Two cars per family A MISTAKE MADE by all the city planners is to consider the private automobile (and its by-products, such as the motorcycle) as essentially a means of transportation. In reality, it is the most notable material symbol of the notion of happiness that developed capitalism tends to spread throughout the society. The automobile is at the center of this general propaganda, both as supreme good of an alienated life and as essential product of the capitalist market: It is generally being said this year that American economic prosperity is soon going to depend on the success of the slogan “Two cars per family.” Guy Debord, Situationist Theses on Traffic transportationcapitalism
Biggering I meant no harm. I most truly did not. But I had to grow bigger. So bigger I got. I biggered my factory. I biggered my roads. I biggered my wagons. I biggered the loads of the Thneed’s I shipped out. I was shipping them forth to the South! To the East! To the West! To the North! I went right on biggering...selling more Thneed’s. And I biggered my money, which everyone needs. Dr. Seuss, The Lorax capitalismproduction
Why We Build the Wall A Song by Anaïs Mitchell genius.com What do we have that they should want? We have a wall to work upon We have work and they have none And our work is never done And the war is never won The enemy is poverty And the wall keeps out the enemy And we build the wall to keep us free That’s why we build the wall We build the wall to keep us free So that its destruction cannot begin workfreedomcapitalism
It begins with craft Something strange is happening in the world of software: It’s slowly getting worse. Not all software, but a lot of it. It’s becoming more sluggish, less responsive, and subtly less reliable than it was a few years ago. In some ways this is hyperbole. Objectively, we’ve never been able to do so much, so easily with our smartphones and laptops and tablets. We’ve never pushed more data between more places more readily. But while the insidious “worseness” I mention falls only in part on the engineering side of things, it falls harder on the more subjective, craft side of things, making it all the more worrisome. Why should we care about this? Because the majority of our waking hours take place within the confines of applications. A truth recently amplified by the covid pandemic. And I believe software used by millions (if not billions) has a moral duty to elevate the emotional and intellectual qualities of its users. That elevation begins with craft. Craig Mod, Brilliant Hardware in the Valley of the Software Slump craigmod.com Apps Getting Worse performancecraftsoftware