Nope, not on Facebook, Insta, or Threads (or any Meta product)

Never gonna be.

1) Whatever good will they might have had from me at one time has been so throughly abused and squandered that it’s not happening.

2) I made that decision a WHILE back, deleted accounts, walked away.

3) Even if I was willing to try, it’s where people I deeply dislike do their social media-ing, and thanks, no.

4) Given this article, (gift link) wapo.st/44x4jrb ? It’s all algorithm driven, so there’s very little user control of the content they see. Since that’s the thing people have been asking for from the beginning from every provider (let me control my account), and since this is how Meta is starting this? They are never going to change.

5) They started as a way to abuse women. They abused people with clicky games. They abused people with psych experiments. They’ve abused the privacy of people who have never even signed up for an account. So much media manipulation. I do not know how to express how repeatedly and reproducibly evil they are, and how incapable of change they are.

6) The only winning game is not to play.

Luxuries Bought With Others’ Lives: NPCs, Dehumanization, and Pandemic Ethics

Opening monologue:

This is Free City.
Look at this guy. He’s one of the sunglasses people.
And the people who wear sunglasses? Are heroes.
They have a devil-may-care attitude and they run this town.
Bombshell:You are so hot.
Revenjamin Buttons, dropping into driver’s seat: Oh, I know.
See? That’s not even his car. Or his wife.
For the sunglasses people, they get to do anything they want.
They go on all sorts of missions, they got cool hair, cool clothes.
I mean, laws aren’t really laws to them.They’re more like mild suggestions.
Like, I don’t think he’s gonna return that car.
Or that nice lady.
See what I mean? Hero.

A still from the movie Free Guy, featuring Ryan Reynolds and Jodie Comer. Image copyright (©) 20th Century Studios or related entities. Used for publicity and promotional purposes.

Thus begins Free Guy. 105 words of thesis statement.

Continue reading “Luxuries Bought With Others’ Lives: NPCs, Dehumanization, and Pandemic Ethics”

Cradle To Gate, End of Life Costs

Originally a twitter thread, 26 August, 2021; commentary on cotton shopping bags

Hey, let’s talk about a couple of terms that are going around: “cradle to gate cost” and “end of life cost”. (Also sometimes “cradle to grave cost”). Cradle to gate measures what an item costs to manufacture, ship and get through the point of sale. Tracking stops after sale.

It’s a really useful metric for manufacturers, and for disposable, single use items, because single use items may see a small amount of travel before they’re used and discarded, but it’s a very minor addition to the cost of the item.

Continue reading “Cradle To Gate, End of Life Costs”