#yes capitalism marketing etc etc

[psqqa]

if possible i would recommend seeing barbie with your sister and 25 of her closest friends

[mzminola]

Image: screencap of two tweets from October 16th 2022:

Ryan Silberman @RyanSilberman “I am curious, though, what convinced you to come back to Powerpuff and Foster’s?”

Response, Craig McCracken @CrackMcCraigen “I pitched 16 originals to Netflix.”

fucking constant reboot remake reboot remake reboot remake reboot remake!!!!!!!!!! the tv has only been around for like a century you literally cannot be out of ideas already

[merakiui]

OHSHC AU where reader breaks a precious arrifact from one of the dorms maybe all but instead of repaying the huggeeee debt with hours of labour she has to pay with her body and can’t refuse :)

every kink in the book is used as she’s pleading with the dorm leaders for mercy, crying about forgiveness but all they can hear is that her mouth is very wide open and needs to be replaced with a cock or gag </3 poor reader doesn’t have time to take birth control! and none of the students at nrc know what condoms are oopsies!! imagine savanaclaw in their heat … oh boy rip her pussy! she’ll never know a peaceful day until graduation but even then one of the dorm leaders might take her with them to spend forever with them

Omg yes,,, ohshc au, but it's freaky and full of sex because those scheming boys now have a girl in their debt and that opens so many possibilities. Their methods in dealing with you would all be different, of course, but in the end you're probably getting dicked down either way. <3

I think Riddle's punishments are probably more old-fashioned. If you can't fix whatever it is you broke, then you will write lines stating that you will be more careful, that you won't break anything again, etc. Or he'll make you write an essay detailing why exactly you're sorry, why you ought to be forgiven, etc. T_T really, these are just punishments his own mother gave to him in order to push him to do better in his studies. Riddle doesn't know any better.

He thinks differently when someone like Ace or Cater offhandedly and jokingly remarks how unlucky you must feel. Good thing their Housewarden isn't some pervert, otherwise he could totally force you to give him blowjobs whenever he wanted all under the guise of "repaying your debt." Riddle is appalled. He would never stoop so low! This is Heartslabyul, not Octavinelle. >:( still, the basic concept is just a little appealing. So maybe he's got a small crush on you, and maybe it would be easier to get you to spend time with him if you had no other choice. He makes you join him for tea parties in the gardens, for games of croquet, etc. His hope is that you'll warm up to him and not feel so rigid around him. orz

Leona probably doesn't care as much about the artifact as someone like Riddle might. It has no sentimental value to him personally, so why should he be worried? Besides, it was pretty old anyway. But that doesn't mean you can get off completely innocent. You're the reason he's got more work on his plate now, what with having to deal with the Headmage squawking at him about it. He allows you to choose between two punishments: either you become Savanaclaw's errand girl and do much the same work Ruggie does around the dorm, or you spend every night literally warming his bed (i.e. let him use you as a pillow if you're going to be good and still and quiet). If you want an easy way out, you'll choose the latter. Besides, his bed is comfortable, big enough for two. And as long as you aren't a pain, he doesn't mind. (You are definitely going to be warming his bed in other ways. The innuendo in his words is not lost on Leona.)

Azul...... of course he's slimy and sleazy about it. Oh, you poor soul. How is he ever going to get over this dear, priceless artifact that you have so carelessly broke? Jade is there to oh-so-helpfully inform you of its market price and what it could currently go for if sold. And Floyd's there to poke fun at the unfortunate predicament you've found yourself in. But Azul is a resourceful octopus. He makes a grand show of contemplating what he should do with you just to watch you squirm nervously, as if he hasn't already planned it out from the very beginning. He'll capitalize on your being a girl and have you work the floor in the lounge. There's always an increase in tips and sales when you're serving the customers, and why wouldn't there be? A cute, helpless girl in a school full of boys is an appealing sight.

He's irritating, but he isn't callous! Jade and Floyd are there to look out for you in case any of the patrons get it in their heads that they ought to appreciate you through touch instead of simply staring. Your uniforms change with every new event Mostro Lounge holds. Azul knows his target audience well because he also fits into that same group LOL. So maybe the sight of you in frilly uniforms is appealing. Sue him. >_< he wants you so badly, and luckily (with you being indebted to him) he has you all to himself. :) after hours are a very fun time at the lounge.

Kalim doesn't see what the issue is. He's not mad, so please don't cry!!! 🥺 you'll make him cry if you're not happy... Jamil is just about ready to pass out while he calculates just how bad this is. And here Kalim is, not caring in the slightest! T_T but Kalim is more sympathetic towards you, not the vase you broke. Besides, he can just get another one. :D no harm done at all! There really isn't any punishment to be had. If you insist on repaying your debt, Kalim tells you it's all water under the bridge.

Jamil is the only one who insists this is a good idea, and if Jamil thinks it's fine then Kalim agrees. So now you're sort of,,, there in Scarabia. Jamil puts you to work when Kalim isn't around, but when Kalim is there he spoils you rotten. The complete opposite of a punishment. There's definitely dubious shadows to this, though. For all of the delicious foods and alcohol you consume, you wake with hazy memories, only ever recalling you looked into the eyes of...something before you fell. Was it a snake? Maybe... but Kalim is always there in the morning to smother you in affection, so maybe it's not so bad.

You are Vil's newest pet project. He goes in with metaphorical fork and knife and cuts into you with his criticism, all of which is completely valid. You were clumsy when you broke that artifact. You weren't paying attention to your surroundings. You were completely oblivious, so in your own world. Epel would feel bad for you, but finally he gets to relax just a little bit now that Vil's eyes are mostly off of him and centered on you. Vil is going to put you through a reformation of sorts. You will come out of it your best, most elegant self! A wonderful improvement from your earlier carelessness. Only then will he forgive your previous transgression.

You and Vil get on like oil and water. That is, you don't mix at all. You are subjected to curses left and right because Vil is so strict. Suddenly, you can't eat certain foods and if you try to sneak them you find they've all been cursed (courtesy of Vil). If you try to slack on the work he has you do, even when you know he's not around, somehow word gets back to Vil. That creepy hunter always seems to know everything you do even when you're alone. It's troubling. Vil likes to think his heart is an iron fortress, so it's impossible to fathom when he falls for you first (and so hopelessly, at that)!

Idia doesn't put as much value in that artifact as he does in his own anime collection. If you broke something from his collection that was limited edition, he'd be far more upset (and then proceed to pull out the second one he got as back-up for this very specific moment). But this is an easy fix, really. He has the technology to make it good as new and, if that can't be done, he can always build a new one. Upgrades are important and necessary in some cases, especially when things get too outdated. It's a little awkward having a real 3D girl in his room all the time, though. >_< kick his ass in the twst equivalent of Smash and he's looking at you in a completely different light (hearing you trash talk him is so arousing; he's never been more hard).

