Pace makers keep you from dying so they’re sort of on a different level of need. Also, if corps did planned obsolescence on one, you’re probably not around to buy another.

If they were invented today, they would definitely have a predatory subscription model for “monitoring” your heart, or require occasional maintenance at cost to the end user.

The prequels were redeemed? That’s news to me.

I’m with you on 1 and 2, but “reduced lingual skills” I think is a bit of a stretch. Becoming fluent in another language takes a lot of effort and people only do it if they have a good long term reason.

I think it’s more likely this would cover the vacation / short term business case that is already covered by human interpreters (or apps already) instead.

Hey, that’s great. I’m not sure it’s a way to reach full communism, but good on them.

Perfect example. Insurance is an entire industry of blood sucking middle men producing absolutely nothing.

Good luck to your friend. Sorry they have to support a useless leech corporation instead of, you know, paying that money to actual workers.

It’s really hard to generalize about leftist groups. The communists that feel this way have formed co-ops, or are cooperating with anarchists to do something like syndicalism (focused on unionizing existing businesses).

But the methods to start and grow businesses in a capitalist country inherently rely on acting like a capitalist. Getting loans requires a business plan that makes profit, acquiring facilities and other businesses requires capital. Local co-ops exist because they can attract members and customers that value their co-opness, but it’s very hard to scale that up to compete at a regional level. It’s not impossible, but it’s hard to view it as an engine for vast change.

Communists that focus on voting are delusional (in my opinion) but like all reformists they view the existing government as the mechanism to make widespread change.

I thought it was great, premise and execution.

Use the ‘scaled’ sort for your frontpage. Helps keep the smaller communities you sub to from getting totally drowned out by some of the larger ones.

Any billionaire would take this deal. The hit is in imaginary money (i.e. stock/corporate assets) that won’t affect their daily lives and in return they get unspecified favors from the (other) oligarchs.

Raised by Wolves had a great intro theme and art style.

I would list the great Star Trek opening themes, but honestly they are long and can be a bit much when you’re on your like eighth episode in a row.

Yep. If they somehow were left with only cis white men, they’d redefine cis, white, or man to divide the remaining people.

Last I checked, Texas was literally the only red state that actually paid more into the federal government than it took out. The cold snap was just the usual idiocy, but it’s not like it couldn’t be handled, the state just stopped caring about weather proofing infrastructure.

And with the amount of natural resources and basically year round agriculture that happens in Texas, I have no doubt it could be self sufficient to some definition. I almost wish they would secede and tank the current electoral landscape. As long as I can move out first.

Yeah, I’ll be honest I’m pretty tuned out on the Dems, but the first time I heard about this was an unwanted donation solicitation that started like “I just got off the senate floor…” and it made it feel so transparent that right now, it’s performative bullshit.

Could be the start of something, but it won’t be until the Dems prove they’re effective at something other than fundraising to lose elections.

Been listening to the 5-4 podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks and it’s been partisan bullshit forever, but yeah Citizens United will probably be considered the death of American Democracy (even though it was terminally ill beforehand).

The Court will literally just make up rules out of thin air to justify whatever the fuck they want.

What are you going to criticize Republicans for? Sure, they’re morally bankrupt and destroying the country, but they’re doing exactly what their dipshit voters asked for and succeeding beyond their wildest dreams.

Democrats are the ones who are being laughably inept at what they claim to want.

In my experience that’s a very appropriate boner.

I was sort of with you on the ocean stuff, swimming there isn’t really a substitute for a lifejacket, but swimming being for the privileged is a weird take.

If you don’t have access to a body of water for free, then public pools are usually cheaper than a movie ticket. You don’t need any equipment, all you need is one person that kinda half way knows how to swim and is willing to point you in the right direction.

My kid bought me a Back to the Future DeLorean for my birthday, about 2000 pieces.

Initially I thought it was kind of a mis-gift, something they would enjoy more than me since I hadn’t built a set since they were small and needed my help, but I made it a point to crack it open instead of letting it sit and it turned out to be quite enjoyable.

GNOME 3 introduced the current shell paradigm where you don’t really have a start menu but a variety of searches, integrated indicators, per-app desktops with a dock etc.

Before, it was far more conventional experience like Plasma/Windows/Cinnamon are now. GNOME 2 was forked to be the MATE desktop if you want to check it out.

I default to piracy too, but I’m guessing you don’t listen to a lot of new music. The thing a music service offers isn’t just access, it’s discoverability. It didn’t replace my FLAC collection, it expanded it. What it replaced was listening to the radio to find new stuff.

For video I’m more with you. I’m happy to rely on word of mouth. Especially since the streaming services drop movies all the time and discriminate against watching in a browser. Getting a good rip means you can watch it anywhere, anytime, and not have to worry about it disappearing.