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 threadVolineNov 19, 2022

@DrDanMarshall @ajroach42 @sj_zero

Adam Smith and David Ricardo also subscribed to the labor theory of value. In the 18th Century it was absolutely the mainstream among the founders of political economy.

The penny didn't drop until some of Ricardo's followers realized that the labor theory necessarily implied that profit was theft that the backpedaling and tracks-covering began.

Show threadDr Dan MarshallNov 19, 2022
@Voline @ajroach42 @sj_zero Yeah, labor theory was mainstream until early 20th Century. The economists who proposed marginal utility were doing some anti-Marxist propaganda. But marginal utility is still a better theory than labor. Dismissing as *just* capitalist propaganda would be committing the genetic fallacy.
Show threadmidwayNov 19, 2022
@ajroach42 @DrDanMarshall @Voline @sj_zero yeah, labor theory of value never made any sense.
Show threadOlan McGowan
@midway @Voline @ajroach42 @DrDanMarshall @sj_zero
ha! Love it
Dec 16, 2022 at 9:46amWeb