DavesWorld's recent activity
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Comment on Oatly loses right to call its drinks ‘milk’ in landmark UK ruling – lexical dispute with trade body Dairy UK argued slogan ‘Post Milk Generation’ was misleading to consumers in ~food
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Comment on The CEO of UnitedHealthcare (insurance company) has been assassinated in NYC in ~news
DavesWorld Link ParentPeople are more generous, concerned, caring, when they're not desperate. How many people really don't know anyone who hasn't been fucked over by health insurance? Seen their premiums just spiral...- Exemplary
People are more generous, concerned, caring, when they're not desperate.
How many people really don't know anyone who hasn't been fucked over by health insurance? Seen their premiums just spiral up and up and up? Seen coverage shrink? Seen procedures be denied? Been forced to batter their way through labyrinth bureaucracy designed specifically to wear them down and get them to give up. When giving up saves the company money they then turn around and hand over to shareholders (read: executives since executive pay has a lot of stock involved).
I'm struggling to think of a good example, but maybe someone like Walt Disney back in the day? If ole Walt had been gunned down on the street, you'd see people upset. Why? Because Walt didn't make it his business to screw over the common masses.
Modern CEOs do. Especially those who work in 'medicine.' It should not be, at all, a surprise there's a lack of empathy for this event.
Not when there's no empathy for the millions of people forced to wage war just to get healthcare through the Byzantine systems insurance companies have constructed to avoid paying out as much as possible. It'd be one thing if insurers leaned on providers to be more efficient, to give better care and so on. Which they do, and doctors hate insurers too. But insurers lean on all the little people, who are disadvantaged and that's what the insurers are counting on.
Who was Mr Incredible's boss in The Incredibles? An insurer. What made Bob snap and grab with both hands without a second look back when Mirage and Syndrome offered him the chance to be a hero again? The soul sucking requirement of his job to let people without anywhere else to turn cry before having to tell them to fuck off and cry somewhere else because "it's our policy to not help you."
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Comment on Why are people on social media fixated on sharing insane takes for "criticism" or mocking? in ~talk
DavesWorld LinkPeople want easy validation. It's really that simple. For all the same reasons Right Wing feeds and forums and so forth will be full of "owning the libs" and such, Left Wing will be full of the...People want easy validation. It's really that simple.
For all the same reasons Right Wing feeds and forums and so forth will be full of "owning the libs" and such, Left Wing will be full of the same stuff, for the same reasons. To get that dopamine hit of "they agree with me." They all want the validation of the mob.
It's not just standalone threads or whatever, where someone starts it specifically for the validation of getting everyone to pile on the molehill they start so it can grow into a mountain they'll be at the top of. You see it in most threads. There's a groupthink conclusion, or at least one some will either assume or want to be the assumption, and they'll respond to the thread along those lines. They post according to that assumption, seeking the validation. Because they know, or at least suspect, that'll be what gets validated and they want to be validated rather than targeted.
I could name specific topics as examples, but that'd just, inevitably, ironically, derail this thread. It would devolve it into people protesting it's not a good example, it's totally valid to hate that example, and so on. They wouldn't admit the point, wouldn't even address the point. They'd simply fall over themselves in their extreme eagerness to seek the validation of others who'd come along and say "yeah, exactly, that (whatever) is (whatever's bad about it/them) and therefore fuck (it/them)."
If you pay attention, which really most people don't, you see the treads. They're not exactly hidden. They're right there in plain sight. You see people pop into threads and they'll try to walk some tightrope line where they attempt to assuage the mob with "oh, of course, totally evil and bad and deserved to be fucked right off of existence" even as they might then attempt to "but, maybe, there's this one part that might be okay".
Which is an uphill climb, because mob rules. Few do that; they're the exception. Most are just piling on. Validation is easy. Simple. Grade school simple. Anger lowers intelligence. Something the Left fails to grasp about how "easy" it is for the Right to harness people is how basic, simple emotions are easier for a crowd, a group, a mob, to share amongst themselves.
Look at what's easier? To propagate, to reinforce. "Fuck that guy!!!" Or, "well, on balance, there's X and Y and we should consider Z and really it's a complicated subject demanding careful study."
When you're trying to harness the mob, get their votes for example, the most direct path to influence is through basic emotion. Something the Left refuses to utilize in their attempt to "rise above" and "be cultured" and all that. Right is perfectly willing to harness even the most simple of emotions because, at the end of the day, power is power. People are power. People backing you is power.
Mobs don't study shit. Mobs want action. Social media is lightspeed mobbing. Simple rules the day. Complex comes later, after they're on board. After they've decided who they might listen to for a bit. Way later.
And later, way or not, rarely comes online. Feeds move second by second. You can say something, go to sleep or hop on a plane, and a few hours later you're the worldwide trending "fuck you" of the moment simply because you offended the mob and offered them an easy target to score dopamine with. Made yourself the squeeze they're all getting today's juice from.
And no one wants to be in the juicer. They'd rather be drinking. They want to be part of the mob, not the target. So they'll fall all over themselves to perpetuate the targets, rally the rabble-rabble-rabble, convince everyone else that they too hate the 'right' things, the 'right' targets.
Prove they aren't standing out.
It'd be sad except how it destroys lives and prevents us from advancing on so many levels. It's in our nature to destroy ourselves. Shit like this is why. Mob rules. Dopamine. Fear of standing out.
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Comment on South Korean president declares emergency martial law in ~society
DavesWorld LinkSo if I'm reading this right, very casually and briefly, Yoon is a right winger who won the '22 presidential election, and saw his party get hammered in the '24 parliamentary elections. There's...So if I'm reading this right, very casually and briefly, Yoon is a right winger who won the '22 presidential election, and saw his party get hammered in the '24 parliamentary elections. There's apparently a lot of political scandal accusations in South Korea at the moment, much of it seeming to center around other right wingers or right wing actions. Yoon's party has been criminally pursuing the candidate (Lee Jae-myung) Yoon narrowly defeated in the '22 presidential elections, and who is apparently expected to be "a favorite" in the '27 elections for the office.
Glancing over those accusations, they seem like they might fit a definition of political vengeance, in that they seem kind of ... weak and something of a reach. But I haven't studied the case closely. Lee's party has apparently been fighting back by trying to impeach key figures in the court actions against Lee, which would be a suitable and justified use of impeachment (to fight corruption). It could also be seen as an abuse of power, if the charges are valid and thus would be corruption to avoid prosecution.
I note the sentence the court imposed seems to meet what one could assume would be the "minimum" win condition for Yoon, namely removing Lee from politics. Politically, someone desperate for power wouldn't care at all what happened to his likely political opponents, so long as they couldn't legally run for office in opposition. If they're after actual justice, or vengeance, they'd want jail time. That sentence could be read as some kind of compromise (within Yoon's camp, if they are inappropriately influencing things) or even as a warning to Lee (back off or else we make it jail instead of sidelines).
However, I don't see how anything Lee or his party are doing merits martial law, even if they are guilty or evil or whatever similar description one wishes to employ. That seems like an enormous overreach. Dictatorial one could say. If Lee's part was actively plotting a violent overthrow, yes, martial law would be suitable. If they're simply plotting to win an election, then no, it's not.
Yoon, who has seen his approval ratings drop to the 20% range in recent weeks, is grappling with his own political scandal. It centers around allegations that he and first lady Kim Keon Hee exerted inappropriate influence on the People Power Party to pick a certain candidate to run for a parliamentary by-election in 2022 at the request of election broker Myung Tae-kyun, who was arrested this week.
