”

“ I crave power! Please don’t yell, though; I’m sensitive. ”

“ You call it a near death experience; I call it a vibe check from God. ”

“ Here are some scissors. Now cut it out. ”

“ Might commit a little tomfoolery, maybe even some shenanigans. ”

“ All these flavors, and you choose to be salty. ”

“ How can I live, laugh, love in these conditions? ”

“ What if I said ‘to be honest’ but then lied? ”

“ I'm financially at a stage where I understand why people do fraud. ”

“ Yes I may be evil and morally corrupt, but I’m also incredibly beautiful and I think that makes up for it honestly. ”

“ Debates are stupid. Why would I want to sit down and argue with someone blatantly dumber than me? ”

“ I forget but I do NOT forgive.. I'm just walking around hating bitches can't remember why ”

“ Ding dong your opinion is wrong! ”

“ I’m coming for your kneecaps. ”

“ You dropped your nose you fucking clown. ”

“ Are you a fire alarm? ‘Cause you are really fucking loud and annoying. ”

“ Call me an escalator, because I let people down. ”

“ I love me a good lesbian scandal! ”

“ If you can’t run away from your problems, you’re not running fast enough. ”

“ Everything I want to do is illegal. ”

“ Don’t make me hit your ankle with my Barbie scooter! ”

“ I tell gay jokes because I am a gay joke. ”

“ Fuck! I dropped my mental stability! ”

#askbox meme #askbox prompt #rp ask meme #ask box #roleplay sentence meme #sentence starters #roleplay prompts #roleplay sentence starters #* sentence meme

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words--words--words · 2 years

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In that way they kept the plague restricted to the perimeter of the town. So effective was the quarantine that the day came when the emergency situation was accepted as a natural thing and life was organized in such a way that the work picked up its rhythm again and no one worried any more about the useless habit of sleeping.

Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (trans. Gregory Rabassa).

#literature #quotes #20th century literature #gabriel garcía márquez #one hundred years of solitude #modern classics #spanish literature #colombia #queue and me (but mostly me)#yeah dont think there's much to add here #the last two years have fundamentally changed how i read or watch anything

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doberbutts · 3 months

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I remember reading a post that men are the oppressor class so why would they bother to dismantle systemic patriarchy when they actively benefit from its existence? And as I read it, I thought, Damn, so an entire half of the population can never conceivably help us, and the people who love men in their lives are doomed. It wasn't a helpful post. It basically felt, here's some actual material analysis on feminism and said, That trying to educate and make men be part of feminism is fundamentally a flawed effort, because again, they are the oppressor class, why should they care about uplifting the oppressed?

And it made me think about this very good pamphlet I read, explaining how the white worker remained complacent for so long because at least they weren't a Black slave. And that the author theorized the reason labor movements never truly created exceptional, radical change is because of internal racism (which I find true) and failure to uplift black people. And the author listed common outlooks/approaches to this problem, and one of them was: "We should ignore the white folks entirely and hold solidarity with only other POC, and the countries in the Global South. Who needs those wishy-washy white fragile leftists who don't care about what we think or want?" (roughly paraphrased.)

And the author said, This sounds like the most leftist and radical position, but it's totally flawed because it absolves us of our responsibility to dismantle white supremacy for the sake of our fellow marginalized people, and we are basically ignoring the problem. And that blew me away because this is a position so many activists have, to just ignore the white folks and focus entirely on our own movements. I wish I knew the name of the actual pamphlet, so I could quote entire passages at you.

But I feel this is the same for men. Obviously, we should prioritize and have women-led and women-focused feminism. But saying that men are an oppressor class so they can't reliably be counted upon in feminist activism--it's such a huge oversimplification. And mainly, I'm a Muslim, and I've been treated with plenty of misogyny from Muslim men. And also plenty of misogyny from Muslim women. And I love my male friends, I want men to be part of the movement, and I dunno. Thinking about communities, movements, and the various ways we fail each other and what it means to be truly intersectional keeps me up at night.

I don't know the pamphlet you're talking about but I've read and been taught similar. There's a reason much of my anti-racism is so feminist and most of my feminism is anti-racist. Many people coming at this problem from a truly intersectional angle have seen that there is no freedom to be had without joining hands across the community. Not picking and choosing our allies based off of identity but off of behavior.

As used in a previous example, a white abled moderately wealthy man saying "wow Healthcare sucks in this country, why does this system suck so bad" should be told "hey, this system sucks so bad because it's built off of sexism, racism, classism, and ableism. You want to improve the system? Fix those things and it will be much better in the long run" and not "shut up you're a man. Healthcare is always going to be better for you". The second response doesn't fix that Healthcare is still a problem even if you are at the "top" of the privilege ladder. If we want true change, we have to dismantle the entire system at it's core and build it up without the yuck, otherwise you're gunna get to the top and realize this place sucks too.

