ournalism requires courage – sometimes stubbornness – and good journalism “pushes boundaries” (or touches them). The notion of “playing it safe” comes from high-risk disciplines like rock-climbing; the risks are different with ropes and high falls.

Moreover, one tactic to discourage particular reporting or reporting about a particular topic is to paint the reporter as “vlogger” or “blogger” or “social media user” etc. It’s not accidental, as the real intention is to rob people of protections offered to reporters, columnists, commentators and journalists.

I’ve seem all those demonisation tactics over the years. I think I know how to tackle or defuse them.

If you always “play safe”, you probably will never expose the most dangerous people and not achieve anything meaningful. Retaliation is proportional to the magnitude of measurable outcomes.

think it’s fair to say Shakira wants to be famous like Madonna.

And Madonna never became epic like Parton.

Boyzone never became popular like Take That.

And Take That never become historic like Michael Jackson or “Jackson 5″.

To a millionaire, the aspiration tends to be “become a multi-millionaire”.

That multi-millionaire wishes to become a billionaire.

The billionaires look down on multi-millionaires and millionaires.

The average billionaire is a joke to the “top 10″ billionaires.

The tenth richest billionaire loses sleep over not being “number one”.

Eventually they all die.

If one’s goal in life is recognition through fame or mindless, pointless hoarding of “Capital”, then what is life really about?

Let’s be honest; who in the 21^st century still remembers (cannot remember, except by reading books) the “top 10″ richest people of 1926?

The old robber barons have had many offspring or generations of inheritance, which got ‘diluted’ over time.

Making it to “the top” misses the point that everyone eventually goes “down under” (burial). The difference is, what did one do whilst alive?

think it’s fair to say people cannot be judged based on a lack of photo ops. However, we can judge them based on who they do choose to take photos with.

Throughout the years I’ve mostly if not only taken photos with family (siblings, parents, wife). I have no photos with my ex girlfriends, except one (and I think it’s only one single photo near a swimming pool).

The way I see it, losers who try to ‘absorb’ the status of people above them (like “publicity sponges”) say a lot about themselves.

he common belief is that ugly people are attracted to money as they perceive that as a way to compensate for their ugliness (inside and/or outside) or past rejections (at a younger age). Beautiful people may be attracted to ugly people if they have money; but those ugly people are still ugly.

“Beautiful” as a term refers to some subjective condition, but based on social norms people can distinguish.

The bottom line is, it’s hardly surprising that many of the world’s richest people are ugly inside and ugly outside; the reason for their hoarding isn’t the need to do butchering procedures (plastic [sic] surgery [sic]) but a desire for recognition based on financial status, not goodwill or smart mind or good looks.

This has been a valid criticism for centuries already.

he richest people who control “Science and Technology” are usually not techs. Technology does not matter to them. They have no background in science. They do have a religion though. This religion is called “Money” and the money they want (paper bills) says “In God We Trust” (or something to that effect).

Unless society rectifies this, imbalanced goals and objectives will supersede common sense, ruining people’ physical and mental health while destroying the environment.

Because “In God We Trust”.

quite liked this new take on why to “Make More Websites” – it is sometimes obvious and something along the lines of “do what you like…” (it’s not about money). To quote someone who in turn quotes John Gruber:

I was listening to the episode “Make Your Own Thing” from the Off Protocol podcast where Jim Ray interviews John Gruber.

They cover a variety of topics, including Gruber’s thoughts on the dilution of personal brand by publishing through “chain” platforms like Substack (I quite enjoyed the metaphor of a personal website where you publish your stuff to that of a chef/restaurant, but that’s a separate post).

Around ~1:13:00, Gruber quotes Walt Disney who said, “We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.” And he goes on to argue that when you’re forced to choose one of these priorities over the other — because you will undoubtedly face decisions where the two sets of values come into direct opposition — the company that prioritizes making movies over making money is fundamentally a different company than the one that chooses making money over making movies.

If you ultimately prioritize making money, then what’s going to be ultimately great about your company is you make a lot of money (for shareholders, for owners, for yourself, for whomever).

I never did any site to make money. It’s never about money. Money is made to be disposed of. It’s to be used for something one believes in, not to hoard.

think there is a common perception or this widespread belief that when people are young they want to collect, to publicly boast about it, to keep accumulating “stuff”, then flaunt to peers and strangers. They seek affirmation. It’s not so gender-dependent a phenomenon and it has not much to do with “nesting” or “hunting”. It’s about insecurities and compensating for them.

So they hoard, they want big and complicated (extensive) things “in volume”. That is particularly applicable to habitats (homes). When people get older and more mature they may wish to give things away, want to move to smaller places for a simpler life with less maintenance to be done, less to worry about (less inside one’s mind).

The age factor is less to do with having to give things away at death; it’s not much to do with the physical difficulties of keeping intact large places or many rooms/units (sometimes with garden).

