Fox Thirty Eight 🦊🌹 @fox_news@mastodon.social

https://crimethinc.com/2017/07/04/the-crimethinc-guide-to-celebrating-the-fourth-of-july-for-entertainment-purposes-only

it's that time of the year again

Social media turns emotional and social energy into profit.

Reddit has started pushing a thing called "predictions tournaments." Not just pushing it but pushing it hard. They do this by setting up the posts advertising this, such that anyone who responds to the post or engages with the predictions tournament page automatically upvotes the thread.

They also ensure that it's nearly impossible to block the posts, by having the moderators of the different subreddits make the posts themselves.

All this to exploit the network effect. It's highly upvoted, so it looks like a lot of people like it, and it's constantly on the front page, posted to different subreddits.

It's a rip from an existing idea called a predictions market.

A predictions market is basically where people put money on what they think a likely outcome of a situation is. Rather than an algorithm or a person setting the odds, the cost of a position is determined by the people buying the positions, it's like a stock market.

The point of this is that people, in aggregate, tend to be pretty good at predicting outcomes of things.

I don't really like capitalism, but this seems like a fair exchange to me. People get rewarded monetarily for participating in a process which attempts to predict outcomes.

Reddit's predictions tournaments work much the same way.

Of course, Reddit users are not compensated in any such way for their participation. They get fake internet points.

Reddit and other social media exploit the desire for social connection and subvert it to get people to perform emotional and social labor for the sole benefit of enriching corporations.

Think people in the Matrix, plugged into machines.

Hi friends. Here's some things to think about from The New Handbook for a Post-Roe America by Robin Marty for folks who might be panicking right now and planning to stockpile emergency contraceptives (Plan B):

"1. Are you buying locally, or online?
-If you are purchasing emergency contraception for future use, please consider only buying it from online sites. This ensures that for those who have an actual emergency and need medication immediately, there is still a supply on the shelf for them to buy and it isn’t out of stock. Waiting two days or more for delivery because there is no place to purchase locally is the surest way for a person to end up with an unwanted pregnancy.

2. Do you really need that many doses?
-Yes, buying a bunch of EC feels like a really proactive way to stick it to anti-abortion politicians. But remember, most EC has a shelf life of three to four years, and in some cases the clock may already be ticking. Twenty packs of EC do no one any good if they all expire because you really only needed four. Unless you have a real reason to think that you might end up as a distribution channel for your friends or neighbors, limit how many you get at once. Odds are, you will be able to buy more later.

3. Is there a local organization that offers EC? Can you help them, instead?
-Let’s be frank, getting emergency contraception from a stranger is a sort of freaky idea. Preventing a pregnancy—especially after intercourse—is a pretty private activity. No one really wants to reach out to someone they don’t know in order to get medication, but they are more likely to contact reproductive rights and justice groups, organizations that support marginalized communities, or feminist groups than private individuals. Don’t recreate the wheel when there are already organizations distributing EC—offer those groups money or medication, or even offer to help distribute through their channels rather than try to do this alone.

For people looking for medication that will be delivered straight to their home, Afterpill.com is a website where you can purchase single-dose or three-dose packages of EC for twenty dollars each—less than half of what you’d pay at a pharmacy.

Or if you are already getting birth control pills by mail, either through a Planned Parenthood clinic or via an online pharmacy, ask about having a dose or two of EC added to your next delivery. Some outlets—especially Planned Parenthoods—will offer one or two doses a year that they will send along as part of your prescription. Or you can ask your doctor to write a prescription for her to fill now and have on hand for later, when you or someone you know might need it."

I'm not a fatalist. Of course, I have my feelings about today, but hopelessness is not one of them. White people have been trying to take us out for a while, and they have failed and instigated their demise in the process.

We do not live in the 50s and 60s, even though old white men and their tokens are trying to legislate like it is. Reactive policy based on hate inherently acknowledges they are terrified of the direction the world is going and will do everything in their power to stop it.

But the world has changed, and it was and is inevitable. No doubt these hateful fools will fight, but fascism and hate are the best they have, and we see the best they can do.

Keep the pressure up. Keep building community. They don't have any new ideas, so the bulk of their strategy is to attack our hope to make us feel like it's hopeless.

But it's not. Not even close.

Reminder, being angry is a valuable emotion that tells you it is time to change what you have been doing and act in your and other people’s interest to feel happy

It is not reasonable nor acceptable to insist people wait for time immemorial for wrongs to be made right.

Certainly not when it only takes a fraction of the time to commit atrocities in the first place.

No battle — figurative or literal — is without bloodshed, I’m afraid.

This obsession I see libs and centrists have with getting this smug “perfect”victory is infuriating as it is naïve.

The adversary doesn’t give a shit about the process. They bent it to their will. You now have to destroy the process and put a new one it it’s place; one that will set your adversary back, if not do away with them altogether.

If you’re not up for doing that, stand down.

There’s no reason to have faith in a system that takes aeons for justice to be dispensed when injustice is served from the same kitchen.

Liberals like Justice Sonia Sotomayor really don’t get it, do they?

It’s all good and well to be optimistic in the face of a bleak future but their optimism is fresh. They haven’t seen what’s it like on the ground, nor have they felt the brunt of these decisions.

If it took a century to undo Dred Scott — and the toll of life taken was incalculable— do we really want to see how long it takes the courts to undo the curtailing of abortion rights?

Joseph Robinette Biden’s aides say that he’s deliberative because he’s working his way to the right result.

That’s bullshit.

Joseph Robinette Biden is stalling to see how long you’ll wait before he can comfortably renege on another of his promises.