Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.
So buying a major newspaper and firing (or putting pressure on) anybody who doesn’t agree with the new owner’s “pillars” is not coercion? Did Bezos get this buff from the mental gymnastics?
PS: surprised nobody mentioned Manufacturing Consent yet, which describes exactly what is happening here, and remains valid in the age of Internet
Everyone should resign. Or strike. Striking would be better
Trash capitalist propaganda is becoming even worse? I’m shocked. Shocked!!! \s
It’s a good thing I stopped bothering with the Washington Post even before Bezos bought it. In fact pretty much every news organization that is owned by a singular entity is completely worthless nowadays.
The fascism is happening.
Took about a month
I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn’t “hell yes,” then it had to be “no.” After careful consideration, David decided to step away.
That is termination, not resignation.
Fucking scumbag.
Billionaire meddling turns a respected paper into a megaphone for personal agendas.
😼😼
The people who previously respected the WaPo are part of the problem.
Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.
this is a very interesting sentence to find in a post that outlines the ways in which the opinion page will be losing some of its editorial freedom.
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
In the grimdark future of the 2nd millennium, there is only way.
It’s also gotta be one of the worst sentences I’ve ever read, yikes. Maybe get an editor to look it over.
They did. They just looked at it and said “hell yes” while sweating profusely.
Hey, I like to think that sometimes I might feel the need to write remarkably similar sentences to the kinds that you, u/bearboiblake might have referenced in this particular editorial expression of human nature and sentiment in America, today.
-You know, badly,
Yeah two em dashes in a single sentence is too many, and that one’s got three
Jeff Bezos Announces Resignation
They had us in the first half, not gonna lie
Instead, he asked Freedom Of the Press to step down.
What position would Bezos resign from, out of curiosity?
Being alive, ideally
returning his to his form as alien scout for invasion.
what’s “stunning” about the statement?
All I saw was:
- Opinion Editor did not want to continue to be a meat puppet for this propaganda outlet
- Bezos accepted resignation
- Bezos to look for new meat puppet
I assumed the stunning part was this:
We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets. We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.
It’s just pretty blatant.
How is this any different from their prior propaganda? Just the overt declaration?
free markets
This one is especially hilarious in the Trump Tariffs era.
It’s possible you’ll read articles critical of those decisions written by the WSJ. They’re likely to be written in such a way as to not criticize Trump directly, but the message will likely be clear: government and taxes=bad.
Bezos accepted resignation
Bezos constructed resignation, which is legally termination, not resignation at all.
He’s basically making the exact same argument as Faux News did, 30 years or more after anyone reasonable realized that they were blatantly lying.
Y’all, stop buying shit from Amazon, completely. That’s where you start.
Bezos has money because we continue to give it to him. So, the first order of business is to simply stop spending money with him.
As in, forever.
Find an alternative vendor, or even schlep on down to a physical store if you need to.
“V0te with ur d0ll4rzzz!!!”
Do you actually think the next best option is actually good? There is no escape from capitalism.
I agree, but also they don’t make their money from sales. They make money from AWS servers/ services. I would bet that they lose money or maybe slightly break even on every sale of a physical item.
Yeah, the warehouses are quite badly run.
Edit; I’ve had a beer. In my experience of the one I’ve worked in.
Are any lemmy instances hosted on AWS?
Ugh, that really sucks. I didn’t realize AWS was their bread and butter now.
Even so.
This has actually always been the case. Iirc, AWS was the only profitable piece of Amazon for years. The retail and consumer services arms will never catch up.
Last time I looked at Amazon’s books, their retail arm was barely profitable. Most of their actual profits came from AWS.
Azure (MS) or GCP (Google) are the alternatives.
Or if you want to avoid Big Tech altogether, there’s DigitalOcean, Akamai, Linode, IBM, Cloudflare, and a handful of other point providers.
You have to be careful as some providers and PaaS use AWS under the hood.
For example Heroku is essentially a nice skin over AWS.
if you want to avoid Big Tech altogether, there’s … IBM
If I had been drinking anything when I read that it would have ended up all over my screen.
IBM used to be big. They still are, but they used to be too.
OIC, too.
Would love to see a really comprehensive list of sites that aren’t garbage AI slop scam alleyways that would help cover the goods and services that Amazon acts as a one-stop convenience for. I don’t want to support Amazon, but I also don’t want to get scammed by handing out my credit card info to any old shopping site.
Feel free to add more suggestions in your own replies.
I’ll start :
Electronics : B&H Photo - owned by religious folks so hours of operation are a little odd sometimes, but overall good customer service, fair prices, reliable shipping
Grocieries : Central Market - HEB’s high-tier store chain for high-quality groceries, instead of Whole Foods
Kitchen supplies : Webstaurant - Wholesale store for things like home kitchen goods and supplies, as well as things like flatware and dishes
This is only for software, and focused around tracking cookies (or lack thereof), but maybe it can expand to consumer goods: CookieSlayers
B&H photo isn’t just “owned by religious folks”. They staff everything above the warehouse exclusively with Hasidic Orthodox Jewish men.