Let's say the thing you broke in this case was a gargoyle. You're not sure how it happened, but it's headless now and Malleus is just staring silently at you. You can't read the emotions on his face, but with the way Sebek is shouting at you to get on your knees and beg for forgiveness you think you're about to be burnt to a crisp. It's so uneasy and awkward, and all you can do is apologize profusely, insisting you didn't mean to break it. It's Lilia who comes to your rescue: "Now, now, Malleus. You'll scare the poor child if you keep frowning so. Mistakes happen, do they not?" Silver also comes to your aid, adding that it wasn't your intention to break this gargoyle. It was an accident.

So now here you are, the second member of the Gargoyle Studies Club, accompanying Malleus for club activities while he teaches you all about gargoyles so that you can gain a better appreciation for them. It was Lilia's idea in the first place. He is Malleus's unofficial wingman. One way or another, you're going to find yourself alone in the woods with Malleus while Lilia is in the bushes belting out "romantic" love ballads from the old ages. T_T someone put peepaw to bed... at the very least, it lessens the awkward tension between you and Malleus, and it even gets the both of you laughing.

[lildoodlenoodle]

Some random Hobie information from the comics! I’ve specified where the movies might come in and fanon stuff!

Hobie, despite having a British/cockney accent in the movie and in the comics, lives in NYC in the comics(movie might b different).

Hobie is a homeless teen(I’m pretty sure his parents died) radicalized by his dystopian world.

He’s been Spiderman for 3 years(movie so most of his comics have probably passed) and his world is a weird combination of 1970s-1990s.

Canonically bad at naming things.

His friends/band are tired of his shit and regularly make fun of him for saving the multiverse.

The cops in Hobie’s world all have the venom symbiote, he uses his guitar to play frequencies that disrupt the symbiotes.

He kills Norman Osborn twice.

Yes he kills cops.

Full name is Hobart.

Originally he hated being called Spider-Punk.

He works with his worlds Daredevil(Mattea Murdock), Captain America(Captain Anarchy), Hulk(Robbie Banner), Ironheart(RiotHeart), Ms. Marvel, etc.

Most people in his ‘band’ can’t actually play lol.

With facism one of his other greatest enemies is capitalism and being ‘marketable’.

Hobie’s design was originally meant to be Spider UK, who later became Billy Braddock.

He also got a symbiote dog called Spider-Mutt in his latest run.

Gwen Stacy was a famous rockstar who died in his world, Hobie was a fan!

He was originally recruited to what I affectionately call the ‘Interdimensional Spider Death Squad’ run by the Superior Spider with Spider Noir (and eventually Miles and Jessica joined right before the teams merged)rather than the other group of spiders.

He was the one that brought Miles back into the ‘spider society’ when the inheritors came back.

In the comics he lives in a Welfare center in Brooklyn he and his friends/band operate, in the movie he lives in a boat!

Hobie has an interdimensional band with Gwen(drums), Pavitr(keyboard), Noir(bass), Anya(1616 vocals), and Ham(air guitar)

I can’t remember Hobie having any romantic interests in his universe, but fanon wise he is often shipped with his canon gay friend, Captain Anarchy aka Karl Morningdew, but Karl does have a canon boyfriend. But outside of his universe there’s a whole host of possible ships and some do include: Hobiemiles / punkflower hobiepav/chaipunk hobiegwen / ghostpunk

[read-marx-and-lenin]

This is a genuine question that I hope I can ask but you don't need to answer if you don't want to or can't! I've heard a lot of people, for example a relative of mine who visited a couple of times DDR, say that communist or socialist countries were poor and it could be seen in the architecture, the clothes, the food etc. While this is obviously too simple way of thinking, especially when you don't consider the way other capitalist countries have affected socialist countries and still do, I was wondering where the "raggedy and poor" looks that everyone always seem to bring up come from. Do capitalist countries look richer simply bc they take from other countries and socialist countries avoided doing that? I feel like people always bring up the poor looks of socialism when they want to dispute or discredit it. Sorry if I explained this poorly!

I would say the main reason that many socialist countries appear poor to Western eyes is simply because a lot of them did not adopt Western fashions. So to take West vs East Germany as an example, West Germany was economically and culturally dominated by the US, and so the more American one looked and acted, the more wealthy one seemed. This made East Germany look "old-fashioned" by comparison.

It is true that imperial core nations get much of their wealth through exploitation, but this also contributes to the apparent differences through the availability of certain products. One of the often-heard claims of Eastern poverty is the lack of availability of fruits such as bananas and oranges. But where do these fruits come from? The tropics, which are dominated by imperial powers. West Germany had access to imperialist markets and could get cheap oranges. East Germany didn't have the same access and so oranges were a luxury.

You see the same issues of economic isolation in North Korea vs South Korea today. South Korea occupies an extraordinarily privileged position with its relationship to the US, just as West Germany did, whereas North Korea is even more economically and culturally isolated today than East Germany ever was. Yes, the DPRK is a poor nation, but they look even more poor because of a lack of Western fashions and Western products which are signifiers of wealth to Western eyes.

However, it remains the case that socialist economies are better capable of improving the average wellbeing of their citizens than capitalist economies are. In the capitalist world today, more than two-thirds of workers earn less than the local purchasing power equivalent of USD$10 a day. That is to say, the money they earn each day would afford them less than what $10 could afford a person in the United States. This number has only gotten worse over recent decades. So regardless of what anyone might say about the poverty of socialist nations, at least socialist nations are improving the lives of their citizens. Capitalist nations have been stagnating as more and more wealth is siphoned off into the pockets of the imperialists.

Recommended reading:

[horreurscopes]

so after months of apartment hunting hell and many rejections from apartments i fell in love with that hurt more than any romantic breakup i have ever had, i moved into a new place about two months ago and i thought i would love it but there were many little things here and there that were obscured from me during the tour and it's not working out and it's making me so incredibly unhappy (unresponsive management, loud neighbors, and it's so filthy from the last tenants [bathtub has jets??? which i thought was sick until i found out they were full of biofilm because they have never been cleaned out and yes i have disgusting pictures] and it's really dark because it's north facing and has scaffolding around it and the broker just made stuff up about the scaffolding being about to be taken down but it seems its just not going to come off because it's cheaper for the owners to have the scaffolding there to comply with safety law than it is to actually fix whatevers wrong with the building) anyway. so now, a really cool gorgeous place that's significantly cheaper and SO sunny and much better that i immediately fell in love with went up on streeteasy, so i thought, hey, it will be super mega tough to pull off but i can probably transfer my lease (wherein you find someone to take over the contact and are free of it) and move again, but then the listing agent messaged me that the current tenants had decided to stay and i was bummed out because the same thing had happened to me months ago during the beginning of my search with another place i really liked, so i looked it up and hey, turns out last time it happened it was the same leasing agent. so what i think is happening is that because it's such a desirable place at such a low cost, the broker probably has too many people who want it and just brushed me off with a lie because they can just do whatever they want. so i pretend i didn't see the cancellation email and show up to the building anyway, and ring the apartment number, and im LET IN but when i go up the stairs and walk into the place turns out it was true and the tenant's friend IS taking the apartment and they're like oh we're so sorry the broker was supposed to cancel ): and I'm like oohhhh nooo...... oh well! because at least i got closure lol

