London-based writer. Often climbing.
I agree, that logic has been used to justify atrocities throughout history, including right now. It’s exactly what Israel says about Palestine, China about the Uyghurs, Trump about Mexican immigrants. And it’s completely antithetical to Star Trek’s values.
You found the one reviewer who liked it. I bet they like season 1 of TNG, too.
Temu. No idea what scam they’re running but I will never buy anything from them.
As other people have said, it was borrowed from the Italian fascists, who themselves got it from an 18th century painting showing a famous event from Roman history/legend. There’s no evidence that it was ever actually used in Ancient or Classical Rome.
Funny side story is that some Nazis and other German nationalists thought it wasn’t ‘German’ enough, so the leading Nazis felt they had to invent an older ‘Germanic’ tradition to justify its usage. So, it’s a fake German tradition that was in fact borrowed from the Italians, who got it from a fake Roman tradition that was actually made up by a French guy.
Yes, exactly. There are some things on this list where, if everyone opposed to fascism did one of them, we’d win tomorrow. Realistically, not everyone will, but it’s still the right thing to do, to prise every bit of power from their grasp.
There are lots of Fediverse alternatives to social media, including Lemmy (which I guess you know about?) and the ones people have mentioned here already (Mastodon, Pixelfed, Loops, PeerTube). The advantage of the Fediverse is that it can’t be co-opted by a single bad actor, in the way that Musk took over Twitter and made it into a Nazi bar.
I won’t say just vote, but you should do that, too, at every level!
Depending on how much time and money you have:
I’ve ordered these roughly by how effective I think they’re likely to be (this is of course just one guy’s opinion); you should pick the one(s) that are most attractive to you and best fit your current situation.
Fair warning, none of the above will instantly fix the problem and I grant that some of them probably seem pretty weak sauce in the face of fascism, but the more people do them, the weaker the fascists will get.
Didn’t realise they’re illegal here. Makes you feel a bit patriotic.
The media reporting of this has really demonstrated just how bad they are at covering economics.
The story behind it is nuts, too. Apparently Tim Berners-Lee (he who invented the Web) was at some kind of government reception and Gordon Brown asked him something like, ‘What could the government do to make better use of the web?’. Berners-Lee said, ‘Well, you could make all government data publicly available,’ expecting Brown to go, ‘Ha-ha, no,’ but he just went, ‘Yep, great idea’, and then did it.
This is partly because people, especially the people who make AI, conflate 'AI’s and 'LLM’s. The LLMs are basically dumb marketing gimmicks with, as far as I can tell, near-zero practical applications outside of getting people to talk about ‘AI’, however misleadingly. However, the actual AI tech has some potential applications. It’s a question of whether the trade-offs are worth it (and, as I said elsewhere, who will actually benefit, assuming it has any benefits).
The UK has an open data standard for government data (thanks to Gordon Brown!). I could be wrong, but I think they’ll use that (if not, they should!).
You’re right - boosting productivity in a way that lets the wealthy hoover up those gains is actually a glass half-full perspective! Also very possible it does nothing good at all (but also makes the rich richer).
Boosting productivity is a good idea. But we know that, since the 1970s, too much of the wealth that increased productivity brings has gone to the wealthiest. So, unless there’s a plan to change that, I have to assume this will just make the very rich even richer.
This guy is actually evil.
Yeah, we had a similar issue with plastic bags. Trouble is, when you ban one thing it creates a new demand, which isn’t always better.
You’re right we should produce less waste and we have been cutting plastic waste successfully, even under the Conservatives. Labour have already strengthened the existing single-use plastic bans brought in under the previous government. But while these things are coming into force, we still need to burn or bury some waste. Even if we ban all single use plastics, there will still be some waste that can’t be composted or recycled. So, what should we do with it?
Given that rubbish exists and has to be disposed of, incinerators are actually not a bad way to do it. The only alternative for many types of rubbish is landfill. So, really the question is: would you prefer a landfill near your home or an incinerator?
I don’t know, we already have open source 3D printers and they really haven’t brought about the industrial revolution some people hoped. Not quite the same as replicators, granted!