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ihavedna
@ihavedna.bsky.social
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ihavedna.bsky.social
I reeeeally tried to click this one
Tell me, how have you guardians of facts been doing recently? (See also: Techno-Feudalist Infocide.)
October 28, 2025 at 12:38 AM
ihavedna.bsky.social
A bunch of painted vapes forming the word "Disposable?"
October 21, 2025 at 3:17 AM
ihavedna.bsky.social
October 11, 2025 at 6:52 PM
ihavedna.bsky.social
September 27, 2025 at 3:07 PM
ihavedna.bsky.social
September 7, 2025 at 6:21 PM
ihavedna.bsky.social
Went to Alabama for vaccines and fireworks, but they were all out of fireworks
September 7, 2025 at 4:37 PM
ihavedna.bsky.social
June 28, 2025 at 5:01 PM
ihavedna.bsky.social
Morning
April 28, 2025 at 3:09 PM
ihavedna.bsky.social
Sunrise
April 28, 2025 at 3:09 PM
ihavedna.bsky.social
Predawn at the beach
April 27, 2025 at 10:09 AM
ihavedna.bsky.social
February 21, 2025 at 1:43 AM
ihavedna.bsky.social
a man in a suit of armorr with a sword and also wearing goggles, submerged underwater
January 27, 2025 at 11:33 AM
ihavedna.bsky.social
From Zephyr Teachout's "Break 'Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money"
The result is a combination of hyperactivity online and decreased power. Boycotts gin up social media presence on an almost daily basis. Companies know exactly who is actually boycotting and the disconnect between the actual boycott and the public-facing one. Unlike a demand for legislative action—where inaction by a lawmaker grows in meaning over time—the longer that a company does not change in the face of protests, the more powerful it gets. When a lawmaker does not change, she is often weakened, but when a company does not change, it is often strengthened. The lawmaker becomes vulnerable to a primary challenger; the company has proven that it is strong. And too many times, the very companies we are protesting are working to leverage feel-good leftism for profit and power. Coca-Cola knows what it is doing with Odwalla, and Colgate knows what it is doing with Tom’s of Maine. Perdue is happy to advertise with pictures of happy chickens. These are old tricks of big corporations, but Google, Facebook, and Amazon take it a step further: Google uses its home page daily doodle to reinforce a liberal feel for the company; Facebook steps in when there is a disaster to enable humanitarian relief; and both companies give money to journalism and support education. Amazon often stops customers with a pop-up question of whether they want to make a charitable contribution, and offers “Amazon Smile,” a program that directs 0.5% of each sale to charities of the purchaser’s choice. Consumer politics has the appeal of feeling cleaner and less complicated than direct action or appeals to those in power, and is certainly less complicated than actually wielding power. University of North Carolina sociology professor Zeynep Tufekci argues that people “want to stay out of politics because they fear corruption and co-optation. They have a point. Modern representative democracies are being strangled in many countries by powerful interests.” But, she points out, the long-term impact of dropping out of politics may be to make individuals cleaner and the system dirtier. “Operating this way makes it hard for them to sustain over the long term and exert leverage over the system, which leads to frustrated protesters dropping out, and even more corrupt politics.” The success of a handful of boycotts leads to a constantly renewed sense of hope around them. Today, there are hundreds of boycotts every year, and most do not have an impact. “Very few boycotts have led to changes,” says University of Pennsylvania professor Maurice Schweitzer. “Most accomplish very little. People lose interest, don’t maintain a public presence around a boycott, and the number of people involved is typically too small to make a market difference; what difference is made typically revolves around media attention, not the loss of income.” When people hear about some bad corporate practice, their first reaction is often to consider cutting ties to the company. If there is a story about Heinz treating workers badly, for instance, they might think about boycotting Heinz. And so it is not surprising that each time I spend an hour talking about the democratic dangers of Facebook or Amazon or Google or Monsanto, the first reactions I hear are about personal consumer choice. Instead of being about policy (antitrust, data rules, outlawing arbitration), the conversation veers quickly into pride or guilt. One woman worries that she can’t leave Facebook without leaving her social life. One man sheepishly says he quit Facebook for a few weeks and crept back when he missed his friends. At the heart of this kind of conversation is a thesis: using a service is an endorsement of its business model. Or, more pointedly: if someone is not strong enough to boycott, she lacks standing to object to the behavior of lawmakers and to petition them for change. This belief is wrong, bad strategy, and dangerous for democracy. It is based in a confused idea of our obligations as consumers. This belief does not lead to more boycotts, but radically dampens activism: guilt gets in the way of protest, and complicated chains of self-justification take the place of simple chains of democratic demand. This consumer model is most problematic when it comes to the biggest monopolies. Most people can’t boycott them precisely because they are governmental and provide infrastructure services. We don’t ask people to boycott libraries in order to change library rules; we don’t ask people to boycott highways to ask for them to be safer; we don’t demand that you buy only bottled water while protesting water utility governance. A strategic, organized, well-thought-through boycott with political goals can be transformational. And there is nothing wrong with people personally quitting products when they can. However, ethical consumerism has taken
November 29, 2024 at 3:02 PM