People confuse etymology with entomology all of the time.

I have no words for how much that bugs me.

‘The luxury of obliviousness’ is such a good description of what privilege actually is. If you have no need to know, no need to educate yourself, because it simply doesn’t affect you, you have privilege.

I wish more people would understand this.

All of these hot takes about how Mastodon is too hard to use for mass adoption are missing the point entirely. We are not some tech startup trying to "disrupt" the social media ecosystem. We don't have VCs breathing down our necks pushing for continuous growth at all costs. We're just regular people out here building communities.

If people don't like Mastodon and decide to go back to Twitter, that's fine. They are not commodities to be exploited. If people like Mastodon and decide to stay, that's great! They are going to be more invested in the community because they are actually deriving real value from it.

If there's one thing the global capitalist system cannot fathom is that value can exist that is not fungible with monetary value. There are plenty of ways to create value for people that do not involve buying and selling. In fact the whole notion that value = monetary value is a relatively recent innovation in human history.

I'm not saying that capitalism doesn't have its benefits, but our minds have become so warped by its zero-sum game vision of the world that it's easy to believe that generating profits is the only thing that matters. We may have to play that game to justify our existence on this planet, but there's a whole world of value to be found outside of it. Just because we're forced to play the game doesn't mean the game is all there is.

Discovered during the week I was unable to access a Kindle book purchased in 2013. Reason? The order was “too old”, and refund issued to buy again. Which was pointless as the book is now more expensive than when I bought it.

Subsequently discovered 66(!!) other ebooks no longer available for download.

Currently 40 minutes in to a support chat with Amazon.

About to learn, I think, whether we purchase ebooks, or rent them…

[Edit: documenting progress in this thread https://mastodon.online/@monro/109812445178130161]

The British government has been suppressing evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 referendum consistently and systematically since questions were first raised about the reliability of the referendum result in 2016...

https://kentbylines.co.uk/russian-interference-in-brexit-referendum/