LB232323

Finance is one of the largest sectors of the US economy, it is central to its role in leading the world economy.

Additionally, finance is what controls and directs the economy. It is the business of money itself, in both the public and private sector.

Banks play a central role to any economy. Digital currencies can be centralized and controlled in the same way as any state owned enterpeise.

Honor just means doing the right thing, and it is also the respect you receive for doing so. The history of the word just means being a good person.

Honor in terms of death and politics is often a manipulated distortion of what is right.

Doing the right thing is often difficult, and this notion is used to manipulate people into killing each other.

There is honor in not selling your dignity for money, or in doing the right thing when it is unpopular or difficult.

There is no honor in killing people to enforce an oppressive power structure. It's about your personal choices, it's not inherently political.

It's not a character flaw or lack of skills in not being able to "sell yourself". It's a sense of dignity and pride as a working person.

You are not a commodity, you are a human being. You may look like a commodity to a business owner, but you refuse to allow yourself to become one.

Honesty and honor are worth more than money. There is money to be made in making yourself into a sort of corporate dog, but it will leave you feeling empty inside.

I am definitely not politically conservative, but I live in a conservative way as well. I don't think it's superior, but it's nice to have peace and stability.

It is if you stay tuned into these outlets. Pop culture is not healthy, it is exploitative. Its greatest strength is emotional manipulation.

I can't relate with the collective "we" in this article. I feel a lot more stable and closer to reality after disengaging from big social media corporations.

It has always been this way, there is nothing new under the sun. Even the Spanish War was fueled by newspapers.

The media business is a business, it has always been about what's profitable. It's not a public service, even hard hitting journalism must sell copies.

The closest thing to news media that serves public interest are worker owned media companies and socialist magazines.

Labor was once fighting for their rights with rifles and unprecedented multicultural unity. Workers knew their enemy very clearly and knew how to attain their goals. The alternative was starvation and corporate enslavement.

Now the concern is deleting tweets. Embourgeoisiement has slowed and confused the struggle of labor. The reckoning of the owner class is long overdue, as evidenced by this typical hubris.

In today's world, this reckoning must be at once international and complete. We have the infrastructure for liberation on a global scale.

This forum is a product of VCs and big tech. A huge portion of Silicon Valley wealth comes from enslaving and subjugating Asia.

This audience is probably the people who need to hear it most, but also the audience that it would upset the most.

When did hacker culture evolve from loving technology and rebelling against the establishment into placing profits above human lives? Is a nice tech salary all it takes to purchase one's humanity? What about the promise of VC billions?

The profit motive subjugates the poor, perpetuates genocide, and upholds slavery. Technology is not some humanist savior, it has been twisted to exploit the many and serve the few. Maybe one day our advanced technologies will work to serve and uplift the people rather than suppress them.

To piggyback on this, Nintendo has profited from using forced prison labor in China and prison labor in the USA. Both are defined as slave labor by domestic and international law.

It's not surprising that massive multinational corporations engage in unethical practices, but these free market activities are perfectly legal in their respective jurisdictions.

I'd agree that spying on families for modifying video game products is unethical. I'd also argue that slavery is unethical. It's really eye-opening once you realize the scope of slavery and other unethical practices when it comes to our major everyday corporations.

Uyghurs, Falun Gong adherents, and other political dissidents make up most of the slave population in China. Many of them work in growing and processing cotton, and the largest Western clothing companies rely on this cotton. Many people are wearing, eating, and using products of slave labor right now without even realizing it.

In Soviet times, the totalitarian rule of Stalin had a lot of trouble with regulating the lives of rural farmers. In the end they gave up and the farmers just kept observing their seasonal work schedules, banned holidays, and days of worship.

Honestly I can see the merit of keeping medical records for public health reasons, but no one can deny that governments and corporations are corrupt. Rural Americans enjoy a lot of freedoms, but they also cannot access many of the higher paying jobs. The internet has changed this.

Cities are definitely ground zero for totalitarian measures. Is this totalitarian? It's invasive, but it's under the pretense of public health. Where do we draw the line?

I appreciate that the users on this forum approach the crisis with a critical lens rather than blindly following liberal/conservative party lines. I don't think there are many people who are against the idea of preventing disease.

There should be synthesis between those who are concerned for public health and those who are concerned with losing their previously held rights as human beings. Instead we have blind political partisanship over a public health issue that should not be partisan.

EDIT:

Alright it seems this opinion is really unpopular. I can't even downvote other users, but I'd prefer to hear a critical response rather than a knee-jerk reaction. I support public health and vaccines. I support the right to worship, work, and travel freely. I am not religious, out of work, nor do I plan on traveling anytime soon. Why can't we have both?

