One thing that's important to differentiate is between "capitalism" which is largely just private ownership and control of capital, and "consumerism" which is the almost religious worship of purchasing. The latter is how everything is commodified, and the idea that you can buy anything with money.
Capitalism is a system of economics, consumerism is a cultural phenomenon. The former can be a lot of different things including highly generous and charitable cultures. The latter is about embedding the act and meaning of consumption into the fabric of everyday life and identity.
Consumerism does not necessarily require capitalism. It has occurred in non-capitalist systems such as feudal nobility, socialist authoritarianism, or even non-market systems, though typically not the mass consumerism we see today. Mass consumerism requires mass production, and some sort of mass media that sends a message (intentionally or unintentionally) that it is desirable to have a thing that has some friction to acquire, and most importantly a culture that says acquiring such items is a means to fulfilment and social proof. That said, mass consumerism like we see in the west requires a system that can produce the amount of broad wealth required to support mass consumerism, and the power of mass marketing is relatively unique in world history.
This distinction appears to be irrelevant, but it is highly relevant because otherwise you can end up with an easy category error where you blame capitalism for mass consumerism and assume that if you remove capitalism you will eliminate consumerism when in reality you'll simply remove the wealth that enables it and so consumerism will continue as elite consumerism and most people will materially suffer overall without a real benefit.
For example, if you change back to feudalism and the common man becomes destitute, you will eliminate mass consumerism, but the feudal lords will remain wealthy and will continue to make outlandish purchases to show off to their peers. Social standing never goes away, it's just a matter of how that manifests -- and you can reduce overall wealth to eliminate mass consumerism, but it just means they're destitute and wasteful consumption will continue among the still wealthy elites.
The system in the Americas was pre-capitalist, and in some cases might be considered "tribal communism", but for example the elites would have highly polished bronze mirrors as demonstrations of their power, and the olmec civilization created large totems which may have had religious significance, but I have no doubt also carried an elite consumerist component as well.
Capitalism is a system of economics, consumerism is a cultural phenomenon. The former can be a lot of different things including highly generous and charitable cultures. The latter is about embedding the act and meaning of consumption into the fabric of everyday life and identity.
Consumerism does not necessarily require capitalism. It has occurred in non-capitalist systems such as feudal nobility, socialist authoritarianism, or even non-market systems, though typically not the mass consumerism we see today. Mass consumerism requires mass production, and some sort of mass media that sends a message (intentionally or unintentionally) that it is desirable to have a thing that has some friction to acquire, and most importantly a culture that says acquiring such items is a means to fulfilment and social proof. That said, mass consumerism like we see in the west requires a system that can produce the amount of broad wealth required to support mass consumerism, and the power of mass marketing is relatively unique in world history.
This distinction appears to be irrelevant, but it is highly relevant because otherwise you can end up with an easy category error where you blame capitalism for mass consumerism and assume that if you remove capitalism you will eliminate consumerism when in reality you'll simply remove the wealth that enables it and so consumerism will continue as elite consumerism and most people will materially suffer overall without a real benefit.
For example, if you change back to feudalism and the common man becomes destitute, you will eliminate mass consumerism, but the feudal lords will remain wealthy and will continue to make outlandish purchases to show off to their peers. Social standing never goes away, it's just a matter of how that manifests -- and you can reduce overall wealth to eliminate mass consumerism, but it just means they're destitute and wasteful consumption will continue among the still wealthy elites.
The system in the Americas was pre-capitalist, and in some cases might be considered "tribal communism", but for example the elites would have highly polished bronze mirrors as demonstrations of their power, and the olmec civilization created large totems which may have had religious significance, but I have no doubt also carried an elite consumerist component as well.
In Pokemon blue my brother called his character ASSWORM.
The line "ASSWORM received a SQUIRTLE" has survived in my brain for over 30 years.
The line "ASSWORM received a SQUIRTLE" has survived in my brain for over 30 years.
The scariest question has to be: how many more of these exist around the world right now, that we have no idea about?
I bet that the actual number would make most people deeply uncomfortable.
I bet that the actual number would make most people deeply uncomfortable.
Not a new scam either. I remember there was a whole bunch of games that were basically identical.
There has been a few different game makers, particularly in the early '90s, and they resulted in people releasing games that were functionally identical and yet put out there as if they were unique. The only thing that's different now and then is at the quality of the assets are a thousand times better.
There has been a few different game makers, particularly in the early '90s, and they resulted in people releasing games that were functionally identical and yet put out there as if they were unique. The only thing that's different now and then is at the quality of the assets are a thousand times better.
I rather liked his channel in the beginning, but I don't think I've watched... I can't even think of how long it's been since I've watched.
I didn't meet the terms, haven't done a review yet. So save it for someone who follows instructions. :P
Haven't done a review yet, but I did buy the rest of the books in the series and the pre-order. It's on my to-read list, but I've been reading a lot less this year since I've been writing my next book myself. I'll leave a fair review as I read through them.
Hopefully it'll give me some good Karma when I release Future Sepsis Vol. 1 and 2 later this year.
Hopefully it'll give me some good Karma when I release Future Sepsis Vol. 1 and 2 later this year.
(Man, we can't become the 51st state fast enough.... We obviously lack the capacity for self-rule)
Can you believe these racists in the Trump administration?
They don't even want underprivileged artificial intelligence bots to get Federal funding to go to ivy League schools.
I don't even know what country I'm living in anymore. Not America, that's for sure.
(I mean, I live in Canada where the left just put a hedge fund manager in charge)
They don't even want underprivileged artificial intelligence bots to get Federal funding to go to ivy League schools.
I don't even know what country I'm living in anymore. Not America, that's for sure.
(I mean, I live in Canada where the left just put a hedge fund manager in charge)
I had someone trying to tell me that the dominant failure mode of SSDs is they just go read only, but I've had tons of SSDs fail on me (I've been responsible for fairly sizable fleets of computers), and the dominant failure is almost exclusively catastrophic data loss. Only one SSD has ever gone into read only mode (and thank god they did, it was the SSD hosting this website)
Older SSDs without power loss protection can not just lose all their data but become unusable in just one UPS failure.
Older SSDs without power loss protection can not just lose all their data but become unusable in just one UPS failure.
Completed a really surprising repair today.
Someone had a dead SSD. Totally dead, not powering up, not showing up in the bios, nothing.
I did the rest where you feel for warm spots and it was painfully hot on a bank of capacitors. Caps were a dead short No way to replace them with my tools, parts, and skill, but it seemed like they could be removed without killing the drive so I removed one at a time until the short released. Drive fired back up. Was even able to boot up the original computer and removed critical files.
Surprising because I didn't think that'd actually work!
Someone had a dead SSD. Totally dead, not powering up, not showing up in the bios, nothing.
I did the rest where you feel for warm spots and it was painfully hot on a bank of capacitors. Caps were a dead short No way to replace them with my tools, parts, and skill, but it seemed like they could be removed without killing the drive so I removed one at a time until the short released. Drive fired back up. Was even able to boot up the original computer and removed critical files.
Surprising because I didn't think that'd actually work!
https://www.gbnews.com/news/world/covid-lockdown-children-saved-spain-parents-horror-house-oviedo
There are people on fedi right now who think this same way.
There are people on fedi right now who think this same way.