Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Il Palazzo]

anthropomorphic climate change is real

It's name is Steve, and despite a warm personality gets really unbearable in the long term.

[Maximum™]

I assumed by Tech Overlords you meant capitalists, not the companies.  (Isn't it clear I'm talking about people in my response?  Sorry if not)

Yeah Apple produces computer devices, or close enough.  The company does the inventing, production, and marketing.  Specifically employees do all that, and the company pays them a fraction of the value of their work.  It then passes reliable ever-increasing profits to the capitalists who put up the original capital.  Those capitalists and CEOs, who I would call Tech Overlords, did not produce anything (though I again acknowledge their importance under capitalism).

Also ... I'm not sure I understand where the conversation is going? It sounds like venting, not any kind of practical approach to anything...

Whether we call it techno-feudalism or an inevitable result of unrestricted capitalism (IMO it's obviously both),

When you say "it's obviously both", though, you fail to see that the people who want to call it feudalism is doing that so that their holy capitalism-on-a-hill can remain pure and blame free and so it isn't actually a failure of capitalism but a failure of attaining the Perfect State of Capitalism in which this would never happen. Hence capitalist denialism.

Uh, hi, have we ever interacted on here before?

Like, even just a few posts back, where I was noting that one of the inevitable awful outcomes of capitalism is capitalists trying to escape and secure a position where they can start collecting rent rather than having to compete in a market which was nominally free of rents?

Like, it's very confusing to see you post stuff like that, as though I'm saying it is anything but a damnation of modern capitalist society that it is producing a new shittier version of feudalism.

[scriver]

You're using the word because you are a fool who wants to sound smart, I'm talking about the guy who made up the term and his ilk.

[MorleyDev]

Things like Uber are to an extent a natural result of the way human invention trends towards specialisation as it gets more advanced.

If every taxi company could make it's own Uber, each one would be much worse implemented than the one produced by a dedicated company. But even then, things like the Satellite imagery and GPS...well, no Taxi company operates at a scale to do that. It could be state provided and tax funded as an alternative to being privately produced, but ultimately still would need to be managed by someone compensated for such.

Advanced technologies require specialisation, continuous service requires continuous 'rent', and the modern world is constructed entirely on top of continuously supplied, advanced technolgies.

The main issue with things like Uber and Uber-likes isn't the requirement of 'rent' but of exclusivity.  When Uber prohibit their drivers from operating independently from Uber, mandate times and minimum usage from drivers, they become an employer rather than a service provider at that point.

[Maximum™]

Uber being able to twiddle dials and screw people over selectively and punish them for using other services sucks, but I used to drive a cab.

I was responsible for the cab while I used it, my phone, and generally trying to present a good face for the company... but I rented the cab from them and paid out a chunk for the use of the vehicle every day or two.

When it needed service THEY handled it, not me, when it needed insurance, THEY handled it, not me.

Uber offloads all the costs to the workers and tries to keep the profits for themselves, taxi company apps couldn't possibly be worse implemented than uber because they werent trying to stay afloat with venture capital until they could run every other taxi company out of business.

You're using the word because you are a fool who wants to sound smart, I'm talking about the guy who made up the term and his ilk.

Sweetheart I am literally unable to care about sounding smart, I can't even imagine why someone would care what people online think about them, I only care about being accurate and understood.

[MorleyDev]

Several cab companies have tried to have "order by phone" apps in the UK to compete with Uber, they all suck. Cheaply made, basically just website forms, because they're not being made by people with skills, knowledge, and long term investment in the maintainence and expansion of the app. They're being contracted out to be built once-and-done by people who don't understand what they're contracting, and it shows.

You could construct an Uber-style app that Cab Companies pay a fee to be listed in and integrate with, and then aggregates requests between Cab Companies, but that's arguably just an extra level of indirection so quickly raises the question "why not go straight to the drivers?".

(In the UK, Taxi Drivers are entitled to minimum wage etc as being employees of the cab company, which is why Uber demanding exclusivity from them but not actually treating them like employees landed them in court here.)

If you're renting a cab from them and it has their branding and you have obligations of how much you work to them and people call that company to arrange for you to pick them up and then they take a portion of that...that sounds like *employment* to me and you should have the things like minimum wage, sick pay, paid holiday time, protection from unfair dismissal etc that this should entitle you to (yes, USA doesn't always have all of those State-by-State but it should).

If they're just providing a vehicle rental service, and you have to do all of the rest of the work yourself, then that's being self-employed and you are paying them for a service as part of using that service in your business. The business world is held together by middlemen services nowadays.

The problems with things like Uber is they want the benefits of having employees (such as exclusivity, working hours for coverage etc) without the obligations (minimum wage etc).

[Maximum™]

Yuuuup, they did a whole thing where they pumped cash into california ballot initiatives trying to keep gig workers from being classified as employees.

Incidentally, I had business cards made up and gave them out to passengers so they could just call me, I'd zoop over and grab them if I was nearby, run the fare as usual, and go about my way normally. Ultimately you get a feel for which fares to grab from the company versus when you should linger around certain spots like airports/bars or go for direct calls.

At least with a cab company they handle the costs/vehicle depreciation/repair/insurance and some will even offer things like gas reimbursement for fares taken through their service vs direct calls, to encourage you to prioritize their fares more often.

I enjoyed it a lot, good cash, literally set my own hours, got to drive around in a big police interceptor with a snorty 4.6 L V8.

Cabbies also tend to look out for each other, I recall a couple of impromptu manhunts when a cabbie got mugged and another when a fare was kidnapped so all of us in the area just diverted to find the fucker.

Uber likes drivers to feel like they're literally the only driver around, any efforts to communicate and organize with other drivers are squashed preemptively and with overwhelming force otherwise.

[Lord Shonus]

The Fraud elemental calling himself George Santos has become the third Representative to be expelled from Congress since the Civil War. Vote was 311 Yea, 114 Nay, 2 Present

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/george-santos-expulsion-congress-ny-house-ethics-committee-rcna127179

[Telgin]

The fact it wasn't unanimous is embarrassing but not surprising.

[hector13]

Taylor Greene was immediately on the social medias blasting the decision to reduce their majority, because clearly that’s the only thing that matters.

[McTraveller]

I often wonder what worldview informs many of these sensational politicians' actions.

Understanding the way they view the world... may afford some opportunity for constructive discourse.

[Lord Shonus]

Taylor Greene was immediately on the social medias blasting the decision to reduce their majority, because clearly that’s the only thing that matters.

It is a Big Deal, considering how razor-thin the GOP majority already is. This took the balance from 222-213 (a margin of 9 seats) to 221-213 (a margin of 8 seats). When the special election happens early next year, there is a very good chance that this will further tighten to 221-214 (7 seats), because "Santos" was kind of an anomaly for his district. That's really not good for the GOP, given how fractured they are.

[anewaname]

Of the video clips covering the expulsion, one that I enjoyed showed the locks being changed on his doors after the vote, and another clip shows Santos heading down the hall to the exit, saying ""you know what, I'm officially no longer a member of congress, I no longer have to answer questions" and as he actually walks past the door, a reporter says "don't let the door hit you".

[Strongpoint]

https://twitter.com/RepStefanik/status/1732138663608271149

So, it is fine to call for genocide in the best American universities now (depending on the context). Cool!

[hector13]

Probably a more balanced source than a QAnon conspiracist, a proponent of the Great Replacement theory, and someone who endorses people who praise Hitler.