This is great! I remember a turning point for me when I was feeling very low at the height of the War on Terror and jingoism appeared to have taken over the world. Just before the housing bubble popped and politics would swing the other way, but we didn't know that was going to happen yet.

John Mayer was playing music at Macworld 2007 (wish I could find the video) and said "Steve Jobs and Apple Inc. just make life more fun. It's like the opposite of terrorism":

https://www.cnet.com/culture/live-macworld-coverage/

I think of stuff like the Whole Earth Catalog as the opposite of neofeudalism and tech bro culture's revisionist history.

It doesn't have to be this way. Wealth inequality isn't invincible, or even inevitable. Back to basics works. We can get our hacker culture back. We can restore the timeline that's been stolen from us, the one we were on in the 90s before financialization and ensh@ttification ruined all the fun.

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silisili 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Inspiring comment. I hope you're right, if nothing else for the next generation's sake. I'm a bit more pessimistic here.

> We can restore the timeline that's been stolen from us, the one we were on in the 90s before financialization and ensh@ttification ruined all the fun.

It'd have to be a cultural change. Consumers at large have decided with their wallet they'll buy products made anywhere, of any quality, with missing or abusive support, if it means they can save a dime. Or that they'll sign away every ounce of privacy if it's free. Until we fix that problem, fixing anything else is going to be hard.

I like that younger generations care, or at least pretend to, about causes and sustainability. Not that that itself isn't being abused, but it's a glimmer of hope.

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epolanski 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Not sure why wealth inequality is mixed anywhere near the rest of the topics.

I couldn't care less about it, if some people live to make money, let them, as long as they do it legally.

On the other hand hacker culture is very lacking and the fact that we don't really own our devices is part of the issue.p

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myrmidon a day ago | parent | next [-]

Wealth inequality is a problem because it deprives median citizens of limited ressources; consider urban housing as an example. There are two factors at play:

- Average people have to compete on price with the wealthy (which becomes harder as inequality rises)

- Wealthy people are incentivized to use their wealth to acquire things and extract rent, which drives up total costs and makes inequality worse

A lot of the resulting problems stay negligible or hidden or as long as there is enough overall growth, but as soon as that growth slows down these kinds of problems become very apparent.

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rainingmonkey a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Inequality necessarily reduces living standards for those at the bottom of the heap.

When the person at the top has more than they can spend on necessities and luxuries, they put their money to work. That means buying assets and driving up their prices.

Some assets are fairly divorced from the "real" economy, but enough filter through to extract wealth from the masses who have to work for a living as eg. spiralling rents, inflated credentialism etc.

	▲	epolanski a day ago \| parent [-]
		Regardless, what's the connection to hacker culture.