LibsEatPoop

Try and find one video of a child smiling in Gaza like you see in literally the first 30 seconds of this video.

I haven't read Saito's books, or looked too deeply into degrowth as a movement. I just read this article and thought it made some good arguments against what it claims are Saito's understandings of Marx. I'm not sure I agree with everything, but I thought it was interesting enough to share.

The section before this was about the history of Yoga, and I feel the author just had a fucking seizure while watching Fox News, before continuing to write the book.

Like what.

Link - https://twitter.com/Seamus_Malek/status/1765025273571942526

The Amber Heard stuff I already knew about, not the extent of the bots, but the fact that a lot of the narrative coming out about her around the time was manufactured.

What was most surprising to me was the bit about fMRIs and how, if you’re with a person who displays/not-displays empathy about a specific issue, your brain patterns literally, fucking physically, change to mimic them.

It constantly blows my mind just how high humans are on the “social creature” scale in complete contrast to the myths of “individual” and “independent thinkers” and all the neoliberal and conservative bs.

And I’m sure, as the video also points out, this is 100% what is happening with the dominant narrative surround Palestine. Israel and Western propaganda flooding the traditional news and social media with their version of events and their take on these events - who’s focus is on dehumanising Palestinians - is using this same effect to prevent people from gaining empathy for Palestinians.

Like, obviously this is happening and has been happening for numerous causes and conflicts. But, man, the fMRI showing actual physical change in the brain is just…it’s just scary.

Key Points:

…after spending the last few months periodically poking around the trees inhabited by little birdies, I do have good news for fans of coercive government regulation,” Gruber says. “Apple’s hand was effectively forced. But by China, not the EU.”

“Coercive government regulation” lmao.

Gruber points to a new law in the works in China that will require that 5G devices support RCS in order to receive certification in the country.

Chinese carriers have been proponents of RCS for years, and last year, the Chinese government began the process of codifying into law that to achieve certification, new 5G devices will be required to support RCS. Shockingly, the Chinese government seemingly isn’t concerned that the RCS standard has no provisions for encryption. The little birdies I’ve spoken to all said the same thing: iOS support for RCS is all about China.

“Shockingly”.

Apple would prefer simply to continue ignoring RCS, on the grounds that they want to support neither any new non-E2EE protocols, nor any new carrier-controlled protocols (whether encrypted or not). But when the CCP says device makers must jump to sell their products in China, Apple asks “How high?”

The sheer Sinophobia omg.

One narrative in the months since Apple’s RCS announcement in November has been that the move was driven by the Digital Markets Act in the European Union. The DMA, however, makes no mention of RCS specifically – and now have official confirmation that iMessage is not big enough in the EU to fall under the purview of the DMA.

There goes EU, the saviour of digital rights.

Anyways, what an article.

Some highlights for me:

Proton is not a product of Silicon Valley but a crowdfunded project conceived at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research). Proton was not created to get rich (if you want to get rich, you don’t go to work at CERN) but rather to address the important societal problem of surveillance capitalism.

From the start, Proton has always been about the mission and putting people ahead of profits. The goal is not to raise endless rounds of VC funding at dizzying valuations, and there is no price at which we would compromise our integrity.

Proton is a very rare tech company that has managed to achieve scale but today does not have any venture capital investors. This gives us an unparalleled ability to put user interests first without being beholden to financially driven investors. We cannot be forced to sell ourselves, forced to deliver higher profits, or forced to seek sources of revenue that don’t align with our mission.

Proton is not profit-driven, and we are strong believers in long-term financial sustainability. We are not billionaire subsidized, government subsidized, or donation subsidized. Rather, we derive almost all of our revenues from selling services directly to users in a profitable way.

We charge a fair price that reflects our costs and can deliver long-term stability. The benefit of this should not be overlooked in an era where software companies are raising prices 20% year over year. Proton’s prices have not increased in 10 years. And when our costs go down, because we don’t have VC shareholders with specific financial requirements, we can actually pass those savings on to you.

Technological sustainability cannot be overlooked. Proton owns all our servers and network equipment, acts as our own internet service provider, and doesn’t rely upon any third-party cloud providers (no Google Cloud, AWS, Microsoft Azure, etc.). Our data centers are located in multiple countries (Switzerland, Germany, and Norway), our server hardware is provided by multiple suppliers, as is the electricity that runs into our data centers, with the goal of eliminating all single points of external dependency. The investments required to take this approach are massive, but they ensure we are protected against third-party risks. AWS suddenly raising prices won’t tank our sustainable business model because we are in much better control over our direct costs.

