How This Got Back To Me, I Don’t Know, BUT Thank You Tumblr.

Capitalism is not equitable or sustainable. Unending pursuit of ‘profit’ ( or any other single minded objective ) at the cost of subjugating and exploiting the people doing the work to produce said ‘profit’ —— never ends as well as you think.

How long can an extreme ultra-capitalist nation survive without becoming an authoritarian dystopia?

I’ve been pondering that today, but it’s occurred to me that it’s worth noting this extremist capitalist society called the United States did start out as an authoritarian dystopia.

I had originally typed “for a massive number of people living within it” to the end of the sentence above, but I’ve erased it because that’s what all dystopias are. They are never horrific dictatorships to everyone. There is always an in-group that lives in relative comfort with relative freedom that simply does not consider the suffering of others to be relevant to their lives.

The US was built by a wealthy merchant class to be that dystopia where those merchants and landowners were the in-group, replacing the king and his appointees. The country shifted toward freedom for all, toward democracy over time, not away from it. The right to vote was first held only by male landowners of the upper class, it was not designed to be egalitarian for all. The notion that it was ever meant to be for all people is a lie we tell ourselves so we can feel special about our country’s founding, but it’s still a lie, and it’s a dangerous one.

Accepting this history, and considering it, changes the question. It becomes:

How long can an extreme ultra-capitalist nation survive without returning to an authoritarian dystopia?

That’s a more tangible premise to consider. It shifts the argument from an inevitable economic condition in the hands of capital, to a political one in the hands of people. Extreme capitalist oligarchy has always been in direct opposition to full democracy, because under democracy, capital’s power can be overruled by the will of the people. When the needs of the people cannot override the interests of wealth, then democracy is no longer functioning; an oligarchy has control. Maintaining that control in the face of increasing hardship for people inevitably requires more power. This premise leads us to look at how oligarchy may strengthen its grip.

We can look right now and see precisely which elected politicians are arguing that the US is not (and should not be) a democracy, but a republic. We can see exactly who is arguing for a return to constitutional principles, while suggesting we suspend the Constitution. We can see exactly who preaches “Law & Order” while ignoring the law. We can see exactly who claims that some votes should count more than others, and that their candidate is “the real winner.” We can also listen and learn exactly who is paying them to do that. We can then gauge their support and the support for their ideas to see how much time we have left before we empower people to undo the past century of incomplete social progress.

An oddity of today is that the US is hurtling in two directions at once. One is toward a more empowered people, with unions rising, differences celebrated and enjoyed, and a support for struggling individuals. The other is accelerating wealth inequality, indifference to suffering, and desperation driving down wages while increasing profits. Both are happening, both are accelerating. That’s not sustainable.

The highly dedicated people pushing hard in both of those directions often see the other side as a destabilizing anti-American force, determined to upend whatever greatness we have. And they’re both right about that, it’s just that one sees America as a fully-formed sacred ideal that’s been lost, and the other sees it as a process for building a more perfect Union. This is the divide that the nation was born with, and the same divide that led to the Civil War.

I’m not shy about which side I’m on. We have to keep pushing for stronger democracy and a happier people.

The other side, the one that sees America as built by prophets, that wants to ban history so their prophets won’t be questioned, that unrealistically imagines themselves to be the in-group the founders intended, will return us to their authoritarian dystopia. That is where all of their arguments originate, and where all of their arguments lead.

That’s why MAGA uses the word “again.” They mean to return us to a time they thought was great, where the in-group was clear and life was miserable for everyone else, because they genuinely believe they’ll be the new in-group. They won’t, they all can’t, but they will take us there quickly as soon as they can.

WHUUUUUUMMMPPPPHHHH. !

wait for it the concussive wave, (that would be the pressure wave you feel from lightning very close). OR I will truly hope ::::: happens in the minds of more peoples.

Been in this situation. It also took me YEARS to figure out, because Nobody talks above this stuff in the open.

As I sit here at my two hour Spravato treatment, I’m thinking about how we talk about depression and whose job it is to do scicomm and health comm about depression.

I’ve had clinical suicidal depression for 24 years, I’ve been in therapy, done inpatient, taken meds, done treatments. I know a lot about it and can help people with the process. I love being a resource for friends new to navigating the options.

But I don’t want to be The Depression Person. Depression is just some background noise that gets in the way of who I actually am. I wanna talk prairie and plants and history!

