[Doomsday Economics] Home of Kirbeh's FREE SLICE ($25 delivery fee)

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i am harry: Oct 14, 2003

Relevant Tangent posted:

$16 before fries or drink, worth every penny

you are wrong.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 06:20

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# ? May 25, 2024 21:44

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

silicone thrills posted:

Almost every parent I know no longer requires their kids to "give your aunts/uncles hugs" since everyone had the realization of how many of us were molested by uncles and poo poo and how important teaching kids that they have bodily autonomy and don't have to be touched or be touched.

I get the feeling it's also one of those things where the people who argue the hardest against it end up being the best arguments for it. Parents actually see old weirdos get red in the face demanding performative affectionate contact from children they barely know and something kinda clicks.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 06:30

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

this is a good reminder that it's not just america that is evil and the worst country, canada is also right there and maybe even worse

quote:

I just returned home from a trip to New York, where everyone I met was very excited to meet a Canadian in real life. �What�s Canada like?� they asked, looking at me with eager, puppy eyes. �I think about moving there sometimes. What�s it like? What do you guys do there? Is it cold? Tell me everything.�

Americans don�t know much about Canada, and I don�t blame them. They live in the greatest country in the universe, apparently. The rest of the world is meant to plan itself around the U.S., rather than the other way around, and often that�s how things tend to go down anyway. Canada and the U.S. share the longest international border in the world, and yet, the average American could probably go their entire life knowing nothing really substantial about their northern neighbor beyond what they glean from Degrassi. When Americans do encounter Canada, it is usually in disguise � in movies and on TV, Toronto plays New York, Vancouver plays California, and presumably something else happens to the big empty space between those two cities (to its credit, Montreal can�t really play anywhere else, and Alberta hosts a lot of Westerns, but that�s about it). So I can forgive Americans for being clueless. I can forgive them their ignorance about this big, cold, confusing place just to the north of them. And that�s why I want to clear something up, once and for all, so I can put your minds at rest and save us all a lot of time and energy.

Here it is: Canada is fake.

Now, declaring a country �fake� is both a bold and boring statement. A lot of countries are fake, really; they all require a sort of collective willful suspension of disbelief. Patriotism feels a lot like being super into astrology � sure, you might not be hurting anyone, but don�t you think it�s a bit odd to be focused on what is essentially an accident of birth? So yes, maybe all countries are fake on some level. To achieve a collective identity among otherwise unaffiliated souls, most nation-states share the sort of commitment to the bit that Benedict Anderson, the scholar of nationalism, once described as an �imagined community.� The state itself is the best evidence we have for the claim that something can be both socially constructed and also terribly consequential � a border is an utterly unnatural thing, something that is so flimsy and nonsensical that states spend billions of dollars maintaining the illusion of their reality every year. Canada, the US, Australia, Belgium, etc. are all obviously unreal and also devastating in their real impact.

Canada is a scam � a pyramid scheme, a ruse, a heist. Canada is a front.

But when I say that Canada is fake, I don�t mean anything so universal or theoretical. Canada is not an accident or a work in progress or a thought experiment. I mean that Canada is a scam � a pyramid scheme, a ruse, a heist. Canada is a front. And it�s a front for a massive network of resource extraction companies, oil barons, and mining magnates.

If you�ve never attended a Canadian history class, here is the short version: European settlers spent their first years in this part of the continent hunting beavers en masse in order to turn their pelts into fancy hats. Founded through the fur trade, the Hudson�s Bay company operated as the de facto government in large portions of what is now Canada for nearly 200 years between 1670-1869. Private enterprises like these, with backing from the French and then the British governments, claimed larger and larger swathes of the continent to claim more and more fur, lumber, and ore, often directly stealing from and overpowering Indigenous trading systems that had been sustainably in place for thousands of years. Eventually they spread their land grab all the way to the Pacific Ocean and the northern coastlines in pursuit of gold, silver, iron, copper, nickel, and diamond reserves. The eventual formation of Canada as �Canada� came about in the late 1800s for nakedly economic reasons, primarily to benefit the companies and conglomerates that were trading Canadian natural resources with the British, but also to facilitate railroad construction (using slave labor) in which civic leaders had investments.

