Project on implications of Piracy (need opinions articles and ideas)
Basically in a course I am taking, I have to find global challenges and implications of a digital topic. So we turned to piracy in the end because it has been here for a while (and lets face it, I was biased and its my favorite topic.) and has its qualities and some drawbacks which need to be discussed in a topic like that. With the rise of streaming services and enshitification of most things we know of, Piracy has crawled out of the shadows and become less niche and more a valid option.
I would love if you all can give my some of your opinions on it. Any documentations, reads or articles and some valid points to help to discuss with my group (they are not all tech nerds ...)
OFC we will discuss the issues of services today, why piracy has slowed with the rise of streaming services (and back up ahahah). We will discuss that piracy helps in a way to preserve data, culture etc. The good and the bad of it. Impact of piracy in the creative goods sector in sciences. What governments do to counter piracy...
So really any stat that is justified of course, any reasons to do so (is it more convenient?? Is it due to censorship in your country or limited access to information?? DRM ?? Monopoly no other alternatives??...)
I am open to all info and articles
And thanks for your time too!
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TiVo has sold its last DVR
TiVo no longer makes DVRs
The company is killing its hardware business, 26 years after becoming synonymous with TV recording.Jess Weatherbed (The Verge)
🌸La méditation guidée de 15 à 20 mn sera suivie d'un cercle de parole, pour faire une pause et se reconnecter à soi et aux autres.
Le thème proposé pour le cercle de parole est : "J'imagine qu'une des raisons pour lesquelles les gens s’accrochent à leurs haines avec tellement d'obstination, est qu'ils sentent qu'une fois la haine partie, ils devront affronter leurs souffrances" (James Baldwin, Chronique d'un pays natal). Et chacun est libre de s'exprimer sur ce qu'iel souhaite 🌸
📅 Dimanche 19 octobre de 9:00 à 10:00
Pour calculer votre heure locale, cliquez sur ce lien : xrb.link/E74VPL1A93J
➡ Pour participer : il suffit de se connecter sur ce lien : xrb.link/v6oCB4dM le moment venu. Tout le monde est bienvenu·e, quelle que soit sa pratique ! Les arrivées ne seront pas acceptées après les 20 premières minutes.
🧘♀️🧘🏼♂️🧘🏾♀️ Parce que l'activisme est un engagement externe ET une transformation intérieure, c’est dans un esprit de compassion et d’approfondissement de la connaissance de soi que nous prétendons évoluer et communiquer les un‧es avec les autres.
Satellites reveal weak spot in Earth's magnetic field keeps growing: "There's something special happening"
Satellites reveal weak spot in Earth's magnetic field keeps growing: "There's something special happening"
The weak spot, known as the South Atlantic Anomaly, was identified in the 19th century and expanded in recent years.Kerry Breen (CBS News)
Iran jails 2 French citizens on 'spying' charges
Palestinians see ‘new Nakba’ in West Bank villages as demolitions return
Palestinians see ‘new Nakba’ in West Bank villages as demolitions return
Israeli forces have carried out multiple demolitions in the West Bank’s Khallet al-Daba in 2025.Mosab Shawer (Al Jazeera)
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Some snippets:
Khallet al-Daba, occupied West Bank – At nine o’clock on a Monday morning in May, the quiet of Khallet al-Daba was shattered by the sound of bulldozers and other demolition vehicles approaching. Accompanying them were Israeli soldiers pouring into the village, forcing families out of their homes and driving livestock into the open.Dozens of military vehicles, armoured carriers and jeeps sealed off the village as the demolitions took place in May, according to locals. Women carrying infants, men still dazed from being forced suddenly from their homes, and children screaming in fear stood under the burning sun for six hours. Behind them, the walls of their houses were turned into rubble.
Among those who were forced to watch their homes collapse this spring was 65-year-old Samiha Muhammad al-Dababseh, a mother of eight who has lived in the village her whole life. Her weathered face carries the strain of decades of hardship.
“I screamed, ‘The army is here!’” she recalled. “Within minutes, soldiers were storming the houses, forcibly removing us without allowing us to take anything – not food or clothes. They pushed me violently and told me, ‘This is not your land. You will not have a home or shelter left.'”
Benioff's National Guard dream forces retreat
Here's an idea: How about giving everyone the opportunity to have a fulfilling life?
Crime is not the result of babies being born wanted to rob or kill people.
San Francisco’s political establishment rounded on Marc Benioff over the weekend after the Salesforce founder backed the idea of sending in the National Guard to clean up the city’s streets.By late Sunday Benioff took to Twitter to clarify that he believed the best people to manage public safety in San Francisco was… San Francisco, and that “Salesforce is proud to support the Mayor through the Partnership for San Francisco.”
Benioff, previously seen as a broadly liberal benevolent benefactor to the city by the bay, seemed to follow the path of his fellow tech CEOs in cozying up to the Trump administration, just ahead of the company’s Dreamforce conference in the city.
Benioff retreats from idea of sending troops in to clean up San Francisco
: Salesforce CEO praises Trump before walking back criticism of city's policingJoe Fay (The Register)
Trump says U.S. struck 5th boat accused of carrying drugs off coast of Venezuela, killing 6
Trump says U.S. struck 5th boat accused of carrying drugs off coast of Venezuela, killing 6
President Trump says the U.S. has struck another small boat he accuses of carrying drugs in the waters off Venezuela.CBS News
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America Is Sliding Toward Illiteracy
America Is Sliding Toward Illiteracy
Declining standards and low expectations are destroying American education.Idrees Kahloon (The Atlantic)
Why industry-standard labels for AI in music could change how we listen: "new industry standard for AI disclosures in music credits"
Earlier this year, a band called The Velvet Sundown racked up hundreds of thousands of streams on Spotify with retro-pop tracks, generating a million monthly listeners on Spotify.But the band wasn’t real. Every song, image, and even its back story, had been generated by someone using generative AI.
For some, it was a clever experiment. For others, it revealed a troubling lack of transparency in music creation, even though the band’s Spotify descriptor was later updated to acknowledge it is composed with AI.
In September 2025, Spotify announced it is “helping develop and will support the new industry standard for AI disclosures in music credits developed through DDEX.” DDEX is a not-for-profit membership organization focused on the creation of digital music value chain standards.
The company also says it’s focusing work on improved enforcement of impersonation violations and a new spam-filtering system, and that updates are “the latest in a series of changes we’re making to support a more trustworthy music ecosystem for artists, for rights-holders and for listeners.”
As AI becomes more embedded in music creation, the challenge is balancing its legitimate creative use with the ethical and economic pressures it introduces. Disclosure is essential not just for accountability, but to give listeners transparent and user-friendly choices in the artists they support.
Why industry-standard labels for AI in music could change how we listen
Disclosing AI use on music platforms shouldn’t give streaming platforms a free pass to flood catalogues with AI content. Listeners deserve clear and transparent labelling.The Conversation
On the 80th Anniversary of the WPK
On the 80th Anniversary of the WPK
On October 9-10, 2025, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) celebrated the 80th anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK).Константин Асмолов (New Eastern Outlook)
Trump threatens China with cooking oil embargo over soybean snub
Trump threatens China with cooking oil embargo over soybean snub
President Donald Trump said the U.S. is considering ending its cooking oil trade with China in retaliation for Beijing refusing to buy U.S. soybeans.Kevin Breuninger (CNBC)
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Is Linux Smartphones any good?
When I have read anything Android phone related on Lemmy, I often see comments talking about how they switch to Linux phone or tell people to swap Android with Linux ASAP.
What's the general experience like using Linux as your phone and is it any good? I remember watching video couple years about it and hearing about it and the lack of apps (at least that is made for mobile in mind) and wonder if that has changed or is it just good enough.
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They all have issues. The OS portion is just ramping up again brought on by the Google coup on Android.
Honestly, you'd be better off getting something that runs a better Android OS for now versus running a Linux derivative.
The main issues:
- Camera sensor support and control
- Modem (phone) stability
- Sensor support
- Biometric sensor support
- Specialized hardware support
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Why I love it:
* I love the UI. Quick, intuitive and good looking.
* Basic functions are good. The phone works well as a phone, with calls (including VoLTE for a number of newer models now), SMS, MMS, wifi hotspot ++ working
* The amount of native apps is pleasing to me. Of course, you won't get the usual proprietary big tech developed apps, but other basics are there.
* The flexibility is awesome. You can install apps from the Open Store built especially for UT, Snaps (not all of which are meant for small screens with touch input, but you get to try it and decide for yourself if you can make it work), nix packages, installing stuff in libertine containers, AND Android apps in a Waydroid container.
* The community is extremely helpful and diverse.
* The two previous points, community + flexibility, helps whenever you miss one of the larger apps. Miss Telegram? Meet the native app Teleports! Miss Signal? The community can give you several options. WhatsApp? Of course some generous soul has made a UT adapted web app that you can use in stead.
* I finally feel free. I own my device, and the software I run on it doesn't feel invading or dishonest.
What is sometimes difficult:
* I need to be honest about the browser situation. The default browser has a nice UI, but it is very outdated. There is a lot of improvements going on behind the scenes, but the new version is not ready for launch yet. The alternatives are UT adapted versions of Librewolf and Firefox, but they are both in an alpha state.
* VoLTE only works for some of the supported phones, and it is still considered experimental.
* Banking and ID verification apps have almost no UT native solutions, and running them in Waydroid is very hit and miss.
* General stability. There are more bugs and crashes here than in Android/iOS.
Awesome, thanks for the info! Great insights.
How do you mean running stuff in waydroid is hit and miss. Stuff just doesn't work?
And you mentioned signal not working and needing alternatives? Signal is my main chat app...
Does it feel cool to use it? Or is it still more troublesome than cool? 😎
The Waydroid container runs Lineage, a degoogled android based os. Many apps require Google play services to run, or they do other checks that fail in that environement. Most stuff from F-droid will run.
Signal does not have a native UT app at the moment, but some use Matrix bridges to send and receive messages. Others run it in Waydroid, or do experiments with the cli version. The first works very well, but you need to find/make a bridge host that you trust.
Oh, it feels very nice to use! Most of my troubles these days stem from me experimenting and running the devel version of the os. I can go days between serious issues, and the issues that do appear are never deal breakers as they don't tend to affect basic phone functionality. It feels great and it is way too much fun.
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Have a look at my other answer in this thread! If you are a tinkerer with a bit of patience, UT could be a good OS for you.
I would love to try Mobian and PostmarketOS too, I bet that there are some really good ports out there.
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I would like to interject for a moment. This statement is technically true but disingenuous and facetious.