This really reads like a guy who somehow managed to win but saw his mask come off and people turn on him, and who is now willing to abuse both process and democracy just to cling to power. Become a dictator, in so many words. Not that it would be excusable, if he had, say, 60% approval and most of the country agreed with his pursuit of his political opponent. But it would sure as hell give him a better position from which to stand and claim it's necessary to lock the nation down.
South Korea may well be kicking off the coming wave of devolution of democracy around the world that's been looking like it's building for the last decade or so.
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Comment on Is the Cybertruck really that bad? in ~transport
DavesWorld LinkI think it's going to be pretty much impossible for most of us to figure that out. unless we own one, or know someone who does. The media (including Social Media) has learned to just lead with the...I think it's going to be pretty much impossible for most of us to figure that out. unless we own one, or know someone who does. The media (including Social Media) has learned to just lead with the clickbait of Musk's name, which renders the coverage of anything associated with him full of hyperbole, accusations, assumptions, and gross exaggerations.
Right now, on Reddit, there's a thread about the Space Launch System probably being canceled by Trump. And the thread is full of people pissed, solely because "it would help Musk." That's their whole reason.
Most of, probably all of, those same people before this year would have been cheering the cancellation of SLS because it's very obviously a pork barrel boondoggle that's wildly expensive for far too little actual benefit to the goal of launching materials or personnel to orbit. By every objective measurement, SLS is a failure even before you compare it to SpaceX's Falcon 9 or Starship.
But that doesn't matter, because "Musk Bad."
People are unable to separate the companies, the physical goods and services, from "Musk Bad." I'm not a car guy, so the only real opinion I have on Tesla and any of its products is that electric ground vehicles are the way to go forward into the future. Oh, and Tesla vehicles have luxury price points; I would prefer commodity price points for the electric vehicles of the future.
Are Tesla vehicles good, bad, overpriced, well or poorly constructed? I don't know and really don't care. I'd have to become a full on car guy and get into serious research mode to figure it out because the media has just decided "Musk Bad" and that's that. They get tons of rage clicks when they use that angle, so they keep doing it. Money talks. Clicks pay them, so they make sure those clicks keep coming.
I do, however, know a decent bit, on a casual level, about SpaceX. I'm no engineer, but I like space and have read up on, followed, the company for a while. Both of Eric Berger's SpaceX books are pretty good, for example. And the reality is SpaceX has fundamentally changed everything about space launch.
Most of what they've changed were things that prevailing space industry 'wisdom' and common practice preached were inviolate. Impossible to improve or alter. Of course, there was no need to change those things, not when the government was handing out blank checks. SLS is an example.
The reason SLS costs 2.5 billion dollars (and climbing) for a single use, the reason it's at over twenty-six billion dollars in total cost, is because if it was cheaper that'd be less profitable for the companies involved. And because the politicians who were doing service for wealthy constituents in their states would be doing less for those wealthy benefactors if they allowed SLS to be small and cheap rather than big and endless.
Moving fast and breaking things, has worked for SpaceX. They could spend a year testing, or they could just build the engine or the component and see what happens. That's how you learn. That's not at all the philosophy any other space industry participant follows. But it's allowed SpaceX to learn a ton at a fraction of the cost.
Reusability; people openly mocked and denigrated that notion. Recovering (landing) a rocket; flat impossible. Which many, many engineers and physics people were eager to proclaim. And did.
SpaceX launches to orbit for pennies on the dollar. They've shattered the economics of space. A large part of that is due to Musk. Of course I know people who hate him are going to argue with whether or not he has any engineering skill. That's not my point and I'm not interested in arguing it.
With SpaceX, he always wanted a resuable, recoverable launch system. From day one he kept SpaceX on track to do that. He constantly demanded reasons when someone said something was impossible. He pushed for non-bespoke components, cheaper and more available materials, better computers, engineering and systems that could be refurbished rather than one-off throw-aways. On and on and on. Falcon 9 was built from the ground up to be a reusable, recoverable rocket rather than a boondoggle. Because he was convinced it was going to blow open the door to space.
Turns out, he was 100% correct. Hate him or not, you cannot say he was wrong. And it was his money that got there. SpaceX nearly went under, bankrupt. Most space companies without endless government largess to lean upon do bankrupt themselves, because space is expensive. A hundred million dollars (the initial investment that nearly ran out leaving them in bankruptcy) sounds like a lot of money until you start fabricating rockets and trying to launch them. Then it goes quick.
Should Musk shut his mouth more in public and not have hard right political views? I think so. He should definitely shut up and just run his companies. But he doesn't, and that's complicated everything.
Henry Ford had a lot of problems. A lot. Very problematic guy, to put it mildly. He was still an industrial revolutionary, hate him or not. He also didn't have to deal with social media and a world trained to turn every single anything into a circus. Does that excuse Musk? No. Absolutely not.
But it does provide at least a small amount of context for the fishbowl spotlight Musk lives in. He could give a baby a lollypop and still be eviscerated for it, people are so beholden to irrationally hating his very existence.
Many of Musk's problems are entirely of his own making. But his companies aren't those problems. They're just convenient additional targets for people who've already decided they hate Musk to shit on.
It's not enough to hate him, they have to destroy everything he touches. That's what happens in the modern era. Cancellation. Musk Bad, therefore SpaceX, Tesla, all of them are bad too. That's the logic of the mob.
Frankly it's really tiresome. No I don't agree with Musk politically. Even if he was a quiet CEO/Billionaire who never gave interviews or talked to anyone publicly ever, I'd still not 'like' him. Because he's a billionaire. I'm predisposed to not like him for that reason alone.
But he's done some really important things. Stuff everyone else was utterly certain would never happen and was folly, he's just made it happen. Made it reality. People can, have, and will continue to fill books with bad shit Musk has done, real or imagined. But there are some objective, concrete things he's done that are historical, valuable, good, worthy, and have changed the future of humanity.
If only he'd just shut up, that would be the story. And everyone loves a good story. Since they have a nice juicy one in "Musk Bad", that's what they keep writing sequels to.
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Comment on US President Joe Biden pardons son in ~society
DavesWorld Link ParentThe sole restraint on politicians used to be public will. Good faith. Integrity. The desire of our 'leaders' to act in good faith, with integrity. To display honor and decorum. Not even legality,...The sole restraint on politicians used to be public will. Good faith. Integrity. The desire of our 'leaders' to act in good faith, with integrity. To display honor and decorum. Not even legality, just good faith and public confidence. If you didn't "technically" break the law, you still lost your political career just from the appearance of impropriety.
That's not the case now. Hasn't been for a long, long, long time. Everyone knows it. This isn't news. What does it do? Erode confidence in the rule of law. Which has brought us to this point. Not Biden's pardon, but what's widely expected to begin happening after 20 Jan 25.
If everyone involved was acting in good faith, with honor and integrity, then Biden's action (pardoning, literally granting a Get Out Of Jail card to a family member, solely for reasons of advantaging his family member) would be shocking, a travesty, and worthy of extreme scorn.
Except we're so, so, so far past that point. Nixon got fucking pardoned and that was apparently okay. Regan didn't go down for Iran-Contra. Bush Jr didn't go down for actual war crimes when he (or his administration) lied about WMDs as an excuse to invade. Trump wasn't convicted, (pick whichever of his trials you want; he walked out of all of them, certainly the ones that he should have gone to jail for).
A sitting president did everything except explicitly say "storm the capital and hand me dictatorial power." He said pretty much everything else, but he didn't spell it out like a grade schooler. What's been the result?
