Skip Navigation

InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)S
Posts
626
Comments
860
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • And frankly, a wave of Luigis would be actively harmful to the cause of fixing US health care. We had a wave of "propaganda of the deed" anarchist assassins and bombers in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Their "direct action" against members of European royalty discredited their cause in the public eye, and tainted not only them but peaceful anarchist movements beside them.

    And then an anarchist shot the wrong person and started World War I, showing that propaganda of the deed may not be able to make the world better, but it sure as hell can make it worse.

  • I'm suddenly reminded of how the Hegseth administration has implemented a policy of double-tapping unarmed civilian boats and purging the US military of anyone who objects.

  • Oh ffs.

    Irrespective of the morality of Luigi's (alleged) actions (and let me emphasize here: killing people is wrong, even when the people are health care CEOs) he didn't do shit to change the system. He killed one guy. He inspired some memes. He got a bunch of CEOs to increase their personal security. Big fucking deal.

    CEOs are fungible. Luigi killed one. His corporation replaced him, just like a broken part in a machine. Nothing changed and the world moved on.

    The broken health care industry will be fixed - if it's ever fixed - by government action. We need single payer. We need universal taxpayer-funded health care for all. And we're not going to get that by shooting CEOs.

  • So the thing about accelerationism, when it comes to voting, is: in order to deliberately vote to make things worse, you have to believe your vote matters.

    I don't believe my vote matters.

    I'm not an accelerationist. I don't think it's a good idea to deliberately drive the United States into the ground, hoping to trigger collapse and revolution, in the belief that something better might rise from the ashes. The history of revolutions is ugly and bloody and very rarely beneficial to the majority of human beings involved.

    But frankly? I think a collapse and a revolution is coming. I think if we avoid it, it'll be because the American government employs tools of repression, surveillance, and social control more extensive than any in previous history. I think both of those options are horrible. And I don't think anything I do is going to make one damn bit of difference to the outcome.

  • collapse of the old society @slrpnk.net

    The modern passport has eliminated heroes who can bend rules to save lives | The biometric immigration system makes it impossible for bureaucrats to make a moral stand. I know because I tried.

    reason.com /2026/05/20/the-modern-passport-has-eliminated-fraud-forgery-and-heroes-who-can-bend-the-rules-to-save-lives/
  • I'm not understanding your math. What would we need enough battery storage to cover annual use? The sun isn't going to stop shining for an entire year, is it?

  • I'm in the United States. I'm not going to bullshit about politics in other countries when I don't know the facts on the ground on more than a surface level.

    Should I quit posting until someone comes along who can knowledgeably post about other countries?

    Or confine myself to discussions about electoralism in theory instead of ranting about the examples that I know and hate in practice?

    Not being sarcastic. These are not rhetorical questions. I can rant about political bullshit anywhere - you're the host here and it's polite to follow your rules. What do you want me to do to make this community more like what you want it to be?

  • I get the benefits of that, and, that sort of megastructure power generation requires massive investment in power plants and a grid to carry the power.

    One of the great things about solar is you don't need megastructures or thousands of miles of cables, because you can generate power directly where it's needed - need more power, add more panels. One of the great things about batteries is they work the same way.

    That's a boon for industry in rural areas with poor infrastructure, like, say, rural India. You don't need to rely on a power plant hundreds of miles away to power your factory. You don't need to trust the government to keep the power grid intact and stable. You don't need to worry the government will divert the power you need in order to power the President's brother's data center or whatever. You plop down your solar panels and battery bank and get to work.

    (That's a disappointment from the article. India's building an enormous solar megastructure way out in a rural area without the power transmission infrastructure to get the power where it's needed. Smells like graft.)

  • And in 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice accused Adani executives of paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to Indian government officials to obtain lucrative supply contracts for its solar energy and hiding this from potential investors. The case was dropped this month after Adani made offers to invest in the U.S., though U.S. officials denied any link.

    Lol. I'm sure they did.

  • That's one reason why I think the boom in cheaper, better, safer battery tech is one of the greatest innovations of the 21st century.

