Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? is a really good graphic novel about a kid’s relationship with his dad through the lens of retrofuturism, as it gradually tarnishes, starting with the 1939 World’s Fair.

I’ll probably go to Expo 2025 in Osaka this year, since I’ll happen to be there, but it’ll be hard to maintain any real optimism.

I see what you’re saying, but it sounds a little like “no true Scotsman”, too. I guess Occupy probably did this better, but I’m not sure it helped enough.

This is really part of it, but it’s not included explicitly in that article like it should be.

Other activists, faith-based leaders and consumers already are organizing boycotts to protest companies that have scaled back their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and to oppose President Donald Trump’s moves to abolish all federal DEI programs and policies.

Lots of naysayers trying to convince everyone not to participate, or to fragment efforts with competing ideas.

So much of our consumer culture is buying shit we don’t need like impulse buys and stupid movies and fast food. That’s profitable stuff, and skipping that for one day doesn’t mean you’ll just buy it the next day.

Maybe make a trivial amount of effort to find those details yourself.

It’s a response to the active class warfare happening, including the anti-DEI efforts.

Targeted boycotts aren’t enough anymore. Too many major corporations, often without adequate competition, are working against us.

Nope to what?

Many algorithms aren’t even doing that in good faith, instead substituting in their low-cost contract cover bands as often as they can.

What could be more human than that?

😬 https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/04/google-removes-pledge-to-not-use-ai-for-weapons-from-website/

I was mostly being facetious. I haven’t tried it in decades, but I’m pretty happy with Cosmos.

KDE: With too much power comes too much responsibility. 😉

Zero that axis, please.

Bruce Schneier has been saying for something like 25 years that technological advances always favor attackers over defenders.

Adding seats to the court needs to happen, as well as reapportioning representatives, and giving electoral votes to DC and the territories. We need to find politicians that aren’t afraid to do it.

That’s an important issue, but if Democrats ever see power again, it’ll be important to focus on re-enfranchisement (RCV, instant runoff, or anything fairer than FPTP; NPVIC; national mail voting; mandatory voting), on judicial reform to undo the corruption and incompetence that has been packed there. Without those, keeping any gains will be impossible.

Then, triaging existential threats is critical, which will mean fighting climate change, investing in public transport (trains), and breaking up trusts will have to be pursued simultaneously. Stopping any support for genocide needs to happen as soon as possible.

There will be plenty more structural changes to fix beyond that: Protecting whistleblowers and protesters, improving FOIA, replacing norms with laws (Emoluments Clause enforcement, financial records disclosure, no insider trading for Congressmembers, &c), and all manner of civil rights protections and police reform.

After all that, it’ll be time for the stuff I’ve been hoping for: nationalizing healthcare and Internet access, and copyright reform.

I’m just worried about another No Labels situation.

Who is funding this?

None of this really addresses my question.

If voters bear no responsibility, do you really believe in democracy, or are you thinking about this as an issue to be solved by authority?

The self-righteousness of this discussion is a problem. Politics requires some humility, which we seem to be short of.

Interesting. That’s an angle I’ll have to consider. It seems like democracy with fixed terms and term limits has a similar problem to capitalism: myopia.