Most people decide along party lines. If they're Right, they dismiss it as no big deal. If they're Left, pretty outraged. Center, mostly just sees it as the usual business of politics.
That's erosion of the rule of law in action. The citizens allowing corruption to continue. It's been building for about sixty or so years, accelerated in the 80s when Regan dismantled unions and wealth taxes to unleash the full power of the Rich to keep and use their money, hit the Fast and Furious nitro boost in the 90s when Gingrich unveiled his "just win baby" modern political doctrine, and went airborne in the 10s with MAGA and Trump not even bothering to come up with some "story that'll sell" when they do illegal and corrupt shit.
We are headed for hell. Biden pardoning Biden isn't even going to be a footnote in history. And a footnote is probably the best case scenario for how it'll get mentioned, if it is at all. Unless MAGA succeeds in rolling out the dictatorship.
Then it'll be plastered big and proud, screamed from the rafters.
The irony that proclaiming it as corruption proves the corruption has truly taken over and we've fallen as a country will be utterly lost on those gleefully proclaiming it. They'll just keep insisting they're right and that means they get to have power because dictators rule. Literally.
It's disingenuous and naive to look at Biden pardoning his son and trying to argue that "destroys" the integrity of the process. There hasn't been integrity for a very long time. We're headed for civil revolt one way or another. Biden pardoning his son is just an example of everyone for themselves. Because that's what happens when war starts; you're on your own.
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Comment on US President Joe Biden pardons son in ~society
DavesWorld Link ParentIf Trump decides to act on his narcissistic need for revenge as a way to demonstrate his dictatorial power (and thus inflate his sense of self and superiority), pardoning any of those likely...If Trump decides to act on his narcissistic need for revenge as a way to demonstrate his dictatorial power (and thus inflate his sense of self and superiority), pardoning any of those likely targets only really does one thing of consequence.
It would force Trump and MAGA to say the quiet part out loud.
So, with that in mind, while I think pardoning anyone who's a likely Trump target is probably useless and futile as a way to "protect" them, it would protect the nation. In that it would force Project25 to go hot, use live rounds, and actually act as dictators.
A lot of his revenge targets are state level though. Sure he might want to fabricate bullshit to punish a list of DOJ staffers or something similar, fire them, arrest them, show-sham trial prosecute them, but there's a number of state level actions he's had to sit through. New York in particular.
He can't act against them openly without violating rule of law. He'd have to go live and roll troops to arrest those judges, jurors, attorneys, plaintiffs, and so on. They're not part of the federal system. If he wants to target them, he has to go hot to do so.
It'll come down to how serious they are about saying the dictator part out loud. Are they just waving the bloody flag for their base, rabble-rabbling themselves to feel better? Or are they serious and do want to remove rule of law?
Hello history, wish you weren't here.
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Comment on US President Joe Biden pardons son in ~society
DavesWorld Link ParentThat's something very few people who will tell you very eagerly, often vehemently, that some kinds of content and speech "should be restricted" ever seem to realize, or recognize. Namely, how such...That's something very few people who will tell you very eagerly, often vehemently, that some kinds of content and speech "should be restricted" ever seem to realize, or recognize. Namely, how such a law or authority to do it does not, in any way, assure or guarantee it will be used in "the right" way.
The folks who want to run around, online or in person, restricting speech will always tell you it's for a great reason. A good one. A moral and kind and civilized one. "They're saying horrible stuff; they should be made to stop right now." And all manner of variations on that simple theme. It's always "they're saying things I disagree with."
They'll disagree with it morally. It's always morals at the end of the day. They'll say "my morality teaches this (speech) is wrong, and thus should NOT BE ALLOWED." And they'll be quite eager to hand over authority to someone who is then empowered to squash that speech. Simply because it's "immoral."
Morality is relative, flexible, changing, and subject to both interpretation and abuse. Many of the same people, today for example, who want online portals to monitor for and censor speech they find immoral (a lot of conservative viewpoints fall into these categories lately) fail to see how the exact same arguments they use to advocate for how and why that speech should be so treated apply in reverse to their speech, their viewpoints, completely without alteration.
It only depends on what the empowered person decides. They could decide to "support" your morality with that power, or they could decided to use it against you by squashing yours and allowing your opponents' speech to persist.
Power is abused. That's the nature of power. That's why we call it power. It gives authority and ability, especially when that power is given to government, which has already gone about arranging society to give itself overriding power in the first place.
Do I agree with many, if any, conservative viewpoints? No, I really don't. Especially not extreme ones, the positions that are particularly 'inflammatory' such as regressive religious practices and views that advocate for their being forced upon the broad populace.
But that should be a societal debate to settle, not something we decide to allow government, or a corporation, to Bigfoot us about. Sure it sounds great when Bigfoot is on your side. What happens when it's not? When the people who make the call to slam that Bigfoot down to censor and criminalize speech are doing it in ways you disagree with?
It's a power too dangerous to allow government, a corporation, or even society at large to have. If society wants to engage in vigorous debate amongst itself about what's 'right' or 'wrong', that's healthy.
The act of people arguing (especially disagreeing) with one another over these concepts is a leavening factor. It moderates and illuminates the positions, exposes people to concepts, offers them a chance (even if they don't realize it) to think and consider. Creates opportunities to push back and change minds. It allows society to grow.
Allowing any Bigfoot, government or corporate, even your local Home Owner's Association President, the ability to inflict absolute penalties and removal of speech solely on their decision alone ... that is beyond dangerous. It's abusive, and it will be abused. It always has been.
And yet you still see people so eager to hand that power over. To normalize the ability for a Bigfoot to roll in against a person's wishes and declare "you're saying things we've decided you shouldn't, come with us or we'll use force."
Even the Left is blind to this. Blind to how they're usually caught up in self-righteous congratulations over their own moral superiority. How they're so eager to criminalize differing viewpoints to offer advantage to their own.
Humans will abuse anything. If you made a rule that said "everyone who attends a birthday party must bring a present" I guarantee people would abuse it. They'd make up extra birthdays, they'd get themselves invited to an enemy's birthday and give cruel or traumatizing presents, who knows? Saying humans look for and exploit loopholes is the same as saying humans breathe.
Giving the power to control speech over is basically giving the power to control thought away. It sounds great when the thoughts being controlled aren't yours, and further, belong to people you hate.
What happens when they have that power, and control your thoughts? Or just control you?
Free Speech can be abused, but it's safer than normalizing censorship. Which is always abused.
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Comment on Is Wise bank safe? in ~finance
DavesWorld (edited )LinkThis is probably a lawyer question to be certain. You could try contacting the FDIC or a government Banking/Finance Regulation Office and specifically ask them if they can tell you what the...This is probably a lawyer question to be certain. You could try contacting the FDIC or a government Banking/Finance Regulation Office and specifically ask them if they can tell you what the situation would be if this 'bank' ran into financial difficulties, and they might email you back an answer you can rely on.
That aside, if the 'bank' in question is online only, if it's not connected to an established bank, if it's tech industry, and especially if it's offering high interest rates or other inducements (regular lotteries, gifts, any kind of Wow! Money! rewards) ... you're not a client so much as an investor.
Meaning, they're very likely trying to act similarly to an investment or hedge fund rather than an actual consumer bank. Regardless of what their marketing says. They need invested resources they can turn around and earn off of by dumping into other financial vehicles. Having money means they can make money.