On some level, this history closely mirrors that of all colonial states. It�s a pattern that Marx once described as �primitive accumulation,� the principle economic drive of colonialism. Through the enclosure and seizure of resources, for the purposes of their privatization, entire populations and regions are brought into the scope of a ruling class which now owns the means of production and has the power to exploit workers with no choice but to accept the conditions forced upon them. So while Canada is not unique as a colony, it�s done a particularly poor job of adapting to its new status as a �country.� Canada lacks a cohesive identity or sense of itself as anything besides �not the US.� Our population is tiny, spread mostly along the southern border, and in most of the land mass � the parts claimed by �the crown� and private companies, and largely inhabited by Indigenous communities that have lived there since the beginning of human memory � anything resembling state services or essential infrastructure is few and far between. Even the few defining things we can claim as �Canadian,� like socialized medicine or pristine wilderness, are under threat by conservative politicians with an eye for privatization. The pattern of primitive accumulation continues.

This pattern lies at the heart of the shell corporation we call �Canada,� and forms the logic of both domestic and international policy. The mining industry is the most egregious example. Over 75 percent of the world�s mining companies are based in Canada. There�s some historical rationale here � the country was literally built on, around, and by the resource extraction industry. Still, this ridiculous preponderance is largely due to intentional moves by Canadian federal and provincial governments to attract mining money. For instance, mining companies can legally lay claim to minerals found underneath the ground basically anywhere in the province of Ontario, and in British Columbia, mining companies can stake claims on land without even having to be physically present.

Most of the physical geography of Canada is used for resource extraction purposes; nearly 90 percent of the land in Canada is �owned� by federal or provincial governments (41 percent and 48 percent, respectively), and most of that land is licensed out for private companies to use largely as they see fit. Maybe that�s why Canada is so reluctant to address its outsized role in global climate catastrophe, even though Canada is warming at twice the global average. And Canada has exported that environmental destruction elsewhere as well, because mining is effectively the basis of Canadian foreign policy. Canadian mining companies have free rein to devastate lands and communities in Central America and throughout Africa, and face virtually no consequences.

In violating Wet�suwet�en territorial sovereignty by pushing the Coastal GasLink pipeline ahead, Canada is continuing its practice of colonialism and primitive accumulation.

The thing is, none of this is new. It�s only recently, though, that this fact has become impossible for Canadians to ignore. In January 2019, Canadian police descended upon the Unist�ot�en camp with snipers and chainsaws. Commanders of the iconically-Canadian Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) gave instructions to use �as much violence� as they want to confront members of the Wet�suwet�en nation � an Indigenous people whose territory lies directly in the path of a planned pipeline carrying natural gas from Alberta to the Pacific coast. The Wet�suwet�en set up the Unist�ot�en camp back in 2009, as a barricade against proposed pipelines set to cut through the region. In recent years, the camp has expanded to meet new threats, including those posed by a company called Coastal GasLink, backed by the RCMP, which aims to bulldoze through the territory to build a pipeline.

The lands in question are technically unceded, meaning that they lie fully outside of the jurisdiction of the Canadian state � this land was never officially incorporated into the Canadian state, and the people there never entered into formal treaties with Canadian colonists. In fact, as a 1997 Supreme Court case established, Indigenous land rights and title have never been extinguished in traditional Wet�suwet�en and Gitxsan territory, meaning that the lands rightfully ought to be governed by Indigenous laws, which the courts recognized as far predating any colonial presence in the region. It is, literally, not Canada. Still, Canadian police forced their way onto and through the land, violating Wet�suwet�en sovereignty and the demands of their political leaders, simply to privatize resources for colonial use and abuse.

