In a week, more that 4500 people have pledged over £150k to support Palestine Action's legal acton against the Govt.s moves to proscribe the groups rendering them as 'terrorists'.
If you are concerned this is a fundamental threat to the right to protest and so a threat to our very democracy... then you might want to join me & the 4500 supporting their crowdfunding for their prospective legal costs.
crowdjustice.com/case/palestin…
Fight the Proscription of Palestine Action
A direct action network crowdfunding to fight proscriptionCrowdJustice
dobó istván
in reply to dobó istván • • •These same groups that BANNED Phan Thanh Trung because he had the audacity to sell his original gemstone designs for money.
The guy is one of the most innovative designers not working with concave faceting (which we still don’t have modeling software) or carving.
He tried to build an original Vietnamese gemstone brand.
Instead, he got shut out of the industry and is living on fucking buymeacoffee money and prison ed.
dobó istván
in reply to dobó istván • • •I remember running a show one time and having some young kid interested in gemcutting come up to me.
“Your work is so amazing. What’s your rank in the guild?”
“I have never entered a competition.”
“But then how do you know how good you are?”
“This is my primary income. It’s how I feed my kids.”
“But don’t you want a master certificate?”
“… Do people pay more for my stones if I have it?”
“No.”
“Then why would I waste 100 hours on a competition stone?”
“I don’t like you…”
dobó istván
in reply to dobó istván • • •This is the essence of hobbyist mentality.
And I find it rich that groups created to make a hobby out of gemcutting are crying about the death of the art when they are largely responsible for making sure the people they brought into it didn’t accidentally turn it into a career.
It wasn’t always like this.
The early guilds were more professional knowledge associations. It was the rise of competition faceting that drove everything into manchild hobby land.
dobó istván
in reply to dobó istván • • •Think about it.
A good machine is $5,000-$10,000.
Good laps are $700-$1,300 each and you need at least four of them.
Gem rough is big bucks.
And you make a show out of doing events to cultivate interest in the art, but 90% of your members are people 40-80 years old who don’t even work in the business. You aren’t showing anyone how you can make money at this except a couple unicorns.
Make these numbers make sense if you want to see more people take up cutting.
dobó istván
in reply to dobó istván • • •The only ones even trying are the lab gem guys. They’ve made a business out of building parts to fix the ghetto-tier Chinese machines and make them a lot more usable.
Brings the entry level cost for a young person with an interest down to about $700.
That’s something people can actually take a chance on and see if they can build something.
Bless his heart for that thankless work.
How did the guilds respond?
“IT’S RUBBISH! YOU CAN’T CUT ON THAT! WE WON’T HELP YOU IF YOU GET STUCK ON THAT!”
𝕥ℝ𝕠𝕃𝕃𝕚ℕ 𝕜𝕀𝕥𝕥𝔼𝕙
in reply to dobó istván • • •dobó istván
in reply to dobó istván • • •And what help.
When someone pays their yearly dues and comes to the groups with a problem, they get 200 different answers: not one of which is right.
It’s your machine. Turn this knob. Fuck with that screw. Buy this $300 part. Throw $6000 at a new machine. Have all your laps remachined by my friend for $1200. Use wax. No! Use epoxy.
I’ve had at least 100 students over the years.
The answer is almost always “Durr, you pressed too hard. Do it again, go slower, build hand control.”
Downvoted.
Zergling_man
in reply to dobó istván • • •"People come up and tell me it's amazing."
#woke Kurt J. Mac's 'Shreveport or Bust' Groyper
in reply to dobó istván • • •