it is called inflation - expansion of the money supply that accumulated over the years (bail outs, social payouts, covid.. ) In terms of gold HDD prices fell.

My company, my rules. For example almost all people working for me are Ukrainians, my policy is that Ukraine must win in this war against the murderous ruzzian aggression. Anyone not aligned with my values shouldn't be working here. I also completely support Israel, anyone not aligned with my values, shouldn't be working here.

government has long surpassed that threshold. Government shouldn't be so big, that its failure would take down the country, yet here we are, all of us.

They find out the hard way what "Go woke, go broke" means.

Right wing vitriol used at EVERYTHING they don't agree with.

Simply not true. The right, for all their flaws, mostly keeps their dogma to themselves (short of maybe a few religious crazies at funerals). I didn't even know Chick Fila was religious until the Left told me with a bunch of protests. Because they do what they're supposed to do: sell delicious chicken meat. They don't proselytize.

On the other hand, I can't turn around these days without running into some left soapbox about something or another. In my movies, my workplace, my TV shows, my sports...literally everything is a damn cause now. And I have no interest in seeing any of that anymore than the Left would love to hear the final chapter of Atlas Shrugged read to them in a podcast. "Go woke, go broke" is literally people voting with their dollars because they don't want what you're selling . Start up a burger shop where every burger comes with a mandatory slice of white guilt and I won't buy burgers there

Also, Google will in future think twice whether contracts with Israel are worth the trouble at home.

Or more likely they will think twice about the types of employees they choose to hire

I was only pointing out the idiocy of Americans getting on their high horse and pointing fingers at what they claim are autocracies, and in the same breath bitching about how much of an inconvenience it is to have to put up with people protesting to make an important point.

Imagine that your drive to work, or to the hospital, or even to the airport to catch a vacation flight is interrupted by a bunch of Nazis blocking traffic to make their "important points" and you'll see why people have an issue with it

If I believe (and I do) that public apathy towards the climate crisis is going to get us all killed, what do you propose I do? If I believe that commercial interests have hijacked our politics, what do you propose I do?

Provide better arguments? Provide actual solutions? Like I look around and I see the environment getting better every day. We haven't built a new coal plant in over a decade, and they're being decommissioned at an accelerated rate. Electric cars continued to ramp up. Public awareness is at an all time high. And so forth. And yet I continue to see protestors such as yourself complain we're not doing enough. Which irks me, as solutions such as taking away my meat are frankly intolerable. If you want to invent a better battery or propose some groundbreaking way to get to your goal faster, fantastic. But if all you want is to endlessly bitch that we're not doing enough no matter how much we do, your argument is going to fall on deaf and irate ears.

So, people can protest so long as the things or people you are protesting against aren't inconvenienced or have to look at your protest.

There's some irony here considering how often I see the left supporting squelching "problematic" viewpoints on services such as Reddit and Facebook because they don't believe those people deserve a megaphone. Why do you?

Are you being intentionally naÃve here? Japan obtained full sovereignty in 1952 following 7 years of occupation where the US engaged in incredibly clear messaging that the occupation was only ever temporary and that the Japanese would get their country back. Furthermore, citing the presence of US military bases in Japan as continued ownership of the country is ridiculous, Japan has the political power to expel our military at any time it wants. It even has the ability to end its pacifist constitution with a simple constitutional amendment. It's a completely sovereign nation and has been since 1952. The Palestinian territories on the other hand are not and have not been for over half a century.

One very distinct difference here is that when Japan capitulated, they really did capitulate. They didn't scheme and publicly state their ultimate goals were genocide and that they were just biding their time, as Hamas does. They didn't bitch about the necessary restrictions that were put on them like not being able to have a military. And now after a long time, trust has been regained, and they're a sovereign country. Gaza never had full control because it was too dangerous to allow it, as they seemingly responded to every peaceful offering with violence.

I did enjoy EEAAO, but I'd call it eccentric moreso than original. And I do think it was at least somewhat overrated riding the indie + "historic minority success" hype. Multiverse plots are a dime a dozen, going all the back to even Sliders in 1995. Some more recent stuff includes Coherence, Source Code, or even the Marvels movies. I like that they put their own twist on it with the martial arts & super powers and the whole Jet Li "The One" type concept. Personally it got a bit artsy and weird for me, but it was grounded enough to enjoy. At any rate, it still felt more like an adaptation of an idea moreso than an original one.

The two biggest recent movies were Oppenheimer and Barbie, and both were utterly unique as movies

I don't if I'd call Oppenheimer unique. Movies covering the Manhattan project in general have been done many times over. Fat Man and Little Boy is probably the most famous, which covers like the vast majority of the same material. Also Oppenheimer biographies are out there as well, such as the Day After Trinity or the mini series Oppenheimer from 1980.

Google is one of the companies that built the tools that allow propaganda to be made much more efficiently, funny its own employees fell for it hook line and sinker.

In the age when males are beating females in sports by pretending to be females the structural inability to tell the truth, to provide negative feedback is not only hurting female sports. Musk will never land a star ship on the Moon or Mars or anything because he is a sharlatan and he hires former government officials who signed government checks, he is burning through billions of tax money with every flight, all of these star ship flights are pointless. Gaza residents and Hamas operatives not only indistinguishable, they share the same values. People protesting pro terrorism (against Israel) are wrong for the same reasons this male athlete is participating in female sports. USA denying help to Ukraine is literally murdering thousands of Ukrainians and promoting putinism, which is terrorism. USA federal reserve has created the inflation by monetizing government debt and so the economy is dying. The planet is going to become extremely hostile to people because we are still burning coal, oil and gas for power and heat production instead of building more nuclear power plants. There are more and more lies all over.

These Googlers are a sad reflection of the modern approach to reality - our game is ignorance, lies and denial and these protests are just a form of it.

Terrorists are very good at pushing their messages, this is clear today. ruZia, hamas, Iran, north korea even, apparently they are very effective at this entire psyops thing. Israel needs to eliminate the threat, AFAIC this can entirely mean whiping out the entire Gaza population also I hope they take out Iran's rocket and drone manufacturing capabilities, this would help both, Israel and Ukraine.

The only way that I can play GTA V right now, is to pirate it... even though I purchased it through Steam.

Same. I also love how the company has zero interest in fixing this. I'll never buy another Rockstar product in my lifetime. Fuck those guys.

Flat Tax enthusiasts fail to understand the concept of the marginal value of a dollar.

No they don't

$1000 is a huge amount to someone living on minimum wage. It's a moderate amount for a middle class person, and absolutely nothing to a billionaire. Taxing the three groups the same rate is punitive to people who are already doing the worse.

That's why the Fairtax (the most often cited flat tax proposal) has a prebate. It addresses the issue of regressive taxation. Although not perfect (since the prebate addresses consumption, but not income), it's a far sight better than the complicated, loophole laden, exploitable-by-the-rich, mess of bureaucracy we're currently dealing with. At a minimum, it's a better starting point than our current system