JenniferplusplusRE: https://mastodon.social/@nixCraft/116126552546349967
But at least we only spent a trillion dollars on it, right?
Or as I said previously
https://hachyderm.io/@jenniferplusplus/115537188922928571
https://hachyderm.io/@jenniferplusplus/115537188922928571
Incidentally, if you divert a trillion dollars to something and get "basically zero" economic activity around it, that's not an investment. It's sabotage. It's become the chief manifestation of the capital strike we've all been enduring since, roughly, the first half of 2022.
What's a capital strike? That tends to be the question I get in response to this rant.
You know what a labor strike is, right? It's wielding labor as power, by witholding it, as a bargaining tactic.
A capital strike is the same thing, except with capital.
But, you have to understand what capital actual is. It's not money. Money is a loose proxy for capital, but that's all. Really, capital is control over economic resources. Raw resources, sure. Big industrial machinery, sure. Networks of transportation and communication, yes. And labor.
Money is kind of the exchange medium for all of that. But capital isn't the money, and it's not the resources. It's the power to distort how those resources are used and applied to suit your own interests, at the expense of the other people involved.
That's part of what makes a capital strike non-obvious, if you don't already know what it looks like. It's not just sitting on the money and refusing to spend it. Because that's the one thing you literally can't do with capital. If you leave those resources idle, especially labor, it just goes and does its own thing. You lose control over it. If you just fire everyone, they eventually start working for themselves.
So, to conduct a capital strike, you have to direct the capital toward useless things. Or actually destructive things, if you can manage it.
And thus, AI had "basically zero" effect on the GDP. Because it's economically worthless activity for the purpose of keeping all the resources occupied so they can't be put to any other use.
ShadSterling@jenniferplusplus capitalism is always a denial-of-service attack on human potential; it’s not always this direct
Violet Madder@ShadSterling @jenniferplusplus
And all this, at the moment where those resources are desperately needed for mitigating climate change, fixing infrastructure, and rescuing public health.
Jo - pièce de résistance@ShadSterling @jenniferplusplus
This so much. I miss the things in the world, in my life, that never were, but ought to be.
2qx 🔻They are fighting to make energy useless.
They are wasting energy to stall the transition off fossil fuels.
PositivDenken 🤯@jenniferplusplus isn’t it that for instance the ancient Egyptian pyramids can be seen as similar efforts? Maybe a way to funnel excess wealth into sth that has zero value and is of no real world use.
@zeank I don't know enough about ancient egypt to say with any confidence. But it does seem like a reasonable lens to view them through
Rachel Rawlings@jenniferplusplus @zeank There will not be a tourism benefit for far future generations wanting to see data centers.
Έλλεν Εμίλια Ά.ζ.@linuxandyarn @jenniferplusplus @zeank lmao. that's a good point. they could at least make them aesthetically pleasing and not as noisy.
Riley S. Faelan@zeank There's historians who would argue that the pyramids had value, just indirect ones. In most of such historians' telling, the value is in establishing methods for herding large numbers of workers. A major piece of the alleged supporting evidence is, a lot of the people who worked on pyramids seem to have worked on them for a limited time, and possibly, in times when other economic activity was on a downtrend.
The GenAI craze has only partial possible counterpart to those: the "balancing the downtrend of other economic activity" detail.
KathmanduMy understanding is that was less wasting wealth, more a jobs program to give laborers income during the agricultural off-season. Like unemployment insurance, it spread money around so people wouldn't starve.
Whereas all this "AI investment" is channeling more and more money into fewer and fewer hands.
@Kathmandu @jenniferplusplus that’s where they got this idea of trickle down economy from then? 😅
George BSort of, but most of the labor used to build the pyramids was while the Nile was flooded and the majority of farmhands could not access the fields where they worked so it can also be seen as a jobs program for off-season farmhands.
Could they have been using that labor for other more productive things, sure, but it's definitely less bad than taking people off of food production for a vanity project would have been.
@jenniferplusplus The sillionaires (and people identifying with them) see adoption of AI as the real-economy counterpart to stocks buy-back. It's not supposed to produce further profits; it's supposed to concentrate the flow of existing profits to the sillionaires.