I hate talking about my depression and suicidiality. I don’t care about receptors and inhibitors and brain chemistry. I don’t want to make work about it. I get rip-roaring furious talking about anti-medication activism, discourse and stigmas around getting help. I have zero interest in getting into it about The Psychiatry Industry, pharmaceuticals, or insurance.

So what action should I take? As a beneficiary of this complex and nuanced field of depression treatment, as a person who uses images to communicate, what am I morally obliged to do? Should I use my experience to educate people? Wouldn’t that make me a corpo shill? A pharma shill? A psychiatry apologist?

I hate that objective, concrete quality of life improvements I have had will be met with hostility and bad faith responses. I’m afraid of the inevitable backlash any depression treatment educational material I make will have. This seems especially pertinent as we in the US are going to have RFK, a man who has explicitly targeted antidepressants, as part of our government. What is my obligation here? What is the right thing to do?

Idk man. I just want to draw and talk about plants. But it sure would have been nice if I had known any of this depression stuff like, a decade earlier.

Moss appreciation 👍

Just some interesting frost patterns. Yes my windows in early May. That’s weather.

No better conceptualization for the second heating you get from making firewood and carrying water from the well than.

I’m old enough to have actually done that many times, and now on occasion still do and have a whole new appreciation of it. 🪵. 🔥. 💦

That certainly would appear to be the situation.

So why are so many still enamored of this party, the vast majority will not be able to enjoy the tax cutting the party is espousing. They are actually the ones that are paying the bills.

Unrestrained and immoral capitalism at the level of greed and pursuit of profit that kills the underlying source of it all. The “middle class. What a joke we are forced to live. 😖

This is how you unrig the system. You vote for Democrats and progressives. #VoteBlue

Keep Wall St from manipulating Main St.

I saw this, this morning. I find his perspective amazing.

Also, finishing with “sent from my iPad “. It actually is ……….His iPad

I’m pretty annoyed with his ipad right now.

an email that Steve Jobs sent to himself, one year before he died

So you want to know why I’m disgusted with the U.S…..

I’m over 60 years old. I’ve formally had five jobs in my 42 + year professional year professional life. One by popular election, two by my own selection. Those three required that I take an oath to uphold the Constitution of this country. I took it personally and seriously. That conduct repulses me on so many different levels that I am without further words …..

AP News

Trump chief of staff Meadows says actions laid out in Georgia indictment were part of his job

Mark Meadows, former White House chief of staff, has testified that actions detailed in a sweeping indictment accusing him of participating

I’m no legal expert, but if attempting to overturn a federal election conducted and certified as valid under the Constitutions of the United States and the state of Georgia, and in accordance with state and federal law, is now “part of the job” then people, all people, really ought to get to the range and practice. Because if the President’s Chief of Staff can pull that card to subvert an election, then our Republic truly is under mortal threat.

You cannot imagine how much I wish this!!!!!

I started with computers, hacking a Commodore 64, building my own board for new chips,

When there were no mice to click. ! You had to type everything. And write your code to make it work.

When I got a power Mac and access to real processing chips, I thought I was in heaven.

Now there are so many barriers to doing any of that, and they tell me this makes it better for me !

NO, IT DOESN’T. !

When I actually buy something I get to do whatever the fuck I want with it, because I bought it. !

I take complete responsibility for doing risky things. That’s all on me.

Medium

Enshitternet

The old, good internet deserves a new, good internet

I miss the old, good internet, but I don’t want to bring it back.

I want a new, good internet. One where users can’t be locked in because we make it legal to:

• reverse-engineer products and services, so you can leave a social media platform but still send and receive messages from the people you leave behind;

• jailbreak your devices so you can remove antifeatures like surveillance, ink-locking or repair-blocking; • move your media and files out of the silo whence they originated and into any player you want.

I want a new, good internet where we constrain the conduct of tech companies, banning unfair labor practices, deceptive marketing, corporate hostage-taking and other forms of rent-extraction.

I want a new, good internet where it’s both illegal to impose bossware on your employees, and where those employees can legally hack the bossware their bosses shove down their throats.

I want a new, good internet where creative workers and their audiences can reliably connect with one another, where news reporting isn’t held hostage to extractive processes.

I want a new, good internet where we seize the means of computation so that the digital infrastructure that connects our romantic, personal, political, civic, economic, educational and family and social lives is operated by and for the people who use it.

-Enshitternet: The old, good internet deserves a new, good internet