While it's true that Linux is just the kernel, what most people refer to as Linux is actually the Operating System GNU/Linux, or, as RMS would now call it, GNU plus Linux, or sometimes, a less GNU depended, but mostly GNU/Linux compatible OS, or, as I have literally just now come to call it */Linux.
Moreover, a modern */Linux system is expected to be based on SystemD, unless explicitly avoiding it due to some technical constraint or some desired feature of another init system.
One could come to call this SystemD/Linux.
And lastly, this kind of use case would be the perfect match for a Wayland shell, as opposed to an X11 shell. Which would be more efficient, and would give the shell more freedom in the management of windows.
As a result, when asking about a Linux phone, we could expect one is talking about a phone running a SystemD+Wayland/Linux OS, or at least a mobile-focused */Linux OS.
The Android kernel is a, largely downstream, fork of the Linux kernel, but the Android OS is in almost no way compatible with any */Linux OS, and it's instead its own completely different OS.
I put PostmarketOS on a spare device recently. PostmarketOS describes itself as currently being in a state suitable for Linux enthusiasts to try out, not for wider use. That seems about right to me.
On the fun side, it's proper desktop-style Linux. I can SSH to it from my laptop. I can compile software on it. I can run programs that have no business running on a phone. On the not so fun side, the cameras barely work, data over USB doesn't work at all, and battery life is not good. Desktop Firefox on a phone screen is pretty bad. Rumor has it there's some support for Android apps, but I've been looking at Waydroid's splash screen for a long time now with no progress.
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There's a lot if amazing work in the linux phone space as the bar for daily driver is fairly high.
Maemo on the N900 was close, but MeeGo on the N9 was there. The Ovi store even had the hot apps of the era.
Fuck Microsoft for killing that dream.
If you're coming from a feature phone - it's great!
If you're coming from a modern smartphone, you probably won't be happy with it as a daily driver.
I'm voting with my feet, but carrying two devices.
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Resources
LINMOB.net is a blog about LINux on MOBile devices. With the PinePhone (Pro) and Librem 5 shipping it is back to report on GNU+Linux on mobile devices.LINux on MOBile
UN releases $11 million for Gaza aid as ceasefire, hostage release bring ‘fragile hope’ | UN News
UN releases $11 million for Gaza aid as ceasefire, hostage release bring ‘fragile hope’
The UN is stepping up its emergency response in Gaza, releasing $11 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to meet urgent needs before winter – a move that underscores both the expanding humanitarian effort and the funding shortfall …UN News
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UN releases $11 million for Gaza aid as ceasefire, hostage release bring ‘fragile hope’ | UN News
UN releases $11 million for Gaza aid as ceasefire, hostage release bring ‘fragile hope’
The UN is stepping up its emergency response in Gaza, releasing $11 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to meet urgent needs before winter – a move that underscores both the expanding humanitarian effort and the funding shortfall …UN News
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UN releases $11 million for Gaza aid as ceasefire, hostage release bring ‘fragile hope’ | UN News
UN releases $11 million for Gaza aid as ceasefire, hostage release bring ‘fragile hope’
The UN is stepping up its emergency response in Gaza, releasing $11 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to meet urgent needs before winter – a move that underscores both the expanding humanitarian effort and the funding shortfall …UN News
Liberal and communism are left ideals...
Liberals arent a singular group
They are when your definition of a liberal is material rather than aesthetic.
Democracy doesn't work for you.
Please go engage with a leftist organization in real life. You'll quickly see how wrong this is. Arguing on the Internet is rarely productive and it's obvious you haven't engaged with leftist literature. If you want to make these sweeping accusations, do yourself a favor and go see the reality of the situation.
Most of the people you are arguing against have been involved in both liberal and socialist organizations. They aren't pulling their information from nowhere.
"hur dur lol cope"
Shut up stupid
"HEY YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO PUT EFFORT IN YOUR REPLIES SO I CAN LOOK AT THEM AND FEEL SMUG WITHOUT AN ARTICULABLE REASON WHY"
No seriously. You're a fucking idiot. Shut the fuck up.
Jesus come on. Stop coping.
I'm not the stupid one here.
Bring something of substance.
You're the same as bad thing.
You don't speak intelligently you only speak with your feelings.
Lol u mad.
Look at my responses and look at yours.
Look at them.
Dude do you even know what liberal means?
Liberalism is an ideology founded in a few core principles. Capitalism and the right to own property, the power of the government originating from the masses rather than god, and inalienable rights for its citizens.
You guys are the ones redefining old words cause you don't like the idea of not being considered leftist anymore. The overton window has shifted since the 1700s, yall are centrists now.
We aren't saying there aren't different kinds of liberals, what we are trying to tell you is that liberalism is not a left wing ideology anymore. It is centrist and anti-communist. Yes you have left leaning liberals and right leaning. But that still only makes yall center-left and center-right.
Leftists issues with liberals is because liberals, no matter what are pro-capitalist and anti-communist. Communists are anti-property and liberals are pro-property. Yes a leftist has more in common with a left leaning liberal than they do a right leaning liberal, but that does not make their interests aligned. Historically anytime liberals and communists team up, communists get backstabbed. And more often than not, it never even gets to teaming up. Historically, liberals are the ones to team up with authoritarians to crush communists.
And I'm an anarchist. I trust Marxist communists just about as much as I do liberals. That is to say not much. And I have more interests aligned with a Marxist than I do a liberal
I trust Marxist communists just about as much as I do liberals. That is to say not much.
😢
Hey I don't trust yall, but I still give yall the opportunity to prove me wrong (and so far I have been proven wrong by some individuals, so its not impossible). Same as I do with a liberal. I'm just prepared to get backstabbed.
Unfortunately the difference between anarchists and Marxists (pro-state or anti-state) seems to be a disagreement that ends in anarchists getting betrayed, disenfranchized, and shot. So I gotta stay diligent cause I'd rather learn from history rather than repeat it.
Historically, it hasn't really been the case that Marxists have hunted down anarchists for having anarchist beliefs. What normally happens is Marxists wage war ideologically on anarchism, and some anarchists take up arms or form cells to oppose the socialist state the Marxists have set up. The anarchists have historically had far more agency than simply being hunted down, and in many cases anarchists have worked alongside Marxists for mutual benefit.
Just wanted to give you fresh perspective.
I aint saying anarchists dont have agency, but its because Marxists insist on it being their way or the highway and use positions of power to disenfranchize anarchists. Anarchists obviously do not like this and resist. That is not the anarchists fault. It wasnt the CNT-FAI's fault for not wanting to disband their militias and integrate them into the Spanish Republican military structure, and it wasn't the Kronstadt Rebellion's fault for wanting the worker's soviets and freedom of speech to be brough back after Lenin centralized control to the Bolshevik party. And it certainly wasn't the Ukrainian Black Army's fault when Trotsky decided they had no use for them anymore and turned the rifle on them. Anarchists and marxists have and still do work together, the issue is the relationship is not built on mutual respect and cooperation. Marxists seem to see anarchists as a tool, that when its use is no longer needed, is expected to go back to the drawer and sit quietly while the marxists take over.
I definitely could see a situation where marxists and anarchists could cooperate on a mutual and equal level. I just do not expect it to happen.
Personally I would want protections for anarchists to freely establish anarchist organized communes and other organizations like workplaces that are independent and autonomous from the marxist state. The two would still share resources and have open borders, but the two would be free to manage their own internal affairs. To me this meets anarchist principles of free association, and still allows for a marxist state to exist. Plus I feel it would meet the marxist's principle of a transitionary state. The marxist state pops up, and the state would wither away to a stateless, classless, and moneyless society as people transition to the autonomous anarchist communes.
Do I think this would work? Possibly. Do I think an agreement like that would ever be made? No, not likely. The anarchists would still have the threat of being betrayed, and maybe even possibly the anarchists try to betray the marxist state. It would be an uneasy dynamic. And historically, marxists have shown they don't want to make room for anarchists. But unless some sort of guarantee and protections were to be placed for anarchists in some way, I don't see anarchists and marxists to ever get along.
Kronstadt wasn't an anarchist revolt, nor was it about "freedom of speech," it was a group of sailors that wanted privledged positions that destabilized the war effort that was led by a Tsarist that later joined the white army, Stepan Petrichenko.
Either way, I think the biggest struggle is that the ends are not the same at all, which is a common misconception. Anarchism is primarily about communalization of production. Marxism is primary about collectivization of production.
When I say "communalization," I mean anarchists propose horizontalist, decentralized cells, similar to early humanity's cooperative production but with more interconnection and modern tech. When I say collectivization, I mean the unification of all of humanity into one system, where production and distribution is planned collectively to satisfy the needs of everyone as best as possible.
For anarchists, collectivized society still seems to retain the state, as some anarchists conflate administration with the state as it represents a hierarchy. For Marxists, this focus on communalism creates inter-cell class distinctions, as each cell only truly owns their own means of production, giving rise to class distinctions and thus states in the future.
For Marxists, socialism must have a state, a state can only wither with respect to how far along it has come in collectivizing production and therefore eliminating class. All states are authoritarian, but we cannot get rid of the state without erasing the foundations of the state: class society, and to do so we must collectivize production and distribution globally. Socialist states, where the working class wields its authority against capitalists and fascists, are the means by which this collectivization can actually happen, and are fully in-line with Marx's beliefs. Communism as a stateless, classless, moneyless society is only possible post-socialism.
Anarchists obviously disagree with this, and see the state more as independent of class society and thus itself must be abolished outright.
Anarchists see the state as another system of class. A socialist state does not create a classless society, it changes the class dynamic from capitalists and workers to bureaucrats and workers. The workers themselves do not own the means of production and have to answer to the politicians and bureaucrats that manage the means of production.
And if that is your perspective then I do not see how anarchists and marxists could ever cooperate, as you said our goals are not aligned. Which is to say I do not see how you could be surprised by anarchists not trusting marxists. Doesnt sound like we have enough in common from your perspective to work together without one of us betraying the other.
Also no the Kronstadt Rebellion was an anarchist revolt, freedom of the press and speech for socialists including anarchists was one of the demands of the rebellion and so was bringing back the workers soviets that Lenin got rid of, among other things that, to me, are just asking for a more democratic and free system that doesnt centralize all the power to one party. The link I attached is the demands of the rebellion and it has nothing like you speak of.
soviethistory.msu.edu/1921-2/k…
Demands of the Kronstadt Insurgents
Demands of the Kronstadt Insurgents. February 28, 1921 Demands expressed in the “Resolution of the General Meeting of the Crews of the Ships of the Line, Kronstadt” Original Sour…Seventeen Moments in Soviet History
Administration is not a class, just as managers at companies are not owners. Collectivized production and distribution has equal ownership, but also contains administrators, foremen, etc as are necessary for global, interconnected production and distribution.
