cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/38044536
Protestation
Always.
In audio we have Max-Msp, create by Miller Pucket as a research project at IRCAM and then gave away to be commercialized by a private business. Pucket when ahead an re-created an open-source version of Max, Pure Data, but at that point that point most institutions had already adopted Max.
Dante is the biggest audio networking protocol out there. It's everywhere now. It was developed in Australia, entirely with government funding, and later privatize to Audinate.
There's tons of other examples.
In Québec, we have Hydro-Québec, a nationalize energy organization that gives energy sovereignty, low prices on electricity, and billions in profit. But guess what our entrepreneur-friendly prime minister wants to do.
Fuck capitalism.
Indeed. In germany, people have started a "democratic revolution" under the "terrorist organization" the next generation. They're starting to build "illegal" citizens assemblies which ask people on the streets what they really want instead of "representative democracy". Turns out, people want circular economy, outlawing of lobbying and so on.
Where was this graphic when I was arguing with people about pharma companies "inventing" all their own medicine and deserving to keep the patents
"privatize the profit, socialize the loss"
Yeah, money is not made, it is extracted. You can't simply distribute innovation cheap, you need to hold it hostage so you can "make money" extracting it from people. Anything that distributes money/help to people is "destroying money" from the pov of people who extract it.
I mean to an extent, but it's private actors who turn these ideas into factories pumping products all over the world. That, and iterative improvements, are where capitalist innovation lies. I'm no fan of capitalism, but this is one of the few things it has going for it.
Sadly, this is a common misconception. Capitalism has no inherent benefits in terms of innovation. The people innovating innovate no more or less because they are pitted against each other. The reason people are able to innovate is because they have education and expertise. It is pretty clear that, given the chance, even more people would try and innovate on stuff they like. That isnt the case because they would need to find a job in the field first and even if they were able to do it, capitalists would claim it for them. I can iterate on this for hours but the fact stands that the innovation of capitalism is a myth.
Capitalists love wanking on about innovation, but it always ends up being innovations in great new ways to raise the top line, lower the bottom line, and make things worse for everyone else.
A lot of the time it ends up being that, but for a counterexample you have modern electronic devices. I mean the laptop I'm using to type this certainly wasn't developed by a government grant. And then we have massive elephants in the room like, you know, the steam engine.
A loooot of the research necessary to make our cutting edge chips still comes from academia
Modern computers wouldnt exist if it wasnt for the massive funding from the military and NASA.
This community is the first one on lemmy of its kind. It sits between the idea of anarchism/anti-capitalism and left leaning economic policy.
Our goal is to make people aware of the dangers of corporate control, its influence on governments and people as well as the small but steady abrasion of empathy around the world indirectly caused by it.
Current topics this includes but is not limited to:
Feel free to debate this but beware, corporate rhetoric is not welcome here. If you have arguments, bring them on. If its rhetoric trying to defend the evil actions of corporations, we will know and you will go.
Our declared goal so far is to have all companies and individuals worldwide capped at 999 mil USD in all assets, including ownership of other companies, sister companies and marital assets. The reason for this is that companies (and individuals) are not supposed to resemble small(?) countries with a single leader(-board) and shareholder primacy. Thats why we feel like they must be kept in check indefinitely.
But companies will just wander off The argument that large companies will just wander off is valid, which we embrace. We dont need microsoft, apple, google, amazon and other trillion dollar companies. There are small competitors being kept small and driven into brankruptcy by anti competitive behavior of these giants or simply bought up and closed. If starbucks left tomorrow, we would not have an issue with this.
But then we have x little microsofts that all belong to the same person(s) If in fact nobody was allowed to accumulate more than 999 mil in assets, they would not be able to own all these. And like defending agains burglary, it is not about complete defence but time and effort. You only have to keep the thief occupied long enough for them to be caught, give up or make a mistake.
But these giants have tons of IP which would then limit our growth Thats another topic we must touch on. We will (only this one time) take a page out of russias playbook and demand that IP of non complying companies (assets over 999 mil USD) will be declared invalid, which opens them up to be copied.
But then they will "live" in one country that doesnt accept this Correct, and they should be taken into custody the moment they enter the airspace of a country that supports this act.