Tootfinder

Is there a more perfect illustration of capitalism at work? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/01/dark-roof-lobby

"Inspired by the political philosopher Albert Hirschman, figures including Goff, Thiel and the investor and writer Balaji Srinivasan have been championing what they call “exit” – the principle that those with means have the right to walk away from the obligations of citizenship, especially taxes and burdensome regulation. Retooling and rebranding the old ambitions and privileges of empires, they dream of splintering governments and carving up the world into hyper-capitalist, democracy-free havens under the sole control of the supremely wealthy, protected by private mercenaries, serviced by AI robots and financed by cryptocurrencies."
...
Our opponents know full well that we are entering an age of emergency, but have responded by embracing lethal yet self-serving delusions. Having bought into various apartheid fantasies of bunkered safety, they are choosing to let the Earth burn. Our task is to build a wide and deep movement, as spiritual as it is political, strong enough to stop these unhinged traitors. A movement rooted in a steadfast commitment to one another, across our many differences and divides, and to this miraculous, singular planet."
#OligarchApocalypse #Oligarchy
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/13/end-times-fascism-far-right-trump-musk

Canadians: Replace Ardern with Trudeau and use other Canadian touchstones in place of #nzpol and you have an accurate article for Canada.
Which should speak to what Progressives actually need to do here, and everywhere.
"Ardern’s leadership has often been described as emotionally intelligent, compassionate, and people-centred. But compassion is not liberation. Empathy alone does not redistribute wealth, dismantle police power, or decommodify housing. What Ardern perfected was a mode of governance that couched neoliberalism in progressive language. A style of leadership that appeared anti-fascist, anti-racist, and feminist, while presiding over deepening inequality, mass incarceration of Māori, ongoing colonisation, environmental destruction, and a housing system that serves landlords and property speculators.
Ardern’s “politics of kindness” masked a status quo commitment to capitalism and state power. Her government’s housing policies floundered under the weight of market logic. Despite the crisis of homelessness and unaffordability, the Labour government never seriously considered nationalising housing, implementing rent controls, or seizing vacant properties from land-bankers. Instead, they protected the interests of property investors, many of whom were MPs themselves."
#canpoli #cdnpoli #trudeau #Liberal #Ardern
https://www.anarchistfederation.net/the-cult-of-kindness-the-reality-of-jacinda-arderns-leadership/

Me sorprende ver que casi ningún sindicato (incluidos los libertarios) promueve de forma activa la creación de empresas #cooperativas en contraposición al modelo de empresa "clšsica" capitalista.
Alguien que me pueda iluminar sobre por qué esto es así? por qué tan poco énfasis en esta vía de acción?
A mi entender, que los trabajadores controlen la empresa es un paso esencial para asegurar que los logros sociales adquiridos sean mšs fšciles de defender (mucho mšs que si las empresas se nacionalizan, pues los estados pueden decidir volver a privatizarlas mšs tarde, o usarlas como instrumento de control)... y dado que no vivimos ni en un sistema comunista ni anarquista, la vía que mšs se acerca a esto es la de las empresas cooperativas.
#sindicalismo #cooperativismo #coop

The more time goes on, the more conflicted I get about #AI. (or, more specifically, generative AI. I like causal AI a fair bit)
On one hand, I hate so much about it:
the needless environmental and electronic parts waste, the impact on labor, the monopolistic nature of main organizations driving it, the endless conversations about AGI and other absurdly utopian (or dystopian) futures, the widespread theft of IP and human work, the devaluation of labor and craft… so much of it is not okay at all.
On the other hand, I kinda get it?
I like to test software for myself, so I've been dipping my toes into some popular AI tools over the past couple of years. I have a paid subscription to ChatGPT (which I don’t feel great about, I know), and I have found genuine utility in it.
More so, I feel so conflicted when I talk to people I respect and who I think are very smart and creative and they tell me how in love they are with all of these AI tools, about the complex workflows they build, about their experiments with agentic AI and integrations... These people seem so excited, so alive, so joyous about the things that this technology allows them to do. They often wouldn't have had the skills / knowledge / financial capital to do some of those things with human efforts alone. And now I see them coding their own tools, doing complex data analysis, trying creative experiments with graphics / text / video...
And I feel like a total jerk going "BUT ACTUALLY THIS IS UNETHICAL AND INEFFICIENT AND YOU SHOULD STOP IT BECAUSE AI SUCKS".
The technology behind all these gen AI models does have real utility, and it has kicked off a lot of creativity from people who wouldn't have dabbled in those kinds of projects otherwise.
So I don't know how to feel. Because I can't let go of the guilt and the real problems and the awareness of how much empty hype there is.
#technology #artificialintelligence #genAI #ChatGPT