We don’t have an alternative for oxygen. Our biology requires it. It is unrealistic to think we could do without, it’s science fiction. Capitalism is not something that exists outside of the human mind. Changing something that exists only in the human mind is of course very possible. It exists only in as far as we believe in it. If we would no longer believe in it, it would seize to exist. We could go for anarchy as an alternative. Or communism. But perhaps these too are the old ways, and we need new ones. New fictions to believe in because we’re confronted with new challanges. Believing in capitalism has brought us to destroy our habitats. If we’d simply think 'The whole world is capitalist. Changing it at this point seems unrealistic", that is indeed a very defeatis attitude. That is not to say that I have the alternative ready. I’m saying in this new time we shouldn’t stick to old dogma, believing it is the only way.

Capitalism is everywhere. So are our efforts to destroy our ecosystem. Changing it at this point seems unrealistic. I mean, you could make this point, but it is indeed defeatist. But to be fair, on short term I would also pick severely limiting and controlling capitalism over a sudden revolution. As a start, let’s get rid of billionaires. That would help making any change further down the road, because there won’t be a class of people with incredible power that will try to prevent any change.

Not recognizing ICC, regime change, illegal killing of foreign civilians, supporting genocidal regimes, invading other countries, carpet bombing nations, incarcerating their own population, killing eachother in mass shootings, biggest per capita contribution to climate change.

American exceptionalism isn’t doing us any good.

But ooh nooo China, please Europe, fear China… We are your ‘allies’.

So, we can use Donald Duck, but not Harry Potter? I don’t quite understand why. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to write my own Harry Potter books? (not that I would).

Frontal lobe is for degenerate modernists, real people rely on their brainstem, and their brainstem only.

Well duh, Microsoft respects privacy

I wholeheartedly agree

It was voted for by 6 parties, all of which are considered right wing.

• PVV (right wing anti immigration party)
• VVD (fiscal conservative right wing party)
• BBB (conservative farmers’ lobby party)
• SGP (right wing conservative christian party)
• FvD (right wing QAnon-type conspiracy party)
• JA21 (split-off of FVD)

You could of course argue that this means the center has shifted, and some of these should be considered center. Personally I think it’s just that immigration has been the dominant theme for decades now, and therefor people who would benefit from left-wing economics, now vote extreme right. I don’t think that makes them or anybody else a center.

Larry Tesler, inventor of the cut, copy, and paste commands, dies at 74
Larry Tesler, inventor of the cut, copy, and paste commands, dies at 74

Any Dutch people here? Follow nerdvote.nl, to help decide who to vote for this election. They are suggesting technical minded people should unite and form a block in elections, so that parties will try to cater to us. If you want our vote, come up with plans an proposals to create digital sovereignty and freedom. As a member of PVDA/GL I am probably voting Barbara Kathmann , as she is fighting for digital sovereignty. Without preferential votes she probably won’t make it in so your preferential vote matters!

If humanity needs insight into anything, surely it is business. Doing market research is doing the Lords work. If only we could structure society in such a way that automatically most of the available money would be directed to market research and marketing, the world would be a better place.

I suppose my sarcasm here is obvious. But it’s not uncommon to hear people on the right say things like ‘but the money needs to be earned first, before it’s spent, therefor we shouldn’t hinder business in any way.’. As if to say 'we just need to make more room for business people to do their thing, and then we’ll be good. It amazes me how people fail to see how ‘business’ as we know it is such ill-directed human effort. I know, we need to be productive, we need to do good things, I am all in favor of that, but doing whatever makes the most money for a company, isn’t the equivalent of what is good.

If and when you’re allowed to speak, you may speak freely. It’s just that you’re not allowed to speak. Rather than limiting ‘freedom of speech’ it’s limiting ‘speech’. So that’s alright.

/s

you’re right, there’s probably some anti-ai/anti-scraping folks on there aswell as here. Personally I most definitely hate intellectual property more than I do generative AI. But you’re right, different people on there will feel differently. But the point still stands that for those who thought they shared their thoughts with the world, their ideas that they donated were taken from them.

The pains of being tall and ‘skinny’.

This isn’t news.

People who posted on Reddit ( speaking in the past tense, because who would continue to do so now that we have better things? ) never intended for it to be of limited access. Reddit was a publicly accessible place, and people shared their thoughts and comments on it because it was the frontpage of the internet, so the place of choice to share things with the world. That being scraped should not be a problem. But clearly Reddit didn’t want to give you a platform to share your thoughts with the world, they wanted you to donate your thoughts and take it as their property so that they can capitalize on it.

Maybe rephrase the question, given the American Revolution?

I am Dutch, have 0 cars, 2 bicycles, and I’m perfectly happy with it. I’ve only recently came across the first situation in which I felt like car access would be usefull.

A couple I’m friends with were pregnant and they don’t have a car either, but since they wanted to be able to go to the hospital quickly and indepently, they rented a car for a week or so. This would’t work for me because I don’t have a drivers license. People often ask me ‘but what if you need to do this or that…’ and never do I feel like they’re pointing towards a problem that I have. Just some minor inconvenience, if one at all. But in this case I thought, yeah if my wife were pregnant it would be damn usefull to be able to transport her by car, by myself. If it ever happens I’m sure we’ll find a solution though. But I found it interesting that it was only the first situation in which it actually seemed usefull to me to have car access.

And Jesus said: “Don’t share thy bread nor thy fish, for it is socialism, and it is wrong.”

If animals do something, it’s what the species does. If humans do something, it’s just some odd freaks, and it doesn’t reflect on us all.

odd how that works. we would make for a very dark nature documentary.