Post AXaBOgViMO458l1eTo by alexelcu@social.alexn.org
 (DIR) More posts by alexelcu@social.alexn.org
 (DIR) Post #AWmmHz7IgcZB5IJlwG by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-06-17T14:02:09Z
       
       2 likes, 1 repeats
       
       There was a stretch when Elon Musk took over twitter and started charging for blue checks (lmao) and some of his sycophants started talking about “Veblen goods.”A Veblen good is something for which demand *increases* as price increases, in contact to the neoclassical orthodoxy that demand decreases axiomatically with price.Veblen goods are things that rich people buy to signal their wealth and status. Jewelry, fancy watches, yachts, Ivy League degrees. Things that cost many thousands or millions of dollars.The idea that an $8 verification on twitter would ever be a status symbol for the rich was fucking ludicrous.1/8
       
 (DIR) Post #AWmmI00FOKWDpi1eaG by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-06-17T14:02:09Z
       
       2 likes, 1 repeats
       
       But why is it called a Veblen good? I’m so glad you asked!Veblen goods are named after Thorstein Veblen, a Norwegian-born American economist who wrote around the turn of the 20th century. Veblen was a heterodox economist who critiqued capitalism from an angle that was not Marxist, but definitely complemented Marx’s analysis.Veblen noted the existence of Veblen goods in his broader study of what he coined “conspicuous consumption” by the “leisure class,” two terms we owe to him.2/8
       
 (DIR) Post #AWmmI0sq7MBgZ1ZFg0 by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-06-17T14:02:10Z
       
       1 likes, 2 repeats
       
       Veblen made a lesser known but much more important contribution to our understanding of the economy. He noted that capitalist enterprise falls into two broad categories, industry and business. While we colloquially think of these two things are part of the same phenomenon, Veblen recognized that there were two separate and antagonistic processes ongoing in capitalism.Industry is the process by which we make stuff to satisfy needs. It is a cooperative social process, the effort to satisfy needs as efficiently as possible. Its goal is collective well-being.Business, in contrast, is about pecuniary profit for differential gain. Business is the process by which industry is mobilized to generate profits at a faster rate than other business. And, Veblen noted, this often entailed interference with industry.3/8
       
 (DIR) Post #AWmmI1g7A9bR1qcbTs by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-06-17T14:02:10Z
       
       1 likes, 2 repeats
       
       Veblen called this interference “strategic sabotage.” At the time he was writing, Veblen was thinking specifically about the way capitalists might refuse workers permission to labor, to control wages, or to deliberately under-produce, in order to keep prices high.We can and should think about sabotage more expansively, though. When H&M burns 12 tons of unsold clothing each year, it is sabotaging industry. When De Beers buys up diamonds and then locks them up in a vault, it is sabotaging industry. When CVS pours bleach on edible but unsold food, it is sabotaging industry.https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2022/03/11/in-search-of-sabotage/4/8
       
 (DIR) Post #AWmmI2QCOoSxKmBPJQ by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-06-17T14:02:10Z
       
       1 likes, 1 repeats
       
       Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler, authors of “Capital as Power,” have pushed Veblen’s idea forward and view all property as sabotage—a social relationship of interference. Not necessarily in a normative sense, but in a positive one: property is the power to say no to someone else.“Anything that can undermine the resonance of industry is a potential business asset. The private ownership of plant, equipment and knowledge (intellectual property); the ability to manipulate and leverage government policy and control the underlying population via education, propaganda and advertisement; the power to undermine autonomous thinking, restrict creative collaboration and humane planning, block the free movement of people and things, induce war and destroy the natural environment – these are all means with which business can sabotage industry. And whatever can sabotage industry can be used to extort income from it by threatening to incapacitate its activity. This sabotage, says Veblen, is the ultimate source of all business income and the basis on which pecuniary investment and the accumulation of capital rest.”Unless something can be fenced off, it’s really hard to extract profits off it. We can put literal fences around land and post guards to deny access, but fortunately capitalists haven’t yet figured out how to sabotage and charge for access to air.https://bnarchives.yorku.ca/750/39/20221000_bn_the_business_of_straegic_sabotage_web.htm5/8
       
 (DIR) Post #AWmmI3I5ATZG1tORIe by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-06-17T14:02:11Z
       