but i shit you not, as im walking out the tenants yell at me through the window to come back in because they JUST heard from their friend that he backed out and actually, the apartment is back on the market, and im the only person who knows and has seen it. so i stay for a solid hour just talking to the tenants who let me know the #honest ins and outs of the place, and that the broker basically did nothing (what is new) because they took the pictures in the listing and the guy hadnt even stepped foot in the place.

anyway it's a great story, kismet meant to be etc, im imagining my entire life in that apartment, until i realize i can't move in because the broker's fee that *im* supposed to pay (on top of first month + security deposit, which i would've had to figure out/loan out anyway because i definitely don't have enough money to put those payments in before getting the security deposit and rent refund for the rest of the month back from the CURRENT place) is fifteen (15)(IX) FIFTEEN percent of the annual rent. fifteen percent of the annual rent. FIFtEEn PercEnt. Of The Annual Rent. For Doing Nothing. so long story short i briefly thought I'd try to fundraise like $7k for all of moving expenses but then i deflated like a depressurized blob fish..... the unstoppable force of panache grit and scrappiness alone will get you far but it's not enough against the immovable object that is nyc capitalism. hashtag american dream hashtag bootstraps

[serpentarius]

been trying to wrap my head around the cancellation of "Our Flag Means Death" and why it hurts so fucking much. lots of folks who are much more eloquent than I have summed it up perfectly, but I still think it’s important I add my voice to the matter. 

It really, really sucks that the hurt is being compounded on us every time another queer/minority-led show gets prematurely cancelled. and for a long while, we also had to deal with the many shows that deliberately queerbaited us, which was a shitty and traumatic experience unto its own. And even though we’ve largely surpassed that early-‘00s-flavoured brand of queerbait now, mainstream queer media is still predominantly white-led. With the cancellation of OFMD, we've lost one of the very few intersectional queer shows in the mainstream. Shouldn’t we be beyond asking for crumbs at this point? Shouldn’t we get unabashedly intersectional shows helmed by and starring queer, BIPOC, and trans folks without them being axed for no rhyme or reason?

It’s exhausting at this point, honestly. OFMD has done so well in terms of viewership and engagement and fan response—almost entirely due to word of mouth and little thanks to the Max marketing team, mind you—and even still the show got cancelled? Can they make it make sense????

For me, the thing most akin to this OFMD situation was when Sense8 got cancelled. And yes, the fandom fought, and we eventually DID get a movie that wrapped things up years later! That gives me hope for OFMD, that maybe another network will pick it up, or maybe they’ll be able to make a movie someday. But what makes me sad about cases like Sense8 is knowing that the creators still had to force the narrative around the amount of time they were given. That the corporate overlords who only care about numbers and profit dictated how much time they had to wrap up their story.

And it fucking kills me that DJ only wanted one more season. One more season to complete the vision.

I'm just so mad that queer people are constantly being jerked around and used for profit and then left high and dry. And then we're given excuses like "oh there's no budget" or "oh there's not enough viewership, that's all it is". like, sure, maybe those are contributing factors, but then I look at all the useless garbage shows that have little viewership and high budgets that keep going forever and then I think "hmmmm, the math ain't mathing." It's fucking transparent; the corporations can spew all they want with their rainbow capitalism and talks about diversity, but the evidence is clear, and they can't convince me homophobia/racism/transphobia/etc. is not a factor in these decisions.

Anyways, back to OFMD. OFMD made me fall in love with fandom again. I drifted away from fandom for a while in my 20s, and while OFMD wasn't the first fandom that drew me back into the madness, it's certainly the largest. The sheer amount of creativity both within the show and outside of it has blown me away; I've read some of the best fics, seen some of the best art, and witnessed some of the most incredible creativity from people in this fandom.

And let's not forget the role of the show's creators and how they've interacted with us fans. They made us feel seen. And made us feel loved and valid, even when we were being weird and loud and horny. It's so fucking rare to see that. But they understood; understood that the show they made was for us, for any of us who've been marginalized or made to feel Othered or different or stuck in life or unsure of our identities. And they gave us so much love for it.

The story... man. The unique combination of quirky humour and bright visuals and dark, introspective moments, the gorgeous costumes and soft, lovely, unabashed queerness, and veteran actors and new actors all getting to shine, brilliant comedic actors getting to show off their dramatic chops and vice versa. For me, seeing Rhys Darby - an actor I've loved for a long time, but who I never thought I'd see in a leading role - getting to be the romantic lead in a queer role? And seeing acclaimed director/producer/screenwriter/actor Taika Waititi play opposite Rhys, as an indigenous Blackbeard? Fucking incredible. OFMD Edward Teach you will always be famous to me.

Anyways... despite my long ramblings here, I still don’t think I've been able to get to the root of WHY exactly this show has inched its way under my skin and stayed with me in the way it has. Maybe I'll spend years trying to understand it. But I DO know that it's in part to do with seeing both older queers AND a diverse range of queerness onscreen, in a way that I've never seen in media before. I DO know that OFMD has forced me to look inwardly, and allowed me to realize some important things about myself. About my own queerness, my own identity, things I'm still figuring out. I've cherished being able to see myself in Stede, in Ed, and each of the crew members. In Roach’s love for cooking, in Oluwande’s ability to mediate; in Jim’s quick temper, in the way Izzy builds walls to guard his heart. In Buttons’ quirkiness, in Wee John’s sass, in Frenchie’s ability to turn pain into humour; in The Swede’s silliness, in Lucius’ bluntness, in Pete’s soft heart beneath the skepticism. Lastly, OFMD has inspired me. To create, to write, to draw, to devour other peoples' works and worlds while I sit in sheer, overflowing joyousness at their talent.

so yeah. the news of this cancellation is upsetting and hurtful and disappointing. And it's making us cry, and it's making us grieve, and may make us hollow and numb at times because we've lost yet another thing we love so deeply before it was meant to go. It's so much more than "just a TV show". It means more to us than any passive mindless idiotic mind-numbing bullshit - because even though there's a time and a place and a purpose for that type of media, it's the thought-provoking work, the work that creators pour their entire hearts and souls into, that hit us deep in our own souls. The work that changes our lives. The work that has the ability to save lives, as I know OFMD has done for so many. 