Sure they're trying to cut investors (you, anyone who opens and maintains accounts with funds) into the fun, but that doesn't change how it's an investment. Not a bank. It's all gravy for everyone involved ... until there's a problem. Downturns, over leveraging themselves, all sorts of things can happen and suddenly they're out of money. Which was your money.
If a bank, an actual bank, screws up (which happens; banks get closed and taken over by the Fed not infrequently), that's where FDIC kicks in. That's what banking regulations are so often about, and why they came about in the first place.
Finance has invented some truly Byzantine ways to "make" money. A lot of them get very complicated. Just the 2008 banking crisis alone should illustrate that. There are multiple movies that tried to dumb things down (Margot Robbie in a bathtub anyone?) and still people were not clear, actively confused, over what really happened.
It's only our problem when they fuck up. Like they did in 2008. Which was not the only time in history. Most government regulations about banking came about to protect citizens, designed to encourage trust in banking. These days, as we all should know, regulatory capture has weakened these regulations and the rare implementation of new ones don't keep up with reality. Leaving citizens vulnerable to financial predators.
Finance plays fast and loose, always. That's the kind of people who get into it, who move up in it, and who start opening companies or managing billion dollar funds. Greedy, impatient, eager for vast profitable success now rather than slow and steady on the safe path. Now we have tech bros and similar types, including finance types funding them via venture capital, trying to move into the space.
Rather than do it as an investment (which it is, and how they view and operate it), they call it a bank. Try to take advantage of how people won't or can't investigate, dig through layers, understand the laws and regulations that might or might not be in effect. They plaster FDIC stuff into their literature, use banking terminology, to encourage 'deposits'. Which they then use to invest with. This is the problem for little people, who risk a lot even when they don't realize it.
For example, banks have specific regulations about how much of customer deposits they have to hold in reserve. Meaning, how much they can't lose. They might encounter any number of other difficulties, like a market crash or whatever, but the regulations if followed mean they don't get literally bankrupted. The bank still might close or have extreme financial hardship if they screw up badly enough and lose too much of what they invested, but the reserve regulations act to mitigate the disaster.
These tech bro 'banks' are an attempt to dance around those kinds of things. The same way banks invented terms like "investment bank" and other concepts to try and move away from those regulations they find onerous and unprofitable which very much apply to "consumer" banks.
Tread carefully. The safest thing is to treat these 'banks' exactly the same way you'd treat an investment. You only park money there you're prepared to lose. Either permanently, or for months/years if it all goes belly up and you have to see if lawyers or government regulators might be able to recover it for you (which'll take time because lawyers).
If you're living paycheck to paycheck, you are right to be very, very skeptical and cautious. Except, these are the kind of people the tech bros are including in their prey profile. When you're that broke, an extra five percent a week (or whatever the enticements might be) sounds pretty good. Offer a thirsty man water and he says yes gimmie. But you're probably too busy and too beaten down by the rest of your burden to be able to investigate the 'bank' properly when you're that low on the totem pole, rushing around trying to keep the ends meeting.
Then it all goes away, and suddenly you've lost a paycheck or two when the 'bank' vanishes or whatever. Your landlord, your utility provider, the grocery store, they won't care that it's not your fault. That you were duped, defrauded. They'll want their money or they'll show you the door.
And of course government hasn't stepped in. Too much money to be made. Finance regulators come from the finance industry. Foxes guarding the sheep.
We're the sheep. Caveat emptor .
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Comment on Populism, media revolutions, and our terrible moment by Hank Green in ~society
DavesWorld Link ParentWe're the constant. Humans. For the same reason porn is usually leading the charge to expand and explore the potential of any new technology that might help with distribution or exhibition or...We're the constant. Humans.
For the same reason porn is usually leading the charge to expand and explore the potential of any new technology that might help with distribution or exhibition or display of content, humans can always be relied on to screw things up.
It's in our nature. Too many people are just unwilling to settle, to share, or to step aside. They have to be right, they have to be in charge, they have to win. Some of them are willing to step on people, or worse, if it gets them to those goals. Start stepping on folks, some of them step back, or they have friends and family who object, and before you know it there's shouting flying hither and yon, then it's arrows or bullets or laser beams.
I looked it up once, because I do that sometimes. "May you live in interesting times" can't be directly attributed to anywhere in particular. They've found a use of it in the early twentieth century, and that's apparently where the Chinese attribution comes from because that first mention is someone saying a friend told it to them as Chinese. There's no direct proof of its actual origin though.
Regardless though, interesting times usually suck for the people living through them. Fair is a very modern concept. Most of human history, fair came from force. Fair was what you could enforce. If you were strong, you won, or at least kept what you considered yours. The weak were fodder for the strong, always.
It's really no different today. Strong used to be a big tall guy who could beat people up. Some of the people who got beat up managed to change the rules along the way, bring other forms of power up in prominence to give themselves primacy over those whose power was merely physical.
That whole concept has developed, and now we have "power brokers" and "king makers", along with the classic power hungry and greedy and manipulative types. The movers and shakers, the convincers, the swayers, the rulers. All of them people who use others to get their way. They stand up and say "follow me" and if they have enough who do, then they're in charge. But others are standing up too, so they fight with each other to establish primacy.
These days it happens at the wealth level (business mostly) and the political level, as a semi-recent addition to the pantheon of the powerful. It's still the same as it ever was though. People who want power, and who are prepared to do a lot of things to get or keep it.
Some of those things include stepping on the rest of us if it gets them what they want.
Fuck interesting. There's a lot to be said for boring. There's a reason soldiers are often popularized as retiring to a farm. Farms are usually boring. Battles aren't.
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Comment on Bomb threats made against US President-Elect Donald Trump cabinet nominees in ~society
DavesWorld Link ParentAs usual, it's all complicated and messy and there are no definitive right answers. The big problem is violence is the perfect excuse to ramp up the dictatorship. There's a reason the False Flag...As usual, it's all complicated and messy and there are no definitive right answers.
The big problem is violence is the perfect excuse to ramp up the dictatorship. There's a reason the False Flag is a tried and tested successful strategy politically and militarily. If you want an excuse to go hot and bring the big guns to bear, you just take one in the gut, then straighten up and gasp "see, see what they did? Get'em!"
It rarely doesn't work. At least in the near term, it usually does work.
But, after the fact (which doesn't often help the present much if at all), the truth can trickle out. History can sometimes find that truth, even if it takes a long time.
A false flag might buy enough confusion and cover to go hot and heavy and roll the big guns, but in a few months, maybe a year, if it starts to become more obvious it was a false flag, that can have tremendously dangerous implications. Always better for the truth to be on your side. If you can actually have them hit you first, why, you're the defender. You're the righteous one! Easy narrative, very clear.
There are people thinking about False Flag scenarios. Some of them are smart enough to realize it's a risk, that the truth could leak and turn things against them. They might win the battle, but lose the war, if they use a False Flag to kick things off en route to a dictatorship.
For example, there might be scenarios where other governments will be appalled and very eager to offer help, if political violence by "the minority" targets "the sitting American Government". But some of those governments might withdraw their support if it comes out that the whole thing was a lie. That's the easy example.
Where does that leave us if Project2025 isn't a lie? If they are planning to run the table with their list and implement an autocratic oligarchy?
Well, to play the "good guy game", to maintain "the high ground", you have to do something very hard. You have to let them punch you in the gut.
Except, it's not you. Probably not me. But it'll be someone. Somewhere, some group, some town, some court, some something, will be targeted. It'll be obvious. It'll not be a secret. Lots of people will know it's coming. It'll be something like a standoff. Maybe, for example, over a court.
