Honestly it’s not that much worse than being forwarded off to India where someone’s getting paid $0.10 an hour to read off a flow chart to me. If your 24-hour service line doesn’t have an actual engineer available after the flow chart It’s not meaningfully different than the AI.
Yep. I hate having to phone support lines to be told to run basic troubleshooting like turning something off and on again when that’s the first thing that I’ll try.
Keep in mind that the service lines also deal with customers who can’t distinguish a CPU from a modem from a monitor. Hence the basic troubleshooting in the beginning.
I always start off by telling them “I know what I’m talking about, I work in IT, let’s skip the basics, I’ve tried it all already.” but they sometimes still don’t listen.
Years back, I bought an Asus workstation motherboard with IPMI, the stupid BMC would reliably crash every 12 hours rendering the IPMI absolutely useless since it would hang upon login. I emailed support and told them that the BMC sucked and asked if they had an internal build I could try… They directed me to the downloads page and told me to download the UEFI firmware 🤦♂️ It took about SIX back and forth emails over the course of a week or so to get them to understand that I was talking about the BMC and not motherboard itself. Their tier one and two support had ZERO clue what a BMC or IPMI was. After begging them to forward me to an engineer who actually knew what I was talking about, they agreed and that engineer sent me an updated build…which still crashes every 12 hours 🤦♂️. In the end my solution was to set a cron job (I run Linux) to execute every 11 hours that logged into the IPMI from the running OS and did a cold reset on the BMC. That worked like a charm as long as Linux was running.
I always start off by telling them “I know what I’m talking about, I work in IT, let’s skip the basics, I’ve tried it all already.” but they sometimes still don’t listen.
They don’t listen because, unfortunately, for every one person telling the truth, there’s probably at least three people who don’t have an iota of a clue about their system but lie about it because they think claiming they’re an expert is a cheat code to getting better support. Ruins it for the rest of us.
I also think it comes off as a bit snotty. Nobody’s perfect and asking through the basics is the tech covering themselves, too. And who says that your basics and their basics are identical?
I usually start by giving a detailed description of the problem and of what I already tried in particular.
Obviously it depends on the specific kind of support and the hotline I am calling, but if it’s a complex issue, and the support hotline is a national toll free number that’s clearly outsourced to whatever crummy T1 support call center, I don’t even bother with details. It just confuses them, and I know they have a script that management will fillet them over not following even if they know what to do. Just mash A through the script and save the effort for T2 and higher.
Who knows. Sometimes that T1 script catches things you missed. It’s designed to weed out the simple stuff, after all. When you directly leapt to more advanced troubleshooting, sometimes you leave an obvious step behind.
My time is just as important as theirs. I have a busted product that I paid good money for, but now, in order to get useful support I have to slog through the basics which is frustrating and useless since 99% of the time I’ve already tried everything that they’re suggesting.
I worked for Disney+ as a System Administrator and later an Engineer, we’d have servers die all the time (with thousands of servers, we’d easily have 10-20 support tickets open at a time) that would need to be replaced. We pay for top tier support and get stupid suggestions from them like “did you try and clear the CMOS?”, “Try and flash this new firmware” even though nothing changed hardware wise in years and it was working fine for years, “try this and send us logs”, etc… This type of shit costs businesses a lot of money in downtime. It’s a disservice to the customer to not support them at the level that they require. In the end the product would just end up being RMA’d after a week or two of back and forth.
If you went to a doctor for a problem and they suggested all the things you already tried, and then sent you home, would you be happy?
Since when is “let’s skip the basics” asshole vibes? It’s a waste of time for them and myself to cover all the basics, which I’ve already gone through.
“did you check the power cord?”, " did you reboot it?", “Is it actually on?”
Yes, I’m not tech illiterate. We don’t need 5 back and forth emails over the course of a few days to get down to something helpful. Give me the helpful stuff up front. Sometimes this stuff is time sensitive and these support people are costing companies a lot of money due to unnecessary downtime. I used to work for Disney+ and we had servers that died all the time, we’d email Dell or SuperMicro and tell them what the issue was, and then we would spend days or weeks of back and forth doing things we already tried, or things we know wouldn’t fix the issue before they finally decide “ok let’s replace it”. A few times their suggestions even bricked our servers and made the problem worse! We’d say that there was a CPU issue on a server that started crashing and the IPMI logs and Linux itself would point to a faulty CPU or RAM. They told us to flash a new EFI, we would do so, and great now the server doesn’t power on at all instead of just crashing occasionally.
So do I, but that becomes very difficult and frustrating when they have zero clue what you’re talking about, like in my above example of the IPMI and BMC. It sounds like you’re talking about the Dingle Arm and Reticulated Splines on your Rockford Retro Encabulator.
