Voting is over. There will not be another fair election in the US until the guillotines fall.

Most relatable comment ever.

Why is this posted as humor? Seriously, this is how anyone actually seeking a job should directly translate those phrases.

I can feel the pizza grease on the plastic instinctively.

Would you ban television commercials? Sponsored products unrelated to a YouTube video’s content?

I completely agree with you. So tired of pushed garbage ads. There’s just a gray area so the language of a hypothetical “law” would have to carefully considered.

Ok, honest question: In a world where all advertising is banned, how do I know who makes something I want/need?

Like, is a website you find in a search result an ad? Is putting something in your local Yellow Pages an ad?

Maybe we need to qualify “No advertising” with something?

Perhaps rebellion?

I feel fooled.

Ok, going to scream into the abyss here…

I had Netscape on my 486DX2-66 with a 33.6 modem. Win 95, along with ICQ, mIRC, some NNTP reader I can’t recall… You get the picture.

Everyone I’ve told this to thinks I must have been out of my mind. But for a period of time that I recall as months I had some sort of phenomenon where Netscape would stop loading a web page (could take 10s of seconds, you know) unless you MOVED THE MOUSE. Continuously. The animated “N” on would freeze and if you didn’t move the mouse the page would just be blank, or partially loaded. Move the mouse, it resumes. Stop moving the mouse, it stops. I used to have to move my mouse in figure-eights, cajoling the machine to not give up and keep downloading.

You’ll think I’m crazy, too. But when I share this story I keep hoping someone, somewhere had the same experience. And maybe, someone who knows what was going on will chime in on some obscure IRQ conflict in Windows along with some optimization used by Netscape in one iteration caused this bug for a brief moment in time.

Statistics isn’t my strong suit. What’s the probability of the probability increasing given that it has been increasing over time? Should we project the future probability to include this growth?

Sat silently through a misguided attempt by my workplace colleagues to do something, anything, useful and productive… FOR THE GLORY OF THE EMPIRE!

I want the Palm Pre form factor back. Sooo satisfying to slide that thing open or snapping it closed.

Keyboard was ok but not as good as the BB, IMO.

SoundBlaster?

This is what I fully expect. It is a sad state of affairs that I have to ask, “Are you serious this is what’s happening or is this your prediction?”

I want to agree with this sooo badly. But I have some empathy for crazy gun guy. And in some dispicable sense, the gun guy is acting completely rationally, if being severely short sighted.

Hypothetical: You drop litter on the ground. On purpose because you’re a thoughtless asshat. Someone calls you on it. Shouting ensues. They slap a magnet on your car. You rip it off and throw it on the ground because you have already demonstrated your unwillingness to give a shit about leaving things to rot in mother nature. They, in response, give your car a nice new scratch with a key and the damage is now permanent.

What’s your next move? Walk away? Call the police? Try to get their license plate and submit to your insurance company? Shame them on Tik Tok?

You’ve lost because your opponent was willing to escalate to vandalism, a crime for which you suffer and that no one is likely to take seriously enough to bring justice.

Society has broken down in this little ecosystem of two. Anyone can injure you, threaten your livelihood. Take away your security. What’s stopping them?

Until you unholster that 1.5lb mechanism of steel, lead, and brass. Now, you’re back in control. You are secure. Things are certain again. No one will be scratching your car, breaking your window, stealing food out of the mouths of your children.

There’s a certain rationality behind it, is all I’m saying.

Of course, we as rational thinkers can see the folly inherent in this escalation. Every petty spat becomes a life or death scenario. If we assume the rule of law still punished outright murder, then you are right back to your original quandary of whether to walk away or be the ultimate kind of “right”.

This is where mores in a society become critical. Maybe we’ve lost our sense of right and wrong behind a veil of rule-of-law. Maybe we’ve become too virtual to truly have a society based on mutual values. Maybe I’m just high and should go stare out a window.

TL;DR: Don’t litter.

Atlas Shrugged is a shit book, but I find myself thinking more and more about the world left behind when the “smart” people all leave. Nepotism breeds ineptitude leading to failed systems. Infrastructure crumbles. Businesses fail. Government stops functioning.

I wonder, after a cascade of failures of complex, core societal systems, which will be the first to actually affect the oligarchs? Gotta be the stock market, right? I mean, well after everyone’s pensions and 401(k)s are in the shitter, but eventually? Maybe?

I appreciate the discourse and that you took the time to link the article. Unfortunately, I think the only thing that article does is lay out an effective strategy for the offending party to delay, escalate, enrich, and flee.

To the final point of the article saying that eventually you would get all sorts of pressure to restabilize from entrenched parties… This administration is incapable of understanding the implications of a destabilized United States. Literally incapable. Their world view is so skewed and their echo chamber so closed that it would be like a cancer having to realize that limiting its growth is good for both it and the host. It doesn’t have the mechanisms to self regulate. Neither does our current oligarchy.

Backed up by what? Stern talking to? Fear of embarrassment? Public pressure? A moral compass? Perhaps there is another Amendment that applies when all else has failed…

Yeah, I’m on the side of the 13-yo.