Something something if the crabs worked together to hold each other up, they could all get out of the bucket and be free.

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skaldish · 4 months

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I'm about to give you all the single most powerful piece of advice that was ever told to me:

It is important to be a principled person.

This is more important than being a good person. But don't take this to mean I think we should be bad people.

The reason why "being principled" has more weight than "being good" is because the definition of "good" is arbitrary. It changes depending on who you ask, which means the standards of achieving goodness are always going to change and pose contradictions.

Principles are different. They are more actionable and concrete. Principles are ideas and concepts you personally value, in that you find them valuable to your lived experience. This makes them different than something like a commandment, because they're not a doctrine. Their source is your personality—who you are and the experiences that have shaped you—rather than your goals and ambitions alone.

To give an example, here are a few of my own principles:

I value self-sovereignty. I think it's a person's inherent right to be free of undue influence, and to act as agents of their own free will. (Not to be confused with acting with impunity; people have the right to experience the consequences of their own actions the same way they have the right to act upon their own free will.)

I value people. I show people courtesy as a baseline, even during arguments, until it becomes clear the other person simply wishes to engage in the spirit of hostility. And even then I don't really lash out—I just leave. At no point do I lose sight of the fact that the people I'm interacting with are as real as I am, who have feelings and complex lives the same as I do. This means I also really value trying to understand where people are coming from, and to look at things from their perspective, even if I don't agree with it.

I value being accurate, as opposed to being right. This has been a more rewarding approach for me, by comparison.

I value discernment. I want to know what things are, which means differentiating them from what I think they are from what they seem to be, and from what they are not. The reason why I practice discernment is due how I think—my brain understands things based on how they are, rather than based on what they are—but the reason why I value discernment is because it allows me to interact with the world in a much deeper way.

I value being a mammal. Life becomes easier when I (to quote another Tumblr post) let the mammal that is my body love what it loves. Fighting against this in the past proved to be a pointless and joyless endeavor.

I have more, but these are just the things that come to me off the top of my head. And keep in mind, these will likely change as I change as a person, because that is how principles work.

To be honest, I've never put much thought into whether other people should have the same principles as me; people have different personalities and lived experiences than I do, so it makes sense to me that we would all prioritize different things.

But what I do know is that I fundamentally disagree with people whose principles are antithetical to my own, principles like conquest (of self or other), conformity, purity, and controlling others. Whether or not someone realizes they're embodying these principles is another story, but in any case it's how I know who to avoid engaging with. This is regardless of someone's political alignment or identity.

In my opinion, thinking this way makes it easier to stay grounded in a rapidly-changing world, and to remain focused on what's actually important to you in the face of the unknown. It allows you to find stable ground within yourself.

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

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How America's oligarchs lull us with the be-your-own-boss fairy tale

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#sell-job

Capitalism is a vibes-based system. Sure, we all know about Keynes's "Animal Spirits" that see "bulls" and "bears" vying to set the market's future, but beyond that, there's just a hell of a lot of narrative.

Writing for The American Prospect, Adam M Lowenstein reviews two books that tell the histories of the stories that are used to sell American capitalism to the American people – the stories that turn workers into "temporarily embarrassed millionaires":

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-02-16-stories-corporations-tell-williams-waterhouse-review/

The first of these books is Taming the Octopus: The Long Battle for the Soul of the Corporation, by Kyle Edward Williams, a kind of pre-history of "woke capitalism":

https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393867237

Taming is a history of the low-water marks for Big Business's reputation in America, and how each was overcome through PR campaigns that declared a turning point in which business leaders would pursue the common good, even at the expense of their shareholders' interests.

The story starts in the 1950s, when DuPont and other massive firms had gained a well-deserved reputation as rapacious profit-generation machines that "alienated workers and pushed around small businessmen, investors, and consumers." This prompted DuPont's PR chief, Harold Brayman, to write a memo called "The Attack on Bigness," where he set out a plan to sell America on a new cuddly image for corporate giants.

For Brayman, the problem was that corporate execs were too shy about telling their social inferiors about all the good that businesses did for them: "The businessman is normally reluctant to talk out loud. He frequently shuns the spotlight and is content with plugging his wares, not himself."

