okay so i’ve never really grasped this, might as well ask now — how exactly does the cyberspace & nft stuff mine resources? i’ve heard the basics (i.e. crypto mining uses energy and what not) but i’ve never been able to understand how internet connects to real resources. could you sort of explain that (along the lines with the spam email post) in a simpler way?

ok, put very simply: it's easy for people who only interact with the internet as users to treat 'cyberspace' or 'the virtual world' as immaterial. i type something out on my phone, it lives in the screen. intuitively, it feels less real and physical than writing the same words down on a piece of paper with a pencil. this is an illusion. the internet is real and physical; digital technology is not an escape from the use of natural resources to create products. my phone, its charger, the data storage facility, a laptop: all of these things are physical objects. the internet does not exist without computers; it is a network of networks that requires real, physical devices and cables in order to store, transmit, and access all of the data we use every time we load a webpage or save a text document.

this is one of google's data centres—part of the physical network of servers and cables that google operates. these are real objects made of real materials that need to be obtained through labour and then manufactured into these products through labour. the more data we use, the more capacity the physical network must have. google operates dozens of these data centres and potentially millions of servers (there is no official number). running these facilities takes electricity, cooling technologies (servers get hot), and more human labour. now think about how many other companies exist that store or transmit data. this entire network exists physically.

when you look at a server, or a phone, or a laptop, you might be glossing over a very simple truth that many of us train ourselves not to see: these objects themselves are made of materials that have supply chains! for example, cobalt, used in (among other things) lithium-ion batteries, has a notoriously brutal supply chain relying on horrific mining practices (including child labour), particularly in the congo. lithium mining, too, is known to have a massive environmental toll; the list goes on. dangerous and exploitative working conditions, as well as the environmental costs of resource extraction, are primarily and immediately borne by those who are already most brutally oppressed under capitalism: poor workers in the global south, indigenous people, &c. this is imperialism in action. digital technologies cannot exist without resources, and tech companies (like all capitalist firms!) are profitable because they exploit labour.

all commodities require resources and labour to make and distribute. digital technology is no different. these are material objects with material histories and contexts. nothing about the internet is immaterial, from the electromagnetic waves of wi-fi communication to the devices we use to scroll tumblr. it is, in fact, only by a fantastical sleight-of-hand that we can look at and interact with these objects and still consider the internet to be anything but real resources.

I think that the concept of immediacy is one that's pivotal to modern political analysis, but which is sorely missing in many discussions.

The most obvious example is in our existential threat - climate change. To a simple, omniscient material analysis, capitalism would be appearing to act incoherently here. The capitalist system is the expression of the political will of the capitalist class, the bourgeoisie. This class acts towards its own interests, to maintaining its own power and improving its standards of life. To this end it does many things that impoverish and oppress *other* classes - it creates masses of unemployed and unhoused people and forces violence on them, to maintain a reserve army of labour; it carries out violent redistribution of territory between its various states, wars fought with the blood of the lower classes, to restore the rate of profit; it impoverishes entire nations, repressing them politically and economically, to create favourable markets to export its capital to and import labour-power from - but climate change threatens to destroy the capitalist class as a whole, alongside everyone else. Plainly, it is not in their material interest to poison the air they breathe and the food they eat.

Why stop there, however? There are a number of other things that threaten the common ruin of the contending classes - but even so, if we focus only on the ruin of the *ruling* class, there's only one threat we need bother focusing on. Travel back to the establishment of the bourgeois republic, to the revolutionaries fighting feudal monarchy - is this in their interests? By the standard we've just established: no! Inexorably, plainly, as the capitalist class just overthrew the aristocracy, so too will the bourgeoisie themselves be overthrown by the working class. In the long term, they're simply dooming their own class to its inevitable destruction. Yet, they carry out their revolution anyway, for reasons that are quite obvious - it's not their problem right now. The eventual overthrow of their class is effectively immaterial to them, compared to the immediate benefits of revolution. In the same way, on a halfway-smaller timescale, the current capitalist class has more immediate problems to face than climate change. The long-term doesn't matter anyway if you don't survive the short-term.

This is, of course, not only applicable to climate change. Having established this premise, an important focus is the imperial core, and third-worldism. Does the working class of the imperial core benefit from anti-imperialism? Well, yes, and no! In the long-term, it's plainly evident that the proletariat of the imperialist nations would be better off under socialism. However, it's also clear that they presently *do* receive benefit, compared to the proletariat of other nations, due to imperialism. The *immediate* effect of anti-imperialist political organisation and action in the imperial core would be a worsening of their conditions, while the long-term, ultimate effect would remain a massive improvement in their conditions. In the final analysis, socialist revolution is in the interest of *all* workers - however, for some workers, it's very much not in their *immediate* interests. Understanding this, without a need for claims of ideological corruption or some innate counter-revolutionary tendency, shows clearly *why* certain sections of the working class oppose global socialism *and the circumstances that would bring about their support*.

how are your guides rewarding you for your efforts?

