This is an essential read from @pluralistic – well worth your time to understand the points he’s making fully as he’s spot on and the excellent analogies will make it easier for you to discuss the topic with others.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/18/tech-ai-bubble-burst-reverse-centaur
This is an essential read from @pluralistic – well worth your time to understand the points he’s making fully as he’s spot on and the excellent analogies will make it easier for you to discuss the topic with others.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/18/tech-ai-bubble-burst-reverse-centaur
@kcarruthers
Finally, someone's connecting the dots. This is a crucial piece of journalism that explains why, for decades, it's felt like we're fighting the same uphill battle against privatisation, deregulation, and climate inaction—no matter which major party is in power.
The ABC is right to expose the Atlas Network and its roots in Hayek's Mont Pelerin Society. This isn't just academic history; it's the playbook. It shows how a small, well-funded group of ideologues made it their mission to shift the Overton Window—to make radical free-market ideas seem "common sense" and public ownership seem naive.
They succeeded brilliantly here. Think about it: the relentless push to sell off our public assets, the demonisation of unions, the framing of tax cuts for the wealthy as economic reform, and the decades of delay and doubt sown around climate science. These aren't random events. As this article lays out, they're the outcomes of a disciplined, long-term project to reshape society to serve private profit, dressed up in the language of freedom.
The fact that a federal parliamentary inquiry is now looking into how this network fuels climate disinformation is telling. It's the same playbook: target the "intellectuals" and media to manufacture doubt and protect fossil fuel interests, while ordinary Australians pay the price through worse fires, higher costs, and a degraded public sphere.
This is the architecture behind the hollowing out of our shared prosperity. It explains why inequality has soared while corporate profits break records. It’s not an accident; it's by design. Understanding this network is the first step to dismantling its influence and fighting for an economy that works for people, not just plutocrats.
How the right wing Atlas Network is shaping your life in Australia, even if you've never heard of it
#AusPol
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-26/atlas-network-mont-pelerin-society-neoliberal-think-tanks/105700628
@kcarruthers
Finally, someone's connecting the dots. This is a crucial piece of journalism that explains why, for decades, it's felt like we're fighting the same uphill battle against privatisation, deregulation, and climate inaction—no matter which major party is in power.
The ABC is right to expose the Atlas Network and its roots in Hayek's Mont Pelerin Society. This isn't just academic history; it's the playbook. It shows how a small, well-funded group of ideologues made it their mission to shift the Overton Window—to make radical free-market ideas seem "common sense" and public ownership seem naive.
They succeeded brilliantly here. Think about it: the relentless push to sell off our public assets, the demonisation of unions, the framing of tax cuts for the wealthy as economic reform, and the decades of delay and doubt sown around climate science. These aren't random events. As this article lays out, they're the outcomes of a disciplined, long-term project to reshape society to serve private profit, dressed up in the language of freedom.
The fact that a federal parliamentary inquiry is now looking into how this network fuels climate disinformation is telling. It's the same playbook: target the "intellectuals" and media to manufacture doubt and protect fossil fuel interests, while ordinary Australians pay the price through worse fires, higher costs, and a degraded public sphere.
This is the architecture behind the hollowing out of our shared prosperity. It explains why inequality has soared while corporate profits break records. It’s not an accident; it's by design. Understanding this network is the first step to dismantling its influence and fighting for an economy that works for people, not just plutocrats.
Dear (neo)liberals,
I’m not here to make you feel better about yourselves and gloss over your hypocrisies that are at the heart of the mess that we find ourselves in. I’m not here to pat you on the back when you write a strongly-worded letter to a fascist asking him to please limit his persecution to the Other. I’m here to remind you that your willingness to perpetuate an unjust system as long as it benefits you personally IS the reason the problem exists in the first place.
Dear (neo)liberals,
I’m not here to make you feel better about yourselves and gloss over your hypocrisies that are at the heart of the mess that we find ourselves in. I’m not here to pat you on the back when you write a strongly-worded letter to a fascist asking him to please limit his persecution to the Other. I’m here to remind you that your willingness to perpetuate an unjust system as long as it benefits you personally IS the reason the problem exists in the first place.
https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/abundance-democrats-housing-oligarchs/
There are two Abundances. One is the old wine of #neoliberalism in a new bottle, the other is the one that threatens the status quo. (Unfortunately, the piece is in academese, likely the language of the author's book.)
