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lv1rose · 6 months

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Corporate Hierarchies

Just thought I would share the write-up I made of corporate hierarchies and the various positions within them, in case they were of use to anyone.

Investors (anyone who invests money in a corporation):

"[T]here are some fundamental differences between an investor vs shareholder. An investor can invest money into a company without the need for shares to be issued. [This means] investors may choose to invest in any sort of business structure, including a sole proprietorship, a partnership, etc. It is quite common for investors to place money in startup businesses to aid their growth and development. This is an action shareholders cannot do, as shareholders can only become equity owners when the company decides to issue its shares." (https://lawpath.com.au/blog/investor-vs-shareholder-whats-the-difference)

Basically, a loan provider (though repayment is not always required).

All shareholders are investors but not all investors are shareholders.

Shareholders:

Anyone who owns stocks/shares (there is a difference but it varies depending on who is writing).

Has meetings such as the Annual General Meetings (AGM), though who can attend these is dependent on the organisation and can be limited to those who possess a certain amount of stocks/shares.

At the AGM, they can establish a Nomination Committee - a committee to select new board members - by calling for a vote to do so (voting against such a request is generally not done).

Members of the Nomination Committee must come from the board.

Shareholders can also directly nominate candidates for the board (this is called Nomination from the Floor) but only if the company bylaws allow for this.

Executive Chairman/Chairman of the Board

Selected by majority vote by the board of directors.

Calls for and heads the board of directors.

Board of Directors:

Elected by the Shareholders via the Nomination Committee.

Maximum of fifteen legal entities (corporations can be on the board of directors for other corporations).*

Set the overall goals of a company, e.g. regional/market-share expansion, "greening," or cost-reduction.

Monitoring progress towards these goals and reporting this information to shareholders.

*"The law as it stands requires that only one director on a company’s board be a “natural” person and any number may be corporate directors. Provision to prohibit the use of corporate directors was made in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 but this has yet to come into force." (https://www.downthewireblog.com/2020/12/limit-on-corporate-directors-consultation-opens/#:~:text=The%20law%20as%20it%20stands,yet%20to%20come%20into%20force)

Committees:

One or more legal entities are usually comprised of a subsection of the board of directors.

They have a more specific mission than the board of directors - which usually assigns them their mission.

Standing committees meet on an ongoing basis.

Special committees meet for a limited period to address a specific problem or need (e.g. the nomination committee).

Examples include:

The executive committee (recruitment and performance reviews senior management and evaluation and negotiation of confidential business opportunities);

The audit committee (oversees the organisation's financial reporting process);

The governance committee (addresses meeting calendars, the nomination of board directors, the formation and membership of committees and changes to bylaws).

Chairman (usually Chief Executive Officer - CEO):

CEOs are hired by the board of directors (internally or externally).

Heads Executive Team Meetings (ETMs).

C-Suite

Smaller companies will have two or three c-suite executives (CEO, CFO, COO), larger companies could have seventeen or more.

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

Chief Administration Officer (CAO)

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Chief Information Officer (CIO)

Chief Commercial Officer (CCO)

Chief Human Resources Manager (CHRM)

Chief Strategy Officer (CSO)

Chief IT Architect (CITA)

Chief Learning Officer (CLO)

Chief Procurement Officer (CPO)

Chief Privacy Officer (CPO)

Chief Green Officer (CGO)

Some may sit on the board of directors.

Manages the VPs and Senior VPs

V-Level (Vice Presidents & Senior Vice Presidents)

Larger organisational goals.

Sample job titles:

VP of Sales

VP of Marketing

Senior VP of Information

Manages D-Level directors.

D-Level (Directors)

Some day-to-day, some larger organizational goals.

Sample job titles:

Director of Learning for Singapore

Director of Sales for New South Wales

Director of Marketing for Brazil

Director of Operations for Wales

Director of Human Resources for Austin

Manages B-Level managers.

B-Level (Regional/Departmental Managers)

Day-to-Day operations managers for branches or areas.

Sample job titles:

Sales Manager (this will be the Sales Manager for a particular branch or area)

Operations Manager (for a particular branch or area)

Branch Manager

Area Manager

Human Resources Manager

Manages low-level managers.

Low-Level

Manages people.

Supervisors managing ~5-6 employees.**

Managers managing 15-20 employees.**

**Mileage may vary on these classifications.

Employees

Most people (everyone up to and including the C-Suite is an employee).

Has a contract with the employer for consistent*** work and hours.

Either waged or salaried.

