luddybuddy

Butlerian Jihad now

Reading Giblin and Doctorow’s Chokepoint Capitalism and they used a term “freedom of contract” I hadn’t heard before, and which I realized that I have over-valued in my brain.

I’ve already broken through in a few spots, for instance employment contracts can obviously be exploitative and workers have little ability to negotiating the terms on their own.

Or bank loans, not because of the negotiation so much as the moral stigma attached to defaulting on loans. I can see that the bank took a risk, they can take the consequences too. Why add moral consequences to an action that already carries financial consequences?

I think this loans issue comes back to an association of business contracts with social promises, which I’ve spent some time breaking down.

The employment issue is another kettle of frogs. That comes back to consent and whether a person who is not entirely free can consent. I guess that’s the whole point of a revolution though. Any attempt to make contract law fairer to respect the fact that some parties are signing under duress will be thorny, because all people are under duress under capitalism.

There’s barely a question in there, but … thoughts?

Scrounging through my dad’s cast off tools, found this framing hammer. As I was never really strong enough to swing a 24oz framer when I was a carpenter, I never bought one (I used a 16oz hammer with a long handle, because m*v^2). Now that I have no use for it and am even weaker, seemed like a good time to take it home and give it a new, coddled life. Replaced dad’s splintered and grey handle with a brand spanking new one.

This is showing up everywhere, can’t be a coincidence!

Why do lantern flies congregate next to modern commercial buildings, specifically those with aluminum storefront system facades and black granite?

I just killed thirty in front of a high rise. The next block, a neoclassical building, had none. Crossed the street to a grocery store on the ground floor of another high rise and killed probably 40 in half the time.

Is it warmer at the base of these buildings? The two modern buildings faced each other so were in very different sun.