Resist and Unsubscribe (Scott Galloway) | Hacker News Reader

Resist and Unsubscribe (Scott Galloway)

resistandunsubscribe.com

A rhetorical point: I think it's best to avoid "resist" language.

1. It's antiquated and arouses imagery and iconography that IMO many have negative associations with. (I'm leaving this a bit vague intentionally.)

2. Framing oneself or a movement as "resisting" is to frame one self or a movement in a weaker, defensive position. It's better to use to language that indicates actions and offense as opposed to defense.

3. Because of 1 this opens up typical lines of attack and characterization that make one's "resistance" an easy rhetorical target. No unforced errors.

I don't have a sense of what would be a better alternative, but probably throwing things against the wall until something sticks/galvanizes people makes more sense. Something like "assert yourself", "push back"/"fight back", "take it to 'em" etc.

I could get behind "exercise", as in your rights (while you have them), and your power (to stop relying on specific conveniences, businesses). Combines with imagery of gaining strength, independence.

Perhaps "deny, defend, depose" – not sure where I heard that, but it has a certain mental impact.

I am reminded of "turn on, tune in, drop out".

Or words such as "rise up" "fight the oppression".

Resistance sounds like some shortform offensive action, I'd prefer something more long term that shows a better path or what you're missing out on. The people I see who uses aggressive language like that aren't who I want to be around with ironically enough.

To my ear "rise up" and anything with "oppression" also have the negative connotations that aren't particularly useful. Both expressions are old, associated with a generic and unsuccessful leftist movement in the US. Additionally, "oppression" has the same problems as "resist" in that it makes one sound like a victim and a complainer. That's not to say the meaning of "oppression" is bad; roughly: undue or unjust restriction on freedom. In the US it's better to use the language of liberty. So instead of talking about "oppression" one should just articulate threats to liberty and freedom, particular from the government writ large or the Federal government in particular.

It would help a lot to show what someone is missing out, I can't really fathom how the world would look like if taxes we're laser focus on solving issues instead of being pocketed in shady ways.

Like it would be nice for useful services to be made and people having a reason to protect/maintain them, something that goes both ways no? But overall it's either rage or apathy. And you know it's strange how corporations always pivot fast to what people want during a crisis, why not just be like that by default? It's disturbing and I don't know how long this can keep up

Leave that advice for corporate drone training. Not all sort of countercurrent has to follow the same academic advice to create harmless, defensive and ultimately forgettable prose.

We are drowning in sterile PR speech already, sometimes an earnest “fuck the system” resonates better with the intended audience.

> Leave that advice for corporate drone training.

Not clear how you linked what I said with "corporate drone training" since the thrust of my comment was about what would make good rhetoric for fighting the authoritarianism in the U.S.

> Not all sort of countercurrent has to follow the same academic advice to create harmless, defensive and ultimately forgettable prose.

I'll point out two things: One, there's an inconsistency in your characterization of my comment. First you said it was the language of corporate drone training, now you're saying it's academic speak.

Two, I didn't advocate "defensive" prose. I suggested abandoning language that implicitly frames the the movement again authoritarianism in the U.S. as in a defensive movement and thereby in a weaker position than it actually is. I argued "resist" is an example of this defensive language that should be abandoned. If you're against defensive prose, I'd think you too would be against defensive terms as well.

> We are drowning in sterile PR speech already, sometimes an earnest “fuck the system” resonates better with the intended audience.

Yes, indeed. My whole comment was about having language that is not defensively frame, but that is playing offense. In fact "fuck the system" could be such language. Although to note "the system" is vague and so has risk rhetorically because it easily allows an audience to think what you mean by "the system" is what they, the audience likes by "the system", which leads to the audience you're trying to find common cause with to reject your movement.

Ironic to see this posted here, as YCombinator is the nesr from which Sam Altman originally spread his wings.

I’m keeping my chatgpt subscription though.

