Cross-posted from “The taxman always gets their due” by @Db0@dbzer0.com in !dbzer0.com@dbzer0.com
Author’s Note: Initially I was planning to just post it here, but then I though, “hey I have an actual blog for this reason”. So anyway, I’m just crossposting here anyway :)
Someone made the comment about the assassination of the United Healthcare CEO and mentioned that the clients to private security forces are going to skyrocket. This is true.
It made me think of how much companies like these have profited from lobbying the government to remove their social contributions (i.e. taxes) while also being directly responsible for destroying those social safeties themselves.
The companies constantly lobby the government to reduce or remove their tax burden while retaining their state protections. But they don’t recognize that the more their actions erode the life of the working class, the more the social contract people accept to not take matters into their own hands is discarded.
As such, you start seeing things like assassinations and kidnappings, which in turn force the rich to use the money they saved by not paying taxes, to pay for private security instead.
This naturally leads to a more and more polarized society where the rich live in increasingly isolated and defended enclaves, while the proles live outside in slums and favelas. Sometimes directly next to each other, as this iconic photos from Sao Paolo exemplifies.
<img alt=“” src=“https://i0.wp.com/dbzer0.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image.png?resize=620%2C413&ssl=1” height=“413” width=“620” />
Of course, eventually, the dissolution of the social contract is going to make even this insufficient. More and more wealth will need to be used merely to protect their life and property, once the state has been sufficiently defunded, until at some point, you own private security will be either so powerful as to become a de-facto state, or they will turn themselves against the rich and claim their wealth for themselves.
Under capitalism, the taxman always gets their due.
There is a better way. Dont ever let them make you forget. Dont forget that:
- That the 2020 lockdowns showed us we dont need Business As Usual, the society kept turning while the planet briefly healed
- That Child poverty dropped at the fastest rate it ever dropped
- That until last year, more people could just have health care, right, if the government decides to just do that.
- That evictions can just be stopped. That if we – you know, if the government just rules it, like your landlord can’t evict you.
- That the George Floyd Uprising had Cheeto Mussolino hiding in a bunker, while the people were fighting the police in the streets and winning.
- That Covid is now endemic because these administrations, 45 and 46 and their counterparts across the empire, buried their heads in the sand and declared it “over” when it was not
https://www.deathpanel.net/transcripts/vicky-forget
Dont fall for the bread ans circuses. The relevative comfort and spell that it will put you under. Memory is fragile, it’s written-to- by feeling emotions. So feel this. Allowing them to let you get checked out entirely is like sleepwalking off a cliff.
Dont let the doomerism get to you. Focus on what you can change. Refuse to forget. Rest is resistance is a good book. Sending all my good vibes 💜
I’m surprised that drone assassinations are not more common. Strap a home made explody thing on a cheap FPV drone with a cheap servo release and you can take out anyone from the safety of a random parking lot or hotel room.
It’s definitely coming.
Jump to section 3 paragraph 3 of this one, I don’t think I can link directly to that section - https://ctc.westpoint.edu/the-future-of-terrorist-use-of-improvised-explosive-devices-getting-in-front-of-an-evolving-threat/
However, the highly publicized spike in the use of armed unmanned aerial vehicles in Syria and Iraq by the Islamic State, and possibly the ongoing central role of small UAS in the Ukrainian resistance, may inspire a greater frequency of similar attempts by terrorists in the United States.70 In February 2022, FBI Director Christopher Wray reported to the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the FBI was “investigating, even as we speak, several instances within the U.S. of attempts to weaponize drones with homemade IEDs. That is the future that is here now.”71
I mean I agree with what you’re saying, but why tarnish your good take by attaching an AI generated image to it?
How does it tarnish his point?
Don’t see anything wrong with using GenAI for a quick image.
an image that relies on massive surveillance capitalism and slave labor to train?
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. More to the point I wasn’t involved in all of these acts nor do my local use of those models support those systems.
there is no ethical consumption under capitalism is only really a defense when the acts are otherwise necessary in some way. a fake image for b roll in your post is hardly a worthwhile use, and takes away from artists whom could have been asked for their piece.
No it’s not just for necessities. You also can’t declare that others be as pure as you want. You don’t know everyone’s situation. Moralising and scolding like this is counter productive
i can certainly moralize that this is not a good use of generative models nor a good use of your defense. think it’s counterproductive if you want, normalizing garbage that harms us all, especially artists in this case, out of expediency aint it.
Scold all you want. Doesn’t matter. It’s Capitalism which harms artists, not technology.
I’m sure you would be willing to pay op for commissioning a human artist, no?
There are many images released under free for non commercial use licences all the time.
cool, hook us up with some.
It’s more work to find something that fits than ask an ai, but https://search.creativecommons.org/
