TotallynotJessica

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

Bigger thing for me is the Adobe shit. Those fuckers have monopolized creativity tools, and I haven’t heard of good alternatives for Linux.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

Video editing and compositing are the main things. These don’t seem to specialize in those tasks, while Adobe offers too many features and has too many quality 3rd party plugins to really be replaced. Even if there were programs that could compete, learning how to do things you know how to do in another program is a pain in the ass. The way programs work together is also a key thing Adobe can offer because they own multiple programs. Ideally there would be common standards to allow programs from different teams to work together just as well, but I’ve yet to see it.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

Or they could have, I don’t know, agreed to a two state solution? If Palestine stops fighting, Israel will colonize them through their settlements. They’ll probably colonize them even if they fight, and the West will look back on the destruction of Palestine as a tragic oopsie that “we can’t do anything about now.” The blame for the violence is on Israel at this point, as the current government antagonizes Palestinians for what little land they still control. At the same time, Bibi works to take away the voice of even Israelis, turning what should be a more secular democracy into a theocratic dictatorship.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

Ah, so maybe the best way would be to tax assets or give them to the people that increase their value?

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

And if everyone had a relatively comparable amount of assets under their control? If each person could control a certain amount of stock in the stock market or rights to property? As you became more wealthy in assets, the taxes become higher, while when you become less wealthy in assets, you receive more appropriated assets. The same amount of assets would exist in the economy, realized or unrealized, and if the appropriation equation is tuned well enough, it could provide income for people who can’t work, who might exchange all their assets for cash every time they get them, and limit the accumulation of assets for the very wealthy. There would still be the haves and have nots, but the have nots would have an effective floor, and the haves an effective ceiling.

The government would not make decisions on how the assets are used, only provide the means to even out how the assets are divided. People who work and earn enough to live on that income would be able to accumulate assets in the form of the stocks or property. They would earn assets up until the agreed upon point at which assets are taxed more than the average growth of the economy. This point would be at least enough for an average person to live comfortably and not have to work for a few decades until their assets ran out. Think in the 5 to 15 of million dollar ranges.

The assets would appreciate if profitable, like stocks owned by current stock holders, or depreciate if not. Most people would hire someone to manage their assets for a fee. That person would likely manage many people’s assets in the way requested of them. The safe investor would see their client’s assets grow with the economy, but some investors might value other things.

A person could instruct their investor to manage their assets at an agreed upon slow rate of growth, or even a loss. They might do this to spend on stocks that are less profitable, but are something the person cares about. A person might do this if they enjoy their work and have no plans of retirement unless forced to. They would keep enough assets to retire for a shorter period of time, or for use in the case of emergencies. This would allow people to fund some risky projects that could pay out massively, but keep themselves safe enough to not risk too much.

Other side effects include reducing opulent spending. You could have a huge mansion, but you couldn’t have as much in retirement savings. You could have all of your assets be boats, planes, and apartments for personal use, but you’d have to sacrifice to spend any time off work. The most expensive of properties couldn’t be owned full time by a single person, they’d have to be owned by multiple people and shared amongst themselves.

People who have huge businesses under their sole or family ownership would need to bring in outside investors. Large privately traded companies would have to be completely reworked, and would likely stop existing beyond a certain size. CEOs who own most of a large company would stop existing. Many other effects I’m sure I haven’t thought of.

This idea needs more work, and there’s a good chance constitutions would need to be amended to enable it, but it would solve the problem of the ridiculously wealthy having so much sway on the economy, and provide a social safety net. It would bring power to the hands of the people and democratize the economy, while not having the inefficiencies of planned economies.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

Well you support a failed model of communism that deteriorated into counter revolutionary nationalism and capitalism, so your opinions on democracy mean less than nothing to me.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

Except the there are only three real ways for Israel to kill Hamas. Getting rid of every Palestinian so the are no Palestinians to get angry and turn to desperate measures. Enforcing an authoritarian state where all civil liberties are taken away from Palestinians. Or firmly rejecting expansion into areas where Palestinians live, harshly prosecuting any who discriminate against Palestinians, letting them self govern, and energizing their economy to lift standards of living drastically. An end to everything Israel does to hurt Palestinians and help themselves that Israel can do. Huge concessions to try and make up for all the shit they’ve done.

