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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • The reason why subsidies in the US lead to corruption and subsidies in China lead to innovation has nothing to do with how long the industries have been subsidized.

    The US subsidizes industries to bailout corporate executives that made bad decisions.

    China subsidizes workers who innovate towards ends that we know we need to be working towards as a species. Such as building electric vehicles to address climate change.

    Even if the economy worked how you’re suggesting addressing climate change would be a worthy investment. It’s an end that has been obvious that we should be investing in for decades. The US refuses to do it because it would take power out of the hands of the corporate executives who they are busy bailing out.

    Well, where do you think the money for subsidies comes from? Taxes.

    This is logically incoherent. Money doesn’t exist in nature my dude.

    Take out a physical dollar and look at it… what does it say on it? If you do this you will find it says it’s a note from the federal reserve.

    Every US dollar in existence was originally spent into the economy by the federal reserve which is managed by the US government. That is a matter of fact. To suggest money comes from taxes is incoherent. Taxes are how the government destroys money not how it creates money.

    Now maybe to control inflation we should take money out of the economy through taxes. Especially in places where money is being mismanaged… if we do, the aforementioned corporate executives seem to be at the top of the list of places where large amounts of money is being mismanaged. Given that in the context of the automotive industry China is managing their wealth better than the US.


  • Yeah, I’m not sure I agree that YouTube wants their platform to shrink. Even if you don’t watch ads you are still giving them your data which they can monetize.

    Personally I would be willing to pay for YouTube premium but not under the current terms. 1. If I’m paying for the service they should no longer collect and sell my data. 2. Allow me to have a YouTube-only account not connected to other Google services and 3. The current pricing is a bit high.

    They can offer these terms or I’ll continue to use them logged out with Adblock. Or they can continue to enshitify and eventually their platform will start to shrink which will make the data they sell to advertisers less valuable.



  • I don’t know of any specific laws against them enshitifying adblockers. But there are things like the GDPR and in the EU big tech corporations are under constant scrutiny by regulators. Making them a lot less likely to do these kinds of shitty things in general. I assume that’s why she/he’s asking. Perhaps pressure from regulators has caused them to reframe from engaging in this same behavior in the EU? Out of caution?

    Edit: I use the modified version of the Youtube app on iOS (uYou) and the skipping behavior happened to me and it reminded me to respond to your comment. I’m pretty sure they’re breaking adblockers on purpose.




  • But it doesn’t matter because the lesson to take away is that in any system the people with power will modify it to what we have now

    Was the system that the peasantry lived under in the commons the same as what we have now?

    All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

    Ok?

    The quote you just gave is from famous socialist George Orwell from his book Animal Fram. Which is critical of the structures the Soviet Union created.

    But your comment is actually in direct contradiction to Orwell’s actual more nuanced point. His point was not that every system devolves into capitalism… he was himself a socialist who fought along side communists in the Spanish civil war after all. His point is that we need to think critically about the structures we’re creating to ensure they’re serving egalitarian ends. Something I agree with Orwell on.

    The original reason why I commented was because it didn’t seem you were engaging in the same project of critically examining economic structures in the way Orwell was and the way Smith was. Though I would love to be proven wrong.

    I think you should think more critically about what people tell you about Adam Smith and George Orwell.


  • Adam Smith did not ‘invent’ capitalism. No single person can invent an economic system. He made some early observations and normative assertions about a set of economic relations that were forming independent of him.

    So the economic system we had prior to capitalism was feudalism. The common lands that I mentioned were apart of the feudal system. The system of landlords and rent-seeking were and are apart of capitalism. You can just look around… we still have these things. You do understand that right? Unless you’re saying our current system isn’t capitalist.


  • Yes Capitalism is supposed to be pro-worker/anti-rich

    Supposed by whom? The rent-seeking behavior that Smith criticized was largely brought about by enclosure; the process of enclosure was foundational to capitalism.

    Hence my comment about people still paying to live before adoption of capitalism

    This is ahistorical, before enclosure the peasantry had substantial rights to live freely on the common land.

    I suppose it does depend on what is meant by ‘pay to live on this earth’. If you just mean that people have to work to take care of themselves then, sure. But that’s not really what this meme is referring to. If it was then the orangutan would be ‘paying to live on this earth’ as well.








  • Honestly, with all the biblically accurate angel memes that have been floating around I feel like they’re becoming banal. At this point if I saw one my reaction would be “yawn you guys need to come up with a more original corporeal form.”

    Maybe this is why they’re being posted? Angels getting tired of repeating themselves and being feared.



  • I bought a GTX780 for $500 MSRP circa 2013. I considered that to be crazy expensive at the time, but I was going all out on that system. Currently I run a GTX1080Ti(bought used) with 11GB of VRAM and they want me to spend $600 for 1 more GB of VRAM? PS5 has 16 GB of shared memory, 16GB should be entry level of VRAM for a system thats expected to keep up with this generation of graphics. There’s no reason for Nvidia to do this other than to force users to upgrade sooner.

    Funny part is the market is so fucked that reviewers are lauding this a decent deal. I think the 1080Ti will last me until OLED matures and I finally upgrade from a 1080p monitor. According to the steam survey most gamers are in a similar boat.


  • Care to elaborate? I assure you genocide and the end of humanity are no laughing matter.

    The U.S. is currently supporting a genocide in Palestine/Israel. Before that we spent 2 decades in a war —based on a lie— in which the U.S. killed up to 1 million innocent Iraqis.

    We are currently occupying many territories, to whom we deny equal rights/status as states including Guam and Puerto Rico.

    Over the last century we constantly supported coups of democratically elected governments mostly in South and Central America. (See the Monroe doctrine).

    Not to mention the soft imperialism of the IMF and the world bank.

    China deserves criticism for their genocide of the Uyghur Muslims.

    There may be further valid criticisms if they invade Taiwan. This could go either way depending on what the Taiwanese people ultimately decide. Right now most Taiwanese want to maintain the status quo. Which is strategic ambiguity.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_on_Taiwanese_identity

    Edit: I might also add the U.S. is currently undermining the Taiwanese people’s desire for strategic ambiguity. Putting its own geopolitical interests ahead of the desires and well-being of the Taiwanese people.

    The U.S. record of nationalist imperialism is worse than China’s.


  • China engages in this kind of “social democracy” all the time just like countries like Norway. But when Norway does it you don’t see people saying “rare Norway win”. I would call having a different standard for China vs a European country sinophobic.

    If you’re a left progressive —as most people here on Lemmy seem to be— you probably agree with most of China’s economic policy.

    China does sometimes engage in Chinese nationalism in a way that is worthy of criticism; but pretending they are worse than the U.S. in this regard is detached from reality.

    The American ruling class has already decided they want war with China. They’re just trying to find a way to justify it to us. We as progressives shouldn’t make it easy for them to justify a war between 2 nuclear powers. Such a war could very well lead to the end of the human race.