Marcus Philip

Software delivery engineering nerd. Climate activist. Syncretist. Cyclist. Underwater-rugby coach and player. Father. Brf-styrelseordförande.

[Sara | Journalist @SanaJournalist1]

Every time we upload the video and it gets deleted, we’ll just keep uploading it. 🤣👌

[Marcus Philip @marcus_phi]

@BiankaB12 @petra_kahn I agree. Absolutely. Therefore it’s a pity that 1984 is literary superior to Brave New World.

[Sizwe SikaMusi @SizweLo]

People defend capitalism because they confuse it with commerce. They believe “capitalism” is when people start businesses and sell things.

If people understood that the thing they call capitalism and love so much is actually just commerce and that it’s not the same thing as capitalism, they would feel very different.

This is because a local baker selling bread, a mechanic fixing cars, or an artisan selling wares on a digital storefront is a sign of commerce in a market economy, which is simply a mechanism for exchanging goods and services based on supply and demand.

Needless to say, this has existed for thousands of years before capitalism was created.

As economic historian Fernand Braudel pointed out, commerce and capitalism are not only distinct; but historically, they have often operated at cross-purposes.

According to Braudel, ordinary commerce is competitive and transparent, while capitalism is anti-competitive and deliberately opaque, making it a zone of privilege held by a small elite who bend the rules in their favour.

Braudel further argues that commerce, or the market, is horizontal, transparent, and competitive and as old as civilization itself. It involves individuals or small groups trading goods, where barriers to entry are low, no single player dominates, and profit is a reward for fulfilling a specific need.

Capitalism, meanwhile, is a specific institutional arrangement that emerged relatively recently in human history, around the 16th to 17th centuries. It is NOT just people “trading stuff”. It is instead the legal and financial system where the means of production are privately owned, and the primary objective is the continuous, infinite accumulation of capital.

Because of this accumulation-obssessed nature of capitalism, when it scales up, it seeks to eliminate the free play of commerce to protect its investments. True market competition is risky for massive capital as it drives prices down and threatens profit margins.

Braudel contended that capitalism only begins where commerce ends. It is the zone of high finance and state collusion. Because it operates across vast distances such as the 17th-century spice trade, information takes months to travel, which creates a deliberate lack of transparency.

Braudel noted that the great capitalists of the early modern era in Madeira and Venice or the Dutch East India Company, never wanted to compete in a fair, transparent market because competition slices profit margins to the bone. Instead, they secured royal charters, exclusive trading rights, and naval protection. At the same time, the state granted them legal monopolies, effectively outlawing competition.

Therefore, capitalism naturally trends toward creating monopolies and securing state interventions like bailouts, subsidies, and regulatory capture to shield itself from the very market forces it claims to champion. In fact, the most important takeaway from Braudel’s analysis is that capitalism is NOT the natural evolution or the highest form of the free market, it is its dark shadow.

So, when our lizard overlords use “free market” and “capitalism” interchangeably, they’re deliberately hiding this distinction and using the moral legitimacy of the hard-working, transparent business owner to defend the structural privileges of the protected financial elite and its regulatory capture.

If ordinary people could comprehend these distinctions, many self-described “capitalists” would realise they are just pro-commerce, and actually anti-capitalist, because it would be clear that defending “capitalism” means defending the right of a small parasite class to bypass the market entirely.

[Marcus Philip @marcus_phi]

@jaynitx Aah, 2005, before the complete enshitification of Amazon and everything else. Not as credible 2026.

But they are great advice, still.

[BrooklynDad_Defiant!☮️ @mmpadellan]

This clip, from Larry David's new show "Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness" is one of his FUNNIEST ever.

Awesome to have Rob Reiner as George Washington in possibly one of his final on-screen performances.

Cameo by Kimmel is chef's kiss.
RIP, Rob Reiner.

[Richard @ricwe123]

That time when an unarmed Iranian ship was invited to take part in an Indian naval exercise alongside the United States.
Its sailors were welcomed on land and paraded before Indian President Modi as a gesture of respect.
Then, at the last moment, the United States suddenly abruptly withdrew from the exercise,only to wait and torpedo the very ship it had just stood beside.

What followed was even more grotesque.
After attacking an unarmed vessel, the US refused to rescue the sailors it had blown into the sea, abandoning them to drown.
The grim work of recovering bodies was left to the Sri Lankan Navy.