***Except zero-hours contracts and shift-work, which vary depending on the demands of the business.

Independent Contractors

A euphemism for precarious workers, like app based delivery/transportation workers.

No contract with the employer for consistent hours, works piecemeal.

---

Officium: Latin for performance of a task, from opus (work) and facere (do).

Officiarius/officialis: Latin for official.

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nearisqueer · 1 year

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gotta say the non consensual acquisition of our every waking moment by a shadowy cabal of company shareholders is a truly bone chilling erosion of the entire planet's civil liberties and we should all be more scared of this than we currently are. if you have a job, your company owns your work hours. Depending on your contract, they likely also own your free time. You want to play a video game? Microtransactions halt your progress and endless ads ensure that even if you pay no money you still don't own your time. Engaging in most hobbies requires spending money, giving more of your life away to corporations. *Living* requires money. Why aren't you quaking with fear at this? How is it revolutionary to want to be in control of my own life, of my own time, to want to just fucking walk somewhere without being bombarded with constant advertisements? What the fuck did we do to each other, to ourselves? I'm ashamed of things over which I have no control

#anti capitalist #anti work #anti corporations #anti shareholder #rant #im angry and im scared and i want things to be better #please help me make things better #please help #ive got a pretty bad headcold and its keeping me awake and making me sad

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conundrumcomics · 1 year

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"Well Well Well Well"

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reportwire · 1 year

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Silicon Valley Confronts the End of Growth. It’s a New Era for Tech Stocks.

Silicon Valley could use a reboot. The biggest players aren’t growing, and more than a few are seeing sharp revenue declines. Regulators seem opposed to every proposed merger, while legislators push for new rules to crack down on the internet giants. The Justice Department just can’t stop filing antitrust suits against Google. The initial public offering market is closed. Venture-capital…

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mostlysignssomeportents · 8 months

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SoCal Gas spent millions on astroturf ops to fight climate rules

Today (19 Aug), I'm appearing at the San Diego Union-Tribune Festival of Books. I'm on a 2:30PM panel called "Return From Retirement," followed by a signing:

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/festivalofbooks

It's a breathtaking fraud: SoCal Gas, the largest gas company in America, spent millions secretly paying people to oppose California environmental regulations, then illegally stuck its customers with the bill. We Californians were forced to pay to lobby against our own survival:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article277266828.html

The criminal scheme is spelled out in eye-watering detail in a superb investigative report by Joe Rubin and Ari Plachta for the Sacramento Bee, which names the law firms and individual lawyers involved in the scam.

Here's the situation: SoCal Gas is California's private, regulated gas monopoly. They are allowed to lobby, but are legally required to charge their lobbying activities to their shareholders, and are prohibited from raising customer rates to pay for lobbying.

The company spent years secretly violating this rule, in the sleaziest way possible: working with corporate cartels like the California Restaurant Association and BizFed, the monopoly paid BigLaw white-shoe firms to procure people who posed as concerned citizens in order to oppose climate regulations that are essential to the state's very survival.

The bill topped $36 million – and it was illegally charged to its customers, the Californians whose immediate health and long-term survival these efforts opposed. SoCal Gas refuses to disclose the full extent of the spending, as do its lawyer-procurers, who cite legal confidentiality and a First Amendment right to secretly seek to influence policy in their refusal to disclose their profits from this illegal conduct.

The law firms involved are a who's-who of California's most prominent corporate fixers, including Reichman Jorgensen and Holland & Knight. The partners involved have a long rap sheet for anti-climate dirty tricking, most notably Jennifer Hernandez, notorious in climate justice history for an incident where activists claim she posed as one of them, infiltrating a campaign to force corporate despoilers to clean up their pollution in order to sabotage it, while secretly on a wealthy, prominent landowner's payroll.

Hernandez claims to care about the environment and says that her longstanding, corporate-funded, extensive campaigns and lawsuits against state environmental regulations are motivated by concern over their impact on working people. Her firm, Holland & Knight, denies serving SoCal Gas in opposing gas regulations, but it received $594k in ratepayer dollars, and submitted comments opposing the rules on its own behalf. Those comments were nearly identical to the comments submitted by SoCal Gas.

Hernandez also represents an obscure organization called The Two Hundred for Home Ownership in "a flurry of lawsuits" over California Air Resources Board rules on pollution, seeking to overturn the state's landmark climate change regulations.

