[-] Lester_Peterson@hexbear.net 58 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

The purpose of effective altruism is to provide a justification to not be altruistic. To them their decision to not tip, to work for an evil tech company, and to support reactionary politics can all be excused as necessary to support the greater good.

For effective altruists, the most altruistic course of action possible is to amass as much money as possible, so that it can be donated to prevent an evil all-powerful ai (the devil), from causing the singularity (rapture), and imprisoning human consciousness for an eternity in virtual torture chambers (hell). Conversely by paying tithes to create a good ai (god), we can create a transhuman paradise on Earth (heaven), and bring the dead back to life to live forever.

They have reinvented Christianity to such an extent that they're even managing to steal the crown from the post-Church crowd as the worst people in a restaurant.

[-] Lester_Peterson@hexbear.net 58 points 1 month ago

Letting the Biden team schedule a debate before the DNC may become an all-time bag fumble

He allowed the Dems to replace the only person in America who was sure to lose against him

[-] Lester_Peterson@hexbear.net 47 points 1 month ago

no term limits

no constitution, through Parliament the ruling regime can overrule the judiciary at will and ignore human rights treaties

antidemocratic electoral system where a party winning 1/3rd of the vote gets 2/3rds of seats

state media spewing hatred towards refugees and trans people, inciting violent riots

Chairman Xi, my people yearn for freedom

[-] Lester_Peterson@hexbear.net 76 points 2 months ago

Sir Keith has delivered a whopping 1.7% higher vote share for Labour than they got in 2019, when Sir Keith intentionally sabotaged Corbyn with his “People’s Vote” maneuver, and 6% less than Corbyn in 2017.

[-] Lester_Peterson@hexbear.net 42 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Contrary to Liberal interpretations, this ruling doesn't change much. If the President was capable of openly assassinating politicians, or launching a military coup to overthrow democracy, they would not be deterred by 9 people in black robes telling them they may be liable to criminal charges in the future for doing so.

Until the Chief Justice gets their own division to command, the Court only has as much power over the Federal Government as they are allowed to, which is invariably determined by their usefulness to politically dominant factions of Capital. See what happened after the Marshall Court made a decision impeding the interests early-American Capital had in forcefully dispossessing Indigenous peoples from their land.

I still believe the most incisive commentary on the Law's function in society was given by Marx. He succinctly attacks the Liberal idea that all social structures (economics, politics, etc.) arise from the letter of the law. Rather:

Society is not founded upon the law; this is a legal fiction. On the contrary, the law must be founded upon society, it must express the common interests and needs of society — as distinct from the caprice of the individuals — which arise from the material mode of production prevailing at the given time. This Code Napoleon, which I am holding in my hand, has not created modern bourgeois society. On the contrary, bourgeois society, which emerged in the eighteenth century and developed further in the nineteenth, merely finds its legal expression in this Code. As soon as it ceases to fit the social conditions, it becomes simply a bundle of paper.

[-] Lester_Peterson@hexbear.net 43 points 2 months ago

The process of legally converting a business to an employee-owned cooperative can vary significantly depending on what jurisdiction you're in. There's different criteria for creating one (some places might require more than 3 directors to create a Coop) and all sorts of statutory considerations unique to wherever you are.

If you're serious about doing this, I would sincerely recommend reaching out for legal advice first. This is your livelihood, and you do not want to make a mistake that creates difficulty down the line. Depending on where you live, there may be a public interest organization, or business law clinic, that can provide some legal information for free. You could look up "(where you live) non profit legal assistance" and see if anything shows up.

[-] Lester_Peterson@hexbear.net 78 points 2 months ago

The ruling is hilarious. An Indiana mayor awarded a $1.1 million dollar contract to a truck dealership, then went to the dealership afterwards and said "I need money." He asked for $15k in cash, and was given $13k.

According to the SCOTUS this is not bribery because a bribe is an award for pre-agreed actions that is quid pro quo, and maybe the dealer just happened to feel generous to the person responsible for awarding them a lucrative contract after the fact. Only money in burlap sacks with dollar bills on them, with a person handing it over with a contract saying "this is a bribe" count as a bribe. Anything else is just a sparkling gratuity.

[-] Lester_Peterson@hexbear.net 59 points 3 months ago

I used to think that one of the worst takeaway of the Nuclear Arms race was that if you do nothing about an existential threat to humanity long enough, it will eventually go away. Now I realize the average Western leader who lived through the Cold War has decided its real meaning is that the risks of nuclear weapons don't need to be taken seriously because there's no chance they'll ever be used.

[-] Lester_Peterson@hexbear.net 75 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Did Yemen ever learn why the US doesn’t have free healthcare?

[-] Lester_Peterson@hexbear.net 33 points 3 months ago

The issue with Putin's red lines is what threats does he actually have to follow through with if NATO crosses then.

Russian missiles have targeted Ukrainian infrastructure for years, and by this point it's pretty clear that for all the previous talk of "the gloves will come off this time," they do not have some massive stockpile of munitions waiting for the signal. Rather by now the quantity of Russian strikes are strictly limited by their rate of production. There is also not much more room for Russia to expand their scope of acceptable targets.

Russia could formally declare war, and multiply their forces in Ukraine through conscription. But Putin has always been a cautious and conservative leader. He is seemingly happy with how the SMO is going, and has only resorted to unpopular measures when a real risk of catastrophe exists, such as immediately after the Kharkiv counter-offensive. Until now the Kremlin's judgment seems to be that the negative consequences of tolerating regular Ukrainian strikes inside the Russian federation do not outweigh those of declaring war.

As for the unthinkable option of escalating through nuclear strikes, will I'm personally very appreciative that Russia has refrained from doing so and pray that continues to be an empty threat.

[-] Lester_Peterson@hexbear.net 62 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Ukraine’s deindustrialization since the fall of communism is incredible.

In 1992 Ukraine was the industrial powerhouse of the USSR, with manufacturing holding a 45% share of GDP. By 2022 that share declined to just 8%, with Ukraine transformed into an outpost of American agri-business. One whose only remaining industrial policies were to sell off what was left of state enterprises while praying to become the cheap place for Western tech to outsource.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.ZS?locations=UA

[-] Lester_Peterson@hexbear.net 62 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

To rebuke the argument that Georgia's Foreign Agents Registration bill is necessary to prevent State Department NGOs from undermining Georgian sovereignty, the Foreign Ministers of Iceland and the Baltics have arrived in Tbilisi to participate in and encourage Georgia's ~~color-revolution~~ protests against the "Russia law"

1

this is @ anyone who uses raw GDP as a measure of wartime industrial capacity

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Lester_Peterson

joined 3 years ago