@akkartik i don’t really think of these as consumption choices. i am contributing or refraining to contribute to network effects, playing one small part in a game that shapes important contours of the future. there is a sense in which every consumption choice is “a vote”, but where network effects obtain the analogy is unusually strong. so there’s an ethical component. i feel like i did wrong by contributing (extraordinarily much!) to twitter, and feel i am risking sin on BlueSky
“My rule – I don't join a service that I can't leave without switching costs – is my Ulysses Pact, and it's keeping me safe from danger I've sailed into too many times before.” @pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/#tie-yourself-to-a-federated-mast
// i agree, for a long time held this line + abstained from BlueSky. but recently i’ve created a presence, tempted by people i want to converse with. i’m glad to contribute to an evacuation from x, but i feel ick too. i am taking too much on faith, without guard rails. again.
people who style themselves “truthtellers” are usually (at best) better characterized as oversimplifiers.
the etymology of “peer” is that everybody pees it’s a sacred bond that binds us all on fundamentally egalitarian terms.
@dfeldman I certainly agree! I’m sad they haven’t, or haven’t yet been effective.
Maybe it’d be good if, in places like Texas, there were a list of lawyers willing to accompany pregnant patients.
It’s horrible that Texas has made lifesaving care a legal risk from the perspective of providers. Hopefully we find a way to remedy that soon. Maybe in the meantime we could make clear there are legal risks in both directions.
https://www.propublica.org/article/josseli-barnica-death-miscarriage-texas-abortion-ban
@Hyolobrika @dushman It’s not typically what “socialism” is defined as. Socialism is typically defined as a system in which the means of production are collectively or state owned. The collective is a much broader category than “workers” in any society. 1/
@Hyolobrika @dushman Typically ~50% of humans do not work, because they are children, informal carers, retired, or disabled. I think, under contemporary states, we’d all object to a system that restricted the franchise only to those formally employed. 2/
@Hyolobrika “Syndicalism” is the closest word I know to this system that you and @dushman are describing. /fin
@Hyolobrika p.s. @dushman is your name taken from the Romanian duşman?
@admitsWrongIfProven@qoto.org @Hyolobrika I think in practice almost all desirable economic forms will be mixed economies. The details of what gets mixed will be very important! Cooperative worker ownership vs passive absentee ownership might be an important dimension within the sphere of privately held firms. I very much agree that we want a democratic state, where we all have a vote, setting the ground rules under which economic units whatever their form must operate.
@admitsWrongIfProven@qoto.org @Hyolobrika I’m not saying ubiquitous cooperative ownership wouldn’t be meaningfully different or couldn’t be much better than contemporary forms of capitalism. It might! I’m just saying it’s also a form quite distinct from what most people mean by and want from socialism.
@dushman @Hyolobrika It’s not effectively socialism, bc some cooperatives might be extraordinarily successful, earn very high per worker profits, others might yield quite meager incomes, nothing would ensure full employment by some cooperative, guarantee education, housing, medicine, or retirement income. It’d be an interesting economic form, perhaps much better than contemporary capitalism, but still distinct from what most people are after from socialism.
@Hyolobrika The members of a cooperative are capitalists, in the sense they are a group of private individuals who own the means of production! There are many possible forms of capitalism, defined as private ownership of the means of production (and even more possible forms of a mixed economy).
@Hyolobrika If you define capitalism on the basis of emergence of a class of passive income recipients, people who earn without labor, then a system with only syndicalist cooperatives would not conform. There are challenging questions about how such a system would work in practice, but I’d sure love to see more experimentation.
The kid is learning about exponents, and I’m trying to help.
One trick I think useful is to suggest he define, say, 4^3 not as 4 x 4 x 4, but as 1 x 4 x 4 x 4. Of course the two expressions amount to the same thing. But if you get into the habit of including the 1, it becomes obvious why 4^0 is just one.
And since for positive exponents, subtracting an exponent corresponds to dividing by the base, you can just subtract past the zero exponent to define negative exponents.
“Part of Trump’s genius is being bad in so many ways that no particular way stands out and it seems like he must not be that bad.” #ScottAlexander https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/acx-endorses-harris-oliver-or-stein
ouch.
Screenshot of Yahoo Finance notification with text: Breaking News Nvidia to replace Intel in Dow Jones Industrial Average (Reuters)
[new draft post] Private firms, public industries https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/11/01/private-firms-public-industries/index.html
@PRW Yes, exactly. Not understanding Duverger’s Law (which, to be fair, would not be propounded until almost two centuries later) is how they inadvertently created a two-party system their own justificatory logic abhors.
James Madison in Federalist No 10 writes a virtue of a large republic is “the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties, against the event of any one party being able to outnumber and oppress the rest”.
Though they inadvertently produced one quite quickly, the “founding fathers” never favored a two-party system. A two-party system is repellent to the logic and aspirations of the Constitutional system.
https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/federalist-no-10
they say success is hard work, but i contend that failure is more exhausting.
@joe@beige.party I’m not pretending any misstatement is an accident. I’m saying the remedy should be punishment under the law, however severe we decide it should be, not denaturalization.
@joe@beige.party I do think denaturalization should generally not be a thing, and hope existing practices to the contrary would change worldwide. Yes. I’m an American, so I concern myself mostly with what my country does.
@admitsWrongIfProven@qoto.org @joe@beige.party For Musk, nothing really matters. He has multiple citizenships, I believe. He has infinite wealth, relative to his own living requirements. I’m not worried about any injustice to Musk. I’m worried about reinforcing an institution that a miserable political institution openly intends to accelerate and abuse, that both from a practical and philosophical perspective should not exist at all.