yiliu

"Data, stop. Data. Stop. Data, SHUT UP!"

Generally speaking, the statement "Tankies made the X face the wall" is true for all X. Anarchists, monarchists, fascists, capitalists, Mensheviks, Jews, Doctors, poets, authors, musicians, peasants, soldiers, factory workers, Marxists, Bolsheviks, wives and children of all of the above, and eventually even Stalinists.

I feel like libertarians would love the concept of FOSS and decentralization, and I don't think anyone would argue they skew left.

Yup, there has always been a large libertarian contingent in the OSS community.

Yes, the TLD belongs to Mali. But the reason why the creators of lemmy.ml picked that TLD is because they're Marxists. They're also the creators of Lemmy itself, which is another reason why Lemmy communities tend to be pretty far left: the first instance was literally Marxist, and presumably most of the early users leaned in that direction.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't pickle everything I need for the winter. That's a shitload of work. I go to the grocery store and buy food like everybody else, and just try to make reasonable choices while I'm there.

I just don't fume the whole time about how Safeway is destroying the planet, and suggesting that everything would be great if only they were gone. I deeply appreciate the fact that we've built such an incredibly efficient system of food distribution, and that I can get all the calories I need and more in the form of fresh fruit & veggies even in the middle of the winter, even if I also acknowledge that we really need to tweak it to reduce the damage it's causing.

Point is, corporations aren't generating 99% of global emissions. We are producing 99% of global emissions, by choosing to buy mangos and pineapples from Whole Foods in January instead of pickling carrots and asparagus in September. You can't get rid of the corporations and then live off of tropical fruits without generating any CO₂.

Also, for the record, my grandparents supported a family of 10, and they lived through the winter largely on pickled and canned foods. In the fall, all the wives would get together and pack vegetables into jars every weekend. That was already a huge improvement, because a lot of what they pickled came from the grocery store: their grandparents could only pickle what they could grow. There was a whole room in the basement full of pickles & canned food. It was totally doable then, and it's only gotten easier in the intervening decades.

But also corporations are also run by people with wants and not all of those decisions are being made with consideration of what the masses want anymore but what the people at the top want. More money, more of the profit share, more cheap labor.

What the people at the top want is money, and the way to get it is by giving the masses what they want.

I agree it results in weird incentives. But blaming corporations exclusively (which is a popular opinion these days) is beyond stupid. We need to acknowledge that we are the root of the problem. The solution to corporate abuses is just for us to make laws to reign them in. In the end, they're just an abstraction.

I'm very suspicious about the motives of people who act like corporations are the only problem. Either they're incredibly naive, or they're just looking for an easy way to ease their own conscience.

You're seriously claiming that doing some pickling or salting in the fall is just too hard and expensive, when people have been doing it for millenia? Salt is under $1/lb in the US, and you can get next-day delivery of pickling jars to your doorstep. Your ancestors would be rolling on the floor laughing at you.

I'm not saying corporations are innocent. I'm saying they're doing what we demand.

Corporations are just a bunch of people working together, seeking profit. That's it. They're not more moral than the people who work there--and if they're too moralistic they'll fail, because people aren't willing to buy their more expensive products.

I have a lot of problems with corporations, how they're structured, the laws that apply to them (and more importantly, don't). But they're not the core problem, and blaming them is a cop-out. It stops us from taking responsibility, and in the end we're the program: corporations can't even exist unless we're enthusiastically buying and using their products.

I mean, here you go: reusable produce bags for you to bring with you to the store, provided by a corporation.

Yes, milk in glass bottles is more expensive: those bottles are expensive to produce, heavy and delicate to transport, and they need a whole infrastructure to collect and return them to the plant. If we insisted on glass bottles instead of cardboard or plastic, things would be more expensive. The problem is that we, the customers are cheap motherfuckers and will, on aggregate, always go for the cheapest option. So that's what companies offer us. If the government banned single-use plastic or cardboard milk cartons, corporations would shrug their shoulders and offer that: they don't care, they make a profit either way, but as long as plastic is an option, corps know that's what we're going to buy because it's $1 cheaper...so that's what they offer us.

Hell, the majority of the time you’re not even given a choice of what company you get that electricity from.

Yeah, I'd be totally fine with the government finding ways to break up monopolies like this--including natural monopolies, like power and internet (where infrastructure requirements limit competition). Here's the thing, though: if hydro, wind and coal were all options, and coal was 20% cheaper, what would people pick? We're the problem. Luckily, we're getting close to solar being more efficient than any fossil fuel for power (thanks to greedy corporations rushing to develop the tech for sale).

If I’m living paycheck to paycheck, there’s no way in fuck I’m buying solar panels, or collecting and processing my own rain water, or buying the expensive foodstuffs wrapped in the sustainable packaging.

Right. And in a world where those were the only options, you'd eat less food or live in a smaller home. Making them the only options doesn't make them cheaper, and in some cases, where supply is limited, it will dramatically increase prices.

You want to main exactly the same quality of life you have now, make no sacrifices, and for that to somehow be totally green and sustainable. That's not realistic.

Blaming companies is lazy and self-serving. We're the problem. We've always been the problem. Corporations can't make minor adjustments, at no cost or inconvenience to us, and save the planet. That's ridiculous, and it's a self-serving myth, making them a scapegoat for our sins.

It's Google devouring Google Search!

Hi Tom,

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I'm a head hunter looking for dynamic individuals who are interested in positions at an exciting new startup, and I think you'd be a perfect fit!

I hope we get a chance to chat soon!