In violating Wet�suwet�en territorial sovereignty by pushing the Coastal GasLink pipeline ahead, Canada is continuing its practice of colonialism and primitive accumulation. What�s more, Canada is violating international laws around military occupation and around the rights of Indigenous people. Right now, as I write this, members of Wet�suwet�en nation are still resisting, facing mass arrest and state violence, to protect their lands from privatization at the barrel of a gun. But for Canada, this is business as usual. The siege on Wet�suwet�en is a microcosm of what makes Canada �Canada.� The logic of resource extraction, led by private companies and enforced by the state, is what motivates Canadian policy and justifies Canadian national identity. Canada is three mining companies in a trench coat, wearing a stupid hat and carrying a gun.

Scratch the surface, and that�s all that�s underneath it. Canada is fake. But the consequences are real.

quote:

Canada is a nation owned by a handful of Oligarchs, perhaps a dozen families, which pretends it is a functioning democracy. No joke, effectively one or two billionaires hold a monopoly interest on a variety of essential industries in each province. Patterson in BC, the Richardsons in Saskatchewan & Manitoba, Irvings in the east coast, the Westons with their monopoly over groceries, the Rogers & Shaw families with telecommunications, etc etc etc. The nation is a two party system, with both the Liberals and the Conservatives working for these families. For the past 30+ years they�ve traded who is in office whenever the public gets fed up, but each successive government has expanded the exploitative programs of its predecessor regardless of ideological branding. I�ll get into the why at the end of this.

The country is wholly reliant now on a housing and consumer debt bubble which is the singular primary driver of the GDP and wealth generation and one of the worst inflated in the developed world, economically it is otherwise stagnant. A great number of people make poo poo wages but don�t need to worry, because they bought a house twenty years ago and the house now earns $100k/yr in value like clockwork - from which they can withdraw a HELOC loan to live more lavishly than they would otherwise. Wages haven�t moved in decades, while the house I grew up in has increased in value from $60k to $1.2 Million in only 25 years - with no improvements done to it. This house is in a small, isolated town in the interior of the province with no remaining economy other than tourism and logging. The government is unwilling to do anything to change this situation, both because they have their fingers in the pie and because wiping out homeowners with a housing crash would at this point destroy the nations economy like a nuclear bomb.

You can see the problems here, I�m sure.

Our population is rapidly aging, however due to the cost of living and lack of housing availability, nobody is having children. This threatens the holy grail of Growth Economics. If the economy stagnates, those oligarchs I mentioned start losing profits. Our pension funds and other services risk insolvency - the only solution is to tell the boomers to gently caress off (politically impossible) or to massively boost the population to try and fake the GDP growth per capita.

Following the pandemic, we saw the first serious increase in wages in years due to the lack of workers as the labor market experienced the same reshuffling as it has anywhere else.

The solution from the federal government to that wage negotiation power has been swift and brutal: mass immigration at any cost with the goal of aggressive wage suppression and ensuring consistently upward-spiralling rents / housing prices. A one bedroom apartment in Vancouver in 2016 could still be found for around $800/month. Today that is $2100/month. Rents outside the lower mainland do not drop dramatically, however economic prospects sure do, so the affordability gap actually worsens the further you go from the major cities.

Over the past year the feds have increased annual immigration to over 2.2 Million people when you count international students, temporary workers, and refugees. This is amount the highest, if not the highest, rate of per-capita immigration in the world. Vastly outpacing the USA. The majority are not skilled immigrants, we no longer apply our skills-based immigration stream approach and are now largely importing raw and often uneducated labourers from developing nations. This has resulted in severe strain on the medical system, as we also do not recognize any foriegn medical degrees and engage in heavy protectionism of wages in this field by allowing very few domestic med school graduates per year. Last year the federal government removed any working restrictions on international students (numbering 800k last year, to suppress wages), removed most market restrictions on the �Temporary Foriegn Worker Program� and increased the allowable number of them by six figures (to suppress wages). And so on and so forth. They are now handing out visas on a �just apply� basis to both tech workers and skilled trades, to try and kill wage negotiation power in the last few remaining pockets of good wages in the country.