Yeah, I know they have to follow their script, so I just play along. And honestly, it’s not as if I’ve never made a stupid mistake before, like accidentally leaving something unplugged.
tbf, customers have a near-infinite number of different issues and problems. those 'flow charts' and scripts are designed to start at a baseline and work up from there and they start with the most common ones. you'd be paying more for whatever it is you're calling in about if they hired only fully-qualified persons that can 'think on their feet' without the flow charts and scripts wrt whatever issue it is you have, troubleshooting it, and coming up with the specific solution for you... a hell of a lot more. and yes, the first thing you should usually try with tech items is a power cycle. ::insert itcrowd-turnitoffandonagain.jpg::
No one is asking for a gaggle of full-time engineers.
The flowchart is designed to fix the vast majority of problems top down. If 90% of the problems are solved by rebooting you’re going to reboot. It doesn’t matter if the ONT shows your fiber line is not connected. Wow that sucks I understand and don’t have a problem with that. But most support these days can’t even connect you with an actual engineer once you break the flow chart.
You spend 30 minutes on the phone having them check off check boxes when they get down to the point where there’s actually a level two problem, there’s no one there to talk to you. Here let us take down your information and we’ll get back to you within the next 24 hours.
A couple of decades ago this really wasn’t a problem. Level 1 technicians would run their flowcharts if you broke out to a level two technician you wait on the line for 10 to 15 minutes and you’d end up with a level two technician, It almost always solve the problem if it was solvable. Honestly the products I call for support on haven’t really gone down in price with the lack of support provided these days. They used to be able to provide me multi-tier support live on the phone with just their existing margins. It’s the same thing screwing over pharmacies and retail. They found they can get by with giving less support and having less people work the lines so that’s what they’re doing.
“I recently had someone ask me to go get a computer and turn it on so I could restart it. He refused to move further in the script until I said I had done that.”
Generalizing entire groups of people usually isn’t recommended. I know boomers who would code circles around any of the kids who think that configuring wifi is the height of tech literacy.
Cool, tell those boomers to tell their boomer peers we are literally on a dying planet and they need to vote for politicians that want to stop the end of the world.
I understand it’s fun to blame boomers for climate change, but this was something that started before their generation existed and it will continue to be a problem after they’re gone. You can also blame them for inaction in addressing it, but given that the only real solution is an extreme degree of collective austerity across multiple civilizations, which is something innately at conflict with the expansionist nature of capitalism as an economic system (something which also predated boomers and which will continue to be a problem after they’re gone), then I would say that if you expect the problem to start being solved as soon as that generation is dead and buried, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.
We’re too late to prevent climate change. Our efforts should instead be going towards mitigating the damage that consumerism is doing to our environment.
At this point we need drastic geoengineering and carbon capture solutions.
Oh no! A statement which applies to the vast majority has some exceptions! Better break out the um-actually and technically-incorrect stamps.
As someone who has worked in IT, age has a strong negative correlation with tech literacy. Is every boomer tech illiterate? Of course not. Some boomers built the tech we use today. But most boomers are worse with tech than most ten year olds.
My generation will have tech illiteracy problems worse than the boomers. Yours will be even worse than mine. It’s because most people reach a point where they stop trying to keep up with everything and fall behind.
You’ll start to see it after you pass 40 or so. Then when you’re in your 60s it’ll be your generation’s turn to be mocked as the bumbling idiots who ruined the world.
Gen z doesn’t have to understand shit about tech. They’ve been given apps that work flawlessly since birth. The only people “forced” to understand tech were the late Xers/early millenials where you got some cool new program or hardware and it almost never worked out of the box so you’d have to troubleshoot the shit out of everything before you could even google for answers.
After that plug and play started to work better and after that we got apps.
Exactly this, our first computer came with msdos, if you didn’t wanted to type commands in a terminal, you couldn’t play games. If you didn’t wanted to learn how to setup your soundcard for every game, the game had no (or super crappy) sound.
It’s not about understanding tech at all. I work in a software development team and have a pretty deep understanding of how a lot of tech works. But I never owned an Apple device, so I can’t tell you basic shit about a how use iOS.
Gen X had to learn learn how a computer works at a pretty basic level just to be able to use one. I took basic computer skills and programming for the TI 994a in elementary school. Then another hardware/software class around 5th grade. It was pretty easy to troubleshoot anything hardware or software until the mid 2000s.
People do tend to become more (small c) conservative as they grow older for a multitude of reasons. It makes sense - you’ve spent years accomplishing various goals and establishing a place for yourself. You’ve got more to lose, so you resist change.
