this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
317 points (92.3% liked)

Technology

58164 readers
4466 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

‘Capitalism is dead. Now we have something much worse’: Yanis Varoufakis on extremism, Starmer, and the tyranny of big tech::In his new book, the maverick Greek economist says we are witnessing an epochal shift. At his island home, he argues it’s now the ‘fiefdoms’ of tech firms that shape us

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 48 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He's not wrong. We're only a few years away from the big five in the US owning all of our land in one way or another. It's like a corporate showdown at this point. The government did nothing to stop this conglomeration of assets and wealth.

[–] treefrog@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

He's referring not to a land grab but cloud capital charging rent to the capitalist class. Essentially creating a class as far above the capitalist as the capitalist is above the worker.

Listened to a good interview with him on a podcast last night after trying to read this shit article.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] ClockworkOtter@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

The article really doesn't engage much with what YV actually wrote; she says that she disagrees with him sometimes or that other people disagree, but with very little substance.

Like others have already commented, she's also excessively obsessed with describing his house and wife. I can't believe The Observer paid for her to fly out there to write such drivel.

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 23 points 1 year ago

Whatever they call it, it's shit for humans to live in.

[–] BitingChaos@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

"Capitalism is dead. Now we have something much worse"

Capitalism 2.

[–] HaggierRapscallier@feddit.nl 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

He's spoken on the topic elsewhere, at least a few interviews (on youtube). That'll be better than this slop - edit: the Guardian was co-opted by the UK securlty state after cops raided them soon they did their reporting on Edword Snowdon.

[–] treefrog@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, this interview is pretty bad.

But this post did turn me onto his ideas and found an interview with him on a podcast last night that was really good.

[–] simon574@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

But this post did turn me onto his ideas and found an interview with him on a podcast last night that was really good.

This one? https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2022/04/16/unlike-feudalism-techno-feudalism-is-born-of-the-triumph-of-capital-ku-podcast-interview/

[–] treefrog@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nope but I will give that a listen too! So thanks for the link.

I'm interested in getting his book also.

[–] simon574@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

Oh, so which interview did you listen to then?

[–] DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

It died when socialism became a corporate only condition. Now its corporate capitalism with government socialism.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:


What could be more delightful than a trip to Greece to meet Yanis Varoufakis, the charismatic leftwing firebrand who tried to stick it to the man, AKA the IMF, EU and entire global financial order?

The house is where Varoufakis and his wife, landscape artist Danae Stratou, live, year round since the pandemic, but in August 2023 at the end of a summer of heatwaves and extreme weather conditions across the world, it feels more than a little apocalyptic.

Stratou and Varoufakis are a striking couple, as glamorous as their house, a cool, luminous space featuring poured concrete and big glass windows overlooking a perfect rectangle of blue pool.

“I have no issues with luxury,” he says at one point, which is just as well because the entire scene would give the Daily Mail a conniption, especially since Aegina seems to be Greece’s equivalent of Martha’s Vineyard, home to a highly networked artistic and political elite.

I’d messaged a bunch of people to ask them what they would ask Varoufakis, including McNamee, and precised the book to him – that two pivotal events have transformed the global economy: 1) the privatisation of the internet by America and China’s big tech companies; and 2) western governments’ and central banks’ responses to the 2008 great financial crisis, when they unleashed a tidal wave of cash.

This encouraged business models that promised world-changing outcomes, even if they were completely unrealistic and/or hostile to the public interest (eg the gig economy, self-driving cars, crypto, metaverse, AI).


The original article contains 2,683 words, the summary contains 252 words. Saved 91%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] Excrubulent 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

So the bot thinks this story is about his house and his wife, which isn't surprising. The article is unbelievably florid, I couldn't get through it.

Like seriously shut the fuck up about the setting in which you had the interview. Are these people paid by the word? And why does every phrase need to be couched three layers deep in entendre and negatives? Just say what you mean, ffs. Every time I felt like it was starting to get to the meat of the issue they got distracted talking about some completely unrelated bullshit.

EDIT: Don't downvote the bot, people. It's doing its best, it just doesn't know how to deal with neoliberal slop. As a thinking person, I can barely deal with it.

[–] luthis@lemmy.nz 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks for dealing with that frustration so that I don't have to

[–] Excrubulent 12 points 1 year ago

I mean I didn't get through it. It's entirely possible the location of Atlantis is somewhere in that article, I wouldn't know.

[–] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 5 points 1 year ago

Are these people paid by the word?

I think a lot of these articles have a required word count, because supposedly google doesn't rank short articles well. A lot of journalism seems to be writing for bots rather than humans.

[–] snek@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I've seen this writing style in many Swedish article I read but usually it's kept short and interneting. If I wanted to know all about the interview setting and the imagery mattered to me, I would have watched a recording of it.

load more comments
view more: next ›