#abundance
https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/abundance-democrats-housing-oligarchs/
There are two Abundances. One is the old wine of #neoliberalism in a new bottle, the other is the one that threatens the status quo. (Unfortunately, the piece is in academese, likely the language of the author's book.)
#abundance
The rise of #stupidindividualism as a mainstream path
Part of the shitty mess we’re in comes from the failure of #DIY culture and the rise of #stupidindividualism as the common sense path. #stupidindividualism is completely unscalable in social terms. It fragments, isolates, and exhausts. That isn’t accidental, it’s a classic divide-and-control strategy of the #deathcult. And we need to consciously step away, and away, and far away from this.
An example, over the last 20 years, I’ve answered the same questions individually, over and […]
The rise of #stupidindividualism as a mainstream path
Part of the shitty mess we’re in comes from the failure of #DIY culture and the rise of #stupidindividualism as the common sense path. #stupidindividualism is completely unscalable in social terms. It fragments, isolates, and exhausts. That isn’t accidental, it’s a classic divide-and-control strategy of the #deathcult. And we need to consciously step away, and away, and far away from this.
An example, over the last 20 years, I’ve answered the same questions individually, over and […]
RE: https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/115911622720100646
Agreed 100%. ICE is not the problem. The problem is the latent #fascism that was always lurking behind the facade of democracy.
#Democracy in the US has always been a fucking lie, an illusion put in front of the brutal #capitalist machine built on #genocide, #landtheft, #colonialism and subjugation. The white middle class insistence that democracy was real is an expression of privilege and #whitesupremacy.
250 years of #shame, that is the #US. I encourage you to read Zinn's People's History.
Something that is not really acknowledged in the #US is that the white middle class has long been a beneficiary of #WhiteSupremacy which also means it serves as a protector of that system. The #Democrats, especially the establishment of that party, know this perfectly well. They are protectors of #neoliberalism and #capitalism and, ultimately #fascism. They will continue to be useless in this fight.
The deep fight, the real #resistance will have to tap into the real #struggle of #ClassWar.
#BCNDP has pulled the plug on #drugs #decriminalization. People suffering from drug addiction are going to be criminalized again. This won't help any community. It doesn't reduce addiction issues. #Neoliberalism policies harm people who need medical help.
#BCNDP has pulled the plug on #drugs #decriminalization. People suffering from drug addiction are going to be criminalized again. This won't help any community. It doesn't reduce addiction issues. #Neoliberalism policies harm people who need medical help.
Social Media Trains Us to Do Nothing
Social media is one of the key ways we interact with each other. I get to talk to my friend Chris regularly about life and code. I never would have met him without the connections that Twitter let me make years ago. Twitter helped me build a business by allowing me to get my name out in the WordPress ecosystem which let
https://curtismchale.ca/2026/01/11/social-media-trains-us-to-do-nothing/
#BookClub #activism #neoliberalism #slacktivism #SocialMedia
We need to stop worshipping a #deathcult
A path to do this is to step away from the #mainstreming mess. In 2024, the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson. The prize recognised their work on how institutions shape prosperity, most famously through their book Why Nations Fail. The timing matters, it matters a lot.
This award lands at exactly the moment we should be asking why Institutional Economics - the respectable face of #mainstreaming - has spent the last fifteen years […]
We need to stop worshipping a #deathcult
A path to do this is to step away from the #mainstreming mess. In 2024, the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson. The prize recognised their work on how institutions shape prosperity, most famously through their book Why Nations Fail. The timing matters, it matters a lot.
This award lands at exactly the moment we should be asking why Institutional Economics - the respectable face of #mainstreaming - has spent the last fifteen years […]
We fucked up… and that matters because we still have agency
Let’s start with the uncomfortable truth: we fucked up the last 20 years of #openweb tech. Not “they” fucked it up. Not only #BigTech, not only venture capital, not only governments and surveillance states. We did, especially those of us who were closest to the tools, the protocols, the decisions - the geeks, developers, architects, and maintainers who shaped how this stuff actually worked in practice.
That matters, because it means we still have direct power over what happens next. […]
We fucked up… and that matters because we still have agency
Let’s start with the uncomfortable truth: we fucked up the last 20 years of #openweb tech. Not “they” fucked it up. Not only #BigTech, not only venture capital, not only governments and surveillance states. We did, especially those of us who were closest to the tools, the protocols, the decisions - the geeks, developers, architects, and maintainers who shaped how this stuff actually worked in practice.
That matters, because it means we still have direct power over what happens next. […]