• pile one •

you guys have been learning something and studying something diligently - particularly learning alongside or from other people. the new knowledge that you’ve come across has brought you to an awakening about the fundamentals of life as human beings. i’m seeing many sleepless nights from learning how to create and pick from most valuable aspects of your life, leading you to a whole new life cycle. especially related to your physical realm. you’ve triumphed all of the judgements that others have put onto you - and most of all, yourself. you’ve transformed into someone who can take ahold over your ego and listen to what you feel like your soul or god or whoever/whatever you communicate with is trying to say to you. you answer the calling now, so you’re prepared for a new beginning in your daily life. your daily work could also include teaching this type of thing to others, too, and you’re really awakening other people too. thanks to this, new opportunities for your life are coming in.

your guides are bringing in a new set of people who you can collaborate with in some way, on this new journey that you’re on. i’m hearing “factory reset”. that perfectly explains your view on life. you could definitely feel reborn - as if you’re seeing life through new eyes after breaking out of a shell that you didn’t even know that you were in. you see life in a completely different way to before thanks to your awakening and you’re now able to see how the immaterial reflects the material. you could use divination, spell-work, or some other type of occult work within your daily life a lot more now, completely surrendering to what you now know about the laws of the universe. you’re accepting that you’re not in complete control of everything in your life - that you’re a co-creator with the universe. you understand that you just need to do your part and the universe will make shit happen for you. you’re accepting that you are psychic. you are a witch. you are whatever it is that you may have had resistance to fully believing in before. and now, you’re fully living life with full consciousness of this - meaning that you’re now living within your full power.

if this resonated with you and you’d like to check out the extended part of this reading (+3 paragraphs), then find it on patreon here :)

• pile two •

there’s a huge change that your guides are bringing into whatever work and foundation that you’ve been tending to. this is an extremely solid and stable foundation with a promising possibility to bare great fruits of your labour. your mind is going to be able to focus on this, which i feel like you may have struggled with before, but they’re going to enable your attention to be streamlined towards this. there could even be some communication that comes in swiftly that also changes something about this practical work foundation that you’re building. i’m mainly seeing your guides helping you to really master receiving ideas and acting on them when necessary. i’m getting a message that you may be used to overworking yourself or worrying that your ideas aren’t good enough - but not anymore. there’s a level of confidence that you’re stepping into which is unmatched regarding your work. just giving yourself way more praise and recognition for your work than before. this major change could be an idea regarding a different method of working compared to what you’re used to - more faster and efficient than before. they’re granting you the independence and confidence needed to take control over your work without over-exerting yourself.

thanks to all of this, you’re going to be able to really slow down (something that you may not have been able to do recently) and give you time to just think - mainly about yourself and your next moves which will help you to know exactly what your work needs. this small, stable foundation is the result of a whole lot of persistence from you. and patience. but the waiting game is now over as there’s going to be an extremely positive shift in abundance that helps you to relax. you’ve put in enough time and tender nurture and care into your figurative garden, so there seems to be the completion of something within this. the completion of an “amateur” phase or something like that? your shift in confidence will also push this further. your guides are highly protective over what you’re waiting to come to fruition. working with time and understanding the dimension of time in the physical world and manifestation is paying off for you heavily. you’ve kept at work that didn’t grow particularly fast for an extremely long time. so your guides are granting you with a much needed rest period in which you can enjoy the fruits of your labour without having to worry about constantly focusing on work.

if this resonated with you and you’d like to check out the extended part of this reading (+3 paragraphs), then find it on patreon here :)

Fandom (and art) as sites of worthless knowledge

Instead, what if we embrace fandom and art practice as a site of “worthless knowledge” (Jenkins), which is when art and fanfiction stops operating under conditions of “immaterial labour” or as “a service” and becomes something else: let’s call it an “affective knowledge”; a textural knowledge felt and sensed by individuals and communities over knowledge inscribed by institutions of power.

. . . .

Fans have spent decades harbouring shame over their exploits because “[f]ans are seen as devoting too much time to obtaining useless knowledge and place too much importance on ‘devalued cultural material.’ ” Spending excessive amounts of time reading or writing fanfictions about boy-on-boy romance, fans are not at work doing something more productive like contributing to capitalism’s productive regime. Just as when female fans are fantasising about boy-on-boy romance, they are not participating in heterosexuality’s reproductive regime. ( . . . ) As Tonya Anderson points out in her article “Still Kissing the Poster Goodnight”:  “dominant cultural politics characterise such female fan behaviour in adulthood as pathological.” In such instances fans are operating in “excess” and at best – in counter-to-knowledge.

From here, art and fandom might be better understood as affective communities that form around a shared feeling, that might not only be defined by our social or biological identities or by knowledge, but by an unproductive pleasure that undermines our productive desires, or to put it simply: by “being in love with their love” (Karukara).

