Priorities

Finally a message I can get behind.

This is extremely valuable to see wins on the local level, and that it is getting national press.

It will serve to blunt the years of "socialism = always bad" propaganda that has been endemic since forever. More local wins so we can elect and win on the state and national level in numbers with a mandate to actually get something done.

Author was Ivy educated I take it?

While Valve is objectively better and more insulated from anti-consumer policies as a privately held company with good ownership...

I still have reservations about having my eggs in one basket with Valve, though I have a substantial Steam library. Someday Gabe will retire and/or the competition will stop shooting itself in the foot. As a result, the current customer friendly behavior may shift and then all bets are off.

If that were to come to pass, I think we'd see a huge jump in 🏴‍☠️ 🦜

But attacks on the US was never the threat from Iran. The US is extremely well insulated against direct attacks from basically all nations. It's the global world order that is largely run by, and benefits, the US that is at stake now.

It was: attacks on our allies (i.e. Israel), attacks on the global economy (i.e. continuing to shut the straight of hormuz), and pursuit of nuclear weapons (would drastically change the power dynamic in the region if it were to happen).

The US can not just walk away.

Do not "buy" from these places. They don't even own the content they are selling. Your access to the show is contingent upon Amazon Prime Video continuing to have license agreements with the owner of the content. As soon as their (separate) deal with the company that owns the content expires (and it will eventually), you will lose access to that content.

From here: https://www.primevideo.com/help?nodeId=G4HUP5EWXFZDHGFC

On the title's product page, you’re shown available purchase options. Note: Buying a title adds it to My Stuff and will generally be available to you for download or streaming, but may become unavailable due to licensing restrictions or for other limited reasons; renting a title will add it there for a limited period. Rented titles stay in your video library for 30-days from the date of the rental. However, once you press play on the rented title, you have at minimum 48-hours to finish watching it. Some titles have longer viewing periods.

I'm not one to say we need hellish prison conditions to really punish inmates. I'm all for treating inmates humanely, but the least we could do is be consistent about it, right?

If this is the standard of inmate handling, fine. If there is a disparity of how Maxwell is treated vs how another person might be treated for a similar security level, as what seems to be the case here...that's a big problem and is rightly being scrutinized.

Yeah, that take seems incredibly disingenuous and tonedeaf. He just sees an opportunity and wants to take advantage of it. Here's hoping both companies fail at this and the young'uns stop giving money to would-be monopoly platforms.

It's just how capitalism do. Enjoy free VC services while they last, but do not get attached to them. They will, invariably, enshittify.

Private companies with good leadership can last for a bit but eventually slide as well. Companies do not have moral stances and only will hold moral policies as long as they have moral leadership or they fear user backlash. Money and profits are too great an incentive.

Reddit was big enough that it wasn't worried about user backlash. I'm enjoying Steam for now, but there will come a day that it will too become a pariah, mark my words.

100%, I don't think there's a single thing that I would do differently than them on an individual level. Housing was cheap (compared to today). School was cheap (compared to today). Healthcare costs were manageable (again, relative). Being frugal and attempting to have enough retirement to make it through old age is not a vice, that is just sound money management.

The actual sin is making it harder for everyone else coming behind them.

• Make housing more expensive by restricting zoning (I already purchased my house, so I need to protect my investment from things that would degrade the value).
• Make school more expensive by not properly scaling public higher education (I am already out of school, so why should we invest more in public schools).
• Make unions weak (no collective action means I personally might earn more, though workers overall will earn less).
• Make a single payer healthcare system a political impossibility (the system is working for me (because I have $$), I might have to wait in line with all the poors if they can also access the same level of healthcare).

Basically they enshittified government and culture before it was cool, creating stratification layers to benefit themselves when the available alternatives would have been better for society and subsequent generations.

They were bought. They grew up in a world of plenty. They were sold the idea that it will always be this way as long as they vote conservative. Fox News (and less blatant media) came and pacified them by giving them excuses for being greedy, which enabled the worst wealthy actors to hoard their shit and codify the greed into the both culture and law. They were used to create a system that is fucked and now are confused when the system they built sucks and the world of plenty is being shown to just be a short term golden age.

I wish I could confidently say I'd do better, but probably not. We are products of the world we live in and are shaped by what we see and hear.