Lack of good examples of countries that are successful without being capitalist?
Pretty ubiquitously non-capitalist countries have a pretty poor track record.
I often hear the phrase, capitalism is terrible, but it’s the least bad of the terrible options.
As an aside, I’m arguing here for capitalism, not billionaires. Supporting capitalism isn’t an endorsement of a complete lack of controls and safeguards.
That all sounds like it sucks, but I don’t think it’s as hopeless as I’m sure it feels.
Obviously this is just a snapshot into your life, and I’m sure there are more details under the hood, like what exact “adult responsibilities” and stuff you’ve got going on. That said, even in this text I think you’ve outlined a good bit of good stuff you’ve got going on.
First, I don’t know why you think conflict deescalation isn’t an absolutely in demand skill. Every job under the sun has conflict, and being able to manage that is huge. Even within Engineering, you could put that to huge use as a Sales Engineer or some other customer facing technical role.
Second, you got your bachelor’s in an engineering discipline. You can poo-poo your grades all you want, but at the end of the day you succeeded. No mean feat my man. That’s worth celebrating.
Finally, if you’re simply looking for a way out, there are institutions that are always looking for technical people. Obviously this is gonna vary a lot by country, so ymmv, but the government/military is always in need of people in technical roles, and rarely are able to fill them. It probably doesn’t pay nearly what a “normal” engineering job would, but it’d be more than an internship, and it would give you some of that structured camaraderie that you previously felt the lack of when trying to leave.
All that to say, don’t give up hope my guy. I know I’m just some schmuck on Lemmy of all places, but I think you’re capable of breaking out and getting to a better place.
You got this!
Genuine question, why not just walk away?
Like, it doesn’t solve the mental issues you’re already dealing with because of the years of trauma, but like, it seems like step one of healing would be to remove yourself from the situation, no?
Like, tell your dad he should probably get out, because you’re not gonna be there to play witness to keep him out of jail anymore, and then pop deuces?
Google doesn’t seem to find anything with that title when I Google it?
The Ash Tree seems to be some early 1900s story, and Daniel Harms doesn’t seem to have anything of that title as far as I can tell. :(
No, it was kind of a standalone type web forum. Greyish background, iirc.
Pretty sure I was linked it from Lemmy, and I don’t subscribe to no sleep here.
I think he was talking about some of the questionable representation of the tribal peoples in the film.
A few I’ve been big on lately:
The Meat and Dairy Network Podcast - A British humor surrealist comedy podcast about the inner workings of the meat and dairy industry.
The Horror Virgin - A guy who hates scary movies has two friends who make him watch them.
The League of Ultimate Questing - High production actual play DnD podcast. Very funny with some fun hooks.
Midway Games stock is gonna shoot through the roof selling all the extra copies to make this system work. :P
If most of the boxes are Windows, probably Samba4.
But if you’re mostly using Linux, FreeIPA is actually really nice.
I don’t understand why you think that guy was conflating communism and socialism. He claimed communism is moneyless, and in your response you said “neither is moneyless.” What’s being conflated?
And it’s worth noting that most definitions include, if not expressly the word “moneyless,” clauses about all property being held in common. And if there is no property, then there is equally no money, by definition (as money is simply a system for the valuation and exchange of property).
Here’s the note taking and editors page of awesome-selfhosted. Looks like there are a few contenders in there. DailyTxT looks decent for your use case.
https://awesome-selfhosted.net/tags/note-taking--editors.html
Okay, to be clear, are you arguing that the dichotomy we are choosing between is Notch becoming a billionaire or a corporation reaping the benefits of his labor? I think if those are the options, I prefer the universe where Notch is a billionaire, lol.
I don’t think that’s what you’re saying, but I’ll admit I’ve read your comment a few times, and couldn’t really latch on to what you point was.
But to just free associate off of what you said, I think there’s a lot of value to many in the safety of a job vs the life of an entrepreneur. I’m in that situation myself. I know I could easily make 1.5-2x my current salary if I just stood up and LLC and did all my work as a 1099 employee. I’d be able to keep all my current clients and basically nothing would change. I could set my own hours and not have a boss to answer to. But it comes with a lot fewer safety nets, and it means that all the unpleasantness and risk of “running a business” would all fall on me.
Am I running the risk that I could build a billion dollar product and giving all that surplus capital to my company? Sure. But the odds of that are terribly low, and honestly, it’s a gamble I’m more than willing to take to avoid having to deal with the overhead and risk of striking out on my own with no top cover.
The issue is that becoming a billionaire has more to do with being lucky than it does with direct exploitation.
If everyone in the US chipped 5 dollars into a pool, and it was randomly given to one person, that person would be a billionaire.
And yes, they have a huge concentration of other people’s labor represented in that cash. But the person who won the pool isn’t a bad person because of that. They didn’t exploit anyone themselves. Just because someone somewhere at some point under capitalism was exploited, that doesn’t lay the moral condemnation at the feet of the lottery winner.
Sure, but that argument is specious as hell, right? Like, if everyone in the United States decided to give you a $5 bill, does that instantly make you a bad person who exploited labor to get where you are?
“There is no ethical consumption under capitalism” is simply a rhetorical device to outline the flaws in the system. It completely breaks down when used as justification to villainize someone.
Your position could be equally stated as, “anyone who has more money than me is a worse person than me, and anyone with less money than me is a better person than me.” It’s a misuse of the “no ethical consumption” idea on its face.
A fair point. It’s been a while since then. I didn’t recall that.
That said, he’s just an easy example. There’s a few other people who could be used. There’s a billionaire who was an early Bitcoin adopter for example.
And it certainly would have been possible for Notch to become a billionaire without hiring people. The company only had 25 employees in 2014, and was doing $330million in revenue every year. There’s certainly a path he could have tread to still becoming a billionaire without hiring anyone.
It would have been harder, taken longer, and not been as profitable for sure, but doable.
Sure, but if that’s the argument, then everyone who has ever bought a laptop that shipped with Windows on it is equally guilty.
Perhaps even moreso. Those people are giving money to Microsoft. He took a billion dollars away from them.
But like, this is classic motte and baily. Your initial position was “all billionaires exploit labor for profit,” but when under scrutiny you just retreat to “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, so he’s guilty by virtue of simply participating in the system.”
You’re moving the goalposts though, you realize that right?
Your initial position was that you have to have exploited people to be worth a billion dollars (with an implicit “directly exploited,” since if you can’t make any money without indirectly exploiting people, which would make your point even more pedantic than I’m being.)
Other people later exploiting others to profit off your product is irrelevant. Hell, it’d be irrelevant if you made your billion dollars and then started exploiting people yourself. You still would have, in fact, become a billionaire without exploiting people to do so.
He could have known Notch, though that guy doesn’t seem the climbing type, lol.
Notch is a billionaire. He made Minecraft as a solo project, it became what it was, then he sold it to Microsoft.
Not saying that most billionaires didn’t get there via exploitation, but I don’t think it’s a strict prerequisite.
Could also be a correlation due to people who actually get diagnosed with dyslexia/dysgraphia being more likely to live in places that are more affluent or with better mental healthcare.
That would tend to correlate with generally more accepting populations.