FlyingCircus
@FlyingCircus@lemmy.world
- Comment on ‘I’m a modern-day luddite’: Meet the students who don’t use laptops 1 week ago:
I hate how the term Luddite has been co-opted as a blanket term for someone who rejects technology for any reason. The original Luddites were a labor movement who were angry that technology was taking people’s livelihoods while society was doing nothing to prevent those people from becoming destitute.
Kinda exactly how AI is going to fuck over a lot of people while primarily benefiting the rich people who own it.
- Comment on There is no good reason why there is still homelessness and poverty 2 weeks ago:
Those are the worldwide numbers for starvation and preventable disease, roughly.
- Comment on There is no good reason why there is still homelessness and poverty 2 weeks ago:
Right, and my point is that it’s not surprising that you don’t see that evidence (assuming you live in the US or elsewhere in the imperial core), given the effects that class dynamics have on social behavior. By its very nature capitalism alienates people and turns them into individualist consumers. If you travel to more communally-minded places, it’s clear that human nature is very much place- and context- dependent.
- Comment on There is no good reason why there is still homelessness and poverty 2 weeks ago:
Because countries didn’t exist when humanity’s mode of production was primitive communism, and then since the agricultural revolution the means of production has always been held by individuals, which necessarily creates at least two classes, those who have, and those who have not.
There have been a few attempts by the people to seize the means of production, but they have always existed within the context of a global class system that prevents any attempt at a truly classless society. (IE, a strong centralized state is necessary to survive reactionary attempts to take back control, but a strong state creates a class system of those who have control vs those who don’t.)
Most Marxists actually acknowledge that after a socialist revolution you will still have class contradictions that society will have to work through, like the potential abuses a strong state can inflict. We generally agree though, that the key first step to creating a classless society is getting the means of production out of the hands of private individuals.
- Comment on There is no good reason why there is still homelessness and poverty 2 weeks ago:
Maybe. We’ve also never had a classless country, so we don’t know for certain how very large groups of humans interact when we are free from the exploitation, division, and oppression that is inherent to class structures.
- Comment on There is no good reason why there is still homelessness and poverty 2 weeks ago:
Every year capitalists kill 10 million people by withholding food, medicine, and clean water. All because it isn’t profitable to them personally.
- Comment on There is no good reason why there is still homelessness and poverty 2 weeks ago:
It turns out capitalism actively disincentives cooperation. Cooperation is how humanity became the dominant life form. We’re fucking great at it when we don’t have a bunch of leeches siphoning off our surplus value and using that wealth to turn us against each other.
- Comment on It's been downhill since 2020 2 weeks ago:
9/11 also marks the end of western hegemony as the West destabilized the world and ruined its reputation as a force for good in its pursuit for revenge, leading to the rise of BRICS and other anti-imperial coalitions.
9/11 also coincides with peak imperialism, the final stage of capitalism, which marks the point when increasing exploitation abroad has diminishing returns so capitalists must begin devouring the imperial core, leading to stagflation, enshittification, rent-seeking, and other parasitic activities. This in turn leads to an economically struggling population of former petit-bourgeois, which is a class condition that is especially susceptible to reactionary propaganda, leading to the rise of fascism.
Historians will almost certainly mark 9/11 as the beginning of the end of the American Empire.
- Comment on It's been downhill since 2020 2 weeks ago:
The overwhelming majority of Democrats also voted for the Patriot Act. Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin.
- Comment on The Browser Wasn’t Enough, Google Wants To Control All Your Software 3 weeks ago:
I’m not sure how you came to that conclusion based on what I wrote, but my suggestion is to not let companies escape consequences for shitty things they do simply because regulators fail to be effective at their jobs. Legally allowed is not the same as morally acceptable.
- Comment on The Browser Wasn’t Enough, Google Wants To Control All Your Software 4 weeks ago:
When our policymakers take direction from capitalists, it’s ok to blame to capitalists.
- Comment on [PDF] Tesla is slow in reporting crashes and the feds have launched an investigation to find out why 5 weeks ago:
Tesla knows immediately when one of its vehicles crashes because the vehicle sends Tesla HQ a detailed crash report that it then deletes from the car’s local storage. Wish I was making this up.
- Comment on Wealth inequality seems like the only outcome in a system where capital gains are taxed less than labor 5 weeks ago:
It’s worse than that. Wealth inequality is inevitable in any system that allows private ownership of the means of production. Marx wrote about this in great detail.
