Notices by Brendan Jones (brendanjones@fosstodon.org), page 4

@mookie @Heliograph Funniest and cleverest use of this meme in a long while. 🙌

@urlyman @Radical_EgoCom I object to ‘not stopping yet’ being described as the pragmatic option, given ecological collapse doesn’t feel very pragmatic ;)

I’m going with the ‘optimist’ option.

@Radical_EgoCom @QuantumAspect So I voted agnostic, but with an objection to the description :)

@Radical_EgoCom @QuantumAspect This is a semantic quibble but I like to describe as an atheist agnostic (and not vice versa). As in, I’m an agnostic who, based on current evidence of gods, is atheist. Being an agnostic atheist doesn’t feel like a logical descriptor for me to use (though I’m hardly going to hound anyone who does identify that way).

I definitely agree with the original point that describing agnostic as ‘not sure’ isn’t right.

@urlyman Thanks, will have a listen.

“This process is known as policy feedback, or the “values ratchet”. The values ratchet operates at the societal and the individual level: a strong set of extrinsic values often develops as a result of insecurity and unfulfilled needs. These extrinsic values then generate further insecurity and unfulfilled needs.”

“If, by contrast, people live in a country in which no one becomes destitute, in which social norms are characterised by kindness, empathy, community and freedom from want and fear, their values are likely to shift towards the intrinsic end.”

“We are not born with our values. They are shaped by the cues and responses we receive from other people and the prevailing mores of our society. They are also moulded by the political environment we inhabit. If people live under a cruel and grasping political system, they tend to normalise and internalise it, absorbing its dominant claims and translating them into extrinsic values. This, in turn, permits an even crueller and more grasping political system to develop.”

“This process is known as policy feedback, or the “values ratchet”. The values ratchet operates at the societal and the individual level: a strong set of extrinsic values often develops as a result of insecurity and unfulfilled needs. These extrinsic values then generate further insecurity and unfulfilled needs.”

“People at the extrinsic end of the spectrum are more attracted to prestige, status, image, fame, power and wealth. They are strongly motivated by the prospect of individual reward and praise. They are more likely to objectify and exploit other people, to behave rudely and aggressively and to dismiss social and environmental impacts. People with a strong set of extrinsic values are more likely to suffer from frustration, dissatisfaction, stress, anxiety, anger and compulsive behaviour.”

“Some psychologists believe our values tend to cluster around certain poles, described as “intrinsic” and “extrinsic”. People with a strong set of intrinsic values are inclined towards empathy, intimacy and self-acceptance. They tend to be open to challenge and change, interested in universal rights and equality, and protective of other people and the living world.”

While Trump and US frame this article, its premise of how values shape our society is deeply applicable to everyone, everywhere, so I highly recommend the read no matter where you are in the world.

“We talk about society’s rightward journey. We talk about polarisation and division. We talk about isolation and the mental health crisis. But what underlies these trends is a shift in values. This is the cause of many of our dysfunctions; the rest are symptoms.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/29/donald-trump-americans-us-culture-republican #politics

@graydon @Flux @scottsantens A bit of a chicken or egg problem - very hard to do one without the other!

@graydon @Flux @scottsantens I completely agree, but the other side to that is also worth looking at: abolishing the ability of great wealth to buy legislative outcomes is necessary to functional democracy.

As in, abolish political donations completely, or at least put very tight caps on who can donate and how much, and make donations completely transparent with a public register.

@womp I am not from North America.

@atro well. One might argue that plenty of computer technology is quite useful for running companies, connecting humans, making stuff, and just generally having fun. So I'm not going to sweepingly extend this to all tech at large.

Certainly, there are some tech things we could do more efficiently or even not at all.

But crypto I'm quite confident in saying it does absolutely nothing of value.

This is exactly the kind of economic activity that contributes exactly nothing to human wellbeing, meaning we should eliminate it under efforts to downscale material and energy throughput (and therefore environmental impact). #degrowth

What an obscene waste of energy. The way I read this, we could ban crypto mining and we'd drop electricity usage by 2% overnight.

Nothing of value to humanity would be lost, and it'd be a great help in decarbonising the grid.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/over-2-percent-of-the-uss-electricity-generation-now-goes-to-bitcoin/
#crypto #bitcoin #climatechange

Germany votes to allow dual citizenship. Would love to see the Netherlands follow suit!

Not for me - I’m luckily already a dual citizen of NL & AU - but for all those people I know who would like to become Dutch but rightfully don’t want to give up the passport of their home country.

https://mastodon.social/@eunews/111861629564350876 #netherlands

Modern work:

you get a message in Slack with a link to the Confluence doc to prep for the meeting on Zoom, where you take notes in Notion, and track project progress on Monday and then update the Trello and you get to the end of the week and instead of doing fucking anything you've just moved bits of information around in 17 different databases and each one costs $15 a month per user...