But what I’m talking about is the loss of novelty. You stop caring about every new fad, every new piece of tech, every new movement. Life loses the magical quality it holds for the young. You focus more on the things you think are important, while the rest becomes background noise.
You don’t really notice at first. Then one day you look up and everything is different. Young people are talking about stuff you’ve never heard of and doing things that seem silly and inconsequential. New ways of doing things become common, and you feel stupid because you haven’t learned them. Instead of being more knowledgeable over time, you find yourself having to relearn new ways of doing things you mastered years ago.
Some people try their hardest to keep up, even though it’s harder every year. Some people shrug and accept it, content to let the young find their own way. Some complain endlessly and try to fight against change, insisting that the way of life they’ve led is the only proper way to live.
This happens to almost everyone. There are a few who manage to hold on to that spark of curiosity and wonder into old age, but they’re few and far between. You probably aren’t one of them. I know I’m not.
Gen z is notoriously tech illiterate for anything but the bare minimum. The amount that have never touched a PC or anything other than an iPhone is incredibly disturbing.
Yeah nah, I’m sure every generation will cop flack for something, it’s just that since WW2, and the cold war, problems like plastic, lead paint etc let alone the environment weren’t really on the agenda. People just didn’t have a list of big bad world problems besides war.
On one hand I agree that technology is changing at a rapid pace, and ageism is a thing, especially more so now with climate change, but I think the issue is how quickly can the “wall of education” be broken down so that a critical mass of the human population can be enabled to learn how to calculate complex integrals, produce a computer software and program, to make a pipe bomb lol, or fix their car etc, you get my point.
Information freedom is becoming a big deal for people these days but at the same time individuals are no longer expected to be so rigidly self reliant. First it was paper, then books in libraries, nowadays we have the internet. YouTube, torrents and search engines definitely help a lot, but I haven’t seen a top ten problems for humanity video on YouTube yet lol. We’re almost coming full circle, however, I still think we should pay homage to the idea that being self reliant and learning how to do something for yourself is essentially a good thing, not necessarily only valuable to prevent loss of information but for further collaboration opportunities. It’s not necessarily Nazism to argue that if every person’s mind was a library, idiocracy and risk of displacement would become less likely to occur on every level. Think of Hal from A Space Odyssey
Your mechanic can fix his own car the same way your locksmith can unlock his own van, and your tech support guy will probably learn to fix his own computer. If you can do all of those things, even if you don’t become a valuable person in society, at least you’ll be better at taking care of yourself and less likely to be a burden to your group.
In saying that, if I was an old 60-70yr old man, I would consider re-educating myself in a field not so hot for the younglings, you know, the usual work like the trades, engineering, computing, and big data are big money for many young people these days, so it makes sense, if you’re older to get into something less physical like painting, gardening, landscaping, digger operator, software UI development, accounting, systems engineering, matchmaking, etc, something that is either boring or niche enough that many avoid it while simultaneously needing it. Remember boredom is the weakness of the younglings lol
And yet they will still have, compared to the average beyond their age group, significantly higher lead content in their blood.
I’d bet significant money that the ones who are able to fill technical and intellectual roles are the ones who were lucky enough to avoid the worst of the toxic air.
There’s a reason boomers are almost universally fucking dumb.
I vape so its not like I’m against it or anything but do you really trust that the coils are safe? Especially when all the pre-made coils are coming from China? I mean look at the baby formula fiasco from a few years ago or the lead paint in Children’s toys. Not trying to fear monger but it’s not far fetched at all that there could be safety concerns with a lot of vaping stuff.
That’s primarily because boomer politicians replaced effective literacy programs with programs that allow those with learning disabilities and other intellectual impairments to navigate the world. This means that many gen Z and younger millennials were robbed of quality education that enables self-directed study and critical analysis of text. Primarily so that connected education product companies could make a profit.
The two are inextricably linked. Deep computer literacy requires regular literacy as well as the ability to learn and analyze independently. Both of the latter, when dealing with computers, rely on the former. There’s a literacy crisis in the US with significant downstream impacts that’s largely been ignored because the cause is profitable.
I’m not sure that we’re on the same page or set of definitions. Of course not every skill depends on linguistic literacy.
Take skateboarding, for example. Yes, there could be some theory, potentially (I’m clearly not a skater) but much of the skill is in learning how to physically operate the board as an extension of one’s body. This is a “natural” sort of skill that meshes well with our evolved neurobiology (ie perception, motor function, physical coordination, etc.)
Now, let’s look at written language. It is NOT a “natural” sort of skill. It MUST be taught and learned with effort because our neurobiology has not evolved to account for the sorts of tasks involved. Writing is an abstract thing that requires abstract thinking to really understand - the word “lion” is not literally a lion, which is not a simple task to grasp for an untrained brain.