please know I'm sending immense amounts of love and strength to those of you who are also hurting. we'll get through this, one way or another, and I'll keep up with the hope that we'll get more someday; but in the meantime, I'm holding you tight. ❤️️🫂

[messrsrarchives]

Let me scream this, fanfic is the only form of literature that is divorced from capitalism

oh how i wish this were true 😖 i literally JUST wrote about the politicisation and capitalisation of fanfiction for an essay comp with my uni (i won :3) and UGH.

theoretically? yes! and being separate from capitalism is so important,,, not just for fanfiction but for literature as a whole? to be separate from this idea of profit, of your voice and ideas being profitable and marketable, of having to fit into a predetermined box for your voice and experience and words to be heard? capitalism ruins literature. it ruins freedom of voice when we see the demographic of those getting published (and like,,, that historically) but also it limits creativity and ideas when your focus is now on what's marketable and what's trending, and we go through waves of the same tropes/story being told over and over and over again until the next big trend hits. capitalism prohibits creativity. and theoretically,,, fanfiction is devoid from that, right? because we aren't profiting from it, we aren't buying it, and theoretically everyone's voice holds the same power and we aren't restrained by what's marketable and who's louder.

BUT realistically:

i mean obviously the first point - people selling binds. instantly bringing capitalism into fandom. fanfiction becomes capitalised on a monetary level.

but money isn't everything here i think! i think we have ideals in fanfiction/fandom that aren't necessarily about profit, but still uphold capitalist values.

especially over on tiktok, we see the same ideals through followers, likes, 'influencers'. we see it when cosplayers call themselves actors and want to use fanfilms for portfolios, we see it when fanfilms ask for money *before* content, which goes against the whole "fandom content is shared with you, not made for you" ideal, we see it when people start gatekeeping their ideas rather than sharing like we used to, etc etc - ideals of capitalism infiltrating. we start developing this hierachy of those at the "top" with more influence and more power and whose ideas we follow more, and those at the "bottom" start becoming more like consumers than enjoyers. fanfiction - and in turn, fandom as a whole - becomes a market. (and we see the same concept with hits and kudos on fanfics and how this determines what ones people think are worth reading)

we see it when people start criticising fics - again, not monetary but rather the same ideals - and determining which voices and which experiences can be heard, whilst the others are pushed aside. "no you can't write about this because i think it should be done this way and xyz and therefore your voice is irrelevant and we're going to cancel your fic online". people start determining whose voice can be heard and what the "right way" to do something is, the exact way they do in tradlit which is obviously dependent on capitalism now (which is a big part of why there's been a rise in selfpub recently)

we see it in the puritanical view people take towards fandom and characters - in the way certain ideals are restricted as being "too immoral" to write about and we end up, again, cancelling people (see here: period typical misogyny = the author being misogynistic and thus getting cancelled??) - we start, again, determining right and wrong ways of doing things and turn this sharing of ideas for fun from a hobby based mindset to more of a "i am a consumer and i am unhappy with the product i have received" type of mindset, which then leads to people making their ideas and works more "marketable" to the "consumer", and suddenly these capitalist values have changed the very way we produce content. are we doing X this way because we want to, or because people will get mad at us if we do Y?

we see SO many capitalist ideals in fandom that even if binds weren't being sold and fanfilms weren't taking extortionate amounts of money,,,, i still wouldn't say fanfiction is divorced from capitalism. i'd say we definitely have signs of the hierarchy, the restriction, the consumer x producer dynamic, and i'd argue that likes/followers/"the next big fic" etc etc are all signs of how fanfiction is infact not divorced from capitalism.

BUT!! my final point is that:

as a concept, absolutely it is! and in most instances, yes. fanfiction is divorced from capitalism - fanDOM is where it gets a bit trickier. but i think the big transition from more anonymous and communal ideas of fanfiction to a more interactive social media based one (esp platforms with high traction like tiktok) has meant that a lot of capitalist values (which are prevalent on SM in general) start infiltrating fandom so naturally because it's what we're used to! we're so used to the traction and the power and the hierarchy and the cancelling etc etc that we don't even notice it really. but fanfiction starts becoming more mainstream, people want traction, they evaluate the "market" and determine the best way to go about "selling" their fic, jump on the more "profitable" trends, etc etc etc. capitalism. hinderance of individual exploration and expression to appease the masses.

so theoretically and ideally? yes, fanfiction is divorced from capitalism. but realistically and in practice? no, because fanDOM isn't, and it affects fanFICTION

[qweerhet]

I see some of your pro-ai stuff, and I also see that you're very good at explaining things, so I have some concerns about ai that I'd like for you to explain if it's okay.

I'm very worried about the amount of pollution it takes to make an ai generated image, story, video, etc. I'm also very worried about ai imagery being used to spread disinformation.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to go by the stance that since we can't un-create ai, we should just try our best to manage. How do we manage things like disinformation and massive amounts of pollution? To be fair, I actually don't know the exact amount of pollution ai generated prompts make.

so, first off: the environmental devastation argument is so incorrect, i would honestly consider it intellectually dishonest. here is a good, thorough writeup of the issue.

the tl;dr is that trying to discuss the "environmental cost of AI" as one monolithic thing is incoherent; AI is an umbrella term that refers to a wide breadth of both machine-learning research and, like, random tech that gets swept up in the umbrella as a marketing gimmick. when most people doompost about the environmental cost of AI, they're discussing image generation programs and chat interfaces in particular, and the fact is that running these programs on your computer eats about as much energy as, like, playing an hour of skyrim. bluntly, i consider this argument intellectually dishonest from anyone who does not consider it equally unethical to play skyrim.

the vast majority of the environmental cost of AI such as image generation and chat interfaces comes from implementation by large corporations. this problem isn't tractable by banning the tool; it's a structural problem baked into the existence of massive corporations and the current phase of capitalism we're in. prior to generative AI becoming a worldwide cultural trend, corporations were still responsible for that much environmental devastation, primarily to the end of serving ads--and like. the vast majority of use cases corporations are twisting AI to fit boil down to serving ads. essentially, i think focusing on the tool in this particular case is missing the forest for the trees; as long as you're not addressing the structural incentives for corporations to blindly and mindlessly participate in unsustainable extractivism, they will continue to use any and all tools to participate in such, and i am equally concerned about the energy spent barraging me with literally dozens and dozens of digital animated billboards in a ten-mile radius as i am with the energy spent getting a chatbot to talk up their product to me.

moving onto the disinformation issue: actually, yes, i'm very concerned about that. i don't have any personal opinions on how to manage it, but it's a very strong concern of mine. lowering the skill floor for production of media does, necessarily, mean a lot of bad actors are now capable of producing a much larger glut of malicious content, much faster.

i do think that, historically speaking, similar explosions of disinformation & malicious media haven't been socially managed by banning the tool nor by shaming those who use it for non-malicious purposes--like, when it was adopted for personal use, the internet itself created a sudden huge explosion of spam and disinformation as never before seen in human history, but "get rid of the internet" was never a tractable solution to this, and "shame people you see using the internet" just didn't do anything for the problem.

wish i could be more helpful on solutions for that one--it's just not a field i have any particular knowledge in, but if there's anyone reading who'd like to add on with information about large-scale regulation of the sort of broad field of malicious content i'm discussing, feel free.

