Act Accordingly.

Do keep in mind, however, that Wranglerstar has been getting nuttier and nuttier over the last year, but he still comes out with a few gems now and then.

Over the last 25 years of being on the Internet, I've seen a lot of people come and go, a lot of flame wars, and I've even seen those wars spill over into the physical world. People with behavioral issues getting banned from IRL events, when their bad behavior got too extreme.

But even 20 years ago, people had jobs that could still provide a halfway decent living. You were still able to put yourself through college, pay rent and buy groceries. And more importantly, you actually had free time.

You had the ability to go out to bars, restaurants, shows, games and other things. You could have football nights, game nights, parties and have fun.

And some of the people you would hang out with might have been somewhat troublesome, but you didn't have to actually live in the same house with them. You could still enjoy their company when they were sober, or not ranting about X, and were otherwise being cool. And so you kept them around. You didn't brush them off, ghost them, or otherwise cut off contact, because you actually had free time to gamble with. You could lose a few hours if they got too drunk, and not feel bad about it afterwards.

That's not the case anymore.

Nobody has any free time anymore. Everyone is working two, sometimes three jobs, just to keep their heads above water. And on those extremely rare moments where you actually have some spare time, people have become VERY selective about who they choose to spend it with.

Joey the Racist Magat who rants about BLM, Antifa and how great trump is, BUT puts on a really good spread at his parties, with lots of free beer? You were okay with laughing and nodding at their nonsense because you were stuffed with shrimp cocktail and imported beer. But Joey has felt the pinch too, and was forced to trim down to Crock Pot BBQ wiener dogs and Coors Light. Now it's no longer worth listening to his garbage, and you don't show up.

It's exactly the same online.

People no longer have any time, so they have absolutely zero interest in tolerating racists or other social garbage. There is absolutely zero value in listening to anything they have to say, anything they have to offer, because they aren't providing anything to offset the misery they cause. They aren't putting out shrimp cocktail and imported beer anymore.

This is all the more infuriating, because it would be so very easy for them to do the slightest bit of research, and learn that their PoV is misguided and harmful. But because their PoV makes them happy...

They don't.

They don't even try.

THAT is the "wake-up call" that this person isn't just ignorant, they are proud of it. And for most people out there, that's their cue to tell that person to piss off.

And finally...

I was thinking of the "free exchange of ideas" last night. You know, it's not like a market, it's like a potluck. Everyone brings their own ideas and you sample others and some are familiar with a twist, some are interesting but not to your taste, some are bad, some are life changing. You can get into a discussion about recipes or technique, or what have you as people talk about the food. If someone brings mashed potatoes, you can debate about the appropriateness for a potluck: It is too bland? Will it get cold on the table? Do potatoes make up too much of our diet? But if someone puts a streaming platter of dog shit on the table, we're not going to debate it. And when we tell them to take it off the table, it's not because we are afraid of eating their dog shit or we think that it's going to revolutionize lunch but we don't want to allow that to happen. We tell them to get it off the table because there is no debate to be had. It's dog shit. It's not an open question, it's not a matter of palates or picky eaters. That's why we don't engage with white supremacists and , and it's why we don't (or shouldn't)

Y'know, I have just the thing for this problem.

*roots in the basement and pulls out a very old folder*

Ah! Here we are?

*blows the dust off*

This is kinda old, but much like a lot of things that were made back then, it was made based on extensive painful experience, and it was designed to be fully functional within our society. And it just so happens that it would be perfectly compatible with our modern world and everything about it!

*opens the folder*

Here you go! All it needs is a few signatures and it's ready to drop right back into service.

...unless the product is going to:

1. Harvest heaving, titanic gobs of customer data.
2. Collect astronomical amounts of corporate data.
3. Provide a direct arterial shunt for advertising directly into the public's everyday internet experience...

Then anything developed by Google/Alphabet is going to be dead inside of three years. Google has precisely one function: consume all data to facilitate the generation of profit.

That's it.