    Yeah, the sun doesn't always shine. Yeah, you need 24/7 power for a lot of things (eg lifesaving medical equipment in hospitals). Solar isn't practical for a lot of uses unless you can effectively store the power. But battery storage centers are getting better every day.

    (On a related note, e-bikes and scooters are everywhere where I live. Personal solar powered transportation at a fraction of the cost and impact of cars. As soon as batteries got small and light and cheap enough to make them practical the market exploded. It's amazing.)

  • The purpose of a system is what it does.

    The Republicans move America to the right.

    The Democrats block movement to the left.

    The people of America aren't all the same. But both parties serve the same billionaire masters. The billionaires want a government that serves the rich and keeps the working class in their place, and both parties are doing their best to give it to them.

    How many more decades of hearing "we just need more and better Democrats, you just need to donate more and vote harder" will it take before you realize it's a fucking lie?

    If you bother voting at all, you may as well vote Republican. It ends up the same either way.

  • Not voting (in your election) @slrpnk.net

    It's amazing how frequently just enough Democrats cross the aisle to keep Democrat legislation from passing. From Lieberman to Manchen to Fetterman and now Golden

  • Never mind the GOP. Hillary fucking Clinton spent millions of dollars promoting Trump in the run up to the 2016 election, because she wanted to make the Republicans look more radical and dangerous, and Trump was the most radical, dangerous candidate in the race.

    Thanks, Hillary. Good call.

  • No, do not

    Because Greene and other right-wing anti-Semites are using you much more than you're using them.

    They want views, they want attention, they want a left-wing audience, because that gives them more people to recruit and more opportunities to spread their racist, bigoted, generally shitty views.

    And everybody's attention span is finite. The more space the left gives to Greene, and Carlson, and other right-wing propagandists, the less space is available for actual Palestinians and their advocates to speak. We need to hear from the people most impacted by Israel's actions, not from racists jumping on the anti-Israel bandwagon because they hate Jews.

    You are not immune to propaganda. Nobody is. So don't platform right-wing propagandists. KTHX.

  • See also: Tucker Carlson. Who has been aggressively attacking the Israeli government on Gaza, not because he gives a shit about Muslim lives, but because he's an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist. He thinks Jews want to murder all Gentiles, his beliefs come straight from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and every heinous act the government of Israel commits reinforces his belief that all Jews are evil.

    And he, and Greene, and the rest of the right wing fever swamp conspiracy theorists, are fucking delighted that the American left is turning against Israel, because it gives them a new audience to try and recruit into genuine hardcore anti-Semitism.

    The enemy of my enemy, in this case, is not my friend. You want to platform voices speaking against the Israeli government? Platform Palestinian voices. Don't give racist trash like Greene a single additional view.

  • Vegan @slrpnk.net

    How ten years of veganism enriched my life | Veganism is always lauded for its environmental and ethical benefits, but the personal impact can be enormous too | sower.world

    www.sower.world /intellectual-growth-vegan-humility
  • They can't make houses cheaper, after all. That would hurt the bankers and mortgage companies and property investors.

    Purchasing an actual house is out of reach for the bottom 90% of young Americans. And they can't lower housing prices because it'll make rich people less rich. And they can't increase wages because it'll make rich people less rich.

    So they define the American Dream downwards.

    A young adult today can buy an RV for the same price, adjusted for inflation, as their parents spent to buy a house. And that'll be the new aspiration. Buy an RV, rent a parking space, and start a family.

    And the conservatives wonder why people aren't having kids these days.

  • collapse of the old society @slrpnk.net

    A lifeline or ‘dystopian’?: Schools open parking lots for homeless students and families

    hechingerreport.org /school-parking-lots-for-homeless-students-and-families/
  • Lasting change takes collective action, not one rich guy throwing money around.

    People like to toss out the factoid that Elon Musk could end world hunger with a tiny fraction of his hoarded fortune, and that's true, as far as it goes. He could pay to feed everyone on earth. But if the structural, political, and economic factors that made those people hungry in the first place aren't fixed, then weeks or months or years later they'll all be hungry again.

