cabbage
@cabbage@piefed.social
- Comment on Are there any easy ways and methods for actually studying socialist theory and such? 5 hours ago:
I just remembered this amazing book: Why Not Socialism by Gerald A. Cohen.
Super nice and easy read, fantastic introduction. It has been years and years since I read it but I highly recommend it as an introduction.
- Comment on Leave big tech behind! How to replace Amazon, Google, X, Meta, Apple – and more 1 day ago:
This is probably a much more efficient “mention of the fediverse” than if the journalist had started trying to explain that there is this federated network of independent social media sites bla bla bla.
The people reading this are looking for something they can understand. I expect naming Mastodon and leaving it to them to check it out will convert more people than if they started trying to explain what it is.
I’m a bit weirded out by all the attention given to w-social.eu by mainstream media, though. First of all it doesn’t exist yet, second we have no reason to believe it will actually be decent, third we have good reason to believe it won’t be.
- Comment on Instagram says it will notify parents if teens ‘repeatedly’ search for terms related to suicide 2 days ago:
The neat thing about algorithmic social media is that content relating to suicide and self-harm inspires a lot of interaction among teenagers, causing it to be shoved in their faces whether they search for it or not.
Suicidal teenagers are not searching for suicide material on Instagram; Instagram is feeding suicide material to regular teenagers for ad views.
- Comment on UK fines Reddit $19 million for using children’s data unlawfully 3 days ago:
The kids would be the ones answering as well, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
I know a lot of people here come from Reddit, but I’m sure I’m not the only one here who grew up using old school phpBB forums to talk to other kids about random stuff online after school. My favorite forum was not in English and probably had fewer than 100 active members, and its by far the best experience I’ve had online. I didn’t bother much with other public social media before Mastodon.
I think at least some of us are dreaming of recreating that type of safe and fun online space, where it’s possible to create more close-knit (but nevertheless anonymous) communities. Reddit isn’t it, and I agree that it’s not good for children (or anyone) to be on there.
Whether the Fediverse could provide it remains an open question. It certainly comes with huge moderation challenges.
- Comment on Are there any easy ways and methods for actually studying socialist theory and such? 4 days ago:
I’m a bit sceptical of people who are too into “socialism as a government type” - they tend to develop fundamentalist ideas about what the perfect society should look like, and which means are justified in order to get there. Usually all means will be. To me socialism is at its best as a critique, allowing us to understand what’s going on in the world and how to fight it piece by piece instead of trying to construct some ideal society based on a feeble understanding of reality.
- Comment on Are there any easy ways and methods for actually studying socialist theory and such? 4 days ago:
I guess what is considered easy is very subjective. I seriously think Marx’ Manifesto of the Communist Party is not a bad place to start. It’s everything Capital is not: short, easy to read, somewhat superficial.
I’d say the historical analysis is at the core of marxism as much as the economic one, and it’s summarized perfectly right from the start:
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
Make sure to take a second to reflect on this and the Soviet Union and the failure of Marxist-Leninism. It was not the end of history, but another common ruin. Which brings me to the biggest problem of studying socialist theory: The line between theory and propaganda is often blurred. The Manifesto of the Communist Party itself, thought-provoking as it is, is a pamphlet made for wide circulation, and more propaganda than academic work. Marx’ understanding of history revolves around how proletarian revolts such as the Soviet Union go wrong and end up reproducing existing power structures. Yet many of today’s self-proclaimed Marxists are somehow blind to this and end up tricking themselves with all sorts of mind games.
That’s why I think it’s important to start with Marx himself. Understand his view of history and his criticism of the economy, and reflect on what it means for what you see in history since it was written. It still holds, though the theory itself has become weaponized in the very historical and economical dynamics he is describing. If you understand this independently you’re less likely to become a sucker who falls for propaganda.
And of course, Marx wasn’t a god, and he didn’t get it all right. I personally think the main problem is his understanding of history as having an “end” (a teleological account) - Marx believed every class revolt would lead us slightly closer to a classless society, and that eventually we would get there. This builds on Hegel, who had a similar understanding of history rooted in religion rather than communism. I think this is plain wrong - things very well might just get worse, and there is no end of history. But that’s me.
Of course one shouldn’t focus only on Marx, but I feel like he’s important enough that it’s worth taking him seriously. And with all the stupid takes people have on his work, I think it’s a good idea to go straight to the source.
