JustSteev
Mike Masnick ✅It's amazing how much you can learn about risks to the future of the internet by just watching attacks on sex workers and their livelihoods.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88x9mb/spankpay-sex-work-payment-platform-shuts-down
brmc9@mmasnick Gun dealers have had to deal with payment processors suddenly dropping them for a while. And more recently there has been a proposal to have credit cards track gun store purchases.
This has led many of them to become crypto proponents to avoid payment censorship.
TheTariqM@TheTariqM @mmasnick Fair enough, I just noticed this more recent purchase code “controversy” while trying to find good articles on gun payment processing being denied, which was a real thing
Mickrob9777I bet deep dive into checkout.com would be interesting.
Nicole ParsonsIn the 19th century there was a concerted effort in the UK to thwart small business by the working & middle classes.
Enclosure acts thwarted small farm operations. Land expulsions were common. Increasing regulation targeting home based business. In particular, crafts where women made an independent living were replaced by automation and monopolies, or targeted for additional policing.
Sound familiar?
Janis@Npars01 @mmasnick I'm not getting the direct connection to the working and middle classes, in either case. That's like blaming inflating food prices on people demanding higher wages while investors thwart coastal erosion laws to build new in order to charge astronomical rents. It's just not that simple.
To create the robber barons & monopolies of the Gilded Age, access to the economy & to capital needed to be restricted to the 1%.
Automation & new laws disemployed farm workers, lacemakers, home laundries, domestic servants, home brewers, cheesemakers, etc.
Land enclosures were a deliberate plan for famine & it hollowed out rural economic activity sending the laboring classes to the cities.
Similar processes are being used today to create a Gilded Age 2.0 leisure class.
AlaskanGrown@Npars01 @mmasnick So there's an indirect connection, but not a direct one. I think it's pretty critical to indicate urban job-holders don't have it in for small businesses and self-employed folk, nor do they necessarily have the means to survive without their jobs (or own any other means to production).
My theory isn't urban vs rural.
My theory is that there are similar economic conditions & political movements now as existed during the Gilded Age.
An indifferent moneyed elite trying to retain its power & control by any means necessary.
Those means include squeezing certain voters out of good paying jobs or running their own business.
It includes support for the rollback of civil rights, terrorism campaigns against the poor, immigrants, & POC & mass disenfranchisement.
@Npars01@[email protected]
I completely agree with you.
Think we're due for a crash, or do you think the wheels will burn off entriely?
K SmithWe have a Democratic president and Democratic Senate. I'm sure they will be discussing how to protect sex workers (often PoC, gay, trans) from this crap.
Right?