PARRY, OWEN G. (2019) ‘“SHIPPING” (AS) FANDOM AND ART PRACTICE’. FANDOM AS METHODOLOGY. LONDON: GOLDSMITHS PRESS.

why is everything so ugly: the curse of modernism / everyone is beautiful and no one is horny / the empty promises of marie kondo and the craze for minimalism

ID given below readmore

[Image ID: five screengrabs of a youtube video by Mina Le, followed by four screenshots of two articles.

in the video Mina is sitting on a couch with a mic in her hand talking to the camera. she says, “Minimal traits, from Apple products to mid-century modern IKEA furniture. Millennials, the current apartment-renting, house-buying market, clearly have aligned themselves with minimalism, maybe in their plight to be more environmentally cautious, or at least to seem like it, or to appear spiritually superior in a pseudo-Buddhist kind of way, but that's another topic. But in general, we like to buy a house that's new, because newness implies that things aren't broken.”

the first two article screenshots are of white text against a black background. it reads, “The house looks real, too. There are toys and magazines scattered around the floor. There are cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked since the recent move. Framed pictures rest against the wall; the parents haven’t gotten around to mounting them yet. The kitchen counters are cluttered and mealtimes are rambunctious and sloppy, as one expects in a house with three children. They’re building a pool in the backyard, but not for appearances: it’s a place for the kids to swim, for the parents to throw parties, and for the father to reacquaint himself with his love of diving.

At the time, this house represented an aspirational ideal of American affluence.

In her blog McMansion Hell, Kate Wagner examines precisely why these widely-hated 5000-square foot housing bubble behemoths are so awful. Over and over again, she reiterates the point that McMansions are not built to be homes; they’re built to be short-term investments.

Kate writes, “The inside of McMansions are designed in order to cram the most ‘features’ inside for the lowest costs.” These features exist to increase the house’s resale value, not to make it a good place to live. No thought is given to the labor needed to clean and maintain these spaces. The master bathroom includes intricate stone surfaces that can only be scrubbed with a toothbrush; the cathedral ceilings in the living room raise the heating and cooling costs to an exorbitant sum; the chandelier in the grand entryway dangles so high that no one can replace the bulbs in it, even with a stepladder.”

the next article is black text against a white background. it reads, “Little of this feels true today. The percentage of workers who are freelance instead of salaried grows each year. House prices are prohibitive in any place with a strong labour market. Economic inequality is more severe than ever in the modern era. To make matters even worse, the greatest wealth now comes from the accumulation of invisible capital, not physical stuff: startup equity, stock shares and offshore bank accounts opened to avoid taxes. As the French economist Thomas Piketty points out, these immaterial possessions grow in value much faster than salaries do. That is, if you are lucky enough to have a salary in the first place. Meanwhile, crisis follows crisis and mobility now feels safer than being static, another reason that owning less looks more and more attractive.

Apple devices have gradually simplified in appearance over time under designer Jony Ive, who joined the company in 1992, which is why they are so synonymous with minimalism. By 2002, the Apple desktop computer had evolved into a thin, flat screen mounted on an arm connected to a rounded base. Then, into the 2010s, the screen flattened even more and the base vanished until all that was left were two intersecting lines, one with a right angle for the base and another, straight, for the screen. It sometimes seems, as our machines become infinitely thinner and wider, that we will eventually control them by thought alone, because touch would be too dirty, too analogue.”

/end ID]

In The Burnout Society (original German title: Müdigkeitsgesellschaft), Han characterizes today's society as a pathological landscape of neuronal disorders such as depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, borderline personality and burnout. He claims that they are not "infections" but "infarcts", which are not caused by the negativity of people's immunology, but by an excess of positivity.[8] According to Han, driven by the demand to persevere and not to fail, as well as by the ambition of efficiency, we become committers and sacrificers at the same time and enter a swirl of demarcation, self-exploitation and collapse. "When production is immaterial, everyone already owns the means of production, him- or herself. The neoliberal system is no longer a class system in the proper sense. It does not consist of classes that display mutual antagonism. This is what accounts for the system's stability."[9]

Han argues that subjects become self-exploiters: "Today, everyone is an auto-exploiting labourer in his or her own enterprise. People are now master and slave in one. Even class struggle has transformed into an inner struggle against oneself."[9] The individual has become what Han calls "the achievement-subject"; the individual does not believe they are subjugated "subjects" but rather "projects: Always refashioning and reinventing ourselves" which "amounts to a form of compulsion and constraint—indeed, to a "more efficient kind of subjectivation and subjugation." As a project deeming itself free of external and alien limitations, the "I" subjugates itself to internal limitations and self-constraints, which are taking the form of compulsive achievement and optimization.[10]

If Kendall is a pocket watch, so is Connor, which makes the story even happier. Then again, if Kendall and Connor are pocketwatches, so is Roman, which makes the story even sadder. Lucky for everyone, Roman isn't a real person; that much is sure. In fact, Roman isn't anything, or anyone, at all.

Kind of character analysis, a kind of introspection of Roman's childhood, under the pocket watch analogy of deism, also found on ao3 here or under the cut

Romulus Roy was four years old when he was first told this fairytale. Or, so it was postured to him. He couldn't conceive it to be anything else at that age; something grandiose, mythical, and that Roman could dwell upon when his mind would run free.

He doubted he was supposed to remember it. More than anything, it was conditioning, teachings on faith. A theory on the absoluteness of a God meant to give him a backbone people were beginning to question he lacked.

Suppose you walked across a health, stumbling across a rock. It wouldn't cross your mind as to how it got there, for it must've always been there. But consider, instead, you spot a pocket watch lying on the grass. To wonder how it got there wouldn't be as easy as the rock, as a pocket watch does not occur naturally. An artificer or artificers had to have carefully designed and constructed its complex mechanisms, taken great care of it, and misplaced it upon the heath.

