This is the exact line I was gonna quote too lol, this story is very specific and fun to read

It was always going to end this way.

The weird man-lifts used to get a side eye from me

Not quite invisible but you could also splash and wade into a pool of strong acid thinking it was water, during what first seemed like a somewhat routine FUBAR maintenance situation…filling your boots etc.

Yeah this sounds REAL off.

😔

Cool! Who pays for that? Game developers / publishers or more like game focused media outlets?

The one saving grace is that their one-off custom damn shit always feels well designed, and they move a lotta units (which helps with repairs when everything is GD custom). Dunno if that’s changed in recent years.

With that said I avoid them for personal use usually for the same reason, why have a desktop if you don’t get the benefit of parts compatibility?!

But don’t you see?! Those increased expenses will just be passed along to the scammed!

(No actual point here just thought it was funny to compare to the logic we hear for not punishing other abusive businesses)

Blech, I’ve heard stories in my industrial automation days of people being clipped by invisible high pressure steam leaks. No frickin thank you, regular stovetop steam jacks me up frequently enough.

More gut bacteria for the rest of us, that’s what I say!

There’s precedent for it, that’s exactly the (thankfully moronic) dumb shit that happened the last time they had majorities like that. This feels different this time, with the Supreme Court and such, but who knows. Lotta self centered people imagining themselves on top…may amount to little. One can hope.

Lol ay! This is how we do things at our house, sleeping arrangements are up to each individual each evening. Might sound really weird for folks who’ve never done that, and it does have some things to watch for (can accidentally drift toward a more roommate like relationship dynamic if we don’t put attention toward avoiding that at times).

But sheesh the freedom to just go get a solo night’s rest at will with no hurt feelings? Took some careful communication (and some accidental hurt feelings along the way, to be clear) to get here but it is GREAT, we both love it. Really reduces friction in other areas of life when better rest is an option.

Yeah, I hear that. I do think his extreme narrow focus is a legitimate and severe neurodivergence, he’s not going to like…stop being that way, ever, to any degree. It’s how his mind is shaped I think, he doesn’t even enjoy music, laughter, actual human warmth, even just alcohol, all things broadly considered to be the most human things. There’s no room for anything but his bizarrely narrow drive.

Whether there are people in his orbit who have learned dangerous things is a more troubling question, one we can only really hope is tempered by his unique extreme toxicity (and hopefully in this case the massive inertia of all the many people in branches of govt who’ve made that their career and have a personal interest in the status quo).

Yup! Weirdly Trump’s own worst qualities also tend to neuter his ability to deal damage somewhat (only somewhat! Goddamn is the man just a pandimensional wrecking ball). He attracts some of the very worst people, but then he chews through them for whatever purpose he had in mind for them, and then invariably even those people leave his orbit and go “wow everyone, that guy really is a piece of shit”. Pretty incredible stuff.

Similarly, his only actual ambition is personal greed, specifically his own wealth and fame. There’s no ideology or barely even planning in him I don’t think. Pretty sure his life is really best described as just the series of the nastiest, most self-serving moves he could think of at each moment along the way, with zero purpose except his own enrichment, both in dollars and fame/what he probably perceives as “power”.

Of course what he seems to see as power or something desirable, everyone not trapped in his S-tier narcissism distortion field sees as just him stating the terms of his own manipulation to whomever wants to take advantage, for mutual benefit. Right in the open. But sure, he’s the tough talker we need on the world stage, lol. Amazing. Sorry, just realized I have reached full tangent mode now, I regret nothing but I’ll end my rant heh.

Oh man, that’s hilarious. “Our business model doesn’t actually even work where we live. But I know what we’ll do about that, we’re going to do it exactly the same in a place we don’t have a clue about!”

The hubris, lol. It’s delicious.

Understanding something at the level needed for a conversation is one thing, having the capacity or experience to really understand the significance of the thing and use that deeper understanding reliably for decision making is something more, and does take longer to develop.

I refer to it in my head as “vocational privilege”. I’ve never once heard it discussed (not just the term I made up, the idea). And frankly we’re not exactly at a societal moment when many of us are eager to bring new forms of privilege into discussions, I think it’ll be quite some time before we’re ready to grapple with this, but it’s a huge problem.

Both in terms of human suffering but also just in terms of humanity’s “efficiency”. There’s so much more good that could be done if we were able to harness people’s born talents better, rather than the square peg round hole nonsense we do with so many folks today.

It’s pretty chilling to think about. The number of things that had to line up just right for you and I and others like us to have decent lives. And the extreme luck that they did. Realizing this, and how hopeless it is for so many others, basically radicalized me. We must find a better way to organize our society, this is an insane way to do things.

I think about this a lot. There’s an extreme luck or privilege that comes from happening to be born kind of “into” or good at the things society happens to find valuable at the current moment (and in the region of one’s birth). I benefit massively from that today, and even just a hundred years ago I think my life would have probably gone very differently (worse). Meanwhile folks I know without those aptitudes but with tons of sincere effort just continue to struggle. It feels really cruel and unfair.

ETA: even worse, we never talk about this. I think you’re the first person I’ve ever seen mention it. So most folks who lost that lottery walk around thinking it’s their fault somehow. Such a sad thing to me.