Don’t give in to the ambient cynicism. All levels of government matter and public service is meaningful and commendable. As for fixing things long term... nothing is fixed forever unfortunately, but that’s no reason not to strive for solidarity and sustainability.
Biological evolution of our species has been on hold for a pretty long time already and I don't see it changing any time soon. There are two univeral factors:
the drive to reproduce away from your immediate group, further enabled by the tendency to migrate all over.
the family societal structure, as opposed to a strict alpha male hierarchy.
These two things block the sharp rise of mutations and promote a wide diversity of individuals instead. It helped us to remain a unified species despite our spread all over the planet.
We evolve mainly through our culture, which complexifies at a spectacular rate. The downside is that a catastrophic collapse could wipe all our progress, even if we do survive it.
Spotify’s success is heavily qualified, though. It may be the Netflix of music, but it’s never posted a profit; in 2022, with nearly a half-billion users around the world, around 200 million of whom pay for the service, it lost 430 million euros (the company is based in Sweden).
How does one get to repeatedly lose hundreds of millions of dollars on and on and somehow endure? Some stockmarket shit?
Another thing: let's not forget that when music streaming showed up, the music industry was already struggling. The CD era was over; everybody and their mom were sailing the high seas on P2P networks.
You made me wonder how much I pay a kWh... Wow, 1 euro/kWh is brutal, I'm sorry you have to cope with such a price. Common advice for staying warm here is to dress like an onion. A couple of modest layers of clothes will go a long way, more than a single thick one.
Biden was supposed to meet Jordan's King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas cancelled his presence following the hospital bombing, then Biden discussed with King Abdullah and they agreed to call it off.
Biden was not complacent with Israel in his address at Tel Aviv. He urged Israel not to give in to rage, drawing a parallel with USA’s mistakes following 9/11.
I might be overly optimistic, but I feel that countries (including the US) supporting Israel are in the process of diplomatically clarifying that their support is not really unconditional and that peace is the only acceptable objective. In that sense I don’t think his trip was all bad.
I hate headlines. They’re written on purpose to piss me off and sometimes they work. Maybe I should stop reading headlines and just read the articles instead. Probably healthier than the other way around.
I don't know how long, but I'm still hopeful. Humanity has gone from small groups of nomadic family groups, to early city states housing thousands, to countries uniting millions. The mediocrity of modern capitalism makes us forget what we've achieved through the millenias.
The radical transformation we are provoking on our ecosystem will humble us and push us as a specie to adapt yet again. It'll be quite a ride and who knows what's on the other side.
When my kid was younger he had a "garbage games on tablet" phase as well. As others have said, paid games are the way to go (Play Pass sounds cool). Looking for indie games for Android, or PC games ported to Android gives some good results. Stardew Valley’s an obvious one. I haven’t played Ordia, but it looks gorgeous.
What worked really well for us was to teach him about some dark patterns in simple terms and spot them with him in the freemiums he was playing. "Fear of Missing Out" events/notifications and "Progression Paywalls" are typical ones. It made him realize the game wasn’t built to give him a good time as much as to frustrate him into endlessly spending real money in exchange for some phony currency. In the end he was happy to switch to saner games. It’s a good opportunity to work on their critical judgment basically.
I work at a small non-profit publisher and our clients respecting copyright is basically what decides if we continue existing or not. I struggle as well with the general "end all copyright" sentiment. There’s this idea that circumventing copyright means sticking it to corporations, as if their creative employees making a living don’t exist.
Furthermore, I feel that generative AI is just the latest tech bro venture based on siphoning revenues out from under existing businesses whilst escaping the laws that apply to the sector. Advertisement revenues were siphoned from under the press, hotels are facing competition from business subverting residential housing, restaurants are being charged exorbitant prices to get their goods delivered. The ambient cynicism serves to maintain indifference towards these unethical tactics.
You’re not being ethical to the artists and devs that work at Nintendo though. You’re pissed at the leadership but it’s never them who gets sacked when the shit hits the fan.
luciole (he/him) @ luciole @beehaw.org Posts 25Comments 643Joined 2 yr. ago
Don’t give in to the ambient cynicism. All levels of government matter and public service is meaningful and commendable. As for fixing things long term... nothing is fixed forever unfortunately, but that’s no reason not to strive for solidarity and sustainability.