As for Marxists and anarchists working together, we share capitalists as a common enemy, and can work together as such. Right now, imperialism is the highest contradiction, so we share common interest in the downfall of the US Empire.
Returning to Kronstadt, in the context of a bloody and brutal civil war against a dozen invading capitalist nations and a strong Tsarist white army, their demands were suicide for the socialists:
- To abolish all Political Departments, because no single party may enjoy privileges in the propagation of its ideas and receive funds from the state for this purpose. Instead of these Departments, locally elected cultural-educational commissions must be established and supported by the state. This is the reason for the inclusion of this document in a collection otherwise devoted entirely to official publications.
- All ‘cordon detachments” are to be abolished immediately.
- To abolish all Communist fighting detachments in all military units, and also the various Communist guards at factories. If such detachments and guards are needed they may be chosen from the companies in military units and in the factories according to the judgment of the workers.
They wanted the bolsheviks to be stopped, and tie their hands and let the Tsarists and capitalists win. This was absolutely suicidal. Further, Lenin did not disband the soviets, the point raised by the sailors was that they "didn't represent the will of the people:"
- In view of the fact that the present soviets do not represent the will of the workers and peasants, to re-elect the soviets immediately by secret voting, with free canvassing among all workers and peasants before the elections.
They wanted the bolsheviks disbanded, and replaced by SRs, mensheviks, anarchists, etc. The soviets were there, they just didn't like how they were made up.
Further, they were led by a council containing Stepan Petrichenko, who claimed to be an "anarcho-syndicalist" but officially joined the Tsarist White Army a year after his failed terrorist attack. In addition, 2 former capitalists were included in the council, and they arrested 300 communists in their mutiny.
I really don't think you want to claim this as genuinely anarchist.
Yes we have a common enemy, and I never said we shouldn't work together to fight it. But that cooperation to me is coming with a ten foot pole cause I know that as soon as it stops being advantageous I'll be stepped on
I do not agree those demands would have been suicide, and I ain't claiming Stepan is a perfect individual. I definitely think he made stupid decisions. But it is incorrect that he officially joined the white army. He tried to, but was denied because of his former Bolshevik affiliation. Plus he ended up coming back to the soviet union and joined the Red Army Intelligence Agency, which is something else I criticize him for along side trying to join the White Army. I do not hold any anarchist on a pedestal just because they are anarchist. Proudhon was a piece of shit, and Bakunin was an antisemite. They are flawed people and exactly why I am an anarchist. Because anarchism does not rely on people being perfect as it doesnt allow anyone to hold power over anyone else.
Lastly, soviets ruled by only bolsheviks is not a soviet, thats a one party system and yes does not properly represent the workers like the Kronstadt stated.
In any event I wish to move on. I will say this was a more pleasant debate than I usually have with marxists, so thank you for that. Ciao comrade, I will be expecting your boot when the day comes lol
According to Paul Avrich, Petrichenko was denied in his attempt before Kronstadt, but was allowed in May, under general Pyotr Wrangel. My point is not to say that anarchists are bad people or anything, but that the Kronstadt mutiny was hardly anarchist, it was clearly opportunist in nature. The Spanish anarchists were real anarchists.
As for the soviets, they were democratic. Getting rid of a unitary democracy based on social cohesion and common interest over competing parties and outlawing bolshevik representation is both antidemocratic and horribly flawed in the context of a bloody civil war where the bolsheviks were the most supported group. Had the mutiny succeeded, the lack of cohesion would have led to the socialists getting trounced by fascists near-instantly.
All in all though, good luck yourself. I have no intention of being a "boot," I want a better world for everyone, where we as a society can collectively produce and distrubute according to a common plan for the good of all. Basically Star Trek.
Let's start with if you can recognize this is something that occurs in the first place.
Do you remember www.reddit.com/r/walkaway/
I believe .ml is just another form of it with "liberals are right politically"
The purpose of .ml is to create views and opinions alternate and divide the left. It's a toxic place with more support than should be warranted by it's values.
Sure looks like the left has been growing in numbers from my time in leftist orgs. I'm also not sure the likelihood of the heritage foundation taking a chance on accidentally initiating Black Panthers 2.0 in the US.
Just because you don't agree with people on this platform, you should probably understand that lemmy, a place that can't be swayed by an algorithm controlled by billionaires, and notably created by communist developers, would attract other communists here. You came into our space questioned our legitimacy here. The fuck
Lol oh yea, you guys are black Panther 2.0
Come on. You're a poison pill not a black Panther.
Do you think groups on the right were behind things like walkaway and bernbros?
Astroturfing is when groups deceptively create content in digital spaces to manipulate and influence those spaces to believe a movement or initiative is derived from a grassroots or organic origin. The goal is to move the group whatever the vested interest wants them to be.
I bet you were going to argue Lemmy isn't on anyone's radar because it's so small and we're all just super grass roots and organic.
Behind walkaway absolutely:
The bernie movement was notably organic with a lot of volunteer activity and not astroturfed. That's why the nomination going to Hillary was such a big upset.
The main developers of lemmy are funded by individual donations and the instances largely as well. The only exception I think of is lemmy.world if I remember correctly. Precisely which organisations do you think are astroturfing on lemmy?
- YouTube
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.www.youtube.com
What is this?
Do you like r/thr_donald? Does not liking them invalidate your criticism for them.
So you do think those things are meant to bend left not are actually left positions?
Really aren't making any sense in this thread
I think it's similar to how immigration is maintained as a key target on the right. It's a right leaning issue. On the right the topic of immigration is made out to be a bigger issue than it is. Because it serves a purpose to pass new laws and actions that people normally wouldn't support.
You need to think about it for even a minute. The right have a lot of invested interest groups online. The left do not. There is a lot of money being used to push messages and ideas across the Internet. Lemmy isn't a tiny digital space. These groups that target Reddit are going to be here on lemmy. They don't target moderate Lemmy they go for the dumb radicals. The ones with more passion than brains. That is .ml
So these issues are left positions in the same way immigration concerns are a right leaning issue. But they're strategic left issues that when pushed serve the goals of the invested interest more than it helps the left. Places like .ml are being groomed to become the poison pill for the next election cycle. They're drip feeding them right now. It'll ratchet up over time.
That's your problem if you choose not to.
Again pointing out how silly that assumption is especially when on world.
I can't understand if can't see the hypocrisy or just don't care because it fits your view
*comments on a com at lemmy.ml
*complains about a user having a lemmy.ml account
True shitlib moment!
you’re being coaxed by the rich to create all these dividing groups
"Bad People tricked you into thinking that way" is such a shit way of engaging anyone politically.
It simultaneously serves to call the audience stupid and insert some nebulous outside agency as the scapegoat for failing to make your own case.
Like, if you want to rally people to all agree you fucking suck, there's really no better way than to go to every individual group and say "I'm right, its obvious, and you're just too dumb to notice."
Didn't answer what I asked. Being stupid is ignoring a question like this because of ego
And I don't want to rally people. I'm honestly giving up on the left. I've watched them slash tires to protest ... Cars. I've seen them defend blocking traffic even when we see how counter productive it is when it always produces footage of regular folks and emergency vehicles getting delayed. I've watched them Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I have seen zero effective strategies. But now I'm tired and things I wouldn't call it I'll say it now because I'm so fucking done watching people not realize this stuff. It's walkaway 2.0
I've watched the left turn into something that is extremely toxic. There's no social awareness. If you think what I'm saying is toxic or lacking in social awareness congratulations, that's the strategy the left uses every single day now. There's no effort, no consistency day to day other than areas that divide. It's an ideology about burning bridges and purity tests
There’s no effort, no consistency day to day other than areas that divide. It’s an ideology about burning bridges and purity tests
Lol. Maybe try projecting less hard
Liberalism is right-wing
I mean, you gotta define your spectrum. If you want to get French with it, the Monarchists are on the right and the Liberals are on the Left. The communists won't really exist for another fifty years (as a European economic school).
Liberalism only exists "on the right-wing" in the modern era thanks to over a century of Socialist nation building. Even then, the very term is muddled by decades of fascist rebranding - first as Anarcho-Capitalists and then as National Socialists and then as Neo-Conservatives and then as Neo-Liberals and now in a return to White Nationalism - with "liberal" being embraced or rejected in turns as our corporate media needed it to be.
As a case in point, I challenge you to tell me whether liberals are libertarian. In Europe and Asia, they functionally are. In the Americas, they couldn't be further from it in mainstream politics.
The political spectrum is full of double-speak. "Liberal" is a textbook case. It can mean anything and nothing.
it’s an ideology centering private property and capitalism
That's the economic angle. But it also promises a host of libertarian social reforms included within the free market system. What's more, liberalism isn't just an attempt to yank socialists back from their economic progressivism. They're often efforts to balkinize the power base of local dictatorships and feudal aristocracies.
The original liberals were trying to break up the Old World feudal system, establish economic mobility through cross-border trade, and secularize states that had historically been married to a single branch of a particular religion. All of that was incredibly left-wing from the perspective of the theocrats and monarchists.
Hell, the whole pitch aimed at The Dictatorship of the Proletariat that liberals make is that Socialists/Communists are just Monarchists in disguise. Unipolar parties aren't really democratic. Centrally planned economies aren't really communally owned or beneficial. And atheist leaders are just advancing their lack-of-religion as its own kind of faith.
::: spoiler Are these liberals full of shit?
Yes
:::
But the political spectrum is wide, and they're nowhere near the right-most end of it.
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Liberalism has been highjacked by conservatism and is actually a left leaning ideology
'In most countries, classical liberalism is thought of as a right-wing ideology, but when classical liberal ideas made their debut, they were thought of as leftist.'
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☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ doesn't like this.
Because it intentionally neglects the harm caused by the Great Leap Forward, or various soviet famines. The statement is designed to deflect attention and responsibility from A to B and use hyperbole to create outrage.
Its possible to argue that both China and the Soviet Union were not actually communism but rather authoritarianism but for the sake of common understanding we will refer to them as they refer(ed) to themselves.
So did millions of people die because of "communism?" the facts say yes.
So do millions of people die because of Capitalism? the facts say yes.
Both are true statements, and using hyperbole and outrage to deflect or minimize one or the other is in bad faith.
This is pure projection. The meme doesn't 'neglect' anything.
The statement is designed to deflect attention and responsibility from A to B and use hyperbole to create outrage.
Your objection is essentially that you want to label something as 'bad' but not allow the necessary discussion of 'relative to what?'
Your system deliberately murders an order of magnitude more people but we're not allowed to talk about it because you say so and we all give a huge shit what you have to say because you're so well read on the subject lol
We are talking about it, and its not my system its the one I am trapped in, and I still would not want to live in either Russia or China.
