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jwiggler

@ jwiggler @sh.itjust.works

Posts
2
Comments
66
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Deleted

    Restoring Public Service Loan Forgiveness

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  • Directly targeting schools that allow protests

  • Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not)

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  • There's a perspective that some technologically literate people have (not all of them, certainly) that enables them a clearer view of what is going on re: tech oligarchs. That is how much we rely on other people's computers. Most people don't think about what is going on when they browse a website or post something on social media, set up their own shop on squarespace, sell a product on Amazon, stream music or TV or movies or games.

    Giant tech companies own it all. They own the computer you use to do all these things. They own the computers other smaller businesses use to run their companies. You invented a product and want to drive your cart to the market square? Pay a tax to King Bezos, the market square is Amazon. Did you make a game? Pay Gaben and you can sell it at his marketplace. Don't wanna use these marketplaces? Wanna set up your own shop? You still have to use Amazon's, or Microsoft's, or Google's computers.

    These tech oligarchs are more like feudal lords -- enclosing lands (computers) and charging the peasants and merchants access to them.

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    Permanently Deleted

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  • I help people do science and math with their computers. I make around 100k, double the median income in my area. My commute is an hour and a half each way, at least, and sometimes I only have around 3 hours to myself after I get back from work before I need to go to bed. Still, I have it better than most (although, with the current attack on science in the US, uncertainty about clients is rising...)

  • Pennsylvania elected official resigns after she made a gesture similar to Elon Musk's controversial gesture

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  • Obviously there's some level of objectivity journalists have to have, but this description of Elon's Nazi salute is absolutely sane-washing and gives the reader the impression that its all a big hubub.

    Laura Smith resigned from the Towamencin Township Board of Supervisors after a video in which she mimicked a gesture made by Elon Musk during a rally related to President Trump's inauguration. During a speech, Musk held his hand to his chest and then extended his arm saying "my heart goes out to you." Some said the gesture looked like a Nazi salute, while others said it was a harmless gesture taken out of context.

    They could've just said

    During a speech, Musk held his hand to his chest and then extended his arm, in a similar gesture to a Nazi salute

    and they still would've been in the realm of objectivity that you describe. But instead, they downplay it all in a single sentence by saying, "Some said the gesture looked like a Nazi salute." They won't even bring themselves to say "Many said the gesture looked like a Nazi salute."

    All outlets have to do this sort of shimmy, sure. But we all see the direction that they shimmy, and it's not toward the direction of truth.

  • Pennsylvania elected official resigns after she made a gesture similar to Elon Musk's controversial gesture

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  • lmao, assumptions. No journalist who says, "Elon did a Nazi salute twice," is making an assumption. They are reporting the fact that he did a Nazi salute twice on TV. You could maybe argue that a journalist saying, "Elon Musk is a Nazi" would be making an assumption, based on the fact that he did a Nazi salute twice on television. And I'm sure you would argue that, because you certainly sound like a Nazi defender.

    But nobody calling Elon's Nazi salute as they see it is assuming anything. We all saw it and we all know what it was. Even if he didn't intend for it to look like a Nazi salute, that's what it was. Anyone trying to make it out that it wasn't a Nazi salute, tiptoeing around language, is justifying doing the Nazi salute. You are defending the sane-washing of someone doing a Nazi salute. You think responsible reporting is normalizing the Nazi salute by dancing around the word Nazi? Well, then I, a non-journalist who is allowed to make assumptions, will assume you are a Nazi sympathizer.

  • Removed Locked

    Early Warning Signs of Fascism

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  • What's your Album of the Year?

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  • :( First you're there, and then you're not.

  • What's your Album of the Year?

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  • Night Palace by Mount Eerie for me

    Maybe seconded by The New Sound by Geordie Greep

  • What's your Album of the Year?

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  • What is your favourite episode of a TV show, and why?

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  • I watched all of Twin Peaks because I was interested in the hype around David Lynch and wanted to see his most recent work.

    This episode made it all worth it.

  • What are your thoughts on billionaires?

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  • I think you might misunderstand me. I'm not saying that the only way to attain power is through wealth. Im pushing back against your idea that since an individuals wealth isn't cash, it's not worth accounting for. It may stop making sense to count, but only in the sense that it literally becomes incomprehensible to, and at that point it is long overdue to say it is too much. The vast power those people have is due to their net worth. Because someone else has vast power without the wealth doesn't contradict that fact.

    Also I don't really see why you're tying up your freedom with billionaires, as if it is a binary choice between billionaires and personal freedom or no billionaires and tyranny. That's a bit of a strange equivalency you draw. In any case, and in practical terms, you* probably don't even have the freedom to be in the presence of the wealthiest of wealthy, let alone fart in front of them.

    *assuming you are not ultra wealthy or somehow related personally to a member of the ultra rich

    Edit: in other words, billionaires don't grant you your freedom -- and their freedom to extract capital and accumulate vast amounts of wealth probably has little bearing on your right to your house or personal property. In fact, they are far more equipped to seize things like your land, your data, your means of subsistence, than you are to defend them.

  • What are your thoughts on billionaires?

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  • Untill I grew up and realised it’s not money they’ve got, it’s estimated net worth. It’s hard to turn that into cash.

    I used to think that, too. But just because its not cash doesn't mean it doesn't still translate to wealth or power. They essentially park their money in investments, liquidate when they need to, but otherwise use their assets to extract further wealth exert further influence.

  • What's the greatest videogame of all time?

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  • I like the finals too. It's the best arcade shooter I've played since halo. It's just dumb fun.

    Ive been hooked on deadlock recently

  • What is your Star Wars hot take?

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  • This is the only hot take in this whole thread lol

    My lukewarm take is that Star Wars has varied so greatly in quality from product-to-product, that any take that categorizes some of it as bad and some of it as good is a lukewarm, standard take.

  • A totally normal thing

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  • Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber is a cool book about this whole topic

  • Do you know any independent written news sources?

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  • I listen to NPR often and I enjoy it, but it ultimately has the same problem as other mainstream outlets in that they are beholden to advertisers and, in turn, to extractors of capital. It leans left socially, but as with almost all other major news organizations, it is self-interested and will almost always support neocolonialist US practices. One tiny, not-the-best but temporally relevant example -- they have yet to call what's happening in Gaza genocide.

    As someone else mentioned, there is Democracy Now!, they are viewer funded, but that is also supplemented by groups such as the Ford Foundation, which obviously has ties to capital as well. Still, Democracy Now! will give more of an "outside looking in" view of the United States.

    I like listening to both NPR and Democracy Now! to hear both the US-centric (capitalist) points vs the a more global (and anti-capitalist) viewpoint.

  • Trump wants to end 'wokeness' in education. He has vowed to use federal money as leverage

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  • Teacher: "Slavery was bad."

    Republicans: "We need to end this indoctrination of our children."

  • Fox Hosts Call for Trump Prosecutors to Face Death Penalty

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  • It is already broken -- and he has succeeded -- is what I'm getting at. But Democrats will still try to use the thing.

  • Fox Hosts Call for Trump Prosecutors to Face Death Penalty

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  • I fucking hate how I agree with Jesse Watters when he says

    It's also crazy that they call this guy a dictator and when he won they're like "Oh we're gonna help you transition,"

    The Republican party is done with any sort of politeness or goodwill, to the point of not conceding elections. They are breaking the system and rebuilding it in the aftermath. You can't stop them from breaking the thing by using the thing itself.