The Prosperity Gospel folks go a step further and equate wealth and health with the will of god. That being well-off is the direct result of being in god’s good graces. It side-steps observations of financial inequality in the face of moral equality, by hand-waving exceptional wealth as deserved by truly rare and exceptional people. And that conveniently plays off of confusing causation for correlation, so we arrive at “money = godly.”

For the record: I hate that this has a name and it’s a real thing.

Hot take: Debris was on track for something like that.

It had “new strange” style storytelling with a very grounded Sci-Fi basis, interesting episiodes, and a conspiracy arc to tie it all together. There were also hints at things well beyond understanding, turning typical X-Files formula inside out: “it’s all explainable phenomena and everyone knows it, but some things take time to understand.” The major flaw here were wooden performances and un-charismatic characters that just fail to pull you in.

That said, there’s no reason to wait for an X-Files reboot. SCP has more than enough lore to get the ball moving, and there’s gotta be a webisode series or small-studio production team out there just waiting for eyeballs and donations.

“Fox and Frenemies” it is then.

I was gonna say. Now we get to add anti-war protesting to an already lengthy list of complaints. This is going to get huge.

You want to protest the war? We have a whole anti-trump protest movement already warmed up and ready to go. C’mon in.

Well this is pretty par for the course with TACO,

Indeed it is, and I think we’re gonna see it get worse. Trump is an abusive parent/partner. There’s no “doing the right thing”, merely “make sure everyone else is a better target.” Yesterday it was Hegseth, today it’s Gabbard. Tomorrow… who knows?

Where it gets really interesting is that this behavior can create a perverse incentive for his team to undermine one another.

I know everyone points out the problems with Nest, Ring, and various talking/listening/spying agents. For me, one of the worst offenders was a garage door motor that came with WiFi capability. Damn thing has the ability to just open up a door on my house on command. There’s no way am I putting that online.

Workers risk a few things, depending on the job:

• Health
• Time
• Opportunity (could be working someplace else that’s better)

These have a lot of dimension to them, including how one quantifies what “pay” actually is/for, what legal restrictions there are around taking the job (e.g. non-compete, non-arbitration), work/life balance, and so on.

Risk comes into play where the employee takes a bet that the job won’t destroy their health, work only as much as is absolutely necessary, and have taken a position at the optimal balance of responsibility, personal growth, retirement prospects, and income. It’s a risk since there are substantial barriers to changing to a new job, so you can wind up “stuck” in a bad position, but can’t know until after you start.

$0.02: good people know enough to not take the job, let alone run for it. It’s expensive to run for office, doesn’t pay enough, eats up your life, you’re constantly advertising to stay employed, and your co-workers are all politicians. It’s very much a “I offer myself as tribute” kind of a situation, even for extraordinary people.

Meanwhile, a corrupt person knows that it’s worth all the trouble if you convert political power into (illegal) money.

Honestly, short of some miracle undoing this whole mess, this was a flavor of outcome I was quietly hoping for. At some point, politicians are going to realize - much like the president’s base - that they’re going to lose power unless they mount some kind of opposition. For the very worst ones out there, power is kind of their whole bag. Take it away and they get very angry; they may even do something about it. It’s kind of the tacit driving force behind any “checks and balances” scheme: power-hungry bastards trying to out-power-hungry-bastard each other. In a gross way, we kind of depend on it.

I know that’s sarcasm, but your comment made me think. I strongly disagree with those kinds of remarks. :)

This war isn’t like a game of Poker, where everyone is dealt from the same deck. It’s more like MTG, where the real game is about who can make better strategic use of their card-buying budget.

Why not both?

I don’t trust anyone when I’m on the road.

And you shouldn’t. Everyone is equipped with a lethal weapon masquerading as personal transportation, where safety is predicated on mutually-assured-destruction and the presumption that everyone is a sane actor. Keep your head on a swivel and stay safe out there!

You’re right about turn signals.

A lot of people have “target fixation” and telegraph their moves somewhat. I look at where the car is tracking in the lane and what their head is doing (if I can see it). Most people drift left or right on the highway before they change lanes, exit, or turn. It’s no excuse for bad manners, but it helps.

IMO, the big problem is just a matter of standards and practicality. The bar for a DL is “can operate a vehicle” and not “can safely drive a vehicle in public for extended periods of time.” I agree with periodic re-licensing though; everything else called a “license” seems to need that for a host of reasons.

well done steaks

It’s like he’s good a being a monster in every capacity possible. Probably asks for the ketchup bottle at 4-star dining while he’s at it.

it’s like an engine being allowed to slow down after over-revving it incessantly.

That’s exactly what it feels like. I installed Social Fixer on my browser(s) to make FB at least usable for the few times I have to touch it for event coordination. People ask me what that’s like and I simply say: “Oh, it’s boring now. I only look at status updates for a few minutes and go do something else.” The pull to go back is just… gone. It’s as dull as LiveJournal ever was, and frankly, it’s better this way.

What did I strip out of the feed? Everything that wasn’t generated directly by someone on my friends list. That’s all it took. All the “engagement” is either artificially injected into your feed, or clickbait people pass along because their feed isn’t filtered.

According to a Kyiv Independent SBU source, first-person-view (FPV) drones were covertly transported deep into Russian territory and hidden inside trucks before being launched against four major airfields.

Holy shit that’s embarrassing. I mean, those operatives are going to have to flee to Japan to in order to get home, but wow. That’s incredible.

It’s already kind of happening. The Curl project is having a really bad time. No idea if the “bug” submissions are themselves automated, but the content of the filings are pure AI nonsense.

Emphasis on “rich” here. History has shown that genocide is always followed by claiming and then divvying up the resources once held by the displaced/dead. That’s always a rich-man’s game.

This is the way. The key is to ignore the clickbait, politics, low-effort content, and sensational bullshit, and just go after stuff you really like.

There’s even videos for every schedule. We seem to be back to 30-50 minute videos these days, but there are still some micro channels around. Like “Sandwiches of History”, where every video is at most two minutes.