I run the FBXL Network including FBXL Search, FBXL Social, FBXL Lemmy, FBXL Lotide, and FBXL Video. Mostly for my own use because after having my heart broken by too many companies I want to be in control of my own world.

I also wrote The Graysonian Ethic: Lessons for my unborn son, now on Amazon

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • I’m not opposed to intellectual property because there’s an argument for providing a limited time monopoly to the creators of works to provide incentive to make works public. Without any such incentive, it’s entirely possible that the monetization structures for different works change, for example locking content behind restrictive systems that don’t allow for personal use at all.

    The key is “limited time”. If you can’t make your money back in 15 years, then maybe it’s time to make a new thing? The idea that someone should own a thing you made after you’re dead is stupid – how exactly will that promote you to create new works? If you’re dead, your creating days are over except for creating plant food out of your bones and organs.

    I put my money where my mouth is, and the legal page of the graysonian ethic specifically lists that the book is put into the public domain or license after Creative Commons CC0 license after 15 years from the date of first publishing.










  • I know it’s easy to just rag on twitter, but I think that everyone needs to remember that a lot of the problems Twitter is facing are also problems that the entire industry is facing.

    Ad rates are down across the board. You hear YouTubers talking about it, you here people who run websites talking about it, and that’s just the way things are.

    Everyone got really pissed off at Elon for the mass layoffs, but everyone seems to forget that every other company also did layoffs just a few months later.

    In short, blame them for the stuff that he actually did, not systemic trends that affect everyone.




  • The Fable of the ant and the grasshopper I’m referring to comes from Aesop’s fables, a work collected around between 500 and 600 BCE.

    It’s been told and retold in many different languages around the world, and in virtually every example of the Fable being told, the story is basically the same: the ant works through the summer, and the grasshopper dances. Eventually the winter comes, and the ant survives and the grasshopper dies of starvation. For over 2,000 years the moral of the story has been but there’s a work time for work and there’s a time for play, that you need to work hard in the summer or you will starve in the winter.

    It’s wonderful that somebody reinterpreted the Fable for a modern kid’s movie, but that does not change the original meaning of the fable. Aesop was a slave born in Greek society, a society that utilized slavery. It’s not likely that greek society would have been super into a slave teaching their kids that one day the slaves would overcome their Athenian masters.

    Aristophanes wrote many plays criticizing greek society a few hundred years after Aesop. The following was from his play “Ekklesiazousai”, which was a comedy about what would happen if women took over the government. It’s a sort of hilarious example of the difference between greek society and modern society for many reasons, especially this exchange:

    Praxagora: I want all to have a share of everything and all property to be in common; there will no longer be either rich or poor; […] I shall begin by making land, money, everything that is private property, common to all. […]

    Blepyrus: But who will till the soil?

    Praxagora: The slaves.

    In Orwell’s 1984, the main character’s job was in the ministry of truth, ironically changing history to better suit the party. In this sense, replacing a 2500 year old fable with a 25 year old movie sounds more like that 1984 than simply citing the original fable.






  • Unlike most people, I’ve lived as an adult with just a bike. Finished college and started my career and worked for quite a while without a car.

    You think you’d be ok with just a bike, but then it rains, or it snows, or it’s a heatwave, or it’s a cold snap. The bike is ideal when it’s ideal, but it isn’t usually ideal. Especially when you live in non ideal locations, which many people do.

    And as for a car, sure if you have unlimited resources it’s a great choice. But most people don’t have unlimited resources. If they can make it to the supermarket and back and make it to work and back with an inexpensive alternative, a lot of people will use it as long as it’s ok to.

    For a surprisingly large class of people, a car isn’t even an option – even if they had a car given to them, they need insurance and gas, and licensing and oil changes and new tires and eventually you’re walking.