Notices by FoolishOwl (foolishowl@social.coop), page 4

Ye gods, the next section of this course discusses an abstraction layer for management of Kubernetes pods.

I can't feel my toes.

I'm watching a video training on Kubernetes. It's explaining the advantages of abstracting container management (which abstracts application management (which abstracts data and algorithms (which abstracts hardware...)))

... And then says it makes deployment more efficient.

What does efficiency mean to these people?

As I recall, one of the ideas of the Frankfurt School was that the working class had become integrated into capitalism, and therefore was no longer revolutionary.

I think there's some truth to that. In the 18th and 19th centuries, and to some extent the early 20th, you see a lot of descriptions of industrial workers as a despised social out-group, and I think that was a significant aspect of working class militancy.

This is not to say that workers are privileged, but that they are integrated.

The problem we have now is the widespread belief that if capitalism collapses, it will destroy us all, because we're integrated into it. Even if we hate it, even if we know it's destroying us.

So for instance, not only do I have to work for wages, but I keep getting told I have to get better at my job to keep working, and that if I stop working, not only will I suffer, but so will my family.

And getting better at my job means making the world worse.

Yesterday I was reading an article about TESCREAL, the set of "progressive" beliefs so strongly held by tech entrepreneurs that it resembles a cult.

It mentioned the concept, in "effective altruism", that it's more efficient to earn as much money as possible, then donate it, than it is to do the work directly.

It occurred to me that I'd seen people argue that tech workers should stop trying to volunteer their skills to left groups, and instead just donate money. Similar argument.

I don't know how to get out of this trap we're in.

I used to be a Leninist, which involved an idea that someday, all this stuff that workers were building would be taken over by workers, and that would change their valence, from evil to good.

But increasingly I've felt that these things we're building, from top to bottom, should not exist, that an intention to oppress and exploit is in every detail of their structure and organization.

I don't know how we rebuild this, or even how we stop building.

@joannaholman In which case the map would become the territory.

@silverwizard @calcifer @katanova I'm not sure I'm familiar with that one. Something about data protection laws?

@calcifer Comcast used to prohibit having multiple devices connected to a single IP address on a residential account, but this was unenforceable and widely bypassed, and they later permitted it. Later Comcast prohibited running Internet services on your residential account, but this was also unenforceable, and later permitted.

So I can imagine someone still believing old rules were in place.

Also with software bloat, many people don't realize how little it can take to run services.

@heinragas @sabandijo @Alligator @thomasfuchs I'd understood the introduction of CSS as something of a resurgence of the fundamental design principle of HTML. However that's the point at which I lose track of the history of Web design. The Web developers I know start talking about frameworks, and things get very confusing after that.

@JessTheUnstill @nanoelquant @ARCANON @nixCraft One of my worst experiences on Twitter was when someone argued against dating apps and said that if you wanted to hook up with people, you should go to the grocery store and hit on people there. I said that was inappropriate and people (particularly women) just want to get groceries without being harassed.

I got thousands of responses, complaining what a sick sad prude I was. A lot claiming they started relationships that way.

@thomasfuchs Electron apps should be in there, following from the decay of SGML, a system of markup that exclusively focuses on semantics and is totally independent of the device used to display text, to modern Web design, which uses horribly convoluted code to fully determine a "user experience".

@nicol @newlouisallaway @Matt_Noyes @ntnsndr I don't remember if we formally voted on joining the Fedipact, specifically, but my sense was that would only be relevant if we voted to block, not just to limit.

At https://fedipact.online/ I see one signatory with a social coop address; I imagine they were speaking for themself.

Also, looking at https://fedipact.veganism.social/ now, I don't see social coop listed.

@silverwizard As a child, one day, I was told to drive the garden tractor to mow a field. The front wheel hit a clod of dirt and the tractor jerked to the right. Then it hit another clod of dirt and jerked to the left. I concluded that the clods of dirt would cancel each other out and I could just take my hands off the wheel.

My theory was disproved a minute later.

I've since thought that my childish theory resembles some economic theories, and now, applications of machine learning.

@triptych This puts me in mind of @aral and his Small Web project.

https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/

@gwynnion I'm working at a datacenter where they're doing hardware R&D for "AI". Most of the people I work with do *not* like AI, but they need jobs.

In some respects this may be the best opportunity I've seen for labor organizing. I'm wondering how to combine the tasks. At this point, I figure, worst case, organized workers would limit the worst exploitative practices of the expansion.

@fromjason @gwynnion No, it doesn't. The idea that LLMs can replace actual labor is delusional. Autocomplete isn't comprehension no matter how up-to-date the database is.

@gwynnion In several respects, "AI" is considerably worse, since the biggest corporations in computer hardware and software development are going all in.

There's a massive boom in datacenter construction in part because of it.

I suspect part of what's going on is that computer manufacturers had been struggling in recent years with the over-saturation of the market, and AI is an excuse to drive up demand.

@silverwizard Strictly speaking, I was unable to fix the problem. I determined it was a configuration issue, not a hardware issue. I wasn't sure why the OS was configured as it was, so I summarized what I'd found out and suggested two paths to resolving the problem.

I was told I'm just a pair of hands on-site. Pretty insulting, really.