Direct democracy would be less hierarchical than what we have currently, but it’s still a hierarchy of the majority over the minority. So long as government exists, the decisions of the majority will be violently enforced upon the minority.

Unless of course you’re referring to direct democracy without law enforcement, but I wouldn’t exactly call that a government.

I agree that things would be better without shareholders, but wouldn’t government corruption still be a problem? For example, shareholders aren’t profiting from mass deportation or tariffs. These sort of abuses would still happen without shareholders because they aren’t motivated by profit, they’re motivated by racism and nationalism. The way I see it, we need to get rid of all coercive hierarchies, government included.

There’s also the fact that corporations greatly benefit from imperialism. You can’t have imperialism without the military.

I got into MeshCore after Benn Jordan mentioned it in a recent video. Turns out there’s already a network spanning hundreds of kilometers in my area. I’m making a couple companion nodes so I can communicate with my partner, who lives an hour away, in the event of an emergency where there’s no power or internet. Also making some solar repeaters to improve coverage in my area.

185 pounds is deathly skinny at 6’4"? I’m the same height and I’ve never been over 160 😭

Pure mercury is pretty safe, actually.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=DNpdMz0Cfv0&t=124

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJh9yTIBY48

Baking soda, baking powder, and cream of tartar are minerals used for baking. Not very tasty on their own though.

You forgot pride flags, blahaj, astronomy, and psychedelics. I would also say far-left politics, but there’s plenty of right-wing autists out there too.

He did a Jan 6th.

If you would stop bending my words for a moment, you would realize that I’m advocating for direct ownership by the workers, not some phony representative democracy. Any system with hierarchies of decision-making power, even supposedly self-appointed ones, will always corrupt.

Under capitalism, capital will always accumulate into the hands of the shareholders. Those with the capital will always find a way to influence politicians into deregulating, no matter how many anti-corruption measures you put in place. We’ve seen this happen over and over for as long as capitalism has existed.

We need a fundamental change in the system that prevents capital from accumulating. That change would be socialism, where the workers collectively own the means of production, rather than it being owned privately by the shareholders.

Agreed, that’s why I put it in quotes. The way I should have worded it is that evolution has incentivized living things to act in a way that prioritizes their own survival over the survival of others. This is known as the survival instinct, or self-preservation, and is well established scientifically. This is a more appropriate argument against hierarchies of decision-making power than “human nature”.

That’s a good explanation of generational poverty and why it’s so expensive to be poor, but if Vimes is looking for the real reason the rich are so rich, he should read about surplus labor value. He seems to have ignored the broader class dynamics at play under capitalism.

Or maybe things are different on Discworld, I haven’t actually read the books.

Fair enough, but in a more just system, class would not exist, at all.

FTFY :P

I think they were specifically referring to Marxism-Leninism. It is “human nature” to act in your own self interest, so any system with hierarchies of decision-making power will eventually become corrupt. We just have to take a non-hierarchical path towards communism.

I recommend you check out the YouTube channel PBS Space Time. They have some excellent videos explaining the holographic principle and all the background knowledge needed to understand it.

I have a work profile for my work stuff. All my personal stuff is on Owner.

Do you say that you’re “boring as a person” because you don’t have any interests or hobbies, or because your interests and hobbies are so niche that you doubt anyone else would find them interesting, so you never end up talking about them?

I came to this thread to mention that I love editing OpenStreetMap, but then again, it really isn’t all that niche. It just isn’t talked about much.