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For my city, just for a very specific example, it takes less than one afternoon and 80 bucks total (no fees and almost no capital fund requirements) to open a corporation. It takes weeks if not months to open a coop and it costs 2500 bucks PER member.
I don’t know the specifics of all cities and states everywhere in the world. But the system is built to benefit private corporations much more, as it’s a capitalist system where owning capital equals power, and workers are a commodity.
Like the literal law. In most places it’s a much more involved and expensive process to even open a coop compared to a traditional private company. It takes more paperwork, more fees, more capital funds etc. Also, getting investors in (when they can’t own the coop, as they are not workers) or even loans from private or state banks/institutions is much harder. There are several programs incentivising people to open private companies, giving them tax credits, making the application and approval process easier, giving access to funds and education etc. How many there are for coops? In most places around the world there are 0. In what ways does it appear the opposite to you…? Like this all seems very self-evident to me.
The system literally disincentives and makes coops less competitive.
Opening a coop is harder, more expensive, have less subsidies or tax benefits, less opportunities for investments/loans etc.
And all of this makes running coops more expensive, thus less competitive, thus the ones that do manage to open either can’t grow or die.
I don’t think you understood me. What I mean is “which product do I consume under capitalism” is a useless question. No consumption under capitalism will lead to a better world. Buying from fairphone or apple will make 0 difference to what actually matters.
Revolution is not a state of consumption. And surviving under capitalism won’t make revolution less likely either. So it’s a false dichotomy. Buying apple instead of fairphone won’t make a revolution less likely.
You are very naive if you think fairphone is trying to “do good”. They are, like every single corporation under capitalism, trying to make a profit. They found a niche and are carving their market share within it. If they could, they would become Apple. If you don’t think so, again, you’re being naive.
It doesn’t matter if they are “bad” or not bro. The issue is the system. And it’s not a matter of morality. I don’t give a fuck if it’s “evil” or “good”. Even in a perfect capitalist world where all companies were “fair”something, we would still be destroying the planet with climate change and exploiting the labour of people in the third-world.
And who cares about “perfect”? I only care about meaningful change that helps not destroy the planet. Buying a fairphone is not it.
The only thing that will help is a fucking revolution. So the BEST thing any of us can do is to radicalise those around us and organize.
I don’t even know where to begin with all this… It’s like insane and ameribrained in a way I haven’t seen in a while…
Our current systems of law and government are an intrinsic part of capitalism. The modern state, with the separation of powers, representative democracy etc. literally was born, as in was created, by the bourgeoisie after their capitalist revolutions that overthrew the monarchies in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Capitalism can’t “hijack” the state or whatever. The state is an intrinsic tool of the capitalist system and of the capitalist class to be able to enforce capitalism in the first place.
Then, outside of the US, literally no one would ever say Sweden is socialist. That is completely absurd. Sweden is a capitalist country with a welfare state. Remember that the state is just a tool of the bourgeoisie to maintain control and enforce capitalism. A welfare state is just an idea of using the state to “ameliorate” (or some would say bribe) the working class in the capitalist core to support imperialism abroad and the exploitation of peoples in the global south.
Public healthcare and social security are not socialist or capitalist. But they usually exist in capitalist systems.
What I meant by socialism is China, the former USSR, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and the DPRK.
Socialism is when the means of production are collectively owned by the workers. Production is slowly directed towards use-value, eliminating commodity production.
Capitalism is when the means of production are privately owned by individuals and corporations. Production is directed towards trade-value, turning everything into a commodity.
I won’t go on because you wrote a huge wall of crazy bullshit. I just wanted to try to provide some clarity on the beginning of it at least.
Ideology. The reason why people keep thinking the issue is “individuals”, or “croneyism”, or that small moral based reforms will fix things… it’s ideology.
People don’t look at reality in a materialistic way. They have ideas of how things should be and shape reality to fit that. If it doesn’t, the issue is reality and not the idea. So the fix is to “change reality” (through only propaganda, media and more ideology, reframing etc.) so it looks more like your idea.
It’s not the “fault” of amoral individuals, no. This is simply the system working as intended. A system where capital translates to political power will inevitably lead to capital accumulation. Corporations are only for generating more capital and more profits to their owners. Profits they can turn into more capital elsewhere.
It’s silly to expect a “good” version of this where the people at the top… don’t put their interests first? Like why would they ever do that? If someone at the top doesn’t fight for profit like a shark, they will lose their spot and risk becoming a worker, or dooming their family and future generations to become workers.
These people are just doing what’s best for them. And everybody around says “hey! that’s bad, you should put aside your self interest for our self interest!”.
Bro the problem is THE SYSTEM. As long as we have this system, we will always have the same people in power, the same problems, and the planet will die in 50 years. You can fight reality all you want, but that’s where we’re at.
Double genocide is a literal Nazi talking point created, ironically enough, a Canadian Nazi.
The Ukrainian famine wasn’t intentional (many parts of Europe and even other parts of the USSR suffered equal if not greater famines). This is agreed upon by any serious historian who studied the USSR after its dissolution and the archives were opened.
The Waffen SS and other Ukrainian fascists organisations literally carried out pogroms agains Jews, Roma and Polish people. So your comparison is really disgusting to be honest. The USSR and the Ukrainian Red Army liberated many minorities across Easter Europe from fascists and Nazis.
It’s absolutely a historical fact that the USSR and the Red Armies were the most directly responsible for the Nazi defeat in WW2, the liberation of Jews, Roma and other minorities. And honestly, saving the fucking world.
You can hate Stalin, but it’s just undeniable he was absolutely instrumental in defeating Hitler.
If you resent the role of the USSR during WW2, and “see why someone would join the Waffen SS to fight the Russian invaders”, all that tells me is that you are a fucking Nazi.
I think to assume what you assume is also incorrect given current data.
And that’s my entire point…. What is it doing? How what it’s doing is different from a mind or intelligence?
Like our brains and minds evolved to “fill in the blank”. For many situations, due to survival and millions of years of selection. So what is the actual difference?
I’m not saying it’s “conscious”, but why is it not a mind?
That ignores all the papers on emergent features of LLMs and the fact they are basically black boxes. Yes, we “trained” them to write what we want to hear. But we don’t really understand what happens inside of it. We can’t categorically claim things like “they are only regurgitating what they heard”. Because that is not a scientific or even philosophical statement.
If you think about it for a second, it’s also applicable to human beings…
I love Dragon Age: Origins. One of the best “modern” RPGs for sure. Great replayability. Great characters. Great “rpgness”.
I also love Dragon Age 2. It’s not a great game… but I actually like the story more. I like how more “focused” it feels narrative-wise. The characters are also great. The “rpgness” is less good… and development issues makes for a lot of reused assets.
I kinda like Dragon Age: Inquisition. I’ve been replaying it recently. The story is decent. The characters are also good. Maybe even better tbh. I like the main plot points and the ideas etc. But the game mechanics kinda suck… I hate the pointless missions that take time like mobile games. The way the story progresses, with meta-points blocking things also sucks. But it’s ok…
All in all, I would recommend playing them all. But kinda like watching all the Godfather movies. One is great, another is pretty good, and one kinda sucks but it’s ok. But if you just watch the one that’s great, you kinda miss the whole thing.
Honestly the let’s plays will be epic tho. Pure chaos.