- Comment on Ladybird Browser adopts Rust, with help from AI 5 days ago:
I would of course love to see ladybird succeed, but it has seemed problematic from the start in my opinion. Servo seems much more serious.
I also like that Servo is developing an engine, not a browser as such. Seems like a good idea to keep the two separated.
- Comment on Peter Thiel and other tech billionaires are publicly shielding their children from the products that made them rich 6 days ago:
I can imagine he has access to crazy surveillance of them and their mothers.
- Comment on AI Agent Lands PRs in Major OSS Projects, Targets Maintainers via Cold Outreach 1 week ago:
I don’t fully understand this shit out of a lack of really caring, but wouldn’t it be fully possible for an “AI agent” to create a crypto wallet on its own, scam some people to get money into it, and then just lose access and have the money pretty much just lost?
And if that happens, where does the money go? Into crypto “stock” in whichever coin it invests in?
What a stupid future we’re building.
- Comment on ‘Pure bullshit’: Macron slams tech giants’ claim they are defending free speech 1 week ago:
He does some good things and some bad things. Don’t fall for simplistic thinking where everything and everyone is either good or evil.
When fighting to tax the rich, Macron is not an ally. When fighting to regulate American big tech he can be an ally, and it would be stupid not to use him as such.
- Comment on Buy From EU (Zionist Free Alternative) 1 week ago:
Gives me a nice flashback to this interaction, which caused me to be permanently banned from !europe@feddit.org for the following (since deleted) comment, which I backed up with reliable sources in the part of the thread that remains online:
insufficient avenues for engagement beyond voting.
Funny what banning protests does to a country.
Funny what banning free thinking does to an instance, I guess.
- Comment on Brave CEO claims news about Brave Browser tracking its users is “fake news” 1 week ago:
It’s all about the marketing and nothing about the technology or company.
I opened google for the first time in months (years?) to check out the results for “best private browser”. Predictably, the AI overview confidently responds as follows:
The best private browsers in 2026 for enhancing online anonymity and blocking trackers are Tor Browser, Brave, and Mullvad Browser. For maximum privacy with high security, Tor is top, while Brave is best for daily, fast browsing. Mullvad is ideal for anti-fingerprinting, and LibreWolf offers excellent privacy for Firefox users.
I would be very surprised if Brave did not at least at some point sponsor content to position itself as privacy oriented. This hidden advertisement then bleeds into both AI and human armchair experts with no deeper understanding of the tech they’re commenting on. And so the myth that Brave has good privacy becomes self-enforcing.
- Comment on Brave CEO claims news about Brave Browser tracking its users is “fake news” 1 week ago:
- Comment on ai;dr | (ai; didn't read) 2 weeks ago:
So you’re saying they should polish their text to make it more coherent? Huh.
- Comment on A Podcast Episode about the Fediverse 2 weeks ago:
Here! -> !firesidefedi@tubefree.org
- Comment on What are we being distracted from? 2 weeks ago:
You’re being distracted from actually doing something.
A constant stream of awful bullshit, right to your screen. The feeling of doing something by shouting into the abyss.
Trump doesn’t care if you see pictures of him raping children or learn about all his corruption unless it is transformed into actual political action. Taking to the street, organizing, running for office, supporting those who do.
Everything is a distraction from action.
- Comment on What should I NOT do in front of rich people? 2 weeks ago:
For real. Whenever I eat (Italian) pizza normally around a bunch of freaks using knife and fork I just silently rejoice about my superior cultural capital.
And if OP is American, chances are those people don’t even know how to use a knife and fork properly.
- Comment on Revealed: How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters— Site takes a cut of subscriptions to content that promotes far-right ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism 2 weeks ago:
But the evangelical Christians want the Jews to trigger the rapture by fighting the final huge war in israel, and I imagine the antisemites are also fine with the Jews all being sent away to israel for then to be sent off to fight a senseless war to their deaths.
Somehow they managed to start off from different angles and both end up wanting Jews to die.
- Comment on Flock CEO calls Deflock a “terrorist organization” 3 weeks ago:
This guy couldn’t sound more fascist if he broke into German 1930s marching songs. This video should be used in education.
- Comment on YSK that everything the New York Times about Donald Trump actually happened 3 weeks ago:
It’s an exaggeration at least, but it’s true that the regime friendly billionaire class has a lot of influence over some extremely popular media channels. The firings and changes made in Washington Post and more recently CBS are interesting case studies.
And of course many newsrooms make questionable decisions even if they are not fascist. I have little to no respect left for the New York Times, but I still believe they’re independent enough and have enough talented staff to produce important journalism.
