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What's the most polarizing thing you've ever done or said?
  • Gnosticism is by definition the epitome of duality. That said, conflict with a reactionary entity doesn't imply you're not reactionary. Russia and Ukraine are at war with each other and they are both very reactionary, becoming even worse due to the needs produced by such conflict.

    Also, hackers tend to hold libertarian (in the European sense) values and that's how they pick their targets for direct action. When I say they are reactionary, they are reactionary in effect, not in intent. That makes them even more problematic, because it's not immediately obvious what's the problem.

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    What's the most polarizing thing you've ever done or said?
  • It would be quite a long argument, but I suggest TechGnosis by Erik Davis and this article: https://www.are.na/block/24206425

    tl;dr: hacker culture is grounded in gnostic, individualistic californian hippie culture, and shares root with what is now the dominant, reactionary ideology of big tech moguls, ketamine cryptocolonialists, business white supremacists. One key tenet of hacker culture is the power of the individual super-human brain power to reshape entire societies through the production of disruptive technology. Mr. Robot tv series is one such example of said mindset. It preaches the superiority of the world of minds and the virtual over the material. The material is subject to the virtual and the virtual is where the real stuff is happening, where there's a real confrontation of power (the hacker vs the system, disruptors vs established businesses, out-of-the-box thinkers vs corporate drones). This mimics gnostic beliefs very closely. It is reactionary because it is individualistic, because it erases material conditions and collective action, but it also just operates from such a simplified worldview that it is impossible to adhere to if you have a very basic understanding of disciplines like sociology, history or politics. It's just not how the world works.

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  • Jump
    What's the most polarizing thing you've ever done or said?
  • I have a few. I'm not the kind of person that says controversial things to attract attention, but I also don't refrain from putting them out there.

    A selection of the ones I use in my political activity:

    • knowing things doesn't change things
    • work should be abolished
    • atheism and rationalism are a scourge on the ability of the Left to reach people
    • hacker culture is intrinsically gnostic and reactionary

    Some others:

    • suicidal and self-harming people should be listened to by understanding and validating the motivations behind their desire to hurt or kill themselves, even entertaining with them their own plans. Anything else would likely put a wedge between the two of you that will prevent from addressing the causes and ultimately do what's good for them.
    • mathematics is just narrative with rules/arbitrary opinions with rules
    • nurses, doctors, teachers and other professions of care attract the worst psychopaths because they are put in charge of vulnerable people. On top of that they are by default perceived as caregivers, so it's harder for them to raise suspicion of doing fucked up stuff.

    Edit: people down voting in a thread about controversial opinions must be very very intelligent

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    What’s your “I can’t believe other people don’t do this” hack?
  • I use Notion+Notion Calendar for this and I delegate to it a lot of stuff: bureaucracy, booking the barber, changing the bedsheets, all my work, birthdays, etc etc. How can people trust their brain with more than two or three items is unfathomable to me. I mean, when I was younger I could keep in mind a dozens upcoming appointments and go through them every few hours to make sure I wouldn't miss anything, but as soon as your routine is disturbed by work stuff, it's impossible.

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  • techworkerscoalition.org Circuit Breakers -- A Conference for Workers Organizing in Tech

    Circuit Breakers is a conference for organizers and activists in the tech industry to come together and learn, build community, strategize, and recognize our collective power. It will be held October 12-13, 2024, in San Francisco.

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    An economic lesson...
  • you have no fucking clue how brittle systems like electronics production, or oil supply are. USA, from a systemic point of view, is the most coupled and fragile production system in the world except maybe some micro-nation in the middle of the ocean.

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  • Jump
    Is there such a thing as a privacy driven credit card?
  • mastercard sends your transaction data live to banks. They sell your data to third parties for marketing, profiling and the likes. Credit score is the least of your problems.

    I know because I developed a system, in a major European bank, enriching their transaction data with mastercard data for live, predatory marketing.

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    Michel Barnier named by Macron as new French PM
  • nah, you will attract only those that already kinda agree. All the others will see weirdos with weird ideas, weird clothing and weird vocabulary, approaching them in the street or promoting events that they don't care about.