For some, it isn't a far reach at all to say that our world, and our universe, in its contrivances and complexities, is much more akin to the pocket watch than it is the humble rock. Therefore, everything we know had to have come from a similar artificer or artificers who took the same care when designing and forming our universe.

Of course, Roman couldn't help but mock this exact phrasing. He kicked rocks to his own will, rounding them into rough balls with the sheer might of the souls of his feet. Sure, it was limited to beaches and gardens privately owned on his family estates, but he caused that change. He shaped them.

And as for pocket watches, let this be known: There is nowhere on this earth where he walks that hasn't been tread on by his father before, in the shade of his shadow, pale and hard. And as for his father, let it be this: His pockets are useless; a facade of the common man. He needs not a pocket watch when his wrist fits fine. He needs no pens when they are always waiting for him on arrival. Spare change is a thing of the past. It exists as all money does; an idea - created - immaterial 'till it buys us material. And not, notably, in a pocket.

The only mechanical thing that could fall from his dad to be dwelled upon would be Kendall. A device that could provide some use, for sure, but who could only function under the specific rules its creator built into its system. Mostly left on its own to tick tick by with few occasional tinkers in its mechanisms to ensure good working order. A watch assembled and wound up by a great watchmaker.

Criticisms of the watchmaker analogy say that comparing two things - the universe and a pocket watch - because they share one quality doesn't mean they'll share all qualities. A wolf and a dog may share some similarities, but just because a wolf can largely fend for itself doesn't mean you should leave a small puppy unattended in the deepest dark of night. And where a wolf will return to the pack, a dog will eventually only ever return to its owner's feet.

Fortunately for Roman, Kendall is not his universe. There's a debate to be had as to if he's anyone's universe. Although, Kendall actually does share qualities with a pocketwatch like you wouldn't believe. Humanity never saw our foundations being laid down, but everyone witnessed Kendall's creation. Like the birth of a royal. Every promise made to him, every bad word ever said, every drug ever taken and beating ever taken can be read in the wrinkles on his face and hairs on his skin. He is a labour of pain and love, meticulously crafted and disregarded. He can be, and is, compared to others of a similar nature. Victims of Logan Roy's trial and error campaign for the perfect time-teller.

It's easier to think of Kendall as a pocket watch. It makes his story less sad; that all the inhumane suffering at least won't affect a human being. Then again, if Kendall is a pocket watch, so is Connor, which makes the story even happier. Then again, if Kendall and Connor are pocketwatches, so is Roman, which makes the story even sadder. Lucky for everyone, Roman isn't a real person, that much is sure. In fact, Roman isn't anything much, or anyone important, at all.

See, Connor didn't even get to kick rocks. He got something worse; holding his mommy's hand. He was guided gently, never led, and so when the time came for the hand to be ripped from his, well, he never recovered. He simply couldn't do without it, aimlessly wandering around until he spotted his new baby brother following their dad, kicking rocks as he went along.

All the rocks that Kendall kicked, each and every one, that's what Roman is. Displaced in the home at best, and an ornament or toy at worst.

Inside, however, he could always tell that if someone only checked, they'd find something important. He hasn't near enough the introspection in his youth and adolescence to figure out what exactly. Especially when it seemed that everyone around him could tell, in every look and interaction, that he couldn't measure up in the same respect as his brothers.

Even the importance of his core could be debated, the significance. Importance is, in this world at least, respective to the person who wields it, regardless of what is contained.

Perhaps whatever precious metal his father found embroidered in Kendall to make the watch that he is can also be found in him. If everyone stopped assuming and ascribing an idea to him, that he's rotten inside, still idly rotting, they'd see that he can actually be quite lovely. All they had to do was lightly chip at him, and he let himself be broken open, and they'd all see just how valuable Roman can be.

But then they started to do that, exactly that, and Roman found that it wasn't actually that nice to be torn apart. The lightness he had wished for, was promised, turned out to be anything but.

To be constantly cracked, torn, sent away and reeled back, shaped into something he couldn't quite recognise in the mirror. Roman found, from the first instance, that it hurt quite a lot. His father told him in his searching that The Greater Cause would, and he supposed it did. Why wouldn't it?

There was one particular instance, when Kendall was being dusted off lightly after Roman had been shaken up. Their father was occupied in managing Kendall - not that he'd be caught near Roman either way - leaving Roman an unmoving force against Connor's chest. He couldn't cry yet, only breathe deep to the time of Connor's tik-toking heart.

Connor wasn't old, not like their dad, obviously. But he was older, and the tik-toking was turning faint. Roman would be jealous if he had a tik-toking himself, but unfortunately his mind and soul found comfort in the weathered down sign of life, rocked slowly by the only man who'd really ever shown any adoration to him, be him watch or rock or nothing at all.

Pity that he could understand. Pity that Connor knew what to do. A pity indeed, and one no one could stop. That's what Roman felt, when he walked away that night; pity, turning to shame. When he laid in bed the shame washed over him, a faux blanket to replace the ones he lacked in a punishment by his father. He curled up, closed his eyes and thought about his heartbeat, trying to hear a tick instead of blood.

