AnarchistArtificer @ AnarchistArtificer @slrpnk.net

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2 yr. ago

As someone relatively new to Linux (been using as my daily driver for a couple of years now, but I still feel like a novice), I've been considering tinkering with Gentoo, and it low-key feels like considering starting using hard drugs.

There's a phrase that I learned recently that feels relevant to this. "Hermeneutical Injustice". It means injustice that arises when we are literally unable to meaningfully discuss our experiences with others. For example, "sexual harassment" is a relatively recent phrase, coined in the 1970s, a period when more women were entering the workplace, and employers didn't have policies for how to respond to workplace sexual harassment. It's a useful phrase, both legally, and interpersonally, and having access to this phrase that describes something that was previously hard to articulate ("you quit your job because your boss was complimenting you?") has helped us to reduce hermeneutic injustice by helping us to better understand and respond to the underlying phenomena (for instance, we now understand that people of all genders may experience workplace sexual harassment)

"Hermeneutic injustice" is why I think the ridiculous prevalence of the word "enshittification" is a good thing. People have latched into that because although it may be a new word, the phenomena it describes have been happening for a while now. I've even seen less techy people using it. The anger I've been seeing extends beyond people who know about "enshittification", but its spread and usage is a useful snapshot of how many are feeling. It makes me feel hopeful.

I'm sleepy right now so I'll not attempt to discuss more concrete things driving this hope (such as "small web", Fediverse etc.), but the short of it is that I have a lot of faith in people. Leaning on our communities is how we survive and resist this bullshit, and there will always be people who want to build things for the love of it.

Good word, I like it

Personally, I find him irksome because I get a strong vibe from him that he thinks of himself as a very smart person, looking down on the intellectual peasants. Part of why I perceive him that way is because this is how I used to think, as an autistic nerd who built much of my identity up around being smart. That's also why behaviour of the sort that shows up on /r/iamverysmart (such as many of NDT's posts) makes me cringe so much.

Dissecting this a bit further, it's not necessarily that I think he thinks he's better than other people — rather the opposite: some of the most intellectually arrogant people I have known are, at their core, deeply insecure and feeling the need to justify their interests by presenting themselves in a certain way.

There must not be much overlap in the countries we've visited then, because I've never seen this personally; one of the things I was glad for when I returned to the UK after while backpacking through Europe was being able to buy cheddar cheese in supermarkets again — it was non-existent in all the European shops I'd visited, and we usually settled for Edam or Gouda

Edit: I reread my comment and I realised it sounded super passive aggressive and that wasn't at all my intention. My sample size of European countries is 5, which is far from representative for Europe, let alone the world

It was an obtuse, lazy and (in hindsight) now very funny joke.

"Neoliberal" because one of the key ideological aspects of neoliberalism is the emphasis on individual responsibility. The big example that comes to mind is how the phrase "carbon footprint" was coined and popularised by oil companies as part of an advertising campaign to shift responsibility for climate change from fossil fuel companies to individual consumers.

"Greenwashing" was getting at the bullshit around recycling (which you also highlight in your comment). Often this isn't as blatant as it is here: even if there were two bags, it's likely that very little, if any, of the "recycling" bag would actually be recycled, and that the effort spent in separating recycling from regular trash is wasted energy that only perpetuates the feeling of doing something positive for the environment.

I found the image striking because although it isn't hard to spot that there's only one bag and that it doesn't matter which hole someone throws their rubbish, I think it's likely that someone passing by quickly wouldn't notice this (especially if opaque bin bags were used). This is offensive to me because I'm finding that many people nowadays are struggling with chronic decision fatigue due to being worn down by the modern attention economy, and I consider the "personal responsibility" facet of climate change PR to be a facet of this. That's what caused me to comment, but I didn't know how to capture what I wanted to convey in a quick and straightforward manner, so I went for the lazy reply that, in hindsight, didn't add anything meaningful to the conversation. I hope this is clearer, despite lacking in brevity

This is one of my favourite xkcds because it made me more consciously aware of the peculiar intimacy of the situation in the comic. Furthermore, in addition to the link that exists between me and someone on a forum with my particular tech problem, it also made me feel connected to everyone who had a different problem to me, but were also desperately trawling forums for help

Regardless of what your next steps are, I'm sorry for your loss.

I don't disagree with the spirit of what you're saying, but "war crimes" is a useful construct because there are clearly some forms of warfare that are worse than others (bombing civilian targets compared to bombing purely military targets, for example). By designating something so profane it should not ever happen, we create a powerful construct that aims to deter these acts. Though the extent to which that's effective or not is beyond the scope of this comment

Neoliberal greenwashing go brrr

I'm not a fan of thigh high socks, but I quite like stockings (with a suspender belt). As well as that having additional "sexy" connotations, I also find I can enjoy thigh high hosiery better if I'm not worried about them staying up

That doesn't look like any cheddar I've ever seen

"This isn’t about being spec-compliant anymore. I need to know the thought process behind this decision. And also please fix it."

