ftr the reason why “socialism is about access to goods” or “socialism is about having nice things” are nonsense positions isn’t because socialism is about being an ascetic coal miner living a pure life free from excess or whatever the fuck. it’s because socialism is about production and not consumption
I think a big part of this is that it’s common in the US (and I presume a lot of other Global North countries) to think of yourself and working class people in general as consumers rather than workers, and to think of capitalists as producers rather than capitalists. Thus, a lot of people (particularly people amenable to socialism but who are ignorant of it) think of socialism in terms of how it would change their life as a consumer and their social relations to producers, rather than how it would change their life as a worker and their social relations to capital.
There are a (big) number of problems with this, but one here is that this classifies everyone in a given industry, capitalist and worker alike, as part of the producers, and everyone else as consumers, which makes it impossible to see class dynamics in something like global commodity trade beyond how it impacts grocery store prices.
i fucking hate laidback and even lowkey admiring attitude americans have towards hunter biden. he isn’t some clown failson but pedo sex tourist in eastern europe whom his imperialist daddy gave nepobaby position to exploit ukrainian recourses.
KYS
usamericans love it when eastern european women are sexually exploited no surprises here🤮
[ID: the reblog after the original post shows a screenshot of a Tumblr post by an unknown user. It features a tweet by seanhannity that reads, “Hunter Biden latest video: Nude water slide riding with hookers at 4k per night Malibu rental” and a link to an article showing exactly that. User epilepticsaints reblogs the post with the words, “American hero.”
The reblog after that one shows tags by ladygolgotha that read, “I saw someone describe his sex tourism as ‘getting world class pussy’ and I wanted to strangle them so badly. just say you view women as faceless sex toys to be bought and sold as commodities.” end ID.]
Decades after many other rich countries stopped forcibly sterilizing Indigenous women, numerous activists, doctors, politicians and at least five class-action lawsuits say the practice has not ended in Canada.
A Senate report last year concluded “this horrific practice is not confined to the past, but clearly is continuing today.” In May, a doctor was penalized for forcibly sterilizing an Indigenous woman in 2019.[…]
There are no solid estimates on how many women are still being sterilized against their will or without their knowledge, but Indigenous experts say they regularly hear complaints about it. Sen. Yvonne Boyer, whose office is collecting the limited data available, says at least 12,000 women have been affected since the 1970s.[…]
In 2018, the U.N. Committee Against Torture told Canada it was concerned about persistent reports of forced sterilization, saying all allegations should be investigated and those found responsible held accountable.[…]
Until the 1990s, Indigenous people were mostly treated in racially segregated hospitals, where there were reports of rampant abuse.
It’s difficult to say how common sterilization — with or without consent — happens. Canada’s national health agency doesn’t routinely collect sterilization data, including the ethnicity of patients or under what conditions it happens.[…]
In response to questions from the AP, the Canadian government said it has taken steps to try to stop forced sterilization, including investing more than 87 million Canadian dollars ($65 million) to improve access to “culturally safe” health services, one-third of which supports Indigenous midwifery initiatives.[…]
In 1976, the U.S. found that forced sterilizations happened in at least one-third of the regions where the government provided health services to Native Americans. The U.S. government has never formally apologized or offered compensation.
Indigenous leaders in Canada say an official apology would be a critical step towards rebuilding the country’s fractured relationship with First Nations people. Only the province of Alberta has apologized and offered some compensation to those affected before 1972.
Replacing physical buttons and controls with touchscreens also means removing accessibility features. Physical buttons can be textured or have Braille and can be located by touch and don’t need to be pressed with a bare finger. Touchscreens usually require precise taps and hand-eye coordination for the same task.
Many point-of-sale machines now are essentially just a smartphone with a card reader attached and the interface. The control layout can change at a moment’s notice and there are no physical boundaries between buttons. With a keypad-style machine, the buttons are always in the same place and can be located by touch, especially since the middle button has a raised ridge on it.
Buttons can also be located by touch without activating them, which enables a “locate then press” style of interaction which is not possible on touchscreens, where even light touches will register as presses and the buttons must be located visually rather than by touch.
When elevator or door controls are replaced by touch screens, will existing accessibility features be preserved, or will some people no longer be able to use those controls?
Who is allowed to control the physical world, and who is making that decision?
