Random thought.

[davidnjoku@mastodon.world]

Random thought.

If public libraries didn't already exist, capitalism wouldn't let you invent it. Can you imagine how many billions Jeff Bezos would plough into fighting the idea, destroying any politician who dared to back it?

Support your local library.

[morten_skaaning@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@davidnjoku I'd buy all the ground water.

[heliograph@mastodon.au]

@davidnjoku % yes to Support your Local #Library!!!

Also, please let me add this here #AaronSwartz

https://social.skewed.de/@tiago/116192510480917942

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

[nowster@fedi.nowster.me.uk]

@davidnjoku@mastodon.world Many libraries were originally sponsored by the industrialist Andrew Carnegie.

[davidnjoku@mastodon.world]

@nowster Fair point.

[cthw@mstdn.ca]

@davidnjoku

In like thinking, if solar energy was free the oil & gas industry would do everything in their power to ensure it was not used …

[robo105@mastodon.social]

@davidnjoku I volunteer at our local library and I have yet to see any bezos there

[kalki_rider@mastodon.social]

@davidnjoku

What does capitalism have to do with the fact most people are stupid enough to get locked into a walled garden where they don't really buy anything but pay for a subscription?

What does capitalism have to do with the fact that we are being pushed into a future where we essentially own nothing and we're supposed to be happy about it?

Neither of these things are a fundamental part of capitalism.

[astropug@hachyderm.io]

@nowster @davidnjoku

True, he did.

And yet, we’re all better off sponsoring those libraries with our shared tax dollars rather than depending on a robber baron like Carnegie to decide that he is going to do something good for once.

And I think that’s where I share the sentiment David is expressing:

I don’t want to have bet something important on maybe a powerful, exploitative person so grow a little bit of a conscience or discovery mercy of some sort.

That’s really the big thing, isn’t it? Maybe the king is good, maybe bad, maybe both, but rather not have something as powerful as a king or an oligarch.

[woozle@toot.cat]

@Kalki_Rider They seem directly connected, to me. Capitalism causes both of them.

@davidnjoku

[kalki_rider@mastodon.social]

@woozle @davidnjoku Then you don't know the definition of capitalism. In capitalism, owning things is generally seen as a good thing.

[jugglingwitheggs@mstdn.social]

@nowster @davidnjoku

‘Andrew Carnegie supported libraries because he believed access to knowledge was essential for self-improvement, merit-based success, and community advancement. As a formerly poor immigrant, he credited his own success to having free access to books, calling libraries "ladders upon which the aspiring may climb"’ Wikipedia

These ideas really didn’t used to be controversial or identifiable with a particular side of the political spectrum.

[craigduncan@mastodon.au]

@davidnjoku

And create new ones.

[cratermoon@zirk.us]

@davidnjoku “Imagine there was no such thing as a library, and that members of the current neoliberal policy consensus were to sit down today and invent it.”

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/citizen-coupon

[woozle@toot.cat]

@Kalki_Rider

Yes, that is correct. Capitalism says nothing, however, about ensuring that ownership is equitable, fair, or even common.

@davidnjoku

[kalki_rider@mastodon.social]

@woozle @davidnjoku Well then, on the same token, Communism and Socialism must both fundamentally lead to totalitarianism.

[woozle@toot.cat]

@Kalki_Rider

Why would you suggest that socialism leads to totalitarianism?

@davidnjoku

[oldoldcojote@climatejustice.social]

@davidnjoku

Oddly many towns main public library was built with funding from one of the original slave driving capitalists like JJHill. More or less as monuments to themselves.

[davidhmccoy@mastodon.world]

@davidnjoku @MeaningfulBits

Free books? That’s some super socialist shit, there!

[kalki_rider@mastodon.social]

@woozle @davidnjoku Show me where it hasn't.