The new batman villain, the rizzler.
"My bills are all due
my looks are real bad
I'll comment on your shoes
And ask about your dad!"
"My bills are all due
my looks are real bad
I'll comment on your shoes
And ask about your dad!"
I didn't know where you were going with that when I saw this post, but I tend to agree that on a conceptual level there's no problem with a few instances being really popular.
I think that we should always be advocating for smaller instances made up of tighter communities for various reasons, but there's nothing wrong with it if a bunch of people end up on bigger instances. You really think that the Hollywood types are going to start running web servers solely for the purpose of accessing social media? That would be kinda fun, but it's not going to happen. Same with your typical man on the street, they can't figure out how to program their VCR they're not going to be running multiple servers. Email is essentially a federated system, and most people have Gmail accounts.
I think that we should always be advocating for smaller instances made up of tighter communities for various reasons, but there's nothing wrong with it if a bunch of people end up on bigger instances. You really think that the Hollywood types are going to start running web servers solely for the purpose of accessing social media? That would be kinda fun, but it's not going to happen. Same with your typical man on the street, they can't figure out how to program their VCR they're not going to be running multiple servers. Email is essentially a federated system, and most people have Gmail accounts.
Right before the pandemic began, I went to a comic book convention that had one of the YouTubers I watch attending. It was an opportunity to finally meet some of the audience in person.
Now this is a guy has been slandered with every single ism, but it was a little bit shocking realizing just how diverse his audience actually was. But no one really cared because there was more to each and every one of us than just our surface level attributes and so it was a really great time interacting with all kinds of people with one shared interest.
Now this is a guy has been slandered with every single ism, but it was a little bit shocking realizing just how diverse his audience actually was. But no one really cared because there was more to each and every one of us than just our surface level attributes and so it was a really great time interacting with all kinds of people with one shared interest.
Really, if you think about it it's a modern miracle that people who are producing software that is available for free can get paid. Not to mention, it's a modern miracle that results in a common good that anyone can use (and many of us are right now)
Perfect is definitely the enemy of the good.
Perfect is definitely the enemy of the good.
I bet if you set your user agent like that you get mobile web pages suited to a phone but immediately bypass paywalls on sites that have them?
You ever sit there going "you know I should really stop working on massive political analyses and spend some of that time working on my BASIC programming book"?
Naw, thought not....
Naw, thought not....
So what I'm hearing here is if we pay off the national debt we better also repeal a bunch of federal laws. 🤔
Man, what a concern to have, eh? "Oh no! We won't be handing free money to banks all the time!"
I can see a time where the bigger tent collapses due to success, just like what's happened on the left which used to have a much broader coalition.
It's a really dynamic system overall, almost an economic question as much as a political one. "How valuable are these people to you compared to how much does tolerating them bother you?"
It's a really dynamic system overall, almost an economic question as much as a political one. "How valuable are these people to you compared to how much does tolerating them bother you?"
I don't even need to watch the video to agree.
I ... ah ... want to tell ... ah ... canadians ... ah ... that i'm listening ... ah ... from my .... ah .... friends yaht ... ah ... in panama ... ah ... we understand ... ah ... your problems ... ah ... my servant tells me ... ah ... the groceries are going up in price ... ah .... I tell him to remind them I'm the prime minister
I ... ah ... want to tell ... ah ... canadians ... ah ... that i'm listening ... ah ... from my .... ah .... friends yaht ... ah ... in panama ... ah ... we understand ... ah ... your problems ... ah ... my servant tells me ... ah ... the groceries are going up in price ... ah .... I tell him to remind them I'm the prime minister
In another post in this thread I mentioned that I think the time to actually solve this problem was the 50s or 60s, when they should have paid off the debts from the world war with the newly implemented income tax then abolished both.
But as you said, the quasi-empire couldn't exist in that case, but I feel like the decline that every generation has lived through since wouldn't have had to happen.
But as you said, the quasi-empire couldn't exist in that case, but I feel like the decline that every generation has lived through since wouldn't have had to happen.
I forgot to mention environmentalism since that was also part of the consensus I speak of. And it shows more of the quadrupling down. Solar panels and windmills prove to be not great for most places? Quadruple down and build them to the exclusion of anything effective because they were popular ideas in 2008.
I had a bit of a worm tunneling through the ideas in my brain a while back watching the video from whatifalthist about the mouse utopia experiment. Part of it is that many of the mice had their stress centers maxxed out for no apparent reason. Everything was fine. There were no predators, there was lots of space, there was lots of food, and the fact there was nothing wrong stressed the mice out to the point that the colony was completely destroyed.
The mouse sexes converged. Male mice became effeminate, female mice became more masculine. Male mice stopped contributing to society. Female mice stopped correctly raising their offspring, and those offspring were stunted.
The guy running the experiment called it "the first death", where the mice seemed to lose their will to live and their will to pass the flame of life onto the next generation. Despite that, the whole mouse society was hypersexual.
That there were roving gangs of mice finding anyone who was trying to keep the society running (which was a tiny minority) and actively attacking them and stopping them from doing the important things, and it was this group that destroyed the colony by attacking anyone who tried to maintain social norms or perpetuate the species.