Two Hundred for Home Ownership was founded by Robert Apodaca, who told the Bee that Hernandez's work for him is pro bono and not funded by SoCal Gas, but his entry into the fray occurred just as SoCalGas was founding an astroturf group called Californians for Fair and Balanced Energy (C4BES), which pretended to be an independent organization, disguising its relationship with SoCal Gas.

Apodaca is also founder of United Latinos Vote, an organization that had been largely dormant for seven years, not receiving any donations, until 2018, when the California Building Industry Association gave it $99k. The CBIA is a large-dollar recipient of donations from SoCal Gas, and its CEO insists that it was not acting on SoCal Gas's behalf when it made its unpredented donation to Apodaca.

The CBIA donation to United Latinos Vote was forerunner to a flood of corporate donations from the likes of Chevron, Marathon and Phillips 66. Shortly after receiving this cash, United Latinos Vote ran a full page ad in the LA Times, accusing the Sierra Club of pushing for anti-gas appliance rules that would harm working class Latino families.

This ad, in turn, featured prominently in advocacy by the SoCal Gas front group C4BES, funded with $29.1m in ratepayer money, which it then spent seeking to link clean appliance rules with anti-Latino racism. A quarter of California's carbon emissions come from home gas use.

SoCal Gas is regulated by the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC), which tolerated this mounting illegal conduct for many years, even as the company circulated internal memos as early as 2015 discussing its plans to oppose electrification in the state on the basis that it constituted "a significant risk to our business."

But last year, CPUC fined SoCal Gas $10m. Now, CPUC's Public Advocate office has filed a damning, extensive report on SoCal Gas's unlawful conduct, seeking $80m in rate cuts to compensate Californians for the funds misappropriated to protect the company's shareholder interests:

https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Efile/G000/M517/K407/517407314.PDF

Additionally, the Public Advocate is demanding $233m in fines for the company's refusal to allow investigators to audit its books and discover the full extent of the fraud.

SoCal Gas is the nation's largest utility, but (incredibly), it's not the dirtiest. That prize goes to Ohio's FirstEnergy, which handed $60m in ratepayer dollars to state politicians in illegal bribes in exchange for coal and nuclear subsidies and cancellation of state climate rules. That scandal led to GOP speaker of the Ohio House Larry Householder being sentenced to 20 years in prison:

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

There is something extraordinarily sleazy about using ratepayers' own money to lobby against their interests. SoCal Gas and its Big Law enablers have funneled millions in Californian's money into campaigns to poison us and boil us alive, and they did it while using workers and racialized people as human shields.

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet to succeed the old, good internet. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/19/cooking-the-books-with-gas/#reichman-jorgensen

Image: Maryland GovPics (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/mdgovpics/6635539089/

Jackie (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/79874304@N00/197532792

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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constellaj · 2 years

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anyway im tired of people treating Disney (corporate) and Disney (writing and directing staff) as a monolith. yes Disney (corporate) funds massive anti gay legislature. yes Disney (corporate) only recognizes demographics in terms of how much profit they can bring. but trans guy in Baymax isn't an evil trap put there by the shareholders to draw in queers and wring us of money. the trans guy in Baymax exists because in the writing room a bunch of storyboarders and storytellers were spitballing "hey, what people do we need here?" and one of the answers that came up was "trans guy" from a person who sincerely believed that representation was not only valuable but necessary. there are real people making every choice you see and hear. you can hate how corporate feigns blasé without assuming it's all some premeditated plan. you can be rightfully suspicious of corporate motivation without erasing the artists with their own motivations

#this doesnt just apply to baymax but its the most recent example #it can be forgiven that people dont know/think about how the indistry works #but if youre going to critique the actions of a company you need to be aware that not every party involved would do the same thing #and before anyone clowns:#disney has a monopoly on western entertainment and production and animators routinely bounce between jobs #nobody who disagrees w Disney policy can afford to *just leave* disney

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pancakeke · 6 months

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it's kind of funny how much money is wasted on anti-piracy software and litigation when the general public's tech and computer literacy get worse every year. I assume cause people rely more and more on smartphones instead (despite that when it comes to smartphones, users have significantly less control over their experience). everyone is basically required to own a smartphone to do anything these days, so why bother with computers? but you need a computer and some experience to be a highly effective pirate.

also this may be a mostly US american thing but a lot of people act proud of spending money for some reason. they act like being thrifty is tacky. plus many people's first instinct when they have any desire is to open their wallets. even for things that are legally free (like everything available at a library).

this makes me think that anti-piracy efforts actually have zero effect on the profitability of media. but I bet shareholders like the idea of anti-piracy measures. despite not knowing how much money they cost waste vs save. and losing shareholders can break a company overnight.