       1 likes, 2 repeats
       
       You might have heard that the company that owns Instant Pot has filed for bankruptcy. The makers of Instant Pot did something horribly wrong: they made a really good product that works very well and does not need to be replaced frequently. This means that owners of Instant Pots might only need to buy one and rarely replace it, if at all.This is a great success from the perspective of *industry,* in Veblen’s sense, but terrible for *business.* The makers of Instant Pot failed to sufficiently sabotage their product by, say, building in intentional obsolescence. Maybe they should have used cheaper parts that wear out faster, or installed software that requires regular updates, or deliberately inserted components designed to make it fail.But they didn’t, and so sales were stagnant. The firm that owns Instant Pot borrowed lots of money in an attempt to make a new version of Instant Pot they somehow hoped to sell to consumers of Instant Pot. It was too much; the firm did not earn enough differential profits—profits at a faster rate than its competitors—and so the firm is failing, despite the success of the product.https://thetakeout.com/instant-pot-maker-parent-brand-file-for-bankruptcy-2023-18505347086/8
       
 (DIR) Post #AWmmI4C5oEN2pbbAbQ by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-06-17T14:05:42Z
       
       1 likes, 2 repeats
       
       Business—ownership—does not contribute to production. It can *only* earn revenue through sabotage. Without the fences, the toll booths, the armed guards, the enshitification, then owners do not earn any profits. Capitalism must constantly make things *worse* than they would be if we were free to produce to meet our own and each other’s needs.Maybe you’ve seen the news about Reddit? Reddit is restricting access to its API so it can charge more from makers of third-party apps. Reddit’s CEO had this to say:“Reddit represents one of the largest data sets of just human beings talking about interesting things…We are not in the business of giving that away for free."Oh My God He Admit It dot GifHuffman did not create “the largest data set of human beings talking about interesting things.” Reddits users did. What Huffman owns is a *fence* around those conversations, and he only earns a profit if he can *sabotage* access.7/8https://www.npr.org/2023/06/15/1182457366/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-its-time-we-grow-up-and-behave-like-an-adult-company
       
 (DIR) Post #AWmmI57AO21ZgcIkYy by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-06-17T14:19:18Z
       
       4 likes, 4 repeats
       
       Sennheiser makes headphones. Some of its models are very pricy, and others are cheaper. This is a common tactic for firms, selling products at multiple “price points” so it can capture revenue from people willing to pay at different levels.It’s apparently not very cost effective to make all sorts of different models. But then how do you justify selling headphones at different prices? Why would someone pay hundreds more for the same headphones?Why, just make one version *shittier.* Turns out Sennheiser was inserting a piece of foam into some of its headphones, to deliberately lower the sound quality, in order to sell the same headphones at different prices to different people.Once you recognize sabotage for what it is, you can’t help but start to see it in every aspect of your life: a deliberate shittiness imposed on us so someone else can earn a profit.http://mikebeauchamp.com/misc/sennheiser-hd-555-to-hd-595-mod/8/8
       
 (DIR) Post #AWmmI5pTjHTBu328dE by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-06-17T14:42:15Z
       
       1 likes, 1 repeats
       
       Tl;drInstant Pot is going out of business because capitalism incentivizes efficient pursuit of profit, not efficiency in general.If Instant Pot wanted more money, they should have made a shittier product.
       
 (DIR) Post #AWmmI6Wj8U444BGg2i by piggo@piggo.space
       2023-06-17T14:56:59.066627Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @HeavenlyPossum did Veblen also propose a way out of our current death spiral? Ideally some other than "nationalise everything" ...
       
 (DIR) Post #AWnkf0LoG7K4p0uh1s by edsuom@hachyderm.io
       2023-06-18T00:10:15Z
       
       2 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @HeavenlyPossum I’m an electrical engineer and there is an aspect of planned obsolescence shittiness that doesn’t get talked about but pisses me off: LED lightbulbs.The LEDs basically last forever. It wouldn’t be hard to design a long-lasting power supply to convert the 120 VAC to the voltage the LED uses, using film capacitors that cost pennies more. But nobody even thinks about paying more for something that lasts years longer and what pays is to stuff landfills full of “dead” lightbulbs.
       
 (DIR) Post #AWnkf1GWrEh1evRzRA by feld@bikeshed.party
       2023-06-18T02:13:03.443770Z
       
       1 likes, 1 repeats
       
       It seeks like the mass market LEDs are all over-driven and die from it. It's so stupid.
       
