It’s kind of like asking whether the vital piece of a table is the tabletop or the legs, when you don’t have a functional table without either one. We don’t have a functional market system without supply and demand.

In a weird way, blaming the corporations is philosophically aligned with supply-side dogma, where the corporations (“job creators”) have an intrinsic motivation to produce. As if they just churn stuff out all day long, because that’s what they do when the government doesn’t get in their way, and it’s the duty of people to consume so the output doesn’t all just pile up in some great heap outside the factory.

There’s a reason some call that “voodoo economics.” Whatever their influence today, all corporations producing things evolved in a symbiotic relationship with consumer demand. We could guillotine all of the CEOs, and revoke every corporate charter, but it’d do jack for the environment, unless unless we also all change our lifestyle.

Blaming the corporations makes as much sense as them blaming us. It’s time to move past who’s to blame, and instead start fixing things.

Literally, no. Cassettes were still around, yes, but the next era of technology had already arrived. Earlier home computers used audio cassettes for data storage, but Amiga never did. It was part of the post-cassette technological wave. The hard drive inside that expansion is even the same mechanism and form-factor as spinning disks used today, and the SCSI command set is still used in SAS drives.

Posting it here makes sense from an aesthetic POV, since the case design fits reflects the cassette futurism look, before all computers turned black.

What? The DEA is needlessly cruel, while also corrupt and ineffective. The new administration might increase its funding.

The cruelty is the point.

I doubt it. Where’s the data?

Somebody on Lemmy a while back asked about the phrase, “the cruelty is the point,” and whether it was true and fair. Well, here’s the evidence: The point is not a net gain on fare collections.

The fact that the numbers are public and they keep doing it proves it: The cruelty is the point.

First thing I thought of was the “Elementary School Musical” episode of South Park.

Yeah, except for the cnidarians, which are weird in more than just name. Oral vs. anal? No difference for them!

Where this analogy falls apart is in the implicit assumption that this is just a one-off situation. (I mean, most people only have two parents.)

What happens when it’s an iterative phenomenon? (Politics is an ongoing thing.) Then, the situation in the analogy turns into the classic “negotiating with terrorists” scenario. The received wisdom is that one should never negotiate with terrorists, because once they learn that terrorism works they’ll do it again.

Maybe make it cousins. Do you choose the option whereby two cousins die, or just one. What if choosing just one now increases the danger of more dying later?

Oh Lord… 😔

Who will they tip over the side next?

Perhaps a better, real-world example is that this moral calculus says that the Democrats should abandon trans people and trans issues. The logic is inescapable: Trans issues turn away a lot of voters, and it’s a really strong talking point for the other party. If they win, the Democrats could protect the LGB community, and women’s rights.

Surely it’s better to protect the LGB community and women’s rights, but not trans people, than to protect none of them, right?

(NB: This is rhetorical. I don’t believe it.)

Abortion rights initiatives won in 7 out of 10 states where they were on the ballot.

Sometimes you do it the hard way to send a message.

At best, “support our troops” was a version of that dumbass magical thinking that, in earlier times, held that the U.S. lost in Vietnam because Americans didn’t clap for Tinkerbell, err, I mean, support the war. Mostly, it was a thought-terminating cliché.

Yeah, as you rightly point out, it was never about the soldiers themselves.

It’s not accelerationism at all! It’s fatalism.

Accelerationism is, “It has to get worse before it can get better.”

My point here is, “The system that only allows for getting worse will never get better.”

A big issue with this approach: The United States is not a law of nature; it doesn’t have to exist. The system may only allow two options, but it does not guarantee that either one of those options will keep the system viable. Reduced harm is still harm, and at some point we needed to stop doing it.

Not believable; Epstein died over 5 years ago. All the girls in that book are way too old for Gaetz by now.

Dammit, I came up with a Halloween costume too late. The plan would’ve been to dress up as a ‘like’ button, and get drunk.

Parents? My friend volunteered as a poll worker on the University campus here. At his location, 25% of the students voted for the orange fascist.

It’s the perennial coordination problem. Consider these truths: 1. Anybody who stands up alone will get viciously hammered down. 2. If a large number of people stand up together, they can make a difference. 3. People have to trust others to stand up with them, otherwise see #1.

How do we organize a large crowd of people that trust each other without the people in power catching wind of it and viciously hammering down the organizers? It sure would help to have some support from people already in positions of power…

Now, now, remember correlation is not causation. Maybe it’s not the unintuitive design; maybe a disproportionate number of idiots buy Teslas?