In that moment, he realised what his father had most likely come to term with a while ago; the only thing inside of him was a shell. A fossil. He's skin enough to pass for bones.

And, well, finally he thinks. To be the fuel that can keep the family afloat after years of self-service. To be harvested for good, reeped of all his father sowed. Sure he may not tell time or function in the usual way, but you'd be able to carbon date the ills of everyone with a mere glance at Roman. He could give more with less than Kendall, Connor, or even Siobhan could combined.

Equally, no. He gets poked, and prodded, and gawked at. A gross mystery that had been cracked, but not solved. Nobody could. And, truthfully, he feared the day someone did pay too much attention to the dried bones that make him up. If they did, it's a very likely chance they'd tell him that there's nothing that can be done to change it. There's no pocketwatches made of stone. That is something entirely different.

Something only Roman could be.

In a garden at one of their newly bought houses, his mother long gone away, Roman stood posed on a column like the youthful boys in the age of antiquity.

From his vantage point, he gazed as his father walked with his little sister in tow.

Connor was in Europe. Kendall was at school. And Shiv, with only Roman’s eyes on her, paused her skipping to lean down and pick up what appeared to be a pocketwatch. She brought it to her father, who smiled and lifted her up right in front of the sundial that shadowed Roman, sun soaking her freckled skin and hair.

good omens 2 ended and made me sad so I smited an analogy of deism with the roys. would be interested to think what others take from this :-) all errors are my own

Before A Manifesto (Pt. 11)

A new common ground for designers and users is provided by the changing links between production and consumption, of which immaterial labour is the ‘interface’. The products of immaterial labour not only materialize ‘needs, the imaginary, consumer tastes, and so forth’, but also generate and produce new needs, imaginaries, and tastes, so that the act of consumption is not the destruction of the commodity but the establishment of a relationship which links production and consumption (read: designer and user) together. Lazzarato holds the social, aesthetic and communicative aspects of immaterial labour (which for him extend into the act of consumption) capable of producing direct social and political ties which escape traditional capitalist appropriation.

An example of the actualization of such ties is provided in The GNU Manifesto, written by Richard Stallman in 1985: ‘I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement. ‘

This manifesto (GNU being the acronym for ‘GNU’s not Unix’) stands at the beginning of free software, open source and file sharing movements. While different from Marinetti and Mau’s white nights, it crosses similar boundaries. It declares the relationship between software developer and user a social one.

I was literally typing up my 2 pence worth of thoughts and as I’m checking my sources, the page updates and Early Access is fine. All my legislative interpretation experience wasted ha.

I’m still going to post this even though I hate controversy, but I’ve seen some stone cold takes that do nothing to but pour lemon juice in the injury that this whole matter has uncovered - because let’s be real, it was already there.

Maybe its because I’m old, maybe it’s because I’ve both paid for and pirated content, maybe it’s because I’m mostly a consumer, not a creator, but I feel very ehhh about the whole matter. Nonetheless, my thoughts are scratching against my brain so I’ve laid them out. TLDR is it is what it is.

Observation 1

I think what’s rustled my jimmies into making this post is the lack of internal consistency that is being thrown around.

What EA’s Terms of Service and End User Licence Agreement say is pretty immaterial if you also advocate for pirating the game. No judgement if you do pirate it, I have exactly zero feelings about it. You just also have to agree that it also says in the TOS/EULA that you mustn’t pirate the game so I don’t think you can really pick and choose which principles you want to follow if you’re making this the basis of your argument.  

Whenever a ruling class, i.e. EA in this case, make a judgement that causes in-fighting amongst those affected by the judgement, I think you have to ask yourself who is benefitting most. EA have had a string of public disasters lately and I’m sure they’d much rather that we were tearing chunks off each other instead of them.

Whatever you think about enforcement etc, EA are unlikely to have the processing power to take perma-paywallers to task. They only had six Quality Assessors on the latest expansion. They’ve got their own problems.

Even Disney can’t take down every unbranded merch creator on Etsy...

I highly doubt this is a call to action from them and I think their further clarification taking us back to the status quo supports this.

Observation 2

Some people are going to make excellent quality content for free. Some people are going to make excellent quality content that will be free if you can wait for it. Some people are going to set their price too high for you to pay. Some people are hucksters looking to make a quick buck on shoddy content.

Ok.

No one is entitled to have anything. Not consumers to content (free or at cost), nor creators to capital. I don’t think I can put it any more simply.

Personally, as someone who cannot stand to play vanilla, The Sims 4 is a broken base, made playable by modders. I think it is fair that creators have the opportunity to ask for payment for their labour in what is, in effect, a collaborative effort. Especially those who have skills to offer in this regard, but can’t offer them to the capitalist machine at large because they’re neurodivergent or disabled.

Whether EA endorses it or not, I think reasonable Early Access is fine. I really think it should only bother you as a consumer if you can’t bear the Fear of Missing Out. That’s all an early access payment is - the privilege of skipping out on the FOMO. If it still bothers you, you might need to assess what you perceive to be your entitlement to content.