I also dont want to live in the US, I want the Star Trek future now, all people have value.
kinda don't give a shit what you have to say in response to my criticism when you aren't going to respond to the criticism at all
you can claim to love all good things and hate all bad things
literally zero bearing on what you said or what I said in response
I think that's because we have a difference of perspective on degrees of bad. I think all deaths caused by capitalism are bad, and equal bad to all the deaths that are the result of authoritarian countries calling themselves communist.
So i fundamentally disagree with the "relative to what" because a life is worth the same regardless of where they live and who they are.
We are able to, and I am talking about the harm, and I am pointing out that this meme is designed to create an emotional response to the 2nd point and not to both points. Thats all, its manipulative and propagandist which makes it in bad faith, and you are welcome to defend either position, I will just disagree.
I think all deaths caused by capitalism are bad, and equal bad to all the deaths that are the result of authoritarian countries calling themselves communist.
You want to obscure the larger number because you want the smaller number to look bad. We're not allowed to talk about the larger number. We're not allowed to criticize your side.
So what you just said is a fucking lie, isn't it? If they were equal you would permit both be examined. You would admit that the one with the larger death count is worse. That's the exact opposite of what you're pushing for. Your agenda is at odds with reality.
You don't actually care about people dying. Your actions betray your rhetoric.
So i fundamentally disagree with the “relative to what” because a life is worth the same regardless of where they live and who they are.
And there you go doubling down. Hollow rhetoric sidestepping the actual objection. Cynical. Deliberate.
I will just disagree.
And I think we can all put together why you disagree (you're a nazi).
You want to obscure the larger number because you want the smaller number to look bad. We’re not allowed to talk about the larger number. We’re not allowed to criticize your side.
Not my side, and no I dont want to diminish the larger number, same as I dont want to diminish the smaller number. People should not have to die for political or economic system to function.
I am examining both, and I am pointing out that the image posted does not examine both, it deliberately attempts to shape the discussion around ignoring self proclaimed communist deaths.
You don’t actually care about people dying. Your actions betray your rhetoric.
What? I am sorry what actions am i taking that betray my values?
And I think we can all put together why you disagree (you’re a nazi).
I dont know how you came to the conclusion that I am a Nazi, but I can assure you I am not. I dont want to kill or marginalize any group, and I have actually been working for years to cast off my inherited privilege or use it for reparations.
Not my side
Only in so far as you mouth the words that you don't support them while rhetorically supporting them.
and no I dont want to diminish the larger number
Yet you are. Belligerently so at this point.
People should not have to die for political or economic system to function.
Mind palace baby brain. Once again flattening all context and history to equate a system that literally functions by killing people and one that you wish to paint as equal because mortality continued to exist under it.
If you were doing that out of ignorance one would hope you would have the humility to not dig your heels in so I assume you're doing it deliberately to advocate your side. Because you're a nazi.
What? I am sorry what actions am i taking that betray my values?
You're not betraying your values; you're lying about what your values are.
I can assure you I am not. I dont want to kill or marginalize any group
And I bet you could convince sleepwalkers who aren't paying close attention that you actually mean this shit. But you do indeed want people to die, and you want them to die by the tens of millions each year. That's the functional position you're taking by defending those deaths. And you can't pretend you're not defending them by hiding them behind a curtain while you demonize the alternative that costs fewer lives.
You're a nazi because you want to use violence to defend capitalism. That's pretty much the textbook definition of fascism.
China has outlawed slavery and forced labor. Capitalists trying to manipulate the media is punished, correct, but that's something widely supported by the people. China is democratic, and the people support their system, because it works:
All states are "authoritarian," in that all are embedded within class struggle and represent the ruling class. Dissent is punished in the US and in China, the difference is that the capitalist class is oppressing workers in the US, while the working class is oppressing capitalists in China.
You owe it to yourself as someone desiring a socialist future to genuinely try to understand the Chinese system, and why it's so widely supported by its people.
I have a hard time giving weight to a self reported survey like the one you linked. I dont doubt that people in china feel like they are free, and I suspect that many also ranked their freedom highly because they fear reprisal if they say otherwise.
Many aspects of China are democratic, other parts are not, Xi Jinping is a life time dictator and cannot be replaced by democratic systems. He is an authoritarian and Bourgeoisie, your suggestion that the working class oppresses capitalists is demonstrably false en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_… for example. These were western capitalists treating workers with raw brutality. The CCP was complicit and did not protect their workers because it was seen as generally beneficial to have these manufacturing contracts.
You don't know me, you are making assumptions about my knowledge, experience, and connection to China based on a few responses on lemmy.
I hope China is able to return to the ideals that were espoused through the revolution, and I will cheer if they truly reach a level of equality not yet seen in humanity.
It isn't just one survey, it's regularly and repeatedly affirmed that the people of China support their system. Xi is not a dictator and can be removed democratically. He is further not bourgeoisie, he owns no businesses. This is all vibes-based and does not correspond to reality.
As for Foxconn, it sparked widespread protests and backlash, and has been responded to. Even then, the suicide rate at Foxconn was lower than China's overall rate, which is lower than the US's overall rate. China isn't a perfect society, it's the regular and continuous improvement that makes it much better.
You're right, I don't know you. What I do know is informed by the incorrect statements you make, and that shapes the level of knowledge I believe you have.
Studies show strong public support for China’s political system
Conventional narratives in the West hold that the government in China lacks popular legitimacy and only retains power through coercion.Jason Hickel
We can disagree on Xi being an authoritarian/dictator, from my perspective and experience he is effectively a dictator.
I was actually happy with some of the improvements made as a result of these suicides but more still needs to be done, and the Uyghurs people are still suffering under the regime.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinpi…
It is a perception that is so common that its on Wikipedia. Its not just vibes, its researchers, journalists, academics, and other organizations that have a similar perspective.
your hard numbers and studies were based on self reported surveys.
World wide consensus, it could be wrong but I have not seen any evidence that its not. I wont deny that any western source is at risk of bias, that is part of the problem with freedom, people with too much power can buy the stories they want.
Even BBC doesn't have it as one of their 7 ways to check
bbc.com/future/article/2024070…
Logical fallacies: Seven ways to spot a bad argument
When people are trying to persuade you, they sometimes reach for tricks like the 'appeal to ignorance' or 'whataboutism' to seem more convincing.Amanda Ruggeri (BBC)
Yeah, buddy. I agree with you.
(I am also severely historically illiterate.)
"Both are true."
Motherfucker, did you even see the source of that claim against communism? It comes from a book that counted people who died under British and other European colonialism, the Third Reich soldiers who died in ww2, UN and NATO bombings ordered by the USA, and every war casualty in 20th century wars.
Why are you people so allergic to reading books?
Also failure of public works, like a train crash that kills 20 people, means that trains are bad. Clearly this program isn't working and should be privatized. But 20 people killed daily on the highways, well those people are just idiots. Never mind the structural issues.
This message brought to you by the people who stand to benefit and also, by coincidence, own the newspapers.
Sitting alone in the highest tower of your mind palace, curtains drawn, coming up with things that happened in the outside world through pure wisdom and common sense
"What exactly am I talking about?" you say, "Well isn't it obvious?! Everybody knows!"
"communists hate science after all!" you add after a moment's pause.
I actually lived under a communist regime, i didn’t grow up in American stupidity and comfort. I actually lived your dream communism and it sucked. Don’t mean I like capitalism
Could it be that the imperialist puppet sending death squads has something to do with things being bad?
No, it's the communists who are bad
Theres like 3 different tags in the image.
Too bad they're all laid over each other so you can't read them.
Not that it would lead to the source, anyways
Recent years have seen a resurgence in nostalgia for the British empire. High-profile books such as Niall Ferguson’s Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World, and Bruce Gilley’s The Last Imperialist, have claimed that British colonialism brought prosperity and development to India and other colonies. Two years ago, a YouGov poll found that 32 percent of people in Britain are actively proud of the nation’s colonial history.
This rosy picture of colonialism conflicts dramatically with the historical record. According to research by the economic historian Robert C Allen, extreme poverty in India increased under British rule, from 23 percent in 1810 to more than 50 percent in the mid-20th century. Real wages declined during the British colonial period, reaching a nadir in the 19th century, while famines became more frequent and more deadly. Far from benefitting the Indian people, colonialism was a human tragedy with few parallels in recorded history.
Experts agree that the period from 1880 to 1920 – the height of Britain’s imperial power – was particularly devastating for India. Comprehensive population censuses carried out by the colonial regime beginning in the 1880s reveal that the death rate increased considerably during this period, from 37.2 deaths per 1,000 people in the 1880s to 44.2 in the 1910s. Life expectancy declined from 26.7 years to 21.9 years.
In a recent paper in the journal World Development, we used census data to estimate the number of people killed by British imperial policies during these four brutal decades. Robust data on mortality rates in India only exists from the 1880s. If we use this as the baseline for “normal” mortality, we find that some 50 million excess deaths occurred under the aegis of British colonialism during the period from 1891 to 1920.
Fifty million deaths is a staggering figure, and yet this is a conservative estimate. Data on real wages indicates that by 1880, living standards in colonial India had already declined dramatically from their previous levels. Allen and other scholars argue that prior to colonialism, Indian living standards may have been “on a par with the developing parts of Western Europe.” We do not know for sure what India’s pre-colonial mortality rate was, but if we assume it was similar to that of England in the 16th and 17th centuries (27.18 deaths per 1,000 people), we find that 165 million excess deaths occurred in India during the period from 1881 to 1920.
While the precise number of deaths is sensitive to the assumptions we make about baseline mortality, it is clear that somewhere in the vicinity of 100 million people died prematurely at the height of British colonialism. This is among the largest policy-induced mortality crises in human history. It is larger than the combined number of deaths that occurred during all famines in the Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and Mengistu’s Ethiopia.
How did British rule cause this tremendous loss of life? There were several mechanisms. For one, Britain effectively destroyed India’s manufacturing sector. Prior to colonisation, India was one of the largest industrial producers in the world, exporting high-quality textiles to all corners of the globe. The tawdry cloth produced in England simply could not compete. This began to change, however, when the British East India Company assumed control of Bengal in 1757.
According to the historian Madhusree Mukerjee, the colonial regime practically eliminated Indian tariffs, allowing British goods to flood the domestic market, but created a system of exorbitant taxes and internal duties that prevented Indians from selling cloth within their own country, let alone exporting it.
This unequal trade regime crushed Indian manufacturers and effectively de-industrialised the country. As the chairman of East India and China Association boasted to the English parliament in 1840: “This company has succeeded in converting India from a manufacturing country into a country exporting raw produce.” English manufacturers gained a tremendous advantage, while India was reduced to poverty and its people were made vulnerable to hunger and disease.
