Forwarded from Existential Comics
In The Conquest of Bread, Peter Kropotkin makes the argument that all technological progress more or less belongs to everyone.
We simply find ourselves existing in the modern world that inherits the efforts of billions of people to make it livable for us, spanning tens of thousands of years. The very land we live on has been cultivated by our ancestors to make it suitable to farming. Technology created in the past is handed to us to work this land. The crops we grow have been selectively bred for thousands of years to feed us. Animals like sheep and cows exist, which are nothing like their natural selves, having their DNA altered by the long slow efforts of our fore bearers. All this work belongs to all of us, but often the capitalist comes in at the last moment to buy the land, buy the animals, and patent the last 0.0001% of technological improvement to some contraption. From this ownership they are allowed to control everything.
For modern technology, the process has been somewhat shorter (although you can argue that scientific and philosophical thinkers for the last couple thousand years have been necessary to develop any technology, i.e. without Aristotle's labor there would be no Super Nintendo). However the same situation has occurred, literally billions of man-hours have been spent just on the software side to create operating systems which are free and open and given to capitalists (such as the Linux kernel and ecosystem). All of this work, as well as the scientific work to create the hardware, represents 99.9999% of the work to create something like OpenAI, and it belongs to all of us. From this, they spend a small amount of money to create a system, and in their case they also train their model off the additional billions of hours of man-hours in writing text, producing knowledge, and creating art, and then they seize control of the output of this work, and use it exclusively for private gain.
Anyway, I could go on, but the gist of it is that Kropotkin thinks this is bad. Some people would call this a bad system.
We simply find ourselves existing in the modern world that inherits the efforts of billions of people to make it livable for us, spanning tens of thousands of years. The very land we live on has been cultivated by our ancestors to make it suitable to farming. Technology created in the past is handed to us to work this land. The crops we grow have been selectively bred for thousands of years to feed us. Animals like sheep and cows exist, which are nothing like their natural selves, having their DNA altered by the long slow efforts of our fore bearers. All this work belongs to all of us, but often the capitalist comes in at the last moment to buy the land, buy the animals, and patent the last 0.0001% of technological improvement to some contraption. From this ownership they are allowed to control everything.
For modern technology, the process has been somewhat shorter (although you can argue that scientific and philosophical thinkers for the last couple thousand years have been necessary to develop any technology, i.e. without Aristotle's labor there would be no Super Nintendo). However the same situation has occurred, literally billions of man-hours have been spent just on the software side to create operating systems which are free and open and given to capitalists (such as the Linux kernel and ecosystem). All of this work, as well as the scientific work to create the hardware, represents 99.9999% of the work to create something like OpenAI, and it belongs to all of us. From this, they spend a small amount of money to create a system, and in their case they also train their model off the additional billions of hours of man-hours in writing text, producing knowledge, and creating art, and then they seize control of the output of this work, and use it exclusively for private gain.
Anyway, I could go on, but the gist of it is that Kropotkin thinks this is bad. Some people would call this a bad system.
Trump verhängt wohl Zölle gegen Europa – was das für die Schweiz bedeutet https://www.watson.ch/!361811676
watson.ch
Trump verhängt wohl Zölle gegen Europa – was das für die Schweiz bedeutet
Höhere Preise, Handelskonflikte und politische Spannungen – Trump droht der EU mit neuen Zöllen. Wer gewinnt diesen Handelsstreit? Spoiler: niemand.
Die Tiefsteuerkantone haben bei der OECD-Mindeststeuer alle ausgetrickst: In Basel kann sich Novartis künftig sogar die Löhne von Manager:innen vom Kanton bezahlen lassen. https://www.woz.ch/!DYD9ERHJQWKD
www.woz.ch
OECD-Mindeststeuer: Wenn die Pharmabranche pfeift
Die Tiefsteuerkantone haben bei der OECD-Mindeststeuer alle ausgetrickst: In Basel kann sich Novartis künftig sogar die Löhne von Manager:innen vom Kanton bezahlen lassen.
Forwarded from Cool Guides
Forwarded from 🎓 TIL - Today I Learned but no 🐝
Forwarded from /r/interestingasfuck
Farmer Dedicates Over 40 Years of His Life to Growing a Guitar-Shaped Forest to Honor His Late Wife.
https://redd.it/1ihbtcp
@r_interestingasfuck
https://redd.it/1ihbtcp
@r_interestingasfuck
Reddit
[deleted by user] : r/interestingasfuck
11K votes, 48 comments. 15M subscribers in the interestingasfuck community. For anything truly interesting as fuck
Forwarded from Europe Elects Official
#Germany, Forsa poll:
CDU/CSU-EPP: 28% (-2)
AfD-ESN: 20%
SPD-S&D: 16%
GRÜNE-G/EFA: 15% (+1)
LINKE-LEFT: 5% (+1)
FDP-RE: 4%
BSW-NI: 4% (+1)
+/- vs. 21-27 January 2025
Fieldwork: 28 January-3 February 2025
Sample size: 2,503
➤ europeelects.eu/germany
CDU/CSU-EPP: 28% (-2)
AfD-ESN: 20%
SPD-S&D: 16%
GRÜNE-G/EFA: 15% (+1)
LINKE-LEFT: 5% (+1)
FDP-RE: 4%
BSW-NI: 4% (+1)
+/- vs. 21-27 January 2025
Fieldwork: 28 January-3 February 2025
Sample size: 2,503
➤ europeelects.eu/germany
Forwarded from Kingkompostoholics ❤️♻️ major and minor content alerts 🚨