While it�s been a great propaganda piece about how Canada �welcomes� so many refugees, the reality is quite inhumane. Greater than 40% of homeless shelter users in Toronto are refugees who were imported by the Federal government and subsequently dumped on the streets with zero support once they ran out the few months of payments and housing they receive. The goal is, again, not humanitarian: it is a strategy of wage suppression by ensuring a constant stream of desperate people willing to work for whatever is offered and remain ignorant of their labor rights out of fear and desperation. This has until very recently been swept under the rug as it harms the international propaganda value of our refugee business.

Take a look around this imploding world, that business is booming.

The country is speedrunning towards severe sectarian violence at this point, with the political class in Ottawa and various Provincial governments wholly captured by a tiny group of wealthy elite and corporate interests who cannot see beyond their own quarterly profits. Our last housing minister owned three investment properties, he has been shuffled and last week replaced by the minister responsible for opening up this mass immigration scheme.

When confronted earlier in the year about the disparity between numbers coming in and housing being built, Sean Fraser responded �Don�t worry, they�ll build their own housing�. The prime minister has said last week that housing �is not a concern of the federal government�. Today the new immigration minister says �we may need to revise the targets higher�. This is the degree of reckless tone-deafness on display. Every bank in the country, displaying an unusual degree of breaking from the narrative, agrees this is insane.

This is an extremely high level overview which does not touch on the many interlocking systemic issues underlying the how and the why things went to poo poo so fast in Canada. Failure to invest in housing for three decades, willful blindness towards money laundering in housing by foreign investors for decades, total lack of regulation on AirBnB and other STR�s, turning international student programs into a defacto limitless work visa stream to bypasses actual work visa caps, failure to invest in diversifying the economy out of resource extraction, closure and offshoring of add-value manufacturing, failure to invest in infrastructure while extracting profits. Etc etc etc. it�s a complete clusterfuck.

It bears repeating the above paragraph, because many will miss the point: the problem here is not immigration. We were already struggling and on the road to serious economic ruin sooner or later for well over a decade before Ottawa decided to immediately add several million people a year. But we are now absolutely on the verge of some seriously dire poo poo, the breaking point is already here. I am personally leaving the country next year, as I am at the top of the pay scale for my specialized industry in this country and can no longer make ends meet (I have six roommates and savings is still a struggle, as the floor for rent is $1000/room no matter how many are in the house) - but by relocating elsewhere my wage more than doubles.

Up until quite recently Canada was a relatively stable nation with a high standard of living (built on extreme consumer debt), and with an extremely developed national ego and self-delusion that it was somehow superior to other supposedly �inferior� places such as the USA. To say that the abrupt contraction in living conditions as reality sets in here has been a little hard for folks to swallow would be an understatement.

I have no interest in sticking around to see what my frankly quite-racist and generally ignorant countrymen get up to, when they decide it�s the nationality of the millions of warm bodies we�re pumping into the country who are to blame for what happens here over the next few years - rather than blaming the politicians who decided that going hard on transitioning from a nation to a post-national corporate entity, which wears the concept of a nation as a disguise, was the best way to personally cash in. After decades of these politicians pushing the rhetoric that any criticism of immigration is �racist�, the blowback here is going to be extremely severe.

That�s really the core of the problem: the minds behind Ottawa do not want to be in charge of a nation, they really don�t care about the idea of �Canada� as a country, they have zero loyalty to that idea: they want a company town which spans from shore to shore. You will pay for your housing until the very day you die, either via 70+ year mortgages or via rent towards parasitic landlords, and purchase all of your goods from a handful of consolidated options which trickle back to the same core group of oligarch families. This will force you to work, endlessly, at whatever wages and conditions you can get. The stability of the society and its demographics, sane functioning economics, etc, is wholly irrelevant here: the goal is to take a seething mass of humanity, both domestically sourced and cynically lured in from around the globe, squeeze it for whatever capital drips out, and throw more on the pile when they start to run dry.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 06:39

Popoto: Oct 21, 2012; miaow

Rime?