As the example, Trump might target the New York courts that have hounded him unsuccessfully since 2020. He might get to the point of ordering troops in to arrest judges or jurors, to round up district attorneys, that kind of thing. He'll probably be loud and proud about it. "Kneel to me, turn them over, or I'll send people to just take them by force."
It could be an immigrant group, or a Leftist group, a "hotbed of filthy traitorous commie liberals", something like that. They warn, they'll probably warn a few times, they'll stage troops or showcase the bombs or whatever. It'll be real obvious. They'll want the fear to kick in. They'll hope for everyone to bend the knee and just take it. To just say "okay, take them, not us." For everyone to stand aside and let that kind of shit happen.
And before it actually has started happening, the tough impossible strategy will be to let it happen. Military strategy is to strike first, to minimize damage. If you know the enemy is going to attack, you don't just sit there waiting.
Unless you need cover. Deniability. The high ground. Then you have to sit there and take it. You have to let them cross the border. Or, here, the line. It won't really matter to everyone, especially on the world stage but also internally on the domestic front, how clear and obvious it might be that Trump and the P25 douches were going to start committing war crimes, start ignoring the rule of law at the barrel of a gun.
It should, but it won't. Not to all of them. Not to everyone. Some people, some governments, if it's not crystal clear that the dictators initiated the violence, will decline to help. Will decline to join the fight against the dictators.
That's the long term need. Win the war, not the battle.
If the P25 douches are serious, they'll push it through, and probably pause to see how stupid their enemies are. If those enemies do the tactically expedient thing and strike first out of defense, that could very well lose the war on the strategic front. Because it muddies everything up.
When they start rolling hot, someone somewhere is going to have to take that first gut punch. It's going to suck, totally suck. People will die, who knew they were likely to die, and they'll still die anyway. They'll have to let the troops fire into the crowd before they open up in return, they'll have to let the bomb go off, they'll have to let the missile launch. Whatever it is, they'll have to sit there and wait for the dictator douches to swing first.
Once they do, all hell breaks loose and who knows what'll happen. Definitely a historical moment, and living through history always sucks. It's neat and interesting to read about after the fact, but when you're in the middle of it there's no fun for anyone. But in this modern age, with people who like to play multidimensional chess with everyone's lives simply over politics and power, swinging first could very likely lose the war.
If things are as messy as they probably will be, the "good guys" will want all the truth there is to muster as support. Striking first just creates the excuse the dictators want. If they're going to go hot, make them go hot. Make them prove they want it.
Make them show the color of their flag.
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Comment on What are the cons of Google being forced to give up its control of Chrome? in ~tech
DavesWorld Link ParentThe issue is, how does a browser monetize? Way, way, way back at the dawn of the internet, it was quickly established that the browser "should" be free. In that no one really pushed hard to charge...The issue is, how does a browser monetize?
Way, way, way back at the dawn of the internet, it was quickly established that the browser "should" be free. In that no one really pushed hard to charge for it. Microsoft was certainly instrumental in this. They'd sell you Windows, sell you Office, but they gave you Internet Explorer.
So every other company that thought about maybe coding and launching a browser had to compete with free. Eventually Microsoft got sued over IE, and that's a whole thing in and of itself, but the damage had mostly been done.
Today, no one thinks of having to buy a browser. They have to buy other software, either upfront or (unfortunately on an increasing basis) along the way via marketing and ads and upsale stuff, but not the browser.
Basically, the bulk of any money a browser can make comes from either ads, or some kind of "we'll pay you to include it in our install/package/device" deals. Which Google and Apple (controlling Android and the Apple Ecosystem) generally don't want or need because Chrome/Safari are the choices there. Microsoft has Edge now, so they don't want it either.
So how does Chrome, any browser, make money, without a sugar daddy? Firefox exists mostly because some open source advocate hackers forked it off Mozilla/Netscape, since they hated the commercialization of the pre-fork entity. Somewhere along the way, I'm not going to specifically research it, someone at Google realized they were vulnerable to antitrust if the government ever woke up and started paying to ensure Firefox had enough funding to survive.
Without Google paying, Firefox's revenue craters. Because it's mostly that nice fat lump sum Google pays into their coffers. Edge is funded by Microsoft. Safari by Apple. Those browsers exist only because their parent entities want a browser on their OS with their branding, so they pay rather than just walking away and letting some other entity supply the browser.
Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, really all the megacorp tech companies need to be broken up. I doubt it's going to happen because they'll just pay a nice lump sum to Trump, probably some smaller sums to others in the administration, and Kahn along with the rest of the troublemakers at the FTC who've decided to start enforcing antitrust will just go away. The cases will also go away for the same reason. Money talks.
But in some fantasy world where law and order still has a role, what about isolating Chrome from Google? As a thought exercise.
Breaking Chrome alone out of Google is stupid. It won't solve the problem they claim it will. Who's going to pay billions for Chrome? It's value is only to Google, who can only tap that value via monopolistic practices they're under antitrust scrutiny for.
Sure it means Chrome can "operate independently" without "Google's abusive influence", but that's not the same as being able to operate. What does an independent Chrome do to survive? Sit around waiting for a benefactor to start paying them?
Are we going to accept that Google and Bing, maybe the AI companies if they move into the search space as some expect they will, any well funded search company, simply begins paying regularly into browser coffers for some reason? For what? To buy the default search option, or branding rights (Chrome, sponsored by OpenAI, as an example) or something similar?
Or do the browsers do what a lot of tech savvy consumers already hate, and cave to marketing. Adblock only works because browsers don't outlaw it. Google finally got tired of not outlawing it, and has done so with Chrome. When it's their code, of course they can guarantee it will take massive, ongoing effort by anti-commercialization hackers to have any chance of any kind of functional adblock. If any such adblock even exists.
So in this untethered browser tech world, all the browsers become massive ad whores just to survive? Will we have a constant revolving door of the latest "fuck you, we're forking because ads are evil" breakaway groups who, a year or two later, get tired of living out of their relatives' basements and not getting paid? So their forks start monetizing via ads, and "how dare they" outrage swells up yet again, and then the next cycle of "fuck you" forks spiral off again, and again, and again?
If they want to break Google, some sort of top to bottom full slice has to occur I think. Like, take the entire company and divide it evenly into four or five pieces. Not something siloed out by division. Unless the expectation is to do a major breakup, and somehow the ad company will be expected to make deals with all the others so they have funding.
But, again, I really doubt Google is about to be broken up. Their revenue is into the hundreds of billions of dollar range annually. If they got broken apart by real antitrust action with serious teeth, they know full well that revenue would plummet. Even before competition might impact it, just losing the synergies and monopolistic abuses that inflate their takings would have a significant shrinking effect.
So what's cheaper? Lose tens of, probably hundreds of, billions of dollars annually going forward? Or write a few billions (plural) dollar checks to Trump and a couple of others to make sure the third-of-a-trillion dollar gravy train keeps chugging unimpeded?
I would be shocked if Google or Alphabet reps aren't already in contact with Trump. It's just a cost of doing business. And if even one out of fifty senior execs quit in outrage over it, I'd be even more shocked. They're senior execs raking in mega bucks from a mega corp. They didn't get to those positions by being kind and altruistic. Moral. Ungreedy. No, they'll be sitting in meetings deciding how much to pay Trump, not if they will.