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scoonsalicious · 18 days

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Unwanted: Chapter 16, Unaccompanied - Pt. 4

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Fem!Reader

Summary: When your FWB relationship with your best friend Bucky Barnes turns into something more, you couldn’t be happier. That is, however, until a new Avenger sets her sights on your super soldier and he inadvertently breaks your heart. You take on a mission you might not be prepared for to put some distance between the two of you and open yourself up to past traumas. Too bad the only one who can help you heal is the one person you can no longer trust.

Warnings: (For this part only; see Story Masterlist for general Warnings) Language, allusions to sexy stuff, a long overdue conversation with Steve.

Word Count: 2.4k

Previously On...: You went to Tony for answers about how Carthage ended up on the Quinjet; he asks you to attend his annual shareholder gala on Saturday. You, vomiting, + a bunch of stuffy rich people. What could go wrong?

A/N: Quick note about how text messages are written herein: Outgoing messages (in this instance, from Pocket to Bucky) will be indicated by ">>" in front of them. Incoming messages are labeled with the contact name the phone owner has for that person in their phone. In this instance, Pocket has Bucky saved in her phone as "Magic Dick🍆🦾" lol

NOTE! The tag list is a fickle bitch, so I'm not really going to be dealing with it anymore. If you want to be notified when I update, please enable notifications from my Blog page!

Banner By: The absolutely amazing @mrsbuckybarnes1917!

Thank you to all those who have been reading; if you like what you've read, likes, comments, and reblogs give me life, and I truly appreciate them, and you!

Taglist: (Sadly, tag list is closed; Tumblr will not let me add anyone new. If you want to be notified when I update, please Follow me for Notifications!) @jmeelee @cazellen @mrsbuckybarnes1917 @blackhawkfanatic @buckybarnessimpp @hayjat @capswife @itsteambarnes @marygoddessofmischief @sebastians-love @learisa @lethallyprotected @rabbitrabbit12321 @buckybarnesandmarvel @fanfictiongirl77 @calwitch @fantasyfootballchampion @selella @jackiehollanderr @wintercrows @sashaisready @missvelvetsstuff @angelbabyyy99 @keylimebeag @maybefoxysouls @vicmc624 @j23r23 @wintercrows @crist1216 @cjand10 @pattiemac1@les-sel @dottirose @winterslove1917 @harperkenobi @ivet4 @casey1-2007 @mrsevans90 @steeph-aniie @bean-bean2000 @beanbagbitch @peachiestevie @wintrsoldrluvr @shadowzena43

Tumblr will not let me directly tag the following: @marcswife21 @erelierraceala @jupiter-107 @doublejeon @hiqhkey @unaxv @brookeleclerc

The gala had barely begun and you were already exhausted. Your stomach bug hadn’t let up, and you’d been vomiting for the last two days. Fortunately, you were able to get an injection of an anti-nausea medication from one of the interns down in the med bay, so even though you didn’t currently have to worry about puking your guts out on some obscenely wealthy financier, you just had to deal with the constant exhaustion you’d been feeling from your illness.

Just a few more hours, you told yourself as you brushed off the advances of yet another man old enough to be your father. Not once had anyone actually wanted to discuss the Crisis Prediction Algorithm System. It seemed you were being viewed more as potential arm candy than Stark Industries’ CTO. That alone was enough to leave you longing for an early night in your bed.

You did look amazing, though, you had to admit, even if you’d had to go a little heavy on the makeup to mask your pallor. When you asked Tony for a new dress, you’d anticipated taking the girls on a shopping trip. Tony, however, had other ideas and had sent a designer from one of the city’s top fashion houses to the Tower to collect your measurements, and then, the following day, a garment bag appeared in your room containing a striking dress in shimmering Iron Man-red. The bodice was form fitting and strapless, with an asymmetric neckline, and the skirt was full and came down to just below your ankles.

It was gorgeous, and when your hair and makeup had been completed, you looked like a princess straight out of a fairy tale. You’d sent a picture to Bucky and he’d immediately sent you back a series of panting emojis that had you laughing. The following string of text that described exactly what he wanted to do to you in the dress then had you panting, yourself. Fuck your parameters, apparently.

But now, you couldn’t wait to get out of it for an entirely different reason. The call of your pajamas was so alluring. Not only were you physically tired, but you were bored out of your mind. As this was a Stark Industries party, and not an official Avengers gathering, most of your friends had opted not to come. Rhodey was here, now almost fully recovered from his gunshot wounds, but Tony wouldn’t leave his side, so he was constantly being surrounded by people and you couldn’t really find an opening to go talk to him.

