Getting a dumbphone was one of the best decisions I took in my life. It helps me focus better and read books. I don’t actually need the internet with me 24/7. If you really need me, you can call.
Try it. Some people will call you crazy. Just ignore them.
This is not surprising at all.
I was recently reading an article in the French newspaper Le Monde.
In Britain, corporations are increasingly using a special system called zero-hour contracts.
These contracts are designed to offer maximum flexibility for business owners, in order to reduce his risks. The employee is guaranteed nothing and must always be available.
« They send my hours on Sunday, but nothing is sure. Sometimes, they cancel the same day » says Yana Petticrew, a young Glasgow Scottish worker who has been on zero-hour contracts for nearly 10 years. « Life is hard. I can’t even plan a meeting with my friends next week, because my boss could call me at any time » Yana says. She can’t refuse, or her boss will get rid of her.
Labor unions say workers on zero hour contracts earn on average less than those who are not. In 2010, 168 000 british workers were on zero hour contracts. In 2024, 1.1 million british workers were on zero hour contracts.
Here is another things that stuns me. I learned that in Britain, employees have no boardroom representation. In France, all companies publically listed on the stock market are legally required to have union representatives on the board of directors.
For instance LVMH :
https://www.lvmh.com/en/our-group/governance
Why can’t british employee have board representatives?
The UK system is rotten. Brits need to fight for change. They deserve better.
San Francisco is the city with the most tech engineers and software developers. It’s the US city with the most tech entrepreneurs. The roads are full of robot cars. You see people walking around with tech glasses. You could throw a rock in the street and it will probably land on some tech guy.
It’s a complete disaster. Homeless people everywhere. Families unable to see a doctor or a dentist. Desperate men in the streets, injecting themselves with drugs. Luxury private schools where smartphones are banned and professors give tips to get into Stanford. Poor public schools for ordinary children.
What kind of Utopia is this? This is not utopia. It’s a nightmare.
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Microsoft essentially created a private sales tax on every computer sold in the world. This is how Bill Gates became extraordinary wealthy.
The US should have won that anti-trust case. If you want to understand how Gates saved Microsoft, read this 1998 investigation that I found in newspaper archives :
HOW MICROSOFT SOUGHT TO GAIN ALLIES AND INFLUENCE IN WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON – Twenty months ago, Rep. Billy Tauzin walked into the office of Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, bearing a 10-inch-by-10-inch white box and a warning.
Tauzin, R-La., the chairman of a subcommittee that oversees the telecommunications industry, placed the box on Gates’ desk. Inside was a lemon meringue pie, a reminder of another pie that had been thrown in Gates’ face several weeks earlier by a Microsoft critic.
The message to Gates, the richest man on earth and the leader of the digital world, was blunt: You need to make friends in Washington.
At the time of Tauzin’s visit in early 1998, the Justice Department was contemplating filing its antitrust suit against Microsoft.
“I told him he was being demonized,” Tauzin said in an interview. “I said he had to win the antitrust case in court, but there was also the court of public opinion.”
Gates apparently took Tauzin’s message to heart – with a vengeance. While Microsoft and its executives contributed a relatively modest $60,000 to Republican Party committees in 1997, the company’s contributions in 1998 shot up to $470,000 as part of its overall political contribution of $1.3 million. The 1998 figure included donations to political candidates, with the bulk of the money going to Republicans.
This year, the company’s contributions of nearly $600,000 have been more evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Microsoft’s lobbying, focused on swaying Congress and creating a generally friendlier climate in Washington, has had little if any effect on the current antitrust litigation in U.S. District Court, where the company was dealt a major setback on Friday by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson’s initial findings that it had used monopoly power to stifle competition.
Rather, the lobbying campaign is a long-term strategic push intended to alter the political terrain where future power struggles will be fought.
Campaign donations were just one element of Microsoft’s multimillion-dollar effort to win allies in Washington. The company also poured millions of dollars into an aggressive public relations and political offensive, hiring an armada of well-connected lobbyists and underwriting the work of research groups, academics and consultants who have made arguments sympathetic to Microsoft’s defense in the antitrust case.
The company’s lobbying budget nearly doubled in 1998 from the previous year, to $3.74 million, according to the company’s lobbying disclosure reports, and is on pace this year to significantly surpass that figure.
Gates and his top lieutenants have made dozens of trips to Washington, cultivating powerful figures in both parties and hiring some of the city’s priciest lobbyists.
Microsoft has retained Haley Barbour, former chairman of the Republican National Committee; Vic Fazio, a former Democratic congressman from California; Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota; Tom Downey, a former Democratic congressman from New York and a close friend of Vice President Al Gore; Mark Fabiani, former special counsel to the Clinton White House; and Kerry Knott, former chief of staff to Rep. Dick Armey of Texas, the House majority leader.
Microsoft has also given hundreds of thousands of dollars to research groups, trade groups, polling operations, public relations concerns and grass-roots organizations. It has financed op-ed pieces and full-page newspaper advertisements, and mounted a lobbying effort against an increase in the Justice Department’s antitrust enforcement budget.
