in my day, toy stores didn’t have separate kids’ sections.

If, perhaps, we return to a civilized age where one discovers and reads much of ones news by RSS feeds, a nice, gentle alternative to a paywall would be access to full-text feeds rather than feeds you have to annoyingly click a link from to reach still open content.

Every time I click, I'd be reminded that I'm asked for support I'm not giving, and think about whether I wish to give it.

people think anxious people are workaholics in order to relieve their anxiety and maybe that’s a part of it.

another part, though, is that the opportunity cost of lost leisure is very low if you know you’re going to ruin whatever you do with it by being anxious.

“social media sites are always trying to optimize their mistreatment of users, mistreating them (and thus profiting from them) right up to the point where they are ready to switch, but without actually pushing them over the edge.” @pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/19/better-failure/ ht @SaintPeter @IraCogan

// with lots on the importance of low-cost exit to deter and to remedy this sort of “enshittification”

“Beyond the bromides of progress and technological liberation, what distinguished New Labour was its sanctionism: the belief that the market would provide carrots and government should provide the stick.” ~David Timoney (From Arse To Elbow) https://fromarsetoelbow.blogspot.com/2022/12/discipline-and-punish.html

// we often think of sanctions in international terms, but everything from a strike to the sack to benefits withheld or withdrawn can be understood in terms of groups directly or via the state sanctioning one another.

with money, the dose makes the poison.

i wonder if it is really constructive to ragetoot.

"It’s about the central importance of vaccines in any plan to protect the vulnerable and about how we should be bolder and braver the next time." ~Alex Tabarrok https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/12/the-birx-plan-for-early-vaccination-of-the-nursing-homes.html

// i love how half the world is mad because COVID vaccines were an experimental treatment that would never pass a cost benefit test pushed on us for profit by for rapacious pharma, and the other half is mad because we wouldn't risk deploying them earlier. (i think we did pretty good, domestically, with vaccines.)

@deshipu i would rather they just passed gas.

I dislike it when people die.

This is an interesting feature I didn’t know about or expect.

“I'd like to advance the notion that software does not have to scale, and in fact software can be better if it is not built to scale.” @darius https://runyourown.social/ ht @dreww

What if you have the power to turn fictional then back again?

not with a bang, or with a whimper, but with a giggle.

“I would like nothing better than to not have to know or care about these people.” ~Alexandra Petri https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/17/elon-musk-twitter-overkill/

// as always from Petri, cuttingly and hilariously written.

// i’ve lost the hat tip, my apologies to the unknown provider of the link.

Is your identity an important part of your identity?

@stevenbodzin definitely not me! or if there’s a problem adding the feed i want to know about it and fix it. i am very much in the RSS forevah! camp.

@stevenbodzin @futurebird it’s the OG social network, still the best.

This link may be unsafe.

"The prominence of both consumerist and philanthropic strategies to fix what’s wrong with the world are reflections of an immense political vacuum. Somehow, and quickly, politics needs to be rebuilt from the ground up…The goal would be to live in a world in which 'what should I buy?' and 'how should I give?' were no longer regarded as important political questions." ~Peter Dorman on #EffectiveAltruism https://econospeak.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-political-economy-of-effective.html