This was the starting gun for a charm offensive by American big business that included IBM president Thomas Watson Jr ("I think there is a world market for about five computers") going on a speaking tour organized by McKinsey & Co, where he told audiences that his company's billion dollar annual profits had convinced it to assume "responsibilities for the broader public welfare."

This set the template for a nationwide mania of "business statesmanship" that Fortune celebrated with an editorial announcing "a great transformation, of which the world as a whole is as yet unaware" that put the "profit motive…on its last leg."

Fortune then spent the next seventy years recycling this announcement, every time the tide went out on business's popularity. In 2019, Fortune platformed IBM president Ginni Rometty for an announcement that the company was orienting its priorities to the public good: "It’s a question of whether society trusts you or not. We need society to accept what it is that we do."

The occasion for Rometty's quote was a special package on the Trump tax-cuts, a trillion-dollar gift to American big business, which lobbyists for the Business Roundtable celebrated with an announcement that American capitalism would now serve "stakeholders" (not just shareholders). Fortune celebrated this "change" as "fundamental and profound."

Fast forward five years and corporate leaders are still telling stories, this time about "stakeholder capitalism" and "ESG" – the dread "woke capitalism" that has right-wing swivel-eyed loons running around, hair afire, declaring the end of capitalism.

For Williams and Lowenstein (and me), all this ESG, DEI, and responsible capitalism is just window dressing, a distraction to keep the pitchforks and torches in people's closets, and to keep the guillotines in their packaging. The right-wing is doing a mirror-world version of liberals who freak out when OpenAI claims to have built a machine that will pauperize every worker – assuming that a PR pitch is the gospel truth, and then repeating it in criticism. Criti-hype, in other words:

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

Think of ESG: the right is freaking out that ESG is harming shareholders by leaving hydrocarbons in the ground to appease climate-addled greenies. The reality is that ESG is barely disguised greenwashing, and it's fully compatible with burning every critter that died in the Mesozoic, Cenozoic, and lo, even the Paleozoic:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/15/sanctions-financing/#profiteers

The reason this tactic is so successful is that Americans have also been sold another narrative: that American problems are solved by American individuals as entrepreneurs and businesspeople, not as polities or as members of a union (let alone the working class!).

This is the subject of the second book Lowenstein reviews, One Day I’ll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion That Conquered America, by Benjamin Waterhouse:

https://wwnorton.com/books/one-day-ill-work-for-myself/

A keystone of American narrative capitalism is the idea that the USA is a nation of small businesspeople, Jeffersonian yeoman farmsteaders of the US economy. But even a cursory examination shows that the country is ruled – economically and politically – by very large firms.

Uber sells itself as a way to be your own boss ("No shifts. No boss. No limits.") – even though it's a system where the app is your boss, and thanks to that layer of misdirection, Uber gets to be the worst conceivable boss, while its workers have no recourse in labor law:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

In labor fights, Uber represents itself as the champion of innumerable "small businesspeople" who drive its unlicensed taxis. In consumer protection fights, Amazon claims to be fighting for "small businesspeople" who sell on its platform. In privacy fights, Facebook claims to represent "small businesspeople" who buy its surveillance advertising.

But large firms are actively hostile to small firms, seeing them as small-fry to be rooked or destroyed (recall that when Amazon targeted small publishers for bankruptcy-level discounts, they called the program "The Gazelle Project" and Bezos told his executives to tackle these firms "the way a cheetah pursues a sickly gazelle").

Decades of this tale have produced "a profound shift from a shared belief that individuals might come together to solve problems, into a collective faith in individual effort." America's long love-affair with rugged individualism was weaponized in the 1970s by corporations seeking to shed their regulatory obligation to workers, customers, and the environment.

As with Big Tech today, the big business lobby held up mom-and-pop businesses as the true beneficiaries of deregulation, even as they knifed these firms. A telling anecdote comes from someone who worked for the Chamber of Commerce's magazine Nation's Business: when this editor pointed out that many of the magazine's subscribers were small businesspeople and asked if they could start including articles relevant to mom-and-pops, the editor in chief said, "Over my dead body."

The neoliberal era has been an unbroken string of platitudes celebrating the small business and policies that annihilate their chances against large firms. Ronald Reagan's dewy-eyed hymns to American entrepreneurship sounded nice, but what matters is that he attempted to abolish the Small Business Administration and refused to address the 20,000 attendee "White House Conference on Small Business."

In the years since, American has sacrificed its small businesses while pulling out all the stops – bailouts and tax cuts and elite bankruptcy – to keep its largest firms growing. New regulations like Dodd-Frank were neutered in the name of saving mom-and-pop shops, even though the provisions that were cut already exempted small businesses.

