Adderbox76
@Adderbox76@lemmy.ca
- Comment on Why does it seem like many Americans have an arrogant personality trait? 1 day ago:
The U.S. is like any other country; it has its share of assholes. But I generally avoid painting everyone of however many million people with the same broad brush.
There is a somewhat obnoxious level of patriotism to Americans in general that comes from simply being the biggest economy and a net cultural exporter to the rest of the world; think blue jeans and coca-cola, metaphorically. (I’m sorry, Americans, but it’s true. Put on your big boy pants and deal with the criticism like adults, please.)
But it only rises to the level of arrogance in those people who think that the rest of the world only exists because of them and should behave as some sort of client state to American hegemony.
That’s not all Americans. Heck, I’d say it’s not even most Americans. But they’re just really really loud and drown out everything else.
- Comment on In a thousand years, will historians regard today as the digital dark ages? 3 days ago:
My oh my. Check out Mr. Optimist over here thinking that they’ll be time to be “historians” in between scavenging for scraps and battling the nuclear mutants for the last bottle of fresh water at the bombed out Tesco.
- Comment on Katy Perry, Gayle King, Lauren Sánchez to go to space on next launch from Jeff Bezos' rocket company 4 days ago:
On a brighter note, I’m pretty sure Katy Perry’s boobs would look absolutely fantastic in zero gravity.
- Comment on telecommunications dish 1 week ago:
Why’s your aardvark wearing a cone?
- Comment on Why would America declaring cartels terrorist organizations be a problem for Mexico? 1 week ago:
It might be his best book since Name of the Rose
My personal favourite is The Island of the Day Before. Though I haven’t read either in years and it might be nostalgia because that was my first introduction to Eco.
- Comment on Why do most Americans use an iPhone? 1 week ago:
Marketing.
Convincing stupid people that their self-worth is based on how much they spend.
Not a thing that is exclusive to Apple, of course. It’s how society has been since the 80s and Reaganomics, with Nike and other running shoes being the first really noticeable marketing push in that regard.
Where Apple paved the way is that, even back then, a company would make a product, assign a profit margin to it (traditionally about 30-40%), and sell it at that price…
Apple came along and said, “the only limit to a profit margin is how much you can convince stupid people to pay. We’ll use billions of dollars in advertising to convince people that they’re sub-human if they don’t agree with it. If the consumer is dumb enough to pay 250% profit margin for a phone device that costs us literally a couple hundred bucks to make…than that’s on them and their own stupidity.”
So in short, profit margin is no longer a relatively stable number dictated by market forces and the relative strength of the economy, and (thanks to Apple) instead has become a function of marketing. How much can you convince suckers to spend.
- Comment on Why would America declaring cartels terrorist organizations be a problem for Mexico? 1 week ago:
Best review of it I read was:
“DFW is a perfect example of what happens when people think they are above editing.”
- Comment on Why would America declaring cartels terrorist organizations be a problem for Mexico? 1 week ago:
I’ve honestly never made it through the whole thing.
Tried to, back in the day. It’s one of those things that’s expected of you if you want to be a proper turtleneck wearing, pretentious literati as a university student. (I was a douche, okay…I admit it…it’s the same reason I fought my way through War and Peace and Foucault’s Pendulum) But I’m much better now.
- Comment on Why would America declaring cartels terrorist organizations be a problem for Mexico? 1 week ago:
It’s a pretext for invasion. Just like invading Afganistan was to intervene in order to get Al-Queda. Or invading Iraq was about getting the Taliban… etc… etc… etc…
If America wants a war with someone for oil/economic pressure/etc… (really whatever reason they choose to make up) they simply say that there are terrorists there.
I’m calling it now and saying that in two weeks he declares the Quebec Sovereignty movement a terrorist organization for reasons…
- Comment on What is your favorite retro racing game? 1 week ago:
It makes me feel old to admit it’s retro, but Gran Turismo on Playstation.
- Comment on Why hasn't the deep state stopped trump? 1 week ago:
Those dreadfully dangerous Antifa terrorists sure have gone silent too, haven’t they.
It’s almost as though they never existed.
Right now, we need Antifa to be everything that the right wings pretended Antifa was.
- Comment on So, is the USA screwed? 1 week ago:
More and more every day…
- Comment on Why there is no photos of earth from space? 2 weeks ago:
There are no stupid questions.
But there are in fact, some very stupid ones.
- Comment on What would happen if USA invades Canada? 2 weeks ago:
You think a U.S. military base isn’t getting kicked the fuck out of a foreign country the moment they are declared an enemy? Or do you have such a little opinion of everyone else that you think a couple of military bases will immediately take over every European county at once?