In June, Bill Gates met for lunch with the Republican leaders of the House in the small whip’s room off the House chamber. They discussed Microsoft’s public policy agenda, ranging from exports of encryption software to Internet privacy to antitrust actions, said several participants at the meeting. Knott, now a top official in Microsoft’s Washington office, attended the session.
Eight days later, Armey introduced what he called his “e-Contract,” a list of Republican legislative initiatives that pointedly adopted Microsoft’s view of the role of government antitrust actions, like the one that now threatens to dismantle Microsoft.
“When federal agencies use heavy-handed tactics to target specific companies,” the Republican document states in language that echoes Microsoft’s own, “the real message they send to the market place is this: You could be next.”
Armey’s aides insist that the release of the document was just a coincidence and that Republicans had long opposed aggressive enforcement of antitrust laws. Microsoft officials also denied that they had influenced Armey’s priorities or his language. The package of Republican proposals is still before Congress.
Another Microsoft move on Capitol Hill drew criticism for heavy-handedness.
It is lobbying to trim the antitrust division’s budget brought a flurry of editorial condemnation. The Washington Post said Microsoft’s actions were “a comical caricature” of a company trying to bully its way through Washington."
One Justice Department official said, “Even the mob doesn’t try to whack a prosecutor during a trial.”
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/11/biztech/articles/07strategy.html
The reason why Apple displaced Microsoft as the richest company in the world? Billionaire Tim Cook is using tactics that are even more predatory. If you make any purchase with an app, Apple takes a 30% cut. And if the app makers refuse, Apple murders their business by kicking them out of the App store.
They banned the videogame Fortnite because the developers tried to resist:
These tech billionaires are economic tyrants. They want to use technology in order to enslave consumers and workers. They want customers to have no choice. They want their suppliers to be powerless. They want workers to have a limited number of huge employers. Their dream is absolute power over the market.
Fuck economic tyrants.
Only idiots kiss their ass.
Unfortunately, there are millions of dumb people who are still kissing his ass.
Microsoft, Apple, Exxon, Meta, Amazon, or Saudi Aramco are the most powerful corporations in the world.
They are empires that are more powerful than many nations. Their CEOs travel with armed men.
It’s healthy to scrutinize them
Getting tired of these super-rich motherfuckers acting like they are victims of society.
When two wolves band together to offert you a piece of advice on the path you should follow in the woods, you should immediately become suspicious that something is not quite right, and that you are probably on the menu tonight…
They own the following :
Atlas Hotels, a hotel real estate and operating company with 46 hotels across the UK
David Lloyd Leisure, a gym and health club company with 85 locations across the UK and Europe
London Hilton on Park Lane
The Trafalgar St. James London
The Lensbury
The Panama Pacifico, a US$700 million mini-city on the banks of the Panama Canal[3]
General Healthcare Group, the UK’s leading private health provider with 67 hospitals
90 private care homes
Crowne Plaza hotel in Cambridge
The Empire, Leicester Square
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_%26_Regional_Properties
The EU dodged a bullet.
Thank you. To be fair, Reuters changed the title.
I’m super grateful to President Francois Hollande for introducing that law banning politicians found guilty of corruption from ever running again 🙏.
Francois Hollande gets a lot of shit, but he did good things.
Who would trust a deal with Donald Trump?
Mexico and Canada signed a trade deal with him during his first term. He called it the best trade deal.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/trump-signs-new-trade-pact-with-canada-mexico-leaders
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46402977
Now, he is just throwing away everything.
The filthy-rich american elite managed to convince ordinary americans that evil foreigners are to blame for all their problems. This is something you notice if you follow US media.
They are whining about how China, Europe, Mexico, Canada, the World Health Organization has been unfair to them.
It’s complete non-sense.
These problems were all caused by american politicians and american laws.
But unfortunately, now they believe the rest of the world is to blame.
Forget about his politics. Elon Musk is a filthy criminal.
Journalists from Reuters found he deliberately sold dangerous cars to customers.
👉 https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-musk-steering-suspension/
Engineers told him the self-driving system was dangerous. He told them to shut up. And innocent people died:
👉 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/magazine/tesla-autopilot-self-driving-elon-musk.html
Guess Elon Musk’s reaction after these stories were published. He blocked links from Reuters and the NYT from Twitter. Making sure they don’t appear to users.
He tells people “The truth is on X. You are the true media now”. Which is complete non-sense. Real journalism means people seeking sources and checking their claims. It’s a hard job.
This man’s goal is having uninformed consumers. He hates real journalism that hold him accountable.
Remember that Reddit automatically gathers your data.
If you still have a reddit account, go to settings right now. And prevent reddit from selling your data.
This is the logical outcome of two things.
1. Their silly campaign finance rules. British campaign finance laws are literally the worst in the Western world, only after the United States. It’s embarassing.
2. Their First-Past-The-Post voting system. It is a voting system that is designed to create a party duopoly on political power.
Show me the incentives of a political system. I will show you the outcome.