When you’d asked Nat and Wanda if they wanted to come with you, Wanda had politely declined, letting you know that she and Vision already had plans to go out of town for the weekend, while Nat just scoffed at you. “I would literally rather swallow broken glass, Pocket,” she’d said. “Those things are boring as fuck and there is not enough money you could possibly pay me to go to one, sorry.” She’d ended up going bar hopping with Clint and Sam, instead.

So, there you were, all by yourself, not even able to distract yourself with the elaborate spread of food that Tony had provided, as the thought of eating still turned your stomach, when you felt a hand at your elbow.

“Hey,” Steve said softly. His presence took you by surprise– you couldn’t even remember the last time you’d truly spoken to one another, aside from clipped conversations about work and missions. “That’s a lovely dress.” A slight blush tinted his cheeks. “How are you feeling, by the way?”

“Steve, hi. Um, I’m good, thank you. Just really tired. Not quite in the right headspace to schmooze, you know?” you asked him, trying to fight off the awkwardness you were feeling at speaking to him again after so long. “You look very dashing tonight.” And he did, with his dark navy suit and cream button-up.

He smiled, then held out a hand. “Would you care to dance?” he asked. You thought about it for a second. You didn’t want to lead him on, let him think you had any interest beyond the platonic relationship you’d always shared, but you were so fucking bored. One dance couldn’t hurt.

“I’d love to,” you said, taking his hand and letting him lead you to the dance floor.

He was surprisingly light on his feet, given his hulking frame, and he led you through the steps with ease. You somehow managed to only step on his toes twice, which gave you both a good laugh.

“I must have forgotten all my finishing school lessons,” you teased.

“Nah, you’re doing great.” Steve sent you out for a spin, but as he twirled you back into his arms, you were overcome with a wave of dizziness and stumbled. You felt your knees give out and your body begin to collapse in its exhaustion.

“Whoa,” said Steve, using his super soldier reflexes to grab you before you could fall and hold you steady. “I got you. You wanna sit down? Rest a bit?”

You nodded and he led you over to a quiet corner where some couches had been arranged for that very purpose. He guided you down to sit, then placed himself next to you, concern clouding his features.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you said. “Just, you know, between the nausea and the vomiting, I haven’t really been able to keep a lot of food down over the last two days. It’s got me so tired. I think I overdid it with a dance number.”

Steve chuckled, then stood up. “Let me go get you something to drink,” he said. “It’s important that you stay hydrated.” You nodded, and he was off.

With a sigh, you reached into your clutch and pulled out your phone, sending a quick text to Bucky, but knowing that, due to the time difference, he was probably sleeping.

>> I miss you.

You were quite surprised, then, when you saw the three dots appear almost immediately.

Magic Dick🍆🦾: Not that I don’t miss you too, because I desperately do.

Magic Dick🍆🦾: But aren’t you supposed to be livin' it up like Cinderella at the ball?

You chuckled at that before responding.

>> This Cinderella is tired and bored and would much rather be snuggled up in bed with her metal-armed Prince Charming watching a movie or literally any other activity aside from being at this ball unaccompanied.

Magic Dick🍆🦾: You better be talking ‘bout me, doll.

>> How many other metal-armed men do I have in my life, dipshit?

>> Why are you even awake, anyway?

Magic Dick🍆🦾: I’m just teasin’ you, smart ass ;)

Magic Dick🍆🦾: I’d much rather be curled up in bed with you doin any variety of bedly activities, too >:)

Magic Dick🍆🦾: And I’m up because we’re getting ready to act on our intel and raid the communications office we were sent to find.

Magic Dick🍆🦾: Hit 'em at dawn when they’re least suspectin’ it, ya know?

>> Jesus Christ, baby! Be careful!

Maybe it wasn’t a good thing you hadn’t gone on the mission– you didn’t even have the energy to imagine yourself having the energy to conduct a raid in your current state.

Magic Dick🍆🦾: Always, doll. Gotta get back to my best girl, don’t I?

>> You absolutely do. Cause if I found out you died, I will kill you.

Magic Dick🍆🦾: I have no doubt that if someone were to find a way to murder me from beyond my grave, it would be you.

Magic Dick🍆🦾: Shit. Sorry sweets, I gotta go.

Magic Dick🍆🦾: Try to have fun. I love you.

>> I love you too, Buckaroo.