I would sincerely like to hear a good argument for closing and actively policing houses of worship yet allowing the patronage of major retailers. This is the situation in the USA, and it worked similarly in the USSR.

We also don't produce food to feed people but instead to generate a profit. Food companies waste massive amounts of food in order to maintain profitable prices. Sure we produce enough food to feed the planet, but it's not profitable to provide food to people who can't afford it.

No surprises here

https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2015/aug/31/british-ban...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/20...

https://forensicnews.net/2020/01/03/trump-deutsche-bank-loan...

https://www.occrp.org/en/the-fincen-files/global-banks-defy-...

I work in fintech. You are right, money is the product.

The personality cliché in finance is the risk taking one. Men are more frequently found in riskier professions, including dangerous jobs like oil drilling.

Some fintech companies actually do produce a software product for finance. However, many of them work for banks or funds to generate capital gains beyond a wage or salary.

Regardless of personalities, the most important factor is profit. Everything else is secondary. It is not as flashy or famous as big tech companies, but this profit is paid in bonuses that far exceed the highest salaries for tech workers.

If you work for Netflix, maybe you get a free subscription. If you work for a restaurant, maybe you get a free box of takeout at the end of the day. If you work in the business of money, your incentive is large bonuses.

Sun Ra is part of the pride of Alabama. A lot of the esoteric and mystical aspects of his music come from the time he spent growing up and studying at the local masonic library in Birmingam. At the time, masonic libraries were one of the only places where black folks had full access to literature.

In fact, some of the most famous jazz musicians were masons. I reject the author's notion that he was a god. The writer seems devoutly obsessed, almost worshipful to his cult of personality.

However, I can agree that he was undoubtedly a legendary musician with an informed talent for creating myth and interpreting mystical concepts into his music. His music is challenging and experimentally mind-expanding. He lies buried next to Bear Bryant in a cemetery that holds a dear friend of mine, so the name always catches the eye.

I have been working remote by choice for years. You don't have to stay at home, you just need internet access. This means you have the freedom to work from anywhere on the globe as long as you can access the web.

This is a pretty straightforward advantage of the internet. Some jobs have always been "remote". For example, writers still type their manuscripts from anywhere and mail them to editors. However, only some jobs work like this. When I did service or blue collar work I always had to be on the site to physically work the capital.

As for "career ambition", you can make plenty of money or a modest income from remote jobs. Beyond jobs, you can easily own an online business or some other digital capital through the same infrastructure. There is more to life and to work than a high salary. Greed is not a virtue.

You don't have to sell your soul and most of the waking hours of your life to commute to an office, deal with the attached bullshit, and integrate yourself into the corporate machine.

Instead, you have the freedom to actually live your life. Be with you family, friends, pursue your passions, even something as simple as being able access nature or travel freely. Whatever living means to you beyond working.

From the outside looking in, the mirage of SV corporate culture seems really fake and hollow. I do not want a hip fancy office full of zany perks and a weird cult. I understand the power balance as a worker. In any job, I want to put in my time and hard work, earn an honest living, and then be free to live as a real human being.

I am not a Republican nor a Democrat supporter, anyone can see the level of partisanship over this is nauseating.

Plenty of people are going hungry and missing housing payments, we have a depression era economic crisis. Still people eat up whatever liberal/conservative spin and lies from the station that meets their fancy.

Should we really be hating each other during a massive economic crisis? People we have never met who are struggling to get food and housing? Either for workers protesting or workers passionately endorsing authoritarian measures and fear.

We should be united, and we are being so easily manipulated.

When people talk about food costs in America, an extremely crucial element is often overlooked.

For all the moral posturing about animal treatment in factory farms and sustainability, which I can sympathize with, there is a massive army of illegal migrant workers that are invisible both legally and socially.

These migrant workers grow and harvest the food that Americans survive on every day. Not to mention cleaning homes, landscaping, and even raising families.

This is a major factor in why food is so cheap and abundant in America. Illegal migrant workers who are paid sub-minimum slave wages to feed the citizens of the United States.

Until we take a hard look at this labor system and widely acknowledge its economic role, these debates are empty. If you know your history, you understand why this system exists.

I am aware of this history. We can't forget the veterans that fought with our allies to successfully defeat the Nazis.

German nationalist imperialism is Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche Abeiterpartei, the namesake of the Nazi Party. The immigration of my own family is a product of German fascism.

There is something enlightening and deeply inspiring about how protesters in Ecuador were able to detain the police themselves and order them to unequip their riot gear. Among the crowd they were presented as equal to the protesters. Many riot police are portrayed as faceless monsters hiding behind riot masks and advanced military equipment.

It had never occurred to me that the people can win and detain the police, not the other way around.