If it bothers you as another creator, with all the respect in the world, maybe have a think about whether you are coming from a place of envy. It’s a natural emotion - the world would be a better place if we all got more comfortable admitting it. No one should be ashamed to acknowledge that they are envious that someone is receiving money for something they do for free. But envy does not a moral judgement make.

Observation 3

Of course I said reasonable Early Access - what’s reasonable? Well, how long can you stand to wait? As long as there are people bursting at the seams that are willing to pay for access to content NOW, there will be paywalls of increasingly indeterminate length.

I don’t like perma-paywalls. It’s depressing to look at things you want but can’t afford. It’s even more depressing these days since the doxxing scandal has sown so much distrust among us. I think that is the actual genesis of all the pain coming out now.

Let’s get it straight - doxxing is a line that should not be crossed. Discounting the TOS/EULA argument, Piracy is as fundamental a principle as the urge to monetise and perma-paywallers need to accept that as much as consumers need to accept that we can’t always afford what we want. If you, as a creator, are putting all your income eggs in this risky basket, that’s on you.

Like I said at the start, creators are as entitled to capital as consumers are entitled to content.

We’re both gonna have to make peace with that - it’s a dead dove: DO NOT EAT. Don’t like don’t look I guess.

Observation 4

I don’t know if all payments for content are as responsible for killing this community as people say they are. Maybe in a similar way that the Industrial Revolution killed Arts and Crafts I guess?

I’ve lurked since 2016ish and the peaks and troughs are no different to any other online creator community I’ve been part of. People move on to other ventures, age out, get bored, and the new generation ushers in. The human urge to monetise everything we do is as old as the sun and the sky - Stardoll is an excellent example if anyone else was part of the Facebook community alongside it and has watched people pay exorbitant amounts for what is effectively a shit NFT. And besides, a couple of months back, it was lack of engagement killing Simblr. Community is a fickle thing.

As a consumer, I can’t say that I feel short of content, especially on a site like Tumblr, which is one of the few social media sites where I can still curate exactly what I want to see.

In summary, I dunno. paywallers gonna paywall, free creators are gonna free, consumers gonna consume. Facts are Facts. EA doesn’t matter.

“Conversely, from the standpoint of the circulation process, the distinction between fixed and circulating capital, it is just as immaterial in what proportion a given value of circulating capital is divided between material of labour and wages. From the one standpoint, the material of labour is ranked in the same category as the means of labour, as opposed to the capital value laid out on labour-power. From the other standpoint, the part of capital laid out on labour-power is ranked together with that laid out on material of labour, as opposed to the part of capital laid out on means of labour.” ― Karl Marx, Capital: Critique of Political Economy, Vol 2

What do you think about the idea that we should avoid supporting the striking writers and actors because they help uphold the imperialist propaganda wing that is Hollywood?

Shouldn't we treat this the way we would treat a police union striking?

Don't they serve the interests of the white supremacist state?

Class isn't all-or-nothing. All labour upholds the capitalist state, to one degree or another - that's the point of strikes. We can't look at these things dogmatically, only strategically. Does it practically help or hinder the socialist movement for these workers to strike? As it stands, in the USA, the question is something of a non-starter: …what socialist movement? What does 'support' mean in this case? Unless it's the support of a proletarian political party, it's immaterial to communists, as we have no other organs with which to exert our will. I could talk on its positive and negative aspects from the perspective of the trade-unionist movement in the USA, but that would necessarily be incomplete, and lacking in class analysis.

And, for that matter, there are some self-evident scenarios where inspiring and maintaining desertion and dereliction of duty among the capitalist state's police forces would be very beneficial to a socialist movement indeed. However, the situations 'the proletarian political vanguard is powerful enough to influence national politics' and 'the bourgeois state isn't giving it's police forces everything they want and more' tend to be fairly mutually exclusive.

"Ignorant Propagandists Twisting My Stance On Leaked Audio" – Actor, Kenneth Okonkwo

Kenneth Okonkwo, Nollywood actor cum spokesman of the Labour Party (LP) presidential campaign council, has reacted to the insinuation that he confirmed the leaked conversation between Peter Obi and the founder of Living Faith Church, David Oyedepo. Information Nigeria reports that Okonkwo had in a Sunday statement said oppositions were making efforts to spin the conversation between the former Anambra governor and clergyman into a religious statement. While confirming that the former governor did converse with the Bishop, Kenneth clarified that Obi only urged the Bishop to help push the message of the equal stake of all Nigerians in the Nigerian project because of the impression the ruling party used in deriving its campaign, adding that Obi never discriminated against any religion as his running mate, Datti-Baba Ahmed is a Muslim. However, in a statement via Instagram on Tuesday, Okonkwo said his earlier statement neither confirmed, admitted, or denied the leaked conversation. He maintained the speculations that he confirmed the audio are words of propagandists, stressing he simply analyzed the content of the conversation. According to him, the Party is more concerned about recovering its mandate in court and ushering in a new Nigeria. He said:Quote “I don’t normally respond to the tweets and chats of ignorant men like a lot of people have been issuing out since the purported audio tape was released by whoever but this may keep them perpetually ignorant. “Let me educate their ignorance. Go back and read my chat or tweet and check whether you will see confirmation or admission or denial. Those are their words and that of their propagandists, not mine. I simply analyzed the contents of the conversation and found absolutely nothing wrong with it. It’s immaterial whether it is anybody’s voice or not. Not that I care whether anybody said I confirmed or not, that’s their business. “I am rather full of joy that before long, we will recover our mandate that will usher in a new Nigeria. Keep faith alive my friends, God is in control. Love you all” Read the full article