# ? Aug 4, 2023 06:44

Mola Yam: Jun 18, 2004; Kali Ma Shakti de!

oh yeah i saw that post in r/collapse too

enjoyed all the people saying "dude you just perfectly described any european country/australia/new zealand"

something will snap eventually, either socially or economically, but it can get so much worse before then.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 06:49

Canned Sunshine: Nov 20, 2005; CAUTION: POST QUALITY UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Relevant Tangent posted:

$16 before fries or drink, worth every penny

That's like $2 of beef, $0.50 of bun, and maybe $1.50 between the veggies/pineapple and the cheese slice if we're being honest. So $4 for that monstrosity. If you factor in that it probably took the cook in the back 5 minutes at most to actually make and maybe he makes $20/hr, that's another $1.70 or so. Now you're up to a whopp(er)ing $5.70 for that piece of poo poo.

Hope you're happy you just gave away $10 to the corporate assclowns!

# ? Aug 4, 2023 06:58

Vox Nihili: May 28, 2008

Paid $24 at Jack in the Box for two fast food entrees and a single large curly fries this evening.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 07:18

a strange fowl: Oct 27, 2022

SKULL.GIF posted:

So you're saying Yellen is very carefully balancing a pyramid of extremely fragile porcelain cards that could render the government insolvent if she fucks up?

That owns

yellen is another of my favourite minor villains, i respect her and the name definitely helps

# ? Aug 4, 2023 07:38

Zodium: Jun 19, 2004

Xaris posted:

this is a good reminder that it's not just america that is evil and the worst country, canada is also right there and maybe even worse

the imperial core is one big system, all the countries are simultaneously the worst

# ? Aug 4, 2023 08:05

genericnick: Dec 26, 2012

Antonymous posted:

we all laughed when Erdogan said higher intrest causes inflation, how fast the thread has c ome around

He's right. Also, lowering interest rates? Prices go up. Almost as if prices are set by social negotiation and in every movement the dominant class comes out ahead.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 09:44

genericnick: Dec 26, 2012

Xaris posted:

this is what MMT perverts think

i hope the dollar crashes

Pretty sure MMT perverts would say you'd have to tax away demand if you're dealing with inflation. Depending on whatever, it's been years.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 09:45

DancingShade: Jul 26, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

SourKraut posted:

That's like $2 of beef, $0.50 of bun, and maybe $1.50 between the veggies/pineapple and the cheese slice if we're being honest. So $4 for that monstrosity. If you factor in that it probably took the cook in the back 5 minutes at most to actually make and maybe he makes $20/hr, that's another $1.70 or so. Now you're up to a whopp(er)ing $5.70 for that piece of poo poo.

Hope you're happy you just gave away $10 to the corporate assclowns!

You're forgetting the commericial real estate rent for the site is 50k a month or something. Or a week.

If you didn't all work from home that burger would only be $14 not $16!

# ? Aug 4, 2023 09:53

Ihmemies: Oct 6, 2012

SourKraut posted:

That's like $2 of beef, $0.50 of bun, and maybe $1.50 between the veggies/pineapple and the cheese slice if we're being honest. So $4 for that monstrosity. If you factor in that it probably took the cook in the back 5 minutes at most to actually make and maybe he makes $20/hr, that's another $1.70 or so. Now you're up to a whopp(er)ing $5.70 for that piece of poo poo.

Hope you're happy you just gave away $10 to the corporate assclowns!

Tax? The space? Rent? Maintenance? Kitchen utensils and machines? Waiters? Insurance? Managers? Profit??

