How can you read the full article?

So where in the idea of capitalism do you see a mechanism that avoids colluding and undermining the sovereignty of people?

From my POV, capitalism is the act of maximising profit/cash flow. This may happen through peaceful agreements, soft power or hard power.

What part of capitalism are you referring to, when you distinguish it from neo-liberalism?

Fully agree with you here and particularly your longer response above.

VR / AR has some fantastic use cases in industrial work, where experienced workers can overshadow a field person and be enriched by some sort of global database that covers whatever that field person is working on. There are probably other niche tech use cases as well.

As for an entertainment gadget that is widely used, I just don’t think it is as immersive as portrayed or will be in the foreseeable future.

https://outline.com/XhtWcF For the whole article

I mean, can you imagine the desire, of being able to leave behind your real world, your dirty, exhausting, imperfect real world, where you are weak and ugly and unsuccessful and going to a virtual world where you can experience whatever you want?

All just through a head set? I honestly don’t quite buy this (admitting fully that I might be wrong) and really can’t relate to the desire you are describing either.

It’s not real and won’t look / feel real. So maybe there is a one or two hour entertainment to be had, but I can’t see this overhyped potential and VR being used “everywhere”.

Consider all the video chats we are having since the pandemic at work. What did 80% people do pretty quickly? Turn off their cameras, turn off their mics, while they are browsing the web in the background or doing the dishes, letting the meeting/call pass by. Would any of those go into VR to experience a virtual version of their colleague without being forced? I don’t think so.

The problem with private schools is that they, at least in the country I live in, seem to run havoc and actually collect more public funding than public schools do (which I find perverse, really).

I’m really torn about this. I could imagine a case for private schools, but just the example I see in this anglo country I’m in makes me really cautious about them.

Yes, monetising it also creates stupid incentives. In the educational scenario you’ll have to face the fact that if someone pays you for a service they are your client. How do you educated someone on whose feedback and money you depend? Certainly not in an objective manner.

Maybe the fact that you pose the question is a hint to its answer.

We are so quick to abstract this question, as in tech allows us to call our family from wherever we work and anytime, but this means we don’t have the same resources to question why we are away from our family.

Likewise, it allows us to reach beyond the social norms of our physical circle, but it doesn’t provide a neutral framework of how to be beyond those norms.

I think the problems with tech are related to the ownership of tech. Currently, I do think it makes us more lonely but maybe we have to move beyond tech to be able to use it well :)

Whatever you do then, do not move to Sydney… cockroaches the size of puppies and yes some fly but none of them is happy to chip in for rent

One of the things that just work really well for me. The webclipper is quite decent too.

This is an interesting question and discussion.

I do feel that left/right is a useful distinction. It is useful from my perspective in terms of values, even though we don’t focus on this in most discussions.

The point is: are you are ok with a person next to you suffering. Suffering because they did wrong, suffering because they have to for a bigger cause. If you are ok with it, you will, in the end, support some form of right wing or authoritarian policies.

The alternative is “One for all and all for one”.

You quote David Graeber somewhere else. In his spirit, I do believe that this is a decision. We either care or we don’t.

Absolutely! I think any extra power in the phones is simply used to suck up more data and telemetrics. The phones get faster so the Samsungs, Googles and Apples can run their useless extras for their own benefits.

That’s why the phones run so much smoother once you e.g. remove google and put on a custom rom

Yes, generally agree.

However the bloat in Linux can be managed more easily and is nowhere as intense. Even old RPis and old laptops are still usable after 10+ years.

My IT experience at work has been deteriorating for at least 6 years now. It is now at a stage where I go back to handwritten notes and MS Notepad, because those generally don’t crash my work laptop that often.

The other areas where there is intense bloat is phones. After de-googling my phones (incl. custom ROM), everything works more smooth and the battery typically lasts 50% longer (guestimate). I’ve de-googled probably over half a dozen phones so far and the end product was always way smoother and faster and much extended battery life.

I’m not quite buying this. First of all, most people are forced to use some bloated OS and software at work. This means they get used to certain apps and unless they have a specific interest in say Open Source, they won’t look into alternatives. Schools, universities, etc. all get “sponsored” by big tech as well, leading to further market capture.

Secondly, things like Linux are presented by large corps as complicated, which simply isn’t true but again, the large corp would have some credibility bonus.

In general, the computer industry is largely consolidated from a customer perspective to a number of large players that scare people actively away from open solutions. As with nearly everything, you cannot vote with your wallet, since the markets are heavily tilted towards large corporations.

Finally, what is “woke-sufficiency”?

Snikket was quite easy to set up and the community is very helpful

I think you still want people to have some freedom for non-essential activities that they can access through their own means.

Not an expert in the topic at all, but I believe that in the UBI trials that were run (in Europe?) still had the public healthcare and education system available.

I think UBI can support and make easier some form of social welfare. For instance, in the country I’m living at the moment, it has been made really difficult for people who have to rely on social welfare to access it. A variety of gates have been created in order to ensure that an applicant “really needs” access.

I believe that UBI would be a much more dignified way of delivering social welfare. However I’m thinking about it really as a progressive tax that starts in the negative and then increases with income, which might be different to what others mean by this.

Don’t disagree with your comment regarding the incentives in the current economic setup… however I believe that at the current stage the regulators rather aim to protect the excesses rather than trying to curb them.

I think a UBI can sit in parallel with other initiatives. For instance you can have universal healthcare and education, while still having UBI.

I also think that just because an idea can be perverted, it doesn’t mean that it has to be that way or that there are no positive sides to it.

I’m critical of UBI as a single, silver bullet. However, I do think that there is potential for it to play a role in creating more just societies.

I like universal service too. Is there a good read that discusses how it would work with food and housing? Both sectors are currently very much profit looking, so I’d be curious to learn how they would be transformed.

Hmm, maybe from general literature I’d pick Umberto Eco’s The Prague Cemetary, for being funny and interesting with an end that let’s your heart sink…

Or probably The god of small things by Arundhati Roy. The book is an absolute treat and Arundhati Roy is just great in general!

In politics, it would be easily Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman’s Manufacturing Consent. A lot feels of the books argument feels like common sense, however what impressed me so much was the detailed outline and references that drove down the point of the book so well.