I feel like pure demonization is such an easy path to distrust and abuse. For the longest time I didn’t know the difference between even weed and other drugs, just that it was “bad”, weed might as well have been crack. I sure as shit didn’t know the harder drugs make you feel unimaginably good and that this in specific was the danger.
I actually had a bad LSD trip that went worse than it should have due to this demonization, I couldn’t stop thinking of all the times I was told or overheard as a kid that such drugs drive you insane. I knew beforehand what I was doing and what that would entail, but it didn’t matter once I had jumped in, the paranoia from years of growing up hearing such things won.
For sure raise awareness, for sure drive home the notion that certain drugs will fuck your life up, but they need to seriously sit down and explain the nuances between all of them, they need to explain risks and dangers (the real ones, not the propagandist talking points) as well as the effects, they need to compare them to alcohol, tobacco, coffee, hell even food since even that is addictive. People will try stuff, they better try stuff with an informed perspective and know which ones are too much to consider.
Do whatever is your favourite hobby but crack a few beers if you drink (or whatever else alcoholic or non alcoholic drink you enjoy) while eating some of your favourite snacks and just have some good alone time!
Gaming, knitting, scale models, whatever floats your boat.
Why does it seem like there’s a moral impertive suggested by this? What makes the politician charismatic as opposed to a charming salesman? What if the politician was a panachey salesman in a prior time?
That’s what the qualifier “great” is for. A bad politician has panache. Charisma, to me, implies some charm. Panache is what P.T. Barnum used to rope suckers into seeing what an “egress” is.
Since reddthat is on lemmy 0.19.1, you should be able to block instance. You can find this setting from lemmy web UI, not sure if it’s already on lemmy mobile apps
I agree with folks saying charisma is an attribute of a person, and panache is attached to an action or object. That’s how I’ve always heard them used. But we could all be wrong compared to the dictionary definitions. Merriam Webster seems to agree, at least.
I tend to think of charisma as charm, and panache as style.
There’s a whole book I read once about how charisma being inherent is wrong and that it’s a skill like any other. The Charisma Myth if anyone is interested.
In November, I was sick for a month. I was coughing like crazy after contracting a respiratory virus.
Early December, I’m getting better. I was doing my things, like, changing my son’s bedsheets, when I had a small cough. And I heard “clok” sound in my body, followed by a very intense pain in my ribcage.
I had cracked a rib. Not caused by how intense the cough was, but by repetition of the coughing for more than a month.
Them teenagers be saying things like they are not very bussin or pog champ. That it’s kinda cringe tbh and L + ratio. I only can wonder what these words mean.
Capitalism, minus a strong guiding hand as described by Adam Smith, invariably leads to monopolies, or near enough. When that happens, either through a single strong monopoly or a small group of companies, the market doesn’t work and price gouging rises. You don’t have to look further back than the past couple years at inflation. Every study I have seen blames inflation almost completely on price gouging and market failing to work for consumers. Think record prices (and corresponding record profits) of companies across the board. If you want specific examples, check out the long history of Walmart and the negative effects its stores have on local competition and local earnings. Or the profit taking of gas companies. Or super market chains. Or…
People who love Capitalism always seem to have missed high school history/econ and have this ignorant belief that laissez-faire is the best. Even though proven to be shitty. This belief in trickle down bullshit has resulted in 50 trillion dollars going from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. If that’s not capitalism destroying itself, I’m not sure what else to say.
Or as Leonard Cohen sang so succinctly,“The poor stay poor, the rich get rich / that’s how it goes / everybody knows.”
Is that capitalism destroying itself tho? I mean in a purist way, what you describe is capitalism changing so it does do something but what it ends up in is called late stage capitalism so did it really destroy itself or merely “evolved”? Yes in that stage it is worse for 99.99% of people compared to before but maybe that’s somewhat intended? And most importantly is that stage (more) stable or not.
Granted, the concept applies specifically to platforms, but the idea is basically what capitalism is:
Be good to everyone
Be good to suppliers (supply-side economics)
Be good to shareholders and, subsequently, alienate both users and suppliers of content. The platform collapses.
Late-stage capitalism is when shareholder wealth is maximized at the expense everyone else. So you have 3 billionaires with 50% of the wealth of all humanity or something, the middle class squeezed into oblivion, and a roiling undercurrent of pure fucking rage ready to sever heads like watermelons from a vine.