Today, millions of Americans are treading water in a fetid stew of LLC-poisoning, rise-and-grind, multi-level-marketing, dropshipping and gig-work, convinced that the only way to get a better life is to pull themselves up by their bootstraps:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/10/declaration-of-interdependence/

Narrative does a lot of work here. The American economy runs on bubbles, another form of narrative capitalism. Take AI, a subject I sincerely wish I could stop hearing about, not least because I'm certain that 99% of that thinking is being wasted on whatever residue remains after the bubble pops:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

AI isn't going to do your job, but its narrative may convince your boss to fire you and replace you with a bot that can't do your job. Like what happened when Air Canada hired a chatbot to answer customer inquiries and it started making shit up about bereavement discounts that the company later claimed it didn't have to honor:

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/air-canada-s-chatbot-gave-a-b-c-man-the-wrong-information-now-the-airline-has-to-pay-for-the-mistake-1.6769454

This story's been all over the news for the past couple of days, but so far as I've seen, no one has pointed out the seemingly obvious inference that this chatbot probably ripped off lots of people. The victim here was extraordinarily persistent, chasing a refund for 10 weeks and then going to the regulator. This guy is a six-sigma self-advocate – which implies a whole bell-curve's worth of comparatively normal people who just ate the shit-sandwich Air Canada fed them.

The reason AI is a winning proposition for Air Canada isn't that it can do a customer service rep's job – it can't. But the AI is a layer of indirection – like the app that is the true boss of Uber drivers – that lets Air Canada demoralize the customers it steals from into walking away from their losses.

Nevertheless, the narrative that AI Will Change Everything Forever is powerful – more powerful than AI itself, that's for sure. Take this Bloomberg headline: "Nearly all wealth gained by world's rich this year comes from AI":

https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/nearly-all-wealth-gained-by-world-s-rich-this-year-comes-from-ai-124021600006_1.html

Dig in and you find even more narrative. The single largest beneficiary of AI stock gains last year was Mark Zuckerberg ($161B!). Zuck is American Narrative Capitalism's greatest practitioner: the guy who made billions peddling a series of lies, from "pivot to video" to "metaverse," leaping from one lie to the next just ahead of the mass stock-selloffs that wiped out lesser predators.

The Narrative Capitalism Cinematic Universe has a lot of side-plots like AI and entrepreneurship and woke capitalism, but its main narrative arc was articulated, ad nauseum, by Margaret Thatcher: "There is no alternative." This is the most important part of the story, the part that says it literally can't be otherwise. The only way to organize society is through markets, and the only way to organize markets is to leave them alone, no matter how much suffering they cause.

This is a baffling story, because it's so easily disproved. Zuck says the only way to have friends is to let him surveil you from asshole to appetite, even though he once ran Facebook as the privacy-forward alternative to MySpace, and promised never to spy on you:

https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1128876

Likewise, the business leaders – and their chorus of dutiful Renfields – who insist that monopoly is the natural and inevitable outcome of any market economy just handwave away the decades during which anti-monopoly enforcement actually kept most businesses from getting too big to fail and too big to jail.

I'm no champion of market efficiency – especially not as the best and final arbiter of social and economic questions – but when I hear my comrades repeating the Thatcherite claims that all forms of capitalism necessarily degrade into monopolistic quagmires, that there is no alternative, it sounds like more criti-hype.

This is a frequent point of departure during discussions of enshittification: some people dismiss the whole idea of enshittification as "just capitalism." But we had decades of digital services that either didn't degrade, or, when they did, were replaced by superior competitors with a minimum of switching costs for users who migrated from the decaying incumbent to greener pastures.

The reality is that while there are problems with all forms of capitalism, there are different kinds of capitalist problems, and some forms of capitalism are less harmful to working people and more capable of enacting and enforcing sound policy than others.

Enshittification is what happens when the constraints on the worst impulses of companies and their investors and managers are removed. When a company doesn't have competitors, when it can capture its regulators to trample our rights with impunity, when it can enlist those regulators to shut down would-be competitors who might free us from its "walled garden," and when it can fire any worker who refuses to enact harm upon the users they serve, then that company will enshittify:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

A company can be made to treat you well, even if it is run by a wicked person who sees you as a mark to be fleeced – that mustache twirler just has to be constrained – by competition, regulation, self-help and labor. He may still hate you and wish you harm, but he won't be able to act on it.

As MLK said:

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, religion and education will have to do that, but it can restrain him from lynching me. And I think that's pretty important also. And so that while legislation may not change the hearts of men, it does change the habits of men. And we see this every day.