To make matters worse, British colonisers established a system of legal plunder, known to contemporaries as the “drain of wealth.” Britain taxed the Indian population and then used the revenues to buy Indian products – indigo, grain, cotton, and opium – thus obtaining these goods for free. These goods were then either consumed within Britain or re-exported abroad, with the revenues pocketed by the British state and used to finance the industrial development of Britain and its settler colonies – the United States, Canada and Australia.
This system drained India of goods worth trillions of dollars in today’s money. The British were merciless in imposing the drain, forcing India to export food even when drought or floods threatened local food security. Historians have established that tens of millions of Indians died of starvation during several considerable policy-induced famines in the late 19th century, as their resources were syphoned off to Britain and its settler colonies.
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Colonial administrators were fully aware of the consequences of their policies. They watched as millions starved and yet they did not change course. They continued to knowingly deprive people of resources necessary for survival. The extraordinary mortality crisis of the late Victorian period was no accident. The historian Mike Davis argues that Britain’s imperial policies “were often the exact moral equivalents of bombs dropped from 18,000 feet.”
Our research finds that Britain’s exploitative policies were associated with approximately 100 million excess deaths during the 1881-1920 period. This is a straightforward case for reparations, with strong precedent in international law. Following World War II, Germany signed reparations agreements to compensate the victims of the Holocaust and more recently agreed to pay reparations to Namibia for colonial crimes perpetrated there in the early 1900s. In the wake of apartheid, South Africa paid reparations to people who had been terrorised by the white-minority government.
History cannot be changed, and the crimes of the British empire cannot be erased. But reparations can help address the legacy of deprivation and inequity that colonialism produced. It is a critical step towards justice and healing.
By Dylan Sullivan and Jason Hickel.
About two years ago, I had an argument with a random dude who was vehemently denying the fact that it was effectively Churchill and the decisions of the British government that caused the Bengal famine - there was a lot of back and forth, a lot of citing.
Ultimately he came to the conclusion that the famine happened not because of the British, no Churchill was a saint - it was because of lack of biological "food storage" within Bengalis or some bullshit.
It's kinda shocking how the tactics of colonialism end up mirroring itself throughout history. The occupation and destruction of Gaza and the occupation and destruction of the Indian Mughal empire are devastatingly similar.
The beginning of the end for the Mughal happened during the Indian rebellion in 1857 when troops of the Mughal empire rebelled against the British East India company. It started as a popular uprising against the military of the company, but after an incident akin to Oct 7th around 200 British women and children were taken hostage and eventually killed by a small group of rebels.
In response the British went on a retribution campaign that would end up killing upwards to 800k Indians, most of which were civilians. During the retribution campaign there were motifs we can recognize today being implemented in modern colonialism.
Particularly the use of false allegations in media to justify retributive violence and sexual assault against women.
"British soldiers also committed sexual violence against Indian women as a form of retaliation against the rebellion.[163][164] As towns and cities were captured from the sepoys, the British soldiers took their revenge on Indian civilians by committing atrocities and rapes against Indian women."
"Incidents of rape allegedly committed by Indian rebels against British women and girls appalled the British public. These atrocities were often used to justify the British reaction to the rebellion. British newspapers printed various eyewitness accounts of the rape of English women and girls. One such account was published by The Times, regarding an incident where 48 English girls as young as 10 had been raped by Indian rebels in Delhi. Karl Marx criticized this story as false propaganda, and pointed out that the story was written by a clergyman in Bangalore, far from the events of the rebellion, with no evidence to support his allegation."
"During the aftermath of the rebellion, a series of exhaustive investigations were carried out by British police and intelligence officials into reports that British women prisoners had been "dishonoured" at the Bibighar and elsewhere. One such detailed enquiry was at the direction of Lord Canning. The consensus was that there was no convincing evidence of such crimes having been committed, although numbers of British women and children had been killed outright.[181]"
Liberals crying about the death toll from communism, when said made up number includes Nazis killed in the Easter theatre.
Liberals mourning nazis out of sheer ignorance seems telling
Communists are liberals, it’s funny seeing how many liberals in the fediverse use it as a slur. Even the anarchists look down on the anti-government people.
And yeah Libertarians are liberal as well, the problem is including everyone else that isn’t authoritarian.
You are indeed incorrectly calling people out.
Maybe you can wipe your ass with those books for all the good they did you.
I took political science classes in college too. They taught the political compass. They lamented 'polarization.'
If you were too stupid as a child to see that you were being fed slop you can be forgiven. It's time to use your adult brain to reexamine those things.
See you don’t know what the term liberal means.
It has nothing to do with capitalism.
Communism doesn’t have a government, that makes them liberals.
If you have an administration then you create a class struggle that will lead to oppression.
You have private property because the state (public) doesn’t own it, the people do. (That’s private since you seem confused)
Can the administration control what the commune does? Laws? Policing?
If so then given time the people who seek it will elevate that position.
Public ownership under communism doesn’t mean the government (or administration to use your term without a difference) owns it. It means the population has control over whether it is helping (keep) or hurting (remove) society. And the workers are at the forefront of that not politicians or owners.
You’re aware that liberalism views landowners as a scourge of society because they make money without adding anything to the world but you cannot view said viewpoint from a communist perspective.
I’ll give you another crazy idea; political parties/governments are corporations. They will put their own survival above that of the people they represent.
Yes, and all are equal, but some more equal. Particularly, anyone that was part of the administration of the soviet union was more equal than anyone not close to the administration.
Administration needs to be humanless.
Yes but it’s a range. The more liberal, the less power government has until it doesn’t exist.
At least in the political sense of the word.
They don't care.
Also they will claim that the death of communism is some widely agreed upon number that is corroborated by numerous organizations and sources.
In reality it is literally like the one single 'study' that proved the autism/vaccine connection. It came entirely from the Black Book of Communism in 1999, and all but the main author disavowed it, and despite the obsession with wanting to reach 100 million. The absolute max it could find was 94 million with a 'most likely' number of 64 million.
So when they give a death toll of 'conservatively 100 million' they are literally pulling it out of nowhere.
“What communist country would you like to live in?”
question is answered
“That’s not what I asked”
Hahahahaha!!
China is not moving away from communism. I don't know what you're referring to with tesla, but tesla has almost no sales in the PRC, and is considered a laughing stock. They stopped presenting at electric car shows in the PRC years ago because they're too far behind.
Is China State Capitalist?
- The backbone of the economy is state ownership and socialist planning. 24 / 25 of the top revenue companies are state-owned and planned. 70% of the top 500 companies are State-owned. 1, 2 The largest bank, construction, electricity, and energy companies in the world, are CPC controlled entities, subject to the 5 year plans laid out by the central committee.
- Workplace democracy in action in the CPC.
- Is modern day china communist? Is it staying true to communist values?
- Didn't China go Capitalist with Deng Xiaoping? Didn't it liberalize its economy? Is China's drastic decrease in poverty a result of the increase in free market capitalist policies?
- Is the CPC committed to communism?
- The Long Game and Its Contradictions. Audiobook
- The myth of Chinese state capitalism. Did Deng really betray Chinese socialism?
- Tsinghua University- Is Socialism with Chinese Characteristics real socialism, or is it state Capitalism?
- Isn't China revisionist for having a capitalist sector of the economy, and working with capitalists? Why isn't it fully planned like the USSR was?
- Castro on why both China and Vietnam are socialist countries.
- Roderic Day - China has billionaires.
- What is socialism with Chinese characteristics (SWCC)?
- How is SWCC not revisionist? How is it any different from Gorbachev's market reforms?, 2
- Domenico Losurdo - is China state capitalist?, 2
- Did Lenin say anything about Market Socialism, or productivism?
- Vijay Prashad - Is China capitalist?
- Why do Chinese billionaires keep ending up in prison? Why are many billionaires and CEOs going missing? China sentences Ex-Chairman of a major bank, guilty of embezzling ~$100M USD, to death in 2019.
- China cracks down on billionaires - Ben Norton interviews Ian Goodrum
- Do capitalists control the communist party? No, pic
- How the State runs business in China.
How the state runs business in China
The long read: Much of modern China’s epic growth was driven by private enterprise – but under Xi Jinping, the Communist party has returned to being the ultimate authority in business as well as politicsRichard McGregor (The Guardian)
I'm specifically mentioning Tesla because China allowed them to silence critics to protect their business interests. Yes, I know that it was done so that Chinese companies could learn from them and later surpass them in making EVs. I wouldn't call BYD and the like great cars, but neither is Tesla and Tesla still has the gall to charge an arm and a leg for a motorized smart refrigerator.
Some dairy industry execs were imprisoned and/or executed to save face so that's nice, but parents were also detained for trying to bring attention to the matter in the big formula scandal. Some said that doctors told them to keep quiet.
Business interests go above human rights in China and if a rich person is imprisoned or executed, it's so the "communists" could save face after a scandal. Normally they're completely fine with billionaires existing for some reason.
Smells very "corporations are people too" to me. Like the US, but with better infrastructure because Americans can't even get that right.
Tesla has sued customers and journalists in China — and won most times, review finds
Tesla has sued its own customers and journalists in China for defamation – and won just about every time. Elon Musk's company has pioneered an aggressive legal strategy there.CBS News
Edit: wait your saying Soviet Russia which means only the RSFSR
And why would liberals be either one of those?
Family of released Israeli hostage thanks Putin for help
Family of released Israeli hostage thanks Putin for help
The diplomatic efforts of Russian President Vladimir Putin saved the life of Israeli hostage Maxim Kharkin, his mother has saidRT
Zelensky strips prominent political opponents of citizenship – media
Zelensky strips prominent political opponents of citizenship – media
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has revoked the citizenship of several prominent critics of Kiev, including ballet star Sergei PoluninRT
Six killed after US strikes another boat off coast of Venezuela
The US military conducted yet another strike on a boat alleged to be trafficking drugs off the coast of Venezuela, killing six people on board, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday.
Trump said that the vessel was “affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization” but did not name any organization or provide evidence to back up the assertion.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/14/politics/us-boat-strike-venezuela
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Six killed after US strikes another boat off coast of Venezuela
The US military conducted yet another strike on a boat alleged to be trafficking drugs off the coast of Venezuela, killing six people on board, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday.