Next, computing. A computer and what it does is incredibly abstract. A bunch of pieces of specially-shaped stone, use an invisible force to represent presence and absence (the concept of “zero” is only in recorded use for the last 3800 years or so and ancient greeks didn’t even have a symbol for it). By performing ever more complex mathematics on these stones, we can create tools that people can use to perform abstract, and in some cases, physical work. And these interactions are nearly all performed based upon instructions that people write in text-based languages that don’t even match up with natural languages.
Even if not, technically illiterate people can actually read a button or menu item.
And this is part of the origin of the issue inflicted upon younger people. In the US, literacy programs were largely replaced by programs literally designed to help people that are illiterate take care of their basic needs in a society that depends on written language.
Another way of putting it is: An illiterate person can press a button on a touchscreen to order a hamburger, because either there is a symbol of a hamburger, or, they were taught to recognize the shape of the word “hamburger”. But, they might not actually know what the price actually means or, they may mistakenly order a plane ticket to Bamberg, Germany, because the words look alike. If they have a computer and an error dialog box pops up, will they know how to figure out how to fix it? Will they install “anti-virus” software that opens in a popup because it looks similar?
How about if they want to learn how to write a resume? How will they do that? What about figuring out how to write a mod for Minecraft? Or Enterprise software? These are all things that are dependent on linguistic literacy. Reduction in the general population’s literacy makes people easier marks for cons and significantly reduces their ability to learn new things as well as effectively operate computers for anything but games and scams.
ETA: I’m far from an expert and would really recommend looking into what LeVar Burton of Reading Rainbow and Star Trek fame is saying about this problem.
Damn, you know one guy who doesn’t fit the mold? Crazy to think there are outliers. Who would have thunk? I am absolutely flabbergasted. Shocking, to say the least.
I always find it funny: the internet is a lot softer and more inclusive than it ever used to be. Explicit sexism, racism, homophobia/transphobia, etc. are treated with zero tolerance most places. But straight up ageism? That’s the last truly accepted form of bigotry. Because getting pissed at a group of people who will be dead soon for not fixing all the world’s problems is easy when you’re young. When Gen Z gets to be 40 and there are no more Boomers but nothing is still being done to address the world’s myriad problems, I like to think there will be some self-reflection on the nature of the world in which they live and the innate difficulty of addressing complex problems driven by societal inertia. But we both know there won’t be and they’ll probably pivot to hating Gen X and Millennials. Or maybe they’ll go the other direction and blame young people.
Misandry seems to fly pretty often on the internet too.
Most specifically towards CIS white men. Even though I’m not that specific subset, I feel bad for them. Racism, bigotry and etc are tolerated when it’s directed at them and they can’t even defend themselves. Anytime they try to, they get met with whataboutism. Most of them are just flipping burgers. Just very tiny portion of CIS white men are iconic powerful people.
I can answer your question: When the Boomers are gone the Millenials will be called “Boomers” and blamed instead.
I dropped into a European Discord server a while back and got called a Boomer when I mentioned my age (40). I’m a Millennial. Apparently the server was full of 16-19yr old kids so I wasn’t made to feel very welcome. Not been back since.
But Millenials will most likely take the hit when Boomers are gone except the term “Boomer” is now just a generic insult against people in middle age+.
Gen X is the new Silent Generation because everyone forgot they even fucking existed. I remember when you guys were supposed to burn down cities and bring about full anarchy in the United States because you enjoyed grunge music and flannel. Turns out all of you were just chewed up and spit out by capitalism like the rest of us.
Seems likely. I’ve seen plenty of people say “Oh, this old-ass Boomer thinks [whatever shitty opinion here].” And this is in direct reference to people in their late forties/early fifties. And if you correct them and say “that person is Gen X - they’re the child of Baby Boomers,” they’ll pivot to “well, Boomer is a mindset, not age group.” But it does seem more likely to be an insult for old people or people who appear to be out of touch in some capacity.
Yeah, people who grew up with boomers as parents, teachers, bosses, weird aunts, etc. Find the ultra- reductiveness to be very silly. The labeling of the entire post war generation as incompetent neocons has never fit well except in the minds of people whose only knowledge of history comes from tiktok. Where do they think their anti- establishment ideas came from? Do they think the hippies and civil rights activists were millennials or something?
Most people of any generation don’t know anything about Computers besides the most basic things. Too many people asked me to burn CDs for them because it was too difficult, I was like 11yo when people asked me…
At least I’ve made some observation about the world and expressed it in a creative way (using an established template). That’s five times as much creative effort than AI image posters.