Work is a term we are all too familiar with. One that has been corrupted by our capitalist system to mean, in basic terms, a means to an end. When we describe something as an art-work, or a work of art, we are inadvertently commodifying creativity – regardless of whether what we are describing is situated in a dealer gallery, a public space or a dusty corner of someone’s studio. Steyerl describes the contrast between work and occupation perfectly when she writes that, “instead of being seen as a means of earning, [occupation] is seen as a way of spending time and resources.”[1] The latter asserts a slowness, contrast to the rapid acceleration of production and commodification. Time and resources could just as easily be idled away as they could be used to produce. This is the beauty of occupation, as often in the production of art there is equal idleness to labour, and in dismantling the authority of the capitalist notion of work, perhaps we can learn to be comfortable being idle again.

In 2013 Maddie Leach, alongside SCAPE public art, organised the performative project I was using six watts when you Received me. This was the first SCAPE project post-quake in Ōtautahi, Christchurch, and was described by the artist as an “idea of imaginative transcendence”. A Nissan Civilian bus occupied the space of Ōtautahi’s Hagley Park; there for over a month, Leach and members of Christchurch’s Amateur Radio Club attempted to make contact with the International Space Station as it passed over the city during that time. Leach composed a broadcast of tracks, gleaned from the National Sound Archive, which were transmitted via radio signal to the ISS. Comprised of both monumental (the Queens visit to the city in 1954) and mundane (the Lyttleton port, the buskers festival, cathedral bells) moments, the audio broadcast acted as a historical recount of the city-now-in-ruins. “Largely immaterial, the work is held together by a sculptural logic which relies on displacement: the tenuous possibility of making a real connection to somewhere else — somewhere as distant as the past, or outer space”[1] wrote curator Abby Cunnane in her short text for the SCAPE catalogue titled How to get lost. Contact with the ISS was not achieved, but for Leach, this was of little importance. This ‘idea of imaginative transcendence’ was all that was necessary for the success of this project – connecting the past, present, and future of the city through community based, occupational performance, and asking participants and viewers “where is it, imaginatively, that you might transport yourself to?”[2]

Pettiness incoming

I stg no post baffles/pisses me off like this one. The POINT of "I do not dream of labour" is that one doesn't DREAM OF IT. which is a completely separate concept from BEING WILLING TO PROVIDE IT under reasonable conditions. Like what's this person's fucking deal do they hear "I don't actively want to sweep the streets" and hear "I think proles to grovel in the streets for the sake of my leisure"?? And "which makes you indistinguishable from any bourgeois capitalist" DOES IT????? I thought we despised those people for feeling entitled to the fruits of others' labour but I guess it's actually for something as immaterial as a lack of active wish to do that labour

Like do they not comprehend that it is possible for someone to both acknowledge the need for doing something, even do it willingly - or be willing to do it if need be - and yet not dream of it??? "You do not dream of labour but you do dream of living well" YEAH THAT'S KIND OF THE POINT OF A DREAM. AN IDEAL SITUATION, REALISTIC OR NO. and why wouldn't you dream of a world where comfortable life can exist without the necessity for human labour? Is it not a completely desirable, if unachievable goal? Should we not let this ideal guide us to create societies where as high a standard of life as possible can be achieved with as little human labour as possible? So that people can devote themselves to pursuits they find fulfilling with as much ease and freedom as possible? Jesus

Being means becoming

(Given that the thought in my head is more complex than the title above, bear with me. I can come up with a catchy one later on. Let´s move on to the phrase instead. )

Whenever I learn about cultures around the world, especially traditions that have been monikered as UNESCO immaterial heritage, two things happen in my head. For one, I feel awe. Traditions are popular knowledge that have persisted through time solely through transmission from generation to generation. It surpasses the scope of my lifetime and its merit is in the fact that it remains and is appreciated by those who practice it. The second thing that happens is not so pleasant. I feel remorse, or dissapointment. 

This might be surprising to hear if you grew up in a country who could withstand imperialism and defend their cultures. You probably relate more if you know what growing up in a city like Panama is like. It is the hellscape that arises when you smash Latin-American fatalism, that is coming to terms with the fact that the original cultures and peoples were almost effectively wiped-out and that most of the new-founded republics were just a powergrab by people that held the same racist and colonialist beliefs; and liberal optimism, the obsessive aspiration of reaching the heights of the American Dream, or of western countries, that is, compulsive bending the backs of its citizens and policies towards relentless GDP growth, without a clear notion of values and institutions that the expected wealth is meant to sustain. That is, the empty desire for economical growth that willingly chops the head of humanities off. That doesn’t beg the question, what for or in defense of whom? That doesn’t see the situation of its people as a historical and cultural entity with inmeasurable value and that only measures its populations worth as labourers. 

