Near as I can tell, it was the 1980 Neoliberal coup that abruptly and ruthlessly shut down all anti-authoritarian populist discourse in the USA. The 60's and 70's were a lot more open and well connected. Before that of course, was The Red Scare...

I guess libraries might have been a good source. They were pretty fiesty until the year 2001, when Bush's PATRIOT act turned them by force into watered down daycare centers and government schills.

CC: @artemis@dice.camp @shadowfals@toot.cat

I'd like to improve education, and access to voting. Anyone preventing it from being easy and quick is an enemy of democracy. Your curmudgeonly boss loses his right to exist card when he grumpily coincidentally makes it so you don't have time to vote. But that includes learning about the candidates, and spending time attacking the people publishing fraudulent propaganda. And also limiting campaign contributions. If we can guarantee all that, then maybe democracy stands a chance.

Whether the vote is mandatory doesn't seem like... as much of a big deal. Sure go ahead I don't think it'll change things much, but if voting is accessible and easy, then there's no problem making people do it. Maybe it's a chicken and egg thing?

CC: @nuintari@bsd.cafe @Strandjunker@mstdn.social @benroyce@mastodon.social

Meh, people voting who have no clue who to vote for will just go where the wealthy pay to lead them. Some boring rich white man with a pasty fake smile and a perfect family... again.

CC: @nuintari@bsd.cafe @Strandjunker@mstdn.social

Generative AI models suck because they steal attribution, not copyright. So I like to say they're built on stolen attribution, not stolen "works." Because when you say stolen works, people will (correctly) observe that you still have the works you claim were stolen, and (correctly) roll their eyes and refuse to take you seriously. Claiming ownership of ideas and punishing people for sharing is itself deeply unethical, and we need to focus on the terrible danger AI represents, which is erasing our reputations and friendships, and burying us in slop. (And also destroying our ecosystem.)

Instead, artists are drinking the kool-aid and now preaching the same oppressive bullshit that publishers have been using to crush them for decades. -_-

How... is he going to get out?

Our economy never served the public. It is by definition in service to the financial system. Our society on the other hand has at times served the public. Forget the economy, embrace society, and the people with a million spacebux will lose all their power over you.

If only I could convince everyone else to do that too...

CC: @sundogplanets@mastodon.social

What if they're both tyrants?

CC: @benroyce@mastodon.social @BrianJopek@mastodon.world

It stops the barbarians from invading and uh... moving to a new place and getting a job here!

Fortunately, society is not a biological organism, and we're not brainless cells, so I think we have a chance, if we can just figure out how to keep the machinations of the rich from manipulating us into acting like brainless cells. If we cannot resist the manipulation though, the prognosis for an organism composed of dumb cells with leukemia is not promising.

CC: @inthehands@hachyderm.io @violetmadder@kolektiva.social

I wish I were that optimistic. But using your metaphor, the larva have actively been quietly attacking the political and social infrastructure, to make sure that we can't bring the hammer down when fascism rears its ugly head. The solution (as always) is to make the rich not rich somehow, but as long as they are and have been rich, richer than ever, they've pushed programs to criminalize friendship and decimate communities. To turn our hammers into manacles, and turn us against each other.

This isn't a parasite. This is leukemia.

CC: @inthehands@hachyderm.io

Entire US navy vs 1 boat boi with a wave motion gun

Not enough cover. Build it on a pickup truck!

CC: @sundogplanets@mastodon.social

It better be portable!

CC: @sundogplanets@mastodon.social

I wish we were living inside the movie "Groundhog Day." I would get so good at playing the piano.

False advertising!