I wont question the creative value of your meme but it would be a misconception to assume its more effort then an ai image just because its an ai image.
Shitposts exists, both with ai an without Thoughtfull artistic expression exists, both with ai and without.
I understand the misconception, you could most certainly enter some vague crap and get a popping result and as long as it gets upvote it will be common.
When I personally make ai art i spend hours on end just tweaking the parameters and prompt to get them to stay in context of my idea. Then let it run a few hours. Analyse those output to “harvest” seeds, then use those seeds and varying amount of tools (including photoshop with drawing tablet) to in a few iterations generate a final image or set.
I wouldn’t compare it to painting or drawing, (most i do with tablet is draw guidelines) but its absolutely a creative process. Like all art, value depends more on the person then the tools used.
I don’t want to claim that creating the right image is no effort.
I want to focus on the creative part of the process where the message is expressed. Internet memes are almost by definition low effort to create, since anyone can use a meme-generator or use an image creation tool to use a well established template. That means you can focus on the message/observation that the image should convey.
I can’t paint that well, but I can make jokes about observations I make. That is what I consider to be the creative process that matters in meme communities, since the actual images are ripped from stock images or pop culture.
AI art makes it possible to create images that most people wouldn’t be able to create by hand (or more traditional image creation software). But that part isn’t really important in meme communities, where the form is less important that the message.
It’s kind of the problem with AIs in a nutshell: All form, no context or meaning.
Thats a fair point. “Ai art” might be a meme but ai art on itself a meme does not make!
It makes sense its posted so much because of the low barrier for entry to make something looks good in a glance. Its excellent for generating fake internet points. But a meme is much more like that, its an evolution of fluid speech and expressive communication.
That making memes is easy isn’t important towards its value but mandatory of we don’t want to go back to the times where written language was exclusive to the upper classes.
Lemmy has in many ways an anti-ai bias against the shortcomings of last years demos, For space supposedly with so many tech oriented progressives that annoys me quite a bit, but i fully agree with you on your stance.
Ai art could be a meme if made into one, but if its not then it should not be in a place for memes.
I’m glad that you get my point. Yet, I don’t want to be too gatekeep-y with the status of a “meme” (I really like the original concept, since it is a very useful… meme).
I really want to focus on the message to be brought across. And in most AI generated images I perceive a very lazy thought process behind the idea.
Making an observation like this about the world takes as much effort as thinking of the next tragedy you could turn into an AI Pixar photo, as in, none whatsoever. Hell it will probably get harder as more ai images are created, the hardest part of this post was you thinking of Custer’s Revenge as a tragedy that hasn’t been done.
Your observation was an emotional reaction probably spurred by comments posted by other people. Honestly far far less interesting than an AI image of Custer’s revenge. And by the way, id like to see you make an effort to create that AI image of Clusters revenge at the same quality I’ve seen other AI images. I can almost guarantee you it will take you more effort than it took to create this.
And by the way, id like to see you make an effort to create that AI image of Clusters revenge at the same quality I’ve seen other AI images. I can almost guarantee you it will take you more effort than it took to create this.
Yeah, typing sounds like a lot more effort than typing.
Precisely my point. The only point where effort comes in is knowing how to manipulate the prompt to get a good looking image and knowing which program will get you the best result.
If your exposure of ai generated images is exclusively tech demos like the one on bing sure thats what happening.
Its not what’s happening in the art space though, i propose you a challenge to proof the effort.
Install automatic1111 with stable diffusions. (one of the few actual proper ai generating tools, most sites/appa that promise ai generated art use a dumb version of this tool under the hood.
Use it to Create a poster for a classic video game in the style of modern animation without any visible Disney/pixar logos.
Good luck, most people give up before they Get their first proper output.
It’s funny that you focus so much on the Custer’s Revenge part, since that literally took the least effort.
I agree that using the meme wasn’t too much of an effort. But I consider the creative process I had to be:
Make an observation that the AI Image ideas are lazy.
Think of an appropriate meme format that fits my opinion on the matter.
Create the meme without a watermark (that’s more technical than creative)
Think of an atrocity that’s not too much in bad taste (I don’t want to make fun of the Armenian genocide). That’s literally the last few seconds before I posted.
That’s it. Making the observation and finding an established term to express that in the context of a specific community is IMHO way more creative than being the n-th person to think “wouldn’t it be fucked up if Disney made this?”
Pro tip: The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a non-profit which has been defending your right to privacy for many years. If you shop on Amazon, you can give a portion of the purchase price to EFF. You pay the same amount and daddy bezos gets a few less dollars. Use the affiliate link, not the smile link as smile has been sunsetted: www.eff.org/node/58741
If I’m on Amazon it’s for something that I need and can’t get locally. There are no saving to donate. I’ll probably have to spend a lot more, drive multiple hours, or both if I don’t shop on Amazon. That’s the only reason I ever use it.