Growing up in a place like this meant slowly acquiring the awareness that my parents and their parents painstakingly spent their whole lives studying and working with their sole life aspiration being to rise from poverty. My greatgrandparents moved into the city,  my grandparents saved up to send some of their children to university, my parents went to university and sought out that I would know no hardship and take going to college for granted. Not a single one of them knows much about our family’s past. Hard work doesn’t give time for family history.  And here is were the remorse comes in.

Remorse is almost paradoxical in this case, because we can’t regret things that others did not do that we expected or desired them to do. Let alone, feel guilty as if it was our fault that they didn’t. “I wish I knew that about my culture.” Loss... “I wish I had been brought up that way.” Rejection... And then it’s “I wish I would have taught myself this out of personal interest” or “I wish my parents would have taught me this. I wish they weren’t so ignorant,” and the hangman is waiting indifferent to who gets the blame. 

There are no easy ways to reconciliate with this fact. That you might always know less, that getting to the same place will always be more work for you. You learned in your free time and by reading on the internet, not in school, not in with your peers. You maybe had to sacrifice some of your youth in this exchange. 

If after all, one is not content and resents life for not owing one more, an insatisfactory truce can be made after a fatal blow to oneself, which affords our parents forgiveness: “I wish I wouldn’t think this way. I wish I wasn’t ungrateful.”

That is to think after all, that it is one who failed the conditions in which one came to be. 

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This whole episode started by the make an effort to film a meeting, this built a small nevertheless positive impact, top to webcasts, greater public scrutiny, increased public engagement, interest and understanding of localized democracy. Eventually a new new requirement of which senior officers spend should be determined by an independent -panel rather than at the very top group of councillors was incorporated the particular Local Democracy Invoice, proposed by Carmarthenshire AM Rhodri Glyn Thomas. If chosen, it will get interesting to observe if he comes after up his words with actions, we might even see a leadership challenge to Emlyn Dole, better still will be to discover the chief professional finally held to be able to account; if Mr Thomas seriously would like to end typically the democratic deficit in that case Mr James offers to go. Possibly Mr Thomas realized that only last calendar month, the 'ruling', plus largest group on the council, Plaid Cymru, couldn't actually get an Action on the authorities table and, worse still, didn't seem to be to have jar to try and even assert their authority. Well, you are unable to get a surfboard but you could get HM03 Surf in the Fuchcia City Safari Zone. The full meeting, all five several hours than it, can end up being watched at the leisure on the archived webcast. 에볼루션카지노

In May, Plaid will become hoping, clearly, in order to break the grasp of Pam's Independents and their cosy connection using the chief professional, defeat Labour, plus assume full handle In my view the current Plaid leadership is not helping matters, quite the opposite in reality. Caebrwyn always will keep a watching brief but, to tell the truth, the particular recent actions involving the chief business plus the council have got been a bit of a distraction. I noticed a tale from the Borough of Greenwich this specific morning where a request was made to amend their Metabolic rate to allow the public to film and record council meetings. Regarding the question of setting-up costs, as far as 'webcasting' is worried, I believe this could be quite low and even could be taken through the sizeable PUBLIC RELATIONS budgets each Authorities spends every yr (and would be far more useful); and, of course, allowing members associated with the public to record and motion picture would cost nothing at all at all instructions In the while, I should be continuous my own attempts to make Carmarthenshire Council more clear.

Those things of 'the council' to place the Final Recharging Order on my home for �190, 390 court costs will be heard up coming week (Friday second December, in Carmarthen). I was in court today to resist the council's charging order with regard to �190, 390, on our home, getting made final. I would really like to thank everybody who has backed me both on the internet and off, plus those who possess taken the issues to write characters questioning the council's actions. How fantastic that this "Officers" have agreed to a "pay freeze" anybody making over �100, 1000 can afford to be generous, all we all have to appear at now is how much their charges will rise. That can compare with like being at a Magic Displays event, so become sure to examine the Magic Shows routine at Great Cedar plank Showroom at Foxwoods and look with regard to discount tickets! A lot of of the recommendations are now being sent away from towards the Executive Panel, that are being nicely asked to consider, for example, regardless of whether to webcast their own meetings (shouldn't become a problem as the decisions are truly made in before and post gathering 'briefings'), or regardless of whether to allow backbench councillors to inquire questions at their very own meetings.

Whether they pressure sale tomorrow or in a decade period is immaterial while the chief business is trying to do exactly of which. He has likewise campaigned for many level of control over chief officer pay and was openly critical over the counterfeit payment towards the Scarlets and the proposed half a thousand golden handshake to be able to Mr James. The chief executive's program, to force sale of our home, happens to be making its method through the the courtroom process, and, without sign of abating, a date will be set regarding that hearing in a short time. The fact of which this report is going to be discussed behind closed doors is not an auspicious start. In one other pre-election dash, Monday's exec board will certainly ginger up the process to outsource real estate services, I think the plan will be to set up a company wholly possessed by the authorities with funds lent from the council. It included a mystery payment of �157, 500 plus, after having a later FOI ask for details, typically the council said that was an 'error in the accounts'. To the observer the Plaid political figures outside the council include been a bit more forthright in their sights over the years than their councillor colleagues; joining the particular toxic culture in County Hall somewhat than defeating it had been a bad mistake of judgement.