MyBrainHurts
@MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca
- Comment on The richest people in the world are morally bankrupt 6 days ago:
Ehhhhhh, some, sure.
But on the flip side, you have folks like Bill Gates who has more or less devoted his life to saving as many lives as possible.
Or Buffett who last I heard had donated some 50 or 60 billion to different foundations.
Even Musk, for all his recent evil got rich trying to reduce our dependence on gas cars. As much as I dislike the man, I imagine the electric car industry would be pretty far back in his absence.
- Comment on Is gold investing a scam? 6 days ago:
Complete societal collapse, hard to say what, beyond the basics, would be useful as a medium of barter.
But, in a society facing major issues, e.g., hyper inflation, or say, a US government default, yeah, gold is a pretty decent hedge bet.
The traditional safe haven has been government debt but that’s been seen as an increasingly risky bet where you could lose a lot of money to inflation or worse, government default/intervention.
So, while not ideal, gold at least seems a better bet than most other “safe” places to put one’s money.
- Comment on [deleted] 6 days ago:
This feels like ragebait or you need to read or watch more modern stuff.
- Comment on U.S. consumers are so fucked up, that they put more than $1 billion on buy-now, pay later services during Cyber Monday 6 days ago:
I’ve legit wondered about this and one of the many reasons I don’t want kids is I don’t think it’d be fair to inflict my lifestyle on them, no matter how morally correct I feel.
My basic thought though is that as long as social media is the dominant means by which cultural trends are spread and amplified, anti-consumerism will be hard to spread.
Once modern social media became dominant, social justice pivoted from our own sins (wearing slave made clothes, children losing limbs for our new phones etc) and switched to dunking on public figures and large systemic forces. I think that’s because it’s much easier to share, make jokes about etc evils that you are not currently doing. That is to say, it’s a lot easier to make memes about say, OscarsSoWhite when none of us are in the Academy than say, “my shoes are made by kids who occasionally burn to death” while many folks are wearing those types of shoes.
- Comment on U.S. consumers are so fucked up, that they put more than $1 billion on buy-now, pay later services during Cyber Monday 1 week ago:
And I just got a better job after having a bad one.
I’ve also known addicts who’ve quit.
Does that mean “just get a better job” “just quit your addiction” and “reject consumerism” are reasonable answers to people struggling?
- Comment on U.S. consumers are so fucked up, that they put more than $1 billion on buy-now, pay later services during Cyber Monday 1 week ago:
This is the same as “I would just have a better job.”
Some normal folks are out there, trying to give their kids as normal a life as they can despite their financial circumstances and not all of them are as enlightened as you claim to be online.
- Comment on U.S. consumers are so fucked up, that they put more than $1 billion on buy-now, pay later services during Cyber Monday 1 week ago:
It’s fucked but with a charitable view, I can see some logic.
For all the nonsense, there are a handful of good deals on the Friday/Monday. If I were living paycheque to paycheque, seems like a bnpl scheme could let me budget say, November to February for christmas gifts, interest free unlike a credit card.
That being said, that’s the theory. I imagine a lot of folks end up in over their heads much like credit cards etc.
- Comment on Truth in advertising 1 week ago:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hegseth-ssecretary-of-war-name-plate/
I’d guess it’s still ai generated in that someone asked an ai to print their labels.
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 1 week ago:
Yeah, this isn’t going to be productive or interesting.
Have a nice day.
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 1 week ago:
Tenth among European nations in the 60s isn’t particularly good and is not thr standard that makes Norway the model everyone wants to emulate.
Consider how much of Europe was under communism or fascism and there’s really not a lot of competition.
It wasn’t a terrible place but not the high quality with which we currently associated Norway.
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 1 week ago:
Not every liberal democracy is America.
If you want to understand, you might go to Canada where strict campaign finance laws generally reign in billionaires.
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 1 week ago:
previously established
In other words, Norway established this stuff pretty quickly when oil was discovered. That’s wildly different from taking over existing private enterprise.
People really don’t like it when you take things away as opposed to having a set of rules before anyone begins.
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 1 week ago:
Lithium is not nearly as profitable as oil. It costs a huge amount to extract and refine (China has such a chokehold on critical minerals, not because they have so much more but because they’ve built an incredibly efficient set of supply chains.)
And personally, I am very much not in favour of tearing down what little protected land is left in America. But you will be happy to know that trump strongly agrees with you and is opening up a swathe of public land for oil and gas.