I think you can say that’s immoral. I’m not sure you can say it will destroy the whole system or that this is an inevitability of any capitalist system.
Is there actually any record of this destroying the capitalist system though? To my knowledge, every time this happens, its just replaced with more extreme and violent capitalism.
When there is enough critical mass that sees that this shit ain’t working… so, never most probably… or after a nuclear war or another global catastrophy. People tend to look in retrospect only when faced with huge problems.
When 99% or less of the population can’t work or make any money. What I mean by this is the economy mainly driven by robots/rudimentary AI. The top 1% will be angry and try to keep it as is, but as history has taught us humans really like the guillotine in such situations
Ironically enough, Elon Musk - posterboy of "rich fuckheads" - actually does live in proximity to his workers. I read a while back that he'd sold off all his houses and lived in the same rental properties that his on-site engineers used.
I read that he sold his real estate and was staying in a place owned by another billionaire while looking for a place. That was a couple of years ago, I don’t really follow that fuckhead.
My hope would be that we can transition peacefully to a hybrid model with the rising power of unions, gradual emergence of worker cooperatives, and increased demand for socialized health care and affordable housing.
However, I think it’s more likely that things will have to collapse first. Especially with violent accelerationist types doing their thing. Unfortunately, it’s far easier to destroy systems than it is to repair them.
My hope would be that we can transition peacefully to a hybrid model with the rising power of unions, gradual emergence of worker cooperatives, and increased demand for socialized health care and affordable housing.
None of this has anything to do with capitalism tho.
Like, capitalism can and should be the economic engine driving these positive outcomes.
I mean not really? Because currently capitalism as an economic engine is actively preventing these outcomes. And basically by design. How do you explain that?
The USA is also a good example how the markets can get in the way of the regulation and of free markets. The players in the free market don’t really benefit from being in a free market. They have every incentive to change that.
The current strategy of venture capital is not success, but sabotage
It’s not good enough for you to be doing well, you have to strangle the competition and introduce yourself as an unremovable bottleneck
For example, becoming the intermediary between concerts and concert goers. The fees charged and the trouble caused is worse than if they hadn’t been there.
Amazon makes examples out of any business that dare challenge it’s dead zone around it.
VC money is meant to crush the competition and lock in the consumer to charge rent.
Why would they ever want worker control, or unions?
Why would the private healthcare industry ever stop lobbying against socialized healthcare? Why would a capitalist success ever lead to the political change necessary for it when the doctrine of capitalism is privatization
Why would any commercial real estate firm allow affordable housing to exist when they can scalp it on investment properties and leave them empty? Why build affordable housing when the margins are small?
Capitalism isn’t a savior, it’s just locally optimal to the people with capital.
VC money is meant to crush the competition and lock in the consumer to charge rent.
This is not anything close to correct lol. VCs specifically do not invest in mature companies or they aren’t VCs.
Why would any commercial real estate firm allow affordable housing to exist when they can scalp it on investment properties and leave them empty? Why build affordable housing when the margins are small?
All housing built helps other housing come affordable because it increases supply. You are correct that there is little purpose intentionally building less valuable housing
You probably know it, but just in case that you (or anyone reading this, who might agree with you) don’t: give the texts of The Fabian Society a check. They’re rather close to what you’re proposing with a peaceful transition; I have my criticisms against it as a Marxist strictu sensu, but I bet that you’ll have a blast with it.
I’m proposing to check their texts out because it’s a good way to get theoretical background to back up your beliefs, if you believe in a peaceful transition. (Here’s a link to a good one, by the way.)
It’s also useful for Marxists, given that Marxism always interacted with other left-wing trains of thought. So by reading this stuff you get a better historical context on why Marxism defends some policies instead of other policies.
I have reservations about unions. While it does give employees bargaining power, it sometimes does it to a fault. We see this with police unions in the US as it stops bad apples from getting proper punishment, and as a result, they get slaps on the wrist. I imagine that it would be equally as hard to fire somebody in other industries like medicine unless there’s a 3rd party (like an arbitrator or court) enforcing these decisions.
Also, without any legislation in the US, I’d argue that unions will stay incredibly difficult to form, and even if they do, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they can negotiate with companies fairly. Companies out there (I believe Dish is an example) have spent 10 years stalling negotiations with unions, and it’s all practically legal.
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