Not even. The NOVA system has been tested and doesn’t function as a system of classification. Experts cannot consistently classify things into UPF/not UPF. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-022-01099-1

So it’s more like “there’s this food and it’s bad for you but idk what it is :/”

$50 hat bro is he fr 💀

Note that all Big Lies serve the dual purpose of crushing dissent, because prople thwt disagree with the leader will expose themselves by saying stuff like this.

Legalize 6th-gen fighter jets. Give me my Pepsi harrier!

Obvious/surface level/aesthetic comparisons change hearts & minds. Nobody’s reading 160 pages of book unless they agree (broadly) with you already. Headlines & theory serve different functions.

Slop

Not blurred for me, outside the US, but the satellite images have been updated since yesterday.

Yes. It’s attacking its own institutions. Strange, isn’t it?

Capital finally taking the market out behind the barn.

On a 777 the angels blind you with divine light so you can’t find your way out of the slot machines.

Yes these are also bad.

✍️

Organisations aren’t entitled to use automated systems to alter people’s behaviour (i.e. here they’re using an algorithm to maximise the number of ad clicks). It should only be allowed if it’s in the interests of the people affected, and with their (informed) agreement

Ban optimisation without popular consent!

So true oomfie

Big Book → Capital, I’ve only read vol 1 though (2 & 3 are like a jillion pages 😭)

I started writing my complaints, but it’s taking longer than I thought. I’ll drop an update if I finish writing it. My issues are mainly about the assumptions Marx makes about the topology of production networks (particularly regarding cycles), and the classification system used to produce nodes (is a node one particular spindle, or all spindles generally: this has implications). I haven’t read any newer theory so IDK this has probably been adressed.

There’s also the transformation problem. I don’t think that’s as big of a deal as it’s made out, since you wouldn’t just be slotting these Labor-Theoretic Values in place of Market Values, but people do often suggest doing this and it’s really weird to me.

To be fair, I think my understanding of the theory has some errors in regards to the interaction of Work Intensity, Labor, and Productiveness, so I’ll have to do some more thinking. Might change my complaints.

Regarding Vanguardism, I don’t have a particularly sophisticated critique as I haven’t read the lit. The Vanguard’s position would change as a result of joining the Vanguard (now holding state-like power), this changes their relationship to the revolutionary masses and their stated mission, and would inevitably change their actions in much the same way that holding Capital would (i.e, probably they’d go mad with power). But again I don’t know if that’s been addressed.

I’m some kinda new-wave radical centrist, can’t call myself one after reading your big book. I believe in a lot of the criticisms and measures, but I think LTV & Vanguardism are the literal dumbest shit ever. But good luck with them, and thanks for taking an interest.

Removed by mod

Hello, different person here. It’s understandable that you’re confused by this tbh, but there are real proposals.

Broadly, there are two basic suggestions:

1. All businesses would be nationalised. You would develop the machine as part of your job, or sell the rights to the government.
2. There are still independent businesses like now, but they’re controlled by the people that work and use them. As a Kingdom is to a Democracy, an Owned Company is to a Participatory Company (Communists call them cooperatives, Corporatists call them corporations). The former country/company is controlled by the people that own it, whereas the latter is controlled by the people that are affected by its decisions (at least in theory). In real life people don’t really buy manufacturing machines, they do it through a company. So your sale would be the same, it’d just be to a different kind of company.

It’s not one or the other and they’re often combined.

It isn’t fair for a king to control an army and do what he likes with it, that’s dangerous. The army has to be controlled by the people of the nation. But, if you and your friends want to privately own guns, that’s fine. So long as you aren’t organising into a militia, it does little harm.

Critics say, likewise: if your machine is small, who cares. But if it’s sufficiently powerful, if it could concentrate wealth and power in your hands, create mass unemployment (maybe even allow you to wield military power): that’s harm. A machine like that should be controlled by the people.

I think you’re handsome too, reader. Don’t listen to the haters.