This wasn’t warfare,it was treachery of the most disgraceful kind: an ambush carried out under the pretense of diplomacy, followed by a cold refusal to show even the most basic human decency to the dying.
It would represent a collapse of every norm that supposedly governs civilized conduct at sea.

And yet, instead of outrage, much of the American media response has been indifference or rationalization.
The bombing of a girls’ school is brushed aside; talk of carpet-bombing Tehran is floated as if it were just another policy option.
When atrocities are normalized and cruelty is laundered into “strategy,” the line between reporting and complicity begins to disappear......

[Marcus Philip @marcus_phi]

@mitchellh Last couple of years? I’ve used it for 15 years and it has gotten worse since day one. Not a lot worse, but definitely worse. Slowly but steadily. It’s fascinating. I understand that a lot of engineering goes into bookkeeping and such, but what on earth have they been doing…

[Negan @Roger_Negan]

This

[InfoGram @_InfoGram_]

Obama has just dropped the biggest bombshell on Trump 🔥

🇺🇸Trump at 2:00 PM: “Iran has agreed not to make a nuke. No president has done this.”

🇺🇸Obama at 3:00 PM— "We had a deal. Iran wouldn’t build nukes. Trump ripped it up. Iran ramped up its nuclear program.

Then He went to war. Burned billions. Wore out our military. People died.

And for what? We’re back at square one, but worse. Only a fool cheers this." 🔥

Absolute brutal by Obama 💪🔥

[Marcus Philip @marcus_phi]

Det här var bland det finaste jag läst på länge. Torrt kan tyckas, men så viktigt. Hoppas alla myndighetschefer därute läser. 💙💛 https://t.co/9pDrwJBZJ7

[Marcus Philip @marcus_phi]

Även en post-fascist kan ha rätt. Med alla sina fel så gör hon mycket rätt också.

[Jürgen Nauditt 🇩🇪🇺🇦 @jurgen_nauditt]

The chaos in the world is a direct consequence of the Russian attack on Ukraine, said Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

"The explosive situation in the Middle East and drones in the skies over Cyprus are not separate conflicts, but a direct result of the destruction of international law.

It all started in Ukraine, when Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, cynically violated the borders of a neighboring country and signaled to the entire world that the rules no longer apply," Meloni remarked in an interview with Tg5.

The war in Europe is already underway, and to consider these events "distant" is a dangerous illusion. Without restoring the rule of law, which has been destroyed in Ukraine, the chaos will only worsen, she added.
Ukraine Now

[Marcus Philip @marcus_phi]

Naturligtvis är en nödvändig del av klimatarbetet att försöka påverka andra minska sina utsläpp, t.ex. mha klimattullar i EU. Men det finns ingen motsättning mellan det och att minska våra egna utsläpp. Snarare tvärtom.

[Marcus Philip @marcus_phi]

Ibland hör man politiker säga att Sveriges bidrag till globala klimatutsläppen är så försumbart att vi inte behöver göra nåt.

Här är varför det är helt bisarrt ståndpunkt.

1/n

[Marcus Philip @marcus_phi]

Med detta så inser man ju hur orimligt, för att inte säga idiotiskt, det är att resonera som ovan.

Och då har man inte ens räknat in utsläppen som orsakat av produktionen av importerade varor eller internationella flygresor.

[Harry Eccles @Heccles94]

When @grok was asked who spreads the most disinformation on @x - it's response was to name @realDonaldTrump and @elonmusk

X have deleted the response, RT it here before they delete this one!

They find it humiliating! RT!

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

🚨Macron schooled Trump on leadership without ever needing to say his name: “We prefer respect over bullying. We prefer science over politicism. We prefer rule of law over brutality.”

This is what a normal leader sounds like. Anyone else miss having one?

[Rutger Bregman @rcbregman]

It's that magical time of year when private jets descend on a Swiss mountain village to discuss climate change and poverty! Anyway, here's my annual reminder. I'll stop posting this when they stop avoiding the real issue: their own massive tax avoidance 💰

[Marcus Philip @marcus_phi]

Efter Infantinos bisarra idé att dela ut ett fredspris till Trump bör alla anständiga länder bojkotta fotbolls VM

https://t.co/55aSJl2mGM

[Marcus Philip @marcus_phi]

Vi kanske borde bli mer cyniska – inte mindre.

Det kanske inte finns nåt problem som inte KAN lösas av mer teknologi (Marc Andreesen). Men KOMMER våra problem lösas av mer teknik och marknad? Det är väl det som är den viktigare frågan? https://t.co/EYdVzxcI5E