markjgsmith

2024/04/21 #

• cat << EOF > Cory Doctorow on the origins of capitalism

  Cory Doctorow in his piece about why capitalists hate capitalism:

  For capitalism’s philosophers, the rent / profit distinction was key. Rents bread complacency and stagnation. The feudal Lords got the same rent no matter what. There was no incentive to re-invest those rents in better agricultural tools, or advanced training for surfs. If your surfs invented a better scythe that let them bring in the harvest in 1/2 the time. You, their Lord, got no benefit from it. What’s more, the lord on the next estate over faced no threat from the competitive edge your surf’s bold innovation conferred.

  Maybe the lords gained no advantage from the better scythe, but surely that's to the surf's advantage. They could make a killing selling their new invention to other surfs in nearby estates. Soon enough and all the surfs have halved the amount of time they need to spend working the land.

  He continues:

  But profit was always subject to competition. For capitalism’s theoreticians, competition undergirded capitalism’s virtues. The fear of a rival taking your business with a product that’s better and / or cheaper sets the capitalist on a continuous hunt for efficiencies and innovations that deliver better products at lower prices. The fear of a rival luring away your best workers who are not bound to you, the way that surfs were bound to their lord’s land, forces you to find ways of keeping your staff happy and thus loyal.

  So the capitalists essentially freed the lords from their surfs, in exchange for becoming the managers / baby sitters of said surfs, but with the understanding they could exploit them for their labour. And presumably the lords were investing in the capitslist, sharing in the profits.

  The OG lord is essentially just creating a surf out of the capitalist, who does the work of wrangling the surfs. Perhaps I'm missing something here, but isn't this just lord surf fractal?

  EOF

• cat << EOF > The blogging virtuous circle

  About the most difficult thing in blogging is to do it regularly. Ideally you really want to be writing posts every day, but it's difficult to always be inspired, to always have something interesting to talk about.

  I've been writing on the web since 2005, with a few failed blogs and later social medias like Twitter. I've been striving to find a blogging virtuous circle, which I think is likely possible with enough practice, and with the right tools.

  A blogging virtuous circle is a repeatable way to write on the web that is sort of like a perpetual energy machine. The end result is a consistent output of, hopefully well written and interesting blog posts. I'm not claiming I have found the way yet but here's what I'm aiming for.

  1. Post links to a linkblog
  2. Write short notes posts
  3. Write longer blog posts

  The web is all about discovery and sharing. Reading stimulating content online will result in you thinking about new topics and discovering new things.

  The start of the virtuous circle is super easy and frictionless. When you find something interesting online, share it on your linkblog, along with a short description of what it is. Then move on with your day's activities. I like to do this early in the morning. It's an easy way to start off the day. Get some quick wins, with a few short links. If nothing else, you'll know that you have contributed to the global commons and made the web a little bit better.

  As you go about your day you are likely to spend some time thinking about what you've read and posted, and you'll have some relevant ideas, or perhaps just a realisation of a specific part of something you posted that you find really interesting. This is a good time to write a few notes, with your ideas, or perhaps extracting a short quote that you think is particularly poigniant. The aim here is to not spend too much time on it. Once again, keep on with the rest of your day.

  Then at some point hopefully enough ideas will have coallesced that you will be ready to write a full on blog post. You'll have links you can add to it, quotes, and various ideas you can expand on. But if you don't, no worries, once again, hopefully your notes will have made the web a little but better. Maybe you will have inspired someone else to write something great. Sometimes that person is future you. It's amazing how often I find myself resding back through my old notes.

  That's the blogging virtuous circle. It's pretty simple really, but it's actually quite difficult to get the balance right. You can also expand it to include a newsletter and a podcast, but start with the writing side of things.

  One thing to remember is that blogging isn't like writing a novel or a university disertation or even an essay. It doesn't have to be perfect. There's always the next day. Anything you write will be replaced within a few days so it doesn't really matter all that much if it isn't the best prose you've ever writen. The funny thing is though, the more you write, the better your writing will get.

  EOF

• Feels like today has been a reasonably productive day as far as writing goes. A few links, some blog posts, and now a note :)

  I've also listenned to a few interesting bitcoin podcasts, though I did have to have a mid morning nap because I didn't get that much sleep last night. #

Today’s links:

• Sunak rejects offer of mobility scheme for young people between EU and UK - My initial reaction to this was that it was a bad decision, but on reflection I'm not so sure. One problem with it is that it seeds division between generations, because why shouldn't an older person be allowed to work in Europe. Generational division was something that led to Brexit in the first place. Lets be careful not to aggrevate the situation. Creating links between young people across Europe is a noble cause, but perhaps it can be achieved in a different way. The idea of cherrypicking countries with individual deals is also something I hadn't considered. Not sure how I feel about that. www.theguardian.com #

• Apple's offer to open up tap-and-go tech to be approved by EU next month, sources say - Looks like the regulations are working, it's definitely good for consumers that the NFC tech on the phone can be used by other software vendors than just Apple. It will be cool to see what new products tge ecosystem comes up with. www.reuters.com #

• Linus Torvalds on Security, AI, Open Source and Trust - I don't think there's anything ground breaking in this interview but it's nice to hear from Linus every so often. I wish some of his interviews would get more into the linux nitty gritty. Has he been working out? He looks like he's been bench pressing. thenewstack.io #

• New Post: Cory Doctorow on the origins of capitalism markjgsmith.com #

• New Post: The blogging virtuous circle markjgsmith.com #