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Comment on The price America paid for its first big immigration crackdown in ~humanities.history
DavesWorld Link ParentPeople like to say racism in situations like this, or the one the world (and certainly the US) is in the early stages of facing now, but that's really not accurate. It's tribalism, not racism....- Exemplary
People like to say racism in situations like this, or the one the world (and certainly the US) is in the early stages of facing now, but that's really not accurate. It's tribalism, not racism. It's people picking "their team" and deciding everyone else isn't on their team. The team could be a country, a state, a county, a city, a neighborhood.
Since, historically, populations tended to homogenize over generations, newcomers usually stand out physically, if not by custom and culture. New is more scary than old, than familiar. When people get scared, they don't want "scary" things around them. Especially if they perceive those sources of fear as causing the fear.
Now put that in the context of adults, who have bills. Food costs money. A roof over your head costs money. When times get tough, when it becomes uncomfortably mysterious and uncertain whether or not you'll have food and a roof next month, next week, tomorrow, people dial up their survival instincts.
And those instincts tell them to get what they can for themselves. Whatever they can, however they can. Money, food, whatever; they don't have it, they need it, and they want it. If there's not enough to go around, they'll have to get it from someone else. If that person has to go without, that's just what'll happen.
Anyone who insists that's not how they are, not who they are, has never faced these circumstances. Has always had enough. It's really easy to be generous and accommodating when you have what you need. And enough to give some of it away. It's another thing entirely to give the shirt off your back, the food off your plate. And not just your shirt, your plate; the shirt and plate that belongs to your kids, your family.
Is it good, that people get needy and greedy and grabby? No. But it's human. Dogs fight over scraps. Give a starving dog food, then try to take that food. See how likely it is you keep your hand intact. People are just smarter dogs when they're starving.
All over the western world, the wealth classes have taken and taken. Right up to the line. The rise of populism argues they've crossed the line, again. Taken too much. They've denied too many wage increases, raised housing costs too far, pushed food and other basic supplies too high.
It's not mysterious that establishment politics, which has overseen these failures, is not trusted to fix them. If they didn't want these situations to become so dire, they would've done something before now is the thinking desperate voters use when deciding to listen to the populist.
In the same way a coach of a perennially losing team will be blamed, so too are the politicians in power. They had their chances to fix the situation their most vulnerable citizens were in. And didn't. It's remarkably easy for outsiders to say "it's their fault" and use that as a lever to vault to power. It's happening all over the world right now. In Europe, in America.
It'll keep happening until power cracks down to "restore order", or people stop feeling so vulnerable. That uncertainty, that poverty, drives fear. The basic simple fear of going without. Of starving, of being homeless. If "the establishment" politicians all around the world want to return to the good old days where they were comfortably in charge and got to run their countries mostly in peace, they need to change the circumstances that leave voters feeling so afraid.
Wages must go up, costs must go down. Period. Any solution has to boil down to that, and it has to be a rapid boil with a rapid fix and rapid results the populaces can feel. That's what'll dampen their fear, and defang the populists whose only card to play is "it's their fault" while pointing.
If the people they try to point at are helping, fixing problems, the pointing isn't as productive. Doesn't yield as many votes. It'll stop, fade, cease to be a disruptive political force when people stop listening. They'll stop listening when they have other options. When they believe others will help them more than the populists.
Or, the establishment and everyone else can just whine about how evil and sad it is that we're all 'devolving'.
People never evolved. We just had periods of plenty. Then, as ever, other people came along and took more than their share. Leaving others to struggle and starve. Unlike starving dogs, people have tools.
Some of those tools are horrific. But so is starving to death.
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Comment on Autopsy report as novel intro? How? in ~creative
DavesWorld LinkThe first sentence of a book should make the reader want to move to the second. First paragraph should cause them to want to finish the page. Finishing that first page should encourage them to...The first sentence of a book should make the reader want to move to the second. First paragraph should cause them to want to finish the page. Finishing that first page should encourage them to turn it and keep reading. If those three firsts can't get that page turned, you have lower odds of them reading your book.
So accuracy and all that should be secondary to making for an interesting scene.
What story thing has to happen in this scene? Is it nothing more than "someone died?" Or, is it "someone died in a weird way?" Those are the two most obvious things I can think of. A third might be "this coroner is an interesting person."
The first two don't necessarily have to happen at work, during the autopsy. There are lots of ways to establish death or weird death. The third doesn't really necessarily have to happen at work either. The coroner could (insert character building stuff) that establish (coroner's interesting weirdness) that might not need work, the autopsy.
But all that aside (though, seriously, the three firsts and turning the page are ignored at your peril), accuracy doesn't matter. The goal isn't to make some coroner reading it jump up and shout "yes, finally, perfect accuracy, it's like I was in the room cutting that body open." The goal is an interesting scene. Casually interesting. You're writing a story, not a textbook.
Casual doesn't have to mean it's one hundred percent absolutely wrong in every detail. It just means it only has to look good. Again, story, not textbook.
I would imagine, whatever the actual goal of that scene is, whatever purpose it serves for your story, doesn't require perfect accuracy. It's just a setting. Why? There are lots of reasons why a scene might be set during an autopsy. Those other reasons are probably more important for the scene than perfect autopsy accuracy.
You can go a long, long way with strong storytelling. And background stuff can be managed with just one or two solid details. Audiences have imaginations. It's the most powerful tool a storyteller has. Inviting the audience to fill in the blanks.
They love doing that. It makes them feel connected. Because whatever they come up with, they usually like it. After all, they made it. It's why some people get so invested in mysteries, and get so bent out of shape when their solution turns out different from whatever the author came up with. They liked their idea more.
Give them one or two things that feel right, that feel good, and they take over. They go "oh, autopsy, got it." And in their heads, they're filling stuff in even if you don't. Like they might imagine the room's really cold, or quiet. Maybe it smells weird. And so on. Stuff that helps the story you're telling. But mostly, they take that setting and move on with your story.
How does every TV coroner scene go? Some coroner with a tape recorder going "This is X and I'm in Y's morgue, patient Z died of Z1 and Z2 circumstances, beginning examination." Then we smash cut to that same coroner facing off against (detectives/PI/boss/secret government agents/whoever) going "and then I found something weird."
Who really wants the squish and gush of an autopsy? Not most readers. Even most horror fans don't. They want good story. They want it interesting. Anyone who wants to feel the blood and smell the intestines probably already got a job in a morgue. Everyone else, they might be reading a book. It could be yours.
Every scene is a reason they might stop. Find reasons for each scene that'll keep them reading. And get those reasons front and center soonest.
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Comment on An antitrust advocate reflects on the Democratic Party's cult of powerlessness in ~society
DavesWorld Link ParentWe're already there. It's just not official yet. There's still, until January 20, some lip service about "land of the free" and "free country" and "democracy". Over the past decade, with some...US is heading towards some sort of autocracy/oligarchy at an increasingly alarming rate
We're already there. It's just not official yet. There's still, until January 20, some lip service about "land of the free" and "free country" and "democracy".
Over the past decade, with some setup in the decade or so prior to that, the Wealth class in America has positioned themselves to take official control. Most major governmental departments are revolving doors between industry and the federal positions.
The Finance Industry is one big "fuck you" to everyone else, because "only professionals can understand the complicated world of finance" so Wall Street 'polices' itself since Wall Street staffs those departments supposed to be overseeing it.
SCOTUS has made it clear bribery is legal. You just have to do it "the right way" and it's not a crime. Project 2025 wants to gut just about every single governmental department. We're about to return to the Wild Wild West, where the wealthy rancher owns the local Sheriff, and it's so strange how anyone that rancher doesn't like is always in trouble. Or turning up dead.