    I mean, take California's high speed rail. Newsom and his predecessors have thrown something like thirty billion dollars at building a line from San Francisco to LA or wherever the hell it's supposed to go, and it doesn't really matter where it's supposed to go, because they haven't built shit. But the reason they haven't built shit isn't a lack of money - it's because of landowners not wanting to give up their land for train tracks, it's because of the glacial pace of environmental review and permitting, it's because of sabotage by the richest man in the world who owns a car company and hates public transit on principle, it's because of a hundred other things that a billionaire can't fix by throwing money at it.

    I don't like Steyer, but he's not wrong to believe that reforming California's government is the only way to actually fix what's wrong with California. He's just wrong to think he can do it through the Democratic Party.

  • Things that are solarpunk: building tall, building dense, building multi-use. The more you limit your building footprint, the more space you have for farms and gardens and wild green spaces. A single 100-unit apartment complex, with a shuttle bus to the local train station, is roughly a hundred times more efficient than a subdivision with 100 single family homes and probably 200 cars.

    People hate to hear it, but the American style of private home ownership ain't solarpunk, or socialist, or any other brand of leftist. It's pretty much the most capitalist thing a member of the working class will ever do.

  • solarpunk memes @slrpnk.net

    marx didn't give the capitalists hell. he just told the truth and they thought it was hell

  • Climate @slrpnk.net

    The Tennessee Valley Authority Produced a Booklet Downplaying Coal Ash Risks. Top Researchers Call it ‘Dishonest.’  | tldr the TVA is telling its customers coal ash is as harmless as garden soil 🤢

    insideclimatenews.org /news/15052026/the-tennessee-valley-authority-produced-a-booklet-downplaying-coal-ash-risks-top-researchers-call-it-dishonest/
  • solarpunk memes @slrpnk.net

    nature is often cruel

  • Land Back @slrpnk.net

    Native kids with disabilities were held in wooden boxes | schools on St. Regis Mohawk Reservation locked Native kindergarteners in wooden crates like animals. In 2025. Not 1825. Fucking 2025.

    www.npr.org /2026/05/14/nx-s1-5821682/salmon-river-mohawk-children
  • Or pick the sprouts, cook them, and eat them. They're like hardier asparagus 😆

  • "If the forests are doomed anyway, let's log them all now and at least make some profit from it." Trump, probably.

  • solarpunk memes @slrpnk.net

    they tried to bury us. they didn't know we were knotweed rhizomes.

  • Yes, well, I have the power to do a lot of things that I don't have the right to do. Waging a war of conquest is immoral, you have no right to do it, and you have no right to any land you gained from it.

    And yes, that ultimately implies that all land ownership is unrightful and illegitimate. I'm with Gerrard Winstanley: private land ownership was the original sin, and communities holding land in common is the first step to redemption.

  • Anarchism and Social Ecology @slrpnk.net

    don't be afraid of impossible dreams. a tree will never reach the sun but it grows towards it anyway

  • Land Back @slrpnk.net

    one excuse for white land theft down, 9,999 to go

  • solarpunk memes @slrpnk.net

    choose your own adventure

  • The Smol Web @slrpnk.net

    You can absolutely have an RSS dependent website in 2026

    matduggan.com /you-can-absolutely-have-an-rss-dependent-website-in-2026/
  • Not voting (in your election) @slrpnk.net

    If the dims take the Senate, Fetterman will block all movement left until Rs are in charge again. Just like Manchin before him, and Lieberman before him, and... Pattern recognition, please!

  • solarpunk memes @slrpnk.net

    it takes a lot of patience but the dividends are worth the wait

  • collapse of the old society @slrpnk.net

    California will soon have more than 300 data centers. Where will they get their water?

    grist.org /drought/california-will-soon-have-more-than-300-data-centers-where-will-they-get-their-water/
  • Land Back @slrpnk.net

    How the Rush to Mine the Metal of the Future Echoes America’s Colonial Past - Inside Climate News

    insideclimatenews.org /news/03052026/america-lithium-rush-tribal-rights/
  • solarpunk memes @slrpnk.net

    you are not separate from nature. everything you do to hurt the world hurts you too.

  • Not voting (in your election) @slrpnk.net

    im ready for Harris v Trump in 2028, aren't you?