Afaik they aren’t tied to supporting Zionism. They had some problems a decade ago with safety standards and union busting.
And their website won’t let you order anything on the Sabbath, which drives me insane. I’m not expecting anyone to be working on the weekend, but computers don’t need to take breaks!!
Afaik they aren’t tied to supporting Zionism. They had some problems a decade ago with safety standards and union busting.
Didn’t know that… :( - Open to hear other alternatives, but when NewEgg became much worse notably a few years back, and NCIX went under, B&H has been an online staple for my computer parts, camera, and general electronics needs… save for cables from Infinite Cables.
I do go to Micro Center in person due to being lucky enough to have one within a sensible distance, but that’s still quite a drive for me, and I know not everyone else has one nearby.
I want a non profit/open source store aggregator where we can search for what we want like Amazon but direct is to the site with the item we are looking for.
For software, I started his directory: CookieSlayers
Most of the software there is open source, but not all of it. Nevertheless, it’s about companies/services/products that operate a bit more ethically.
Ooh neat.
Isn’t proton mail run by shitheads though?
Like pcpartpicker, but for everything!
Thanks
Amazon is a server hosting company that happens to sell cheap junk.
All of lemmy shopping Prime is a drop in the oceans of the millions per month my company pays aws
We recently got rid of our subscriptions and canceled Prime. Wish we had done it much sooner, but better late than never.
Why would anybody pay for stuff that’s completely free to download?
Maybe they gotta pay for a VPN but that’s quite affordable and people should be doing that anyway.
For those on the fence on quitting Amazon: you can still use the website and shop, just search for the manufacturers website on stuff you want and purchase direct from them.
You know, like going to a book store and ordering the books you find there from Amazon.
Also even if something very specific that you want isn’t available outside of Amazon, that’s all the more reason to definitely not buy it and message the manufacturer/seller and let them know why you’re not buying it. Boycotts will sometimes mean not buying something you really want to buy, that’s working as designed.
Great suggestion!
Most decent manufacturers have their own website and fast shipping. I had to leave Amazon just for the fake and damaged merchandise alone.
Yeah, I am currently dealing with my last couple returns through them before I can properly cancel. I consider it punishment for not doing it earlier.
Ordered an ergo trackball, got sent the wrong model. Now since it’s through a third party seller my return documentation says I need to call the seller, on the god damned telephone, for a free return label rather than paying for postage myself. I haven’t even shipped the return yet and I have already been using one I bought direct from Logitech that was cheaper and arrived in 1-2 days with their free “4-7 day” shipping.
I am also awaiting my third copy of a monitor that comes with a no dead pixel guarantee. The number of dead pixels has been nonzero and increasing with each new monitor. This isn’t necessarily Amazon’s fault – it took 3 tries to get my old 50" Panasonic plasma without a dead pixel – but sending returns right back out the door is entirely likely too. I have bought and returned far more expensive things that absolutely looked like they were used (pro camera lenses for one).
I’ve already set up subscriptions with several manufacturers directly through their sites vs ordering through Amazon. Same or better prices, too.
We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.
Democracy dies in the free market.
“free” “market”
Who wants democracy, when we can have an anarcho-capitalist libertarian utopia?
anarcho-capitalist libertarian utopia?
I hate that edgelord libertarians are trying to rebrand themselves as “anarcho-capatalist”. Anarchy and capitalism are antithetical to one another. It doesn’t have anything to do with anarchy if you aren’t evaluating hierarchy, and capitalism is literally one of the most hierarchical organizational structures possible.
anarcho-capitalist
So, sociopath.
libertarian
That’s like a narcissist hat on top of a sociopath hat. It’s a hat on a hat.
Fun fact: Conservatism was literally invented by a monarchist in the aftermath of the French revolution trying to find a way for an aristocracy to exist within democracy.
I would like to read more about this shitstain, and why I should throw axes at a printed out image of his face. Name and source?
Except England wasn’t a democracy at the time, it was a heavily rigged parliamentary system with a limited franchise, and it could be overridden by the Lords. But yeah, conservatism represented the interests of the aristocrats, in opposition to Englightenment notions like equality, accountability, rule of law and meritocracy.
I at least was talking about Burke, whose most influential work was talking about the French revolution, not the English revolution(s). That one was, at least in the start, a proper democracy.
edgelord libertarians are trying to rebrand themselves as "anarcho-capatalist
Actually, American style " libertarianism" IS anarcho-capitalism. They’ve just been trying to keep that a secret until recently.
Anarchy and capitalism are antithetical to one another.
Yes, and no. Anarcho-capitalism is anarchic in the colloquial “no rules, no order” sense, whereas political anarchy very much isn’t.
The stupidity of the term is what makes it apt, though: the people politically illiterate enough to think that a total lack of regulations and worker’s rights would lead to anything resembling freedom also think that the colloquial definition of anarchy is the politically accurate one.