#pluralistic #narrative capitalism #oligarchy #temporarily embarrassed millionaires #late-stage capitalism #enshittification #disenshittification #vocational awe #fobazi ettarh #ai #bubbles #bubblenomics #rise and grind #Benjamin C. Waterhouse #One Day I’ll Work for Myself #Kyle Edward Williams #Taming the Octopus #woke capitalism #llcs with mfas

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spineless-lobster · 3 months

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Okay so it is 1:20am and I should be going to bed but instead I’m gonna contribute to the endless conversation about how fucking fantastic the representation in hades is

Like as a queer person of colour I just get this massive wave of joy when I see my favourite characters look like me. Like I often forget how underrepresented people like me are in the media until I actually see it and it changes me fundamentally lol

Orpheus and eurydice have afros LIKE ME! Athena, ares, zeus and patroclus are black LIKE ME! Dusa is asexual and trans LIKE ME! Chaos is nonbinary LIKE ME! There’s also east/south asian representation via hermes and dionysus. And it’s all portrayed so casually, it’s not there to tick off a diversity box. Supergiant actually put thought and care into these designs and stories and that’s just so amazing to see especially within the gaming industry

To quote the creative director of supergiant from this article (which you should DEFINITELY check out)

“As we discussed and researched the Olympians from canon sources, something stood out that in retrospect was obvious: They’re called the Greek gods because they were worshiped in ancient Greece, not because they themselves are ethnically Greek.”

“Zeus rules all the heavens, not just the airspace over Greece, Poseidon rules all the sea and land. They sprang from the Titans, who sprang from primordial Chaos, the source of all creation. So it stands to reason that the gods represent all the people of the world, at least indirectly.”

Not only is it great to see sexuality represented but it’s represented well. Like everyone just knows zag is bi, there’s no coming out story and there’s no threat of discrimination. It’s just like yeah this is zagreus he likes men and women and pissing off his dad. When zag asks dusa about her body and she declines to talk about it he apologizes saying that he didn’t know any better. Everything is treated with so much respect it’s just so great

Again, my heart feels so full when I see portrayals like this. I looked in the mirror the other day and made a joke about how my hair looked like orpheus’ and that honestly made me so happy and giddy it was a little embarrassing lol

Anyways, I think I had more to say but I’m tired and my brain is foggy but I needed to rant about this because otherwise I might’ve exploded lmao

I just love this game so much

#I’m actually so giddy about this I need to go to bed lmao #hades game #hades supergiant

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fernthewhimsical · 25 days

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Hopepunk Primer pt. 2

Philosophy of Hopepunk

I cannot express this better than other people have done before me. So I'll start with an interview Kayti Burt had with several hopepunk authors in 2019.

"What is hopepunk? It depends on who you ask…

Rowland, quoting her essay “One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives,” says: “Hopepunk is a subgenre and a philosophy that ‘says kindness and softness don’t equal weakness, and that, in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion.’”

To understand hopepunk as a concept it helps to understand what it stands in contrast to. Grimdark is a fantasy subgenre characterized by bleak settings in which humanity is fundamentally cutthroat, and where no individual or community can stop the world’s inevitable decline. Hopepunk, in contrast, believes that the very act of trying has meaning, that fighting for positive change in and of itself has worth—especially if we do it together." [4]

When Alexandra Rowland was asked on Tumblr to expand on the initial statement she made she elaborated:

"Hopepunk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength. Hopepunk isn’t ever about submission or acceptance: It’s about standing up and fighting for what you believe in. It’s about standing up for other people. It’s about DEMANDING a better, kinder world, and truly believing that we can get there if we care about each other as hard as we possibly can, with every drop of power in our little hearts." [5]

I also love the definition of the Tumblr blog @hopepunk-humanity:

"What is Hopepunk?

Wild laughter from ragged throats

Flowers growing choked from crumbling asphalt

A warm bed after a long, hard journey

Your partner’s hand cupped in your own

Bright graffiti on cracked tunnel walls

The chains falling loose to the stone floor

A glint of silver beneath a century of tarnish

A long rain after a blistering wildfire

Just one more step, and then another

A single candle flame joining the stars against the night

A loved ones voice calling your name after hours lost in an unfamiliar place

A hand taking yours, just when you’d given up on reaching out

Smiling, laughing again, when you thought you’d forgotten how

Knowing, despite everything, that humans are inherently good

It’s not simply blind optimism, or naivety. It’s choice. It’s taking the human race by the hand and saying, “I will love you, because I am you”. It’s facing a world dripping with cynicism and fashionable hopelessness and saying, “no, I will not give in”. It’s putting kindness out into the world, knowing you might not get it back, knowing you may be scorned for it, knowing it might not change anything, but with a certainty that kindness is what the world needs the most.

