Mastodawn

🇳🇿Jul 1, 2023

To folks aware of the #TPPA & its less-pronouceable alias #CPTPPA that I regularly cite as a real problem for the world & us here in Aotearoa NZ - the #InvestorStateDisputeServices (#ISDS) terms of the not-at-all #FreeTradeAgreement our gov't has signed us up to... this will help you understand how bad it is: https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=xW5dEtjMb-k or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW5dEtjMb-k #CorporateCoup @strypey @DrCuriosity This also explains our gov'ts *love* for #BigTech & snubbing domestic companies.

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Strypey Jul 3, 2023

@lightweight
> Investor State Dispute Services (ISDS) terms of the not-at-all Free Trade Agreement our gov't has signed us up to...this will help you understand how bad it is

When the NatLabs talk about defending the "rules-based international order", this is what they're talking about. China is not exceptional in its economic colonisation of smaller/ weaker countries through "aid". Corporate media is just more honest about it when they do it.

@DrCuriosity

#colonisation #FreeTrade #ISDS

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Strypey Jul 3, 2023

Reading Snowcrash is another aid to understanding where we've been heading since the NeoLiberal coups, and where we might end up if we don't change direction. We need to cooperate on a massive scale to defend and extend democracy (by the broadest possible definition - see David Graeber's book The Democracy Project).

@lightweight
@DrCuriosity

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Isaac Freeman Jul 6, 2023

@strypey @lightweight @DrCuriosity Also the sequel _The Diamond Age_, which made the insightful point that a chaotic cyberpunk world isn’t a stable end state to history. People can’t keep living like that indefinitely, so a generation later social hierarchies are reasserted and nationalistic power re-centralised (albeit in many competing non-geographical nations). This is the fascist turn.

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Alix Jul 6, 2023

@isaacfreeman @strypey @lightweight @DrCuriosity I liked the idea of the phyles in Diamond Age. What about them do you see as fascist?

(Except in the old-style literal sense that people are stronger in groups.)

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Isaac Freeman Jul 6, 2023

@alix @strypey @lightweight @DrCuriosity There are a lot of phyles, but the ones we see most detail on in the book are the NeoVictorians and the Confucians. Both focus on bringing order by re-asserting traditional values and hierarchies. There’s some hand-waving about only-the-good-parts, but this is all standard fascist stuff: the right people are back at the top. Both have large out-groups of abandoned people, our which arise Little Nell and the Mouse Army. 1/n

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Alix Jul 6, 2023

@isaacfreeman @strypey @lightweight @DrCuriosity

Is it fair to say you're describing some of the larger phyles in Diamond Age as having a kind of nostalgia for past glory and restrictive-but-overall-stable social structure that you associate with fascism? That you're not saying all phyles are necessarily fashy, but the bigger ones we saw seemed that way?

It's a good while since I last read it, but I saw a phyle like the Ashanti as a group offering mutual support.

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Dr. Curiosity 💻🔬Jul 6, 2023

@alix @isaacfreeman @strypey @lightweight
The combination of seemingly rigid hierarchy, retreat into (reimagined) nostalgic values from the height of empire, and a combination of fearful and/or paternalistic attitudes toward out-groups do seem to be pretty common fascistic tropes. Not _solely_ theirs of course, but certainly commonly found together. As we're seeing a little too often these days.

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Dr. Curiosity 💻🔬Jul 6, 2023

@alix @isaacfreeman @strypey @lightweight
You certainly _could_ use those trappings differently, but I think you'd have to underline and provide suitable assurances about the points of difference to ensure people didn't infer different intents from what you were presenting.

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Alix Jul 6, 2023

@DrCuriosity @isaacfreeman @strypey @lightweight

I wonder how much of this response is because the story spends so much time with the phyles that are more imperialist. Would you say the same if the main focus had been on the Armenians, the Senderos, the Ashanti or whatever the hacker phyle was called? (Are the Drummers a phyle?)

I’m currently pondering whether fascism remains a meaningful term if it can be applied to every society with an empire.

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Strypey Jul 6, 2023

@alix
> whether fascism remains a meaningful term if it can be applied to every society with an empire

Thank you for saying this! The meaning of "fascism" has been stretched to breaking point in recent years (arguably well past it) by overly general use. Mind you, I remember when I was a stroppy young anarcho-punk, and used "Nazi" or "fascist" to describe pretty much anyone I thought was conservative and authoritarian. Pot? Kettle? Maybe ; )

(1/2)

@DrCuriosity @isaacfreeman @lightweight