It would be funny if they either taxed corporations like they taxed people (almost all income is income, pay for essentials with post-tax dollars), or if they taxed people like corporations (only the money left after paying essentials is taxed).
Most people act as if global digital communications started with the Internet, but it didn't. Prior to the Internet being widely commercially available, there were a number of commercial networks one could sign up for. The biggest were Compuserve, Prodigy, and America Online. They were proprietary, and if the stuff you wanted on one wasn't there, you'd have to just subscribe to another.
The Internet ended up growing in popularity, and the world wide web made things more accessible starting in 1991. Now, everything would live on one network.
Having a standardized platform that ISPs could compete on price, service quality, and so on caused a revolution such that today most people have numerous Internet connections. It was great for the consumer, and the companies made out OK, but they never had a chance to become massive world monopolies on Information.
I feel like this is analogous to where the Internet needs to be going in terms of services now. Instead of having massive monolithic platforms owned and operated by one company, we should have a shared protocol like ActivityPub that allows people to choose whichever service they desire, and then instead of competing by locking away content or users, sites would have to compete on UX, speed, brand, business model, or even moderation(There's no reason why the same AI moderation done to users couldn't block messages coming through the activitypub pathway just the same).
Yes, it means that you can't become the world's largest company by monopolizing a section of the population, but as we saw with the Internet, it means a huge explosion in overall investment and innovation since you can't just rest on your laurels just because you're self-sustaining.
The Internet ended up growing in popularity, and the world wide web made things more accessible starting in 1991. Now, everything would live on one network.
Having a standardized platform that ISPs could compete on price, service quality, and so on caused a revolution such that today most people have numerous Internet connections. It was great for the consumer, and the companies made out OK, but they never had a chance to become massive world monopolies on Information.
I feel like this is analogous to where the Internet needs to be going in terms of services now. Instead of having massive monolithic platforms owned and operated by one company, we should have a shared protocol like ActivityPub that allows people to choose whichever service they desire, and then instead of competing by locking away content or users, sites would have to compete on UX, speed, brand, business model, or even moderation(There's no reason why the same AI moderation done to users couldn't block messages coming through the activitypub pathway just the same).
Yes, it means that you can't become the world's largest company by monopolizing a section of the population, but as we saw with the Internet, it means a huge explosion in overall investment and innovation since you can't just rest on your laurels just because you're self-sustaining.
I'm also aware that if you're going between platforms you can export your user list as a csv file and import on the other side. I did something similar when I migrated from friendica to pleroma.
We've seen time and time again that people assume that their ideals are the majority so they call for democracy because they think their ideals would be the winners if everyone got to vote on it.
The hard part about freedom is accepting that others have it, and the hard thing about democracy is that a lot things you'd like done aren't what most people want.
It takes real grit to realize these things and call for real freedom and democracy anyway.
The hard part about freedom is accepting that others have it, and the hard thing about democracy is that a lot things you'd like done aren't what most people want.
It takes real grit to realize these things and call for real freedom and democracy anyway.
lmfao The tool for rebels and those challenging authoritarianism?
There's nobody twitter hates more than the common man just wanting to be left alone to live their lives without someone walking past and sticking a knife in their back because someone who looked like them stole a sheep 200 years ago.
There's nobody twitter hates more than the common man just wanting to be left alone to live their lives without someone walking past and sticking a knife in their back because someone who looked like them stole a sheep 200 years ago.
You shut up!
lolakitty69 and I are going to be together, just as soon as I grab my credit card and sign up for her website!
She's not too bright, but she's so nice and she's so pretty!
lolakitty69 and I are going to be together, just as soon as I grab my credit card and sign up for her website!
She's not too bright, but she's so nice and she's so pretty!
They took down the tire swing from the pepper tree.
They have no children of their own, you see.
They have no doggos, and they have no frens
And their moms are dying, and what about all those packages they send?
They have no children of their own, you see.
They have no doggos, and they have no frens
And their moms are dying, and what about all those packages they send?
Once you get into an organizational structure, there's an important thing to understand: Even people in power only have so many levers. I became a supervisor where I worked once, and the workers thought I had all this power to tell everyone from the CEO on down to the customer to fuck off, and the reality is I had the power to do exactly what both my bosses and my staff would let me do. There was some latitude, but you can make decisions within a certain range of options, you can't just do whatever you want and expect to stay in charge.
The same applies to a CEO, even of a private company. Being a CEO doesn't mean you're God. It means you have a lot of power, but it also means you have the power to really break things.
