Rachael Ava 💁🏻‍♀️ @RachaelAva1024@tech.lgbt

Patients shouldn't have to be tactical about how they present their symptoms to physicians.

So when I'm thinking "more diversity" I say "more fairness," and when I'm thinking "down with capitalism" I say "down with greed."

'cause heck, you get WAY more people to agree with you that way.

Start banging on with the playground mums about smash capital they look at you like you've got three heads, but start with how greedy billionaires are and how much greed hurts the world and ten minutes later they're cackling "eat the rich" right along with you. People already know greed is bad.

And I'm really tempted to say, like, "of course that sort of language is fine when it's just us talking," but honestly it isn't, at least not for getting into the habit of it, and certainly not for being overheard, or wanting to expand a conversation you've already started with the in-group. So aye, I'm gonna try and make my everyday speech more accessible because accessibility is democracy at the end of the day

Use a big word if a big word is called for, but big words don't get to your guts as quick as short ones.

Jeff Bezos is GREEDY.
Elon Musk is a CREEP.
Mark Zuckerberg is NOSEY.

This is all self-evident and you don't need to start off with a primer on surveillance capitalism, start off with an easy agreement instead.

(but that's beside the point)

Also, nobody outside of really bubbly bubbles is impressed by long words, *especially* when a shorter and more common word would do a better job. You say "wealth-hoarding capitalists" when you mean "greedy billionaires" you just sound like you're trying to sound clever and impressive rather than just passing the time having a natter like a normal friendly person.

Like, I've met people who talk IRL like they talk online, it's not fun to listen to

Also people - if you talk to them in real life and not on the internet - generally agree that you could throw a banana out of a window on a busy street and have a pretty good chance of hitting someone who'd make a better and more representative president than either of the two sad old men we watched debate each other back in 2020. People who watched the debates really do all have a common feeling of "Christ is this the best we can do"

And hoo boy it doesn't take much, lemme tell ya. I talk to a lot of playground mums and dads. It's the accent! They're all "Hey where you from," I'm like "Cheshire, North-West of England" and from there it's a hop skip and a jump to the NHS and about three times in four the conversation veers into class warfare with only the teeniest tiniest little nudge in that direction.

People round here are SERIOUSLY ready to turn Jeff Bezos into a sausage roll.

I think this comes from an essay Lenny Henry wrote about diversity. He wants more of it, but he hates the word itself - he says "Fairness." I think that's really clever. Dude knows if you point to a blatantly racist situation and say "That's racist" then folk get all defensive and oh-maybe-they-didn't-mean-it but if you point to the same situation and say "That's unfair" then there's a viscerality to that that cuts through bullshit and hits us right in our playground days.

But, like, "greed" is a more visceral, straight-to-the-point kind of phrasing. Everyone agrees, except for the greedy, that greed is bad, and that too much of it in one person can be bad for the whole world, and it's easier to open conversations about hey, if everyone agrees that greed is bad then why's nobody trying to just flat-out make the most blatant greed illegal?

Like, a lot of people Not On Here think of capitalism as, like, What We Have In A Free Country. They think, hey, you get a fair shake (ideally) to earn some money and make a decent life for yourself, and under communism you get bread lines and under socialism you get lots of taxes, that's most people's understanding of economics. You say "smash capitalism" to mean "eat billionaires," they think you mean "smash my paycheque specifically."

I said in another toot in another conversation that I wanna stop using the word "capitalism" when I could more easily use "greed" but I kinda never explained why, and I dunno if it's useful or if I'm talking out of my butt but here's the gist of it.

People outside of this lovely bubble here, when you say Capitalism to them, they don't think of greedy CEO's, they think of, like, "Capitalism/communism/socialism" and those are the choices and in some of those you have money and in some ㄟ(ツ)ㄏ

Fuel is reaching all-time high prices. Our society has come to be shaped in such a way that public transport is unusable or nonexistent. People often have no alternative to driving to have their needs met. Its price is now being gouged by oil companies because they can.

There is a baby formula shortage. Baby formula was made into a necessity, as part of the "liberation" of women, to free them from the duties of child-rearing, to grant them the gracious privilege of joining the workforce. (note: I'm framing this from the perspective of capitalism and patriarchy. I don't like framing maternal roles as "duties" and I think "child-rearing" is a harmfully reductive way of referring to how parents relate to their children)

Congressional measures to resolve these problems were struck down.

In order to have reliable shelter, we must participate in the property or rental market.

After world war 2, the rapid expansion of suburbs, and the GI bill pulled american society into the hazy dream of home ownership.

Today, property prices are skyrocketing, rent is unsustainably expensive, and no one with the meant to do so has any interest in resolving the problem.

First, it's profitable to get people hooked on the products. Invent a market.

Then, it's profitable to gouge the fuck out of the prices.

Because people need those things, they're going to buy them anyway, right? It's not like they have a choice to not buy them now.

We are made reliant on these systems, and then our reliance is used to shackle us.

I have no interest in rioting.

But there will be riots.

They are coming.

Harder and faster than in 2020

These stresses that I see, that everyone sees, in all the people around them.

They aren't going away.

The pressure is building.

Where are you directing the monumental energy building up inside you?

Or is it not going anywhere? Are you building up the pressure, with nowhere for it to go? Are you going to explode?

I've seen it happen to my friends. With nowhere for their energy to go, it turns inwards. They self-destruct, because they only place they can see to direct their anger is at themselves.

It's not your fault. The way things are isn't because you didn't do enough.

Take a break. Let go of the frustrations over how our society has failed us, let go of the way things should be.

See the way things are, and accept where you are in that.

Accepting that things are the way they are doesn't mean giving up.

It means you can finally understand where to start.

Start from where you are.

And move forward from there.

Know where you are.

Decide where you want to be.

Decide for yourself how you will get there.

tech companies at hackathons needs to diversify the swag they give out. if you want the best talent to remember your name don't give us cheap nylon bags and t-shirts. the inclusion of cat ears and thigh high socks will help you find some of the best programmers around. trust me.

Privacy is power.

roses are red
violets are blue
in surveillance capitalism
poem reads you

and shows you ads
for flower shops
and tracks your clicks
and never stops

it cares not about
if privacy's harmed
the money is green
when people are farmed

twitter is cyan
facebook is blue
your friends are the product
and so are you

#Google does not fund research groups if they'd work on software licensed under #AGPL.

Use the AGPL to incentivize people not to get funded by Google.

The passwords most used by CEOs are startlingly dumb

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-passwords-most-used-by-ceos-are-startlingly-dumb/

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┏┓
┃┃╱╲ in this house
┃╱╱╲╲ we
╱╱╭╮╲╲ don't
▔▏┗┛▕▔ leak metadata
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#Science is mostly for #cats. Agree? Disagree?