It's like the boss's spoiled child getting two scoops of ice cream when everyone else gets one. Yes, because the boss has power the child will get away with it. Still, the practice is loathsome.
Right. The free market doesn't actually regulate itself or create just or sustainable structures for creative people and other kinds of workers. It just creates desperation. DrJ is right: there should be an anti-trust suit. There won't be because the political climate has changed since the days of the microsoft lawsuits. People think that big tech corporations are our saviors.
I agree with you, though, Mikey, that it's a good idea for people to withdraw from unjust systems where possible. I've been encouraging friends to get their music off of Spotify, for example.
"The free market doesn't actually regulate itself or create just or sustainable structures for creative people and other kinds of workers. It just creates desperation."
Exactly. And we are now reaping the rewards of late capitalism--"late" meaning, to me, that it is reaching capacity, in terms of the smallest possible number of people having accumulated almost all of the possible wealth--in the form of nobody being able to get a job; everybody being completely snowed under with student loan debt before their lives even start; people walking away from mortgages and declaring bankruptcy and having NOTHING and being like 36 and having two kids and WTF are they supposed to do now; nobody having retirement plans or savings accounts or health insurance; the 1% squeezing us until we are all literally dead or homeless. That's what the free market has led to--it's now beyond monopoly, it's like 10 people have a monopoly on LIVING THEIR LIVES and the rest of us have to work like dogs for all of ours in order to insure that those 10 people continue buying 18 jets a year. HOORAY FOR THE FREE MARKET, which obviously DOES NOT REGULATE ITSELF in any kind of reasonable or human-scale way. It is pretty crazy to me to trust the market, or Amazon, to regulate itself, because that's not what capitalism is about at all. Getting more profits every year no matter who you have to fire or what you have to do...
There is no doubt that AMZN is fascinating and important, an aggressive industry driver shaping the way huge numbers of people behave. They do innovative, sometimes risky, shit with their market position and capital (selling Kindles at a loss, etc.) and provide good services to their customers.
I felt smarter about them and the current publishing industry in general when I looked at this list of factoids from 2011:
I just read this: "Amazon is rapidly making a name for itself as the company to give the Internet a bad name. From brutal working conditions (*) to treating physical bookstores as showrooms (*) to union-bashing (*) to McCarthyist policies around Wikileaks (*) to tax opposition (*) to screwing libraries (*), this company has done everything it can to demolish the image of the Internet as a source of cooperation, collaboration, and open friendship. It has perfected the act of free-riding on open source efforts, building its (remarkable, it must be said) profitable EC2 infrastructure on Xen Hypervisor, using Linux extensively, and not contributing back (*), in the same way it happily takes all those volunteer hours put into Wikipedia and uses them to sell its own devices, messing with authors' rights as it does so (*)." The asterisks are links. Here: http://whimsley.typepad.com/whimsley/2012/01/2012-predictions-turning-points-for-the-web.html
But be careful, I'm sure SOME PEOPLE on this thread will start telling you about how Mechanical Turk is a virtual sweatshop exploiting the people of distant lands.
Here's the thing... we have more people than ever before (and rising) and we've automated a bunch of tasks. So not everyone can have a job. So jobs are very valuable, and so those filling jobs can demand a lot from those looking.
People are literally fucking themselves over. Because all the fucking is leading to more more people and less jobs. We either need to get stupid, so it takes more people to do jobs, or make less people.
The real fault of course is capitalism, cause Capitalism decrees that none shall get vacation time and everyone needs to work more and if you don't work you are stupid. If you don't like that, then Capitalism will take it's jobs and go to China, cause weirdly, socialist China loves it some Capitalism. With the whole system being fucked up by us people, I'm not sure why Amazon is any more to blame than I am or you are.
End of day rally. I only lost $1.38 today on AMZN.
See/skim it in real life! Then I just buy it at Powell's, unless it's an art tome in which case I comb the interwebs for a used copy for eons until one turns up (because they are so freaking expensive!)
yeah! I wash my hair with baking soda maybe twice a month. That's it! No other shampoo or anything, no conditioner, no nothing! Haven't used any other hair product in over a year. I don't know what you people have been thinking about my hair, whether or not it looks good or not, but I've been pleased with it for the first time in my life really.
Basically the baking soda cleans out all the dirt from you being out in the world, but it LEAVES your hair's natural oils. The oils make your hair look all textured and like you have cool product in it, but you don't, it's just your nice clean seal-oil hair!