The ethnical option will clearly not be chosen by the current government, and the US, obligated by their desire to have allies in the middle east, will help them try to accomplish some combination of the first two options. It’s awful.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

Hamas is a monster fed by Israeli antagonism because feeding those trying to coexist peacefully prevents colonization. They build a monster to fight in order to get more support from people who simply want the monster to go away. All the while, they move to accomplish their real goal of getting rid of Palestinians like other evil empires have attempted to do to Jewish people for millenia. It’s a fucking tragedy to see people that should know the pain of discrimination more than anyone, perpetuate the cycle of violence. Theocratic nationalism is a sin against humanity.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

Damn, getting breaking news from here of all places.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

ACK ACK!

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

I thought that was Kanye West?

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

As much as I like the sentiment, it really isn’t true. There’s way too many theocratic fascists, liberal stooges that sell out their country for power, and combinations of the two in control of most of the world. There are a number of European countries where this is the case, but Europe isn’t the world. Outside of some counties in the global south that have elected socialists through democratic means (only to be ousted by the right), genuine leftist governments get destroyed or coopted most of the time.

Especially with regards to social issues like LGBTQ rights and discrimination of ethnic minorities, the USA is farther along in the conversation than even some of those European countries.

Left in the USA is constrained by the fact that the status quo is extremely right wing, so things like healthcare reforms and limits on corporations that progressives advocate are right wing in relation to all possible positions. However, policies as far right as the GOP’s are common globally.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

Hillary did fuck up, as did the people who refused to vote for her. It’s not an either or situation. Plenty of blame to go around.

Trump and the GOP are irredeemable trash, and the only thing wrong about Hillary calling them deplorables, is that it’s way more than half. Biden and the Democrats currently single out MAGA Republicans as being terrible fascists, but at this point, all Republicans are terrible fascists. Even the Republicans that pushed back on Trump and got kicked out of the party are terrible. The main reason the Democrats don’t say Republicans are all bad is that they still need conservatives who dislike Trump. If left wing voters become a large enough and reliable force in the party, there’s less need to rely on conservatives to maintain a majority.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

The purpose of blocking is to protect oneself from harassment, not silence critics.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

I mean, Putin and other Russian imperialists see the collapse of the Soviet Union as a national embarrassment and the biggest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. For many in Russia during the Soviet era, any communist ideology was secondary to being able to dominate their neighbors. To the current Russian state, the war in Ukraine is an attempt to rebuild the USSR under the banner of nationalism rather than socialism.

The sad fact is that Marxist-Leninism allows a buildup of nationalist and ethnonationalist sentiment within their states, even though the goal should be to unite the workers from all socialist states against the owning class. The biggest threat to socialism beyond capitalism is national and ethnic identity influencing the leadership of the movement. They favor their own in group, which breeds discontent in the out group, which can’t be addressed in the system due to the centralization of power under democratic centralism, which leads to more nationalism from people who’s self interest is not being addressed.

This is why Americans during the Cold War would refer to Soviets as Russians. They might not have been able to articulate a single thing wrong with communism, but they could still recognize that the Soviet Union seemed to represent the self interest of Russians more than any of the other states.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

Not the bronze chain-mail baby with a daedric greatsword!

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

It looks chunky and more like vomit. The real disturbing part is that Muppet. Did it just show up on accident, or did the prompt specify it?

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

Same. 😞

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

We’ve all been there.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/38cbda1c-79ff-4d32-9648-58c5f73a3da2.jpeg

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

Fairly certain parts of this are just edited porn.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

Yeah the police are on their way… to give you a pat on the back.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

☹

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

The beginning of an era of poultry terrorism.

TotallynotJessica, 8 months ago

Yes.