Police officers and police departments are made up of all ethnicities, same goes for the owners of capital. Not all who profess faith are true to their teachings. Just look at how the teachings of Christianity were used to colonize America, the largest genocide in human history.

Cop watches do exist, these organizations could definitely benefit from the minds and expertise that make advanced technology possible.

However, they do not remove the fundamental power structure that makes these laws possible. Changing the power structure requires collective action, that is the meaning of a revolution and a revolutionary.

The recent rent strikes in Houston were organized entirely online. The internet allows us to organize nearly instantly across the entire planet, but we need people in the street to make change a reality.

It is a war. Everyone has an ethnicity, and our ideas of race are shaped by a long legacy of racial hatred and exclusion.

Our white working citizens need to realize that all workers are unified in our exploitation for basic human necessities. That is a practical way that we can overcome the hatred that is dividing us and facilitating the destruction of our liberties.

I admire the work of the FBI against hate groups and extremists. However, one only needs to look at their work against BLM or the Civil Rights Movement to see that they are part of the same structure.

Workers unifying across social divisions is the greatest threat to oppressing the people. It is the most powerful method we have of gaining material freedom and our most basic human dignities, regardless of ethnic identity.

Some of our most deeply exploited white citizens are convinced that they have it better than others while they experience collapsing infrastructure, life on government benefits, prescription epidemics, growing government overreach, and erosion of their working rights. They also make up the heart of white supremacists and domestic extremists, while more fortunate liberal territories are convinced to despise and separate themselves from their fellow workers.

In short, our nation is divided by hatred and the result is a populace that is easier to control, oppress, and economically exploit. Overcoming this hatred and unifying is the key to securing our future and basic liberties from corporate and government authoritarianism.

If we dig deeper past the shame, we find a power structure that is intentionally and fundamentally evil. In every economic crisis the facade becomes weaker, and more people wake up to the political and economic reality of our nation. This is when fascism shows itself, promising to take us to our former glory while people struggle to survive.

Fascism is a disease that slowly infects its host. We should remember how America fought so bravely against German fascism. My mother's family came to America to escape the fascist authoritarianism of that nation, and I can't see myself moving to Germany.

Even before this, cops in the klan have been murdering minorities with impunity for a long time. This is what fascism looks like, no accountability for state-sponsored murder of innocents.

If anyone is interested in American history: Before we had our modern police departments, our earliest systems of law enforcement were actually slave patrols and organizations called Indian Constables. These institutions are rooted in controlling the behaviors of minorities. If you know your history, you know that slavery and colonization never really ended. The 13th amendment, world-leading prison labor system, and border camps are part of this living legacy.

You can read more here:

https://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/brief-history-slavery-a...

What about my government? Nationalism teaches us that only every other government is wrong. We conflate love for our land and its people with the state and the exploiters who guide it. This is always convenient for both of the latter entities.

If this political and economic system is a "necessary evil", we must ask ourselves: Who is benefitting from the evil and who is directing it?

To convince ourselves that we are joined with an oppressor by social divisions is a timeless manipulation. Yet every economic crisis presents the opportunity for liberation.

Without a doubt. He has no rights to forfeit as a billionaire. So eager to jump ship, at least they are making their "principles" clear.

Not everyone owns a smartphone, how can they enforce this? High tech fascism is a double-edged sword, this is certainly a good time to be a hacker.

Either here or arriving soon, if recent election corruption scandals are anything to go by. You can add the trade war to that list given the resulting revolution in the Philippines.

I see your point, and I personally enjoy most posts that are not political and satisfy my intellectual curiosity. Maybe the middle ground is articles such as these that explore new and interesting topics (internet organized labor action) while delivering information that advances the rights of the vast majority of human beings on planet Earth (workers).

I see what you mean, many arguments on internet forums rehash the same ideological points over and over in a repetitive "religious war". I think the flagged user had a fair criticism despite the majority of posts and overall tone defending Amazon. Maybe the bias towards defending corporations is a product of corporate astroturfing. Maybe it is because white collar workers (most tech workers) would rather not acknowledge the uncomfortable truth of Amazon's anti-union and anti-worker's rights treatment of their blue collar workers.

It is uncomfortable to acknowledge that the businesses we rely on exploit workers and abuse them. It is far more comfortable to "stay asleep" and preoccupy the mind with quirky intellectual diversions and fascinating little rabbit holes. In these times of economic crises, these sorts of pro-worker articles and sentiments increase dramatically. I support the author of this article despite the comforting detractors who would rather rationalize their treatment. The prevailing argument in this discussion is that the warehouse workers are ungrateful and too critical of their corporate masters, and this I find frankly to be disgusting.