I'm glad someone said this here. It feels vile, being forced to do business with these corporations, but I end up getting bulk couscous (which has been scarce even in single bags or boxes in my rural, deep south community) for my autistic stepson who has very specific dietary needs. I can get very specialized disability equipment there, and it's delivered in two days (which is already two days longer than we can afford to wait, sometimes, but we make do.)
Yes, obviously, be ethical everywhere you can, as often as you can, but a blanket "dOnT dO bUsInEsS wItH eViL" is useless, whereas minimizing harm like with tips for links like this one is very helpful.
It's so insanely privileged. Reminds me of the same keyboard warriors who like to "raise awareness" by pouring ice water on themselves and then doing nothing else, feeling smug they did "something" when their only involvement with our causes is posting smug one-liners on the internet, or, of they're feeling particularly "helpful," changing their profile picture to reflect someone else's cause.
Hi. Autistic adult here. I‘m sorry you have to go through this and get triggered by these things. I can relate.
I think these „don’t do business with evil“ peeps are trying to make do as well as they’re watching the vast ignorant majority embrace consumerism and are panicking how to save our planet and our minds. I know its futile but I don’t think the majority wants to feel smug.
I learned something that helped me out a great deal since 2020: don’t assume malice if you can assume incompetence. (And for us autistic people: if you can assume incompetence, be kind and don’t repeat the ableism you were met with).
Just trying to spread some kindness. I hope it helps. Thank you for working so hard for your kid.
I appreciate your answer! I would like to offer a counterpoint; at what point does a person become responsible for their own ignorance? And how often is ignorance, whether intentional or otherwise, the direct cause of malice, or malicious behavior?
In the slim chance a person here sees what they said, and does not know that Amazon is "evil," merely saying not to work with an evil corporation is not educational, and therefore serves no purpose.
Since there was no effort to education, we can assume within a reasonable amount of doubt that they are speaking to those who are already educated. And if that's the case, then all they offer to the conversation is, at it's heart, self-satisfaction. Anyone aware that Amazon is evil who chooses to continue to use their services has either come to the conclusion that they have no choice, or simply doesn't care.
They add nothing to the conversation, and in fact, might reduce engagement with the premise (use this affiliate link to reduce the harm of doing business with Amazon).
I agree with your statement, that we should treat all actions with reasonable doubt. Offer that before assuming malicious intent. Which is absolutely true! I don't believe the commenter intentionally thought, "I'm going to shut down this conversation while also virtue signalling." But the effect is the same for the purpose of conversation. It adds nothing of value and may even discourage discourse. It is equally as useless, to me, as pretending to champion a cause from a screen, patting themself on the back for their wise ways, and doing nothing. It provides the illusion of helping, while adding nothing. And that's a dangerous thing.
I would correct my statement in the presence of anything at all to "add" to the discourse. Explaining why using Amazon would be unwise if it can be avoided. They did not make that effort. I stand by my previous comment. But I want to thank you for taking the time to engage me, and I really hope you continue to try showing other people the value of giving people the benefit of the doubt! It's so important, and does so much kindness in society.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and the people who focus on policing where others shop (or what others eat), instead of fighting the system that enables and encourages these corporations to exist and operate in the horrific way they do, are literally doing nothing to tackle the problem itself and are 100% doing it for their own dopamine hit and feelings of superiority (E: this is of course encouraged in capitalist society by those it serves via their media to divert attention away from them).
I'm also autistic as well as housebound, so I literally have no choice but to buy everything online, and while I try my best, there's almost no avoiding amazon, since even small businesses now sell through them exclusively. It's so frustrating how rarely the classism and ableism in those kinds of comments is discussed.
Never mind that it isn't even their retail business that makes them the bulk of their money, but AWS, but point that out to the person telling people not to shop there, and that it means that they almost certainly provide amazon income passively every time they use the internet, and watch the most incredible mental gymnastics display you'll see in a while. 🤦♀️
@DessertStorms
The world is much interconnected, and unknowingly we use the services of many that we don't agree with. Doesn't mean we shouldn't use, we absolutely should because that is what progress and technological evolution are.
Using some certain technology or service doesn't mean we agree with their leadership or policies
Using some certain technology or service doesn't mean we agree with their leadership or policies
Absolutely.
Especially in a world they've manufactured specifically to leave us no choice, from food, and hygiene (and cosmetics, which like fashion are entirely manufactured for profit and perpetuated by the media.) to energy, and so on and so on. Wherever we spend, it almost certainly ends up in the hands of one of a few hundred people, that have created an illusion of choice.