Trump said that the vessel was “affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization” but did not name any organization or provide evidence to back up the assertion.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/14/politics/us-boat-strike-venezuela
Een stille dood voor kernenergie in Nederland
In Den Haag kwamen maandagavond vertegenwoordigers van zes politieke partijen samen voor een stevig inhoudelijk debat over de toekomst van de Nederlandse energietransitie. Onder de titel Door met Duurzaam gingen GroenLinks-PvdA, VVD, Volt, SP, Partij voor de Dieren, en BIJ1 met elkaar in gesprek over hoe Nederland koers houdt richting een schoon, eerlijk en betaalbaar energiesysteem. Het debat werd georganiseerd door Fossielvrij NL en WISE Nederland. “Vooral de stelling over kernenergie was interessant omdat de twee voorstanders – Volt en de VVD – een stuk minder positief waren dan verwacht”, zegt Lisanne Boersma, directeur van WISE.
Lees verder op Duurzaamnieuws.nl
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Trump says Hamas will disarm or the US will force them 'perhaps violently'
WASHINGTON – One day after his trip to the Middle East to celebrate a ceasefire agreement, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that Hamas would disarm in “a reasonable period of time” or the U.S. will disarm them "perhaps violently."
“If they don’t disarm, we will disarm them and it will happen quickly and perhaps violently,” Trump said. “But they will disarm.”
Trump was asked how he would disarm Hamas, if it came to that. “I don’t have to explain that to you,” Trump replied. “They know I’m not playing games.”
Trump says Hamas will disarm or the US will force them 'perhaps violently'
Trump assured reporters that Hamas would disarm under his peace agreement or he would disarm them 'perhaps violently.', USA TODAY (USA TODAY)
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Trump says Hamas will disarm or the US will force them 'perhaps violently'
WASHINGTON – One day after his trip to the Middle East to celebrate a ceasefire agreement, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that Hamas would disarm in “a reasonable period of time” or the U.S. will disarm them "perhaps violently."
“If they don’t disarm, we will disarm them and it will happen quickly and perhaps violently,” Trump said. “But they will disarm.”
Trump was asked how he would disarm Hamas, if it came to that. “I don’t have to explain that to you,” Trump replied. “They know I’m not playing games.”
Trump says Hamas will disarm or the US will force them 'perhaps violently'
Trump assured reporters that Hamas would disarm under his peace agreement or he would disarm them 'perhaps violently.', USA TODAY (USA TODAY)
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Yes most "communist systems" have not been very communist. They are almost entirely conservative, even if they have a few token progressive issues, and tend to be authoritarian instead of democratic and anarchistic. Also it's hard to call a country communist if they don't even have the freedom to speak and assemble without the states permission.
What usually happens is the people go communist, and the world powers implement an authoritarian regime that calls itself communist, but isn't even remotely.
Also socialism is better than communism.
reCAPTCHA forcing migration to Google Cloud by the end of 2025
reCAPTCHA migration to Google Cloud by the end of 2025: what do you need to do
In case you haven’t received an email from Google (or you haven’t noticed an ugly notification “reCAPTCHA terms are changing” on all of your widgets), reCAPTCHAPrivate Captcha
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HCaptcha is a drop-in replacement. Altcha is a standalone alternative (no 3rd party server needed).
There is no reason to use reCaptcha anymore.
Is connecting a Windows computer to your wired network worse than keeping it on Wi-Fi?
I'm not that knowledgeable on networking, but I do remember that if a device is connected to a wired network, it can end up receiving packets not meant for it because switches will flood all the ports for packets they don't know how to route. But I also heard that Wi-Fi is supposedly smarter than that and a device connected to it should never receive a packet not meant for it.
Is this true? And in practice, does this mean it's preferable should keep computers with invasive operating systems (which might decide to record foreign packets sent to it in its telemetry) on Wi-Fi instead of on the wired network?
Also, how exactly does Wi-Fi prevent devices from receiving the wrong packets when it's a radio based system and any suitable antenna can receive any Wi-Fi signal? Does each device get assigned a unique encryption key and so is only capable of decrypting packets meant for it? How secure is it actually?
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it can end up receiving packets not meant for it because switches will flood all the ports for packets they don’t know how to route
This is only applicable to IPv4 networking and is very much "the old way" of doing things. If you have properly designed and set up your own home network, you shouldn't be having broadcast traffic happen at all, because all your switches should have a MAC table that includes all the devices you have physically connected. Especially if you have bothered to take the time to hand out static addresses tied to the MAC address. A broadcast should generally only be happening if there is an unknown destination on the LAN, and an unknown destination only happens when there is a new device added at an unknown location. Once a broadcast packet has been sent and replied to, the switch fills it's MAC table with the information on the new device, now knowing it's location.
Wi-Fi's packets can be intercepted by anyone, it's technically sending all packets on blast as radio waves at all times. Sure, modern Wi-Fi can be encrypted, but that encryption can also often be broken.
Finally, IPv6 doesn't use broadcast packets at all, instead using multicasting, which is similar to a broadcast but doesn't flood every port in the wired network and is a bit more tightly directed.
The flooding a network thing really isn’t an issue, they’ll only flood for the first packet just to find the way and then it stops. Fire up Wireshark on a different machine and transfer a file between two other machines, you won’t see anything. I don’t know too much about WiFi but it probably does the same, it’s just a bridge to the same network.
Wired is probably better because machines can estimate your location from the SSID and they can leak the password giving access to the network.
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Fire up Wireshark on a different machine and transfer a file between two other machines, you won’t see anything.
This is true, but only because we've replaced Ethernet hubs with switches.
An Ethernet hub was a dumber, cheaper device that imitated a switch, but with a fundamental difference: all connected devices were in the same collision domain.
I don’t know too much about WiFi but it probably does the same, it’s just a bridge to the same network.
Wireless communication has the same problem as Ethernet hubs, with no real solution like a switch though. Any wireless transmission involves an antenna, and transmitting is similar to standing in your yard with a bull horn to talk to your buddy two houses down. Anyone with an antenna can receive the wireless signal you send out. Period.
So some really smart people found ways to keep the stuff you send private, but anyone can sit nearby and capture data going through the air, it's just not anything you can use because of the encryption.
Worth highlighting WiFi blasts all your data in all directions, and unless you're using enterprise/WPA3 encryption with a strong password, someone determined enough can break in.
If someone wanted to they could park near your house and run aircrack (or whatever the modern suite is called) without you ever knowing. FWIW this is why it's good to set up a way of getting notified about new devices on your network (most modern non-ISP routers support a way of doing this)
Conversely, I believe most ethernet NICs discard any packet not intended for it at hardware level, they're super optimised for speed, it would be much slower to leave that for software. I'm not 100% if that's universal however, so I'd try and double check that
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If someone wanted to they could park near your house and run aircrack
Aircrack-ng can only try to guess the simple shared password (pre-shared key). So when you run your airodump-ng, it's got to show the network as having type PSK, or you're pissing up a rope. With WEP, you could collect IVs, however, with WPA/WPA2, there are no IVs to collect. So you have to guess the password one by one. The only clue you get is when a device performs a handshake with the Wi-Fi. You need to capture that handshake to even start guessing. WPA/WPA2 passwords can be/should be quite long, like up to 63 letters, numbers, or symbols. If the password is a simple word like "cat" or "password," aircrack-ng might guess it if it’s in the dictionary.
So it behooves the Wi-Fi owner to create a very long, complicated, password with all the bells and whistles. If you are using WEP, you might as well be holding up a sheet of single ply, no brand toilet paper. Also, turn off WPS and UPnP ffs.
I vaguely remember getting into a WPA network (that I owned!) using kismet about 15 years ago with relative ease, but I'm struggling to remember details about that process.
I also remember reading that WPA2 non-enterprise was broken a while ago, however I just looked into it and both of the main exploits I can find were patchable (and have been patched) at client OS level (They were the KRACK and FragAttacks). Seems like there has already been something found wrong with WPA3 too that's also been addressed.
So yeah as you say back to brute forcing for the most part. Forcing reconnects was a pretty easy way to get more handshakes to record back when I last tried, so I assume that still has decent levels of success, given the prevalence of mesh networks. Looking further it seems people use a tool called hashcat today to get pretty rapid results doing the actual brute forcing using a modern GPU.
But yes very good advice all in all, long passwords and the highest WPA version you can get away with are going to make an attackers job harder.
Thanks for the reply, you got me to go back down an interesting rabbit hole I've not looked at in a while
but I’m struggling to remember details about that process.
At 71, I struggle sometimes remembering what I had for breakfast. LOL It is a very interesting rabbit hole for me as well. Wasn't trying to correct you, I'm an expert at nothing. Your comment just spurred a memory of a long forgotten era of my life as a wannabe haxor.
I vaguely remember getting into a WPA network (that I owned!) using kismet about 15 years ago with relative ease, but I’m struggling to remember details about that process.
The 4-way handshake crack was the only key recovery attack until 2018 when the PMKID-based attack was discovered (here: hashcat.net/forum/thread-7717.…). The PMKID crack attack still required brute-forcing the key, but it didn't require the 4-way handshake so you didn't have to depend on a de-authentication attack to get started.
At that time there was another WPA vulnerability, if you were using WPA-TKIP, but it only allowed sending a few small packets every 10-12 minutes so it wouldn't allow you to gain access to the network.
Later there were a few WPS-based attacks but they were slow (4 hours to recover the WPS PIN) and/or limited to specific manufacturers (weak hardware random number generation).
Also, how exactly does Wi-Fi prevent devices from receiving the wrong packets when it’s a radio based system and any suitable antenna can receive any Wi-Fi signal?
Your device, say an iphone, has a MAC address. It sends a request to the Wi-Fi access point. The Wi-Fi router also has a MAC address and responds with a packet that contains the destination MAC address (your iphone). All devices listen to all Wi-Fi signals but only processes packets where the destination MAC matches its own. If the MAC doesn’t match, it ignores the packet. This happens at the data link level or commonly referred to as Layer 2 of the OSI model.
No. For the purposes you’re talking about wired is fine.
How your network is managed and set up makes it possible to get more security from WiFi using a bunch of new technologies added to recent WiFi protocols but you’d have to be actually have set all that up and have compatible networking stacks on the computers.
Also, and I say this as no great lover of Microsoft or its products, windows isn’t snooping network traffic not meant for it and bundling it up in its telemetry uploads.
Dutch seizure of Nexperia followed US pressure over Chinese CEO
The Dutch court document said records from a June 12 meeting between U.S. Commerce Department officials and the Dutch Foreign Ministry showed rising pressure to remove Nexperia's Chinese CEO to help keep the company off the list.
"The fact that the company's CEO is still the same Chinese owner is problematic," the filing said, citing minutes from the Dutch-U.S. meeting. "It is almost certain the CEO will have to be replaced to qualify for the exemption from the entity list."
Nexperia is caught between the U.S. and China, with U.S. President Donald Trump ratcheting up pressure on tech as part of a broader trade war in which he threatened 100% tariffs on China's exports last week. Beijing has announced curbs on exports of rare earths.