It’s anarchy for the hierarchies, not for the components of the hierarchies
At least guns and ammo will be plentiful because the market will soon demand more.
Ammoseek is pretty good for ammo. Just be careful around the low rated vendors
Thank you. What about good gun deals?
People voted for the leopards, you can’t say it’s not democracy.
I see this comment a lot, and I legit don’t think we did. I think it’s weird how Elon had this team of hackers ready to go for Doge. The weird, “they’ll never know what we did” comment out of his kid who seemed to be imitating Elon in the Tucker Carlson interview, and Trump’s odd vote counting computers comment has me seriously thinking they hacked it. I think they both had their backs against the wall. Trump with his criminal prosecution, and musk with the starlink investigation.
With Elon, let’s start at the smallest issue. Recently Musk has talked about how he’s like the greatest gamer ever and is ranked super high in a bunch of games. Turns out he’s just paying people to grind those games and boost his ranking. He’s so concerned about being on top that he’s willing to hire people to get a top the leader board and lie about how good he is to stroke his own ego. It’s a very small thing, but points to a larger pattern of behavior for Musk.
Now, onto the Ukraine thing. If anyone remembers, he wouldn’t let Ukraine use starlink for an attack because he was “worried it’d start a nuclear war.” Whether it would or wouldn’t was not up to him as the guy selling Internet satellites to the government. He had provided all the starlink kits to Ukraine during a war to help them, and the US was paying it. He was not supposed to be the arbiter of what they could/ couldn’t be used for. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were going to come after him for treason as he actively aided a (then) adversary through this action.
https://apnews.com/article/spacex-ukraine-starlink-russia-air-force-fde93d9a69d7dbd1326022ecfdbc53c2
Trump and Musk had to win, or they were fucked. The guy that worked for Doge happened to make a sketchy ballot counting app which you can read about below that could have been used to disqualify dem ballots.
https://bsky.app/profile/denisedwheeler.bsky.social/post/3lhowh3ijgs2f
Elon has always found ways around the rules. When his company needed money all of the sudden magically the value exploded. I think he was involved in squeezing the stock price up through the use of call options, and once that happened, they were able to raise money in the form of multiple stock sales. You can read this now 5 year old thread that proves itself time and time again. Do I have any proof Elon was behind this? No, but who has enough money to do something like this?
https://www.reddit.com/r/options/comments/hk7nqe/tesla_infinity_call_gamma_squeeze/
When the election came in 2024, Elon gave away (illegally I might add) $100 to anyone who registered Republican. There had to be something nefarious going on there too. I would not be surprised if they thought anyone who took them up on that was only doing it for the free money and wasn’t actually going to vote so they cast ballots in their names. Again, I have no proof, but if anyone would have the will to do something so shitty to win, it’d be him.
As for Trump, Jack Smith said they had enough evidence to convict Trump, and only couldn’t because of arbitrary sitting president rules. They have like a 99% conviction rate for a reason.
Trump and Musk are absolutely petty enough to bend / break rules and laws to get what they want, and are going to go all out to avoid prison. I strongly believe that this is not what we voted for, and we are going to be stuck with this the rest of our lives because what is happening cannot be undone, and they will cling to power as long as possible to avoid facing any consequences. They will break everything and fire anyone who was involved in any way shape or form in any of the investigations and will break the system beyond repair to ensure that they remain in power. Elections are still going to happen, but they will never be voted out.
That’s a very well written comment, and Elon and trump certainly have committed more crimes than we can count, but the polls before the election were all pointing to the same result, so trumps victory wasn’t a major upset. I don’t think they hacked the election, I think the people are that dumb.
A real democracy wouldn’t allow a fascist to even run for office. Advocating for fascism and authoritarianism in a republic isn’t a valid political stance. It’s sedition.
Well, if over 50% of votes agree, is it sedition? The American people wanted the treasonous, corrupt, criminal, draft dodger sexual predator as president. We might not like it, but it’s what the majority wanted.
*Plurality and it’s still sedition on the part of the leaders. If you advocate for authoritarianism in a republic then you are inherently advocating for overthrowing the republic. You are advocating for some people to have rights, while others don’t.
It doesn’t matter if a majority of voters want that, they don’t have the right to strip the minority of their right to representation.
All authoritarian ideologies are inherently incompatible with the concept of natural rights
Those who don’t vote make an explicit choice, so it is a majority.
And the fascist, dictatorial intentions were known from the beginning so kind of hard to argue with the result.
People voted to convert the republic to an empire.
In a more democratic system there wouldn’t be president Trump because there would be no presidents. So I disagree with the premise.
The presidency is fundamentally undemocratic, regardless of the quasi-performative democratic ritual by which he is selected.
Capitalism
There is no such thing as a free market.
Bezos can get fucked.
And not in the good way.
I propose a backwards pineapple
I wrote a haiku for this sort of thing!
Anal pineapples
Should be administered
Sideways foreverI’ve got a rusty pitchfork. Will that work?
Zuck’s taking care of that with Jeff’s wife