It is choosing hope" [6]

Hopepunk is choosing hope in a world where they want us to have none. It's choosing humanity when they want us to forget we are human. It's choosing community when they would benefit of us staying individuals. It's choosing action and hope when they want us struck down and paralyzed.

Alexandra Rowland emphasizes to not forget the second part of the word: Punk. In another interview with Kayti Burt for Den of Geek she says: "it’s important to remember that punk is the operative half of the word – punk in the sense of anti-authoritarianism and punching back against oppression." and "The instinct is to make it only about softness and kindness, because those are what we’re most hungry for. We all want to be treated gently. But sometimes the kindest thing you can do for someone is to stand up to a bully on their behalf, and that takes guts and rage." [7]

What is Hopepunk to me?

That spark that is both love and spite that keeps me going. It's seeing the good in humanity, while also acknowledging the harm. It's refusing to lay down and die, refusing the accept the status quo, refusing to believe that this is it. It's believing in a better world. In kindness. In the inherent sense of community in humanity. It's believing in the power of stories. It's seeing kindness and hope as an act of Sacred Rebellion. And spreading that kindness and hope is a Vow that I have taken. It's taken the anger I have against corporations, injustice, bigotry, capitalism, oppression, and letting it fuel the fire within me in a constructive way. It's working to dismantle systems that are oppressive to work towards a more inclusive world. It's pruning the garden of dead weight so new things can grow. Late stage capitalism wants us all to be docile, to work, not to live. So I will shout my small joys from the rooftops. I will create for the sake of creating. I will practice radical acceptance so that I stand strong above the masses of ads that wants me to hate myself. I will choose to see the good so that I can believe change is possible. Hopepunk a fire that says "Rage. Rage against those who deserve it. Stand up for those who do not and show them a better world is possible."

[4] Den of Geek - Are you afraid of the darkness: a hopepunk explainer [5] Alexandra Rowland tumblr post [6] Hopepunk-humanity - what is hopepunk [7] Den of Geek - a hopepunk guide: interview with Alexandra Rowland

Part 1: Intro and history Part 2: Philosophy of Hopepunk Part 3: How to practice hopepunk and further reading Part 4: Extra! Hopepunk and magic

#witchblr #hope #hopepunk #personal #mine #divider by saradika

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yellobb · 1 year

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Thought you might like my college graduation cap @rainbowrowell 🥰

I had a very hard time picking what Simon Snow quote I wanted to use for this, so there’s some other grad cap designs below the cut that are free to steal, if anyone else wants to use them! You don’t have to, but it would be awesome if you tagged me if you end up using them so I can see 👀

There’s also a little love letter to the Simon Snow series, so proceed if you dare 😆

A. “Light a match inside your heart”

B. “May you fight your own battles and forge your own wings”

C. “It’s the good things that hurt when you’re missing them” featuring a border of building silhouettes from your campus

D. “Never let them tell you you’re not magic”

E. “I know that things will only get better if good people fight for what’s important” featuring a border of flowers (I know they don’t look like flowers here lol)

All quotes are courtesy of the wonderful Rainbow Rowell from the Simon Snow series :)

(I’m about to get mushy, so beware) Picking a quote from this series for my graduation cap was a no-brainer for me. This series has had an insane impact on my life, to the point where I genuinely don’t know where I’d be without it. From first picking Carry On up the week I turned 15, to having to physically restrain myself from reading WS in one sitting because it was my first hard week of college as a freshman, to reading AWTWB in one sitting the day it released despite being on a family vacation. From starting a sideblog, to making art and fics about it with my sister, and to looking through art or fics when I was having a panic attack to help me calm down. To the amazing community I’ve found online with the most talented and kind people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. My life has been fundamentally changed for the better because I decided to pick up Carry On in January 2016, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

#m draws #the simon snow series #simon snow #the simon snow trilogy #the crossed swords are supposed to be the sword of mages and the salisbury family sword #was gonna do a sword and a wand so Baz would get a shoutout too but I didn’t like it uneven #the blacked out part at the bottom is just my school logo so you’re not missing much #this was a blast to make!#spent four hours perfecting everything #drawing even and symmetrical stuff is HARD when it’s traditional art #and by god would my lettering keep straying crooked 😩

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indigovigilance · 7 months

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The Erasure of Human!Metatron

The elephant in the room is that Neil has [purportedly] denied the existence of a human Metatron. But I, for one, think an elephant really ties the room together. So let's get started.