ProPublica is the bees knees.
- Comment on YSK that everything the New York Times about Donald Trump actually happened 3 weeks ago:
I think this is getting to the core of how Trump has been so successful. Every important story is drowned out by an endless flood of shit. Good journalism still exists, but it has gotten almost impossible to find as news channels rush to cover the latest distraction Trump is up to. The real stories drown in the bullshit.
Long story short I think it’s possible to pay attention and nevertheless miss out on important stories, due to the fundamental flaws of the information ecosystem. It’s really only necessary to write one story about something like this, but whatever Trump is up to gets a new story every hour.
- Comment on You won: Microsoft is walking back Windows 11’s AI overload — scaling down Copilot and rethinking Recall in a major shift 3 weeks ago:
I had no idea - that’s really cool!
Germans also seem to be privacy oriented people, I can imagine this combined with recent developments could have a real impact.
- Comment on You won: Microsoft is walking back Windows 11’s AI overload — scaling down Copilot and rethinking Recall in a major shift 3 weeks ago:
0 to 1 percent: 22 years
1 to 2 percent: 8 years
2 to 3 percent: 2 years
3 to 4 percent: more unstable, but between 1 and 3 yearsI would say it’s an encouraging trend.
- Comment on You won: Microsoft is walking back Windows 11’s AI overload — scaling down Copilot and rethinking Recall in a major shift 3 weeks ago:
When I started using Linux in 2009 it had around 0.6 percent market share on desktop. Windows had 95%.
Today Windows is measured below 68%, and Linux has been measured above 4% by statcounter.com.
These things move faster the more people make the change. Linux only reached 1% in 2013, 2% in 2021, 3% in 2023, and 4% was somehow first measured already in 2024. For every single person making the switch it becomes easier for others to do the same, and companies consider Linux support to be a little bit more important. One can only wonder at which percentage of market share it will be offered as a mainstream alternative when buying a new computer, but it seems pretty clear that we’re getting there.
I guess my point is that we all won when you ditched Windows. Thanks for that.
- Comment on Nudify Apps Widely Available in Apple and Google App Stores 4 weeks ago:
Just doodle it yourself in a sketchbook like creeps have been doing for centuries
- Comment on Nudify Apps Widely Available in Apple and Google App Stores 4 weeks ago:
Well yes of course! If we don’t track the identity of every single person on the internet, how can we possibly prevent children from accessting these child pornography generators?!
Imagine the horror if twelve-year-olds were exposed to seeing the pornographic pictures Grok generates of them! The horror!
Ideally women and children should be banned from the internet entirely, so that brave pioneering men like Musk and co can be left to pornographize them in peace.
- Comment on Pope Leo XIV brings not peace but a sword to AI oligarchs and a slop-mad world in new address, says it's 'Turning people into passive consumers of unthought thoughts' 4 weeks ago:
Turning people into passive consumers of unthought thoughts
Interesting contrast to the church itself, which turns people into passive consumers of thoughts that have been processed for centuries.
- Comment on Why are americans taking health advice from a former heroin addict ? 4 weeks ago:
Yeah, “from a guy with a dead worm in his brain” would make for a better question.
- Comment on ICE Agents pepper spray, beat up, and kill a person, after forcefully capturing him. 4 weeks ago:
Going out guns blazing will be seen as an escalation, even if that’s what they’re doing already. That’s just the reality of the situation. Hell, they’re currently trying to justify their killings with arguments such as “he held a phone” and “her foot fell on the gas after she died”, and parts of Trump’s base are nevertheless buying it. If anyone actually came at them with weapons they would be having a blast.
You don’t end violence with violence against footsoldiers.
Pressure against the regime works. Trump and Vance are not afraid of ICE agents getting killed, they would be overly excited about it. They are not, however, excited to see the country rise in pritest against their fascist takeover.
- Comment on ICE Agents pepper spray, beat up, and kill a person, after forcefully capturing him. 4 weeks ago:
I’m just saying that the fact that America tends to lose its wars is very meager comfort for those on the receiving end of them. You can’t really win a war as a civilian.
Protests and strikes are working. Organize locally in a positive and constructive manner (maybe get active in a union? Do you still have those over there?), build community and dedicate time and effort to that. Be the opposite of the fascists, don’t just echo their ideas of violence.
It might not feel so badass, but you’ll do more good as a living organizer than as a dead agitator.