- Comment on UN plastic pollution treaty talks floundering 1 month ago:
The rich and powerful would be ecstatic with an extinction event. Fewer people means the odds are better for them.
For the rich, a true extinction event would be workers gaining class consciousness. They’d rather that everyone dies than that happen.
- Comment on Imagine not being able to shower, because AI slop generator machines need that water! 1 month ago:
It’s not vandalism, it’s direct action. Or sabotage, if you consider this to be a time of war (which it undoubtedly is — a class war). Don’t use the enemy’s language against ourselves.
- Comment on [Update: Valve Responds] Mastercard Denies Pressuring Steam To Censor 'NSFW' Games 1 month ago:
You know that American conservatives have been banning books from libraries, and banning topics like racism and homophobia from being talked about in schools, right? American conservatives love censoring anything they don’t agree with. They are the original snowflakes.
I suspect your butt is just chapped because you can’t drop a hard “r” on BlueSky.
- Comment on [Update: Valve Responds] Mastercard Denies Pressuring Steam To Censor 'NSFW' Games 1 month ago:
Well that’s why I didn’t say “leftists.” But if we’re continuing to be honest, leftist governments also censor. I don’t think you can find any ideology that doesn’t censor, actually.
- Comment on [Update: Valve Responds] Mastercard Denies Pressuring Steam To Censor 'NSFW' Games 1 month ago:
Tbh liberals love censorship as much as conservatives (see the proscription of Palestine Action in the UK).
But it’s a bit silly saying you are going to vote for a conservative because a conservative group is censoring you.
- Comment on [Update: Valve Responds] Mastercard Denies Pressuring Steam To Censor 'NSFW' Games 1 month ago:
Collective Shout is a conservative organization you numbskull.
- Comment on It's all connected 1 month ago:
It’s far more plausible that his administration ignored a credible threat to allow a security incident to use as justification. Similar to how Israel ignored intelligence of October 7.
- Comment on You wanted the secret to getting rich? Here it is 2 months ago:
Henry Ford still underpaid people for their labor. That is the fundamental key to capitalism. Profit is surplus labor that capitalists steal from laborers.
- Comment on I totally missed the point when PeerTube got so good 2 months ago:
Asking ChatGPT isn’t research.
- Comment on Plant Slurs 2 months ago:
Pampas grass is actually super invasive in certain areas (like all of California).
- Comment on Plant Slurs 2 months ago:
The idea of “weeds” is a colonialist construct.
- Comment on Welcome to the Labour police state 2 months ago:
I learned about this through an interview with a PA member on Rev Left Radio: …libsyn.com/palestine-action-direct-action-agains…
- Comment on Welcome to the Labour police state 2 months ago:
Sabotaging the tools of genocide should be supported by everyone who isn’t a monster.
- Comment on Welcome to the Labour police state 2 months ago:
Their latest action was against the planes, but they have actually been extraordinarily successful at damaging the economic machine behind the genocide through targeted and sustained sabotage campaigns against Elbit Systems weapons manufacturer and their supporters, like Barclays Bank. They have already forced the closure of two weapons factories and forced Barclays to divest. It is most likely this sustained campaign that is the real reason for the terrorist designation, though the action at Brize Norton was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back.
- Comment on In 6 hours it will be illegal to say "I support Palestine Action" in the UK, with a sentence of up to 14 years in prison. 2 months ago:
If you’re serious, no, not all good. By UK law any organization led by the same people will automatically be labeled a terrorist organization.
- Comment on In 6 hours it will be illegal to say "I support Palestine Action" in the UK, with a sentence of up to 14 years in prison. 2 months ago:
They are doing this because Palestine Action has been incredibly effective. They have already forced the closure of two factories in England that produce arms for Israeli defense company Elbit and forced Barclays Bank to divest through sustained sabotage campaigns. No person has been hurt by their actions, yet these actions have cost the genocide supporters millions of pounds and caused months-long disruptions to the production of weapons used in ethnic clean songs around the globe (Elbit weapons are fueling not just the Palestine ethnic cleaning, but Kashmir and DRC, too).
- Comment on Is anyone else not feeling that patriotic for July 4? 2 months ago:
If you want to be effective at changing the system, killing random ICE Nazis won’t do it. Everyone here is advocating peaceful protest, but that also won’t do it - or at least, not by itself.
Instead, consider direct action - sabotage of the means of production that prop up the fascist state.
Take a listen to Rev Left’s interview with Palestine Action to learn what I’m talking about: revolutionaryleftradio.libsyn.com/size/5/?search=…