Andrew (Television Executive)Nov 18, 2022

Here's your irregular reminder that:

Twitter was a multi-billion dollar company with thousands of employees.

Mastodon is a niche hobbyist product run by volunteers

The fact that we're being seen as a viable alternative to them is an admission that a federated, decentralized future is not only possible, but desirable.

Mastodon is not one thing, or one place. It's a network of many things and many places. We don't have a spokesperson (I mean, there's me. I'm the official spokesperson for 💯 of the fediverse, but beyond me there is no spokesperson) we don't have consensus on moderation or blocking or tools or what is good and what is bad. Some of us are professional SREs and Sysadmins, some of us aren't. Some of our instances have been around for 5+ years, some won't be here in six months.

And that's good! All of it, every last bit of it is good.

We're wrestling power away from the billionaire class, in real time, and reclaiming it for the People.

Show threadAndrew (Television Executive)Nov 18, 2022

We're wrestling power away from the billionaire class, in real time.

This is bigger than some technical standard.

This is cultural, political, and economic.

We represent an existential threat to the business model of some of the most wealthy corporations on the planet, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let anyone take that away from us without fighting against it with everything I have.

We are standing on the precipice of a transformative shift in the way we, as a society, relate to one another through the internet.

We are moving away from a Broadcast and Toward a conversation.

Show threadAndrew (Television Executive)Nov 18, 2022

This is mutual aid, this is anticapitalism, this is collaborative ideation.

We are living revolutionary values, right here, right now, on a silly little social media network.

And I will fight to my last breathe any God Damn corporation that tries to Monetize that.

This is the future, and you're a part of it now. Be a good steward of the future.

Show threadsj_zeroNov 19, 2022
I don't know that being against billionaires and corporations is
necessarily anticapitalism (private control of capital is what gives us the freedom to create our own websites), but besides that point I agree with everything you've written.

These megacorps have gotten too big for their britches, and they've forgotten we don't actually need them.
Show threadAndrew (Television Executive)Nov 19, 2022

@sj_zero I'm pretty sure that being against the capitalist class is the definition of anticapitalism.

Maybe your definition of capitalism differs from the common one, and somehow has grown to include all forms of ownership and commerce?

Websites wouldn't stop existing under socialism, and it's foolish or wildly misleading to pretend otherwise.

Show threadDr Dan MarshallNov 19, 2022
@ajroach42 @sj_zero Man, I don't even know what capitalism is anymore. Part of the problem (from a theoretical standpoint) is that capitalism was originally defined by socialists, who framed it in the terms provided by the labor theory of value. Mainstream has since rejected labor theory in favor of marginal utility. So it's as if the dictionary defined combustion in terms of phlogiston.
Show threadAndrew (Television Executive)Nov 19, 2022
@DrDanMarshall @sj_zero That's a great point (except that the labor theory of value is still largely correct, have you looked in to the work of Anwar Shaikh at all?)
Show threadDr Dan MarshallNov 19, 2022
@ajroach42 @sj_zero I have not, but I'll add that to my reading list. Do you agree that different kinds of labor are differently elastic in response to demand? (Also, do resources have market value because we produce them, or do we produce them because they have market value?)
Show threadDr Dan MarshallNov 19, 2022

@ajroach42 @sj_zero uh, let me back up. I'm not an economist, I'm a philosopher who's taken a few intro econ courses and I've done some reading on my own. I'm working on an apology for social liberalism, and I'm currently writing a chapter against anarcho-socialism. So I would like to hang out with some anarcho-socialists, to make sure I'm not screwing up.

That said, do y'all grok what I mean by "elastic in response to demand"?

Show threadAndrew (Television Executive)Nov 19, 2022

@DrDanMarshall @sj_zero ah. An apology for social liberalism sounds like exactly the kind of thing I'd hate.

You should pester @connor_dylan

Show threadDr Dan Marshall
@ajroach42 @sj_zero @connor_dylan lol. Definitely need to come up with a different title. If Connor show up, I'll try to remember to turn off your mentions.
Nov 19, 2022 at 10:51pmWeb