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knocks over your popcorn, and sticks a seabass in your anus
Ha ha! Now it is I who is the one cruising for chaos!!!
throws buckets of glitter EVERYWHERE
The Creator Program wasn’t just a feature, it was a full blown movement that rocked Reddit, on the blockchain no less. You all built communities. You created art. Your art became memes. You put a cone on it. You even got paid (a first!). At the end of the day, you all made magic.
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Accusing people of Karma (upvote) farming is such Reddit behaviour.
Who gives a shit?
Lemmy (and Piefed) have avatars and bio, and Piefed also has the custom fields thing that Mastodon has, but not all clients show this stuff. Voyager is probably the best Lemmy/Piefed client that basically has no support for profile details.
One of the things that bug me about Fediverse is that the amount of profile features varies so much between the services and it's kinda inconsistent too.
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I still use reddit and had not heard of this either.
Apparently "it was a full blown movement that rocked reddit". Where on reddit? I feel like they couldn't point it out.
I feel like I joined Reddit so long ago that I can't really remember the sign up process but I do dimly seem to remember that I had to unsubscribe from a bunch of stuff your default subscribe to because it was all garbage.
So probably what happened is they only advertised it in the stupid subs like that one where they still think lol catz is peak humour.
I used to use Reddit, and I remember when collectible avatars were introduced.
The experience paraphrased:
"Hey, click here to claim a free collectible avatar!" *open in new tab* "Here it is! However, you first need to set up crypto wallet—" *close tab*
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Reddit already got on my bad side when they got rid of their Public Access TV thing, the only good idea they've had in years; removing 3rd party apps was the last straw for me.
Blows my mind that more people didn't leave over that. I was expecting a mass exodus, a la Digg.
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A BOOX device is basically an Android tablet with an eye-friendly e-ink screen. The nice part is that you can install whatever book store you want on it, you can get the Kindle, the Kobo, Libby for library books, Moon+ Reader, or any other reading app you want. You're not locked into one ecosystem.
The other thing is that BOOX devices are for writing and productivity, not just reading. They have stylus support and fantastic note-taking apps built in. So you can mark up a PDF, take meeting notes, or split the screen to have a book open on one side and your notes on the other.
So, while a typical ebook vendor gives you a closed device to consume their content, BOOX gives you an open, flexible tool that you can use anyway you like.
Install linux or alternate OS? (and GPL2 kernel source!)
Hello, Congratulations on making such a nice device! It is great to be able to write on e-ink display.BOOX
GitHub - onyx-intl/Kernel_BOOX60
Contribute to onyx-intl/Kernel_BOOX60 development by creating an account on GitHub.GitHub
Mark Kelly says Kamala Harris ‘would be incredibly strong’ in a 2028 presidential run
Mark Kelly says Kamala Harris ‘would be incredibly strong’ in a 2028 presidential run
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) joins Meet the Press to respond to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ words about him in her new book — questioning whether he had been tested on the national stage — and weighs in on whether she should run for president a…www.nbcnews.com
Cat train stationmaster in Japan’s Yamagata retires
Cat train stationmaster in Japan’s Yamagata retires
Chocolat was rescued by the nonprofit organisation that manages the station. Read more at straitstimes.com.ST
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A joint statement from Palestinian Resistance factions
Our steadfast people, this stage represents an opportunity to enhance social solidarity within the Gaza Strip by supporting affected families, securing the necessities of daily life and activating frameworks of cooperation between factions, society and relevant local and international institutions, creating a resilient and unified environment capable of facing all challenges and preserving our people’s steadfastness.We renew the call for unity and national responsibility, to embark on a unified national political path with all powers and factions. We are working in cooperation with gracious Egyptian efforts to hold an urgent and comprehensive national meeting for the next step after the ceasefire to unify the Palestinian position, formulate a comprehensive national strategy and rebuild our national institutions on the foundations of partnership, credibility and transparency.
We also stress our categorical rejection of any foreign guardianship and affirm that determining the form of governance for the Gaza Strip and the foundations of its institutions’ work is an internal Palestinian matter to be jointly decided by the national components of our people. We are prepared to benefit from Arab and international participation in the areas of reconstruction, recovery and development support, in a way that promotes a dignified life for our people and preserves their rights to their land.
In conclusion, at this decisive historical moment, we renew our loyalty to the martyrs, prisoners, wounded and resistance fighters. We affirm our unwavering adherence to our people’s rights to their land, homeland, holy sites and dignity and our insistence on continuing the resistance in all its forms until all our rights are achieved, foremost among them the removal of the occupation, self-determination and the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent state with Al-Quds as its capital.
A joint statement from Palestinian Resistance factions
Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — the three powers — issued a joint statement on Oct. 10, 2025, posted by Resistance News Network.Workers World
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splendoruranium
in reply to SBS1313 • • •Immediately go for the jugular and question the very existence of intellectual property as a concept.
"You are given this magical horn of plenty. It can feed any person anywhere in the world at any time! Do you not use it, avoiding the inevitable collapse of the global food production and distribution sector or do you use it so... you know, nobody will ever be hungry again? Is there a right and a wrong decision here?
You are also given the magical ability to copy and distribute any digital information infinitely and at no added cost..."
SBS1313
in reply to splendoruranium • • •that is a very cool idea!
but then how to counter the fact that money is needed to produce these things such as art, books etc Like dont we pay artists ? directly?
while digital property is really debated even believed that copyright for physical goods being copied to digital is no fair
so i could dig into digital intellectual property i will see what i can find
HelloRoot
in reply to SBS1313 • • •The production is a fixed one time cost.
Once that cost is covered, the rest is profit.
It is important and fair to cover the cost of production and also have some gains on top of that.
But at some point it switches to bringing ongoing profit for no ongoing work or effort.
Where that point lies axactly is open to discussion. But after it has been reached, it is surely not morally wrong to distribute that media freely. Ideally it would be legally required to turn it to public domain, which would increase competition, quality and creativity of the whole landscape.
SBS1313
in reply to HelloRoot • • •I just now need to find a paper discussing that system ur describing.
I never thought about that like that tbf
but some issues arise like what is the production cost?? who determines that or moderates it?
but again great idea i hope i can find some papers taking ur point to a more practical point (if it is employed somewhere or if u might have an example of such system that has been studied)
Da Oeuf
in reply to SBS1313 • • •SBS1313
in reply to Da Oeuf • • •HelloRoot
in reply to SBS1313 • • •Some interesring reads that are related and could be a starting point:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-riv…
maxkasy.github.io/home/files/o…
cs.rutgers.edu/~rmartin/teachi…
economic good that has more total value when shared
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)SBS1313
in reply to HelloRoot • • •Cyberspark
in reply to HelloRoot • • •Tehdastehdas
in reply to SBS1313 • • •SBS1313
in reply to Tehdastehdas • • •That would be a great systeme tbf. Everyone wants that. But idk if in practice it can work.
For news corps for example usually click baity reads earn more than genuine journalism which is sad abviously.
The system you propose for movies should be doable. More views, more reviews = more earnings. It is more like cinemas in a sense viewers pay with their money. But as comments said there should also be a limit of how much you earn. It should not be an awful pay but here is where more research is needed. And should become public after a while or whenever it fully covered costs and some revenue for whoever did it.
My only concern is that is this limit going to discourage people to produce movies, music etc?
Tehdastehdas
in reply to SBS1313 • • •It would require replacing the money system with a value production estimation and reward system.
I don't support an upper limit for income. I want wealth tax and inheritance tax to prevent excessive accumulation.
splendoruranium
in reply to SBS1313 • • •Excellent thinking! You can of course directly transition into discussions about things like basic income and the requirements of society to cater to the basic needs of all its members before anything like economic growth can even be allowed, but it might be more useful to ask the following questions:
Because once you answer that question you know roughly how much public funds to allocate to art production. Depending on who you ask the answer might even be zero or close to zero.
i_stole_ur_taco
in reply to SBS1313 • • •If you need some historical context, look up the recording industry anti-piracy panic that began when cassette recorders came onto the consumer market (early 80s?). Similarly the VHS panic when video could suddenly be recorded.
I haven’t kept any sources, but I recall a few studies over the years that showed the industry concerns were comically overblown and didn’t impact their bottom lines.
SBS1313
in reply to i_stole_ur_taco • • •i will see what i can find
i did read something similar but for books and how publishers hated the numeration of books because they couldn't control the copies of it !
paf
in reply to SBS1313 • • •SBS1313
in reply to paf • • •ik there is a book that a read a bit called walled culture (abt intellectual property)
will do that thx!
tallship
in reply to SBS1313 • • •@piracy
Piracy was never NOT mainstream. Sure, there's been niche markets that only folks in those folds have exploited, but with respect to common proprietary, closed sourced, copy-protected or keyed software, There's never been a time, except for perhaps 0day, when there weren't cracking schemes to thwart the sovereignty of a respective company's copyright and licensing; and that has always been seen primarily a good thing - within reason, and in moderation.
Case in point. wp51.exe The most prolific word processing application at one time (for a very, very long time) - something that Microsoft couldn't seem to crack, and never really did, or would have, had it not been for Word Perfect Corporation spelling their own demise with the introduction of a version aimed at competing with Microsoft Word in the GUI itself... something that they needn't have bothered with, did bother with, and put all of their chickens in that basket that eventually spelled their own demise.
You see, this is but one example of a program that forced the attention of every corporate CFO in the Fortune 1000 and beyond; especially in SOHO's, where there litterally has never been a training budget.
Word Perfect dominated the legal community and that of medical transcription as well. It was fast, it was precisely unambiguous in its display space and unlike Microsoft word, forcefully encouraged the user to forgo using that mouse-thingy. If a typist approaches 100 wpm, yet has to constantly remove one of their hands from the keyboard to interact with the program in someway, that translates into hundreds of thousands of dollars per year that a company has to spend in lost productivity.
But although that fact was the defining factor on why Word Perfect eventually eclipsed Wordstar and Microsoft Word never got a foothold in the professional market where anyone typing >=40wpm was in demand as an office employee, the real reason it reigned supreme was the avoidance of training expenses for newhires.
You see, what you purchase for software to run your business is to a very great degree, driven by the marketplace, and when you decided on whether to standardize on Microsoft Word or Word Perfect in your company, a quick survey of job applicants would reveal that (due to easy to use software piracy cracks) an overwhelming majority of those applicants were already proficient in using Word Perfect 4 or 5.
Now it deserves mention that this piracy wasn't occuring in the business world, but rather, the personal, private spaces of the people applying for those jobs. A demographic very dificult to track down at the time, and even more dificult to prosecute with anything but a Pyrrhic victory in mind. It costs money to prosecute, and you can't get blood from a turnip, as they say.
