Douglas Adams wrote, "Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
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The world has moved on. Nothing works. Everything costs too much. No one can help. No one knows how to fix anything. The beams were broken by the Crimson King and his economism-crazed minions. The Dark Tower might fall.
So what consumer advice do I have for people who are angry about this? I don't have *any* consumer advice, I'm afraid. You can't shop your way out of a monopoly. Once again, shopping *is not politics*.
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What I have for you is *political* advice. To restore the beams and beat back entropy again, we need a better *system*, not more virtuous individuals. If you feel - as I do - that "the world has moved on," then to wrench it back, you will have to join a *polity*. Support activist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the digital rights group I've been at for the past 25 years:
https://supporters.eff.org/donate/join-eff
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What I have for you is *political* advice. To restore the beams and beat back entropy again, we need a better *system*, not more virtuous individuals. If you feel - as I do - that "the world has moved on," then to wrench it back, you will have to join a *polity*. Support activist groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the digital rights group I've been at for the past 25 years:
https://supporters.eff.org/donate/join-eff
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Join a union. If there's no union at your jobsite, start a union. If you work in tech, you start this process by talking to techsolidarity.org and the techworkerscoalition.org. In the UK, get in touch with United Tech and Allied Workers:
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Join a union. If there's no union at your jobsite, start a union. If you work in tech, you start this process by talking to techsolidarity.org and the techworkerscoalition.org. In the UK, get in touch with United Tech and Allied Workers:
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Get involved in party politics. Find a political party whose local organization supports your values (even if the national version of that party sucks) and then work with your fellow grassroots activists to drag or replace the party leaders.
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Get involved in party politics. Find a political party whose local organization supports your values (even if the national version of that party sucks) and then work with your fellow grassroots activists to drag or replace the party leaders.
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Get involved in local politics: if there's one thing Moms For Liberty has taught us, it's that unregarded, seemingly unimportant local offices have enormous potential to change facts on the ground for the people where you live. Those changes don't have to be change for the worse.
Doing politics is hard. Hell, after all, is other people. It would be great if we could make change by changing ourselves, but that's not how any of this works.
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Get involved in local politics: if there's one thing Moms For Liberty has taught us, it's that unregarded, seemingly unimportant local offices have enormous potential to change facts on the ground for the people where you live. Those changes don't have to be change for the worse.
Doing politics is hard. Hell, after all, is other people. It would be great if we could make change by changing ourselves, but that's not how any of this works.
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The world has moved on, and *you* can't save it. But together, *we* can restore the beams and beat back entropy. Hell is other people, but only because other people are so *great* but it's so hard to figure out how to work together. We can do it, though. We did it with the post-war settlement, the 30 glorious years when we built the welfare state, regulated polluters and bosses, and kicked off the civil rights movement.
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The world has moved on, and *you* can't save it. But together, *we* can restore the beams and beat back entropy. Hell is other people, but only because other people are so *great* but it's so hard to figure out how to work together. We can do it, though. We did it with the post-war settlement, the 30 glorious years when we built the welfare state, regulated polluters and bosses, and kicked off the civil rights movement.
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We did it then, and we can do it again. We must. All things serve the beams.
eof/
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We did it then, and we can do it again. We must. All things serve the beams.
eof/
@pluralistic Umm…TLDR?
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/11/lapsarianism/#nostalgia-is-a-toxic-impulse
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@pluralistic This note with a link to the essay-formatted version is also _in_ the essay-formatted version. Unintentional?
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@pluralistic This note with a link to the essay-formatted version is also _in_ the essay-formatted version. Unintentional?
@heygarrett Will fix as soon as I get through airport security and get back on my laptop
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We did it then, and we can do it again. We must. All things serve the beams.
eof/
@pluralistic BTW you forgot to add "Burma Shave".
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I collect definitions of "conservatism," and one of my favorites comes from Corey Robins's book, *The Reactionary Mind*. Robinson asks how it is that we can call so many disparate, irreconcilable ideologies - various ethno-nationalisms, imperialism, financialism, patriarchy, Christian nationalism, libertarianism, white supremacy, etc - "conservative"? What binds all these views together?
https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/22/all-day-suckers/#i-love-the-poorly-educated
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@pluralistic To honor the true and original libertarians (those anarchists that hold a municipalist view) and free the term from any financial implication, we should find another word for those neoliberals.