The same goes for core technology and expertise. We maintain our own encryption libraries, employ our own cryptographers, and build and maintain our entire stack in-house, from the physical hardware all the way to the front-end software. This comes at much higher cost, but allows us to better react to any unexpected situations. There is very little software (or hardware) run at Proton today where we do not have our own in-house experts who can fix it if something goes wrong.

Nearly 400 union members who work at Condé Nast are currently holding a 24-hour work stoppage to protest negotiation practices they claim are unlawful.

The work stoppage coincided with the announcement of the 2024 Oscar nominations... ET. Employees at Vanity Fair, Vogue, GQ, Allure, Condé Nast Entertainment, Architectural Digest, Glamour, Self, Teen Vogue and other Condé Nast publications walked to hold a rally in front of the company’s offices in New York.

Hathaway was unaware of the work stoppage when she arrived at the New York City photo shoot. She was still in hair and makeup when her team was notified by a staffer from SAG-AFTRA to advise Hathaway to support the work stoppage.

“They hadn’t even started taking photos yet,” a source tells Variety. “Once Anne was made aware of what was going on, she just got up from hair and makeup and left.”

Changes they wanted:

Australia was increasingly isolated in opposition to the Indigenous right of self-determination at the time, fearing it may encompass secession, the records show. It wanted the term deleted and replaced with "self-management."

Canada accepted the term self-determination, conditional on it being expressed through negotiation and "agreement with government."

The governments jointly proposed deleting references to demilitarization, restitution of land, armed conflict and cultural genocide, while adding language affirming the territorial and political integrity of sovereign states, ultimately yielding mixed results.

A line affirming states' political and territorial integrity was eventually added, for instance.

But an article banning the forcible removal of Indigenous peoples from their lands — which the governments wanted changed because, in Australia's view, "there are circumstances where removal is legitimate (eg. for child welfare purposes)" — was left unchanged.

Why?

At the time, the Indigenous caucus had an absolute "no changes" stance, Deer said. Australia hoped the substitute would compel "moderate" factions to break ranks with "hardline" leaders, the records show.

Australia saw promise in a 1999 Canadian proposal to develop "states-only" text on certain "easier" articles.

"Divisions are beginning to appear in the Indigenous caucus between hardline adherents to the original [declaration] and those Indigenous representatives who are prepared to contemplate negotiated compromises," the 2002 memo says.

Amid such pressures, some Indigenous leaders did begin proposing amendments, opening the gates for negotiation, said Deer. Post-2003, the original was overhauled — talks Deer recalled as horrible — though it wasn't totally gutted like Canada and Australia wanted.

Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. were the only four countries to vote against the declaration in 2007 when it was adopted by the UN.

The lesson?

Never fucking compromise.

Completely insane. Declares no state will stop it from permanently defeating the children of darkness, the axis of evil lead by Iran of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis.

They will kill every Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist and return residents to north and south (is this settlements?) and stop Iran from getting nukes.

Some highlights:

We are continuing the war until the end – until total victory, until we achieve all of our goals: Eliminating Hamas, returning all of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to Israel. I believe that after the massacre of Oct. 7, we will not compromise on anything less than total victory. I say this, on your behalf, to every world leader who I speak with – we will not compromise and we will not stop. We are continuing until victory; we have no other choice.

Tomorrow we will submit a budget that will ensure the continuation of the war: More money – a lot more – for security. More compensation and grants for reservists, families, the self-employed and for all who are bearing the burden.

We will restore security to both the south and the north. Nobody will stop us – not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anybody else. In recent weeks, we have proven to Hamas and Hezbollah that every terrorist is a dead man, wherever they are. This is the war of the sons of light against the sons of darkness.

The State of Israel, the IDF and our security services are fighting a moral and just war that is without parallel, against the Hamas monsters, the new Nazis. In the murder tunnels of Gaza, our forces have found copies of Hitler's Mein Kampf. In a home in Gaza, they found a child's tablet with a picture of Hitler as the screensaver.

This is a war against the axis of evil led by Iran and its three proxies: Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. I do not forget, not even for a moment, that in addition to the war in Gaza, in addition to the return of our hostages and the return of the residents to their homes in both the north and the south, we have another, constant, existential mission – To prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons. This is my mission. This is our mission.