A simple exe could crack Word Perfect and it was also traded about through BBSes as an already cracked product. As expected, the low hanging fruit is what deer, and people, reach for. Word Perfect had always hung at eye level, and the market that pirated their software wasn't going to buy it regardless, so they've effectively lost nothing, but gained everything - because the mass majority of typists were proficient in it's operation, and if a company standardized on Word Perfect, newhires could hit the ground running with zero, or minimal training expense.
Lotus 123 and others had a similar story. SuperCalc, Dbase II, etc., were in use in peoples homes because tiny little programs distributed over public BBSes like COPY2PC could diskdup the system floppy and you could make as many copies of it that you liked, and give it to your friends. So much money has been spent on anti-piracy measures over the decades with not much thanks from software publishers, sort of; they will acknowledge the fueling of adoption of their products in the business marketplace due to the decisions of the bean counters who bowed to standardizing on software that most job applicants would be likely to already be proficient in.
There's a whole culture, or perhaps, sub-culture of people who will buy DRM encoded books, strip the encoding, and then share those works in places like LibGenesis or priviate torrent trackers - just because they find DRM abhorrent!
The inverse is not true. Reasearch studies have shown time and time again that even if you charge for an ebook, if you make a big deal out of declaring that nothing you sell is DRM encoded, and ask that people respect the trust you have endowed them with, they'll tell their friends to go and buy the book more often than not, when someone asks them to give them a pirated copy.
Go figure.
There's something to be said for the honor system, but moreover, why pay someone that you would never trust in the first place for the privilege of having a license to use their software - their proprietary, closed source software product? Why, you could just use #FOSS instead, products like:
LibreOffice
GIMP
Inkscape
FrontAccounting
NextCloud
MariaDB
PostgreSQL
Nginx
Apache
Proxmox VE
KeePassXC or VaultWarden
Thunderbird
Firefox
VLC
Okular
KdenLive/OpenShot
OBS
Did I mention Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, or NetBSD?
Something I've always done with my customers, when unleashed to erradicate proprietary, closed source software from their premises, is to first acquire an internal audit of all of the costs involved in licensing such software in an ongoing model. Then, present those numbers, and after specifying that all things considered, labor costs will be the same not matter what (I'll make the same amount anyway), but that they'll never have to pay for another license again...
Then, require a firm agreement that each year the company contribute monetarily to most or all of the FOSS projects that produced the software they use. I actually leave just how much up to them, typically stating, "A dollar or a thousand dollars per year, I'm going to leave that to your conscience, but each year, look at this sheet of paper showing how much you would spend with that proprietary software that you could never really trust your privacy or company's secrets to anyway, and then break out your checkbook in good faith."
I leave the rest of that story to the honor system.
#tallship #FOSS #Software_Piracy
⛵
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SBS1313
in reply to tallship • • •What a nice read
I never heard of word perfect but that is in a way very precise example
Tbf alternatives to ms word are hard to come by.
Not saying ms word is perfect it actually pretty bad if u think abt it but no alts are at the level of it as of now. Tried libre didn't like the cluttered Ui. I did like OnlyOffice but had several bugs that crashed the app and removed saves.
While it is true that a more pirated copy makes more people use a software taking ur example. But whenever there is a monopoly, it is hard not to pirate or buy the software (looking at adobe). Though alternatives are quite good sometimes. I really loved Gimp and it could replace photoshop imo.
For the Drm on books it is also very true. Why use a book that is only openable in a proprietary software (looking at you adobe) that last for 3 days when u can find it in a shadow library or remove DRM. It reminds me of how awful it is compared to physical libraries. These are free or have a membership but u could in theory have a book as long as u need and find it there again (unless destroyed)
Though the honor system while in a way true in practice i do not know if numbers add up.
If a service is good people abviously buy it (like winRar strategy)
But does it work overall?? I do need to dig into that. If u have any reliable info on it. It would be great. I did hear a study that found that people who pirate tend to spend or recommend more on creative works (Bandcam or direct donations...)
Its a release of creative content Australia u can check it too..
As you also well said it is always better to go to foss software. But sometimes there are compromises people are willing to take or not.
Yes there is also the issue with data with proprietary software (looking at you adobe)
An example would be VLC. True it is great but it lacks customizability and ui that looks outdated.
Or Linux. Personal experience was great but its still not quite there, due to many apps only able to run on windows out of the box (yes there is compatibility layers but still)
Bobo The Great
in reply to tallship • • •tallship
in reply to Bobo The Great • • •@piracy
You may just be right about that. I swore by PKZ204G.EXE for years until someone mentioned WinZip to me. I thought, "What is this trash?" and never gave it a second thought until I stumbled across WinRar - "Oh this might make rar'ing stuffs up to send to the priv tracker really easy!" It did! but.... It also handled unzipping gzipped tarballs too which was nice when I wanted to checkout stuffs on a Windows box. I think I started running WinRar back with wYnd0z3 XP, or maybe NT 4. I honestly can't remember, but I quickly learned that by simply right clicking on archives and using the context menu that you don't get the nag, so that's typically how I used it.
I don't use wYnd0z3 anymore, or at least I should say, that professionally, I keep abreast, but here's a horror story I should probably share here; it's privacy related, not so much having to do with copyright and licensing issues, but rather.... Well, more than just the ownership of your data. You, are the product, and your very identities are I believe, at risk, more and more each day. Here goes:
So I wanted to replace my old lappy, the WiFi radio was quite obsolete, couldn't connect to many new WiFi networks - especially many new or newly remodelled Starbucks and it's easy to move Slackware to a new box, but I insisted on having a 17" monitor - I just like the real estate; and I could get a good refurbed Xeon powered Dell with a boatload of memory for a reasonable price.
I didn't mind that my new lappy arrived with Win 11 pro pre-installed, I needed to beat on that OS a little bit, not too much though, since it wasn't too dissimilar to Win 10 and I soon kinda shelved it, taking time to decide upon whether to install Proxmox VE on it, move my still quite snappy, warm and fuzzy Slackware -current install over to it, or re-purpose it as a Debian Forkey platform. I had spent only a few weeks with it here and there, and aside from seriously intrusionary particulars that I really detested, like being even worse than that of Win 10 was at resetting defaults that really pissed me off, there's nothing new that it offered me to learn that I couldn't get from launching a VM of it anyway.
So it sat... and sat... maybe three months or so? I was busy and in no hurry to retire a laptop running Slackware that still screamed after being moved from three previous machines in the past decade. One day I decided to go to a Starbucks where I knew my laptop couldn't negotiate the WiFi encryption and didn't want to bring my portable WiFi Puck with me so I grabbed the Xeon. It was truly a dream after all.
I had some simple stuff to do, mostly reading and writing up some reports and the last couple of times I fired it up I had been asked to install updates, but I, like so many others when there's no critical reason apparent, procrastinated.
So I ordered my coffee, took a sip, sat down, and fired up the Xeon beast. WTF? Bitlocker lolwut? No! No bitlocker! I don't use that crap. I do my own encryption. Wait! WTF? Key? There's no key God Dammit, I've never activated Bitlocker! Oh, I can sign in to my mAcR0sFot account and recover.... Well, that's just fricken' great to know but I've always known better than to do anything but a local or domain account - NEVER a mAcR0sFot account!!!
Okay, I guess that's kinda like the bad ending of an old film noir flick from the 40's that you wished had spent just three minutes of treatment developing the tragedy or happily ever after, instead of just abruptly saying, "The End" right before the lights in the theater come on. But not in my story.
Homey don't play dat! There wasn't anything that wasn't already on my NextCloud server that was even remotely important to me, except perhaps having to reinstall Thunderbird and waiting for my IMAP server to sync to my new MUA.
Debian it is. I still love my #Slackware lappy the way it is and I don't need a mobile #Proxmox box when I can just use stuff already built in or install #VirtualBox. So I whacked the mirrored SSDs and wiped the smaller one, switched from RAID to AHCI and other adjustments in the BIOS, installed #Debian Testing from a netinst.iso on USB with #KDE #Plasma and #Xfce, and Boom Shakalaka BOOM! 💥 Mic Drop! 🎤
I am truly going to miss WinRar, but I'm not going to miss #Windows at all. I'll still have to see it and fix it several times a week and continue to convince people to ditch it, but yeah, I've been really perturbed with Microsoft ever since they had the audacity to release Win 95a on my birthday, with yet more trash to come for the next 30 years, and if there's anyone out there who is even slightly entertaining the thought of suggesting, "Well, it was something you did - you know it. Windows wouldn't just do that".... It's actually well documented that it really will do that to you, and what's coming down the line is even worse, but I think they're saving the truly abominable stuff for after their campaign to recycle (destroy) 100 million perfectly good PCs and laptops.
I do believe it's time to ditch Microsoft Windows, truly, and I made half a career on it teaching the MCSE program for them and building large scale enterprises in Fortune 500's with Microsoft products. The #Linux and #BSD desktop is mature enough and straight-forward enough to install that it's actually much easier than installing Windows nowadays, and #FOSS applications abound that are bundled in with distributions that are are intuitive and familiar enough for anyone to use out of the box. But I'm just talking here, right?
Watch This Video that actually references #Bitlocker actually activating itself (Going back to 24h2 and June 2024, especially on 'pro', but also affected 'home' variants too).
Oh, yeah, #WinRar - handles .zip, tar.gz, .rar, arj, etc., etc., yeah it probably is the most pirated product ever, lolz. And the main point is that the publisher (devs) don't really make much of a fuss over it because it drives corporate sales of licenses, lolz - Thanks for bringing that up!
#tallship
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“Remodeled” or “Remodelled”—What's the difference? | Sapling
sapling.aikbal
in reply to SBS1313 • • •Search
The Anarchist LibraryTimLovesTech
in reply to SBS1313 • • •Snot Flickerman
in reply to SBS1313 • • •papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
This paper used to be available on Rufus Pollock's own website but today returns a 404.
rufuspollock.com/papers/optima…
In 2009 Pollock did the math and concluded that optimal copyright length for artists to recoup investment in developing the art balanced with making art available in the public domain was about 16 years.
This paper's math isn't easy to grok if you're not an economist, but it's a good resource that balances the need for copyright with the need for public domain knowledge and art.
SBS1313
in reply to Snot Flickerman • • •RGB
in reply to SBS1313 • • •Maybe this book will help
Warez: The Infrastructure and Aesthetics of Piracy
by Martin Paul Eve
archive.org/details/b904a8eb-9…
Warez: The Infrastructure and Aesthetics of Piracy : Martin Paul Eve : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Internet ArchiveSBS1313
in reply to RGB • • •I will give it a read and try to find interesting info in it !