That's what's about to happen everywhere. We have dozens of megacorps with nation-state money. Dozens more individuals with small nation-state money. We have several hundred wealthy ranchers who employ thousands of state and local level trusted confidants who will put every government of any level in their pocket. Bought and paid for.
Google's been fighting some antitrust stuff for a while now. Since Regan we've had a complete lack of antitrust. Really just the Microsoft IE case, but Microsoft saw how dangerous and costly that fiasco was for them, and they (along with every other mega corp) have spent the intervening decades ensuring it doesn't happen again.
Until a crusader, Kahn, came in. A true believer. Someone who's apparently resisted what were almost certainly a lot of efforts to convince her and her staff to cut that annoying shit out. Doing your job? Antitrust? Seriously? Oh, you are serious? Shit, you are serious. What can we do ... oh Trump.
He's back in office, and he can just say whatever the hell he wants and Kahn is going to be unable to continue pursuing the case. There's probably a dozen fairly simple different ways the office of the President, especially if they don't give a shit about appearances, can just make the case vanish. It won't matter that it's apparently got to sentencing. It'll just go away, and the others will too.
There's a really easy example of what's about to happen on the national scale. In The Firm, the novel not the film which differs from the way the novel wrapped up, McDeere flees to Florida trying to escape and evade the Mob. The criminals know he's in Panama City Beach, but not where. So they descend on the city with all their foot soldiers to find him.
How do they do it? Not by kicking in doors and going openly apeshit, which would bring in cops and stuff. No, they just start knocking on doors of hotels and motels and rental houses and everything like that. Each little team of foot soldiers has a stack of cash. They ask questions like "have you seen this man" and variations on that.
And they start peeling off cash. Some housekeeper says she's too busy to talk, cash just gets handed over. Some manager says guest details are confidential, hand over cash. Some taxi driver says his boss will fire him for pulling up records, cash. The foot soldiers are instructed to just keep handing over cash until the person they're questioning becomes cooperative.
Breaking legs, punching people in the eye, would draw attention. So they just keep giving cash until cooperation is achieved.
Except now, on the national scale in the 21st Century America that's been allowed to come about, there's literally zero need to pretend or hide. Want something? Start handing over money. Keep handing over money until that bureaucrat, Department Secretary, Representative, Senator, President, becomes cooperative. If they're squawking and saying things like "can't" or "not sure" or "might not be possible", you haven't given them enough yet. Keep handing money over.
Used to be, that was bribery. Not anymore. Now it's just government.
Wake up wageslaves. Time to make the doughnuts chooms.
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Comment on Private school - worthwhile/good idea for not rich people? in ~life
DavesWorld LinkPredictably, a lot of responses so far are focusing on the quality of the education. Private (or public in the English sense of the term; a paid for school rather than a government funded one) can...Predictably, a lot of responses so far are focusing on the quality of the education. Private (or public in the English sense of the term; a paid for school rather than a government funded one) can be 'better' quality wise. Not guaranteed though. And really not the thing I think matters most.
Networking is what matters. Life success comes from who you know, not what. Sure there's base levels of 'competence' in any field, from construction to fiance, entertainment to retail. Anything. But there's base, then there's brilliant.
The most base guy, who's friends with the right people, that's who's likely to advance. That's who gets the great jobs, the cushy office, the big success. The brilliant guy, odds are they'll probably manage to be comfortable if their brilliance is in something that pays well, but successful? Like, wildly and easily successful? More of a dice roll. Not a penalty, not a disadvantage, but not a sure thing.
Knowing the right people? That's more of a sure thing. Looking for a job? You're better off if you have friends who can help. Need a promotion? Same thing. Need help with an initiative or charity, a program, even just moving a body? Know the right people, it's more of a sure thing.
Private school, if your kids know to (and can) make the right friends there, that can set them up for life. Same for college/university. Sure the degree's nice. The degree isn't an anchor that'll drag them down, far from it. But if they hang out in the right college circles, make the right college friends, that's what sets them up for success.
Of course, this all depends on being able to make those friends. Horse, lead, water, drink, that old tale. Some people are just wallflowers, so the best they could hope for in this context is competence as their calling card. But if they have enough charisma, innate or manufactured, to become a childhood (or college) pal of people from useful families, who go on to do useful things ... there's a reason Alumni and Fraternity/Sorority networks are so valuable.
Basically what I'm saying is sure going to Oxford or Harvard is good. Beneficial. But going those schools and coming out of them with the phone numbers of the right folks who'll return your calls is worth ten times what the degree is. Same for education before university.
Right now the kid's four best school friends might just be pals, but later in life they could turn out to be people who can be helpful at the right times. That's what'll matter more than "oh, the school's ratings were top notch."
ps: and in case I wasn't clear, I'm assuming a private school is more likely to have the 'right' people attending. People who become useful to know because of their and their families' influence. The more the school costs, the more likely it probably is they're going to be able to help a pal if they want to.
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Comment on Thoughts on the perception of public figures in ~society
DavesWorld LinkI'm pretty much at the point where I would strongly prefer everyone who isn't already in politics to just never, ever talk about politics. If they have any kind of public profile, shut up. And I...I'm pretty much at the point where I would strongly prefer everyone who isn't already in politics to just never, ever talk about politics. If they have any kind of public profile, shut up. And I don't go looking either. I'm just so tired of finding out stuff I didn't want to know about someone and ruining what used to be a very simple virtual 'transaction.'
Now in business and that kind of thing, no. Politics plays a role. Not so much, except on a local level, with Joe's Landscaping. But when it's Microsoft or someone huge (including their key execs and so on), yeah they do impact politics. They're gonna talk politics, because politics affects their money.
When billions of dollars of revenue is flowing, even the most minor changes in laws or taxes will have vast impacts, which is why they spend so much lobbying. The execs who approve the lobbying are impacted too, because they're raking in tens of (sometimes hundreds of) millions of dollars a year so they care too and of course are gonna run around talking.
Because they're rich assholes, I never agree with them. I hate 'em. They deserve to be hated. They're greedy shitheads, mostly know it, and mostly don't care because they're freaking rich. Why would they care? They move and shake in the halls of power, walk into the best seats at any house in the world whenever they want, and live like kings. Of course they don't care. So I try to just ignore them because until the revolution comes that's pretty much as good as it'll get for me.
I'm used to ignoring them. Everyone else though, I don't care and honestly I just don't want to know. It'll just ruin things.
Like, for example, there's a guy on Youtube I watch. Does a lot of guy stuff. Builds, rural, outdoor hobbies, you get the idea. The stereotype is he's probably a conservative. But never, ever, does he even hint at political stuff. Not obliquely, not third or even fourth hand. Nada. The worst he's ever gotten at any point in anything I've watched is he gets a little upset, frustrated, with the local bureaucracy around zoning regulations sometimes.
If he is conservative, I don't want to know. I really don't. I enjoy watching what he shares online. I just want to go on enjoying that stuff. He builds and everything, it's fun to watch and think about. Relaxing. It'd just ruin it all if he started dropping opinions in. Why screw things up?
Same for actors really. There are a few actors, over the years, who I used to like who have ... taken turns. I'm not naming names, because then all anyone's going to do is want to debate and argue over what they may or may not have done, why it is or isn't worthy of canceling, that sort of thing. Not the point.
What is the point is they injected opinions into their public profiles.
The hypocritical aspect of this on my part, on really everyone's part if they'd be honest, is I wouldn't mind if they shared opinions I agree with. The issue is when we don't agree. That's what I'm afraid of. That's what has ruined things in the past.
I'd rather not know. Let me keep watching their movies, their shows. Listening to their music.
