Clement Tahershamsi @Clementulus@social.cleverlibre.org

@jcmacomber Interesting classics fact: fascism is named after the fasces, a symbol of power used in ancient Rome. It was a bundle of sticks tied around an axe. Consuls and other high up officials were given these to represent their authority, the sticks represented their authority to deliver corporal punishment (flogging) and the axe, capital punishment.

@shannondea Started doing a very similar recipe a few years ago and was thinking how delicious vegetables were all of a sudden, then I realized that I was just loading them with oil and salt which, go figure. But I dialed it back a bunch and you actually need very little or even no oil or salt to make them tasty, just a squeeze of lemon and a bit of spice and herbs is just fine.

@emmalbriant The problem was never about whether lying was dangerous, it is. But there is even more danger in creating a ministry of Truth that has the right to punish people who disagree with it. Does no one here read articles out of places like Iran, China or Russia where political dissenters are constantly being jailed for "spreading dangerous lies"? Why are we so eager to join them?

@maxkasy I just finished reading Persepolis, an autobiography in the form of a graphic novel. It is an excellent look into the Iranian perspective especially for those born in the late 60s-70s. Highly recommend.

@miraalhussein@freeradical.zone @andrewstroehlein Bigger than the Haj?

@lauren As someone who works in public safety, Twitter and facebook posts were always supplemental. Non urgent info like road closures was always posted various places online and in actual emergencies texts are automatically sent out to all phones in a given area to warn people about danger associated with extreme weather events or active threats. If people stop using Twitter it literally changes nothing in terms of emergency services.

@paul_briley @okmel @jasonhickel You bring up ann interesting point. While I have little knowledge of the South American indigenous peoples, I do have some familiarity with the indigenous peoples of my area. If you listen to their traditional stories (which they have been telling since before European settlers arrived) many of them have moral themes about guarding against excesses (like overconsumption) because it was also an issue for those people. I have also seen traditional African stories with the same message. It seems to me that most if not all peoples believe that that the drive to excess is inherent and that it takes effort to guard against it. RIP J.J Rousseau.

@paul_briley @okmel @jasonhickel Perhaps. However, from my travels in developing nations I have observed that even people who consume a small fraction of the media we do in the west, they are no less driven towards material things (though they often lack the resources to satisfy these desires as much as we can). Also, honest self reflection goes a long way. It is easy to recognize that there are constant desires in myself to waste resources on things I don't remotely need and I know that I consume basically no advertising, nor do have a vision for my life that is at all in line with the consumerist ideal. Yet I still recognize that it takes constant effort to make sure that I am not being wasteful. Plus, authors as far back as classical Greece often remark on the propensity of human beings to be driven to excess and they were not sitting around watching cable!

@paul_briley @okmel @jasonhickel I completely agree that wealthy persons/corporations can use their resources to get away with injustices and do on a regular basis. However, the original point and what I was responding to was that someone was stating that "capitalism" (as in those powerful actors just mentioned) was wasting resources making useless things (like luxury items) but my argument was that they are responding to demand from consumers who come from all social strata. That is why I stated that the use of resources in the western democracies are more or less democratic already since they follow market pressure (people voting with their dollars).

@jkirkendall our new public library has a maker shop with a bunch of neat craft tools. There is even a small fleet of 3D printers that you can commission jobs on for only a couple dollars.

@DrAli @jasonhickel Simple does not mean easy. And it is not the advertisements and media that create these desires in people, they only cater to them. The desire for more is an expression of our survival instinct and is inherent to everyone. The abundance of media that to cater to this is not motivated by the companies' wanting to change the attitude of their clients to be more comsumeristic, but rather that they know how much people are already that way and they have no expectation that people will change their nature. So far, they are right for the most part. But we can change, there are plenty of people who are examples of it. That's what we nees to keep reminding people, that changing themselves, while difficult, is dependent on their own actions, and it matters not how many millions of dollars are spend by large companies on ads and other media. That is the empowering message. Telling people that they got no hope until governments or corporations start to behave diffirently is a good way to convince them to keep doing what they are doing, since change is hopeless; and the status quo is preserved.

@okmel @jasonhickel I find that a very paternalistic outlook. Something like "poor people can't think for themselves so we need to protect them from those cunning manipulators." Such b.s. I know lots of people from all backgrounds who aren't suckered into wasting their hard earned money on frivolities. Most of those people go on to use their money to create actual capital of their own and help their kids enjoy a better quality of life than they had. Its an ethic that can be learned by anyone and there aren't any gatekeepers to that knowledge. But it's hard work and it's much more pleasurable to spend every spare dollar on enjoyable things now so that's what a lot of people do. Telling them that their choices are the product of some wealthy class just infantilizes them. I won't do it.

@DrAli @jasonhickel True we are learning machines and we learn from our environment but does that not just reinforce my point? We already do have democratic control over our economy and the current aggregate of individuals want what we have; they might be making their choices with a large degree of ignorance and misinformation but they are still the ones making the choices. The way I see it there are two possible solutions: full authoritarianism, where we just decide to put all the resources into the hands of a few "moral individuals" and hope that they distribute them equitably (because that has worked out so well in the past). Or we work on educating the people who are spending money (all of us). The main thing IMO would be to simply help people understand that consumption does not equal happiness. Once the majority realize that a whole bunch of these useless companies will shrivel up overnight.

@stephaniefeldman I was recently inspired to write an entire short story in under 12 hours after reading a paper on the ethics of AI regulation. Turns out modern science actually sounds like science fiction. And horror, don't forget the horror.