So if you take over a big tech site, you have a lot to balance. You have an existing userbase that we know will leave if you mess things up too much. You have advertisers can easily leave. You have business partners that are essential, everywhere from real estate companies to datacenter providers to ISPs to payment processors and employee support companies such as insurance companies and paycheque processing companies. Even employees, to a degree. You an fire some of them, but you can't fire everyone. At some point someone needs to actually accomplish something, and at some point someone needs to know the proprietary information about how the site works. Then there's the government, the sword of damocles that hangs on a particularly thin thread when we're talking about global megacorporations that are not loved by anyone -- Once you end up in the government's crosshairs, good luck.
To me, this means we shouldn't expect that much from #twitter as #elonmusk takes over. Continuing to fight for decentralized libre solutions is the only way we can be assured that the people who run our services have our best interests in mind, because we will be those people.
The same applies to a CEO, even of a private company. Being a CEO doesn't mean you're God. It means you have a lot of power, but it also means you have the power to really break things.
So if you take over a big tech site, you have a lot to balance. You have an existing userbase that we know will leave if you mess things up too much. You have advertisers can easily leave. You have business partners that are essential, everywhere from real estate companies to datacenter providers to ISPs to payment processors and employee support companies such as insurance companies and paycheque processing companies. Even employees, to a degree. You an fire some of them, but you can't fire everyone. At some point someone needs to actually accomplish something, and at some point someone needs to know the proprietary information about how the site works. Then there's the government, the sword of damocles that hangs on a particularly thin thread when we're talking about global megacorporations that are not loved by anyone -- Once you end up in the government's crosshairs, good luck.
To me, this means we shouldn't expect that much from #twitter as #elonmusk takes over. Continuing to fight for decentralized libre solutions is the only way we can be assured that the people who run our services have our best interests in mind, because we will be those people.
That's a great point. Who cares if someone we don't know uses a social technology? As long as the people we know use it, we're good.
And the flipside of that is that if enough of the people we know stop using some big tech solution and move to open distributed solutions, it doesn't matter how many users are here or there, the people who count are where you need them to be.
And the flipside of that is that if enough of the people we know stop using some big tech solution and move to open distributed solutions, it doesn't matter how many users are here or there, the people who count are where you need them to be.
Abortion is the sort of thing that can be your top priority when you are fed, and housed, and taking care of otherwise, you don't need to worry about people coming into your house and murdering you, you don't need worry about getting robbed in the street, you don't need to worry about the state coming and taking away your children, or throwing you in jail for saying something that they disagree with...
So with all those things going on, the idea that the top priority is going to be the fact that you can't kill an inconvenient person would be the top priority represents to me decadence. You're so disconnected from the reality of people's lives that you think that this luxury item is most important when first of all most people don't have any risk of losing their ability to get an abortion if they want it, and second of all people are concerned about where their next meal is coming from or how they are going to survive the winter without being turned into a slab of meat flavored ice.
In a sense, her argument is almost like "let them eat cake".
So with all those things going on, the idea that the top priority is going to be the fact that you can't kill an inconvenient person would be the top priority represents to me decadence. You're so disconnected from the reality of people's lives that you think that this luxury item is most important when first of all most people don't have any risk of losing their ability to get an abortion if they want it, and second of all people are concerned about where their next meal is coming from or how they are going to survive the winter without being turned into a slab of meat flavored ice.
In a sense, her argument is almost like "let them eat cake".
Several cohorts will face headwinds thanks to many factors. A lot is posted on the exploding-heads parental rights forum, including studies suggesting that newborns are ending up practically subhuman in some cases, toddlers are seeing massively reduced language and social skills, school children are losing the equivalent of years of education because of its ineffectiveness, and I've personally heard anecdotes of college age kids who aren't meeting expectations because of everything that's happened.
The amount of harm these people have caused is immeasurable, especially considering their claims of "harm reduction" as an ideology.
I wrote my book when I realized I needed to start planning for a future he needs to succeed in, just like what you're talking about. Filled the house with all sorts of books for all ages and started lessons from birth because the world's gonna be hard out there and he'll have to be ready.
The amount of harm these people have caused is immeasurable, especially considering their claims of "harm reduction" as an ideology.
I wrote my book when I realized I needed to start planning for a future he needs to succeed in, just like what you're talking about. Filled the house with all sorts of books for all ages and started lessons from birth because the world's gonna be hard out there and he'll have to be ready.