Just keep it professional. Voting is supposed to be anonymous. For a reason. This is one of them. If they want to be a raging asshole, by my perspective, in the voting booth ... that's their right. If they keep it to themselves, and show up on set and do the job of entertaining me when the camera's rolling ... let's both just enjoy that little moment of consensus.
There's so much chaos and pain in the world. I can't do constant rabble-rabble-rabble. I don't have the charisma to affect others, so I see it as a waste of time. If the revolution came, I'm a foot soldier, not a leader, because no one's gonna follow me. They follow charisma and that ain't me. I'm always looking for, hoping for, the moments of change. If and when they show, I very much want to get out and push.
I just want my fun to keep me from dwelling on the dark times for the rebellion. Empire is a fantastic movie, and some of that darkness is why. But it's like Cameron wrote in Strange Days.
Faith: You know one of the ways movies are still better than playback? The music comes up, there's credits, and you always know when it's over.
Sometimes you just need to be able to turn the movie on, and then off. Sometimes that's enough to keep you going.
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Comment on What does the word "cancelled" mean to you? in ~talk
DavesWorld LinkIt's a soundbite way to refer to someone or something that has been driven off from the common culture. Driven out. Forcibly removed by "common consent" of the culture (aka, the general unwashed...It's a soundbite way to refer to someone or something that has been driven off from the common culture. Driven out. Forcibly removed by "common consent" of the culture (aka, the general unwashed masses).
The term's definition describes the goal. So in common usage, cancelling is usually referring to if we should, rather than we already have.
In the nature of humans, they disagree. When disagreement arises over cancellation, that usually just precipitates fresh rage and new cancellation targets. If some people don't agree to a cancellation, they're often targets for cancellation themselves just for not agreeing to the other cancellation. Which spreads like a chain reaction, one cancel becoming two, then four, and so on as the easy access online mob attempts to widen its scope enough to bully "everyone" into giving up and agreeing with the cancellations.
In the modern era, that's what social and cultural disagreements have gotten to; a remarkable lack of nuance or restraint. There's either "eh, whatever, you do you" or "fuck off kill it with fire die die die now now now". With a shocking lack of middle ground.
No one is really willing to admit, or allow for, how humans are humans and being human means you Fuck Up sometimes. That you will err, that you will offend, that you will sometimes manage to say or do things without thinking them through exhaustively. That things you might have said or done in the past, whether or not you thought them through, might have been acceptable then, but with changing mores and attitudes are more or less (usually less for the purposes of this discussion) acceptable now.
And because of this attitude, that no one's allowed to fuck up, the modern sentiment has become brutally intolerant. That's what cancelling generally means to most people. A complete, utter, total rejection of the very existence of a target. They want that target to feel pain and only pain. They want that person to be isolated, shunned, expelled. No middle ground.
Now if this cancellation was reserved for truly heinous and horrific crimes, deliberate crimes, there's a conversation to be had. But people trot out cancellation for things that are often, at worst, some sort of momentary lapse of judgement where no actual physical harm has really occurred. Situations where it's often just words, which could be apologized for, where some compromise or discussion could be had to come to some sort of understanding so we could all move forward.
But the modern mob mentality fueled by instant validation social media culture will not countenance allowing an apology as a way to balance the scales.
This is a decent example of what has often happened in the past decade or so. Online social media has magnified it. People used to have to physically form the mob for there to be a raging mob "demanding justice". People would have to physically get up, walk out of their comfortable homes, down to the town square, rabble-rabble-rabble with one another, and form that mob.
That was an important leavening factor. People had to decide "how much, really, do I care about this issue?" They might care enough to make a comment in passing, to someone on the next bar stool over or sitting across from them at the bridge game, but to really get up and go get involved? Less often.
Now it's as easy as "hey, everyone, there's a mob, this is the link!" and someone else is being threatened with cancellation just that easily. Everyone has a phone, is online 24/7/365, and the next bar stool over is right there constantly. They have to expend no effort at all to "get involved".
Worse, most people consider it sport. It's validating to them to join the mob, because when they pile on with their "cleverness" and "insight" to pound and ridicule this hour's target, the others in the mob cheer them. Pat them on the back, reward them for furthering the mob. The validation circle jerks upon itself, feeding like a hurricane, drawing more and more in to enjoy that dopamine validation hit that feels so good.
That's why cancellation is such a charged topic. There are people who feel there are a lot of valid reasons to cancel someone. And who resent that there are people who feel there aren't, and that society has gone way too far. Become far too zero tolerance for a disturbingly broad set of "offenses" that really don't merit being canceled. Who object to "kill it with fire, burn, die die die" as the only reasonable response.
And when people disagree in the modern era, they designate their foes Others. Which makes them eligible for cancellation. So you often have one incident, where people began to rabble-rabble-rabble for cancellation. When there's any pushback, at all, from anyone, those pushing back are targeted too. They push back on the push back, and it just spreads and becomes more virulent and nasty and inflammatory.
Until everyone's at least one other group's Other. Without a middle ground, without tolerance of any kind. Others must be destroyed. Expelled. Exiled. Exterminated.
Cancelled.
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Comment on The Game Awards nominees 2024: Controversially, DLCs/expansions can now compete for GOTY in ~games
DavesWorld Link ParentAwards are marketing. They're launched and survive because of that. Most of the "big awards" people like to hold up as inviolate standards of "greatness" are some very small group of people, often...- Exemplary
Awards are marketing. They're launched and survive because of that. Most of the "big awards" people like to hold up as inviolate standards of "greatness" are some very small group of people, often corporate backed, that "award" those accolades.
It's not surprising AAA publishers want more bites at the apple. The pushback is for consumers to disengage from the awards. Arguing over the awards themselves just proves "relevance", that the awards will have some kind of impact that could affect sales.
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Comment on Conformity and contrarianism at the same time in ~talk
DavesWorld Link ParentAlso, some people conflate support for some issues with automatic support for other issues. An easy example from American politics (for some reason) is being progressive is "supposed" to mean...Also, some people conflate support for some issues with automatic support for other issues. An easy example from American politics (for some reason) is being progressive is "supposed" to mean you're stringently anti-gun. That only a "right wing asshole" would support guns is usually mixed up in the reactions you'll often get, if you're not Conservative or Right, yet pro Second Amendment.
So basically, it's assumptions tripping people up. They run around making assumptions, and then get not just confused, but shade more toward anger, when it starts to become clear the assumption wasn't true. People would often rather be angry than wrong. Easier too.
Way easier to just fling accusations, betrayal, raw emotion, than to accept something might not have lined up with the reality. Or to try to think and understand that person's decisions.
The only reason alternative products, any alternative product of any kind, wants to adopt an existing label is familiarity. Marketing in so many words. Sometimes it's just that, sometimes they want to obscure or distract from the actuality of the product.
I wish more places around the world would enforce names and labels more strictly. Especially with things like food. Germany, France too I believe, have some very set laws about labeling and names and so on. I like that. I wish it was more prevalent.
After all, nothing about the ruling here, or similar rulings, says they can't sell the product. Can't sell it for consumption even. It just says they have to label and name it something other than an existing product classification.
Objecting to that basically means you're in favor of wanting confusion. "What kind of milk" questions, in this case. Others I've seen pop up in recent years are "what kind of burger" or "what kind of meat."
Advertisers and marketing people are so convinced they can sell anything? Let them sell these newer products then. That's what they're paid to do right? Make them snappy and catchy and appealing? Familiarize us with them? Go to it then.