you don’t have to go too far into the abrahamic texts to find the line, “am i my brothers’ keeper?”
@darwinwoodka “‘your’ music. bwahahahaha.”
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“A fine is a price.” @pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/24/cursed-bigness/
@Transportist lots of Apple One inflation Two. Not quite as dramatic in percentage terms, but a big price increase there too.
"Apple TV+ will now cost $9.99, up from the prior $6.99. Apple TV+ originally cost $4.99 when it first launched in November 2019." https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-raises-prices-on-some-subscription-services-including-apple-tv-155224791.html
// The Apple TV+ inflation rate is 19% compounded over four years.
// That's fair, right?
@SocialistStan@mymastadon.link @LeftistLawyer the people (plural, not "a people") face a challenge, but so does the state.
states are in my view the most important and consequential of all human inventions, but like fire, they can and often do burn us into pain and ash. the most important human project is improving states, so they simultaneously act well on behalf of the publics they serve, and retain the approval of those publics (which, surprisingly often, may prove to be conflicting imperatives).
@SocialistStan@mymastadon.link @LeftistLawyer if you say so. i think some formal states are authoritarian, other are not, and i support the "not" kind.
@SocialistStan@mymastadon.link @LeftistLawyer "people" is a vague term. i think formal states should hold the monopoly of legitimate violence on geographic territories, not "peoples" defined in affiliative or identity terms. a just state organizes itself to serve and be accountable to all of its citizens (who should be substantially all of the residents) of its territory on terms as equal as possible, regardless of affiliative, ascriptive, or ethnic identity.
@LeftistLawyer i am genuinely not kidding honored. it feels lonesome sometimes, but we are not alone.
@SocialistStan@mymastadon.link @LeftistLawyer i'm glad you don't shut up! but yes this person is not an anarchist. that's correct.
@cshentrup enjoy the views! the rafting is pretty great too.
@LeftistLawyer (thank you!)
@cshentrup as i said, a canyon!
@cshentrup sometimes i think we communicate across a great canyon, but on election reform issues we are very simpatico.
it's important to learn to make incendiary remarks for when you are caught in the wilderness without matches.
@failedLyndonLaRouchite I get power for my utility bill. I think I support a mostly wasteful consultant class much more than I get democracy for Act Blue, and I've watched how they screwed my elderly parents cajoling a zillion recurring contributions then making it hard to cancel. I won't say never. But the amount of sheer revulsion I have to overcome to send a dime through that channel will make it very rare.
@LouisIngenthron I can hear all the arguments. Races are nationalized, we need to pull together, the other side is terrible, whatever.
Revulsion. I am just so tired of feeling like the teet of some cow in cyberspace, constantly provoked enraged pleaded made dependent encouraged not to look so an ever faster drip can be maintained.
Fuck these machines, these systems we've built to do this to ourselves.
About a year ago, I burned out on political contributions, regardless of the virtues of the candidates. The Act Blue ecosystem just came to seem so predatory and toxic I wanted nothing to do with it. I'm getting close to that point with subscription services, the substacks, the streamers, the software. Some of it I still can't do without, but I feel revulsion every time I see these charges and I'm beginning to accept some sacrifice to tell them to fuck off.
"in the Internet economy, there is almost no relationship between contribution and reward… As Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow have pointed out , the crucial thing is to establish a choke-point at which wealth can be extracted. These choke points do more to hinder innovation than to promote it." @johnquiggin https://crookedtimber.org/2023/10/25/retrofuturism/