From the United Automobile Worker magazine, 1937: “What did you tell that man just now?” “I told him to hurry.” “What right do you have to tell him to hurry?” “I pay him to hurry.” “How much do you pay him?” “Four dollars a day.” “Where do you get the money?” “I sell products.” “Who makes the produ…
NEW YORK—Claiming he could easily fit into a similar position at most companies, local CEO Mike Waltke told reporters Monday that his skill set was transferable to any job that requires an inept dumbass to receive a big salary. “I have the incompetence necessary to effortlessly transition into a r…
This was rather vertigo inducing.…
Amil Niazi in a sobering article about ambition, COVID, women, mothers, and late-stage capitalism.…
Here’s Bryan Cantrill’s classic assessment of Oracle Corporation (taken from this talk.) /misc/b/bryan-cantrill-oracle-1.mp4 On Twitter, a year after that video: If you were an enterprise database customer who hadn’t heard of the Nazis, might it be easiest to explain them with Oracle allegory? @b…
Because we don’t simply write non-annoying and non-creepy software that respects you and does the thing you want it to do anymore. Gotta deliver Value™ to all key stakeholders. By which we mean ourselves and the Market. Not you. You are nothing more than Data that taps “Purchase” to us.…
I cannot help rewatch this powerful scene from “Margin Call”. A masterclass in acting by the great Jeremy Irons. Every sentence, glance, and gesture projects complete and menacing presence, power, and finality, and is done to absolute perfection 👌 /misc/m/margin-call-sell-it-all.mp4…
A simple-enough argument about a dangerous, toxic worldview. […] To highlight that contradiction let’s try to explain these facts with individualist logic. Women and non-white people, by sheer coincidence, all individually chose to be paid less for more demanding jobs. Also by coincidence, they cho…
Not sure why this actually got to me.…
By Michael Dearing. Couldn’t find any video and not sure if this is tongue-in-cheek (like the “48 Laws of Power”.) The distortions are: Personal Exceptionalism “I am special.” Dichotomous Thinking “X is sh*t. Y is genius.” Correct Overgeneralization “I see two dots and draw the right line.” Blank-C…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0 See also: “Where profits come from”…
By Barry Deutsch, September 2009. Things are much better now.…
A New Hampshire family says that after a night out to eat at Friendly’s didn’t go so well, a restaurant staffer decided to express their inner feelings through the increasingly preferred medium of the restaurant’s billing system, dropping the phrase “100% sh*t show” at the bottom of the dinner bill.…
Watched with LD. Kate Winslet is an amazing actor and this miniseries is her best work yet. It is excellent everything: story, score, cinematography, dialogue, casting, acting. About economic depression, blue-collar America, forgotten America, the opioid epidemic caused by unchecked Capitalist greed…
“For all that we’ve been able to achieve while many of us have been separated, the truth is that there has been something essential missing from this past year: each other,” [Tim Cook] said. “Video conference calling has narrowed the distance between us, to be sure, but there are things it simply…
Neil Panchal on substituting shitty, ineffective, and expensive consumer-grade items with their industrial and military grade equivalents. Emphases mine: The average consumer is an idiot, so the bean counters keep milking them. Let’s stick RGB lights in what used to be the BMW, you know the ultima…
One of the most disheartening charts I’ve seen about the current hyperpartisan political climate. We fear each other so much more. – Source I suppose all’s fine and dandy if you’re in news or social media and are spiritually obligated to deliver Value™ to stakeholders via those almighty engagement…
Value™ must be delivered to stakeholders at any and all cost 🏏…
Here’s some Buzzword Bingo based on these words by the same company. accelerate accountability action items actionable aggregator agile algorithm alignment analytics at the end of the day B2B/B2C bandwidth below the fold best of breed best practices beta big data bleeding edge blueprint boil the oc…
“Happiness” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9dZQelULDk “MAN” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfGMYdalClU…
Because the only thing that matters is delivering Value to shareholders. (cached) Incidentally, and to the “huh” of many Value-illiterate people, defending totalitarian governments is exactly how one gives “people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”…
There’s a difference between doing things right and doing the right thing. Doing the right thing is wisdom, and effectiveness. Doing things right is efficiency. The curious thing is the righter you do the wrong thing the wronger you become. If you’re doing the wrong thing and you make a mistake an…
Though capitalism has had a longer lease of life than some of us would’ve predicted or that many of our ancestors of the socialist movement did predict or allow, it still produces the fax machine and the microchip and still able to lower its costs and still able to flatten its distribution curve v…
SOCIALIST: late capitalism has created a moral rot that pervades our entire society NEOLIBERAL: but imagine if we monetized the rot @Trillburne…
::Deadly pandemic rages:: Texas: “Let’s mismanage energy so thoroughly that our citizens are compelled to congregate en masse in heating centers designed to keep warm air and breath inside.” Here’s the problem with deregulation and privatization of public services. The primary directive of a governm…
and By Jace Avery…
“World’s richest men added billions to their fortunes last year as others struggled: Billionaires have added about $1 trillion to their total net worth since the pandemic began” (WaPo, Paywall.) (Even though The Post is a complexifier for me, I do not at all regret my investment. The Post is a cr…
Pictures taken 100 years apart. The image at the bottom is 18 years old. I’m sure we can solve this with privatization, deregulation, lowering taxes on the rich, and letting an unfettered Free Market “figure it out” ♥️…
, ThriftBooks, and Bookshop are three alternatives to purchasing books on Amazon. Powell’s is withdrawing from the Amazon Marketplace: “The vitality of our neighbors and neighborhoods depends on the ability of local businesses to thrive. We will not participate in undermining that vitality.”…