“That’s not ______, it’s just capitalism” has kinda dissolved into a thought-terminating cliché.

[kissane@mas.to]

I was replying to someone and their post disappeared so I will put it here:

I’m sure I’ve said it myself! I get the frustration. I guess the question is whether any given framing provides useful insight into the sub-systems.

[kjhealy@mastodon.social]

@kissane 100% true. Also funny, because as a concept “enshittification" also got enshittified in just the same way at great speed.

[harpaa01@mastodon.social]

@kjhealy on the plus side, that’s at least one case of enshittification we can’t pin on capitalism!

[kissane@mas.to]

@harpaa01 @kjhealy or…?

[npars01@mstdn.social]

@kissane

Good book on the subject...
Nan Zhang
Global Flow of Funds Analysis
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-97-1029-4

Both the legal & illicit flow of funds across borders is worthy of examination.

The enormous sums the Saudis are spending on AI & on democracy-destroying activities are "legal" and it joins the illicit flows of money by Iran, China, and Russia.

Follow the money...

[bouncing@twit.social]

@kissane @linux_mclinuxface My grandmother used to dismiss anything by saying “oh that’s just life.” It was true but also unhelpful. Maybe it was just kind of her off brand of stoic indifference to common struggles. Seems about the same.

[erlend@writing.exchange]

@kissane yes! It’s a senseless simplification, tantamount to saying ‘that’s just the body’ when trying to diagnose and treat disease.

We have to talk about the constituent parts of the whole to figure out what ails us.

[scmbradley@mathstodon.xyz]

@kissane I feel the same way about "enshittification" though. That can also be a kind of thought terminating cliche. It's not some inevitable process that just kind of happens. It's the result of deliberate choices by specific people.

[kissane@mas.to]

@Scmbradley Elsewhere in the thread someone notes that the term (originally a reasonably dense complex of ideas) has itself been enshittified.

[kissane@mas.to]

@bouncing @linux_mclinuxface A perfect example of the class of thought-terminating clichés!

[kissane@mas.to]

@Npars01 Have you read Underground Empire yet? Might be a great companion to that one.

Just a moment...

(us.macmillan.com)

[linux_mclinuxface@fosstodon.org]

@kissane @bouncing my favourite was a boss that constantly parroted “it is what it is”