Sven Slootweg @joepie91@pixie.town

If you're wondering, Dutch law does also prohibit slavery, buuuuuut, they do encourage "voluntary prison labor", where they pay less than a euro per hour.

This is a good research paper, in English, explaining some ins and outs of "voluntary prison labor" in the Netherlands:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20319525241260877

Also if you're curious, here's the state news paper issue that declared the abolition of slavery in Suriname and how much they compensate slave owners as well as that the Surinamese people that were freed were to be put under "special supervision" for a period of 10 years where they were forced to sign "employment contracts" that forbid them from leaving their plantation prisons:
https://coleccion.aw/show/?BNADIGBUKIKOSTBARE0198

alt text of the proclamation

Also side note: the thing about researching slavery is that you have to keep in mind that the abolition of the "slave trade" only meant that you couldn't import slaves anymore.

You could still move to a colony on stolen land and own slaves there for like an additional 100 years after they banned slavery in the Netherlands proper. It wasn't until 1914 that slavery was banned on all Dutch "territory".

Anyway, setting that tone that even after slavery, the King still declared that we could do a little more slavery, but this time, there's an actual employment contract, and I couldn't find anything that said prison labor was illegal ever, anywhere, until like 4 years ago.

Here's that recent change in 2021 saying you can't force labor anymore:
https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0043990/2021-12-01

Here's a blog post by the same author of the research article above:
https://criminaljusticetheoryblog.wordpress.com/2023/11/10/prisoners-pay-and-options-for-work/

From everything I can tell, you are strongly encouraged to work while in prison, and if you don't, it can factor negatively on your behavior report, which could be used as justification to deny you privileges in the prison, or be factored into your actual release. It is only slightly better than the USA but still is pretty awful.

Anyway, that long research rant over, slavery is still of concern in both the US and NL. We just call it "penal labor" now and in NL it's "optional" (no it isn't) and "paid" (no it isn't).

being someone's only trans/queer/neurodivergent/nonwhite acquaintance is like a saw trap where you have to perform the most perfect model minority you can be and if you don't, they take your flaws as justification for their bigotry

Vacancy alert!!
We are looking for a volunteer to help out as Coordinator Parking.
You will have the support of someone who is VERY experienced and needs help with that!
You can the info here: https://wiki.why2025.org/Team:Parking

This and other cool vacancies here:
https://wiki.why2025.org/Vacancies

I wish somebody had told me this sooner.

#Autistic #Neurodivergent

If you have a YouTube channel, this is your signal to setup a @peertube instance, the free and open source YouTube alternative that's fediverse enabled.

"But how do I monetize things to pay for my bills? Servers aren't free you know"

Great question! It's true that PeerTube doesn't have a monetization system built in. But bills aren't actually that high. To give an example: I've been running an instance on a server with 700 GB of SSD storage for less than €20 a month. It hosts almost 900 videos of various length, mostly on the longer side (between 30 and 60 minutes) and it holds about 265 GB of the server space currently. So, that's 15 years of video archive using around 1/3 of the storage.

The best ways to monetize have always been to build a community of loyal watchers. Let them support you on Patreon (or consider some open source alternatives like Liberapay, Open Collective, Coindrop, Maecen, or Be-BOP).

"But how can people find my content?"

The creators of PeerTube also developed a great search engine, called Sepia Search. Also, your content can be federated by other PeerTube instances.

"Ok, I setup an instance. But how do I migrate my content off YouTube?"

You can actually setup a sync in the settings on PeerTube, that automatically pulls in your videos. No effort!

Become part of the solution, migrate away from corporate platforms. If all YouTube content creators did this, we'd actually have a better internet.

https://www.usermag.co/p/youtube-removes-gender-identity-from

#PeerTube #YouTube

"Before 1914, the earth had belonged to all. People went where they wished and stayed as long as they pleased. There were no permits, no visas, and it always gives me pleasure to astonish the young by telling them that before 1914, I travelled from Europe to India and America without a passport and without ever having seen one."

-Stefan Zweig

Borders as we know them are a recent concoction.

The passport system as we know it dates to the First World War. ICE was founded in 2003 as part of the so-called "War on Terror," a disaster for freedom in every way.

These institutions are neither timeless nor beneficial nor inevitable.

https://crimethinc.com/borders

the idea that Bad People™ need to be punished rather than being understood, reformed, and prevented is probably one of the worst and most deeply rooted issues of human society throughout our entire history.

punishment is just a more socially acceptable form of revenge, and it helps nobody.

Under the motto “Utopia Test Environment”, we invite you to develop new ideas, discuss them together and design a just, diverse and non-discriminatory analogue and digital future.

More details and the submit form:
https://pretalx.c3voc.de/chaos-feminist-convention-2025/cfp

#haecksen #cfc25

The CFC25 is the first Chaos Feminist Convention – a new, independent event organized by the Haecksen, a tech-interested, queer feminist and inclusive community. For three days, we want to explore together how technology and society can be shaped from a queer feminist perspective.

Also, fuck "#AI" and chatbot pushers.

If it's that great then why do you have to force it on people against their will?

Right. It's great, but for a limited class of exploiters.

Reminder: no machine, no technology, no asshole can ever make any sentient being "obsolete".

Er blijft maar rondzingen dat wij ambulances vertragen. Absolute onzin. Ten eerste gaan wij opzij voor ambulances als die perse een bepaalde route moeten volgen. Ten tweede zijn er voldoende alternatieve routes (of dachten jullie dat de A12 normaal nooit eens vaststaat 🤡)