Economic uncertainty and exploitative labor practices, increasing wealth gap and decreasing wages? Seems like a recipe for depression.

Our schools are basically prisons these days - we drill kids to get them ready for tests, we demand perfect obedience, and we give kids little to no space to be kids.

We're also increasingly letting clueless adults run things (see all the adults who are banning books or worried that there are litter boxes in bathrooms).

Interesting to see hp hit the front page twice in one week, once for "hp is the most vile business and their executives should be in jail" and then moments later "ooh, pretty laptop!"

Seems like HP should be pretty universally reviled around here. Surprised to see an ad for them pop up.

Post COVID? We're still seeing excess deaths, were still seeing long COVID absolutely wrecking lives, we're still totally unaware of the long term impacts of a COVID infection.

I don't blame anyone who is looking at that and saying, "I've built systems that are comfortable and work for me".

The article discusses several folks who want to go out, but find it challenging or difficult, people who are unhappy at home. By all means, invest in helping them, but don't say COVID is over. Even after the disease is endemic, there will be depression, anxiety, fear, and other lingering impacts. Emotional responses to a global pandemic aren't just things you can flip a switch on.

Yes. He was captured by Calypso, and held on an island against his will. It's said he wept bitterly every night at the shore, longing to be back with his wife. He was not in control, he was not happy, he was not free to leave.

So yeah, forced seems right.

Many people say ACAB for this specific reason - cops work for moneyed interests. To be a cop is to defend the wealthy and corporate, axiomatically. Plenty of cops are nice people, but they're working for a system that fundamentally is bad.

>Plenty of cops are nice people, but they're working for a system that fundamentally is bad.

How nice can you really be if you sign up for, and continue to work within, such a awful institution?

The exact same way so many programmers can sign up for and continue to work for Surveillance Valley?

If you want to say ACAB go right ahead - there's certainly truth in that. But there is also a truth in seeing that many cops got into it because they wanted to help people, and you're going to have to work with that if you ever want to fix the system.

>The exact same way so many programmers can sign up for and continue to work for Surveillance Valley?

Your point has some merit, but there's a big difference between being an engineer working with systems that can be misused and waking up every morning ready to crack people's skulls (especially since those people are usually impoverished, gender & sexual minorities, marginalized in some other way, etc) or outright murder them.

Yes, both people contribute to systemic violence in a way, but I would argue that there is a vast gulf between participating in society (which is mandatory) and being at the tip of the spear of violent repression.

Imagine having coworkers who routinely committed murder and received paid vacations for it.

What's the solution, then? If central authority is Bad (TM), is it decentralized authority that is the solution? IE, everyone gets a gun, everyone is deputized, everyone is responsible for upholding the law as citizens and enforcers.

Offload most police duties to civilian organizations who are specifically trained to do them. Traffic enforcement doesn't need a gun. Mental health crisis intervention is made worse by cops. (A yelling homeless man doesn't need a cop, they need someone trained to help with this specific issue.)

Retain a small number of cops to deal with serious crimes (homicides, etc) and disarm them except in emergencies.

We also need to tackle criminal justice reform - ensure we have sufficient public defenders, ensure people have speedy access to trials, don't lock everyone in jail while awaiting trial, don't pressure people to plead guilty to crimes they didn't commit just so they can keep out of jail. Reprioritize minor offenses - who cares if someone has pot, why are we spending any time on it?

Yes.

That's how it was done prior to the 1800s.

Only in the wild west. There were other parts of the world that were civilized.

There are other alternatives. For instance land held in common by small communities that care for and live on the land.

Not everything needs to be individually owned or owned by some large central government.

Small communities do indeed own land and utilities.

For most of human history, no one owned land. There are systems beyond individual ownership and central government ownership.

Wired coming out swinging with an actual socialist/leftist/communist article? Color me impressed.

In the states, the Democrats are often mislabeled as a lefty party, or mislabeled as socialists. People will call CNN Marxist. They really, really aren't.

It's fascinating to see a major publisher going out on a limb to publish something like this.

I'm old enough to remember when Wired wrote interesting tech articles. I don't think we need another left-wing rag.

Interesting tech articles were always a very small part of Wired magazine. They've always been about techno-utopian visions of the future. IOW, they've always had philosophical articles.

Me too, our difference is that I see relatively few leftist publications in tech. There's plenty of writing out there that supports Democrats, but the Dems are not leftist in any meaningful way.