Comment by pessimizer
16 hours ago
> The only way to stop this from happening is half the country refuse to buy any tech that implements OS age verification.
You have consumer activist brain. Next you're going to suggest that we complain to the manager or start our own government and compete in the marketplace.
> The only thing that talks is money
No, the only thing that is talking is money. Money wants this. You're busy pretending like you're going to do a boycott; they're going to boycott you.
Complain about the internet? They'll just blacklist you from it. Complain about the phone? Well now you can't use one; try smoke signals. Complain about the landlord? They'll settle the case, kick you out on the street, and blacklist you among all private equity landlords and the management companies that service small landlords. You'll just go to a small landlord that doesn't use one of the management companies? Well they won't have access to a bunch of vendors that have exclusive contracts with and share ownership with the management companies; now they can't make any money and have to sell to private equity.
You've been fooled into thinking that being victimized is a moral failure of the victim. The perpetrators taught you that. They taught you that the only appropriate action is to beg and threaten to leave, and they shut down customer service and monopolized the market. But, again, the worst thing they trained you to do is to blame the victim.
Give your interlocutor an explicit alternative to consumer activism!
Just because you're a pessimist doesn't mean you have to be coy. :)
Protesting, voting, and civil disobedience.
At the end of the day, this stuff is headed by humans. Humans are fragile, weak even. They like silly things like food and safety.
Look, I'm not saying we need to be killing people. However, I AM saying that just about every single significant rights progression in human history was achieved that way. So, draw whatever conclusions you want.
Ideally, we are above that. Christ, it's not the 20th century anymore. So hold up a sign or something.
> Protesting, voting, and civil disobedience.
Protesting, voting, and civil disobedience are all great, I agree.
Guy with the root of "pessimism" in his moniker: start writing about that in your posts!
>You're busy pretending like you're going to do a boycott; they're going to boycott you.
What do you mean? They still need people purchasing software and hardware.
You can argue effectiveness, but if enough people say no, then a boycott is extremely effective. The issue is always on awareness and making people take hard actions.
Short of a general strike, this sort of thing is going to move forward.
They don’t need you to purchase hardware or software any more. We’re moving to centralized economic planning, where resources for datacenter buildouts are reserved for people with sufficient political loyalty (and come from tax dollars), and the only products are surveillance and collective punishment.
If you don’t want that to happen, then you’ll need to help build an alternative.
>Short of a general strike, this sort of thing is going to move forward.
Yes, I agree.
>They don’t need you to purchase hardware or software any more.
Need? No. But they still want as much money as possible. That's why a boycott/strike will still be effective. They don't need money anymore but will still bend over backwards for it.
>If you don’t want that to happen, then you’ll need to help build an alternative.
I want to help. Not sure what I can do to help, though. Seems like simply calling my reps is talking to the wind.
>You've been fooled into thinking that being victimized is a moral failure of the victim.
And you seem to have been fooled into thinking all victims are powerless.