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Cake day: January 26th, 2024

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  • Fair. Although, I consider Microsoft’s market “Most laptops” since Apple kind of does its own thing and Chromebooks are ultra-low end laptops. Thus Microsoft gets ~95% of the market for themselves.

    Personally, I’d say that’s a clear case of monopoly since MS controls this entire segment of “non-Apple, non-ultra low power laptop, PCs”, but you’re right - there are other players. The thing is, they have relatively tiny niches in which they thrive and in fact pose no threat to the monopolist.

    But I now I see how you see it as an oligopoly, which is quite valid.









  • There’s nothing against central systems in anarchism, only against central_ized_ ones.

    I agree, anarchism is very unlikely to affect any meaningful change. It probably won’t be able to get the critical mass necessary to do things since most anarchists are the laisez-faire type (in the sense they will not “force feed” your ideology - they’ll just tell you it exists and what it is and leave it up to you to decide, NOT in the capitalism sense).

    Is that good? Depends on your outlook. It’s always a good defense to let people decide for themselves, but how big of a reason is this for “the anarchist failure”?

    The real problem with leftists is the unending infighting. Disagreements on a non-fundamental level have caused many movements to fall into obscurity, and whenever a revolution did happen, it was always an auth-type that got rid of the anarchist types through underhanded means.

    Call this wishful thinking, but: It’s only a matter of time until a positive velvet revolution happens with no real ideologue leader that will be based on intelectualism rather than a personality cult and authoritarianism.

    Frequently the auth-types took over the means of power by stabbing the anarchists in the back (eg. Stalin).

    A revolution, while requiring guns, requires an incredible mass of people from all walks of life to happen - the current means of government must be unworkable for at least a quarter of the population and the vast majority needs to be at least indifferent to the change.

    Central organising is a concern, but anarchism isn’t opposed to its very idea, it’s opposed to running the central aspects with an iron fist.

    Since that causes silly problems like people desagreeing, the bane of any movement which, if it wants to be successful, absolutely has to get shit done as opposed to endlessly polemicising about meaningless details. Having a meaningful arbitrable solution is a good way to deal with that.

    About the media: I agree, western propaganda is bad. But, you have to know this little fact: much of the propaganda (western or otherwise) isn’t created as propaganda - it isn’t created by someone woth the explicit goal of “I have to paint xy as good and z as bad”. Most of it is indoctrinated people creating something they like and want to create. Any such creation follows from the creator’s material conditions, including their outlook on life, which is shaped by propaganda they themselves consumed.

    Essentially, Hollywood is a giant echo chamber. The US is. Any other society is, as well. It just depends on how strong the echo isself is - does it die down immidiately or does one sound create an undying cacophony?

    While there are pieces of target-created propaganda coming out of Hollywood, I dare say that most are, in fact, unintended propaganda - people come up with stories they like, think up some “what-ifs”, a plot, heroes, villians and conflicts.

    With the US being as individualist as it is, no wonder that the vast majority of heroes are solo players, not even fanatical members of an organization. They’re almost always painted in this US-ian individualist manner becuase the artist is a product of the US culture, mentality and media. Hiwever, the same applies to any other place.

    A notable counterexample is the priest - be him good or bad, he’s not a “solo player” - he’s always a member of his church and acts accordingly, which isn’t the result of the church’s unending current effort to propagandize all priests as members of a highly hierarchical organization - they did that a long time ago, and it’s paying dividends even now: people know priests to be just “a cog in the machine”.

    As the saying goes: don’t attribute to malice what you can to stupidity or ignorance.

    Manufactured consent is a hell of a drug.

    Typed up on mobile, please forgive any sausage finger induced typos.


  • I disagree. Wanting to know, researching and googling isn’t a bad thing. Sure, googling does always make the problem seem larger than it is, but other thanthe anxiety there are no ill effects.

    Do go to your doctor. Let them take a look at you, and ask for concrete tests. I know a family friend who felt off and had gained weight quite rapidly with no change in lifestyle. She went to the doctor who brushed it off and 6 mo. later she died from a cancer the size of a large infant. The doctor said she should stop worrying about her weight. True story.

    Most definitely, this won’t haooen to you, but remember - doctors are human too. They’re also lazy and like to not spend their budget on tests. And then stuff like this happens. It was totally avoidable. The doctor just needed to take a fucking look. She’d have noticed somethig was off. Now she has no job. I’d say I was sad for the doc, but it wasn’t even incompetence that caused this avoidable death, but rather pure laziness.

    Morale of the story: Looking out for yourself is not a bad thing. Try not to worry, see a doctor, inquire and ask for a check-up. It takes only a little bit of their time. If they say all is fine without doing jack-shit, call them out on it. Hell, be a Karen if need be - it’s your health on the line, not your kid’s football match causing you to get home 5 minutes later than usual.

    Odds are you’ll worry much less when you know you for sure your’re fine than when you have no clue what causes your ailment.