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 1 week ago:
previously established
In other words, Norway established this stuff pretty quickly when oil was discovered. That’s wildly different from taking over existing private enterprise.
People really don’t like it when you take things away as opposed to having a set of rules before anyone begins.
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 1 week ago:
All of a nations natural resources rightfully belong to the people
Yes and we have a liberal democracy to determine how best to use them. Thankfully, most folks understand that simply nationalizing resources comes with huge reprecussions which greatly outweigh the gains.
Do you have a successful example of your proposal in mind?
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 1 week ago:
If you’re going to start nationalizing previously established resources, that’s going to have all sorts of wild reprecussions and is not what Norway did.
But beyond the logistics, which similarly profitable resources are you thinking of?
- Comment on Which countries combine high quality of life and strong equality? 1 week ago:
Norway admittedly has gigantic, relatively recent, oil and gas reserves that allow it to fund all sorts of social programs. Not saying those are bad or anything, just not a particularly exportable model.
- Comment on Black Friday, more like buy stupid shit day. 2 weeks ago:
Yeah, I know I’m in the minority in the fediverse on this but for the last few months (for some of what I wanted, about 10 months) I’ve kept glancing at a few things that weren’t urgent but would be needed soonish, and now the prices have all come down a good chunk for Black Friday.
I get if you’re randomly scrolling amazon looking for deals, yeah, that’s garbage. But if you’ve been patient, with actual specific ideas…
- Comment on Norway's lesson for Europe on wealth taxes: let some millionaires go 2 weeks ago:
Fair, though can I ask what if the economists are right?
Around 40% of emigrants are business owners, according to Princeton researcher Christine Blandhol, who estimates, opens new tab the latest tax changes will cut Norway’s output by 1.3% over the long run.
Seems like the expectation is that this will lower government revenues etc. So, is the idea that egalitarianism is of higher value to Norway than some government services?
(Personally, I tend to think this one of those frustrating ones where what is moral and right in the short term smashes into cruel political/economic reality.)
- Comment on A community dedicated to 30+ gamers. 3 weeks ago:
I like it as a more relaxing version of Slay the Spire. I’m not great at either though, so take what I say with more than a few grains of salt. I feel like I can see the combos Monster Train wants more easily than in Slay the Spire, where I sometimes feel like I’m tricking the system OR the Spire is trying to trick me by offering something remoting that doesn’t quite work with my deck.
- Comment on A community dedicated to 30+ gamers. 3 weeks ago:
That’s neat! I don’t think many of the games I play (and poorly at that) would count, like Slay the Spire etc.
But, maybe in the Christmas downtime i’ll apply and see what it’s all about! Thanks for sharing!
- Comment on Gmail can read your emails and attachments to train its AI, unless you opt out 3 weeks ago:
Sneaky devils, thanks for sharing!
- Comment on If you own Total War: WARHAMMER I or II you'll soon get Total War: WARHAMMER III Immortal Empires free 3 weeks ago:
Well that’s pretty dang cool.
- Comment on What ever you do, don't think of the number 37. 3 weeks ago:
He speaks some English but he cannot speak it good like we do.
- Comment on What ever you do, don't think of the number 37. 3 weeks ago:
I think this is my favourite line in the movie.
- Comment on Russia’s first AI-powered humanoid robot AIDOL collapses during its onstage debut 4 weeks ago:
The best thing Putin has done is to bring the verb defenstrate back.
- Comment on Would you like to playtest a new indie game? Just completed first playable version of my psychological horror/moral choice simulation. 5 weeks ago:
I don’t play many games etc but just wanted to say congrats on finishing it!
Also, cool subjects material!
- Comment on My block list in a nutshell: 5 weeks ago:
I've found it's easiest to add an appropriate emoji note to their profile. That way, I can still upvote any memes etc of theirs I enjoy while ignoring their comments etc.
- Comment on 'The Truth Is Paywalled.' Internet Vets Lament the State of the 'Open' Web 5 weeks ago:
Great points!
It feels like these should be solvable problems, though.
I absolutely fully agree. Honestly, I think some sort of micro transaction system would be the answer to ubiquitous advertising etc.
- Comment on For those who have all the right answers for the rest of us 5 weeks ago:
The people who upvoted and moved on, probably have a sense of humour. The ones who stopped to yell "that's not funny!!!", probably less so.