I realized I was shampooing and then having to PUT IN STUFF to make it look textured/dirty/etc. So why not skip both those things and just have it look like that all the time? Also it helps with the continuing effort to minimize the chemicals I put down my drain, and the amount of plastic packaging I buy. A 20 pound sack of baking soda lasts about a year, maybe less depending on how much of it you use to clean your house.
I am feeling good about it but if what you like is extremely soft shiny hair I think that is harder to accomplish. ALTHOUGH if you rinse with a capful of apple cider vinegar, it's a natural softener and makes things pretty soft and shiny. I don't know if it would be enough but one could give it a shot.
you can read all about it on the internet! Many people are switching/have switched.
It feels good! I feel like my whole life my hair was so limp and boring and I'd have to put so much weird junk in it to make it even look like a style. Now I don't do that! It's gained all this texture and volume and crazy waves.
And like, you still hop in the shower every day and give it a good scrub with just hot water and fingers. So you still psychologically feel like you are cleaning it--and you ARE cleaning it, you're rinsing out whatever dirt and gunk got it in during your day.
Also I have to say that a few months after switching I went to my regular haircut lady and she was like "WAIT: what are you doing to your hair??" and I immediately got scared like she could see what a filthy pig I was for not shampooing. So I said "...why?" and she goes "it looks so HEALTHY! I've never seen your hair look so healthy!" and I was like OH SNAP
It makes sense right? Shampoo strips away everything our hair naturally produces, so you're left with thin defenseless hair.
the baking soda does make your hair feel really weird and thick--not smooth like it feels after a shampoo. If this bothers you I recommend the apple cider vinegar rinse--just pour on a capful, rub it through your hair, rinse it out real good (the smell goes away as your hair dries) and then your hair will feel soft.
i resisted pressing play on the various people sharing this on fb the other day and when i finally did it was like 9 or 10pm and i just sat there, occassionally taking swigs of whiskey, watching this for 2 + hours and then just stared up at the ceiling like FUCK for another hour
...like baking soda for your hair, this session with Chris Hedges is all the 'current events' a citizen will need to make solid judgments about the next few years of political life.
BUT -- how bad was the transition to no-washing-with-shampoo? My hair looks/feels disgusting after two days of no washing. When does it get better? After a week? Two weeks?
I don't remember there being a gnarly transition, but I know some people have one (all our hair is different!). And, the relationship to baking soda even after the transition is different for everyone. Some people end up ditching even the baking soda, and just going 100% au naturel. Some people wash every day with baking soda forever. Whatever works!
I would start off washing it every other day with baking soda. Do that for 1-2 weeks, then go to every third day. See how that goes. Relax and allow for some times of weirdness and just push through or wear a hat if it makes you emo.
I think the #1 mistake people make is FREAKING OUT AND ABANDONING THE PROJECT the very first time their hair is oily. First of all, it's a transition and it takes time. Second of all, your hair IS going to feel different, forevermore, if you stop giving it the huge daily dose of chemicals you've been giving it your whole life--like I said, mine is thicker and oilier now--but I think that's the point! You want it to be thick and oily like a seal's pelt.
Again I stress that if you require super smooth light shiny hair this probably isn't your jam. But I like a thick textured vibe so it works for me.
Give it a shot! Email me with questions as you go, if you want! At first your hair will feel like "HUH?" all thick and weird-feeling after the baking soda, but don't worry, IT IS CLEAN, and just wait til it dries and it will look so cool!
hey ribsy, did we talk about this here on UHX a couple years ago and maybe i made this exact argument and you were like "huh?"? i have been on an anti-shampoo campaign since i was probably 23 years old- which was a long long time ago!
everything you say is correct! shampoo strips your hair of so many important things, and the oiliness is a result of your hair/scalp essentially freaking out and over compensating to get it all back. once you get past the 'recovery stage' then your hair gets great.
and for the record, i wet and finger scrub my hair daily, condition it once a week, and wash it once a month- and i am the least bald/grey of all my guy friends who are my age! and a bottle of shampoo also lasts me about two years!
you are right! i can take my anti-shampoo movement to a whole new level! i still use shampoo, just only once a month. i think i've only bought one bottle of it my entire life! but maybe i should try out this baking soda and maybe never shampoo again.
YT - first question: how much baking soda do you use? And do you just get your hair wet, dump some soda in your hand, and scrub-a-dub? I guess I don't know what the alternative would be...
yes! I have short hair--I think you'd have to use more the longer your hair got--and I use maybe a tablespoon?
I keep a margarine tub filled with baking soda in the tub/shower (wherever you'd normally put your shampoo) and then when it's time for a hair clean I just open it, grab a small handful, and go for it!