 (DIR) Post #AWnkhhEpm7yIPjvyqG by feld@bikeshed.party
       2023-06-18T02:13:34.464347Z
       
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       I did this mod years ago and it really worked!
       
 (DIR) Post #AWoHSt36sSN9Bkzpaa by zog@jauntygoat.net
       2023-06-18T08:21:14Z
       
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       @HeavenlyPossum this article looks like it is really really old, I know it doesn't diminish the point you are making here too much, but all the info on the web about this interesting hack seems to be about 13 years or more older.
       
 (DIR) Post #AWoHYRt6m8MggdyDOi by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-06-18T08:22:13Z
       
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       @zog My intent with sharing this link was not to convey a useful hack
       
 (DIR) Post #AWoIQO2HJUe8NRykxE by zog@jauntygoat.net
       2023-06-18T08:31:59Z
       
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       @HeavenlyPossum a less obscure example might illustrate the point better :-)
       
 (DIR) Post #AWoTDEiximLjEGsNge by zog@jauntygoat.net
       2023-06-18T10:32:50Z
       
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       @HeavenlyPossum one interesting theory mentioned in the hacker news discussion about this article, "“The actual difference between the two models could be that the HD595 had selected and matched drivers, the HD555 getting all the rejects from the 595. This is a fairly common practice”:
       
 (DIR) Post #AWoXEBHKPwS4eHel1s by bane@www.banepo.st
       2023-06-18T11:17:52.120258Z
       
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       @HeavenlyPossum The part where you got it wrong is that Instant Pot didn't fail because they made a good product, they failed because they didn't have the innovation or insight to regularly market new products, or other existing products under their brand as companion products, or simply branded generic kitchen tools. If Instant Pot wanted more money, they shouldn't have expected to be able to sell the same single non-consumable product forever.Instant Pot does, in fact, deserve to go bankrupt.
       
 (DIR) Post #AWofsa6ELtImqXEzSa by lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me
       2023-06-18T12:52:46.741079Z
       
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       @edsuom @HeavenlyPossum Even neon lights could last ages, think of the backlight of computer monitors, one of mine has been used for at least something like ~8 hours per day for the last 10 years. ( meaning ~29 220 hours )
       
 (DIR) Post #AWolTyfMTauFWXKARU by c00p@noagendasocial.com
       2023-06-18T12:55:00Z
       
       2 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @HeavenlyPossum is there a way to turn any of these into that? 🤞🤣
       
 (DIR) Post #AWolTzIi7INjUZjam8 by ringo@talk-here.com
       2023-06-18T13:57:32.390588Z
       
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       @c00p @HeavenlyPossum @icedquinn this is for you.  see the link.
       
 (DIR) Post #AWolVeRocRrjOdmolc by ringo@talk-here.com
       2023-06-18T13:57:54.131577Z
       
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       @c00p @HeavenlyPossum im still a fan of the sony mdr7506.  so simple yet so effective. and so cheap sound so so good.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXWeT3d6SvmM2X4yzQ by ArneBab@rollenspiel.social
       2023-06-17T21:57:26Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @HeavenlyPossum I see the general point, but I would not go so far as calling all property sabotage. For me the point of property is that I can always use something when I need it without any delays.I want to have my own screwdriver, because when something breaks I don’t want to have to wait for someone else to no longer need the screwdriver.I want to have my own computer, because when I have an idea I want to write it down *right now* and not have to wait until I can get a slot of PC-time.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXWeTCM41eUr6IB0BE by ArneBab@rollenspiel.social
       2023-06-17T22:00:01Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @HeavenlyPossum that said: for "intellectual property" (monopolies), the argument that property is sabotage works pretty well.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXWeZPQeKVvPO0HbHM by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-06-17T22:25:24Z
       
       1 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @ArneBab As I noted, this is a positive and not normative distinction. Property is a social relationship, an assertion of a right to interfere with someone else’s access. In many cases, this is perfectly reasonable—your own home, your own toothbrush, etc. In the case of capitalist rentier (or “private”) property, it’s a lot less reasonable claim to deny people access to resources. But it is all ultimately “sabotage” in the sense of interference, or denial of access. To say you have “your own” screwdriver is to assert a right to interfere with anyone else who would use it. That’s descriptive, not necessarily prescriptive.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXWec0oIJlVBtxaFzE by ArneBab@rollenspiel.social
       2023-06-17T22:05:01Z
       