Daniel Gibson@jenniferplusplus @ireneista
I don't know, calling it a "strike" gives this practice more legitimacy than it deserves.. makes it sound like a tool to achieve (mostly) legitimate/understandable goals
I don't know, calling it a "strike" gives this practice more legitimacy than it deserves.. makes it sound like a tool to achieve (mostly) legitimate/understandable goals
@jenniferplusplus @ireneista
if I just silently refuse to work and maybe embezzle my employers resources without any communicated goal that wouldn't be called a "strike" either
if I just silently refuse to work and maybe embezzle my employers resources without any communicated goal that wouldn't be called a "strike" either
Aaron@Doomed_Daniel @jenniferplusplus @ireneista The publicly stated goal/promise is to divert all the money that currently gets "wasted" on "NPCs" who need to do trivial things like eat, back into the accounts of the shareholders. IDK if "strike" is the right word here, but it's certainly about acquiring and leveraging more power over us little people.
@Doomed_Daniel @jenniferplusplus @ireneista
We need to end capitalism. We don't have to end markets. We don't have to (and shouldn't) end distributed decision-making. In fact, the real problem is a dearth of these things. We already have centralized control, thanks to our current economic system's ongoing concentration of wealth.
Imagine what an economy made up entirely of cooperatives would look like. Decision-making: distributed equally among stakeholders. Profit: distributed equally among stakeholders. No more perverse incentives to exploit workers and customers for the sake of far off shareholders who don't have to see the consequences of their actions on the local community, because the shareholders *are* the local community.
How much more money, and power over our own lives, would we all have if we didn't have to pay the transactional tax known as "profit" in perpetuity for a one-time investment of capital? *We* would have the capital then!
Irenes (many)@hosford42 @Doomed_Daniel @jenniferplusplus yes, this is an excellent goal which we wholeheartedly support 💜
Alsy@hosford42 @Doomed_Daniel @jenniferplusplus @ireneista Are there steps people (ordinary people) can take to make this a reality?
Stephen Dioxide 
@Alsy @hosford42 @Doomed_Daniel @jenniferplusplus @ireneista You can start by joining a local co-op, or maybe start a new one.
Precisely this. We have two avenues available to us: Push for changes to the law, which is the long-term solution, and take our business (and labor!) to cooperatives, which is the short-term solution.
The third thing we can do is increase awareness. Talk about it. Spread the word. Things don't have to work the way they do. We have legitimate and *practical* options!
@Doomed_Daniel @jenniferplusplus @ireneista
@hosford42 @Alsy @Doomed_Daniel @jenniferplusplus @ireneista I'd argue that working at and shopping at co-ops is a short-term solution AND and a long-term solution. Changes to the law are few and far between, inconsistently enforced, and in danger of being repealed. Expanding the presence of co-ops in the economy is a solution with both breadth and depth.
As for spreading the word, I'd love to refer you to a group I'm part of, GEO (geo.coop), which exists for just this reason. The website is crammed full of useful information, and I'm coordinating the relaunch of our print journal.
@Steve @hosford42 @Alsy @Doomed_Daniel @ireneista
If you're looking for a USA perspective, we need to change the laws here, first. US law is quite hostile to cooperatives. It's all organized around creating and sustaining corporations owned by shareholders.
In most cases, the closest you can get to creating a coop in this country is to establish an LLC with bylaws that require all owners to also work for the company. Established companies can sometimes transition to cooperatives, but that's a much longer and more difficult path.
Yes, #Exit2Community / #e2c should definitely be pushed for. I'd love it if we could ever reach the point where it's the actual workers that get to decide, too -- as in, "We took a vote, and you are selling your company in its entirety to us at a fair market price now, to become a cooperative."
@hosford42 @jenniferplusplus @Alsy @Doomed_Daniel @ireneista I don't know of any provision in existing law that would allow workers to force this. Possession is nine tenths of the law. On the other hands, thousands of businesses are sold each year, and thousands more simply close down. Many could pass seamlessly into the hands of their workers.
Yeah, it's not a thing, to my knowledge. That's just me dreaming.
@hosford42 @jenniferplusplus @Alsy @Doomed_Daniel @ireneista The closest thing would be a right of first refusal, where if a business owner planned to sell, they would be required by law to offer it to their workers before anyone else. At fair-market value, to be sure, but that's all anyone has ever expected.
@jenniferplusplus @hosford42 @Alsy @Doomed_Daniel @ireneista Incorporation laws vary by state. Some are very friendly to co-ops (Wisconsin, Colorado, Illinois, and a couple more), and most are not. However, you can incorporate in a state you don't live or work in. It's pretty rare, but it can happen.
It's actually super common for C corps, I think. They call them "Delaware corps" because that seems to be the place everyone registers in. I'm guessing there's a lot less of a common standard for cooperatives, though.
@hosford42 @jenniferplusplus @Alsy @Doomed_Daniel @ireneista Exactly. I think @ntnsndr once said he wanted Colorado to be the Delaware of co-ops.
