Issuing recalls - a sign of how big Anker has gotten.

A tragic story that should be added to piles of child tragedy in Palestine as well as the other affected countries from these conflicts. Speaking of Palestine, I can’t see it mentioned at all on the front page of rferl.org.

Not if we’re distracted with separating trash from recycling. We have way too many distractions so we might actually not be able to focus on the guillotines.

Perhaps they don’t really want a regime change, or at least not an orderly, prosperous one. Perhaps getting the Islamic Republic to dig its heels would prevent improvement of relationships with the world, lifting of sanctions and economic growth that would create more resources for military strengthening. Perhaps having the ambiguous big bad Muslims in power makes it easy to manufacture consent both in Israel and abroad, for arbitrary bombings. Perhaps keeping this enemy keeps people in Israel motivated to comply with the right wing policies of some factions.

We’re cooked

This is the material explanation. They expect increased productivity and therefore higher output and therefore higher profits from the same workforce. Not necessarily to downsize. Downsizing or upsizing would be dictated by a combination of the realized productivity gains and the uptake of their products by the market.

Why would they do that? If they’re making better quarterly results by listening to Wall St, that’s what the system tells them to do.

Seeking profit above all else isn’t human nature. Humans have lived and still live in societies that don’t do this. The socioeconomic system that we find ourselves in currently in a large part of the world does put profit above all else. But this system is just one iteration of how we live. And even it has changed over time where it has gotten worse over the last 50 years. It too would change and likely be replaced by another in the long run. Many believe that would be some form of socialism. Or we could go largely extinct before we abandon it. A better world is possible though.

Qobuz

I doubt it. They’ve gone hard nationalist and seem to be ready to sacrifice for the things they imagine they have to do.

My first thought.

Worker productivity has dramatically increased since WWII. A single worker is able to produce a lot more food, healthcare, and so on than they did in 1950. Of course there’s the common problem that a lot of the result of that productivity has been captured by the top. Probably less so in France than some other countries but still. If you look at the real economy, I think you might find that we are able to produce the basics needed with a small proportion of our working population. We already support a much higher retiree/worker ratio than we did a few decades ago and I think that’s the reason. There are many workers in unproductive sectors that didn’t exist before the financialization phase who could be doing more useful work too. All the computing and automation we build could be used to increase productivity in relevant sectors too, instead of maximizing the time other workers spend glued to their phones.

Putin really shat the bed with the special military operation, didn’t he. By expending so many people and resources in Ukraine, he lost the ability to plausibly support his allies in the Middle East against attacks from Israel and the US. Had he not entered Ukraine, I don’t think Israel would have struck Iran like they did.

Don’t they have enough right wing influencers doing the job?

Yeah, I don’t know why people think Israel would tolerate a democratic country that threatens their military dominance. An unsanctioned, democratic Iran with 90M people would undoubtedly develop more weapons and be able to sustain a much more significant armed conflict than the Islamic Republic. Such a country becoming a serious threat to Israel would be only a matter of electing the “wrong” government. Why wouldn’t they preemptively hit just like they did now?

The market seems to be betting that it’s not happening.

I understand completely what you’re saying and I have considered it. I just don’t believe we’ll ever get to the point where a fully automated system produces all necessary goods for high standard of living without human labour required. Worse, even if we get to the point where significantly less labour is required, history informs us that the unemployed would very likely revolt and take power through violence. Especially because we won’t be able to go from the status quo to a state where we neutralize revolting people automatically in a short enough time frame for people to be caught by surprise and unable to revolt. Not to mention that a part of such a revolt would likely include the stoppage of work by people who work on, maintain and operate the automation. I think the most likely scenario as we go down this path would be the formation of militant labour unions that take power back from the rich and steer automation into producing for the majority. Whether we go away from capitalism through this change or reshape it, I don’t have a guess.

The rich are only rich because the money they possess can be exchanged directly or indirectly for people’s labour. Without it, the money is valueless and the rich cease to be. It’s also one reason why labour strikes are so effective and the rich have had to create militias to prevent them.

It begs questions that have only bad answers.

Plot twist: board replaces the whole exec layer with CEO AI, keeps the difference, gives nothing to the employees, line goes up, employees now threatened both at the top and the bottom of the ladder, work-work!