@flexghost C'mon, they're not JUST cutting cancer research funding to deprive Biden of a win. They're ALSO doing it because they have no problem seeing Americans die...
No, seriously. See their "don't be a coward" COVID-19 response, "let's you and them fight" approach to the military, stopping abortions while not helping parents raise children, and more. Death is their brand!
@Miriamm I quickly got to the point in my job search where any friction sends me scurrying away. Create an account on your "tenant" on the job site that won't work for other companies? I need to fill out the decades of job history that I just gave you? You want to know why I want to work with you, without telling me who you are? I'm out.
amis artistes qui publiez vos créations avec du #creativeCommons inside, vous avez des écrits qui racontent ce choix, comment vous avez eu vent de ces licences, ses avantages et inconvénients, tout ça tout ça ?
60% of Iowa GOP caucus goers believe that the election was stolen from Trump. But y'all wanna say "Ban TikTok because disinformation?" 🤡
Y'all are not serious.
The real, dangerous disinformation, is coming from traditional media channels and places like Twitter, and it is in service of white nationalism, and its primary victims are Black people. But we don't want to talk about that. We just want to yell "Ban TikTok!"
Privatization is supposedly "more efficient" because governments are supposedly inefficient.
Reality: Privatization saves money by paying people less, delivering poor service and skimping on safety and maintenance. (So the poor services, delivered by impoverished people, also get more and more dangerous.)
Paying people less lowers the standard of living for the population in aggregate.
A functioning democracy would never allow public services to be privatized.
@dcjohnson It's maybe worth considering that corporations are some of the last serious bastions of authoritarianism (other than groups propped up by oil money or groups that we all ignore until it's too late), with strict hierarchies and strongman leaders. And in that way, the idea that the private sector is more efficient reflects the old (and silly) myth that the Nazis and fascists were dangerously efficient.
Hate to see someone I respect as much as the Atlantic's Tom Nichols be so wrong. He keeps defending his presence on the deadbird site as some kind of resistance, yet he's cut back his political involvement there.
He's unwilling to see that by remaining, and participating, he's giving his support to someone who a) loathes honest journalism; and b) consistently amplifies and promotes extremists who are attacking democracy.
@dangillmor It's really frustrating. I could understand (if not agree with) all these people saying "look, I get too much paying traffic from X to give it up." But instead, they pretend that increasing the value of the site and refusing to acknowledge management changes makes them some variety of critical freedom fighter.
Rant about the world of social media and marketing:
My latest (very recent) shock was receiving an email from a digital painting software company (I can't name them) asking me my price to switch my entire workflow to their proprietary product and announce it on my channels.
Of course I refused.
I'm still 100% committed to Free/Libre&Open-Source Software. But it made me realise that these days even profiles without a huge internet presence are getting paid to use and advocate things. Meh 😔
@davidrevoy I always like to string people like that (usually prospective employers, in my case) with sky-high prices, just to see how long it'll take them to realize that my "55k personality test surcharge" is openly mocking them.
How to read the news about the head of the Spanish soccer Federation (a man) forcibly kissing a player on the Spanish women's team on the lips, after winning the world cup. You might be thinking:
What's the big deal? They're European! It's their culture!
And she smiled afterwards!
It was just spontaneous! He was overcome with emotion!
She released a statement saying that what's important to focus on is the victory!
Also, while we're on the subject of elections, I just want to point out how so many people just don't want better from a policy standpoint, not because certain policies won't benefit society overall, but because some folks think certain policies won't benefit them individually, even when evidence is presented proving otherwise. It's disheartening to say the least.
@BlackAzizAnansi Over the years, I've been told so many times that "politics is about values, not evidence," that a lot of those people would probably vote for their own executions, just to avoid needing to explain their hypocrisy.
@gvwilson In fairness, it's much less of a "tradition" than an "underground fight that executives always try to downplay no matter how many times it helps them, because it destroys their fantasies that this next technology will be the one that finally lets them get rid of all those pesky designers, programmers, and other employees."
Last April, I left my Twitter account, but without deleting it, to keep more than 10 years of posts for archiving (tutorials, brushes, threads, etc...). I also wanted to occupy the namespace to avoid seeing an account doing impersonation. Then I uninstalled the app, stopped reading my TL, and put all this in the background...
But when a friend told me yesterday that it was a good thing I had left Tw early, I felt bad that I still had that dormant account.
@davidrevoy Dumping these services is a good choice. Personally, I keep mine on the off-chance that someone from my past tries to contact me there, but also because it feels like poking in my nose once a month to see that I have no notifications and leaving feels more costly to them than freeing up space.
But "my" Twitter is noow 99.99% the backup that I posted to my website...
I've been trying to find the right way to articulate this-- but the folks on the right have it backwards about who is driven by "white guilt" --
This impulse to cover up and distort the history of slavery reeks of shame. It's, frankly, weird. Nobody has perfect ancestors, what sort of crisis of identity leads one to lie about the past.
It's just the things that happened. You learn about them you learn from them. You do better. Don't make it so emotional and personal.
@futurebird I like to call this "turd theory," as in the study of what a person does when encountering a serious mess on their sofa. Do they refuse to move until the responsible party owns up? Insist that they can't clean because that would imply that they don't love their sofa? Refuse to acknowledge or discuss it, down to sitting in it to prove something? Or do they clean their space?