Random thought.
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What does capitalism have to do with the fact most people are stupid enough to get locked into a walled garden where they don't really buy anything but pay for a subscription?
What does capitalism have to do with the fact that we are being pushed into a future where we essentially own nothing and we're supposed to be happy about it?
Neither of these things are a fundamental part of capitalism.
Not purist, Austrian free market capitalism maybe, but the sad reality is that the Austrian purists were suckered by avaricious rent seekers wanting to recreate the Gilded Age for the sake of their own prosperity.
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@woozle @davidnjoku Show me where it hasn't.
The post-war social democracies of Europe showed the lowest income inequality and the greatest social mobility of any Western region ever.
Admittedly those advances only existed because members of the various European Establishments were petrified of permanently losing their privileged status to a socialist state, but the principle stands.
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@solitha @woozle @davidnjoku No, they are not. Say the wrong thing there and the police will come to your door. Fail to comply with their complaints and you will suffer. This is not freedom.
You think that doesn't happen in capitalist-rentier states?
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@solitha @woozle @davidnjoku Human rights which don't include freedom of speech or expression. Also, they are a nation of no account or importance.
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As a minor tangent, can you imagine what the internet would look like today if it had been designed by librarians wanting universal access to information rather than billionaires wanting to lock information behind a paywall?
@ReggieHere it was designed that way wasn’t it? And then we poured the money on top. And starting in 1997 I became part of the problem
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@ReggieHere it was designed that way wasn’t it? And then we poured the money on top. And starting in 1997 I became part of the problem
Yes, so many of us were dragged into the IT industry at that time, regardless of what we may have previously studied or trained to do.
In the 1990s I remember reading an article, not dissimilar to the 'Will AI replace my job?' articles we have today, and 'Librarian' topped a list of professions that would no longer exist in the newly-computerised world.
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Yes, so many of us were dragged into the IT industry at that time, regardless of what we may have previously studied or trained to do.
In the 1990s I remember reading an article, not dissimilar to the 'Will AI replace my job?' articles we have today, and 'Librarian' topped a list of professions that would no longer exist in the newly-computerised world.
@ReggieHere I was lured in by reading Wired articles even though I sensed back then that much of it was full of shit.
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@ReggieHere I was lured in by reading Wired articles even though I sensed back then that much of it was full of shit.
I think most of us have a similar story of that time, and the bizarre part was that the same industry essentially recreated librarians in the 2000s to deal with the data silos that had been created in the 80s and 90s thanks to a lack of standards that would have otherwise been created by librarians.
Most of the IT roles starting with 'data' (data scientist, data wrangler, data manager, ...) have a physical analogue that pre-dates the IT industry by centuries.
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Random thought.
If public libraries didn't already exist, capitalism wouldn't let you invent it. Can you imagine how many billions Jeff Bezos would plough into fighting the idea, destroying any politician who dared to back it?
Support your local library.
@davidnjoku One, we don't have capitalism, we have neoliberalism (which needs big government). Two, though you are right that they wouldn't be funded with money taken through proxy violence, that doesn't mean the concept would be entirely dead. Capitalism doesn't exclude collective but voluntary initiatives, quite the contrary. -
@Kalki_Rider They are the strongest democracies in the world, with the highest dedication to human rights.
I don't know where you are, but my US is failing in both metrics, rapidly.
@solitha Look at the profile. Typical trolling, nearly no followers. @Kalki_Rider@mastodon.social @woozle @davidnjoku
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@NatureMC @si_fuller @davidnjoku Yes, and eBook publishers are very angry about that is the point.
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Random thought.
If public libraries didn't already exist, capitalism wouldn't let you invent it. Can you imagine how many billions Jeff Bezos would plough into fighting the idea, destroying any politician who dared to back it?
Support your local library.
@davidnjoku I think they would be invented anyway, but with a paywall...
Libraries as we know them in the 16th and 17th century were basically collections of books for the royal family, other wealthy, powerful people and the church. In the 18th there was a change towards public access (although that didn't mean everybody could enter, more like academics and students). Also some libraries started as paid book clubs, where you could access the collections if you paid a fee. True open libraries, at least in Europe, weren't conceived until past the French revolution and their declaration of rights, the rise in mandatory education and the idea of the democratization of access to information. (Excuse the info dump, I'm currently studying this XD)
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@NatureMC @si_fuller @davidnjoku I don't know what to tell you, this is a huge battle in both the US (https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2023/05/book-publishers-are-trying-to-destroy-public-e-book-access-in-order-to-increase-profits) and the EU (https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/onleihe-fair-lesen-bibliotheken-urheberrecht-boersenverein-1.5451709). The publishers I'm talking about are all of the big oligopolists. Penguin RandomHouse, HarperCollins, Hachette, Pearson, you name it.
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Random thought.
If public libraries didn't already exist, capitalism wouldn't let you invent it. Can you imagine how many billions Jeff Bezos would plough into fighting the idea, destroying any politician who dared to back it?
Support your local library.
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Random thought.
If public libraries didn't already exist, capitalism wouldn't let you invent it. Can you imagine how many billions Jeff Bezos would plough into fighting the idea, destroying any politician who dared to back it?
Support your local library.
@davidnjoku it's weird because this is my library:
https://www.dcnewsnow.com/news/local-news/washington-dc/d-c-public-library-receives-largest-donation-in-history-2-7-million/ -
@solitha @woozle @davidnjoku No, they are not. Say the wrong thing there and the police will come to your door. Fail to comply with their complaints and you will suffer. This is not freedom.
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@davidnjoku it's weird because this is my library:
https://www.dcnewsnow.com/news/local-news/washington-dc/d-c-public-library-receives-largest-donation-in-history-2-7-million/@dcgirl Oh wow. That's amazing. If I had any integrity I'd apologise to Mr Bezos and delete my toot.
I think I'll leave it up for all the other shit he's done.
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@NatureMC @si_fuller @davidnjoku If you read the actual articles you'll see that you're wrong. Not just the headline, the actual text of both articles. This is such an absurd thing to dispute, you can just do a 5 second search in your search engine of choice. Here's an article straight from the, no kidding, publishers weekly: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/80689-libraries-must-draw-the-line-on-e-books.html
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@NatureMC @si_fuller @davidnjoku If you read the actual articles you'll see that you're wrong. Not just the headline, the actual text of both articles. This is such an absurd thing to dispute, you can just do a 5 second search in your search engine of choice. Here's an article straight from the, no kidding, publishers weekly: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/80689-libraries-must-draw-the-line-on-e-books.html
@fabio Thank you so much for explaining me my profession.
I would never had the idea that articles can be read. 
Note: you may compare apples and pears, I'll do not.
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Random thought.
If public libraries didn't already exist, capitalism wouldn't let you invent it. Can you imagine how many billions Jeff Bezos would plough into fighting the idea, destroying any politician who dared to back it?
Support your local library.
@davidnjoku case in point: all the people trying to take down Internet Archive