First, I will address Neil Gaiman’s apparent denial of the Human!Metatron storyline (below the cut):

Caption: The Metatron in Good Omens wasn't ever human.

Which would seem to put the debate to bed.

Except.

Caption: That’s not really his father. It is. It is now, and it always was.

By Adam renouncing Satan as his father, we have in-story canon evidence that the past can be retroactively changed. So a storyline past can be divergent from an in-world past which has been modified. But only to a degree, because Aziraphale and Crowley clearly remember that Adam ~was~ Satan’s son, and Adam still retains some residual powers. Like pencil marks on paper, the past can be erased, but the shadow of its former self will always be there. But if that's not enough for you, there's also...

Lucifer!Satan

Neil Gaiman has also been pretty consistent with this characterization about the non-existence of the past in other characters, for example Lucifer!Satan:

Basically (not to be rude), if you think that these statements can be taken to mean that we will definitely not get a story about Enoch aka Human!Metatron in S3, you have fundamentally misunderstood how time, history, and identity work in Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens universe.

So what Neil said about Metatron never being human… can we just collectively set that aside for a moment?

Caption: Work with me, I’m extrapolating here. Yes? Good. Read the rest of the meta.

Evidence of Human!Metatron

Now that we have established that a former, no-longer-existing version of Metatron could have been human, let’s examine the in-world evidence. The best direct evidence is:

Caption: I’ve ingested things in my time, you know.

This is weirdly important in the Book of Enoch. Food is mentioned in the Book of Enoch at least fourteen times, and consistently it is associated with being human, and having earthly desires, and subsequently with sin, whereas the angels are described as not needing to eat food but instead being nourished by faith alone. Enoch!Metatron’s own relationship with food is also explicitly elucidated:

Enoch answered to his son Mathosalam (and) said: Hear, child, from the time when the Lord anointed me with the ointment of his glory, (there has been no) food in me, and my soul remembers not earthly enjoyment, neither do I want anything earthly.

I propose that "in my time" is a direct reference to Metatron's prior existence as a human, and the fact that this time is over serves to underscore his current inhumanity, making him all the more sinister.

Other Evidence Pointing to Book of Enoch

This next bit is somewhat dubious evidence, but the entire reason I wound up investigating this is that I was actually investigating Baraqiel:

…and for the God-fearing life of me, I cannot find any reference to Baraqiel except in the Book of Enoch. So this is a pretty big ✨Clue✨ to just leave hanging out there if it’s not supposed to lead us to this text.

The Scottish Mason

Okay guys, this the part where it all comes unhinged, but I promise the payoff is worth it.

The Book of Enoch was recovered from Ethiopia in 1773 by a Scottish explorer named James Bruce, who also happened to be a Mason. In 1774, upon his return, he was made a Fellow of The Royal Society of Edinburgh. And if this quote doesn’t get you, I don’t know what will:

Amazingly, Bruce brings back not just one copy, nor two, but three! Three copies of this text, which was previously thought to have been lost to the West forever. This inevitably led to all kinds of accusations as to where he had come by them, and more importantly how? Add to this that Bruce was a Mason in one of the most influential lodges, a Bruce descendant, and an imposing physical figure and 6 feet 4 inches tall, with dark red hair and an irascible temper, it is no wonder that so much excitement and mystery surrounded the man. [source]

So, you know, this guy:

In summary:

There are reasons that we should be looking to the Book of Enoch, and the story surrounding its reintroduction to the Western world, as source evidence for Good Omens S3.

If you enjoyed this, you may also like my meta on Baraqiel and Azazel, which draws upon the Book of Enoch.

My original (in retrospect, kind of terrible) Metatron meta is here.

#good omens meta #good omens #good omens 2 #the metatron #metatron #book of enoch #crowley #satan #lucifer #baraqiel #book of life #ivoc #erasure theory

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boredflautist · 24 days

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quotes that keep me alive

"all the people are fake, they're made out of metal. But I like you, and that is not fake" -young royals

"I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world." -song of achilles

"No one ever says goodbye unless they want to see you again." -turtles all the way down

"I want to be with you. If we have to keep it a secret then... So be it, if thats the only way... But no more secrets between us. I love you" -young royals

"Why does the word 'love' from you hurt me so damn much?" -Only Friends

"I've always thought Ray was my 25th hour, my extra hour. But the truth is, everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. And within Ray's 24 hours, I'm not part of it. I'm not that special." -Only Friends

