@hex@kolektiva.social2025-12-20 23:22:58
So in another dream I just woke up from, I was talking to someone about "the idea problem" (that it's becoming harder to monitize ideas, from a vox article written by an AI cooked reporter).
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-it-could-happen-here-30717896/episode/executive-disorder-white-house-weekly-46-313675864/
Basically, I was arguing that the majority of inventions target men because patriarchy puts economic control in men's hands. As men have started to help more with childcare, there have been more inventions related to childcare. (I don't have any idea if this is true. Seems legit, but I'm just relating my dream. I think I was also oversimplifying a bit to "men" and "women" because of my audience, but anyway it was a dream.) There's actually more low-hanging fruit, I pointed out, related to making care work easier.
So I argued that the real problem was a failure to invest in research into solving that problem. Today there are all these boondoggles built around killing people. What if, instead of all this government research into killing people, we dumped a ton of money into making it easier to support a household? That would be great for the economy. (Being asleep, I seem to have forgotten that working people need money.)
In the blur of being just awake I started thinking about how you could kickstart the US economy by taking the money from the AI boondoggle and other autonomous murder bots and create something like a program to build robots for housekeepers. You'd still be funding tech with government money, so the same horrible people get paid, but you're now actually solving real problems. It wouldn't even matter if it was a boondoggle, honestly. Just dumping money into something other than murdering people is good enough.
I imagined first if there was a program to fund a robot housecleaner, like robot dog with AI some laundry pickup, that would be provided, free of charge, to help people with children. It would work the same as the military boondoggle where a private company makes the government buy a piece of hardware from them and then also pay them to service it for some number of years. But instead of that hardware sitting around waiting to kill someone, it would be getting brought to people's houses to help them.
Then I thought, hey, you could even boost the economy more if you just had government funding for doulas and housecleaners and paid them a living wage. Hey, you could really kickstart the economy by nationalizing healthcare and including doula support as part of all births. Oh, and you could also just include the optional household help for families with children until the kids turn 18.
None of this is perfect (I don't actually think most of this is possible from any state), but the point is that it's actually wildly easy to figure out all kinds of ways to invest in the economy and monitize ideas as long as you aren't entirely focused on the same old "make money from spying on people and killing them." Funny that. Like they said in the podcast, maybe "finding ideas" isn't the problem.
Hope you enjoyed the weird semi-awake brain dump/rant.
@Techmeme@techhub.social2025-11-20 14:50:52
Sunday Robotics unveils Memo, a fully autonomous home robot capable of tasks like making espresso and loading dishwashers, set to launch in beta in 2026 (Will Knight/Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/memo-sunday-robotics-home-robot/
@AimeeMaroux@mastodon.social2025-11-20 20:16:47
It's the #DayOfZeus / Jupiter's Day / Thorsday! ⚡
"Ganymedes, who excelled all men in beauty, was snatched up by the gods to serve as the cupbearer of Zeus."
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.75.3
🏛️ #Zeus and
@heiseonline@social.heise.de2025-11-19 10:57:00
heise | Bahn-Chaos und Verspätungen: Warum die Sanierung der Gleise allein nicht hilft
Überall wird bei der Bahn gebaut. Doch an vielen Problemen des Schienennetzes ändert das langfristig wenig. Warum das so ist und was man besser machen könnte.
@jake4480@c.im2026-01-19 17:13:37
If you watched cartoons in the 90s or early 2000s, you probably heard some of Guy Moon's amazing theme songs and scores. Guy passed away earlier this month after injuries from a car accident- I wrote this short piece over at Animated TV Blog to commemorate his work: https://animatedtvblo…
@hex@kolektiva.social2025-11-21 18:54:12
Any sufficiently advanced disaster preparedness is indistinguishable from revolutionary dual power. This essay is a bit of a transition between the theory I've written earlier, and more concrete plans.
Even though I only touched on my life on the commune, it was hard not to write more. These are such weird spaces, with so much invisible opportunity. But they're also just so unique and special. For all the stress and uncertainty of making sure you stayed on Lorean's (the head priestess), there were also those long summer nights with the whole community (except the old lady) gathered around a fire, talking and drinking. There was almost a child-like play to the whole time.
There were so Fridays I'd come home with a couple of gallons of beer from the real world, folks would bring things from the garden, someone would grill a steak, everyone who didn't cook would clean up, and we'd just hang out and have fun. So many evenings I'd go over to Miles place with a guitar, or with his guitar, and we'd pass it around over a few beers, talking about philosophy, Star Wars, or some book or other. It's hard not to write about the strange magic of that space.
My partner and I bonded over similar experiences, mine on a weird little religious commune in California and theirs as a temporary worker at Omega Institute. Both had exploitation, people on weird power trips, frustrating dynamics, but also a strange magic and freedom. Both were sort of fantasy worlds, but places that let us see through this one, let us imagine something that something else is possible behind the veil.
There are many such veils.
Perhaps it's fitting that this is more meandering, as a good wander can help the transition between lots of hard thinking and lots of hard working.
https://anarchoccultism.org/building-zion/evaluating-options
Editing feedback (especially typos, spelling, grammar) is always welcome, as are questions and even wider structural advice. I've been adding the handles of folks who provide feedback to the intro in a "thank you" section. If you do help and wouldn't like to be added, please let me know.
@servelan@newsie.social2026-01-20 20:16:46
"“Selling stolen oil and putting billions of dollars in a bank in Qatar to be spent without Congressional approval is not Constitutional,” the lawmaker wrote. ”Only Congress can appropriate money.”
Rep. Thomas Massie criticizes Donald Trump on Venezuela oil sales
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5697347-thomas-massie-donald-trump-venezuela-oil-sales/
@jaygooby@mastodon.social2025-11-21 08:32:29
Ah yeah! @…’s horror advent calendar has arrived 🙌
Here’s a little taste from last year..
@frankstohl@mastodon.social2026-01-21 07:58:17
Es gibt zwei Möglichkeiten wenn es nicht so läuft in einer Firma: man lässt sich als Chef was einfallen und optimiert seine Firma (komplexe Methode) oder aber man lässt die Arbeiter mehr arbeiten (das mit den Fähnchen). https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Hausaerzte-seh
@hex@kolektiva.social2025-11-21 14:40:06
I keep thinking that I should text a friend of mine, tell him how much I've been writing, tell him I mentioned him in something I wrote. Then I remember he died like 4 years ago.
Edit:
It must have been more like 6 or something now that I'm thinking about it. It was part of the way through the first Trump administration. He would have really appreciated the way Trump is unraveling now. One of the last times we talked he was like... "You know man, You used to play 'Baby, I'm an anarchist' and I'd think... ' don't want to throw a brick through a Starbucks window. I kinda like their coffee sometimes.' But the way things have been going lately, I'm kind of looking around and thinking you might be right. Fuck Starbucks. Where's that brick?"
At least I won the SRV vs the Hendrix version of Voodoo Chile debate. Hendrix is just better.
We used to talk about music, especially punk (and rockabilly, and ska, and 2 tone), and poetry, and beer. He liked hop stupid, but I always thought it didn't have the body to match the hops and I always preferred Racer 5. Of course, this time of year we'd be shifting in to red and stout season, and I'd be excited for Lagunitas Russian Imperial and this year's Bourbon County Stout batch.
He was really big in to Star Wars. He missed all of Andor, which is probably the best thing to have come out since the original 3. But I guess he also missed the new trilogy, so maybe it balances out.
He would have really liked all the good music I've run across in the last few years. He had a music blog for a bit.
Yeah... I don't know why it's hitting me so hard now, other than maybe I never had time to really process it before.