Sven Slootweg (soft-deprecated) @joepie91@pixie.town

@smhoekstra The framing may not have been *intended*, but it was certainly there. I never said anything about communism, there was no reason to bring it into the conversation.

"Anything not capitalist is communist" is propaganda that is meant to dissuade criticism of capitalism, by painting anyone trying to *make* such criticism as an "undesirable" or "naive, not to be taken seriously".

I'm just not interested in engaging in any discussion on that premise. I have no reason to believe that anything I say will be taken seriously, and treated in any way other than patronizingly.

If that's not what you meant, then if you can clarify what you *did* mean (and provide a concrete point of disagreement or request of clarification about what I've explained earlier), I'd be happy to reevaluate. But as it stands, this just doesn't look like a discussion that's going to be productive.

@smhoekstra If I'm being completely honest, I don't think a useful further discussion is possible here at all if you immediately frame it as "corporations vs. communism".

That's an extremely simplified "party politics" view that leaves no space for analysis of power dynamics and structural/systemic problems in and of themselves. It steamrolls any deeper understanding.

@f0x I don't think people even read that far, which unfortunately seems to be the predictable consequence of a large amount of "town square"--minded folks coming into fedi who immediately go "instance blocking?? that's really over the top, unacceptable, outrage" without bothering to understand why it's a thing

@Dee I am so, so tired of this widespread sentiment of "we need to make corporations trust the platform and recognize our legitimacy"

And like, no? Just don't? Why on earth would you need the recognition of a bunch of shitty organizations that are destroying society and the planet at large? Who does this serve?

@jwildeboer @libreoffice@fosstodon.org Fucking hell. Them too?

@smhoekstra I'd argue that the problem is fundamental to companies of *any* size - just, like in any hierarchy, the ones lower in the hierarchy are not *yet* at a point where they can actually exert their power. But they are certainly vying for it, and it doesn't mean that they can't do a lesser amount of damage in the meantime.

Every big company started as a small company at some point. The problem is structural to the concept of a company itself.

@stragu Gee that sure sounds very, what's the word, centrist

@smhoekstra While there are quite a few issues with the concept of "psychopathy" itself, there are pretty strong arguments for companies (in the for-profit sense) being *fundamentally* like that, even.

As in, their entire purpose, their reason for existence, is to function that way where people couldn't/wouldn't get away with that. As a sort of unaccountable decisionmaking machine.

Likewise, capitalism is a fundamentally hierarchical system, for-profit companies are fundamentally designed to be capitalist, and therefore they are fundamentally strongly hierarchical - they *have* to be to fit into that ideology.

That's also why I'm arguing that companies can never be genuine community participants. Their primary priority is always, by design, to act selfishly.

@fuchsiashock Answer from someone elsewhere (permission to share, but requested to keep it anonymous):

"We've been considering separate logins but don't really have a reason to right now. One of my headmates has a separate phone but mostly because she has different sensory needs than the rest of us. We removed the haptic motor from that phone so it's safe for her to use"

@thufie But only when your locale is en_US, otherwise it's an angry printer beep

@ratwerks @jtolio@hachyderm.io Then, as I have exhaustively repeated by now, they should be prepared to be defederated from the existing community, and that should be the end of the conversation.

@MerlinJStar@weirder.earth Oh, huh! I never knew the second definition existed. Seems like an odd definition considering the word "math" :)