Libertarianism / AnarchoCapitalism / Minarchism - The belief that class action lawsuit waivers as mandatory conditions of employment show that low-level employees really want this and deserve it, and that there is no sort of questionable negotiating leverage involved which might undermine the sanctity of the deal.
“Movies will be free after the revolution!”
Movies take the work of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people. How will we decide where to allocate our resources for the best results?
Centralized committee!
Yes! The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television smiles upon you!
I was doing semi deep dive into Orion’s Arm after @immanentizingeschatons reminded me of it, and it got me thinking about post-scarcity and politics.
Specifically, I was comparing it to some of the other post-scarcity settings I’ve seen, like Eclipse Phase, Mindjammer, and Nova Praxis. One thing that all of these have in common is that the politics presented in the game seems off.
Nova Praxis and Mindjammer to my mind don’t really have political conflict. They try to describe some of the political units, but they seem to be stereotypes masquerading as politics or and otherwise just poorly described. Eclipse Phase and Orion’s Arm do have political units, but they’re fairly obviously based on the political viewpoints favored in the demographic and seem kind of goofy and impossible because of that.
And it strikes me that to some level this is an impossible problem. If you think there won’t be real politics in the post-scarcity future, I’m going to very much doubt that. But if you think that you can predict the nature of political conflict in the post-scarcity future, I’m also going to very much doubt that. So, either way, you’re stuck with writing a political scene that’s weird.
But really, can there truly be post-scarcity? Maybe with magic violating conservation of matter-energy, but without it, someone is going to want to use the mass of your asteroid to build their habitat to replicate their ideology.
I consider “post-scarcity” as describing when technology has advanced to the point where the common material desires like food,
housing, and entertainment of any person are trivially easy to fill.
Then aren’t we there already in some countries?
Indeed. “Post scarcity” more refers to “when people believe there is not a scarcity of stuff.” And as the discourse over the $500,000 New York family shows, it is unrealistic that that would ever happen no matter how many resources our society generates.
The year is 3122. Transhumanity has colonized the entire solar system. The total GDP of mankind and its descendant species long ago exceeded its 2340 high of 14 quadrillion US2016 dollars. A new discourse arises.
PRIVATIZE THE SUN
Tried to get a twitter account, and about four seconds after signing up it was “We’ve detected some suspicious activity, can we have your phone number?“
Fuck no, twitter
“Aw, come now Squiddy honey-baby, you wouldn’t mind providing your number to lil’ ol’ me, would you?”
- Twitter, probably
Ain’t nobody gettin my number, I resent the very existence of phones.
Good. I saw Twitter collecting over eleven thousand phone numbers at a bar the other night. Can’t trust a woman corporation like that.
I saw a post earlier by someone claiming that Fyre Fest was actually an example of central planning gone wrong, which is like level 45 deflection and market fetishism
the problems with the economy are due to the fact that businesses are not run internally as marketplaces,
the problems with the economy are due to the fact that businesses are not run internally as marketplaces,
I’ve thought about this unironically, but methods to actually implement it are difficult.
Fyre Fest was probably just a scam though.
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People who dislike cars and want more public transit:
I sometimes prefer public transit to driving because I hate parking and navigation, and I can multitask on public transit. But I also prefer driving to public transit because public transit is loud, smelly, dirty, crowded, expensive, and slow, with no air conditioning or heating, uncomfortable seats or only standing room, delays and breakdowns, long wait times in general, no availability late at night, tunnels that plug my ears painfully, and other passengers being loud/rude/annoying, blaring music, scamming, panhandling, stealing things, fighting, spitting, urinating, harassing people (transphobia cw), and sometimes being actually threatening or dangerous.
What solutions have people come up with to these problems? (My experiences are mostly with BART, AC Transit, and Caltrain.)
Same question for my own followers.
My experiences of transit have been buses in [Redacted]; the underground in London, New Castle (UK), Frankfurt (Germany), and Washington DC; the Northern Rail (UK); Berlin’s buses; the BART and the Caltrain; and buses in Toronto, the Bay Area (USA), and North Bay (Ontario, Canada).
Those are listed from best to worst by my personal experiences of them. They’re mostly Subway > Overground train > Buses, except for [Redacted]’s weird capitalist buses. I’ve also preferred [Redacted] over Europe, and Europe over North America.
What makes some public transit systems better than others? And how would you make something like the BART more like that? And are they really a substitute for being able to insulate yourself and your family in a personal vehicle?
You’re not gonna like this, but…
A number of the problems stem from the culture of the population at large, its level of disorder, and its level of criminality. If you want Japan-tier respectful train passengers, you are going to have to take Japan-tier measures towards, essentially, the entire rest of society, and this will not be very Libertarian.
Which is fine by me since I’m not an atomic individualist and am fairly Statist and even Nationalist, but that isn’t where you are in the political spectrum.
Is there any legit reason for my toothpaste to have triclosan (an antibiotic) in it? My understanding is that that usually harms rather than helps at reducing the population of “bad” mouth flora.
I am not a doctor, and this does not constitute medical advice:
As far as I am aware of, no. I would recommend against any use of antibiotics outside of an illness as well.
Personally, I import Sensodyne from the UK, as it contains an ingredient (Novamin) which apparently occludes the dentin and reduces sensitivity (I’ve found it effective in practice). (The US version apparently merely desensitizes the nerves even though it’s sold under the same branding.)
Alcohol will also kill bacteria without the effects of antibiotics, but it’s said to dry out the mouth.
the idea that Trump/Brexit are purely a racism thing disregards the angst about globalisation that is taking place across the globe, not just in Anglo nations.
sure, people are racist, that’s unsurprising, but people are also exposed to economic dislocations without any sugar coating justification or vision of a hopeful future to come, it’s no surprise that they react with fear and anger.
Now I’m wondering what if students could spend student loans on other things, like starting businesses.
So you’ve come around to the radical libertarians calling for voluntary slavery?
Just highly suspicious of the American student loan system! Like most American institutions it seems to neatly combine the worst aspects of socialism and capitalism. Why not just have regular loans (allow bankruptcy etc.) or just socialise the system entirely like a sensible country??
The money must be laundered through the private sector to prove that it isn’t Socialism™.
Nevermind that either doing it in a more capitalist, more socialist, or just straight-up better national centrist way would be more effective.
SAN FRANCISCO—In an effort to reduce the number of unprovoked hostile communications on the social media platform, Twitter announced Monday that it had added a red X-mark feature verifying users who are in fact perfectly okay to harass. “This new verification system offers users a simple, efficient way to determine which accounts belong to total pieces of shit whom you should have no qualms about tormenting to your heart’s desire,” said spokesperson Elizabeth James, adding that the small red symbol signifies that Twitter has officially confirmed the identity of a loathsome person who deserves the worst abuse imaginable and who will deliberately have their Mute, Block, and Report options disabled. “When a user sees this symbol, they know they’re dealing with a real asshole who has richly earned whatever mistreatment they receive, including profanity, body-shaming, leaking of personal information, and relentless goading to commit suicide. It’s really just a helpful way of saying to our users, ‘This fuck has it coming, so do your worst with a clear conscience and without fear of having your account suspended.’” At press time, Twitter reassuredly clarified that the red X was just a suggestion and that all users could still be bullied with as little recourse as they are now.
