Moved to Proton mail from GMail. At the same time I purchased a new domain and got SimpleLogin to create new aliases for all my sites and services. The only site that knows my real address is Proton itself and SimpleLogin.
I also ditched Chrome for Firefox. I honestly prefer Chrome but hate how controlling Google is with Chrome. I also switched to Duckduckgo. I’ve never actually felt less tracked in a long time as a result. Actually eye opening. I used Incognito so often for Google searches to not be tracked. Now I can search freely without then seeing ads or content related to that search elsewhere.
It’s pretty good actually. No ads and you can access videos from a lot of platforms in the one app (including premium ones if you have a subscription to them). It also makes it easier to follow a single creator across platforms. Also, lets you download videos for offline access, allows casting, PiP and a bunch of other stuff.
My only real complaint is that the recommendations aren’t very good yet, so I end up going back to YT/revanced to discover new stuff, and there currently isn’t any way to use sponsorblock with it.
I started learning to program in February, which reinvigorated my love of computers. I discovered awesome new software like syncthing, and just recently started daily driving linix (debian 12) and its been great. Just little things like customizing my wall paper which i havent done for years. 2023 was a great year for me and tech.
Oh and i switched from chrome to Firefox, looks like that’s been a common theme for the year!
I think it’s more constructive to interpret what someone means, rather than with our own definitions that occasionally go against the common vernacular.
That’s why pointing out that today’s authoritarian dictatorships aren’t communism - while correct - is always interpreted as a True Scotsman. They’re differentiating “crony” capitalism because they haven’t been convinced that capitalism inevitably leads to the rich buying laws. They think we just need the right people in charge.
But the same applies the other way. Libertarians argue that centralizing power (redistribution, workers owning production, etc) in any manner inevitably leads to oppression.
I think if a Libertarian considered workers owning production in good faith but using their own terms, they’d see that a bunch of people owning production is more decentralized than one dude owning the whole factory. And then become a left libertarian.
I was incorrectly assuming that’s what you meant by workers owning production, but I see in your reply to the other post that you also include state power organized labor.
So I guess my point is that a Libertarian would use the meme above with a punchline of “we just say communism” instead of Soviet Communism, when most here would not agree that’s the inevitable result of all communism.
Yeah, I get that. That’s actually what I was saying in my first post. A libertarian would see any form of communism as the path to tyranny, much like the meme does toward capitalism.
I’m just asking what form of collectivization best argues against that point? You mentioned left libertarianism.
Libertarians tend to say things like democracy, a well informed populace, and a strong constitution would reduce government growth and therefore abuse (cronyism). How can that same problem of abuse be avoided in a real collective society?
I’m not going to pretend like I have all the answers there. Personally I don’t think goverments are helpful; the vanguard state has failed repeatedly. Those weren’t “crony” vanguard state. But unions and co-ops have worked out much better. If everybody is voting, then elites would need to coerce everyone instead of just whoever is in charge. One Stalin can’t ruin everything.
This can cause its own problems (like voter fatigue), but those can be mitigated in various ways (like with liquid democracy). And if/when it becomes corrupt and your voice goes unheard, then creating or joining a new union is much easier than doing so with a new government.
When I say redistribution, I mean someone taking from one person and distributing what they took to others. In practical terms that means taxes and government programs. That centralizes power to the government to make decisions how redistribution happens and who benefits. Or so is the Libertarian argument.
The workers owning production is a bit more complex. I think most libertarians would point to the like of Soviet Communism where state power organized labor. Again, centralization. But private co-ops and such exist so I don’t think they can mark it across the the board.
libertarians believe wholeheartedly in freedom of association and the right to voluntary exchange. As soon as you start talking forced anything, you’ve lost us.
Can 300 million people collectively run an economy and be focused on making those decisions? No.
Then a group of representatives are needed to do it for them, but wait, isn’t that the same thing as a government owning and operating the economy? Like in fascism? Oh no!
