Soms stuit je op een artikel waaraan werkelijk niets is af te dingen. Dit is er zo een. “Rijke mensen zuigen de rest van de bevolking uit.”
Schrijver Jamal Ouariachi draait er geen doekjes om: Nederland is een verzorgingsstaat voor de rijken, gefinancierd door de armen.
Hij prikt door de bullshit van trickle down economics, alsof de rijkdom van een kleine groep op den duur positieve economische effecten oplevert voor een veel grotere groep.
Niet dus: “Oxfam rapporteerde in januari dat de vijf rijkste mensen ter aarde hun fortuin in de afgelopen vier jaar hadden verdubbeld, terwijl de 60 procent armsten ter wereld — bijna vijf miljard mensen — erop achteruitgingen. Er bestaan veel van zulke statistieken, en allemaal laten ze hetzelfde zien: de ongelijkheid neemt toe.”
Om nog maar niet te spreken over hun enorme CO2-uitstoot en energieverbruik versus de omgekeerd minimale belasting die zij betalen: fors minder dan alle andere bevolkingsgroepen.
Extreemrechtse populisten spelen hierin een belangrijke rol als ‘bruikbare idioten’:
“De populist zal nooit naar de werkelijke veroorzaker van de problemen wijzen (rijke mensen!), maar naar een makkelijke zondebok. Zo wordt de ene groep mensen met weinig inkomen opgestookt tegen de andere groep mensen met weinig inkomen: de arme autochtoon versus de arme migrant.”
Migratie is nu de obsessie, terwijl ondertussen het geld van rijke mensen goed bewaakt wordt: “De verhoging van de brandstofaccijns is uitgesteld (rijken gebruiken nu eenmaal meer brandstof dan armen), de vermogensbelasting gaat omlaag, er komt belastingvrije inkoop van eigen aandelen, en zo zijn er nog meer luxe-cadeautjes.”
Meer van dit, please.
https://www.trouw.nl/opinie/nederland-is-een-verzorgingsstaat-voor-de-rijken-gefinancierd-door-de-armen~bdf3d3e0 (https://archive.ph/d4Cj2)
#armoede #rijkdom #kapitalisme #BreekDeKetens #BekenKleur #KomBIJ1
re: mastodon meta question
@jacksonchen666 (and now I'm wondering how many replies I have missed due to this)
re: mastodon meta question
@jacksonchen666 That's... very weird, and unexpected, and I'm not really a fan of it... that seems like an easy way to make people feel like they're getting ignored for no reason :/
meta discussion
@godotengine (Huh. This message somehow never made it into my notifications.)
Right. To explain a bit more where I'm coming from: it was specifically the comment of "I will always be justified to ask for better workflows whenever and wherever I want" (and the sense of entitlement and disregard for others that it implies) that set off red flags for me, up until then I just felt "that's kind of a weird demanding comment to make but probably no ill intent".
The software development world needs a serious reconsideration as to its priorities and metrics, honestly.
The survey also found that remote workers were 23 percent more likely to say they have "a psychologically and emotionally healthy workplace," 19 percent were more likely to cite "high levels of cooperation," and 18 percent were more likely to say that people avoid office politics and backstabbing.
Tangentially, I feel like there's a pretty strong correlation between "arguing that the standard library of a language should be extensive" and the problem of "popular things are often those that superficially sound like they have a lot of features, even if it comes at the expense of reliability, maintainability, complexity, etc.".
The latter is often recognized as a problem around here (and rightly so). It saddens me that the former then gets missed so often by the same people.
@halfy (I mean, there *are* some meaningful differences, but... all of the fundamental ones are in favour of putting *less* stuff in the standard library, and that's rarely the thing that people are loudly clamoring for)
@halfy I mean, endless discussions could be had (and are in fact had!) about the "right" amount of stuff in a standard library. It's a favourite bikeshed.
But does it even matter what's in the standard library if it's trivial to manage libraries anyway? What's the meaningful difference between 'standard library' and 'installed library' anyway?
I will never understand people complaining about JS (or any other language, for that matter) on the grounds that it doesn't have some very specific thing "in the standard library".
That's what a package manager is for, friend. So that you don't need to ship everyone's kitchensink with the language runtime whether you need it or not.
@hazelnot I did not! Thanks :)
@hazelnot I do mix-and-match languages quite a lot, but not just when speaking with Dutch folks; I likewise tend to use Dutch idioms when speaking to non-Dutch folks and then translate/explain them. That's what ended up working best for me, and also nicely counterbalances the cultural imperialism thing a bit.
@hazelnot Tangent: personally I've found that Dutch is better at emotional and metaphorical language, whereas English is better at explanatory language.
I therefore can't help but see "Dutch is cringe" in light of the increasing individualism and suppression of emotions in the culture here...
@hazelnot Well, I wouldn't say everyone speaks *good* English. It's true that any one person you speak to in NL is likely to be able to communicate with you in English, but it's going to be pretty stilted outside of the major city centers especially.
It's likely true that younger generations are more likely to grow up speaking English commonly, mainly due to there not really being any Dutch social media left, but that's only really younger generations.
@hazelnot Oh, Marcel Vos' accent isn't even that bad. You should hear the typical Dutch person :)
The reality is that a large chunk of the population just doesn't ever interact with English-language communities unless the subject is the Netherlands (for nationalism reasons), so "Dutch people in English communities" end up being a very narrow demographic that speaks unusually good Dutch.
Saw someone elsewhere assert that Britain is “one of the least corrupt countries in the world”, and couldn’t let that go unchallenged, so here’s what I said:
Only because of this one weird loophole, which I will explain below:
For the last decade, the previous government has been awarding public contracts for infrastructure, etc, to what are essentially shell companies run by their mates. These companies then do the bare minimum for as long as possible, which if you drive round the UK, is why you see all those road “improvement” works which do nothing and take forever and never seem to have anyone working. It took two years to replace a roundabout with a set of traffic lights near my apartment, for example. Other examples: large amounts of “PPE equipment” during Covid which turned out to be useless junk.
Obviously they aren’t actually spending anything but a trivial amount going through the motions, so what happens to the rest of the money, which let’s remember, was raised by taxes.
Well, it gets donated back to the ruling party as “political donations”, and then if the pretend contractor does a good enough job of this, they get an knighthood, or even a seat in the House of Lords for “services rendered”.
Now you might think that this sounds corrupt, and you would be right. It sounds deeply corrupt, but apparently it’s not because a lot of the global agencies which work out corruption indices are based in, checks notes, London, and are probably in on the scam, and get to define what “corruption” means, and define it to mean, “not this”.
Et voila! You have a country with one of the biggest wealth gaps in Europe funnelling vast amounts of public money to populist spaffers in government, all legal, laundered and sanitised.
The whole of UK society is like this. It’s how it works, and once you see it you either join in, or walk away in disgust.
In the process of moving to @joepie91. This account will stay active for the foreseeable future! But please also follow the other one.
Technical debt collector and general hype-hater. Early 30s, non-binary, ND, poly, relationship anarchist, generally queer.
- No alt text (request) = no boost.
- Boosts OK for all boostable posts.
- DMs are open.
- Flirting welcome, but be explicit if you want something out of it!
- The devil doesn't need an advocate; no combative arguing in my mentions.
Sometimes horny on main (behind CW), very much into kink (bondage, freeuse, CNC, and other stuff), and believe it or not, very much a submissive bottom :p
My spoons are limited, so I may not always have the energy to respond to messages.
Strong views about abolishing oppression, hierarchy, agency, and self-governance - but I also trust people by default and give them room to grow, unless they give me reason not to. That all also applies to technology and how it's built.