Ernest Worthing @ejworthing@octodon.social

Some people use the word "socialism" to mean public ownership of the means of production.

Some people use the word "socialism" to mean any economic system with a strong social safety net and public policies that reduce economic inequality (e.g. progressive taxation).

Is Sweden, home of Volvo, Ericsson, and H&M, socialist? That depends on your definition of "socialism."

It's fine to use the word in either way, but be clear about how you're using it.

Possibly of interest:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/socialismmovie/socialism-an-american-story/

A lot of sci-fi plots involve humanity sending settlers to another planet because we've ruined Earth.

If human failings will inevitably lead us to ruin Earth, the same failings would lead us to ruin any other planet we settle.

There is hope for human life thriving on other planets only if there is hope for human life thriving long-term on this planet.

We have to solve our problems *here*.

The distress signal "Mayday mayday mayday!" comes from the French "m'aidez!" (help me).

It has nothing to do with socialism or with northern hemisphere spring festivals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayday

May Day! May Day!

Data on book translations from and to different languages:

http://language.media.mit.edu/visualizations/books

Incredibly, the number of translations *to* Old English, Middle English, and Middle French is more than zero. Hundreds of books have recently been translated to Latin!

Why religiously orthodox people should accept the "liberal consensus" to "live and let live":

https://theelectricagora.com/2018/03/10/the-liberal-consensus-and-the-orthodox-mind/

TL,DR: "If you are even minimally realistic, you must realize that it is impossible to hold power forever, which means that one day, inevitably, you’ll find yourself at the political mercy of your opponents, and how you’ve treated them when you were in power will have a profound effect on how they treat you, now that power has passed to them."

On this 18th day of the season of Discord, remember that it is written: a Discordian is prohibited of believing what he reads.

Mastodon is a great place for public conversations with interesting people from around the world.

Keep in mind:

People here may not be who they say who they are. I am definitely not an Oscar Wilde character!

Status privacy settings are only as trustworthy as the administrators of the instances that receive your toots.

There are ways to have semi-private conversations on Mastodon, but that's not what Mastodon is primarily designed for.

Great to see so many new users and new #introductions from old users!

I'm Ernest John Worthing. I'm a confirmed Bunburyist. Some interests:

#oscarwilde
#lgbt
#philosophy and #ethics
#privacy
#FOSS (especially tools for writing)
#languages
#yoga
#cooking
#homebrewing
#classicalmusic

I read EN, FR, EO, some DE.

If you're still on Facebook, and you're (justifiably) upset about the latest privacy revelations, you could quit.

Or you could feed them bad data.
"Like" a bunch of things you don't actually like. Search for names of people you don't know.

Adele, "Rolling in the Deep"
Amy Winehouse, "Rehab"