You stared at the screen for a moment longer, but there was no further reply. Wonderful. Now you would be spending what little energy you absolutely did not have to spare worrying about Bucky’s safety.

Steve returned then, handing you a cold glass dripping with condensation. “It’s lemonade,” he said as you took a sip. “I know how much you like lemons.”

You smiled in thanks, but it came out more like a grimace. Steve noticed immediately.

“Are you alright? Does it not taste good? I could go get you something else…”

You put a reassuring hand on his arm. “No, Steve, the lemonade’s fine. Thank you for getting it for me; that was very thoughtful. It’s just,” you sighed, “I was texting Bucky. He and Carthage are running a raid on a communications office as we speak, and now I’m just nervous and worried about him.”

Steve’s brow creased. “Oh,” he said, though you could tell there was more behind the word than the single syllable would imply. “I didn’t realize the two of you had gotten back together.”

Fuck. You were by far too tired to be having this conversation. Squeezing your eyes shut for a moment, you decided it was time to confront the giant elephant that had been sitting between you and the Captain for far too long. “We haven’t, not officially, anyway, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t still love each other, in spite of everything that’s happened. We’re just working on building trust. Or rather, he’s working on building trust, and I’m working on determining if I can trust him again. It’s a process.”

Steve’s shoulders sagged, the movement so minute you would have missed it if you hadn’t been watching him so closely in the moment. You took a deep breath before you continued.

“Look, Steve,” you began, “I know about your feelings for me.” His eyes shot up to meet yours, and he opened his mouth to protest, but you gently held a hand up to stop him from speaking. You needed to get everything you had to say out while you still had the energy to do so. “I’ve known for a bit, and while I’m truly flattered, and honored, that you care for me, I’m also so sorry that I don’t feel the same way about you. You’re a good man. A wonderful man, and I know most people would tell me I’m an idiot for not reciprocating, but I just don’t share those feelings.”

“It’s because of Berlin, isn’t it?” he asked softly, not meeting your gaze, and for a moment, you could see the small, shy boy Bucky had told you about from his youth.

“Berlin altered our relationship, it’s true,” you told him, “but the nature of my feelings for you were cemented long before that. You’re my family, and do I love you, but I love you as a member of that family. The way I love Tony, and Nat, and Thor, but maybe a little better than I love Clint.” Steve chuckled softly at that, and you smiled, glad you could make him laugh even a little. “I’m sorry this isn’t the answer you want to hear, and I’m sorry that you’ve had to watch me be with your best friend. None of it was ever done with the intention of deliberately causing you pain, but at the same time, I need to do what’s going to make me happy, and I hope you can accept that, as my friend and a member of my family.”

Steve looked like he was going to argue with you for a moment, but he kept his mouth shut and just nodded. “Yeah,” he said eventually. “I can accept that. It hurts,” he chuckled humorously, “but I want both you and Bucky to be happy.”

“Thanks, Stevie,” you said, suppressing a yawn. “Holy shit, I’m tired. I think I’m going to call it a night. I put in enough time to fulfill my obligation to Tony.” You stood, but immediately stumbled, the motion of standing enough to make you dizzy.

Steve was instantly on his feet, an arm out to steady you. “I got you,” he said. He put a hand to your forehead, checking your temperature. “You don’t seem to have a fever, but I’m getting worried about you, Pocket. I should escort you down to med bay.”

You waved the suggestion off. “No, it’s fine. The last thing I want is a bunch of doctors poking and prodding at me all night. I’ll be fine, I just need to sleep.”

“You can barely even stand up on your own,” Steve protested. “Let me at least walk you back to your room. Make sure you get there without falling over.” You were going to tell him you’d be fine on your own when a wave of nausea overtook you.

“Yeah, okay,” you said, clutching tightly to his arm for support. You had planned on going over to Tony and Pepper to say a proper goodbye, but given the way you were currently feeling, an Irish one was going to have to do, instead.

Steve put a hand to your back and led you out of the banquet hall. You had to stop more than once to steady yourself, and you were grateful for Steve’s assistance. By the time he’d walked you to your door, you were running on fumes.

“Do you need help getting inside?” he asked, looking worried.

“No,” you assured him. “I’ll be okay. I am literally just going to collapse into my bed. Might not even bother taking the dress off, to be honest.”

Steve blushed, and you regretted putting the idea of you getting out of your clothes into his head. “Well, if you’re sure,” he said, running a hand behind his neck, the movement so similar to Bucky that it threw you for a moment. “If there’s anything you need in the night, anything at all, don’t hesitate to call me, alright?”