I don’t think it’s saying to stop using the Internet, just that if you’re talking to someone preaching to avoid Amazon retail purchases to avoid giving them money with the goal of bringing down the company, pointing out the fact that only avoiding retail but still using websites that are hosted on AWS is hypocritical. It’s hypocritical because they will then start making excuses about why they won’t stop using those websites, which shows that they only care about “fighting” the evil of capitalism when it’s convenient (or only mildly inconvenient) for them.
Counterpoint: Perhaps “Don’t buy from evil” is just a catchy way to share a sentiment and you’re taking it too literally/to an unintended extreme to be riled up as hard as you are about it? I see no intent from those comments in line with “fuck you if you give Bezos money” as you imply.
For example: Sonic’s “GOTTA GO FAST,” but in reality, he IS capable of standing around. “Gotta go fast” doesn’t mean his circulatory system shuts down if he doesn’t, it’s just a short catchy way to share an aspect of himself. In that vein, nobody’s kicking your door down if you get the specialized thing you need from Amazon, just saying that it can be beneficial to shop in other ways when possible.
I thought about it a couple of years ago, and even started gathering information and talking to people from the field, as well as consulting lawyers. I ended giving up on the idea because of too much complications.
“[Amazon makes] every merchant that sells through their platform sign a “most favored nation” guarantee that they will not charge less for their products anywhere else – which means that the price is the same everywhere.
And that’s the heart of the California antitrust case against Amazon: Amazon’s market dominance makes it impossible to survive without offering your products on Amazon; to succeed there, you must turn over 35-45% of your gross to Amazon. That leads to higher prices on Amazon, and, thanks to the most favored nation deal, it pushes those same higher prices to every other retailer.”
So basically the price on their website is what the company would charge you if they would want to be a sustainable business (or they’re trying to recoup their losses from selling on Amazon).
They did the same with Obama. Blamed him for an economy that he inherited from Bush. Then when Trump came around he boasted about how great the economy was… you know, the one he inherited from Obama.
That’s why it annoys me any time someone suggests friendship and/or centrism with conservatives. They literally don’t care about the truth, even what words mean. There is no “reasonable” discussion to be had; half of their opinions are literally because of belief in the supernatural, and the other half is Dunning-Kruger economics.
“But studies show the best way to deprogram them is to talk to them” the worst people you interact with regularly online say, ignoring that the studies are talking about in person interactions and that we can’t all be deprogramming all the time. Some of us would just like to exist from time to time.
I’m curious about these studies. Were they looking at which way works best given a single person and infinite time, or which way works best given finite time and a large group? Was it specific to American conservatives?
Because if they don’t care what words mean, then I think the better approach is to attack their social status as a group. Shine a light on what they are, make them embarrassed. Let them lose friends. “You can’t reason someone out of a belief they weren’t reasoned into.”
It’s quite the opposite in many cases. Their voters have no clue about what is going on in most cases. The only thing they know is what they hear from their politicians on their “news” channels or from memes on Facebook.
Their voters have absolutely no idea its bullshit. They literally have no idea what’s going on. If you watch the right wing propaganda for even a day, not a single piece of real information will be presented. It’s just garbage.
Exact same thing this time around. Covid happened, Trump bumbled it and also Congress gave away 950 billion mainly to people who didn't need it, Fed lowered interest rates to zero... so Biden inherited rampant inflation and massive home price increases, and according to Conservatives, it's the 'Biden economy'. Of course they can never name anything they think Biden did to cause it.
Not hexbear but aren’t you Norwegians an oppressive oil state? You guys were bombing brown people for fun a couple of years back. Isn’t Stoltenburg one of your guys? He just admitted to intentionally provoking the Russian invasion.
Say hi when you meet our little black sparrow-sized drones. All you have to do to earn a visit is mention how we fucked over the Sami, we really don’t like those things. Oh, and don’t insult Jern-Erna if she gets back in power, she’ll divebomb you and leave nothing but a crater. Say what you will about Støre, he’s a soggy twig.
Not a commie, but didn’t the Norwegian people nationalize the oil production, leasing it out to companies while keeping a huge share of the profit for the welfare of common Norwegians?
My understanding is that, in a sense, that is exactly what seizing the means of production is about.
Controlling the natural resources a country and leasing it out it private companies is pretty standard practice in most non corrupt countries. Norway probably differs in that they capture more of the economic rent in part due to a more efficient tax and a share of public ownership.
