I guess it’s a bit of a lazy summary, because it sort of implies that the region has been fighting among itself just for reasons, rather than the region being conflict prone because of colonialist foreign policy. I wouldn’t say it’s racist though.

imo all religions suck, but I wouldn’t call any of them cancer, that’s very dehumanising. one of the reasons I dislike islam is because it dehumanises people. saying shit like “islam is cancer” is just bad as calling for the death of infidels

Right now it looks like a pack of dogs barking around thinking they’re witty and clever for doing so.

Sure, but that’s pretty much any online community. We’re doing it right now. You did the exact same shit in your original comment where you called the GitHub commenters a bunch of children. We are the dogs in the mirror, if you want to change that culture, be the change.

Personally, I don’t think that being a smarmy prick in the comments of some corporation GitHub repo is “bad behavior”. It’s definitely not as bad as profiting from the exploitation of unpaid or underpaid labor, anyways.

When corporations destroy lives, it’s “just business”. But when people refuse to act civilly towards or about corporations, it’s “childish” and “immature”. In that case, I am very proud to be an immature child telling the adults that they’re brainwashed obedient drones complying with the will of then ruling elite.

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You’re acting like releasing the WinAmp source code is like some sort of great gift to open source devs, lol. It’s a community that works based on a set of rules and expectations, if the company doesn’t want to meet those expectations, then an appropriate response is to bully them out of the space (or to bully them into meeting those expectations)

Projects are not entitled to be received gratefully and respectfully if you treat open source devs like a disposable source of free labour.

And the concept of “civility” in the face of corporations telling us what we can and can’t do, can well and truly get fucked.

Phoenician wants a word.

The internet is worse than it used to be. Free internet services aren’t free because corporations want to help people out. They’re free because they’re trying to out-compete people who want to just help people and make the world a better place.

The early internet was a glimpse of how our world could be if we all just worked together, shared resources, followed our passions and collaborated to make cool things. There are still plenty of examples of products and services provided entirely free by people who do so just because they want to.

We get to see, in real time, what it looks like for private corporations to enclose common land, but digitally. And now people are forgetting - or maybe they didn’t even know to begin with - that all the shit that’s now covered with ads and has horrible design patterns - all used to be free.

Thanks for the well-considered and thoughtful response - I appreciate it.

Just to clarify, I’m not trying to make some typical liberal argument that China is evil or anything like that - I’m very far left and I’m not here just criticising China just because that’s what the mainstream media has told me to do. I just think it does leftists like myself no favours to pretend that China is perfect and that we shouldn’t criticise it - and the essay linked above, in my opinion, seems to be a bit of a reflexive defense of China, rather than actually considering the criticism - to me it seems they are choosing arguments to support their position rather than letting the facts and their beliefs lead them to a conclusion.

I don’t think we have to accept that any amount of imbalanced transactions of value necessarily guarantee that billionaires are inevitable - plenty of systems exist where there are “winners and losers” but the system itself reaches an equilibrium state. There are so many solutions which could be implemented to prevent billionaires from existing, and I would say that billionaires can only ever exist when there is a fundamental flaw in the society which produces them. It should be impossible to so thoroughly capture and centralise wealth and power to a point where an individual can have that much.

I’ve re-read this comment and your previous comment multiple times and I’m not really clear on what you mean.

My point is that the essay’s argument is weak because it completely ignores scale and proportionality. It uses the language of marxism to justify capitalism.

I don’t personally agree with it, but I was willing to consider the notion on its own merits rather than in contrast with ideology - but even when I do, I find it a wholly unsatisfactory justification

This is pretty typical self-justifying bullshit. They’re justifying pre-held beliefs (china is good; china has billionaires; therefore billionaires must be good) rather than actually considering the claim based on the merits. (is it actually a good thing that china has billionaires, and what does that say about socialism/marxism as practiced in china)

You can believe that people have different needs and that we don’t all need to be absolutely 1:1 equal in terms of our material possessions etc. and that having some goal to work towards is beneficial to society (ambition) without having billionaires.

This essay is like trying to justify genocide by pointing out that sometimes, for the benefit of society, the death of an individual is preferable to the suffering of many. The issue with billionaires isn’t one of inequality in the micro - it’s the magnitude of that inequality, and the power it brings, which is the issue.

This is how fascism is successful, because liberals will lie for a lie, but they won’t lie for the truth.

All ages are acceptable for running away from the police. Or fighting back against the police. Or destroying police property. Actually, come to think of it, just any kind of action against the police.

Unpopular opinion, but making fun of people’s name is the lowest form of criticism. It just comes across as a bit juvenile and pathetic, like you’re making fun of a kid in a classroom. Elon Musk is an extreme far right nazi sympathising piece of shit, calling him stupid names just kind of trivialises that, imho.

The reality is that this idea wouldn’t really fix any of the actual issues in academia. The only thing that would fix the problems with science is the end of capitalism.

Yes, ACAB. Any actions taken by the police are for either protecting the interests of the wealthy and powerful, enforcing traditional/societal norms, or they’re basically a PR stunt. A terrorist attack in New York would potentially harm wealthy people, not to mention Wall Street and the larger economy. so it had to be stopped.

Yeah that’s one of those excuses I was talking about. Everyone always consumes animal products from their uncle’s farm. They never, ever buy animal products from the store, or from a restaurant, or fast food, or whatever. Nope. All the animal products you consume are 100% from your uncle’s farm and they’re all mega happy, and you know them all by name!

lol

hello, I’m a vegan, I try not to annoy people because I know we’re all going through a lot of shit, but since you asked, you should know: the level of suffering caused by the animal agriculture industry is so extreme and horrific. Like, think of the worst torture imaginable, and it’s worse. And they subject thinking, feeling beings to that. Think about how angry you would feel if you saw someone abusing a dog. Now imagine that on a global, mass-production scale.

The problem is that human brain is really good at protecting itself from having to deal with the mental anguish of knowing that you’re responsible for suffering, so you’ll come up with any number of reasons to excuse your behaviour - it’s natural, it’s the circle of life, etc. etc. but that’s all just excuses. You let other living being suffer so badly because you like how they taste, and you can either accept that fact or you can change.

This smacks of accelerationist rhetoric to me. We absolutely can help people to understand that electoralism doesn’t work without them having to experience some sort of revelatory moment. But it needs us to log off and talk to people in real life.

So it’s nothing to do with what’s natural then, is it? Or you’d object to chicken cat food. And let’s not forget that everyone has also seen cats eat grass. Is it possible that you don’t really know what the nutritional needs are for cats and that you’re just arguing based on your ideological beliefs, rather than the best interests of cats? Maybe so you can feel good about yourself, and your own diet?

That’s all completely aside from the fact that it is completely irrelevant. Whether or not you disagree with some random internet vegan should have no bearing on how you judge the behaviour of a moderator abusing their power to enforce their individual opinions upon Lemmy communities.