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       @HeavenlyPossum translated: capitalism uses a metric (money) that doesn’t really match the goal of having most value for society.For a more general take on that which doesn’t stop at capitalism: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." — Goodhearts law → https://www.draketo.de/zitate#measure-targetFollowed up by: Overpowered Metrics Eat Underspecified Goalshttps://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/09/29/soft-bias-of-underspecified-goals/Money is the metric to rule all metrics.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXWec1Oo80i1jCfPto by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-06-17T22:32:10Z
       
       1 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @ArneBab I don’t think money is the “target” of capitalism. Differential profit is the target of capitalism. Wealth is ultimately a social relationship of command; the more profit a firm earns over other firms, the more it commands other people.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXWed8Fe8ZNbGluZhQ by ArneBab@rollenspiel.social
       2023-06-17T22:51:32Z
       
       1 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @HeavenlyPossum money is the metric used, and once you formulate your goals in terms of money, that’s the metric that guides your actions — your target.If your goal is command, you won’t always go for highest profits.Casting it in terms of money hides that goal and skews it towards "we need highest profits".
       
 (DIR) Post #AXWejX8cWQeMBwg4Mi by Sandra@idiomdrottning.org
       2023-06-18T07:51:24.961651Z
       
       1 likes, 1 repeats
       
       (Just to clarify in case there are any overly literal-minded lurkers: that takeaway was sarcastic; market capitalism's failure for consumers and waste of resources is not something to emulate or strive for. Perverse incentives benefit bad products but that's a cycle we on the left are trying to break, not endorse. @HeavenlyPossum obviously knows all this but since this is getting boosted around to people who maybe don't, I wanted to make it super explicit 🤷🏻‍♀️)
       
 (DIR) Post #AXWeqRMwMyPmKIfY6i by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-06-18T21:29:21Z
       
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       @Adirondack @osma “Private business” in the capital sense is not responsible for any single innovation ever.Workers are responsible for innovation—the ideas, the testing, the execution. The mere act of ownership does not contribute anything to that process.And private capitalist business—not just anything related to the internet but *any*—does not and cannot exist without the state subsidizing them.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXWeqSADPlpWn7itua by luke@mastodon.macneilmediagroup.com
       2023-06-18T22:00:09Z
       
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       @HeavenlyPossum @Adirondack @osma Well the mere act of ownership generally contributes pretty much everything except labor to the production of a thing.Procedures, equipment, materials, teams…
       
 (DIR) Post #AXWeqTejrlq9Q50n7w by luke@mastodon.macneilmediagroup.com
       2023-06-18T22:02:38Z
       
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       @HeavenlyPossum @Adirondack @osma Most products that innovate and are brought to market - are not self organized and funded by the laborers.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXWeqURIxCgjqhjZpI by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-06-18T22:10:14Z
       
       1 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @Adirondack @luke @osma This is a function of systemic constraints on labor, such as the enclosure of the production of credit and the state’s coercive enforcement of capitalist claims to labor; and not intrinsic to labor itself.Every product is innovated and brought to market by workers. They’re just not allowed to self-organize and fund themselves.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXWf8zgBXj7Px0W9lQ by BeAware@social.beaware.live
       2023-07-09T16:27:43Z
       
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       @HeavenlyPossum wow! Good to know to avoid Sennheiser from now on! I wonder if audio-technica does the same thing...I hope not, they're one of my favorites.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXWf90UWWZNuT84ME4 by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-07-09T17:54:18Z
       
       1 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @BeAware The problem is not unique to just one manufacturer. It’s the basis of all capitalism.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXYNGJlNrP0xPMDC52 by deech@mastodon.social
       2023-07-10T13:27:11Z
       
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       @HeavenlyPossum Thanks for this, I have long suspected deliberate sabotage of lower end models but didn't have the words or examples.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXYNGKgoPsx4HT53aq by alexelcu@social.alexn.org
       2023-07-10T14:02:53Z
       
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       @deech @HeavenlyPossum Takes on the perils of capitalism should be taken with a grain of salt.I've never heard of “Instant Pot”, and I'm constantly looking for smart kitchen utensils. Being from Romania, this may have something to do with it, but clearly the Instant Pot folks haven't marketed their pot to all potential customers.And now that I heard of it, I'm seeing plenty of copycats labeled as “multicooker”, from very respectable companies (e.g., Philips, Bosch, Tefal, etc.).
       
