Is it the metadata or because people will be able to recognise you from you art?

Why shouldn’t you? Because you might get doxed?

R. Edward Terence. Ed for short and the R stands for Rupert but I don’t really use that name except on government forms. Hence redtea, a play on R. Ed T.

That’s fantastic! Well done!

What next? Do you think you’ll keep going with just Duolingo or will you start adding in some other kinds of resources?

Have fun!

Excellent answer.

A further point is that capitalism goes hand in hand with formal equality. Employers expect the same from everyone (except where employees unionise/organise and push back). One factory worker gets the same quota as another. That kind of thing. Employers accept the logic of capitalism being efficient without question. So there’s no challenge against formal ‘equality’ or capitalist ‘efficiency’. In reality both are a load of bollocks.

Communists have another slogan, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need. @olgas_husband@lemmygrad.ml when it comes to what organised workers or the revolution asks of you, the request/expectation will be very different to what (and how) an employer asks of you. Just because capitalists haven’t yet employed you for mental labour, doesn’t mean that you’re not suited to it. The fact that you can’t get a job in something doesn’t mean you would be bad at it.

Other workers are also far more likely to understand the value and the need for training. If you would improve with physical/intellectual training/education, that can be arranged. That’s one of the reasons unions and revolutionary parties emphasise education among their ranks.

Capitalists don’t want to pay and won’t pay if they can get someone else to do the job who is already trained. Organised workers/revolutionaries see the potential in all workers and will be willing to help you reach yours. You don’t write someone off because they could be fitter or stronger, you ensure they have access to healthy food, clean water, adequate rest, and help them get fitter and stronger.

I have struggled many times to find work. It wasn’t until I read Capital that I understood that it’s not me; capitalism is just designed that way. It’s not you, either!

This isn’t my most coherent comment but hopefully you can see what I’m trying to say!

My social media usage always dips when I go on a trip and when I get back. The trick is do not go back on when you get home. Delete the app. Pause/delete your account (whatever the tiktok version is). Make it difficult for you to get back on the app. That’s how I’ve managed to cut any social media out of my life.

Could be the BBC filter.

I’m not sure how much I agree with this. I agree in part but it seems to presuppose an idealist version of racism. Maybe I’m wrong but I’ll explain my thinking.

Capitalism is racial capitalism. That’s why liberal anti-racism is doomed to fail. Capitalists can pretend to be anti-racist but they will not fundamentally disturb racist social relations. Liberal anti-racism appears more as a marketing gimmick or a diverse hiring policy, etc. These do represent progress. But capitalists never mean that they plan to stop extracting so much value from the global south.

Racial capitalism means sustaining a global colour line to justify super exploitation of the global south. As the OP alludes, sweatshops are justified in the global north by racist logic.

Sweatshop workers and the countries in which they are generally found are called ‘savage’, ‘uncivilised’, ‘developing’, ‘backwards’, ‘uneducated’, etc. The same descriptions are used to argue that e.g. African states are unable to govern themselves and need careful guidance through the IMF, World Bank, etc.

Yes, capitalists don’t really care which workers they exploit, and when they do it to the extreme ‘at home’ we call it fascism. But they have also spent 400 years creating the material basis for a global racial capitalism. We do see that logic turned inwards, occasionally, with the creation if internal colonies of marginalised workers. But the main distinction(s) are still race (and gender). They might happily force white German men to make clothes under the same conditions that they currently force women in Bangladesh but the world isn’t generally set up to facilitate that change.

So I would change this quote:

The individual bourgeois can be racist, but the actions of this class are not driven by racism.

To this:

The individual bourgeois can be [anti-]racist, but the actions of this class [rely on] racism. [Racism cannot be overcome under capitalism as it is historically contingent to the capitalist mode of production even if super-exploitation doesn’t have to be racially based.]

And this quote:

They can use racism to reach their goals, but can also became anti-racist if there is need for it. Racism, sexism, xenophobia etc. is “just” a usefull tool.