[neosartorya]

So i was thinking about the whole solarpunk chobani oatmilk ad (as depicted here) and a comment someone made in a different post (that I now can't find) where they said something along the lines of (paraphrasing) 'the marketing people at chobani being unable to imagine a future where their brand had ditched single-use containers in favor of a sustainable alternative'. And I started thinking how will food packaging look like in the solarpunk utopia?

Modern food packaging responds (mostly) to the needs of the globalized supply chain, where food products need to be moved great distances without being damaged and while taking up as little space and energy as possible. Packaging also needs to be made of the cheapest materials available, hence the preference for disposable containers made of light materials (cardboard, plastic, aluminium, paper, etc.). You don't want your package to be worth more than what it contains (although with some food products, that is close to being the case).

The comment I referenced earlier suggested using reusable glass containers as an example of a sustainable alternative to single-use containers. That makes sense, and there is historical (and current) precedent for such kinds of food containers. Just ask your parents (or grandparents, I guess) how milk used to be delivered to homes in the good ol' days.

In a more recent example, some places still use reusable (returnable) containers for products such as beer and (even!) Coca-cola, where you pay an initial fee for the container and get reimbursed once you return it, or you can exchange the empty container for a full one by paying the price of the product minus the container fee.

This solution, however, is still within the framework of the global supply chain of modern capitalism. In the solarpunk utopia, the goal would be to reduce (reuse, repair, recycle) the breadth of our current supply chain by prioritizing local consumption and disinsentivizing long-distance trade.

This train of thought led me to the question of wether processed, pre-packaged food would even be a thing in the solarpunk utopia. After all, if we are trying to consume only what is locally sourced, one of the main purposes of preserved (and thus packaged) food goes away. No need for bottled orange juice when you can just go to the commons bin and grab a kilo of fresh oranges to make your own.

Further, once there is no capitalism, the "convenience" angle of processed, packaged food also appears to go away. You don't have to work 9 hours a day, 6 days a week anymore. You have the time and resources necessary to make your own damn fresh orange juice, so why bother with the bottled stuff?

Well for one, not everything is as easy and convenient to do by yourself as orange juice. Fermented foods (cheese, wine, beer, soy sauce, even pickles and yogurt), bread and pastries and cakes, carbonated drinks, jams and marmalade, butter, mayonnaise, cured meats and fish, and (yes) almond milk are all tricky to make properly, take a long time to be made and/or are energy and resource intensive. The need for these kinds of foods will remain as long as we are human and find pleasure in eating and trying new things. Also, the need for mass-produced food does not go away with capitalism, after all we have a population of 10 billion humans with different dietary needs that need to be fed. Food safety standards must still be enforced and probably will be even more stringent when corporate profits are no longer standing in the way of progress.

To add to this, a localized supply chain will make food preservation even more important. After all, if you want your population to survive mostly on what can be produced in a 100 km radius, you will have to prepare for food scarcity. Droughts, floods, earthquakes, blizzards, accidents, and even just regular ol' winter (once we've rescued it from the clutches of climate change) don't care how solar your punk is. They will wreck your food supply and your utopia needs to be ready.

So the need for packaged food will remain. The need for food that can stay in a cupboard undisturbed for months (if not years) and remain edible (and reasonably palatable!) will continue to be there.

With all this in mind... what does food packaging look in our solarpunk utopia? Single-use plastics have gone the way of the dodo, as have single-use paper, cardboard, aluminium, glass, and steel. What has replaced them?

I have some ideas, but this post is already ridiculously long, so I'll save them for later. All I'll say for now is I think glass containers are not the way to go. Glass is heavy, fragile, a poor thermal conductor (so heating and cooling processes with glass containers are energy innefficient), and takes up a lot of space. It is also very resource and energy intensive to produce and recycle (so not the most environmentaly friendly in that regard either).

What does a reusable aluminium container look like? That'd be cool I think.

[drdemonprince]

want to be very clear this isn't like. accusatory at all.

just read your post abt fi/re and retirement savings etc. and how do you reconcile that with (what i know of) your anarchist politics? i'm not saying that its impossible or even that you have to do so, but. there's always been dissonance there for me and i kind of just accept it and let it sit and that generally works for me but.

I just answered a question about this, so hopefully you saw it, but yes, I generally accept the dissonance and let it sit. I also try to avoid viewing anarchism as an identity or an ideology, and more of a social technology. that said, i would not by any means call having a 401k anarchist, right, obviously. i dont think, like, homeownership is anarchist either, but i think more leftist would consider that one an acceptable compromise as a means to survive under capitalism in the short term? even though it also has some real, socially damaging downstream effects. admittedly less than investing in the stock market!! but i think we all wind up making decisions that are pretty flawed within this structure. if someone thinks mine cross the line, again, i can't disagree with the basis of their judgement, i think it makes sense. i would say that kind of thing about the ana mardolls of the world working for lockheed martin. but on balance, i am of the opinion that the world would be slightly better off if more disabled people lived off index funds (at a low cost of living -- a huge part of the FIRE movement is reduced consumption) rather than work for lockheed martin or similarly morally compromised employers.

[mywingsareonwheels]

The stratification (in marketing at least) between "grimdark" crime fiction (inc books) and "cosy" crime fiction grates on me sometimes, because I like nothing that's at either extreme. I don't want relentless pain (and I find both organised crime and serial killer plots pretty boring unless they're really well-handled), and I don't want cheerfully callous "ooh, the bodies are piling up! how inconvenient! have another slice of Victoria sponge!".

I want humanity and compassion and humour and treating deaths like they do actually matter even when they're of awful people, thank-you-so-very-much. I want the satisfaction of a puzzle solved. I want an awareness by the author that yes the human fascination with murder mysteries (going right right back to Oedipus Tyrannus etc.) is kind of odd, while also not apologising for it. I want characters I warm to and care about, even if I sometimes want to throw things at them. I want a predictable structure to some extent, because it helps my autistic brain when I'm having a rough time (see also romances!). If at all possible I like at least some awareness that there is structural oppression in the world and that capital punishment is Not Great even if by the very nature of the genre (especially in police procedurals) I never expect murder mysteries to have the same politics or morality as me[1].

