[peck420]

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

Hold up, as a simple consumer with a problem, I need to do what 'work' exactly to earn the 'right' to take issue and make hay about it? Be the one making the product? Unrealistic.

Aren't you a champion of people owning the means of production?

Look at your hands, there are your means and you own them...get producing.

The only thing that is unrealistic is what you expect others to do on your behalf.

[peck420]

andyt andyt:

what a load of bullhsit in this thread about people making their own tractors and such. The problem is the government here that is under sway from the large producers.

And fark you Caleb that I'm saying this is just the way it is. The answer is to take government back for the people instead of the corporations.

And what would be the first step in doing that, andyt? The first step would be by denying those companies your dollars. But, that is unrealistic. We can't come to a complete standstill to make a point, so we are left with one alternative.

Force the companies, that we want out, by replacing them with our own.

You got a couple billion lying around to buy them up? I don't.

So, what does that leave me with? Building my own.

By building my own, I am doing something all the online complaining in the world wont. I am denying my dollars to the companies I want them denied from. I am inhibiting their ability to 'buy governments'. If only more people would do the same.

[BRAH]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Once I buy something it belongs to me and I'll do with it as I damned well please.

Maybe some day that will be true again. But for now you'll being singing that in the poor house when representatives of the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, the Entertainment Software Association, and/or the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers sue you into oblivion with the full support of the courts and your elected representatives.

With a lot of our technology now coming with 'End User License Agreements' that we agree to by opening the package and before ever reading them, I also like to dream that things I buy actually belong to me.

But since I don't have 100% control over that new car, or new phone, I'm just the 'licensed' user.

The funny part is that on tractors at least, the EPA requires the manufacturer to prevent the user from modifying the ECU, because otherwise farmers would just cut the pollution controls off the unit and modify the ECU to ignore them.

On the trucking and heavy equipment side companies and owners / operators do a complete deletion on the EPA-ECU even on brand new units which voids the warranty. Technically it's against the law but they do it because if they don't their units spend more time in the shop.

[andyt]

peck420 peck420:

andyt andyt:

what a load of bullhsit in this thread about people making their own tractors and such. The problem is the government here that is under sway from the large producers.

And fark you Caleb that I'm saying this is just the way it is. The answer is to take government back for the people instead of the corporations.

And what would be the first step in doing that, andyt? The first step would be by denying those companies your dollars. But, that is unrealistic. We can't come to a complete standstill to make a point, so we are left with one alternative.

Force the companies, that we want out, by replacing them with our own.

You got a couple billion lying around to buy them up? I don't.

So, what does that leave me with? Building my own.

By building my own, I am doing something all the online complaining in the world wont. I am denying my dollars to the companies I want them denied from. I am inhibiting their ability to 'buy governments'. If only more people would do the same.

Yeah, you're going to build your own tractor. Give me a break.

As as I said, the answer is to pressure govt to change the laws.

[Public_Domain]

[Lemmy]

Lads: You're preaching to the choir. Recall, I've long advocated that the corporation should not be allowed, neither as a legal entity nor a lawful form of business ownership. They have become too powerful. I wish George Orwell had lived long enough to write the sequel to "1984": "2016", where government has been killed by the corporation and supplanted it as the villain of tyranny. Corporations need to be busted up, just like 19th century trusts.

But short of that revolution (and Caleb's nod to education as a key component in the fight) the way to beat corporations is by not supporting them. Continuing to give money to a company you hate, or whose products disappoint you, is irrational behaviour. Sorry, farmers, if that's not the answer you want. But if you hate their shit, don't buy it.

[DrCaleb]

andyt andyt:

what a load of bullhsit in this thread about people making their own tractors and such. The problem is the government here that is under sway from the large producers.

And fark you Caleb that I'm saying this is just the way it is. The answer is to take government back for the people instead of the corporations.

andyt andyt:

Except that they all do it, so people don't have a choice. This isn't little mom and pop businesses where one can start offering an alternative. These are huge conglomerates that have the politicians in their pocket and act in unison. There is no free market here.

Did I misinterpret your statement?

The sad thing is, Farmers make their own stuff all the time. Or, used to. Being a Farmer also meant you had to be a welder, pipefitter, engine mechanic, carpenter. . . you did what needed to be done, because there wasn't any extra money to pay people to do it for you. And yes, if implements needed to be fabricated to spread fertilizer, or rake the field, or you had bits of 3 tractors that you could weld together to make one good one - they would do it!

But now that Farmers care for hundreds of thousands of acres in order to remain profitable, there isn't time to bodge together tractor parts into some Frankenstein mobile. They have to rely on a factory produced unit, with factory approved attachments operating in factory approved methods. And the factory won't let or enable them to modify their very expensive property in ways that suit them, and the law sides with the factory and not the farmer.

And the same trend applies to us all, from our iPods to our refrigerators and cars. And that's what I've been trying to say for years - it's up to us to reverse this trend. Like Lemmy says, vote with your wallet, like I do. But it's getting harder and harder to do it.

[andyt]

Exactly. It's getting harder and harder because you have less and less choice.

You misinterpreted my statement to mean that I'm saying the way things are is OK. With the tractor issue and such, the answer lies with the politicians changing the laws. So what matters is how we vote. Except of course we don't really have a choice there either. My bet would be that even if Bernie Sanders gets elected, things wouldn't change very much.

But probable in the larger picture things do have to be this way. To support the billions of people on the planet takes a complex system that few people can do more than play the part of a little cog in.

[DrCaleb]

andyt andyt:

Exactly. It's getting harder and harder because you have less and less choice.

People have choices, they just don't know or don't want to make them. It's rare - like this tractor example - that they have no choice.

People can choose to not buy the "Smart" TV or new tablet that spies on what you do. They can choose to turn off their cable TV, and experience the world instead of consume what they are fed. They can choose to not put all these 'smart' appliances in their homes, making them subservient to the people that actually control the appliance.

But they don't know the consequences, and they don't know there is a choice.

[BartSimpson]

andyt andyt:

Yeah, you're going to build your own tractor. Give me a break.

You lack imagination and initiative. You also lack a bit of empathy in assuming that everyone else on this planet suffers from your same shortcomings.

[andyt]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

andyt andyt:

Yeah, you're going to build your own tractor. Give me a break.

You lack imagination and initiative. You also lack a bit of empathy in assuming that everyone else on this planet suffers from your same shortcomings.

So that thing is going to replace this:



You lack a sense of proportionality. You may also want to look up what empathy means.

[BartSimpson]

This can replace your John Deere and it's home built.

[andyt]

Built that yourself, did you?

[BartSimpson]

andyt andyt:

Built that yourself, did you?

No, but I've built my own rifles. Perfectly legal, too.

[andyt]

Nice deflection. Figured it would come to that at some point.