General politics
So here's an observation I had some time ago that I feel is very obvious and cannot be original, but I don't recall anyone else having said it:
The goal of capitalists is not to maximize their profit in absolute numbers. The goal of capitalists is to make as much *more* money than everyone else as possible, because having more money gives them power, which is the true goal. If they make everybody worse off including themselves, that still serves their ends as long as the disparity of wealth and power is increased.
Pointing out how businesses would be more profitable if they treated workers well misses the point. They would have more money, yes, but their workers would have more power, and that can't be allowed to happen.
I've just read the latest Nix community trash fire^W^Wopen letter (https://save-nix-together.org).
The commentary on Eelco sitting on leadership roles and not doing anything + not allowing contributions fully reflects my experience with joining the #NixOS infra team. When I expressed interest to join the infra team when it was clearly understaffed and malfunctioning, this was blocked for **6 months** by Eelco, even though I was supported by the foundation board member nominally in charge of infra.
SimpleX
In case you were considering SimpleX, this is an actual quote from its founder, in response to criticism about their misleading marketing:
"Most marketing is to some extent exaggeration, and you are saying that we are not allowed to exaggerate at all."
Certainly not someone I would trust with private communications, with that attitude.
(Source: https://github.com/markqvist/Reticulum/discussions/367#discussioncomment-9088499)
I originally started using it for its auto timetabling feature, but it turns out to have a lot of other cool stuff!
Also, if you've been playing OpenTTD and hadn't heard of JGRPP (JGR's Patch Pack) yet, you *really* want to try that - it has a ton of quality-of-life improvements and I don't think I'd want to play without it again (if you're using NixOS, it's packaged as openttd-jgrpp)
Honestly, #OpenTTD is such a good game
@smveerman Yikes...
@sindarina I wonder how far you'd get with some tiny "autonomous" robots (PCBs on wheels basically) that do nothing but randomly wander around things-that-look-like-sidewalks and emit a MAC address
Your reminder that posting fascist shit with a 'dunking' caption is still posting fascist shit
treingeweld
@StroomAfwaarts Het gaat niet om redenen, maar om oorzaken. Dingen hebben oorzaken ongeacht of die oorzaken als rechtvaardiging kunnen fungeren; en met alleen maar zeggen "dit willen we niet" los je het probleem niet op.
Sinds een artikel van de Correspondent benoemde hoe berichtgeving over verkeersongelukken altijd de nadruk legt op de fietser/voetganger maar nooit op de bestuurder van het motorvoertuig, al dan niet via passief taalgebruik, kan ik het niet meer ont-zien.
Echt bizar hoe wijdverspreid dit fenomeen is. Nagenoeg 100% van de nieuwsberichten, zelfs van de partijen die *niet* van het ANP overnemen, heeft dit probleem.
musings about how the web used to be better, long
I often see people musing about how the web used to be so much better two decades ago, and while I don't disagree...
I think it's important to realize that we're remembering the *good* parts of the web back then; the parts that provided us with community and a sense of togetherness.
But there was widespread corporate meddling in communities back then, too. There was plenty of co-opting going on, too. There were a ton of unsustainable exploitative tech companies too - that's what the dotcom bubble *was*. Even the oft-lauded things like webrings often had commercial encroachment going on.
What made the web good back then wasn't the absence of shitty corporations. It was people building and finding community *in spite of* shitty corporations and hostile environments.
Yes, there's a subtly different set of problems on the web today. But what really makes the situation different isn't that the environment is more hostile now; it's that people have, by and large, given into it.
The way we fix the web is not by musing about former greatness, or by trying to replicate old protocols. We fix the web by *taking* it back, and that goes well beyond "being on the fediverse". It means taking on a subversive attitude towards the established systems again, and deliberately not playing along with them, in every way we can.
And, ultimately, making it so that we don't *need* corporations anymore to keep communities alive, make them obsolete. And hopefully fix things for the long term, this time. And yes, that is going to involve anti-capitalism somewhere along the way.
The fediverse is a good first step. But it is only that. And now it is time to organize further.
@msw My first thought upon reading this was "wait, there's yet another Misskey fork??"
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.
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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.