Nope. The people making these policies laid the plans for nationalizing the natural resources of Norway while in German concentration camps, where they were sent precisely because they were socialists. They are the primary reason, along with the discovery of oil and gas, for Norway being one of the richest countries on earth per capita. That the extraction of natural resources is under democratic control and under a somewhat high taxation scheme is not evidence of a fascist state-corp merger, but something that should be the default in all countries around the world to combat imperialist capital interests (except that the taxes should be even higher).
Sure! There are multiple claims in my comments, but one can get the gist by reading about the first prime minister of Norway after World War II, Einar Gerhardsen. To back up this new claim I cite the same Wikipedia article linked above:
Many Norwegians often refer to him as “Landsfaderen” (Father of the Nation); he is generally considered one of the main architects of the post-war rebuilding of Norway after World War II.
A better source might be SNL (which stands for the Great Norwegian Encyclopedia and is owned mostly by different Norwegian universities) though this source is in Norwegian only, but should be fine to auto-translate if needed.
The idea of public ownership over natural resources is something that has been a big part of Norwegian identity, and this idea is also manifested in other laws such as the Freedom to roam law, which essentially states that it is
(…) the general public’s right to access certain public or privately owned land, lakes, and rivers for recreation and exercise.
Though I would argue much of this identity has been lost in the last 50 years, I am also proud of some of the accomplishments of Norwegian social democracy and think it shows that the idea that “class collaboration is betrayal of socialist values” is wrong. At the same time it is important to admit that there have been problematic parts throughout its development, such as the treatment of the Sámi people and other minorities and the illegal surveillance of suspected communist sympathizers, to name a few.
Bruh, we have oppressed people in Norway. Did you forget that our own supreme court ruled that some of our wind mills at Fosen are in violation of UN law of civil and political rights (source in Norwegian). That was two years ago and they are still standing, which is especially bad due to the historical repression and attempts at ethnic cleansing of Sámi people in Norway, that was going on for a disturbingly long time. Now, as a quick caveat I will add that on a global scale we are doing pretty alright. However, that you are fortunate and well, for which I am glad, does not mean that the sentiment of the meme is wrong. Since the 70s much of the good systems we built have been demolished by laissez-faire politics and politicians, like your beloved “Jern-Erna”, lowering corporate taxes and allowing for privatization of public services (our railway system, healthcare and so on). I also don’t think many people from Hexbear are deluded enough to believe in imminent revolution in Russia nor conflating the Russian government with the Communist Party of China (though I might suspect you do), making your comment either worthless or in bad faith (we both know it is both). Either way, I support seizing the means of production and voted for my convictions today. Even though I believe I probably fundamentally disagree with you, I hope you did too. Leave the “all communists are tankie fascists” idea at home please. It only makes you look ignorant and a bad representative for our nice little country.
norway isn’t socialist, but a social democracy where they move all the unethical labour somewhere else. it’s miles better than neoliberalism, but it’s still capitalist
Best solution for Norway is to continue exporting undesirable labor like they’ve been doing, until the oil runs out, out demand dries up. Not sure what you’ll do then but you won’t be alone anyway.
It’s not best for everyone, by any means. But it’s best for Norway.
This is what infuriates me about these reports and talking heads. Who cares how many jobs were added if wages remain low, or better paying roles are replaced by lower wages and no benefits, or workers are losing job security, or their stifled wages afford less?
I agree. Fascist countries like Denmark, Germany and Canada often get called “socialist” and they have been disastrous for the reputation of socialism.
I might have confused who was arguing which position. To be clear if you said there wasn’t a genocide against first nation people in America and Canada that would be genocide denial
Of course /s. Germany, with Fuhrer Schultz, Denmark with Grand Admiral Frederiksen (I had to look it up lmao), and Canada with Supreme Commander Trudeau. All of them are actively involved in passing legislation against socialists and Muslims. All of them are involved in gathering Muslims into re-education camps. When socialists protested their respective governments for starting to become capitalist, they were run over by tanks. Also, all of these governments prevent their citizens from accessing the internet outside their own countries. Agreed! Very fascist indeed!
Dayum… That’s shameful for Denmark. As for the German far right, polls tell many different stories. The German government is still very democratic. What about Canada? You also accused them of fascism.
To be fair, I would agree that the German government is the most decent in Western Europe. But the far right and anti-refugee sentiment in Germany has risen dramatically, and it wasn’t that great to begin with.
But just to add a few more examples, you have places like Italy, Spain (the current government is still a direct descendant of Franco’s fascist monarchy) and France (see latest laws against Muslims and Arabs, and just the rising hatred in general).
The point is, Western Europe is always painted as this morally superior place, when it is very much not. People are quick to shit talk third world countries as if we’re the only ones dealing with fascistic governments. At least we acknowledge it. So many Europeans do not.
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