Then a group of representatives are needed to do it for them, but wait, isn’t that the same thing as a government owning and operating the economy? Like in fascism? Oh no!
Sure, if you ignore all the differences that makes it entirely different, such as:
Democratic control
Local level decision making toward central goals being done by workers and not capitalist overseers
The lack of a profit motive
Claes consciousness, aka we understand how things actually work and we don’t have to blame misfortunes on a scapegoat like under capitalism
I’m going to take the Libertarian perspective here again. If you remove profit motive in any sense, how can a group allocate resources effectively or incentivize work? Price/profit margin signal more than just greed. The market self corrects based on prices.
you remove profit motive in any sense, how can a group allocate resources effectively or incentivize work?
Empirical response: How did the soviet economy grow 50 percent during the Great depression?
Theory based response: when you remove profit seeking workers are no longer alienated from their labor, as the harder they work the more it benefits them and their community and not some rich fuck.
If I’m working a job now, what incentive do I have to be as productive as possible? The potential for promotion? If I wanted to optimize my chances for that, I’d be more interested in learning to be a kissass than to improve my work.
Price/profit margin signal more than just greed. The market self corrects based on prices.
Price is a very low information density signal. It isnt actually rational to do economic planning (as all firms do in market economies) off of price, why do you think non-hostile corporate espionage is a thing?
Remember that growth is relative. GDP per capita in the mid 30s was still three times higher in countries like the states, UK, and Switzerland compared to the Soviet Union. This trend continued into the next decades. Pretty much all of Europe had a stronger economy. And there weren’t mass famines and rampant scarcity issues to the same extent in the west. Yes the Soviet economy did grow, but the libertarian argument is about efficiency.
And sure, price in isolation isn’t a super useful indicator. But many factors influence price (competition from profit seeking, availability of resources, etc). As for the latter part, companies do run market research, including non hostile espionage, to find what consumers want most. I personally don’t see where that would be irrational. It directly fills needs.
Remember that growth is relative. GDP per capita in the mid 30s was still three times higher in countries like the states, UK, and Switzerland compared to the Soviet Union. This trend continued into the next decades. Pretty much all of Europe had a stronger economy.
And how did that pan out for high GDP France? GDP per capita is a bad statistic to use. Two economists trading a random object and 20 dollars back and forth raises the GDP of a place by forty dollars per cycle
And there weren’t mass famines and rampant scarcity issues to the same extent in the west.
Thats because they exported their economic problems to the colonies. Look up how many people starved to death In British colonial India. Also the soviet union ended the previously periodic famines when their collectivization policy was fully implemented
Yes the Soviet economy did grow, but the libertarian argument is about efficiency.
What sort of efficiency? Because Marxists argue that capitalism is really good at making profit and really bad comparatively at efficiently improving human outcomes.
But many factors influence price (competition from profit seeking, availability of resources, etc).
That is literally why it has low information value.
Thats because they exported their economic problems to the colonies. Look up how many people starved to death In British colonial India.
Those were economic policies that had brutal real world effects, and the Opium Wars were absolutely shameful, especially because the British did it twice. Do non-capitalist systems also have any sort of incentive for colonialism and all the nasties that come with it, like slavery?
1 - Are you saying that France made poor economic plans because they were invaded by the Germans? It might be because they were being bombed and attacked during the deadliest and largest war in modern history. Devastating war tends to have devastating economic effects.
And trade is a good indicator of an economy. It turns out fair trade is massively beneficial to everyone. The study of the allocation of resources is what economics is all about. And I don’t think you’d say that poor countries had lower GDP because they didn’t have textbook economists trading 20s in the back rooms.
2 - The starvation you mention also correlates with India’s driest years on record for over a century in agricultural areas. These famines were later tamed by the import of western technology like railroads. And Britain still grew 3/4 of its own food, although decreasing, for much of this period.
I’m not calling the British innocent. They imposed taxes and tariffs that helped themselves, as they did with colonial America, and damaged the Raj economy as a result. They did not, however, “pillage” India, as some have oversimplified.
