181–190 of 221 posts
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No, Manhattan is becoming Mall of America East.
“America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.” So now we just have New Francisco, and a half-bulldozed New Orleans?
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A company that hires the less skilled ought to lose money, and that could work against the forming of a mono-culture.
It's not about skill, it's about loyalty. These companies are losing money precisely because they hire great people and fail to keep them. If you ran a major company, would you like the perception that the job you offer is only meant to be a resume-padding stepping stone? What happens when those people leave and new ones have to be filtered from application pools, acquainted with your teams and business practices, tr…
Companies (as a class of socioeconomic entity) have, since the 80s, been continually shirking their duties to their employees. At this point, the employer-employee relationship is adversarial. Thus, if it makes more sense for prospective employees to view their next job as resume padding, that's what they'll do.
If companies bothered to treat their workers well, to pay them well, to tie their fortunes to those of their employees, maybe we'd have something to talk about.
As the movie "Killing Them Softly" said:
This guy wants to tell me we're living in a community? Don't make me laugh. I'm living in America, and in America you're on your own. America's not a country. It's just a business. Now fuckin' pay me.
And yeah, that makes life hard for people starting new companies. So it goes.
I suspect that the author has read Derrida. He's obsessing on the meaning of a word and following semi-random threads trying to deconstruct it. That's classic Derrida. That approach doesn't solve any problems, but it's a useful way to generate papers. If you read some Derrida, you too can learn to generate blithering of that type. As for yuppies vs. hackers, it helps to go back further, to understand how hippies morp…
For what it's worth, I think a similar study of the flattening of hippy culture into a one-dimensional caricature, could be quite relevant. A counter-cultural segment is stripped of elements critical of the mainstream and repackaged, undermining the validity of the original movement.
That said I think the author does sort of mix and match between the mainstreamification of a counter-culture for profit and the role technology plays in extracting huge amounts of wealth from the reformation of commerce and funneling it into the hands of relatively few.
I suspect that the author has read Derrida. He's obsessing on the meaning of a word and following semi-random threads trying to deconstruct it. That's classic Derrida. That approach doesn't solve any problems, but it's a useful way to generate papers. If you read some Derrida, you too can learn to generate blithering of that type. As for yuppies vs. hackers, it helps to go back further, to understand how hippies morp…
Re: Ham radio. It goes back further than living memory, to telegraph operators. They also used morse. And I have the impression that some aspects of unix terminals derive from those days... Edison grew up in those times, commercializing as much as he could. Yet hackers continued, as they do today. Though perhaps we've reached the end of the road with communications - the interconnected net of networks seems all encom…
I'm assuming you meant "technically different"?
Either way: I can't think of any, but given the last few millenia of progress, it seems unlikely that we've reached the peak.
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All countercultures get coopted. "Counter" is a dynamic thing. I understand the nostalgia, but this is the same old "get off my lawn" stuff that all old punks/goths/hackers/hippies/whatever write 20 years after their heyday.
I wouldn't say it gets coopted. I'd say it has historically gotten appropriated, and then the public has been too ignorant to tell the difference. (Either through the unwillingness or incompetence of any of the original disciples to popularize the true meaning, or simple giving way beneath ever better funded commercial interests)
That's exactly what coopting is. See definition 2b here:
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Cultural-Marxist? I thought he was an economist.
Lately "Cultural-Marxist" has become shorthand for anyone holding beliefs even slightly adjacent to "the rich/powerful are evil and they're corrupting the pure and poor/powerless" or "there are two kinds of people: the oppressed and the oppressors". Whether this characterization of the article is fair or those beliefs about the world are true are both reasonable questions worthy of consideration. Anyone looking for a…
http://www.academia.org/the-origins-of-political-correctness...
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“America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.” So now we just have New Francisco, and a half-bulldozed New Orleans?
You inspired me to look up the origin of that quote, which was actually quite an interesting (albeit inconclusive) investigation; see http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/18/cleveland/
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That's not "freedom" you're describing. You're wanting "freedom to pursue "hobbies" and free "perks" without having to work for it" for yourself, at the expense of the general society. And by expense of general society, what that really means is that someone with the means to production/capital/etc has to part ways with some of his (labor, gasp he's no longer free), in order to fund your "free" lifestyle.
> what that really means is that someone with the means to production/capital/etc has to part ways with some of his (labor, gasp he's no longer free) This assumes that automation is not possible.
There is no in-between. Either we live in a dystopian society where all labor (or means to production) is collectively owned and the fruits of it are portioned-out. Or we live in a society where only a portion/percentage of said labor is redistributed, thus invalidating the OP's suggestion that such a society would mean freedom for all "...to pursue hobbies and live without careerism (I paraphrase there)".
I can only assume that "careerism" in that sense is in reference to a job, and/or participating in a labor market of sorts.
For those who think this article is too long, here is summary: This gist of the article is that the hacker impulse or ‘hacker ethic’ is a natural human response to large alienating infrastructures that allow little agency on the part of individuals. Hackers take different forms, but are identified by 1) a tendency towards creative rebellion that seeks to increase the agency of underdogs in the face of systems that ar…
That's a summary? tldr My summary: the article is a cultural-marxist parable. The victim is the hacker. The oppressor is the yuppie. In olden days the hacker lived in a sort of eden, but now the oppressor has trapped the hacker in webs of capitalist bondage.
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That's not "freedom" you're describing. You're wanting "freedom to pursue "hobbies" and free "perks" without having to work for it" for yourself, at the expense of the general society. And by expense of general society, what that really means is that someone with the means to production/capital/etc has to part ways with some of his (labor, gasp he's no longer free), in order to fund your "free" lifestyle.
Beyond my belief that apriori human happiness should be the highest priority for society, youre misunderstanding me. Yes, it is obvious that we rely on society to sustain modern life. I'm pretty sure that in 2015 America the main economic problems to be solved are about efficient distribution of the fruits of capital. Maybe I'm wrong, and food, housing, transportation and communication really are primarily supply con…
No, it's purely a governmental accountability problem. The money, the will and the goods are all there. The only problem is we're all dilly-dallying when it comes to holding the government accountable to provide basic life necessities to the needy. We all talk noble, but don't throw eggs at politicians for lying to us, or stick them in jail for causing (or allowing) the homeless die of starvation on their watch. I exaggerate a little, but really, as you say it's 2015. These should be solved problems using existing structures in place, without even discussing such things as universal basic income, or anything remotely that radical.
>"Regardless, we'll agree to say fuck basic income. I like this even more radical idea: There must be "
I understand that you mean this in a noble and well-meaning way. As a libertarian I don't deny that government programs, and the societal-backing behind them are not motivated by noble intentions. But you also have to understand that implementing such a suggestion fundamentally means that you don't believe an individual deserves (or is allowed to keep) all the products of his/her own labor and knowledge. Do you not see anything at fault with that?
Perhaps, rather address the existing issues that plague our society (if you agree that it's a problem). Almost all government regulatory laws have the unintended consequence of promoting larger institutions in the market, rewarding individuals with large accumulated pots of capital, and increase the barrier to entry for small-competitors.