To this:

They … use racism to reach their goals, but … also … sexism, xenophobia etc. [These horrors are not] “just” … useful… tool[s. They go to the essence of capitalist exploitation. Just as racism cannot be abolished under capitalism, neither can sexism or xenophobia. Hence the slogan, ‘Freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody’].

Going through all this, how much do you think tablets/mobile OSs have to answer for? They seem to have made it desirable to have apps with essentially no settings. Is that a key factor?

If this is real the only answer is yes. I thought they just bought a spy doorbell and connected it to their WiFi. They pay a subscription? Jfc. (I’m not so much doubting you as expressing my flabbergastedness as questions.)

*thought-leader

You’ll be fine. I get the same vibes when I fill in one of those online restaurant booking forms and have to wait for confirmation. Will they? Won’t they? Have I done the right thing? It’s similar with sending emails.

I think it will help to see money as a relation, rather than a static thing. Then I’ll give some examples. I’m no expert but I think working through some examples will be helpful.

If I had $1000 in my bank today, I could buy $1000 worth of stuff today. In a year’s time, I could maybe buy $900 worth of stuff, because prices are going up. Meaning, $1000 might still be called $1000 and look like the same $1000. If it were under my mattress, it may even be the same 20x$50 notes. But it isn’t the same $1000; what I can use it for depends on a wide range of factors, including inflation. The number in the account may be static, but the number only means something as a relation.

If I lend you that $1000 at 3% for one year, you pay me $1000 plus $30. By the time you pay me, prices have gone up. You’ve only really paid me back $900+$30 worth of stuff (‘ish’, because the $30 isn’t worth as much, either).

I could charge simple interest at the rate of inflation and break even, more-or-less. But what if you take two years to pay? Do I charge compound interest at 10%/year or (if my maths are correct) simple interest at 21%/biennially? Do I adjust the simple figure if you pay me back early?

Compound interest seems to be a more straightforward way of working out how much the borrower needs to repay to actually repay what was borrowed (relationally, i.e. what the money can buy) rather than the initial sum (e.g. the static $1000). You only actually pay interest on interest if you borrow too much and can’t pay off more than the yearly addition. People don’t always have a choice, of course, house prices being what they are, for example.

When you borrow money from a bank as a loan, you get both figures. Or an approximation (because interest rates fluctuate and debtors can make overpayments). Consider a mortgage. You get e.g. the ‘5.7%/year (compound)’ and you get a typical estimate of the overall interest, e.g. $75,000 on a mortgage of $100,000 if you take 35 years to repay.

Not everyone who borrows that money will actually repay the $75,000. You could borrow the $100,000 at 75% but then you risk losing out if the base rate or inflation go down or if you get a pay rise that would let you make overpayments.

Compound interest can work in the borrower’s favour as well as the lender’s. It’s perhaps easier to see with commercial loans, where the borrower and lender have more equal bargaining power. Maybe the borrower has more bargaining power. Compound interest is not always ‘unfair’ in a straightforward way.

Compound interest is monstruous, don’t get me wrong, and compound interest is a factor in prices going up, but it has a certain logic to it. As for the bourgeois rationale, it’s going to be something like the above but without the words ‘relational’ and ‘static’.

Somebody who puts on their favourite scuba diving gear and then hides in the septic tank at music festivals.

Wise choice. Too many arguments as to whether it’s pronounced h, h, or h. It’s obviously the first one but will anybody listen?

Good points. Just to be clear, the text in my comment is a quote from Wikipedia.

Washington Bullets by Vijay Prashad.

It’s good but I’m surprised that he attributes Japan’s surrender in WWII to the nuclear bomb.

Good quote. It’s from a collection of essays. I’ll try to find the title.

I recommend paying attention, because there is lots to learn from the kinds of reactions you get when questioning the dogma of the day.

That’s a good point. Plus, you can get away with more as an undergrad as it can be brushed off as naïvity. You can learn which bits need to be hidden when you’re in a position where it will be held against you.