As someone who made decent money off that site back in the day, fuck Steemit. Realizing that my earnings came from Korean folks losing their life savings turned me against crypto for life.

Such a shock.

I've spent way too many pages of my books making fun of utilitarians to stop now lol.

Goddamnit I wish I'd intended that pun

Yeah, there's absolutely a place for arguments that aren't full-bore "capitalism is evil, forward the revolution!" Some people need to be eased into that space, and articles like this, that show how fundamentally stupid and terrible Musk and company are, are a great way to get people to start asking HOW dingbats like that got power. And it's not the longest journey from there to questioning whether something is wrong with the system itself.

(There are failure states, of course- namely, reinforcing the neoliberal idea that if you just put better people in charge of a system, it will work better. But that's a question of execution, not of tactical validity.)

Somehow, I doubt there's many other sneerers in Hanoi, but you never know...

Oh heck yeah new Dan Olson

The full book is well worth the read, imho.

I... actually like it a lot, and wouldn't mind switching to it? But also, if I'm the only one who'd be interested, I don't want to be a bother, I can use the current format just fine.

Oooh, Quinn Slobodian! Just read his book Crack-Up Capitalism, good stuff.

Solid post, already shared this a few times.

I mean, a lot of that fiction is just really good! Frankly, the rationalists tend to miss the point so hard, hyperfocusing on the cool gadgets and missing the commentaries on civilization, society, history, human nature, etc. Don't let their awful beige California ideology ruin your fondness of some genuinely entertaining, thought-provoking literature.