Cool, I just found that I don’t use any of these services. And I encourage the site owner to add instagram as well.

>the most radical action in capitalist society is not participating

So that’s why they are after NEETs now?

I have wanted to do something like this for the UK as well. But scared of losing my job.. if I could do this anonymously - oh man - that would be great.

As much as I appreciate his impetus to do something I don’t think unsubscribing will move the needle. You’re still going to want shipping, entertainment and transport. Those dollars are still going to be spent somewhere. So don’t think it’ll move the market in aggregate

Shipping from whom? I haven't used Amazon in years. Entertainment - Blurays and CDs! Transport, who are we talking here? Unless you're giving Tesla your dollars, are you really supporting the regime? Forgive my ignorance here.

> Shipping from whom? I haven't used Amazon in years.

But you’re still buying stuff. So either using a different shipping service or spending the money on diy shipping aka drive to store.

It’s not about the specific example though. Merely pointing out that removing a subscription doesn’t inherently remove the need/want it is fulfilling and associated spending. You can’t move the overall market down if you’re just shifting economic activity between players in it.

You’d need to get people to actually spend less and forgo the needs/wants entirely. Which is a tough ask and I don’t think is particularly viable

What are we resisting?

You, looks like.

Not everyone here is American and the site is pretty vague about the specific grievances.

Yeah that bigass yellow boxed paragraph is real unclear.

> Americans are feeling powerless to thwart the Trump administration’s assault on our nation’s values. Praised by tech CEOs, surrounded by sycophants, and enriched by his return to the White House, the president’s actions march on unchecked.

As far as I can tell, Americans love money, guns, and freedom. So Trump must be losing money, taking guns, and making everyone live with their parents. I think I’ll keep my ChatGPT subscription, sorry guys.

Apparently a return to the policies of 14 years ago when people like Bill Clinton, Hillary, and Obama used to call for enforcing laws against illegal immigration.

For a lot of people, it's not the laws, but the tactics.

Personally, I think the whole system needs to be reformed.

Wouldn't be more effective for Galloway and his billionaire friends to dump these company's stock, maybe sell $900M each, use whatever money they get from that for good and still be left with $100M+ at the end? I don't like how he is parading himself everywhere like he's part of the solution, when he is actually part of the problem.

  Boycott Target           | Ticker | Before (1/30/26) | After (2/13/26) | % Diff
  -------------------------|--------|------------------|-----------------|--------
  Amazon                   | AMZN   | 239.30           | 198.79          | -16.93
  Uber                     | UBER   | 80.05            | 69.99           | -12.57
  Meta                     | META   | 716.50           | 639.77          | -10.71
  Alphabet (Google)        | GOOGL  | 338.00           | 305.72          | -9.55
  Paramount (Skydance)     | PARA   | 11.21            | 10.32           | -7.94
  Netflix                  | NFLX   | 83.49            | 76.87           | -7.93
  Microsoft                | MSFT   | 430.29           | 401.32          | -6.73
  Apple                    | AAPL   | 259.48           | 255.78          | -1.43
  Dell                     | DELL   | 114.44           | 117.49          | +2.66
  Comcast (Xfinity)        | CMCSA  | 29.75            | 31.57           | +6.12
  AT&T                     | T      | 26.21            | 28.69           | +9.46
  Marriott                 | MAR    | 315.30           | 353.89          | +12.24
  Charter (Spectrum)       | CHTR   | 206.12           | 239.09          | +16.00
  FedEx                    | FDX    | 322.25           | 374.72          | +16.28

That's not very useful. The market has seen volatility for unrelated reasons over the past month.

And effects of this, resist and unsubscribe, wouldn't be a factor so quickly. AFAIK this only launched less than a week or two ago.

It's too quick to reflect the fundamentals, but the market is priced on vibes. They move at the speed of rumor. But even with normal volatility, the boycott will have to be wildly effective to produce an unambiguous market signal.

That’s just measuring noise and arbitrary market swings

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