A billionaire is someone who could lift thousands of families out of poverty without any noticeable impact on themselves, and has chosen not to.
#TaxBillionaires
people misunderstanding worker's rights
it's very frustrating when people don't get that "they can't ask you that" when hiring is, functionally, meaningless
like, "oh, you don't have to tell a recruiter about why you left your last job, or why there's a gap in your résumé"
sure, and they also don't have to hire me. recruiters can ask me whatever they want and unless I have a good answer I can be cut off as a candidate immediately, regardless of whether I'm "required" to answer.
all of these regulations, especially including anti-discrimination laws, are functionally meaningless while employers are still free to ignore anyone for any other reason. it's only effective if you explicitly list what people are allowed to do and punish them from straying from that list, which has its own set of problems.
while people are forced to work, employers have all the power, even if they're "not supposed to"
rollercoaster of a day today
Oh, and a sign. Can't forget the sign. But that's mounted on a telescopic broomstick, so that's easy to transport.
rollercoaster of a day today
Planned to go out today for my first attempt at 'political street conversations' - basically, plopping down some chairs and a table with coffee and tea in the city center, and talking to random people who feel 'left behind' in some way, to build community and 'update' my view of people's daily issues.
Unfortunately things got delayed and we left quite late, and then I dropped my phone on the street and the screen finally cracked, and then I realized I forgot my masks and had to go back for them, and by that point it was getting so late and I was in such a bad mood that it was not really worth it anymore :(
Back home I discovered (as I tooted about earlier) that it's apparently very easy to replace the screen on my phone (which I had so far assumed unrepairable!), so that was a nice surprise.
But still, sucks that I couldn't go out and try this today. Really wanted to get started with this project today...
At least I now know that it is in fact possible to transport three folding chairs, a folding table, two 2L thermoses, and assorted other stuff on a single bicycle.
I picked up a hitch-hiker. I always stop for them, so I pulled over out of habit. Forgetting I was on a tween road, a ghost road, a twixt road.
"I'm going to Bonn," I said.
"What century?"
"Twenty-first."
"Close enough, I can wait there."
"Hop in."
I don't pry, but I am curious.
One development I've been glad to see over the past year or two on urban planning Youtube, is that it's become now almost standard practice to call out how specifically *Black* neighbourhoods were razed for highways, rather than just leaving the type of neighbourhood unspecified (as often happened before).
there's no rule that goes "it's okay to cheat as long as it's not multiplayer"
cheating in a game is okay if everyone affected by it consents
if you play a custom game mode in any moddable game, that's the same as cheating but within a framework that ensures everyone who is playing with you vaguely understands what changes have been made to the rules of the game
the player count doesn't matter. what matters is consent
Tech culture
The fact that open source exists makes the extent of the burnout dumbfounding
What I mean is, you can read open source as "you can't stop developers from writing code"--we have some of the most prized skills in the world, and we'll give it away because we love computers.
How does the collective business world take that and fuck it up so bad that we never want to look at another computer again?
TIL that my budget no-name rugged/waterproof smartphone (whose screen has finally given in after many drops) apparently has replacement screens widely available, *and* it does not use adhesives so it's easy to replace it!
Very pleasant surprise, this. I was not expecting it to be so repairable, and there seems to be an iFixit guide for it too.
unsolicitted advice to white people who want to be helpful
But, like, all the white people in the replies trying to be helpful by centring themselves is . . . fucking yikes.
So, for people who want to be allies:
1. Don't ask the person being harassed for stuff. If you want to help, but don't know what to do, make a separate post asking on your own TL.
2. Your feelings of guilt or shame or whatever for stuff that you didn't actually do - replying about those emotions reads like a request for reassurance. Somebody been systemically harassed should not be asked to make you feel better about their pain. If you're having complicated feelings about whiteness, this is good for your own post. Self-loathing is not a more acceptable way of centring your own whiteness.
Rule of thumb: if your reply is actually about you, just subtoot it instead.
I think we need to encourage people to stop using phrases like "Rupert Murdoch is worth $8.3 billion" and replace them with the more accurate "Rupert Murdoch *controls* $8.3 billion." People aren't worth any more or less because of their wealth or lack of it. The phrase encourages a sloppy and immoral habit of thought.
Everything catastrophically wrong with the world was done to make some billionaire even richer.
Every town that had to evacuate due to a chemical spill, strip mining, or a never-ending underground fire was done to make some billionaire even richer
Every news article that pits white people against minorities and immigrants is written to distract us from billionaires destroying democracy, human rights and the planet to make themselves even richer.
The billionaires are the problem.
meta, racism, question
I've seen a couple of comments now from various non-white folks saying that they get proportionally *more* racist abuse hurled at them here than on Twitter.
I'd like to better understand why that is - "equally much" makes sense to me, with the culture not being less racist here, but I don't quite understand how it can result in *more* abuse than a functionally unmoderated place like Twitter.
Does anyone have any insights for me about what is causing this to happen? What protection is missing, what misfeature is amplifying the problem, or what else about the environment *or* system here plays a role in this?
(If you're white, please only respond if your understanding is based on what non-white folks have said on the matter; I'm not looking for guesses here from people who aren't themselves on the receiving end, because you're very unlikely to have the right answer.)
means testing doesn't stop determined fraudsters,
but they're an insignificant minority of applicants to government aid programs to begin with.
what means testing does do is convince people who need help that asking the government for help isn't worth the time or effort, and then provide an excuse to cut funding to said means-tested programs due to an artificially depressed number of applicants.
Technical debt collector and general hype-hater. Early 30s, non-binary, ND, poly, relationship anarchist, generally queer.
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
Feel free to flirt, but if you want to actually meet up and/or do something with me, lewd or otherwise, please tell me explicitly or I won't realize :) I'm generally very open to that sort of thing!
Further boundaries: boosts are OK (including for lewd posts), DMs are open. But the devil doesn't need an advocate; I'm not interested in combative arguing in my mentions. I am however happy to explain things in-depth when asked non-combatively.
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.