Look at the eco-warriors doing things like throwing soup at paintings or gluing themselves to the road, or even someone like Greta Thunberg. Those people are oozing anxiety. Thing is, even if you take every claim about climate change at face value, this isn't a problem with consequences today. It's 2 degrees per century, so it'll be centuries before there's a major problem, and yet these people are expressing anxiety on the same level as someone holding a gun to a baby's head.
Meanwhile, nobody has the same level of anxiety about a national debt which is an existential threat to the nation with our lifetimes.
Within my lifetime, the national debt of the US went from about 2 trillion to 32 trillion. At the rate it's going, it won't be future generations paying the price of our largesse, it's going to happen in my lifetime. Sovereign debt crises tend to have cataclysmic consequences, including coups that install extremists. It could be said that the irresponsible policies of the Weimar republic were directly responsible for the successful rise of Adolf Hitler. That's the level of threat the national debt and inflation can pose.
But what if we're not really seeing anxiety about environmentalism, that's just the internal rationalization? It's that these little mice are filled with anxiety chemicals they don't understand and they're told they should be anxious about the environment and they're just assuming that's why they're so anxious.
I've been criticizing the environmental movement lately for appearing to be genocidal by demanding things that will actually destroy the human race if they got them. If this model is correct, I might not be that far off.
I had a bit of a worm tunneling through the ideas in my brain a while back watching the video from whatifalthist about the mouse utopia experiment. Part of it is that many of the mice had their stress centers maxxed out for no apparent reason. Everything was fine. There were no predators, there was lots of space, there was lots of food, and the fact there was nothing wrong stressed the mice out to the point that the colony was completely destroyed.
The mouse sexes converged. Male mice became effeminate, female mice became more masculine. Male mice stopped contributing to society. Female mice stopped correctly raising their offspring, and those offspring were stunted.
The guy running the experiment called it "the first death", where the mice seemed to lose their will to live and their will to pass the flame of life onto the next generation. Despite that, the whole mouse society was hypersexual.
That there were roving gangs of mice finding anyone who was trying to keep the society running (which was a tiny minority) and actively attacking them and stopping them from doing the important things, and it was this group that destroyed the colony by attacking anyone who tried to maintain social norms or perpetuate the species.
Look at the eco-warriors doing things like throwing soup at paintings or gluing themselves to the road, or even someone like Greta Thunberg. Those people are oozing anxiety. Thing is, even if you take every claim about climate change at face value, this isn't a problem with consequences today. It's 2 degrees per century, so it'll be centuries before there's a major problem, and yet these people are expressing anxiety on the same level as someone holding a gun to a baby's head.
Meanwhile, nobody has the same level of anxiety about a national debt which is an existential threat to the nation with our lifetimes.
Within my lifetime, the national debt of the US went from about 2 trillion to 32 trillion. At the rate it's going, it won't be future generations paying the price of our largesse, it's going to happen in my lifetime. Sovereign debt crises tend to have cataclysmic consequences, including coups that install extremists. It could be said that the irresponsible policies of the Weimar republic were directly responsible for the successful rise of Adolf Hitler. That's the level of threat the national debt and inflation can pose.
But what if we're not really seeing anxiety about environmentalism, that's just the internal rationalization? It's that these little mice are filled with anxiety chemicals they don't understand and they're told they should be anxious about the environment and they're just assuming that's why they're so anxious.
I've been criticizing the environmental movement lately for appearing to be genocidal by demanding things that will actually destroy the human race if they got them. If this model is correct, I might not be that far off.
I always like to point out that prior to the world wars there was no federal income tax in either the US or Canada, and there was no state or provincial income taxes either.
In other words, whereas a blue collar worker's last dollar today might consist of 50 cents to the government and 50 cents for themselves, our great grandparents would have paid 0 cents to the government and 100 cents for themselves.
In spite of that, the governments of the past routinely paid back their national debts, whereas today despite taking so much from us they've spent an unimaginable amount of debt.
In other words, whereas a blue collar worker's last dollar today might consist of 50 cents to the government and 50 cents for themselves, our great grandparents would have paid 0 cents to the government and 100 cents for themselves.
In spite of that, the governments of the past routinely paid back their national debts, whereas today despite taking so much from us they've spent an unimaginable amount of debt.
Depending on how you view everything, the problems arguably started before Nixon and have been snowballing since then. The guns and butter of the 1960s turned into the inflation and financial crises of the 1970s which turned into reaganomics in the 1980s, which turned into Bush 1 and Clinton spending gobs of money as well(with both parties in power of congress at different times so while the congress does control the pursestrings besides the veto power and bully pulpit of the president), followed by Bush 2 doubling the 4 trillion dollar debt to 8 trillion, followed by Obama nearly doubling it again, and Trump almost spending more money in 4 years than Obama spent in 8.
The right thing to do was back in the 1950s and 1960s, use the income tax to pay down the federal debt and then retire both.
The right thing to do was back in the 1950s and 1960s, use the income tax to pay down the federal debt and then retire both.