starfall @starfall@plural.cafe

Talking to a grandfather in my church. Last year he took his granddaughter to her church while her family was out of town and heard a horribly homophobic sermon. And so he had to sit down with her and then with her parents and discuss how vile and unloving this sermon was and the arguments against biblical homophobia.

Beliefs the young will save us ignore that sometimes it’s the elders who teach them.

Here's an interesting thing: In our society, an object has several distinct metrics of value. I'm going to relate these to cars, because they're the easiest to relate to for most people, and I have some experience with them.

First, there's cost to create. This is the basic cost in resources and labor that it costs to make something.

For a vehicle, this is roughly how much it costs a new car dealer to buy a vehicle from the manufacturer.

Next is the market value of an object. This is where the hypothetical "invisible hand of the market" comes in. For vehicles, this is what the used car market is made up of. Once the vehicle has been sold once before, and has changed hands, the value of the vehicle which was originally based around how much it cost to produce (roughly) now becomes what someone is willing to pay for it.

A car that is known to be unreliable may be in perfectly fine working condition, however the market value of that vehicle will be lower than what it would cost to produce that vehicle. Conversely, sometimes vehicles become worth much more than their original production cost, because they become well known, or desirable for other features. In these cases, it may mean reproducing the vehicle may cost less than buying a genuine original at market price.

And then there's the third kind of value an object may have, and this is something that is frequently overlooked by people who make their living focused on the first two kinds of value an object may have.

The third kind of value is utility value. This kind of value can't normally be measured in terms of money, because this sort of value is determined wholly by the person who perceives the object.

Take, for example, someone who has very little means of transport, who must commute to make their meager income. An old car that barely runs may be practically invaluable to them. The importance of the vehicle to their life and livelihood could not be measured in money, both because the vehicle itself may not be worth much, having a low "market value" and also because the utility of the vehicle transcends its monetary value, and represents a means by which the person is able to make money.

Take another example, of someone who is well off, undertaking a road trip to see a dying relative. This person ends up with their vehicle damaged in such a way that they are unable to continue their journey, however they have no wireless service, and they are nearby a town wherein someone is selling an old crappy car that is operational and in reasonable mechanical condition.

Under these circumstances, the person who is well off may decide that the utility value of having a working vehicle outweighs the comfort of their own vehicle, which may take time to fix, or the time cost of waiting for some other form of transport. To this person, a crappy old car to finish their journey may be invaluable. It cannot be measured by any market, because the need for the vehicle stands apart from either its cost to produce, or what would normally be considered its "fair value"

What does this mean for us?

Consider what you would want a fair society to look like. What I imagine is a society where "market value" is replaced entirely be "utility value"

That rather than considering "what can I get for this thing?" we consider instead "what is the best purpose for this thing?"

And in addition to this, rather than just considering the cost to produce a thing in stark money terms, we consider instead the total cost, in resources and in labor, to create new things.

With these ideas of value shifted, it should be apparent just how wasteful and needlessly exploitative our current society is.

I can do better.

We can do better.

You can do better.

That's not an accusation. It's a challenge.

Try to free yourself of capitalist ideals of how much value you can extract from goods.

Instead consider, how can this thing be best utilized for the good of people?

Think of ways you can collaborate, rather than ways to exploit.

This is the key to building a better society, one decision at a time.

conservatives & liberals love to reduce everything to "offense" but this is a convenient erasure of actual harm done by people's actions. and yes writing a fedi post is an action which can harm people, it can replicate structural violence, it can exclude and drive marginalized people out of spaces, it can create an increasingly more oppressive culture.

challenging these things is not about being "offended" by them, it is about combating actual ongoing violence against marginalized beings

A quick reference post!

Crowd-sourced list of Black artists on Bandcamp
https://blackbandcamp.info/

1500+ Black owned Etsy shops, sorted by category
https://sadiesmiley.com/black-owned-etsy-shops/

20+ Black-owned goth/punk clothing and accessories brands
https://stephano.me/blog/black-owned-goth-brands-list

How to identify white supremacists:

Step 1: condemn white supremacy in unequivocal terms.

Step 2: wait for white people to get offended.

Step 3: you have found the white supremacists.

friendly reminder that:

- you do not need to think someone is the scum of the earth to block them or mute them
- being blocked or muted does not mean you are a bad person in any way shape or form
- you have a right to surround yourself with people you enjoy, indeed, you have a right to happiness
- people liking you doesn't mean you are a good person
- you liking something or someone doesn't mean that that thing is good

it is a misconception I think a lot of people hold, and it's not truth.

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hey! white person reading this! answer this poll. mlk is watching.

i have a close friend of more than 3 years that is Black

something that WP are always missing from their analysis when they [mis]use intersectionality is their..whiteness. It's often a footnote. "i'm at several intersections" .. we all are, thats not novel.

But if you dont include your whiteness as part of your initial analysis, its not being done correctly. What I see is WP using intersectionality & putting their whiteness to the side, which intersectionality was never meant to do in the first place.

fun fact: there are much more efficient and long-lasting LED lightbulbs that Philips sells only in Dubai (because they got a huge government contract), and they're intentionally not selling anywhere else cuz they last too long

capitalism at work babeyy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klaJqofCsu4