Yeah, so your hair is wet, and you just glop it on top and start scrubbing it around. Dig it into your scalp and rub it through all the hair. It obviously will feel nothing like shampoo--it's gritty and gummy, not smooth and gel-y and it won't lather--but just do it! Then rinse it out real good.
I also wash my face with baking soda every once in awhile--it's a good exfoliant and leaves your skin so soft!!
I've gone through lots of different methods. When I was doing the rare shampoo, my hair was laying too flat. Right now I shampoo every day and put pomade in it. Pretty sure I am destined to moderate baldness anyways, based on my grandfather that I resemble.
Comments
I agree with you, though, Mikey, that it's a good idea for people to withdraw from unjust systems where possible. I've been encouraging friends to get their music off of Spotify, for example.
Exactly. And we are now reaping the rewards of late capitalism--"late" meaning, to me, that it is reaching capacity, in terms of the smallest possible number of people having accumulated almost all of the possible wealth--in the form of nobody being able to get a job; everybody being completely snowed under with student loan debt before their lives even start; people walking away from mortgages and declaring bankruptcy and having NOTHING and being like 36 and having two kids and WTF are they supposed to do now; nobody having retirement plans or savings accounts or health insurance; the 1% squeezing us until we are all literally dead or homeless. That's what the free market has led to--it's now beyond monopoly, it's like 10 people have a monopoly on LIVING THEIR LIVES and the rest of us have to work like dogs for all of ours in order to insure that those 10 people continue buying 18 jets a year. HOORAY FOR THE FREE MARKET, which obviously DOES NOT REGULATE ITSELF in any kind of reasonable or human-scale way. It is pretty crazy to me to trust the market, or Amazon, to regulate itself, because that's not what capitalism is about at all. Getting more profits every year no matter who you have to fire or what you have to do...
I felt smarter about them and the current publishing industry in general when I looked at this list of factoids from 2011:
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-highlights-of-2011-the-year-in-publishing-by-the-numbers/
It's too bad that they are also anti-social leeches. I hope you do something neighborly with your capital gains Mike.
"Amazon is rapidly making a name for itself as the company to give the Internet a bad name. From brutal working conditions (*) to treating physical bookstores as showrooms (*) to union-bashing (*) to McCarthyist policies around Wikileaks (*) to tax opposition (*) to screwing libraries (*), this company has done everything it can to demolish the image of the Internet as a source of cooperation, collaboration, and open friendship. It has perfected the act of free-riding on open source efforts, building its (remarkable, it must be said) profitable EC2 infrastructure on Xen Hypervisor, using Linux extensively, and not contributing back (*), in the same way it happily takes all those volunteer hours put into Wikipedia and uses them to sell its own devices, messing with authors' rights as it does so (*)."
The asterisks are links. Here:
http://whimsley.typepad.com/whimsley/2012/01/2012-predictions-turning-points-for-the-web.html
Please stop badmouthing the company. It's hurting the stock price and then I won't be able to buy you all bagels.
But be careful, I'm sure SOME PEOPLE on this thread will start telling you about how Mechanical Turk is a virtual sweatshop exploiting the people of distant lands.
Here's the thing... we have more people than ever before (and rising) and we've automated a bunch of tasks. So not everyone can have a job. So jobs are very valuable, and so those filling jobs can demand a lot from those looking.
People are literally fucking themselves over. Because all the fucking is leading to more more people and less jobs. We either need to get stupid, so it takes more people to do jobs, or make less people.
The real fault of course is capitalism, cause Capitalism decrees that none shall get vacation time and everyone needs to work more and if you don't work you are stupid. If you don't like that, then Capitalism will take it's jobs and go to China, cause weirdly, socialist China loves it some Capitalism. With the whole system being fucked up by us people, I'm not sure why Amazon is any more to blame than I am or you are.
End of day rally. I only lost $1.38 today on AMZN.
well that is certainly true.
I've lost $1.80 on my AMZN investment as of right now.
See/skim it in real life! Then I just buy it at Powell's, unless it's an art tome in which case I comb the interwebs for a used copy for eons until one turns up (because they are so freaking expensive!)
Down $1.76 end of day on AMZN.
I'm talking about the ones that are upwards of 80 clams... always worth it, but really a lot of clams...
Forgive me
It was so sweet
and so cheap
Bathroom
Kitchen
Hair/Body/Face
deodorant
I wash my hair with baking soda maybe twice a month.
That's it!