# ? Aug 4, 2023 09:59

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

https://twitter.com/levie/status/1686882450184732672

what irritates me about this take is less the inability to fathom that airbnb was not actually good for the industry

but rather, that this person is so uninformed that they don't realize "airbnb but for GPUs" is already a thing that exists

even in the specific context "allow a person to lend out GPU usage at the level of the individual desktop", and not data center rentals, we already have folding@home and its offshoots

# ? Aug 4, 2023 10:00

DancingShade: Jul 26, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/levie/status/1686882450184732672

what irritates me about this take is less the inability to fathom that airbnb was not actually good for the industry

but rather, that this person is so uninformed that they don't realize "airbnb but for GPUs" is already a thing that exists

even in the specific context "allow a person to lend out GPU usage at the level of the individual desktop", and not data center rentals, we already have folding@home and its offshoots

They don't realise it. So sell them a pitch which is something that already exists and frame it as "new, innovative and market disruptive". Who cares if its just a trap for sucker investors who don't know what they're investing in?

Make that billion dollar startup which amounts to just nvidia shield on a smartphone running off whatever lets you skim the most off the top. Sell all your shares after first round offers and buy that cayman islands beach house you've been eyeing.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 10:03

SlimGoodbody: Oct 20, 2003

DancingShade posted:

They don't realise it. So sell them a pitch which is something that already exists and frame it as "new, innovative and market disruptive". Who cares if its just a trap for sucker investors who don't know what they're investing in?

Make that billion dollar startup which amounts to just nvidia shield on a smartphone running off whatever lets you skim the most off the top. Sell all your shares after first round offers and buy that cayman islands beach house you've been eyeing.

Say it will be powered by AI superconductors on the block chain.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 10:14

DancingShade: Jul 26, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

SlimGoodbody posted:

Say it will be powered by AI superconductors on the block chain.

Room temperature block chain. Which it technically already is.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 10:21

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

slave to my cravings posted:

that�s right

it's not class warfare because the war is long since over and they won.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 10:26

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

Mustached Demon posted:

No it's to punish women for enjoying sex and especially punish women who have pregnancies that go wrong

Child labors just a bonus

No, it's because private schools weren't allowed to exclude black students and they couldn't shout about that because racism wasn't winning when you were too blatant so they cast around and found "that catholic thing"

... and now there's a big push for school vouchers to private religious schools that just happen to have underrepresentation of minority students. weird. probably just coincidental and definitely not decades of constant pushing by the same racist assholes.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 10:41

DancingShade: Jul 26, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

Schools schmools. Don't need an education beyond basic literacy and numeracy to have a lifelong soul grinding factory job where you live in a Foxconn-esque dorm cage.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 10:46

mrbotus: Apr 7, 2009; Patron of the Pants

So, did UPS union strike? I'm confused about whether or not they reached a deal or if they pushed their strike date further ahead or what.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 12:31

NeonPunk: Dec 21, 2020

mrbotus posted:

So, did UPS union strike? I'm confused about whether or not they reached a deal or if they pushed their strike date further ahead or what.

Nah, the management folded like cucks this time and gave the unions what they wanted

# ? Aug 4, 2023 12:33

Harik: Sep 9, 2001; From the hard streets of Moscow
First dog to touch the stars; Plaster Town Cop

NeonPunk posted:

Nah, the management folded like cucks this time and gave the unions what they wanted

leadership approved it 161-1 with only the 89th against it so for it to get that much support.... they probably could have done much better for themselves lol.

still a 2.50 raise now and another $5 over the next 5 years isn't too shabby.

Biggest win is nuking the union-breaking 'two-tier' system where newhires get paid poo poo and have no benefits but still have to cough up union dues.

what loving brainless morons let that in, lol.

Full timers are approaching $50/hr under the deal, which rules. That's more than me as a computer toucher, and they loving deserve it. I used to be a UPS loader and it was brutal backbreaking work. Glad everybody doing it is getting paid enough to survive.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 12:43

StealthArcher: Jan 10, 2010

Harik posted:

Biggest win is nuking the union-breaking 'two-tier' system where newhires get paid poo poo and have no benefits but still have to cough up union dues.

what loving brainless morons let that in, lol.