Some of the murder mysteries/crime fiction I do really love: the Cadfael books, Endeavour, the Lord Peter Wimsey books, the Ruth Galloway mysteries, the Discworld Watch books, the Ian Rutledge mysteries, and every time KJ Charles or T Kingfisher get a bit murder mystery on us. And so on and so forth. There are a good number! And a fair variety in tone in all of these they just... still all operate in that blessed middle space between grimdark and cosy, and involve Caring About People, and I just wish there were even more. <3

(Do recommend your own favourites if you wish!) [1] In real life, I am very much of the opinion that ACAB, that prison is a horror, that capital punishment is one of the greatest evils there is, and that retributive justice in general is wrong and unhelpful; those views affect which murder mysteries I like and how I read/watch/listen to them to some extent but, well, fiction is not reality. And being aware of that gap helps me to keep true to my views while still enjoying stories that go very much the other way!

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

here is a little introduction to the original fantasy world i came up with for the eflorr trilogy.

series masterlist | pinterest board | playlist | masterlist

Welcome to the world of Tyhmalaa. Our stories take place on the continent of Aton where the two major kingdoms (Eflorr and Obelón) have had a feud spanning decades. 

here is a little list of facts to give you a sense of what kind of realm this is:

currency: platinum, gold, silver and copper 

monsters: yes

magic: no

calendar: the year is just divided by the four seasons (each with 90 days in them) with 7 days in a week (Moonsday, Tidesday, Windsday, Thundersday, Fogsday, Stormsday and Solarsday) and the year shift is on the longest night of the year on the 30th day of winter

year the first story begins: 856 PR (post-rimesunder, an ancient white dragon that once froze the entire continent of Efira for 2 centuries till he was slain)

climate: the weather in Aton goes through all four of the standard seasons (sping, summer, autumn and winter), though most of the stories take place on the northern side of the continent, so it is on the colder side.

religions: there are multiple gods people worship (some notable ones are: Apa – goddess of wilderness and the sea, Kotris – goddess of knowledge, Cicero – god of war and peace, Zondür – god of atonement and love, Sona – goddess of life and death)

kingdoms on the continent: Eflorr (capital: Borün) and Obelón (capital: Ingorn)

maps and doodles:

it took me around 30 hours of work to draw all of these, but it was super meditative.

map of the continent of Aton.

⊠ squares = capitals

�� circles = smaller towns

△ triangles = speciality locations

the continent of Efira is located to the north east of Aton.

Fort Borün. The ivy-covered stone castle on the top of the cliff is home of the royal family of Eflorr.

Elm Square. The beating heart of Borün, it is not only a central meeting place for all, but also the district where the majority of the city's shops, taverns, etc are. The town square gets especially sparkly during the seasonal festivals with booths are stalls crowding the market.

Willow Grove Cemetery. As the name would suggest, a large weeping willow tree grounds this cemetery that it is built around. Although Eflorr as a whole commonly isn't very religious, this graveyard does house a few alters and shrines to various deities.

The Valerian Ward. You'll find all manner of schools, museums, as well as Borün's beautiful aquarium in this part of town.

The Port of Borün. The city's docks are always bustling with excitement and possibilities.

The Western Farms. Up on the hill that swiftly blossoms into The Noll Woods, are a plethora of rolling fields and cosy cottages.

The Beach. Down the little steps on the northern side of the docks is not the only way to access this cove. Though the steep path some way further north is no secret, not everyone is privileged to the knowledge that the castle's cellar opens up into a cave system that leads out onto the beach. Created as a safety measure and a last resort for the royals to escape, the tunnels most commonly got used by the young royals as a daring playground.

The Tulip Neighbourhood. The homes in this part of town have generous courtyards that bring the households together.

The Dandelion Quarter. Part residential, this neighbourhood also houses a grand park (The Riverview Public Park), where combat courses/training are held every weekend, as well as The Water Lily Orphanage.

The Snowdrop Sector. For those not inclined for the bustle of the city's centre but still want to live close enough to the action often settle down in a little cottage out in this district. Many also chose to retire out here, living out the rest of their days in a cabin by the sea.

The Barracks. Through the main gate lies a grand courtyard to welcome you to the castle. The surrounding buildings are designated mainly for the wardens. There are living quarters for them, training areas, armoury, small stables that also house the royal horses, as well as the city's small garrison.

The Western Wing. In here lies many of the more public spaces: throne room, ballroom, banquet hall, servants quarters, the kitchen, war room, the meeting room that's utilised mostly for gatherings with the town council.

The Conservatory. This secluded greenhouse was built as a memorial to King Edward III. who apparently had quite the green thumb.

The Topiary Garden. A private courtyard separating the two main buildings is a serene space where one can come sit on a small bench and listen to the trickling water of the fountain in the centre.

The Eastern Wing. This part of the castle is home to the royal's private chambers as well as numerous other spaces such as the library.

The castle also has a basement that's not only utilised for storage (both of common items as well as the most precious that's kept safe in the grand vault) it also connects to a tunnel system that leads all the way out onto the beach.

© 2024 thyme-in-a-bubble 

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 39 – Lying for Money: How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of the World

This is one of those books I’d heard mentioned in a dozen different places before I finally decided to read it. I think it was the review in Thing of Things that finally pushed me over the edge and convinced me to read it myself? Very happy I did, even if I had a severe case of deja vu reading a few particular passages (and even if it does suffer from a few of the usual pop nonfiction issues at times).

The title gets across the substance of the book clearly enough; this is, to paraphrase the author, a work of counter-economics. That is, an attempt to illuminate the workings of an advanced capitalist economy by showcasing the sorts of crimes that take advantage of its complexity and parsitize it. It’s nowhere near as dry or academic as all that, of course (Davies keeps up a chatty, conversational sort of tone throughout, and takes every chance to dunk on academic economics as a discipline that presents itself); most of the meat of the book is case studies and anecdotes of particularly famous or illuminating frauds, which are all great reading. Honestly reading about con artists is so fun I should really feel guiltier about how hypocritical my disdain for more traditional true crime is.

The books, if not central thesis, then definitely on of the main things it keeps coming back to, is that the optimal level of fraud in an economy is higher than zero. Fraud is fundamentally an abuse of trust, after all, and if no one’s trust is getting abused, then that probably means that an unjustifiable amount of resources are being spent checking up on every possible thing, and a great deal of productive work isn’t getting done because people are too paranoid to work with each other.

