A lot of people struggle to read, and it’s kind of sad. https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/ was an interesting post about it (available as a podcast and transcripts).

That said, some people really just do wallow and the slop and that’s an embarrassment.

Emulators are pretty great. The touch screen isn’t an ideal interface, but for less action-y games like final fantasy it’s fine.

One of the best responses to kirk’s death said something like “This is like writing an obituary of Joseph Goebbels that goes ‘Gobbels was a gifted marketer and father of six children’”

They do it for money. If people had standards, they’d behave better. Imagine if every time they announced they were doing more ads, every user cancelled. There is power in solidarity.

Unfortunately, most people are some mix of tired lazy stupid short-sighted

I feel like everyone knows the ownership class is ruining everything, but no one wants to do anything.

But that’s not true. I just hang out with people with more class consciousness, I guess. The average idiot probably blames the queers and the non-whites. “They had to raise the price of CoD because of all the money spent on sensitivity and diversity!” is probably something a dud sincerely believes.

Sometimes I wish real life was more like some video games, and I could just crouch behind those people, snap their neck, and dump the body in a bush with no consequences.

I remember ICQ being better in every way I cared about, except I couldn’t get people to use it. (offline messaging, you could change your display name without making a new account, other stuff I forget). Kind of like trying to get people to use fediverse stuff now, I guess.

Many people are just scared all the time. No one’s smart when they’re scared. The body doesn’t let you. They think the police will protect them.

Right wing media is largely to blame. And segregation and under funded education, public spaces. And suburbs + car culture isolating everyone.

Pretty much every right wing idea is bad.

Apparently about 40% of adults get insufficient sleep, if the CDC is to be trusted. That’s pretty bad.

I started setting an alarm for myself to go to bed. Now I have better sleep habits. I used to stay up too late, but then I’d be in a brain fog the next day and it sucked. An extra hour of video game isn’t worth the following day and its video games sucking.

When people talk about their income they usually talk about gross, which is pre-tax. When someone says “I make $100k a year” they don’t typically mean they take home net $100k.

Investments are typically also only taxed when you realize the gains, so if you have $3mm and “earn” $300k, you only pay taxes if you sell some of that. Other interest, like from a high yield savings, is taxed as income.

Health insurance is a nightmare, but there are options in this hellscape for buying it. Many poor people are also just uninsured, so you’re not much worse off than them in this scenario.

Did you have any details you wanted to talk about, or did you just want to try to be pithy?

It is kind of fucked up that if you’re even mildly rich, you essentially get basic income.

If you have $1 million, a fairly conservative investment strategy will get you $100k per year. That’s about the median income for NYC. You’ll probably get closer to $150k, since vanguard usually gets about 15% returns. That’s just sticking the money in Vanguard and doing nothing else. Sit at home playing final fantasy and “earn” more than a teacher.

If you’re richer, but not even mega-rich, say $3 million, you can put it in an *insured high yield savings and take home $135,000 a year. Or diversify, put some in vanguard, some in bonds, and some in high yield savings. You’ll “earn” more than many people do at their jobs.

You could then just do what you want with your days. Write a book. Finish your backlog of games. Start a band. Whatever you want. You’d be free.

I want everyone to have basic income, not just the rich.

I imagine early intervention helps, but right-wing (ie: authoritarian) people don’t want to invest in quality education. Not the kind with a good teacher-student ratio and time spent on social skills.

Clearview AI was founded in 2017 by Hoan Ton-That and Richard Schwartz after transferring the assets of another company, SmartCheckr, which the pair originally founded in 2017 alongside Charles C. Johnson.[12][4] The company was founded in Manhattan after the founders met at the Manhattan Institute.[1] The company initially raised $8.4 million from investors including Kirenaga Partners and Peter Thiel

Of course Thiel is involved. That guy should really be not around anymore.

Is authoritarianism also cluster b? There are a lot of people who seem to get off on being part of the group. Like, it brings them chemical joy to be screaming in a crowd about how that other group of people need to die. Those people kind of suck, too.

I don’t think every maga hat is a narcissist, but a lot of them are trash humans who value their in-group feelings of solidarity over everything else.

People are emotional creatures. Some people are almost exclusively driven by emotions. Amusingly, it’s usually the right wing saying “facts don’t care about your feelings”, because everything from them is projection

If I’m out of my home for a day my cat comes running to the door meowing when I return. Then he paces around for a while, but if I sit on the couch he’ll join me.

Usually when I see traffic, I’m on the train looking out the windows feeling very smug

When I was a cashier they recommended we not do this kind of thing, because there are some fast-talk scams people will do to get more money. Like they’ll give you more money, say something confusing, take the money back, and then you give them the extra change, except more sophisticated than that.

Could be, but that’s immature and unattractive. You’re better off not throwing in with someone who’s unwilling to be vulnerable

Well, there’s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_literacy but that’s not written for children

I don’t think, of your examples, trackers and surveillance are a big part of it. Understanding subtext and credibility are more relevant. Like, recognizing when a newspaper always uses passive voice when cops do bad (eg: “man killed after violent police encounter” vs “police fatally shoot man waiting at bus stop”), but active voice for other people (eg: “Looters destroy small business shops” vs “Downtown shops damaged during anti-corruption protests”)

Also in fiction, being able to take away more than just the plot. Like you can read Dracula as just a book about a guy that bites people, but there are way more ways to read it. When someone makes a movie out of the story, notice what parts they keep, emphasize, and drop.

People get comfort and refreshment from all sorts of unhealthy things. People do all sorts of unhealthy things.