This unhinged tone is what I live for in blog posts

Edit: added hyperbole to make humourous intent clearer

The way that I often hear it described is the spark that blew up the powder keg that was Europe at the time. Obviously a spark alone would do very little without the gunpowder there to be ignited, so there're definitely different levels of causation, but I think there is a sense in which the assassination can be seen as a causative element

To kill Demodex mites on our hands that could possibly contaminate something we're working on

This is intriguing. I wish them all the best, and I expect that if they are successful, this would be a boon not just for doctors and healthcare workers with long COVID, but many other people experiencing long COVID; things are improving somewhat, but we still have a long way to go in better understanding long COVID (both scientifically and societally).

Thanks for posting, OP. I have replied to a few people's comments in this thread, and I'm really appreciating you sharing this post which has led to such thought-provoking discussion.

Oh man, you're so right in highlighting how this problem manifests even in art. In a way, hobby related stuff is even harder because there's a weird pressure arising from a sense that you're not allowed to enjoy things that you're not good at. And like, how are you meant to get better at a thing if it doesn't feel permissible to be mediocre at it for a while? What if you don't want to get better at a thing, what if someone is happy to just have fun with a hobby and doesn't care if they are consistently mediocre at it, because they're doing it for themselves.

And it doesn't get better if you are good at the thing. Suddenly you've got people saying "wow, you're so good at that, you should sell them", and that's then even more pressure because it reinforces the constant feeling that not only must one strive for the "correct answer" in all things, but that progress towards this answer involves selling the products of one's labour because that's how we try to translate intangibles into measurable numbers. But the logic falls apart because excellent leather craftsmanship, for example, isn't at all related to one's ability to be running a business, and every time I have monetised a hobby, it kills the joy of the craft. Similarly, I have a friend who is an artist who used to be earning money from art, but they got sick of doing pet portraiture and got an office job so they could regain art as a hobby. Things that sell well != Things that are good (and that's even before we consider the Intrinsic value in dabbling in hobbies and creativity for fun's sake)

I've seen a few people recommend that book, I should check it out.

A way of thinking about tech that I've found interesting is what philosopher Bernard Stiegler refers to as "φάρμακον", or "pharmakon" (the greek root from where we get "pharmacy"). He uses the greek not just to be a pretentious arse, but because whilst it most directly translates to "medicine", pharmakon also can mean a poison or toxin. Stiegler argues that technology can be both helpful and harmful, often at once. It depends on how we use it. ^[1]

(I'm reminded here also of Cory Doctorow's discussion of reverse centaurs, because turning people into reverse centaurs is definitely the vibe of "pharmakon as poison". At the core of it, most people aren't being empowered by tech in our lives, and I really feel like we need a collective, radical recalibration around this. Books like "Digital Minimalism" certainly seem to be pushing towards that.

[1]: n.b. I am not a philosopher, nor have I actually directly read Stiegler, just a few people who draw on his work. One such person is Greta Goetz, an academic whose blog is great for people who like dense and wordy philosophy about tech and teaching.

Yeah, that is fairly consistent with how I've been feeling. It's tricky because you have a huge backlog of things on the hypothetical to-do list.

I'm reminded of an essay I read concerning complex systems and how complexity grows in functional software — the essay used the phrase "habitability" to convey the idea of software that is functional and usable even as it grows. In practice, this means nailing down your core functional requirements and starting with that, adding more features in a modular manner that aims to avoid messing up that core functionality.

What this looks like applied to my agenda problem is that my backlog is weeks if not months of work for multiple people to get on top of, and I can't pause my life in the interim. Even getting a thorough list of the tasks in the backlog is too overwhelming a task for me at present, in part because new tasks keep coming from just existing. In the past when I have felt swamped like this, I did a big blitz through and got my life in order, but the backlog blob is too large to do that. Realistically, if I can't give myself a proper clean slate like I usually would, I need to give myself a virtual clean slate so I can at the very least stop adding to the backlog.

I know this is what I need to do, but it's very easy to become too overwhelmed to do anything. I know what I need to do, I just need to have the fortitude to start small and ignore the backlog for a while. Tell you what, I'm going to try and set a super basic agenda thing up today or tomorrow, so I can capture incoming tasks or notes. I'm going to try and tackle this like I would a software project, which means trying my best to avoid unnecessary complexity, like often happens when I try to consider the backlog blob. Watch this space, I guess :P

Thanks for the prod. I know you didn't say much and I mostly talked myself into this, but sometimes that's what's needed when you're wise enough to give great advice to yourself, but foolish enough to not take aforementioned great advice.