Cross-posted from “The taxman always gets their due” by @Db0@dbzer0.com in !dbzer0.com@dbzer0.com
Author’s Note: Initially I was planning to just post it here, but then I though, “hey I have an actual blog for this reason”. So anyway, I’m just crossposting here anyway :)
Someone made the comment about the assassination of the United Healthcare CEO and mentioned that the clients to private security forces are going to skyrocket. This is true.
It made me think of how much companies like these have profited from lobbying the government to remove their social contributions (i.e. taxes) while also being directly responsible for destroying those social safeties themselves.
The companies constantly lobby the government to reduce or remove their tax burden while retaining their state protections. But they don’t recognize that the more their actions erode the life of the working class, the more the social contract people accept to not take matters into their own hands is discarded.
As such, you start seeing things like assassinations and kidnappings, which in turn force the rich to use the money they saved by not paying taxes, to pay for private security instead.
This naturally leads to a more and more polarized society where the rich live in increasingly isolated and defended enclaves, while the proles live outside in slums and favelas. Sometimes directly next to each other, as this iconic photos from Sao Paolo exemplifies.
<img alt=“” src=“https://i0.wp.com/dbzer0.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image.png?resize=620%2C413&ssl=1” height=“413” width=“620” />
Of course, eventually, the dissolution of the social contract is going to make even this insufficient. More and more wealth will need to be used merely to protect their life and property, once the state has been sufficiently defunded, until at some point, you own private security will be either so powerful as to become a de-facto state, or they will turn themselves against the rich and claim their wealth for themselves.
Under capitalism, the taxman always gets their due.
Don’t see anything wrong with using GenAI for a quick image.
an image that relies on massive surveillance capitalism and slave labor to train?
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. More to the point I wasn’t involved in all of these acts nor do my local use of those models support those systems.
there is no ethical consumption under capitalism is only really a defense when the acts are otherwise necessary in some way. a fake image for b roll in your post is hardly a worthwhile use, and takes away from artists whom could have been asked for their piece.
No it’s not just for necessities. You also can’t declare that others be as pure as you want. You don’t know everyone’s situation. Moralising and scolding like this is counter productive
i can certainly moralize that this is not a good use of generative models nor a good use of your defense. think it’s counterproductive if you want, normalizing garbage that harms us all, especially artists in this case, out of expediency aint it.
Scold all you want. Doesn’t matter. It’s Capitalism which harms artists, not technology.
technology is an expression of culture, of which is capitalism, separating tech from culture and its consequences is a lie sold by techbros to make them seem above critique.
Pure sophistry.