I’m the guy who is consistently picking up old games that he’s always wanted when they go on a steam sale years later for single digits. So I’m constantly three or four (or more years) behind. And I don’t really mind because I’m always a single player who doesn’t enjoy any form of online multiplayer.
So do I care that I only last month picked up EU4 and a bunch of DLC for cheap, not one bit. Same for Civ 6.
I’ll happily chug away at my old games that no one cares about anymore.
It’s crazy to me that they’ve set up a system that essentially requires recidivism in order to keep meat coming through the doors to function, and yet somehow think that that’s normal.
Jail time isn’t primarily meant as revenge or punishment, but more as the time required to revisit the mistakes you did and to make you again a functional member of society.
Dear Americans;
This is what happens when your prisons don’t rely on private profit motives to operate.
Signed: The civilised world.
You’re vastly underestimating how much the rest of the world likes us far more than them.
America would be immediately gang raped economically by literally every nation on earth if they tried to Ukraine us.
Plus a number of them would be happy to deploy troops as well.
And nothing of value was lost.
Not glorifying Orwell. I’m aware of his history. The quote actually belongs to either Robert Icke or Duncan MacMillan; the two men who wrote the stage adaptation. Politics aside, it’s a fitting quote.
I know it’s cliche by this point. But this one misattributed1 quote has become more prescient than ever.
They’ve learned that giving us new shiny shit every year will keep the majority of us mollified against all kinds of injustice.
1 - Commonly credited to George Orwell’s novel. It’s actually from the stage play adaptation.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought I read that their factory is actually built in occupied territory.
It’s the reason I’ve always refused to but one.
In the words of Todd Hockney:
You figure that out yourself, Einstein? You got a team of monkeys working around the clock on this?
Based on the average age of Lemmy, I’ll go out on a limb and say I’m probably older than you.
What you call “informed positions” is simply giving up on seeing the reality over the propaganda. Your cynicism doesn’t allow you to separate the theory of capitalism from the reality of capitalism. You’re essentially no different than those people who say that anything except the current situation is essentially “socialism”, which by definition must be bad. But just because corporations have taken over capitalism, doesn’t mean there isn’t a fight to be had to try to change that.
I’m very close to 50 years old. I’ve got plenty of my own life experience that I don’t need any of yours thanks. If you want to give up, go right ahead. Some of us believe is a system where capitalism is contained by strong government regulations and social safety nets. Why do we believe this, because there’s plenty of European countries that already do this. Just because North America is completely bought out by corporations doesn’t mean that’s just what capitalism is.
Go be a sad sack defeatist on your own time.
Capitalism is inherently parasitic
I fundamentally disagree with that.
Venture Capitalism is parasitic. But Capitalism itself is not at all. At it’s heart, if we continue with the landlord analogy, let’s say that you are renting a house from the OP’s Aunt. She’s paying the building insurance. She’s paying the maintenance, (or in some good old fashioned cases doing it themselves). She’s dealing with the paperwork involved in owning a home. Hell, in some cases you don’t even have to mow your own lawn. So of course she’s charging you rent. It’s not a charity.
But if she’s a private owner, than your rent stays with her. She uses what she needs to maintain the building and…yes…makes a profit that then gets spent in the local economy.
The only time there’s an issue is when your rent is being sent to a corporation that may not even be in the same country as you, and that money leaves your local economy for good.
To use an anecdotal example, I’ve worked in my time for two different furniture stores in my town. One was a chain, and one was/is a family run operation from the beginning. And yes…that family is wildly successful; I’m not guessing millionaires, but close to it. And I don’t begrudge them at all for that. Because it’s family owned, they aren’t forced to only care about a stock price or about profit. My boss would randomly come up to me, sometimes multiple times a year, clap me on the back and say “You’re doing a good job, I’m going to add a buck an hour to your wage.”
Because they can. Because for all intents and purposes, you’ve got a better chance to be treated like a human being when a corporation isn’t in the way.
The chain furniture store would only give out raises when forced to by government mandated cost of living increases, because anything more would cause the stock price to go down.
The heart of capitalism is my first example. The reality of capitalism is my second unfortunately. But that’s not the fault of capitalism itself, it’s the lack of government oversight protecting us from predatory corporations.
No.
I of course can’t speak for anyone except myself, but for me, what your aunt is doing is what essentially capitalism is all about.
Its when those landlords get replaced by venture capital corporations and reits that it becomes a problem.
In your aunts case, the rent money stays local, contributes back to the local economy, etc…
In the case of venture capital and corporate ownership, the only goal is to increase a stock price for a corporation. None of that money gets returned to the local economy except for possibly hiring a local property management firm to handle things on the ground for them.
When capitalism remains about people, all of good. When corporations take the reins of ownership so their profit becomes the sole motive is when things go bad.
Economic chaos for a little while, and then everyone would just go on with their lives. Economically it would matter of course; America became the richest power after the first world war when all of Europe needed loans to fight their “great war”, causing the greatest transfer of wealth the world had ever seen.
But culturally, I’m betting the number of people who would give a shit if the United States stopped bossing everybody around is far less than they think it is.
The american sense of importance is strongest mostly in their own heads.
This is exactly the right answer.
I think it’s a complicated question. I say yes, but with caveats.
He needs to be prosecuted in order to keep the letter of the law running. You can’t just say “you can’t kill anyone unless the rest of us don’t like him.” Laws should be about absolutism.
However the sentencing does not have to be absolute. Find him guilty (because technically he is). Then give him a suspended sentence because of extenuating circumstances.
I haven’t tried the 60s yet, but I’ve heard good things about Westlake. My entire reading world changed when I discovered the original hard-boiled works of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
Moved my youtube habits away from doom and gloom news channels and instead to history documentaries and old episodes of Best of the Worst.
Similar to that, spend more time on Pluto TV/Roku/Tubi watching terrible low budget sci-fi and old comfort episodes of Quantum Leap and TNG.
Thought so. Just making sure.
Lato, League Spartan, League Gothic are my three most used fonts by a wide margin. Lato and its variety of weights for most things, League when I am doing design work and need a cleaner title or header.
Lately ive been weirdly taken with TT2020 Style G, which is an odd name for a no-name font that replicates an old imperfect typewriter. For whatever reason, switching my writing software to that (Manuscript) suddenly fired up my writing flow.