Nathan SchneiderActually now that is a registered trademark of Jason Wiener's firm:)
Colorado really does have some important advantages, including flexible statutes and experienced lawyers.
I will definitely check it out!
Regarding the law, what I would shoot for is *at minimum* a strong preferential treatment for cooperatives. Better yet: a hard requirement that all businesses be either cooperatives or single proprietorships. In that case, it would be a permanent fix -- permanent being interpreted loosely here as, "for as long as the governing body itself continues to function properly".
Imagine if we didn't even have a stock market to be unstable, create bubbles, or collapse!
@Steve @hosford42 @Doomed_Daniel @jenniferplusplus @ireneista Thank you - this is a great, immediately actionable idea.
@hosford42 @Doomed_Daniel @jenniferplusplus @ireneista This is the #solidarityeconomy. It's small, but it's growing.
I wasn't aware there was a movement already! I've been trying to start one myself. Thanks!
@hosford42 @Doomed_Daniel @jenniferplusplus @ireneista No worries, it's hard to tell. "Solidarity economy" is a rather broad term, encompassing co-ops, fair trade, and to a certain extent, small, local businesses.
@Doomed_Daniel @jenniferplusplus sure, point taken, suggestions welcome. this is terminology that has existed for a while, and we do think it's worth knowing it for the sake of finding previous writing on the topic, but if there's a better word, we see the case for changing it going forward.
~* Sarah@jenniferplusplus I was thinking that Musk's data centres in space idea was to add solar panels to the list of items the AI industry is hoarding.
TiTiNoNero 
@stellarsarah @jenniferplusplus
This is not, at all, "just by chance". I think there's some political agenda to remove from any accessible market everything that empower users to be independent on computing (and on energy, and we will soon discover on what else).
This is not, at all, "just by chance". I think there's some political agenda to remove from any accessible market everything that empower users to be independent on computing (and on energy, and we will soon discover on what else).
Cassandrich
CassandraVertOr dump ever more money into the stock market, an abstraction that doesn't generate anything tangible.
OK, they are keeping resources occupied, but aren't they also setting fire to their own money? They are spending money that won't produce a return (Not that they would miss it). Is the object just to keep resources occupied or also make net asset value evaporate?
xenonchromatic@CassandraVert I think the argument being made here is that it's a margin play. They're trying to squeeze the leverage of the working and middle classes by devaluing their ability to "compete" for fair wages etc.
Not sure if thats read correctly but thats how Im understanding it.
Benjohn@jenniferplusplus an essay that feels very related: “Capital as Power — The Business of Strategic Sabotage”.
https://capitalaspower.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/bichler_nitzan_recasp_2023.pdf
(I’d skip over the intro and dive in to section 2.)
Luhker@jenniferplusplus
Also, they're building shit in Dubai.
Also, they're building shit in Dubai.
bob@jenniferplusplus GDP measures capital as in money, though, not capital as in plant
Oomfie Snoofies@jenniferplusplus seems pretty plausible but what do you think would be the motivations behind this precise capital strike? genuine question, I have 0 clue.
Kevin P. Fleming@jenniferplusplus And 'free market' means freedom to manage and deploy capital... not money.
tuban_muzuruThe rhetorical land mine is the 'free' in Free Market. Markets need to be Fair, not Free. Because people are criminals.
So here's the rule: as varies risk, so must vary regulation, both inside and out. "Capitalists" want less regulation and wonder why people think they're crooks
Greg@jenniferplusplus equating "capitalism" with "trade" has been one of the biggest coups of discourse - you get people sincerely believing "well without capitalism would we just barter???" and now we must start everything by explaining that no, money was invented in 3000 BC, in fact Jesus was overturning moneylender tables 1500 years before the Dutch East India Company, etc
Grovewest@greg @jenniferplusplus It's also equating capitalism with ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’. Capitalism existed before the US representative democracy. Up until the twentieth century it was closer to and existed alongside Feudalism, hardly free or democratic. The one thing the leaders of any country on earth will not tolerate is a truly national or global labor union. The Solidarity Union in Poland is an extrodinary example of one that had success.
@jenniferplusplus I always forget the actual definition of capitalism, but after reading this post I’ll try to remember it this way: capitalism is the system where control of resources is given to the people with the most money - not the government, not the people affected, not the people who do the work, only the people who hoard the money
mx alex tax1a - 2020 (6)@jenniferplusplus we can imagine the people you're telling this to instinctively going "but theyre right to do that and the workers would be wrong to do that"