UFCW in Canada Safeway was one. The olds were positively shocked when the vast majority of now 2nd tier members voted to deunionize.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 12:51

mrbotus: Apr 7, 2009; Patron of the Pants

I was under the impression the "two-tier" system sort of lived on by paying part timers normally instead of decently. Is it possible to go full time without a bunch of connections? I don't have much experience with unions other than "those things that used to exist before there were too many of us people around, now they're only for elderly tradesmen and police."

# ? Aug 4, 2023 12:52

NeonPunk: Dec 21, 2020

Excuse me. Paying them "normally"?!?

# ? Aug 4, 2023 12:58

NeonPunk: Dec 21, 2020

Excise that part out of your brain. Paying people below their proper amount should not be considered 'normal' even though that is wildly practiced by employers across the world. Just because it's very common does not mean it's 'normal'

# ? Aug 4, 2023 13:00

Zodium: Jun 19, 2004

NeonPunk posted:

Excise that part out of your brain. Paying people below their proper amount should not be considered 'normal' even though that is wildly practiced by employers across the world. Just because it's very common does not mean it's 'normal'

it does. that's what normal means.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 13:01

Koirhor: Jan 14, 2008; by Fluffdaddy

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/levie/status/1686882450184732672

what irritates me about this take is less the inability to fathom that airbnb was not actually good for the industry

but rather, that this person is so uninformed that they don't realize "airbnb but for GPUs" is already a thing that exists

even in the specific context "allow a person to lend out GPU usage at the level of the individual desktop", and not data center rentals, we already have folding@home and its offshoots

yeah isn�t uhh thats just geforce now, oh he means for bitcoin mining?

# ? Aug 4, 2023 13:02

NeonPunk: Dec 21, 2020

Zodium posted:

it does. that's what normal means.

Implying it's normal means it's the standard. Why agitate for higher pay if what we're getting is the normal pay?

# ? Aug 4, 2023 13:06

Cpt_Obvious: Jun 18, 2007

I think the UPS contract still needs a final vote by union members and there is some genuine internal friction over the stuff the part timers got so it's still up in the air.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 13:06

triple sulk: Sep 17, 2014

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/levie/status/1686882450184732672

what irritates me about this take is less the inability to fathom that airbnb was not actually good for the industry

but rather, that this person is so uninformed that they don't realize "airbnb but for GPUs" is already a thing that exists

even in the specific context "allow a person to lend out GPU usage at the level of the individual desktop", and not data center rentals, we already have folding@home and its offshoots

all these vc idiots look exactly the same

# ? Aug 4, 2023 13:09

Regarde Aduck: Oct 19, 2012; c l o u d k i t t e n; Grimey Drawer

NeonPunk posted:

Implying it's normal means it's the standard. Why agitate for higher pay if what we're getting is the normal pay?

because you want more than the normal

# ? Aug 4, 2023 13:09

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Koirhor posted:

yeah isn�t uhh thats just geforce now, oh he means for bitcoin mining?

for gaming, yes, GeForce Now does it

but a GPU can also be used for rendering and non-crypto-currency "compute" tasks, but again, cloud computing services already exist for that

# ? Aug 4, 2023 13:13

Zodium: Jun 19, 2004

NeonPunk posted:

Implying it's normal means it's the standard. Why agitate for higher pay if what we're getting is the normal pay?

it is the standard. you agitate for higher pay to raise that standard.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 13:13

NeonPunk: Dec 21, 2020

Wanting more than the normal just mean that you're abnormal. Which already has tons of negative connotation to it.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 13:18

pigz: Jul 12, 2004; Nearly as overlooked as Joe Mauer

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/levie/status/1686882450184732672

what irritates me about this take is less the inability to fathom that airbnb was not actually good for the industry

but rather, that this person is so uninformed that they don't realize "airbnb but for GPUs" is already a thing that exists

even in the specific context "allow a person to lend out GPU usage at the level of the individual desktop", and not data center rentals, we already have folding@home and its offshoots

Lol setting aside data privacy issues consumer gpus don't have enough memory to load large models like chatgpt for training even at fp8. The 3090 and 4090 are the only ones that even come close.

# ? Aug 4, 2023 13:24