Notices by nonlinear (nonlinear@social.praxis.nyc)

Repeat after me: I will never again devote my energies to building up an audience on a platform whose management can sever my relationship to that audience at will.

Today: bluesky

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/#tie-yourself-to-a-federated-mast

Trump is “a puppet for the global oligarchy and his job is to destabilise society and make everyone fight each other while all the assets and money are hoovered up by 50 people and their lazy nepobabies.”

Or

“These people are accelerationists using evangelicals to get into office so they can crash the economy and buy everything for cheap like in 2008”

And other hits

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/s/I4oaRB4IYV

Blackstone is now the largest corporate landlord on Earth with over 300,000 homes in the U.S.

Billionaires and corporations have bought millions of homes and either raised rents or left them as empty investments.

There are 16 million vacant houses—28 for every homeless person.

Gig economy is just having an algorithm-boss.

Lyft, uber, use loopholes so workers can’t reach minimum wage qualifications.

These apps should be audited, maybe a third-party analytics workers consent to, to detect their fuckeries.

*that* would be algorithm-unions.

https://flowingdata.com/2024/10/10/uber-and-lyft-lockout-loophole-to-avoid-paying-drivers/

Hear me out on Musk: his parents hired a PR agency to frame him as a genius, washing their apartheid mines $ into something more palatable.

But they forgot to tell the kiddo, so he actually believed to be a genius, firing anyone who could hold him accountable.

And we’re only seeing it because we’re a extractivist, colonialist enterprise raking an ungodly amount of resources.

Like Trump, I bet his family history is all very maladaptive, narcissistic, fail-upwards white supremacy shit. Ugh.

@Migueldeicaza Finally, selfish reasons to boycott Israel.

You do it for your own security, not just Palestinians, Lebaneses, or anyone else Israel is currently targeting.

@quinn @landley @cstross the issue is that when there’s a metric, it becomes the goal.

@dymaxion @akareilly Frankly just deciding devices (on one side navigating ever shifting corporate permissions, on another getting bulk discounts) make them cheaper than going on your own. Think accountant.

I know this professional exists for rich clients. But a dynamic of haute couture (highy personalized), pret a porter (tested and true practices, automated and more rigid) is possible.

@dymaxion @akareilly American corporations are on enshittification path… they can *promise* smart home personalization, but they can’t provide even for their existing markets, imagine new ones.

In time, in my experience US HA products were expensive and full of lock in traps, while Chinese ones were cheap, nimble, and offered all features and the kitchen sink.

@dymaxion @akareilly Yeah… I automated my home but no way it’s ready for final users.

Not only because of all you said, but it degrades (a litany of third parties changing stuff I guess) so it’s a moving target: who wants to debug when you’re on the go?

There is a market for a liberal professional to facilitate work… HA is too personal for big corporations to care, so this professional could suggest devices, workflows, assign roles, produce updated cheat sheets, and act as IT.

On the “google is a legit for real no cap monopolist” decision

It’s not an opinion. It’s not a take. It’s facts. And actionable.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/

Google *has* monopolized the advertising market. They operate a "full stack" ad-tech shop.

By controlling the tools that sellers and buyers use, and the marketplace where they use them, Google steals billions from advertisers and publishers.

One effect of Google's monopoly power is a global privacy crisis. Google works with other members of the surveillance cartel to prevent the passage of privacy laws.

Everything we do, everywhere we go online and offline, every relationship we have, everything we buy and say and do – it's all collected and stored and mined and used against us.

The commercial surveillance industry provides the raw feedstock for a parade of horribles, from stalkers and bounty hunters turning up on their targets' front doors to cops rounding up demonstrators with location data from their phones to identity thieves tricking their marks.

Cory Doctorrow and the true, tactical significance of Project 2025 https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/

The American right has, since the founding of the Republic, been bent on creating a system of hereditary aristocrats, who govern without "interference" from democratic institutions, so that their power to extract wealth from First Nations, working people, and the land itself is checked only by rivalries with other aristocrats

@Magooish @AeonCypher @seachanger Making allies is not about making friends, but finding commonality in goals, so we can work together as comrades.

Your goal seems to be "don't cut ties with liberals, since it's complicated". Been there, done that, it's not a goal I find worth pursuing, so no allyship can be found here.

But good luck dismissing the experience and frustration of past allies into yet one more chance.

I guess you'll go alone on this one, this time.

@Magooish @AeonCypher @seachanger @luckytran By protecting a hypothetical liberal you're alienating *me*, and that's not very forging-alliances of you.

Allyship should be questioned at every step. If they want to keep connections, *they *need to change, not me.

You think you're being mature, but you're just silencing criticism here.

@AeonCypher @Magooish @seachanger @luckytran Maybe that's what we need in America, the idea thatl iverwla are cobelligerent towards leftists.

The narrative here lacks nuance. It's all black or white, purity politics.

It's a puritan nation, after all.

@Magooish @AeonCypher @seachanger @luckytran Liberals are not leftist allies. They are complicit with fascists.

Sorry, I didn't do it. They made it clear with their behavior. 🤷♂️

Don't "it's complicated" it. It's very simple.

You're free to disagree, but please spare me of trying to convince me.