Maybe “Kissingerites”.
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Douglas Adams wrote, "Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you’re 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're 35 is against the natural order of things."
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@pluralistic Reddit's r/buyitforlife is a pit of despair, just about all the former good stuff sucks now. Birkenstock, LL Bean, you name it, when your old one finally wears out, the replacement will suck.
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For conservatives, virtue is "whatever the people who are born to rule desire." Hence Frank Wilhoit's definition of conservativism, "exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." It's not a crime if the president does it. It's also not a crime if your boss does it, or if a monopolist does it, or if ICE does it.
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“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind,
alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.There is nothing more or else to it,
and there never has been."~Frank Wilhoit, composer
https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288#Conservative #Conservatism #Politics #Quote #Quotes #Meme #Memes
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Douglas Adams wrote, "Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you’re 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're 35 is against the natural order of things."
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@pluralistic Hesiod covered it well ~700BCE.
The problem is quite simply: kids these days.
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@pluralistic Reddit's r/buyitforlife is a pit of despair, just about all the former good stuff sucks now. Birkenstock, LL Bean, you name it, when your old one finally wears out, the replacement will suck.
@7leaguebootdisk @pluralistic I can't find socks or underwear. I had ones fit for my needs, they are either no longer sold or the replacement is utter shit. The phenomenon is not even new, here's a 2018 review of the once incredibly comfy hanes tagless underwear.
Does anyone know what to replace the florsheim non-elastic socks with? I am drawing a blank. Across many countries, even.
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@pluralistic Reddit's r/buyitforlife is a pit of despair, just about all the former good stuff sucks now. Birkenstock, LL Bean, you name it, when your old one finally wears out, the replacement will suck.
@7leaguebootdisk @pluralistic same is true for Keene (river) Sandals.
I won't be buying another pair b/c the main heel strap tore off the footbed twice, and I stitched it with my speedy stitcher twice while on a camping trip.
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“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind,
alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.There is nothing more or else to it,
and there never has been."~Frank Wilhoit, composer
https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288#Conservative #Conservatism #Politics #Quote #Quotes #Meme #Memes
I'm happy to see someone providing that quote with more than one sentence. But have you ever read the original and complete Crooked Timber comment by Frank Wilhoit, which greatly expands on 'Wilhoit's Law' and delivers much nuance?
> http://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288
Because he's also saying there really isn't such a thing as 'anti-conservatism' and, "… no other model of polity had ever been proposed."
And he proposes a similar construct to 'Wilhoit's Law' for anti-conservatism'.
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@pluralistic Reddit's r/buyitforlife is a pit of despair, just about all the former good stuff sucks now. Birkenstock, LL Bean, you name it, when your old one finally wears out, the replacement will suck.
There's a thriving dark economy in good quality second hand goods.
Prized items that all pinpoint what date a company decided to enshittify:
Garage sales & boot sales selling ...
1. Grandma's all-steel Singer sewing machines.
2. Auntie's canning jar collection
3. Bosch home appliances
4. Kitchenaid mixers
5. Vehicles: Volvo, Toyota, Honda, old Ford trucks
6. Old farm tractors
7. IBM laptops
8. Unsmart refrigerators & washersBrands that used to be good.
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There's a thriving dark economy in good quality second hand goods.
Prized items that all pinpoint what date a company decided to enshittify:
Garage sales & boot sales selling ...
1. Grandma's all-steel Singer sewing machines.
2. Auntie's canning jar collection
3. Bosch home appliances
4. Kitchenaid mixers
5. Vehicles: Volvo, Toyota, Honda, old Ford trucks
6. Old farm tractors
7. IBM laptops
8. Unsmart refrigerators & washersBrands that used to be good.
@Npars01 Items that had not been enshittified.
The other important thing about such older products is that many of them can actually be repaired when needed.
Living part time on a Caribbean island makes you appreciate older, repairable and more rugged items that can also handle unreliable electricity grids. New smart appliances become quite stupid and useless after a few good power surges or brownouts. -
Douglas Adams wrote, "Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you’re 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're 35 is against the natural order of things."
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@pluralistic@mamot.fr It's funny because as someone who's between 15 and 35, I'm extremely frustrated. Everything that's being invented is boring and rote despite the hype-men and marketing teams trying to convince me otherwise. And it's actively antagonistic to my ability to get a career in it. Fuckin' sucks honestly
