this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
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At least you could buy food with company script. Tech bros have really invented company script, but worse.
This is exactly how the banana massacre in Colombia took place 100 years ago. Workers were being paid in United Fruit Company bonds, which caused revolts and protests, the US government threatened to invade to protect the company's interests, so the Colombian government deployed the army to suppress the protests and murdered thousands of farmers.
This still shapes Colombian politics to this day, has appeared in A Hundred Years of Solitude, and has absolutely helped power the leftist movements in the country since. The parliament and president have constantly referenced this instance in recent years too as examples of American neocolonialism.
It's a tale as old as time.
it’s amazing what knowing even a lick of history can do, hey?
Don't worry, the Colombian right wing has done its absolute best to victim blame the farmers, or to diminish the atrocity or to claim it was a necessary sacrifice.
Meanwhile the Colombian guerrillas did their absolute best to shit on the popular movements that fueled them initially by allying themselves with drug traffickers and committing atrocities themselves against rural civilian populations.
So basically the Colombian civilians of the 20th century were sandwiched between an overzealous fascist right wing and a violent and reckless left wing.
Nowadays both sides are politically mostly rhetorical and the left wing is far less violent while the right wing is more careful about their image after losing elections and Congress seats to the left.
Just a heads up that its "scrip" not "script" :3
In this context it’s a good pun though.
That isn't lost on me but it didn't seem like an intentional one (if it was I blame my autism)
Well that's embarrassing, it's literally in the part I quoted.
but they did it from first principles and without needing to update their priors!
…..snrk
Yes, at least that company script could buy you real stuff, food etc. AI tech bros want to pay you in hot air. Anyhow, isn't that illegal even in the US? It surely is in the EU.
We didn’t have many worker protections prior to this president and they just completed the biggest deregulation in history by far gutting the few agencies that investigated violations of labor law. Thiel, Karp and Musk have been very clear about their intentions to destroy democracy and replace it with feudalism supported by big tech. The EU will follow if you don’t stop supporting fascists because these tech companies have already infiltrated your governments.
The US Tech oligarchs are certainly spending a fortune on corruption (ie lobbying) on national and EU level, however to mixed success so far. The biggest threat to us are Russia's fifth column, right (but also some left) populist autocrats. Those things are going hand in hand however. Those populists are ready to not only sell us out to Russia but to any foreign power willing to pay. Take the lead candidate of the AfD for the previous EU election. He was shown to have been bought not only by Russia but China as well. I am sure, he would have gladly worked for US tech oligarchs as well, if the AfD would not have frozen him out a bit, not for selling out to foreign powers but for getting caught red handed.
It is up to the voters to vote for or against those people. Sadly, my confidence in this regard is rather low. It is shocking how similar the 2020s are to the 1920s. I am not looking forward to the 2030s.