Federated communities that make decisions on consensus, with the fundamental rule that “those affected get to decide”.

There’s a lot more to it and there’s a lot to unpack in just the above paragraph, but if the only alternative you can imagine is a global military dictatorship then it’s hard to know where to even start explaining it to be quite honest.

With your username I’m not surprised you’re in cybersecurity lol.

And I never said all managers are bastards. I said that they act that way as a group.

Ultimately the incentive structure reinforces PMC workers who toe the company line. It could never be any other way in a capitalist framework. Yes, it’s possible for knowledge workers to operate outside capitalist organisations, but they are going to have a harder time with less money. The bulk of the work will always be done where the money is. You see this very clearly in FOSS circles - the work involves people who are either too tired from their 9 to 5 to put a lot of effort in, they’re the sort of person who can’t work in a capitalist org, or they’re paid by a capitalist org which will have certain demands on their work. The result is that FOSS tends to be rough around the edges which inherently reinforces the belief that only top-down capitalist structures can make polished software.

You’ll find knowledge workers in general are going to be hard to unionise. They are better compensated and privileged so they have more to lose, and they have to adopt the ideology of their bosses to some extent in order to reproduce it in their work. We’ve seen union action with actors and writers for a long time, and it seems to be bleeding over from them into the videogame space. I hope it will keep spilling over into other technical spaces, but I don’t think we can rely on that happening to fundamentally change the character of that class.

I thought I’d have to explain this part - the technical knowledge workers are also managerial, but in a more indirect way.

All three of the professions you listed make decisions about the function of the systems that workers use every day. They are responsible for taking the policy decisions that are made to serve the owning class, and giving those policies shape.

They literally design our environment, and as the Well There’s Your Problem podcast points out, engineering and other technical decisions are political. The preferences of the bosses are built into them.

I guess this is pretty unpopular though. I guess there are a lot of knowledge workers on this platform and they don’t like being compared to cops.

Caffene.

Sure, they are technically part of the working class, but they’re similar to cops. Cops aren’t the owning class, they take down a salary, but they’re also class traitors.

The middle class - aka professional managerial class - as a group fulfill a similar role of keeping the rest of the working class in line in exchange for certain privileges. They just use paychecks and memorandums rather than guns and laws.

Also like cops, they provide an ideological shield for capitalists. Cops are overtly the “thin blue line” between “order and chaos”. The middle class are a shield for aspirations. People are encouraged to identify as middle class so they think they have something to lose if they were to upset the status quo.

So it makes sense to identify this group, but too often it’s as a shield. Like the implication in this article that a housing crisis for the middle class is a huge problem, but who cares about the housing precarity that’s existed in the working class since its inception? Well one reason it would be a big problem for the ruling class is that they would lose their buffer. If it’s just lords and serfs and a sharp distinction between them, then overturning the whole thing is a lot easier to contemplate.

Sounds like the work of saboteurs.

Thanks, I don’t think it’s worded quite right though, because “in exchange for” implies the vote itself does something. The reality is that people are convinced to give away their power because they believe in the piece of paper.

The oiece of paper itself is almost worthless.

I only say that because I’m sure someone will want to split hairs over it.

People are indoctrinated to believe that because votes are involved the process is somehow magically subject to meaningful reform and input from the masses.

A process where people were meaningfully enfranchised wouldn’t need to rely on something so abstract as votes. Voting is a process by which people are convinced to trade in their actual power in exchange for a piece of paper.

How the fuck did you read that as anything but a joke? Like seriously, how? What did you think I was saying with that comment?

EDIT: And just to be clear, I am an anarchist and I think it’s absurd that any state has the hubris to tell anyone that they’re not allowed to die. FOH.

There is no ethical suicide under capitalism.

It’s a little jarring in a world of deep-fried memes.

No worries, Know Your Meme is still fairly reliable.

The Freedom Frank is War, Hallowiener is Death, Mtn Dew is Pestilence and Baja Blast is Famine.

I think this is how the smaller ones flourish - people look for alternatives.

Based on the space I would guess it just had “girlfriend” because that’s a pretty straightforward joke.

But I found it instead of guessing:

I love that opening this I can immediately tell that it’s not AI generated, and not just because everyone’s got reasonable proportions and numbers of parts, and the face can handle being split by that line while still retaining its structure.

It’s obvious because there’s composition, negative space that’s not crammed with prompt-maximising guff. There’s a focus, deliberate lines of action implying tension and intention. It’s five heroes with the eye at the centre of their motion, with a godlike being looming ominously over them. The eye is red which is reflected in the looming figure’s eyes, implying a connection between them.

I have no idea about the story here, I’ve never seen it before, but I can glean that much just from the design. This is what art is, it tells a story or expresses something. This is why it matters that someone made it on purpose.

I’ve told you how the concepts apply, if you found it confusing you could ask. You didn’t.

But you’ve admitted you’re not actually interested in my answers, you just want to accuse me of pulling things out of my arse:

I was simply establishing the fact that neither of us had them.

I don’t know why I’d bother with someone whose only point here is to tear down whatever I’m saying. You don’t even seem to have a position.

That’s not how that works. I told you the point I had a problem with and wanted sourced, and you admitted it was pure speculation.

If you are skeptical about anything specific I’m saying, you can ask for the same thing. You didn’t, you just said I hadn’t sourced anything, which wasn’t true, I gave you links so you could educate yourself, and since you’re still confused on what any of it means, apparently you didn’t do that. When I asked you what you wanted specifically sourced, you named everything, which is as pointless as naming nothing.

This is presumably because you don’t actually care about sources, you were just embarrassed that you had to admit it was pure speculation and you wanted to project that back at me.

If you’re actually curious to understand what I’m saying, you can ask a specific question, but you’re not doing that. If you’re just going to keep insisting that I’m pulling things out of my arse, you’re wrong, but I won’t keep replying.

(I know, you don’t believe my source)

That’s literally not what I said, I said something direct and specific, something you can read in the first paragraph of that source. I believed what they were saying and I repeated it to you. I read your source back to you and you misunderstood.

This is the problem - you clearly aren’t engaging in what’s being said. If you did so directly and specifically, then maybe you could get farther, but you dissolve things into nonspecific drivel, to the point it’s just either wrong or meaningless.

It’s like if I asked you, “What’s 2+2?” and you replied, “The nature of addition is involved in the very definition of numbers, which comes from set theory. Entire books have been written on this subject before we can even define the number 2 and I couldn’t possibly cover it all, it’s just so complicated.”

Like sure, maybe that’s all true, but motherfucker, what is 2+2? You go broad and vague and mysterious with things that sometimes have simple answers.

Maybe that’s why you feel it’s pointless having conversations online. I certainly don’t find that, but I try to stay focused on the points and deal with things directly, and when someone is wasting my time I tell them so and I disengage.

Again, you seemed responsive to what I was saying at first, but when you’re talking about the limits of the “speed of language” in response to a request for details, you are clearly looking for an out. I wouldn’t spend this much time talking about this with someone if I thought it was a waste of time. I’m making the effort to give you this feedback because you’ve shown the ability to be responsive and I don’t sense any ill-will. But if you find that “this always happens”, then maybe you need to take a good look at why, and what it is that you’re doing that might cause that.

Oh so you want sources for literally every tiny claim with no evidence that you’ve engaged at all, but you’re sticking with “pure speculation” for your claims and you’re fine with that? Just checking.