    "talking to people" is something I do since I'm in union organizing and the way people react to the same arguments varies wildly over time. After the waves of layoffs in the tech sector, non-politicized tech workers are incredibly more receptive to pro-union rhetoric, in a way that would have been impossible before.

    About accelerationism: I'm not saying failing an election is a necessary step in a teleological sense. You should enter elections to win them, if you do it. Nonetheless it is useful to radicalize people. It is a recuperation of what is perceived as a defeat in a system in order to feed a different system. Electoral betrayal is useful, but not necessarily something you should strive for, as an armchair accelerationist would claim. There are better ways to spend your time and energy imho, but if it happens, it is still good manure for growing the seeds of something new.

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    Michel Barnier named by Macron as new French PM
  • The mistake of this logic is to believe that this betrayal of electoral logic won't radicalize people. It is a necessary step. There are now 11 Million French people, many of which probably don't believe much in electoralism but vote anyway, who are furious at what's happening.

    People don't change their mind listening to arguments, they change their mind living experiences. The experience of joy after winning, followed by the disregard of democratic logic by Macron, will mobilize an insane amount of popular energy, contrary to snarky "electoralism doesn't work" comments that are relatable only to a microscopic niche of edgy, maximalist leftists.

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    Paying for software is stupid… 10 free and open-source SaaS replacements
  • If you're wondering, no Appflowy cannot be used to replace Notion. It's in their claim but you would have a pretty bad time doing it. Anytype might one day get there, Appflowy is another thing.

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  • yasminnair.com Kamala Harris Will Lose - Yasmin Nair

    I know this goes against the popular narrative about Kamala Harris, especially after the recently concluded Democratic National Convention (DNC). But I think she is headed for a loss, and that we may well see a repeat of 2016. I thought of adding “probably” to the title, but matters are pretty stark...

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    Socialists who have lived in different countries: what differences did you notice in their labour movement?
  • Union organizing should be done across departments. Anyway software developers are doing a lot of organizing and unionizing, exactly because they have more secure positions. AWU, Kickstarter, NYT, Grindr, and many others are almost entirely office workers, many of which are software developers. Software developers are tech workers: drawing lines doesn't help anybody and historically has always been to the detriment of the workers movement. Software developers start organizing when they stop being software developers and become tech workers.

    Also FYI: I've been a software developer for a decade and I mostly organize software developers that, if anything, are overrepresented in "tech workers" spaces, to the point where we have to put rules like "don't talk about git, it scares the workers" to prevent the spaces to become cliquey.

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    Socialists who have lived in different countries: what differences did you notice in their labour movement?
  • What do you mean? The USA has a lot of momentum and a lot of tech companies are unionizing, many more than anywhere else. It's on mainstream newspapers every other day

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  • github.com GitHub - chobeat/awesome-critical-tech-reading-list: A reading list for the modern critical programmer

    A reading list for the modern critical programmer - GitHub - chobeat/awesome-critical-tech-reading-list: A reading list for the modern critical programmer

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    github.com GitHub - chobeat/awesome-critical-tech-reading-list: A reading list for the modern critical programmer

    A reading list for the modern critical programmer - GitHub - chobeat/awesome-critical-tech-reading-list: A reading list for the modern critical programmer

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    Divine Automation: Factorio and phantasies of mechanization

    reincantamentox.substack.com Drop #13. Divine Automation

    Factorio and phantasies of mechanization

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    write.as A Compass for the Politics of Collapse: A Short Straightforward Introduction

    The word "collapse" appears more and more often in recent political debate. Online, in the media, in the Academia, and in radical politic...

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    write.as A Compass for the Politics of Collapse: A Short Straightforward Introduction

    The word "collapse" appears more and more often in recent political debate. Online, in the media, in the Academia, and in radical politic...

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    write.as A Compass for the Politics of Collapse: A Short Straightforward Introduction

    The word "collapse" appears more and more often in recent political debate. Online, in the media, in the Academia, and in radical politic...

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    write.as A Compass for the Politics of Collapse: A Short Straightforward Introduction

    The word "collapse" appears more and more often in recent political debate. Online, in the media, in the Academia, and in radical politic...

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    write.as A Compass for the Politics of Collapse: A Short Straightforward Introduction

    The word "collapse" appears more and more often in recent political debate. Online, in the media, in the Academia, and in radical politic...

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