Efficient at using up all resources and extracting as much value from them as possible.

People forget that ‘efficient’ in a capitalist sense means that all resources are used. So when you privatize security, prisons, public transport, etc. guess what happens: those companies try to extract as much value as possible and do as little as possible. Because that is what capitalist efficiency is.

Nornally first the capacitor and then the motor. The capacitor is there to absorb the power surge when the motor starts up.

I think I heard a story like this on This American Life. Story was from the perspective of the driver. He thought he was picking up his Grindr date and realized after a short while he was wrong. Kept up the act, even made up a whole backstory about why he was an Uber driver.

So, like bicycles? Afaik we don’t exactly understand why they stay upright.

Yeah, not everything is super utilitarian. The other day we were in Antwerp’s old harbor, which has these big open hangars. The roofs and pillars are pretty ornamental, and these are basically 19th century industrial buildings. Built today they would be all straight lines and flat panels.

I think it’s cool if people imagine a future that’s not just about technological progress but also culturally very different and even disturbing. I think Dune does a fairly good job at that.

You can’t sue scissors. They have deep knowledge of the law.

Amazed that I had to scroll down this far to read this. Capitalism does not magically create a fair society through the creation of value (which seems to be what its proponents keep saying: investors generating economic activity and wealth). But similarly you could have a socialist economic system, with no real democracy. Which, as we’ve seen, devolves into a corrupt oligarchy. We’ve seemingly lost this perspective in the decades since WWII, but a solid representative parliamentary democracy and separation of powers are the best way to create and maintain a fair society. It requires some other conditions too, like good education, free press, etc. but the core is a system where power is distributed and temporary, depending on democratic processes (elections). This democratic legitimacy is what we should be defending at all costs, imho. It’s not sexy, though.