3 - What sort of human outcomes? The USSR had terrible housing, lower life expectancy than western countries, and had significantly worse technology, infrastructure, working conditions, and availability of goods and services. The USSR’s economy growing at all doesn’t equate to magic wonderland.
These are the human outcomes of states that detach people from their own interest (communism, socialism, fascism). It makes everyone equal at the cost of making everyone poor.
Libertarians argue that generally, free enterprise, and it’s efficiency by extention, leads to better human outcomes. And the data seems to back it.
Only by people who don’t understand that NTS is about moving goalposts when a generalization is challenged and think it means “anyone who claims to be part of a group is part of that group”.
I’ve had good experience using mkvtoolnix to mux video into an mkv with subtitles included. Not sure if mkv support is widespread, but as janky as the TV was with other formats, mkv worked great every time.
Installing MPC-HC during K-Lite Code pack as my primary media player has taken place of VLC for me this last year. I have been using VLC as with some Winamp-like no-viewport UI lately.
VLC works most of the time. That said some videos VLC can’t seem to decode correctly - I never get VLC complaining about unsupported file formats, but I do get weird artifacts and glitched rendering when I try to play certain ones.
It’s then that I usually try MPV or MPlayer. One of those will usually play the video correctly.
Mp4 and mkv are container formats. Your comment is somewhat equivalent to “where are you guys getting text files that can’t be displayed, I’ve only ever seen zip files”.
The codec in the container is what needs to be played, and can fail to render correctly.
Changed a lot of my apps to FOSS alternatives using NeoStore
Got a text-based launcher (Lunar Launcher)
Started contributing to community projects
Set up a JellyFin server
Probably some more but I forgot. My case fans are really loud though when I keep my pc on at night to keep running the JF server for my users. Perhaps I should have bought a P600S case with the dampening foam. Looking into buying a Pi 4 this year to run services on instead of my main rig.
Really am enjoying using FOSS software, even though it can be a little limiting in some ways. AAAAXY is a really fun game btw!
It shouldn't matter if they're a tech billionaire or a real estate billionaire or whatever else. Focusing on people in tech doesn't help with the class war; most people who work in tech are part of the 99%.
A slow diversion from Chrome. I used to use Chrome for 30% of my web browsing and games, but have switched that to Firefox and Vivaldi.
I almost completely stopped using Reddit, and instead, switched to Lemmy.
A big shift to majority of headphone usage being wireless, mostly due to the BT600ANC headphones I have with excellent noise cancelling.
A renewed push to seriously consider dailying Linux. Windows 11 was just Windows 10 but with some UI changes running at 0.3x the speed. But MS keeps making Windows worse, and I’m scared of Windows 12.
Considering Third Party Apps for existing software, whenever I could. Most recently, Steam has been super slow so I really wanted a third party launcher to bypass Steam. Same for EGS, except Heroic fulfills that duty, until it fails to work.
Due to YT being especially greedy this year, I’ve soured on it enough to sometimes adblock it, use it less, and most recently and hopefully most devastatingly for YT, purchasing a year of Nebula to watch many creators videos there (ad-free) instead of YT. As a creator myself, I empathize with creators of all sizes.
Oh, almost forgot. I stopped listening to the Linux podcasts I was previously listening to. I just find it more enjoyable to listen to music at the moment.
Wait, actually forgot these:
Purchased my friend’s old PC for cheap. He likes to be on the bleeding edge and I’m perfectly happy with a water cooled 3900X + 32GB RAM + 2.5TB storage + everything except GPU for $400.
And now the most unfortunate thing. My Facebook usage increased from basically zero to occasional use of the marketplace. It was how I found my GPU replacement for the PC, and my first motorcycle. I still adblock it hard whenever I can.
Wait, how can I forget this one!
Use of AI as a debugging tool has skyrocketed. I now default to ChatGPT before StackOverflow because on average it’s way faster with ChatGPT.
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