No other shampoo or anything, no conditioner, no nothing! Haven't used any other hair product in over a year.
I don't know what you people have been thinking about my hair, whether or not it looks good or not, but I've been pleased with it for the first time in my life really.
Basically the baking soda cleans out all the dirt from you being out in the world, but it LEAVES your hair's natural oils. The oils make your hair look all textured and like you have cool product in it, but you don't, it's just your nice clean seal-oil hair!
I realized I was shampooing and then having to PUT IN STUFF to make it look textured/dirty/etc. So why not skip both those things and just have it look like that all the time? Also it helps with the continuing effort to minimize the chemicals I put down my drain, and the amount of plastic packaging I buy. A 20 pound sack of baking soda lasts about a year, maybe less depending on how much of it you use to clean your house.
I am feeling good about it but if what you like is extremely soft shiny hair I think that is harder to accomplish. ALTHOUGH if you rinse with a capful of apple cider vinegar, it's a natural softener and makes things pretty soft and shiny. I don't know if it would be enough but one could give it a shot.
I feel like my hair wakes up stupid every morning until it gets some shampoo massage.
This is breaking my world apart.
I need to take a minute.
Wow. Thanks. I guess . . .
I'm going to chill for a while.
Talk to you guys later.
It feels good! I feel like my whole life my hair was so limp and boring and I'd have to put so much weird junk in it to make it even look like a style. Now I don't do that! It's gained all this texture and volume and crazy waves.
And like, you still hop in the shower every day and give it a good scrub with just hot water and fingers. So you still psychologically feel like you are cleaning it--and you ARE cleaning it, you're rinsing out whatever dirt and gunk got it in during your day.
Also I have to say that a few months after switching I went to my regular haircut lady and she was like "WAIT: what are you doing to your hair??" and I immediately got scared like she could see what a filthy pig I was for not shampooing. So I said "...why?" and she goes "it looks so HEALTHY! I've never seen your hair look so healthy!" and I was like OH SNAP
It makes sense right? Shampoo strips away everything our hair naturally produces, so you're left with thin defenseless hair.
the baking soda does make your hair feel really weird and thick--not smooth like it feels after a shampoo. If this bothers you I recommend the apple cider vinegar rinse--just pour on a capful, rub it through your hair, rinse it out real good (the smell goes away as your hair dries) and then your hair will feel soft.
I would start off washing it every other day with baking soda. Do that for 1-2 weeks, then go to every third day. See how that goes. Relax and allow for some times of weirdness and just push through or wear a hat if it makes you emo.
I think the #1 mistake people make is FREAKING OUT AND ABANDONING THE PROJECT the very first time their hair is oily. First of all, it's a transition and it takes time. Second of all, your hair IS going to feel different, forevermore, if you stop giving it the huge daily dose of chemicals you've been giving it your whole life--like I said, mine is thicker and oilier now--but I think that's the point! You want it to be thick and oily like a seal's pelt.
Again I stress that if you require super smooth light shiny hair this probably isn't your jam. But I like a thick textured vibe so it works for me.
Email me with questions as you go, if you want!
At first your hair will feel like "HUH?" all thick and weird-feeling after the baking soda, but don't worry, IT IS CLEAN, and just wait til it dries and it will look so cool!
everything you say is correct! shampoo strips your hair of so many important things, and the oiliness is a result of your hair/scalp essentially freaking out and over compensating to get it all back. once you get past the 'recovery stage' then your hair gets great.
and for the record, i wet and finger scrub my hair daily, condition it once a week, and wash it once a month- and i am the least bald/grey of all my guy friends who are my age! and a bottle of shampoo also lasts me about two years!
SECRET REVEALED!!
But wait so you do use shampoo? Or you use baking soda once a month? You say "shampoo" and also "anti-shampoo" but maybe you mean "rare-shampoo"?
"Then I took a balloon up my ass to Spain"
I have short hair--I think you'd have to use more the longer your hair got--and I use maybe a tablespoon?
I keep a margarine tub filled with baking soda in the tub/shower (wherever you'd normally put your shampoo) and then when it's time for a hair clean I just open it, grab a small handful, and go for it!
Yeah, so your hair is wet, and you just glop it on top and start scrubbing it around. Dig it into your scalp and rub it through all the hair. It obviously will feel nothing like shampoo--it's gritty and gummy, not smooth and gel-y and it won't lather--but just do it! Then rinse it out real good.
I also wash my face with baking soda every once in awhile--it's a good exfoliant and leaves your skin so soft!!
BAKING SODA
Also, my AMZN is up $0.16.