If America invades Canada it’s global reach becomes null and void essentially the next day. Every Nato country expels American military personnel, by force if necessary, and America’s role in the world is done, regardless if they win against Canada or not.
- Comment on The English word "four" has 4 letters. Are there any other numbers where the English name for them has that many letters? 3 weeks ago:
Flive has flive letters.
- Comment on what if another country staged a coup in the US and deposed trump? 3 weeks ago:
Putin is currently staging a coup, and it’s on the United States’ dime. If all of this is somehow actually the machinations of Putin, you can’t help but be impressed with it.
- Comment on Do you like the smell of bookstores? 4 weeks ago:
oh god yes. ESPECIALLY used book stores. Shared stories have a particular smell that just speaks of history.
- Comment on Tesla pulls out all the stops as Cybertruck sales grind to a halt 4 weeks ago:
I can’t help but think that there’s a Broadway musical first act closing song somewhere in there…
- Comment on Anyone here good at drawing political cartoons? 4 weeks ago:
Update - Idea has been claimed. If he changes his mind I’ll post it publically.
- Comment on Anyone here good at drawing political cartoons? 4 weeks ago:
I might end up doing that. The reason I didn’t do it immediately was because as cool as that would be, I’m relatively sure some AI slop would crawl into the responses and end up shared (which would make me sad) versus just giving the idea (and credit) to a single human.
- Comment on Anyone here good at drawing political cartoons? 4 weeks ago:
power cool community
Didn’t even know that was a thing, to be honest.
- Comment on Description of gamers and gaming from 1632. 4 weeks ago:
“Humanity” – Proudly rage-quitting since 1632
- Comment on Does anyone know what Trump is going to do with people with mental disabilities who get SSDI? Or can someone link me something on Trump and SSDI since google is cleaning up Trump from searches? 4 weeks ago:
You might want to read up on the fascist fascination with Eugenics, my friend.
- Submitted 4 weeks ago to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world | 11 comments
- Comment on What do you think of anarchism? 4 weeks ago:
Quite literally impossible to implement. Same as true “Libertarianism”. Can’t actually exist.
Look at it this way. You and your neighbours want no government. No taxes. No laws. No “authority” telling you what to do and how to do it. Great!
What happens when the road needs to be fixed? Do you fix just the road in front of your house? Or do you negotiate with your neighbours for you all to pay a fair share to get the entire road done? Congratulations…you just invented government.
So now the road is getting done, but the people doing the work really don’t want to deal with every individual for every particular decision. It’s a much better idea to elect one person to do the communicating. Congratulations…you just invented civics and beaurocracy
This person that you all agreed to handle all of this stuff doesn’t have time anymore to support himself or his family because he’s dealing with your shit, so he demands that each of you pay an amount to keep in able to feed himself while he administrates your “anarchic society.” Congratulations…you just invented taxes
Replace “roads” with literally anything else in a community and the end result is the same. Both Libertarians and Anarchists are fucking morons.
- Comment on Quake in China's Tibet kills 53 with tremors felt in Nepal, India 1 month ago:
“China’s Tibet”
Go fuck yourself.
- Comment on would you buy a compact laptop that has spacebar touch sensitivity and allows you to adjust input sensitivity, giving it dual purpose (a spacebar and a mouse)+ it has integrated A5 printer in it? 1 month ago:
Not in a million years.
There is no such thing as a perfectly accurate touch pad “click”. Most people (myself included) tend to see their finger slip (even just a millimeter) to the right or the left when pressing down to click on a touchpad. It leads to go knows how many times that my cursor in the middle of typing has suddenly jumped to a completely different line. In fact, it’s why they implemented the option to turn off the touchpad when typing.
So now let’s introduce ANOTHER use to that part of the keyboard. Not only do we have to deal with a wandering cursor, but we have to deal with random spaces popping into existence every time we try to scroll.
Screw that.
- Comment on Russian TV companies demand 2 undecillion rubles from Google 3 months ago:
What is that, about tree-fiddy American?
- Comment on Why The American Dream Became Unaffordable For The Middle Class 3 months ago:
Reagan and “trickle down economics” ushered in the 80s and poured gasoline onto Wall Street, empowering a thousand Gordon Geckos to abandon the middle class workers in the name of greater profit.
- Comment on ‘Americans just work harder’ than Europeans, says CEO of Norway’s $1.6 trillion oil fund, because they have a higher ‘general level of ambition’ 4 months ago:
Or maybe, just maybe, Europe has been around for soooo much longer than America that they’ve reached the age where they realize that there are other priorities in life than just the accumulation of wealth. Like enjoying life, having a work/life balance, socializing with one’s friends and family.
Perpsectives change when your history as a country is longer than a few hundred years.