"If I'm gone, I won't be anyone's burden anymore, right?" -Only Friends

"You were wearing corduroy, acting like a poster boy" -poster boy by Lyn Lapid

"I would recognize you in total darkness, were you mute and I deaf. I would recognize you in another lifetime entirely, in different bodies, different times. And I would love you in all of this, until the very last star in the sky burnt out into oblivion" -song of achilles

"Tell me every terrible thing that you ever did, and let me love you anyway" -edgar allan poe

"The closer I get to you, the worse it gets. The thought of not being with you... I can't breathe. I'm haunted by the kiss that you should never have given me. My heart is beating, hoping that that kiss will not become a scar. You are in my very soul, tormenting me... What can I do? I will do anything that you ask." -anakin skywalker

"If changin' my clothes would make you like me more, if changing my hair would make you care, then I'd grab the kitchen scissors and cut myself to slivers" -jigsaw by conan gray

"'Sorry' doesn't make up for everything you did to me." -heartstopper

"You were my brother Anakin. I loved you." -revenge of the sith

"The truth is what I make it. I could set the world on fire, and call it rain." -red queen

" But isn't it also that on some fundamental level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings in the same way that we are? We idolize them as gods or dismiss them as animals." -paper towns

"And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like 'I love you'" -somethin' stupid by frank sinatra

"Tell me it isn't true. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I'm blind. Tell me you love me. " -shatter me

"I do want to be your friend. I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and into the private world you keep trapped in your head. I want to be that kind of friend." -shatter me

"The truth is a painful reminder of why I prefer to live among the lies" -shatter me

"'Don't ask me questions you already know the answers to. Twice I've laid myself bare for you and all it's gotten me was a bullet wound and a broken heart. Don't torture me,' He says, meeting my eyes again. 'It's a cruel thing to do, even to someone like me.'" -shatter me

"Everything's a game, Avery Grambs. The only thing we get to decide in this life is if we play to win." -inheritance games

"The world was collapsing, and the only thing that really mattered to me was that she was alive." -the last olympian "You think I didn't fight the same fight? I halfway convinced myself that as long as Avery was just a riddle or a puzzle, as long as I was just playing, I'd be fine. Well, joke's on me, because somewhere along the way, I stopped playing." -the Hawthorne legacy

"When you're ready, if you're ever ready, if it's going to be me - just flip that disk. Heads, I kiss you." His voice broke slightly. "Tails, you kiss me. And either way, it means something." -the Hawthorne legacy

"Hell is empty, and all the devils are here" -william shakespeare

"But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all" -10 things I hate about you

"It's just like the novels, side characters end up alone" -footnote by conan gray

"You made us past tense," I said, my voice cracking, "not me." -betting on you

"Because when they write the history of my life, I want it to include you" -red white and royal blue

"My life is the crown, and yours is just politics, and I will not trade one prison for another" -red white and royal blue

"Or maybe it was when I realized the bruises on your neck were fingerprints and wanted to kill them all over again just so I could do it slowly. Maybe it was the first time I recklessly kissed you or when I realized I'm fucked because I can't stop thinking about doing more than just kissing you. Does it even matter when, as long as it changed between us?" -fourth wing

"Oh darling all of the cities lights, never shined as bright as your eyes" -car's outside by james arthur

"I would rather lose this entire war than live without you, and if that means I have to prove myself over and over again, then I'll do it. You gave me your heart and I'm keeping it." -iron flame

"Because pain in the body quiets the pain in your head. It feels good - like a kill switch for your brain" -kill switch

"Then take your punishment like the pathetic creature that you are" -cruel prince

"Most of all, I hate you because I think of you. Often. It's disgusting, and I can't stop." -cruel prince

"If you're the sickness, I suppose you can't also be the cure." -the wicked king

"I hate you. I hate you so much that sometimes I can't think of anything else." -the wicked king

"Yes, my sweet villain, my darling god. I will be as sober as a stone carving, just as soon as I can." -the wicked king

"She is my wife," Cardan says, his voice carrying over the crowd. "The rightful High Queen of Elfhame. And most definitely not in exile." -the queen of nothing

"By you, I am forever undone." -the queen of nothing

"Come home and shout at me. Come home and fight with me. Come home and break my heart, if you just. Just come home." -the queen of nothing

"I wasted all those yesterdays and am completely out of tomorrows" -they both die at the end

"For what it's worth, I doubt I will ever like anyone else in the world as much as I like you." -book lovers

"I'd never thought about my favorite color before. It never seemed important. Not until I looked into a pair of ocean-blue eyes and realized that perhaps drowning was a beautiful thing" -powerless

if you've made it to the end good god please get some sleep

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