[quasi-normalcy]

I do kind of think that we're past the point where new technological innovations can actually meaningfully improve life for most people in industrialized countries. Like I think the problem is social organization, not a lack of new gadgets.

[quasi-normalcy]

Doesn't help that all of the "innovations" that we're working towards now are things like "Your new toaster can tell if you buy sliced bread from the wrong company, and also toasting is a subscription service now, and you can go to prison if you try to jailbreak it"

[foone]

This was actually a thing they talked about when I was at Google. They focus a lot of effort on "the next billion users" because the facts are that they basically have the entire industrialized world already. So a lot of work is done in figuring out how to sell Gmail to people who barely had electricity a decade ago.

But the flipside to this focus on the developing world is that basically all their efforts they spend elsewhere is not about building new products or devices or new features, because all that shit plateaued years ago. Instead it's just finding ways to make money off formerly free services and how to make people use stuff they don't need and it's really ugly and sad.

So much tech is stuck in a "where do we go from here?" problem where they already did most everything they wanted to accomplish, and all that's left is bad shit.

[greatmountainfloofsquatch]

There's a lot of new technologies that can benefit humanity. The problem is doing so under capitalism is...problematic at best.

Once a technology matures, to the point that the market for it is saturated, you would think the companies that make it would say "well, we have a good stable revenue stream".

But that would require sanity on the part of investors, who will instead invariably scream "But...LINE NOT GO UP!" If profits don't increase every quarter, is bad! Line must go up!

That's why companies with mature technologies either start making new things, whether anyone wants them or not, or just start rent-seeking. Investors demand that line go up. Forever.

[anarchistmemedistro]

“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed”

[softmachin3]

some (kinda risque) computer-loving pins from the 80s

[theuprooted]

Aline Manoukian (photo): A Palestinian fighter holds a kitten in the refugee camp of Burj Al Barajneh near Beirut. It was taken on July 8, 1988.

[frankiecorleone]

Deadbeat older sister

[bloglikeanegyptian]

i think a lot of the socio-political and historical analysis of why people might compare zionists to the nazis, whether in terms of authoritarianism and far-right regimes and in the relevant context of history, as well as the accusation that it is inappropriate or antisemitic, both miss a significant aspect of the comparison in and of itself

when arabs or palestinians compare zionists to nazis, gaza to the holocaust, it's also because they're aware that israelis and the western world at least grasp the horrors of the holocaust. they're aware that this was universally understood as an atrocity, and so they are trying to make this appeal because they think this is one of the few comparisons that the western mind can comprehend in the first place.

in arabic i have heard zionists compared to the mongols and tatars, to the crusaders, to the colonial british, to the american settlers and later to the americans in iraq. does any of that mean anything to the western perspective? they've never acknowledged the full depth of these atrocities in the first place. the nazis are one of many comparisons that have been drawn in the arab world, usually used for irony. but people are aware that the rest mean nothing to the ones responsible for arming and empowering israel.

instead there is a sense (however true or untrue—and it is mostly untrue) that the west understood the visceral horror of the holocaust and a sense that those responsible for it were held accountable in ways few others have due to that. and so this comparison, on a human level, is often made just to communicate in the first place. it's basically saying "i'm trying to speak your language, you are the monster to me that this monster was to you, do you understand me now?"

[fairuzfan]

Something we do in Palestinian circles especially is compare the current nakba with the '48 one and '67 one. But even when we try to make this comparison now, in English and with people who do not understand the gravity of the nakba on generations of family, no one bats an eye. In fact, people go as to deny the nakba in whatever way they think makes sense.

If we were to compare in standard media, the current nakba with the others, then no one would care. Weve accepted that mainstream opinion is that no one cares about Palestinians. I'm talking mainstream political and professional media.

When Palestinians especially point out that the euro-american backed Israel is perpetuating the same violence it swore to never perpetuate again, it's a pleading to save their lives. They are not doing it out of malice or anything. They are literally trying to find any way possible to get people to do something so that the slaughter of their friends and family stops. Perhaps people should be more willing to understand that this is a population who has been consistently disenfranchised, blamed for their occupation, and repeatedly kicked out of their homes and made refugees which ruined lives. And no one has done anything about it. So they're trying to appeal to your (a westerner) sense of morality that they know you teach in your history books.

Perhaps don't be so quick to judge Palestinians for trying to find ways to make you help them?

[b33viemm]

NOT IN MY NAME its breaking my heart

Context: x, x

click for higher quality IDs in alt other versions under cut

[palestinian-fundraising]

As pride month begins, let us not forget our Palestinian brothers and sisters.

[chandlermead]

Forbidden Colors, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, 1988, acrylic on panel, 20 x 68 inches, four parts: 20 x 16 inches each

[amalisam]

[forystr]

ALL EYES ON RAFAH. WE WILL NOT FORGIVE. WE WILL NOT FORGET.

This design is free to redistribute and repost. Download here.

[flower-tea-fairies]

That part

[sayruq]

[fairuzfan]

Here's a website where Palestine GoFundMes are vetted and shared that you can send out to people. The url is gazafunds.com

Easy to use and simple. Just share the site whenever someone asks for GFMs for Palestine.

[sayruq]

[fragrantblossoms]

Claude Cahun.  La Chambre du Chat, 1940.

[kallistoi]

[image description: a black and white photo of a cat sleeping in a cat bed with a little wooden frame and canopy. next to the bed is a cat-sized miniature chest of drawers.]

[soon-palestine]

[drsonnet]

Hind Rajab was a 5 year old girl in Gaza who was killed while she hid alone in a car, along with the paramedics who tried to rescue her. Yesterday students at Columbia seized the administration building and renamed it in her honor.

Gadzooks Bazooka

Instagram: gadzooks_bazooka