The term Davies uses is the Canadian Paradox. Which is the fact (anecdote, popular wisdom, whatever) that Canada, with its mostly trustworthy institutions and rule of law and developed financial system, has vastly more fraud than, say, Greek shipping (I don’t know why specifically Greek and specifically shipping. Specifically Canada because in the ‘90s the Vancouver Stock Exchange was apparently the most full of scams and fakes in the world). The reason for this being that Canadian investors more or less assume that anyone with a stock listing is probably on the level, because they’re usually right; Greek shipowners, by contrast, absolutely expect to get screwed over if they leave themselves vulnerable, and so do business exclusively with people who they have strong relationships and embedded social ties with. The overwhelmingly intended takeaway being that the Canadian equilibrium is the one to aspire to.

The book’s organized around Davies’ own taxonomy of fraud – he divides the broader category into four distinct (if overlapping) types based on the trust they abuse and so (in a broad sense) are crimes against. Those types being: 1) the Long Firm (neither of the words mean what you think they do here), which is just lying and defrauding someone, buying on credit, reselling and skipping town before the first bill comes due, etc 2) Counterfeiting, of currency yes, but also legal documentation, audited account books, hell even mining samples, providing forged documentation that people trust so they accept your lies 3) Control Frauds, when employees or trustees take advantage of their control over assets to juice the books and manipulate returns in ways that maximize ‘legitimate’ profits for themselves (distinct from embezzlement, which is just taking advantage of control over assets to, well, take them) and 4) Market Crimes, which intuitively might not seem like crimes at all, at least in a moral sense, but are regulated or criminalized or made taboo because people engaging in them damages the wider structure society or the market or capitalism or whatever relies upon.

The types of fraud, you’ll notice, get steadily more abstract and conceptual as you go on – the only thing that distinguishes most control fraud from managerial incompetence and over-optimism is a paper trail showing they knew what they were doing. The only thing that distinguishes a market crime form just, being good at business, is the opinion of whatever jurisdiction your in’s regulatory authorities. One gets the sense that these sorts of tricky conceptual crimes interest Davies more than more straightforward sorts of fraud, and his discussions of them certainly get more philosophical than the mostly technical descriptions of long firms and counterfeiting.

Of course, you don’t really read a book like this for the theorizing – I mean, I didn’t, anyway – but for the interesting and absurd case studies of historical frauds. Of which the book delivers in spades; everything from the ‘salad oil king’ of New Jersey with with his vats of water with a layer of oil floating on top, to Ponzi and his original scheme, to the counterfeiter who destabilized the Portuguese economy sufficiently to pave the way for a reactionary military coup, to the first actually comprehensible explanation of the whole Savings&Loans crisis in ‘80s America that I’ve ever read to, of course, the 2008 Mortgage Crisis.

One trait of historical frauds that gets more salient the more of them you read is that, because many of them involve taking advantage of some since-patched loophole in law or regulation, in retrospect it seems positively absurd that they could ever have worked. The book cautions against this point of view – given how bewilderingly complex the modern economy is, there are doubtless more absurd loopholes and abuses of what people will take on trust now than there have ever been. People just haven't written books about them yet.

Anyways, speaking of 2008 - the financial crisis was a generation-defining event for the people who got fucked over by it, but it clearly did a number on the paradigms of guys like Davies too. It gets a chapter to itself as an ‘innocent’ control fraud. That is, an institutional setup and incentive set that inevitably causes massive amounts of crime even though the people at the top actually profiting from it all are, technically speaking, innocent (and most of the low-level employees doing the crimes are mostly just trying to meet aggressive sales targets and keep their jobs. Which, hardly justifies a lot of the conduct, but they weren't profiting from the enterprise like the managers and executives.) The term Davies uses is ‘crimogenic’ – as in, an environment that incentivizes and will almost inevitably lead to the commission of crimes.

A note on the author – Davies was a regulator and then a market analyst in the UK for much of the early 21st century, and whatever the specifics is clearly someone with an insider’s view of financial markets and investment banking. Not really an apologist – or I mean, he is, to the extent that he clearly considers them useful institutions that do more good than harm for the world at large, and considers the present regulatory setup governing the markets if not just, then at least pragmatically useful. But about the culture and foibles of the financial services industry itself he’s pretty cynical. In any event, as the book goes on he starts peppering in personal anecdotes about how he was personally involved with some event on the periphery of the frauds he’s discussing or saw them happen live, which I mostly found charming but I can see how it would grate.

In any event, it’s a very chatty, casually written book, by a centre-left pro-regulation but incredibly finance-brained guy. So, you know, caveat lector if you’re going to find that totally insufferable. For myself I found it a fun, casual read, and a more educational one that I really expected.

[qqueenofhades]

So l applied for a job as an English teacher (where I live it's taught as a second language) and my experience teaching is for like kids 10 and older, and this is for preschool, kids aged 2-5. So I never thought the would call me, because I was honest and told them l've never taught children that age, but they did and the problem is they gave me less than 24hrs to prepare for a class (they didn’t even give me the topics). And they're asking for pp presentation, didactic material ... And I just had to say no, they knew I didn’t have experience with children that young and I obviously don't have adequate didactic materials to bring for the children.

Yet I kinda feel bad and guilty for not having a job, and I can't help but think that maybe I'm the problem, I've been looking for a job for months and this isn’t even my university major. In my area they ask for like 3-5 years of experience, and this is for “people that just graduated” the salaries are minimum or barely above the minimum, they just don’t match the years of experience they’re asking for.

People they just don’t want to hire you to gain experience, I know you’re supposed to gain some with internships but I had at least half of my university time online because of the pandemic, some of my classmates even had online internships. And some jobs they outright tell you that they’re asking for “real experience” so those don’t count. Then if someone hires you they hold it over you, they expect you to leave everything behind and give 100% to the job, as in working and insane amount hours, at crazy times, if they’re generous they pay you the minimum but most of the time they have you there as an unofficial intern that it’s extremely lucky to receive some financial compensation; I mean who would’ve thought that we have to eat and try to survive week after week.

Honestly most days have become this despairing experience and this feeling in my chest and stomach just doesn’t go away.

Im sorry for this very long and sad anon message, it’s just that I’ve seen some anons leaving you similar comments. And you sound like a very mature wise person, I love that you talk about a lot of things 💖

First off, I'm flattered that I am seen as a good place for the younguns to come ask for sympathy and/or advice (I am a good internet grandma, etc). So yes, I shall give you hot cocoa and a nice spot to sit down and chat, metaphorically speaking.

