alberto_cottica

rbreich , 1 month ago to random

50 major corporations have contributed $23 million to election deniers since the January 6 Capitol attack.

They include AT&T, Comcast, Walmart, and Microsoft.

Corporate America will sell out our democracy, decency, and the rule of law — all for a tax break.

alberto_cottica , 2 months ago to random

Love Robin's definition of "conservative". And the dovetailing of conservatism and financialization is a powerful - and terrifying - concept to understand the world.

@pluralistic 's post is mostly about America, but Europe has the same direction of travel.

Pluralistic: The tax sharks are back and they’re coming for your home (27 Apr 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/27/for-the-little-people/#alden-capital

EU_Commission , 2 months ago to random

Our commitment to the fediverse is here to stay.

We are working on a solution to ensure our continued presence on your feeds, taking full advantage of Mastodon's identity portability.

And we are even growing the team behind our Mastodon presence, increasing efforts to engage with your comments on our posts.

We are fully committed to being a real part of the conversation in the fediverse.

Interested in our next steps? Follow us as we take on this new chapter.

alberto_cottica , 2 months ago to random

Very inspired by the American Climate Corps initiative. It captures the spirit of the #greennewdeal , even in the @pluralistic version in "The Lost Cause". I am jealous of the Americans, a rare occurrence. Joe Biden has really grown into his role; his presidency might be the best one I witnessed in my adult life (I am 58). @EU_Commission , could we have this too?
https://www.acc.gov/
#ClimateCrisis

donncha , 2 months ago to random

"Capitalism is a transitional state between feudalism and feudalism."

https://pca.st/episode/3fbebf40-023f-42fd-9a03-20349feb015c

@pluralistic

#podcast

alberto_cottica , 3 months ago to random

Beautiful: the time that @pluralistic "did his own research" and became "opioid hesitant".

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/25/black-boxes/#when-you-know-you-know

alberto_cottica , 3 months ago to random

"The residue from crypto is a lot of bad digital art and worse Austrian economics."

@pluralistic is quotable as always. I recommend his whole analysis of the AI bubble, it's well worth it.

#crypto #blockchain
https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

breadandcircuses , 3 months ago to random

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alberto_cottica , 3 months ago to random

If you live in the European Union, I would ask, as a personal favour, that you consider signing this petition for a tax on great wealth. It is reasonable; it would have major impact if put into place; it is very feasible (no revision of the Treaties needed). It is the brainchild of French economist Thomas Piketty, a leading scholar of inequality. https://tax-the-rich.eu #economics #ClimateCrisis

rbreich , 3 months ago to random

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pluralistic , 3 months ago to random

Hard to overstate how enshittified and botshitted Google Maps has become. Went looking for my local locksmith on Gmaps. Maps shows 20+ fake locksmith referral scam outlets and doesn't even register the real locksmith, despite it being fully visible in Street View.

Instead, a red pin on the shop identifies it as a fake locksmith scammer. The real locksmith - which has been there SINCE 1942 (!!) and is a verified merchant - doesn't even show up.

Google Maps, showing the storefront for Golden State Lock as an empty building.

alberto_cottica , 4 months ago to random

Wow, "The Bezzle" by @pluralistic ... What a great, great book. And Martin Hench is far and away my favourite hero. Cory seems intent on becoming to private equity funds what Charles Dickens was to sweatshops. My hat is off to him. https://craphound.com/category/bezzle/

breadandcircuses , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago) to random

In 2020, Julia Steinberger (@jks) and several other scholars published a paper titled "Providing decent living with minimum energy: A global scenario."

Take a look at the Abstract...

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It is increasingly clear that averting ecological breakdown will require drastic changes to contemporary human society and the global economy embedded within it. On the other hand, the basic material needs of billions of people across the planet remain unmet. Here, we develop a simple, bottom-up model to estimate a practical minimal threshold for the final energy consumption required to provide decent material livings to the entire global population.

We find that global final energy consumption in 2050 could be reduced to the levels of the 1960s, despite a population three times larger. However, such a world requires a massive rollout of advanced technologies across all sectors, as well as radical demand-side changes to reduce consumption – regardless of income – to levels of sufficiency. Sufficiency is, however, far more materially generous in our model than what those opposed to strong reductions in consumption often assume.

---

Did you catch that? "Global final energy consumption in 2050 could be reduced to the levels of the 1960s, despite a population three times larger."

They don't suggest this will be easy to achieve, but they do say it's possible.

There is another way than the one our capitalist masters keep shoving down our throats.

READ THE PAPER -- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378020307512

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Degrowth #Capitalism