 (DIR) Post #AXYO7gLEe5FQmUQXE8 by alexelcu@social.alexn.org
       2023-07-10T14:12:33Z
       
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       @deech @HeavenlyPossum I also fail to see how any piece of electronic equipment can survive in a kitchen for more than 3–5 years, tops, given all the heat and humidity. Or any pot, actually, b/c of scratches, or chemical agents in cleaning products. People claiming a long lifetime for certain products must not use their kitchen very much.The truth is, we may never know why certain companies fill for bankruptcy. Cloning is only a matter of time, and maybe the business was mismanaged, too.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXYP9GqkUgiuFlUMdM by karchie@freeradical.zone
       2023-07-10T14:24:00Z
       
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       @alexelcu @deech @HeavenlyPossum yeah I think if we’re going to group this in with effects of capitalism it’s more about management and capital assuming every business must grow exponentially and indefinitely than about intentional sabotage being a prerequisite. the bad business decision here wasn’t to make a reliable product
       
 (DIR) Post #AXZ6yydHlYW6qD5q2C by jmccance@mastodon.social
       2023-07-10T22:35:09Z
       
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       @alexelcu @deech @HeavenlyPossum I think you’re underestimating how long quality things can last. I cook almost every day, and lots of things of things in my kitchen are 5–10 years old, including electronic things like my toaster and my temp-controlled kettle. (And honestly, the toaster is not at all “quality”.)
       
 (DIR) Post #AXZjBQq0WQpQ3EPSvA by wststreet@ani.work
       2023-07-11T05:43:07Z
       
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       @alexelcu @deech @HeavenlyPossum I do have an Instant Pot, but I only heard of it through a friend and I ordered it from Amazon as it wasn't available in stores here.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXZjOKJk4mMhapSzhI by wststreet@ani.work
       2023-07-11T05:45:32Z
       
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       @alexelcu @deech @HeavenlyPossum Actually stuff my parents bought in the 80s and 90s ended up lasting until the 2010s. We still have a mixer that's more than 30 years old and it's still working. Planned obsolescence is a thing, sadly. Either that or cutting corners resulting in poor quality products.
       
 (DIR) Post #AXa3mUqiZJZwI3h2gq by alexelcu@social.alexn.org
       2023-07-11T09:34:01Z
       
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       @wststreet While I know what you're experiencing, I tend to disagree with this because comparisons are usually apples to oranges.For one, appliances made in the 80s and 90s were more mechanical, and less electronic — more durable, simpler, sometimes better, but with fewer features and less efficient.  See for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5YBut also, the market has been invaded by low-priced appliances, and the issue is higher priced items tend to last more.@deech @HeavenlyPossum
       
 (DIR) Post #AXa45lzv2FzEyeBlRI by wststreet@ani.work
       2023-07-11T09:37:29Z
       
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       @alexelcu That is true, but even simple appliances nowadays either break down because of cheaper materials or are just not sold anymore in favour of appliances with electronics.My rice cooker is coming apart after just a few years, it's a dumb one too, same design that's been used for decades.@deech @HeavenlyPossum
       
 (DIR) Post #AXa6AjKaZq0g3yLf8q by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-07-11T10:00:46Z
       
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       @wststreet @alexelcu @deech https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html
       
 (DIR) Post #AXaBOgViMO458l1eTo by alexelcu@social.alexn.org
       2023-07-11T10:59:22Z
       
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       @HeavenlyPossum I suffer from severe allergic asthma. I sometimes think research prefers management treatments to cures, too.OTOH, the drug in this picture, developed by AstraZeneca, literally saved my life. Their COVID-19 vaccine too, alongside that of Pfizer, which was a miracle in how fast it was deployed, given constraints. They are products of capitalism, and I can tell you, under communism nobody gave a shit about asthma. And hospitals were where you went to die.@wststreet @deech
       
 (DIR) Post #AXaEeOAAdvg6jT82AS by HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
       2023-07-11T11:35:41Z
       
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       @alexelcu @deech @wststreet These are not products of capitalism, and nothing I’m advocating even remotely resembles what Ceaușescu called “communism.” But I sincerely doubt I’ll be able to productively engage you, so cheers!