In practice it seems to boil down to mindset or mentality. The consumerism brainwash has less sway on older people, who learned from experience they can no longer conflate ownership with happiness and that having more than the minimal (bare minimum) required, e.g. life-sustaining medication, can become a burden.

What’s the point hoarding 100 pairs of shoes when you have only 2 feet for instance?

In geeks’ spheres it is the same. Young people install a lot of things (I was guilty of this too) and as they grow older they consolidate and try to simplify or cement workflows.

The human mind does not work well in parallel. It is an inherently serial machine, with ’round-robin’-type thinking relying on paper notes or memorisation.

Less is more (productivity).

Listening to football (radio/park nearby) costs nothing

t’s easy to take. It’s easy to tell someone, “what makes you happy? What are you taking? (Drugs, medication etc.)

What about giving? How about sharing with others?

That too gives joy, contentment, the memorable blissful moments, fulfillment, happiness.

Last year we gave our money to defend Free software.

This year we give our life and labour to feed the animal kingdom.

It’s about giving, not taking.

The birds’ looks today were gratitude enough.

I think that a society driven by extreme forms of capitalism relies on consumption (“consumerism” makes it sound like a religion), which means people are trained psychologically to take, to hoard, to collect; the notion of giving away or sharing (e.g. better salaries for one’s employees) is portrayed as foolish.

In the Free software movement, we strive to commend people who share while condemning those who work for greedy monopolists. We don’t show much respect to people based on affluence. It indicates a desire to hoard rather than true, objective achievements or professional accomplishments.

In academia, likewise, what counts most is publications, not job titles or salary.

spoke to someone today, in fairly considerable length in fact, about fulfilling lives and people making offspring to compensate for a lack of satisfaction with oneself or failing to reach goals/dreams. The person I spoke to reads my writings every day and said that 1) he hopes I am safe and 2) he recognises the importance of the writings – or “the work” – and the philosophy converted in it, which in no way relates to money or any monetary goals, it’s more humanitarian, not self-centered.

If more people pursued a simpler lives, they would generally be happier, but happy people who wish or actively strive for a simple lifestyle don’t make obedient, overworked labour. It would not serve the super-capitalists who exploit misery and fear of people “below” them. It’s a very lopsided status quo.

Social insecurity/anxiety compels people – through marketing (indoctrination since a young ago) – to overspend or compete with others based on spendings (loans or wealth). That doesn’t take them higher in the social ladder, it just makes them more vulnerable to the people at the peak of the social “food chain”.

never truly pursued money (I still don’t). I didn’t see the point. Tennis, for instance, was more fun. Computer games were fun too.

In my entire lifetime, or in my adult life as a student, I didn’t think I’d pursue a “career path” (ludicrous term, conflating life path with “career”) that nets me the most money I can possibly amass. It would be foolish to do so and it would not bring happiness, it might even accompany evil eyes, stress, and too high an expectation.

Yesterday in Geminispace I saw “Work for the sake of work” and today a friend sent me the HTML/HTTP version of the same. It makes some good points. When people do art they typically do it out of passion. As for money? Think about it. As 10cc put it, “for God’s sake…”^*

Money can sometimes come if you do what you like. Sometimes it won’t come. And that’s OK. At least you do what you like and what might serve society best, with or without reward/compensation for it.

Sometimes the best paying jobs are jobs that actively harm society. True story!

The reason everyone is forced/pressured/shamed into work (as in salaried activity) is the assumption is that without this “social norm” people would be lazy and society would not improve. It would become “unproductive”.

Work that you go to (e.g. office, workplace) out of fear or pressure is a thing that leads to misery. But capitalism does not think in terms like Maslow’s.

_____

^* Lyrics:

Gimme your body
Gimme your mind
Open your heart
Pull down your blind
Gimme your love, gimme it all
Gimme in the kitchen, gimme in the hall
Art for art's sake
Money for God's sake
Art for art's sake
Money for God's sake
Gimme the ready's
Gimme the cash
Gimme a bullet
Gimme a smash
Gimme a silver, gimme a gold
Make it a million for when I get old
Art for art's sake
Money for God's sake
Art for art's sake
Money for God's sake
Money talks so listen to it
Money talks to me
Anyone can understand it
Money can't be beat, oh no
When you get down, down to the root
Don't give a damn don't give a hoot
Still gotta keep makin the loot
Chauffeur driven
Gotta make her quick as you can
Give her lovin' make you a man
Get her in the palm of your hand
Bread from Heaven
Gimme a country
Where I can be free
Don't need the unions
Burying me
Keep me in exile the rest of my days
Burn me in hell but as long as it pays
Art for art's sake
Money for God's sake
Art for art's sake
Money for God's sake
Art for art's sake
Money for God's sake
Art for art's sake
Money for God's sake

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