“Sure, Steve,” you said as he placed a gentle kiss to the crown of your head. You were grateful for his help, but you knew that, even if you were suddenly dying, you would not, in fact, be calling him. “Thanks for your help.”

You wished each other a goodnight, and soon you were once again within the sanctuary of your room. Managing to summon the will from somewhere, you shimmied out of the dress, draping it over your vanity chair; it was, after all, probably far too expensive to either sleep in or leave in a puddle on the floor overnight. You debated whether or not to take the time to remove your face full of makeup but, God, your bed was just so inviting, you’d deal with the consequences in the morning.

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#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky x you #bucky x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky x female reader #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes fanfiction #james bucky buchanan barnes #james buchanan barnes #mcu bucky barnes #james barnes

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nando161mando · 8 days

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Surely shareholders can sue right?

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therobotmonster · 23 days

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There's a nuance to the Amazon AI checkout story that gets missed.

Because AI-assisted checkouts on its own isn't a bad thing:

This was a big story in 2022, about a bread-checkout system in Japan that turned out to be applicable in checking for cancer cells in sample slides.

But that bonus anti-cancer discovery isn't the subject here, the actual bread-checkout system is. That checkout system worked, because it wasn't designed with the intent of making the checkout cashier obsolete, rather, it was there to solve a real problem: it's hard to tell pastry apart at a glance, and the customers didn't like their bread with a plastic-wrapping and they didn't like the cashiers handling the bread to count loaves.

So they trained the system intentionally, under controlled circumstances, before testing and launching the tech. The robot does what it's good at, and it doesn't need to be omniscient because it's a tool, not a replacement worker.

Amazon, however, wanted to offload its training not just on an underpaid overseas staff, but on the customers themselves. And they wanted it out NOW so they could brag to shareholders about this new tech before the tech even worked. And they wanted it to replace a person, but not just the cashier. There were dreams of a world where you can't shoplift because you'd get billed anyway dancing in the investor's heads.

Only, it's one thing to make a robot that helps cooperative humans count bread, and it's another to try and make one that can thwart the ingenuity of hungry people.

The foreign workers performing the checkouts are actually supposed to be training the models. A lot of reports gloss over this in an effort to present the efforts as an outsourcing Mechanical Turk but that's really a side-effect. These models all work on datasets, and the only place you get a dataset of "this visual/sensor input=this purchase" is if someone is cataloging a dataset correlating the two...

Which Amazon could have done by simply putting the sensor system in place and correlating the purchase data from the cashiers with the sensor tracking of the customer. Just do that for as long as you need to build the dataset and test it by having it predict and compare in the background until you reach your preferred ratio. If it fails, you have a ton of market research data as a consolation prize.

But that could take months or years and you don't get to pump your stock until it works, and you don't get to outsource your cashiers while pretending you've made Westworld work.

This way, even though Amazon takes a little bit of a PR bloody nose, they still have the benefit of any stock increase this already produced, the shareholders got their dividends.

Which I suppose is a lot of words to say:

#amazon AI #ai discourse #amazon just walk out #just walk out #the only thing that grows forever is cancer #capitalism #amazon

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anamericangirl · 4 months

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State capitalism is capitalism, just not free market capitalism aka "pure" capitalism. Under capitalism, capital is privately owned (that's the literal definition of capitalism). Under state capitalism, the state privately owns the capital. Yes, the state can privately own things. Private ownership of capital just means the public has no direct effect on its operation. A privately owned company has no public stocks for example. Your mistake lies in believing capitalism necessitates a free market or ownership by an individual, when it actually doesn't.

Socialism on the other hand is when capital is completely publicly owned. For example, under socialism there is no single person in charge of any corporation. All people are considered equal shareholders.

The Nazis were state capitalists, since in Nazi Germany, things like factories were taken from the people who owned them, privatized, and became property of the state. That's state capitalism. Since actions speak louder than words, we can say they were state capitalists regardless of what they said, since in the end they did things furthered state capitalism.

As convincing as it is for you to just rehash all the claims I've already addressed with absolutely nothing new to add to the conversation other than your own misguided opinion, which you have more confidence in than I do, I must disagree.

Because you are wrong.

Your mistake is you don't know the difference between the public sector and private sector.

It's not a mistake to think capitalism necessitates a free market because it does. That's how it's defined.

