Ænima

It’s worse than gambling. When gambling there’s risk and reward, but bad bets are still the responsibility of the player just like bets that outperform. In stocks, if someone makes a bet and/or the company misses their expected returns, the gambler can sue the company. It’s the only gambling where oops, all losses can still result in payoff for the player by fiduciary class-action lawsuit.

I played meme-stocks in 2020-21. I saw that bullshit first-hand, getting half a dozen emails after quarter misses about suing the company over their failure to meet projections. But half of those companies were just getting fucked with because of the influx of idiots like me doing silly shit with their money! I was blown away by that and suddenly started to see how fucked we were to do anything to stop the cancer that unregulated capitalism has become. Infinite growth, impossible in a finite system, is not only expected, but failure to return positive returns could be met with shareholders suing the company for line not go up high enough reasons.

It’s so messed up.

Before this all shakes out, I could see some guerilla shit like this being a key tool in violent resistance. Magnets are pretty strong, too, so under vehicle, easily attachable devices might be very effective.

Hell yeah dude(ette)! We got this!!

I heard this in G-man’s voice from the first two or three words!

Been wondering for a while if it was worth sticking around on this plane of existence. Feeling like nothing was going to get any easier or better, wondering if my life would just be watching horror rafter horror until the tech I loved stop working and the world went dark as they came for me and mine.

Then I saw Benn Jordan’s Anarchist Gift Guide video and realized the same thing as you: I may not have a lot of skills to offer the world, but I’m neurodivergent, a sysadmin for higher ed, and (used to, at least) like to tinker. I realized my disdain for the humanitarian and moral failings of the system we currently reside in could be married to my hobbies and feel like I was doing something more than just protesting, donating, and waiting to die.

My goals are to fix up my home environment, get my 3D printers working, set up an exercise area, set up a Meshtastic relay and other support networks for my local area, update a media server for friends and family to enjoy, including a request system, and do anything else along the way the provide a system of communication and sanity that removes as much reliance on the government and corporations as I can.

It finally got me to fix some bugs in existing services I already manage and this weekend my wife and I are starting the work on the exercise room, for the benefit of our bodies. Not saying Benn’s video saved my life, but it gave me a purpose, again, in a world that feels increasingly aimed at reducing me to a sad data point on some graph. I hate what this world has become and avoid social media at all costs, but now I can do something locally that will feel like I’m doing something to help.

I have a particular set of skills that make me a nightmare for groups like ICE. I just need coffee, my ADHD meth, and some weed gummies to see it through. Thanks for posting this! I will save it and refer to it as I go.

This is…actually a really good analogy for consumerism. When the market has little to no competition and seemingly insurmountable barriers to enter it, it can really feel like a hostage situation. At best it’s like two dudes sitting behind a desk, ripping off their hook-and-loop patches to caress their nipples while listening to our feedback.