i find this a bizarre, kind of gross invocation of Eugene Debs.

debates only for elections that don’t really matter, crest vs colgate? we are responsible for saving ourselves by conceding we face no real choice, shldn’t legitimize bad choices with a debate?

Debs ran for President from jail. Convicted felon, “opposed to the form of our present govt…opposed to the social system in which we live…I believe in the change of both but by perfectly peaceable + orderly means.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/06/debate-trump-platform-january-6/678818/

@pluralistic argues that, since Congress is gridlocked and half-bought by the beneficiaries of extraction and enshittification, the Federal government should use its leverage as a buyer, set procurement requirements that cleantech purchases (i would say all government tech purchases!) should be resistant to enshittification, and to just plain bricking when a supplier disappears. https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/26/unplanned-obsolescence/#better-micetraps

From @simondlr, an image of a subway station near Chongqing, China, at the time that it was built in 2017, and then an entry to the same station now.

As Simon says, "We should build more bridges to nowhere. We need to build more housing."

https://sceneswithsimon.com/p/protocol-thresholds-and-the-days

Here's what experts say to keep in mind.

It seems to me this makes factual claims that are simply untrue. Not contestable claims about politics, but statements about events that did not in fact occur, intended to manipulate the recipient.

Why is that permissible in political advertising?

"The lurch back towards that early web is a deep hunger for the personal web. The web that made you feel like you were part of this crazy but exciting endeavor that suddenly connected you with some other person across the world… We want something that feels more…real. Something authentic, not performative… We don’t want a content treadmill, we want online presences that are idiosyncratic and intimate, peculiar and distinctive." @rscottjones https://rscottjones.com/its-not-about-nostalgia-its-about-human-connection/

no death is pedestrian.

@taber there might be a control on your car’s audio systen which, when connected by bluetooth, let’s you go back 30 secs (or some other duration, it’s app dependent). hopefully, turning car audio off also pauses the audiobook. these two elements are enough to make audiobooks followable when i drive. i go back a bit after my attention was drawn elsewhere and i’ve missed something. i turn audio off when i know my attention will be needed elsewhere.

Experience smoother checkouts by adding your primary payment card now.

“It’s always best to plan ahead while you’re ahead. Start today.”

When your targeted ads are funerary, you start to wonder what the algorithm knows that you don’t.

“ten things I like about Scala 3” @eed3si9n https://eed3si9n.com/10things/

#scala

This is pretty terrible news.

The SAVE plan has always been a bigger deal than forgiveness of past loans. (As a policy matter. Forgiveness of past loans is a BFD if you are among the indebted!)

I hope it survives via appeals, but I expect it will take Congressional action. It’s pretty gross states got standing because they’d get less money from servicing loans not even owed to them.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4737997-courts-block-biden-student-loan-repayment-plan/

"innovation should be rewarded enough to preserve incentives, but the skew of the wealth distribution has become increasingly bizarre… corporate profits + extreme wealth, particularly among mega-cap companies, have become a sort of “capture” or “rent” that reflects network effects, social dynamics, and general technological efficiencies that were no part of that entrepreneur’s invention, and might be better characterized as public goods." #JohnHussman https://www.hussmanfunds.com/comment/mc240623/

#economics #finance

if i were the mayor of Athens, every Halloween would be the Zombie Acropolis.

@Jonathanglick i’d say purpose. i think states misunderstand this + do too little of it. method suggests that it’s something they’d know to do to achieve other state objectives. even tho it obviously would help achieve other state objectives, states do too little. if it helps to frame it as method, for national security or higher-trust prosperity or whatever, i’m for it. it’s definitely a method to achieve human flourishing at scale. i see states’ purpose as to pursue that method.

@LesterB99 no, but they will seek to become oligopolistic if they are not prevented.

economists like to imagine Cournot competition under which firms compete themselves to penury is normal, sustainable. but of course firms do not like this, and human institutions are good at coordinating, so in fact maintaining anything like Cournot competition requires continual state activism.

@river don't worry. you only rented it.

@LesterB99 i think that depends what we do. i certainly think if there's any kind of automatic or default tendency, "benefiting consumers" is unlikely to be it, so i guess we kind of disagree. but this is about outcomes to create, not predict.

@LesterB99 who themselves will be automated. a strange game of pinball that occasionally hits some automated court of law and mails giant checks to some random human.