Capitalism means private control of the means of production. The word private is from the latin word "privus" which literally means individual. It is inherently anti-state and anti-public ownership. Capitalism means private ownership, specifically of the individual. Otherwise it's not capitalism. State capitalism is an oxymoronic term that translates to "state non-state." Anyone who uses it, such as yourself, is just advertising that they have no idea what they are talking about.

Public ownership is defined by state ownership. That's what it means. If "state capitalism" is state ownership then it's socialism because state ownership and public ownership are the same thing. The word public is from the latin word "publicus" which means of the people or of the state.

Socialism is not all people are considered equal shareholders lol. That's the modern day socialist utopia lie. If all people are "equal shareholders" that basically means no one actually has a share. Except the state. And if everyone did equally have a share that would be dictated by....you guessed it...the state.

Socialism is state ownership of the means of production. There are different kinds of socialism but they all require the state to own the means of production. Which, remember, is public ownership which is the opposite of capitalism.

You explained yourself why it's not capitalism. If factories were taken from the people who owned them to be owned by the state that's antithetical to the very concept of capitalism. Something being "privatized" means something state owned becomes owned by a non-government party. A private party. An individual. Private ownership is the opposite of state ownership so claiming they can be done simultaneously just shows you don't know what those terms mean.

The Nazis were not state capitalists because state capitalism is an impossibility. They were socialists. Because socialism is exactly what you described in your attempts to define "state capitalism" lol.

What you really mean when you say the nazis weren't socialists is that they weren't marxists. Which is true. They weren't marxists. But they were socialists. And trying to rebrand socialism as an inherently contradictory phrase like state capitalism to try and distance socialism from the evil it led to just makes you look ignorant.

#answered

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qqueenofhades · 9 months

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JSYK the OP of the Crab Day post is a self-identified conservative Christian. Can't speak to anything she may have done or said, but I do know that Crab Day wouldn't actually fix Tumblr - the site is running a 30mil *deficit,* which is different from debt. All Crab Day would do would be telling staff that their current policies get users to send them more money, which doesn't actually change anything. Corporations change only when their business strategy is losing the shareholders money.

Gotta be honest, my friend, I'm... not sure what you're trying to do here? Warn me that the original post was made by a Problematic Person (tm) and therefore that must mean it's all wrong, or.... what?

We know that Tumblr badly needs money, because they have told us that and openly admitted that the unpopular new changes were spurred by a need for increasing revenue. I logged on just now on desktop and got a suggestion that I could purchase an ad-free browsing subscription to help support the hellsite (which is the word they used, because they have very much embraced the joke). I have in fact already bought an ad-free subscription, both because I like the product Tumblr provides and want to keep using it in its current form, and because it makes my mobile experience immeasurably nicer. I am well aware that especially in this era of social media sites dropping like flies, the continued existence of a platform that is 30-million-dollars underwater (however you want to split hairs about exactly how) is not a guarantee. And we all complain about Tumblr, but we have all been here a long time (me, uh, over 10 years), we have a solid community, there's no other alternative that's really ever come up or gotten the same kind of uptake, and if it went under, we would be uh, screwed.

Tumblr is kind of a mess, it's the antithesis of every social media site, and it doesn't (for now) have the crap that makes The Artist Formerly Known As Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram so utterly unusable, or if it does, you can (mostly) turn it off. That's why we all like it and why, even if we are resolutely anti-capitalist gremlins who resist being marketed to with every fiber of our being, it doesn't change the fact that servers, staff, and all the rest cost real human-people money which the site, by their own frank admission, is struggling to raise. Even if staff does often make crappy updates, they generally at least TRY to listen to us and include a feature to make it optional or roll it back, unlike certain unnamed idiot billionaires. Their mockery of other social media sites can sometimes be a little much, but for now, Tumblr is pretty much the last place on the internet that does what it does, and I like it that way. If it went under and took my blog of 10+ years and all my friends with it, I would be incredibly sad.

That being the case, and basic financial realities being what they are, encouraging people to toss a few bucks at a TOTALLY OPTIONAL and fun gimmick that increases functionality for a product we like is actually not a bad thing. TumblrMart has crabs, checkmarks, Ea-Nasir merchandise (seriously), ad-free browsing, etc., and if our choice is voluntarily supporting the site through fun (and again, OPTIONAL) purchases versus having us all be involuntarily subject to some horrible data-scraping mechanism or forced off altogether because they couldn't keep the lights on, that is fine with me. Nobody is making anybody do or buy anything. But if you like the product Tumblr provides and want a fun material way to show your appreciation, then I don't think it's some Great Transgression to participate in that.

#temperedknight #ask #crab day

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