I'm sure you've heard this before, but just so you know and/or hear it again: you're not alone, tons of young people are in the same boat, and it isn't your fault that we live in late-stage capitalism and the job market simultaneously wants 3-5 years of experience for an entry level job and pays you literal shit (but also wants you to somehow spend enough money all the time to keep the economy afloat, NO WAGE ONLY SPEND). Especially when Covid upended everything and now people want to discount online learning/work experience when there was literally no other option. It is a big bucket of crap all around, and while it can absolutely feel like a negative reflection on you personally, or that you're not good enough or not trying hard enough or not open enough to doing things completely out of your comfort zone because you have no other choice, it's not. There are tons of people who really WANT to be employed and have a steady job and at least enough to cover their basic necessities, but due to late-stage capitalism, it's just very hard. You are not the only one and this is not a personal character flaw or failing on your part.

You should not have to take a job you are completely uncomfortable with, especially when they give you literally zero chance to prepare adequately and don't give you any resources or time to support that transition (they'll begin as they mean to go on, etc). And likewise, I want to note that your university major/degree is not a binding contract that you can only work in that field, that you're a failure if you don't get a job in that field, and you have to look in that field first and foremost. Plenty of people do one thing in college and something totally different in their career, and it's okay if that happens, or if you have to work outside your college major for a while or even for the rest of your professional life. So as far as that part goes, I definitely don't think you need to feel any guilt about looking wherever you can, since as you note, the competition is hard for everybody and there's just not enough to go around (by design, since capitalism runs on manufactured scarcity). Once again: not your fault, you're not a failure, and you're doing your best. That is worth a lot.

I know that it sounds trite to say keep your chin up, but keep your chin up. When it comes to teaching ESL, it might be possible to freelance, to offer sessions virtually or over Zoom, advertise among your family and friends, etc., or other bit-part things to tide you over until you find a job (and take it from me, sheer bullheaded stubbornness is half the battle). There are also online tutoring sites and agencies such as Tutora (which I briefly taught for as a broke PhD student) or Study.com that can match you with remote/online work opportunities and get you some clients, rather than you having to do all the work to find and recruit them by yourself. This obviously won't take the place of an actual job, but it might help you patch some cracks and string together some income until you can find one.

Good luck! I'm rooting for you.

[racefortheironthrone]

Hey, what does disruptor mean? I saw it when looking at your answers. I’ve also seen people joke about it on twitter but I can’t find a meaning to it.

It's a term I personally loathe, but I'm willing to do some recent cultural/intellectual history to explain where it came from and what it means.

The term disruptor as it's commonly used today comes out of the business world, more specifically the high tech sector clustered in Silicon Valley. Originally coined as "disruptive innovation" by business school professor Clayton Christensen in the mid-to-late 90s, the idea was that certain new businesses (think your prototypical startup) have a greater tendency to develop innovative technologies and business models that radically destabilize established business models, markets, and large corporations - and in the process, help to speed up economic and technological progress.

While Christensen's work was actually about business models and firm-level behavior, over time this concept mutated to focus on the individual entrepeneur/inventor/founder figure of the "disruptor," as part of the lionization of people like Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerburg or Elon Musk, or firms like Lyft, Uber, WeWork, Theranos, etc. It also mutated into a general belief that "disrupting" markets and, increasingly, social institutions is how society will and should progress.

I find these ideas repellant. First of all, when it comes to the actual business side of things, I think it mythologizes corporate executives as creative geniuses by attributing credit for innovations actually created by the people they employ. Elon Musk didn't create electric cars or reusable rockets, Steve Jobs didn't design any computers or program any OSes, but because they're considered "disruptors," we pretend that they did. This has a strong effect on things like support for taxing the rich - because there is this popular image of the "self-made billionaire" as someone who "earned" their wealth through creating "disruptive" companies or technologies, there is more resistance to taxing or regulating the mega-wealthy than would otherwise be the case.

Even more importantly, treating "disruptors" like heroes and "disruption" as a purely good thing tends to make people stop thinking about whether disruption to a given industry is actually a good thing, whether what tech/Silicon Valley/startup firms are doing is actually innovative, what the economic and social costs of the disruption are, and who pays them. Because when we look at a bunch of high-profile case studies, it often turns out to be something of a case of smoke and mirrors.

To take ridesharing as an example, Lyft and Uber and similar companies aren't actually particularly innovative. Yes, they have apps that connect riders to drivers, but that's not actually that different from the old school method of using the phone to call up a livery cab company. There's a lot of claims about how the apps improve route planning or the availability of drivers or bring down prices, but they're usually overblown: route planning software is pretty common (think Google Maps), when you actually look at how Lyft and Uber create availability, it's by flooding the market with large numbers of new drivers, and when you look at how they got away with low prices, it was usually by spending billions upon billions of venture capital money on subsidizing their rides.

Moreover, this "disruption" has a pretty nasty dark side. To start with, Lyft and Uber's business strategy is actually a classic 19th century monopoly strategy dressed up in 21st century rhetoric: the "low prices" had nothing to do with innovative practices or new technology, it was Lyft and Uber pulling the classic move of deliberately selling at a loss to grab market share from the competition, at which point they started raising their prices on consumers. Availability of drivers was accomplished by luring way too many new drivers into the labor market with false promises of making high wages in their spare time, but when the over-supply of drivers inevitably caused incomes to decline, huge numbers of rideshare drivers found themselves trapped by auto debts and exploited by the companies' taking a significant chunk of their earnings, using the threat of cutting them off from the app to cow any resistance. And above all, Lyft and Uber's "disruption" often came down to a willful refusal to abide by pre-existing regulations meant to ensure that drivers could earn a living wage, that consumers would be protected in the case of accidents or from the bad behavior of drivers, etc. As a policy historian, however, I find the extension of "disruption" into social institutions the most troubling. Transportation, health care, education, etc. are absolutely vital for the functioning of modern society and are incredibly complex systems that require a lot of expertise and experience to understand, let alone change. Letting a bunch of billionaires impose technocratic "reforms" on them from above, simply because they say they're really smart or because they donate a bunch of money, is a really bad idea - especially because when we see what the "disruptors" actually propose and/or do, it often shows them to be very ordinary (if not actively stupid) people who don't really know what they're doing.

Elon Musk's Loop is an inherently worse idea than mass transit. His drive for self-driving cars is built on lies. Pretty much all of the Silicon Valley firms that have tried to "disrupt" in the area of transportation end up reinventing the wheel and proposing the creation of buses or trolleys or subways.

Theranos was a giant fraud that endangered the lives of thousands in pursuit of an impossible goal that, even if it ould have been achieved, wouldn't have made much of a difference in people's lives compared to other, more fruitful areas of biotech and medical research.

From Bill Gates to Mark Zuckerburg, Silicon Valley billionaires have plunged huge amounts of philanthropy dollars into all kinds of interventions in public education, from smaller classrooms to MOOCs to teacher testing to curriculum reform to charter schools. The track record of these reforms has been pretty uniformly abysmal, because it turns out that educational outcomes are shaped by pretty much every social force you can think of and educational systems are really complex and difficult to measure.

So yeah, fuck disruptors.