And if something they produce does not do that, then think of it like a lizard dropping part of it's tail to distract a predator.

Boooring.

Now, if they were going to make a live-world example of REASON, then maybe we'd have something worth buying.

Tell me you were in the Navy without telling me you were in the Navy, LOL!

Usually from the waste tanks, but especially bilges, slop tanks and sewage.

The problem isn't a gas that's killing people, rather it's the lack of oxygen.

Basically, all the oxygen in a ship gets turned into rust, and as more oxygen is consumed, there's less available in the space to breathe.

Seafarers know it as The Rusty Assassin, and it has killed many, many people over the last century.

You know we have more prescription drugs now
Every commercial that comes on TV is a prescription drug ad
I can't watch TV for four minutes without thinking I have five serious diseases
Like: "Do you ever wake up tired in the mornings?"
Oh my god, I have this! Write this down. Whatever it is, I have it
Half the time I don't even know what the commercial is:
There's people running in fields or flying kites or swimming in the ocean
Like: "That is the greatest disease ever. How do you get that?
That disease comes with a hot chick and a puppy."

Lazyboy - Underwear Goes Inside The Pants

...I think that when STEM students start on their Bachelor's Degree, they should get strapped down ala A Clockwork Orange and spend 48 hours being forced to watch every single movie on the Gone Horribly Wrong section of TV Tropes.

If you start looking at all the problems in China that would be solved, literally overnight, by a million people dying?

The Evergrande Crisis, The Mortgage Crisis, the Population Crisis, the "Bai Lan" Youth Crisis?

Most of the casualties will be old people. Old people who are a massive draw on collapsing social services. Old people who got scammed and have sunk their entire life's savings into fraudulent banking and real estate ventures that the government can't afford to pay back, old people who are crushing the youth with traditional expectations of being cared for in their old age, when the youth have no future, no prospects and no money.

The US Mid-Term elections did not go the way the GOP had hoped, because they died like fruit flies and the voter demographics changed. So many MAGAs refused to vaccinate, wear masks, or take precautions, and they got themselves chlorinated out of the gene pool in the largest self-own since Ronald Reagan and tree pollution.

China's leadership isn't stupid. They saw that and realized a non-violent, silent purge via the pandemic would clear up a *lot* of those issues.

So yeah. Your instincts are probably correct.

Tobacco Companies are protected by what are known as " investor-state dispute settlement" clauses in international treaties. Those clauses give to foreign companies rights unavailable to local companies. They get to claim billions in compensation through an extraterritorial tribunal if they believe their rights have been infringed on even after losing in the nation in question.

From The Conversation...

Philip Morris, a US company, moved ownership of its Australian operations to Hong Kong to take advantage of ISDS in an Australia-Hong Kong investment treaty. The case made headlines around the world, in part because it scared other countries out of following Australia's plain packaging law and being on the hook for massive compensation and legal fees if they lost.

In December 2015 Australia won, completely.

The tribunal decided said that Philip Morris was not a Hong Kong company and had moved ownership of its Australian operations to Hong Kong in order to take advantage of the ISDS provision. And that's where things rested until late last month when a half a decade later a freedom of information request revealed how much Australia's win cost it.

Australia's external legal fees and arbitration costs amounted to almost A$24 million. It is likely to have had to bear substantial internal costs in the departments of health, attorney generals and foreign affairs and trade on top of the A$24 million.

Even though Philip Morris had its case thrown out on the grounds that it was an abuse of process, it will only have to pay half of Australia's costs.

A what???

Those go to va.gov and nih.gov. Where are you getting cold fusion???

Although what's odd is the NIH article would not come up when I was using my VPN. Once I turned it off, it came up.

So high-risk, high-danger events, such as the threat of death that cannot be easily avoided, combined with financial stress from job loss, emotional distress from the death of family members, and social distress caused by political uncertainty from the elected leadership, can all have an effect on developing brains?

Wow.

It's almost as if living organisms on this planet have evolved to adjust their growth patterns and adaptive strategies in order to ensure survival.

And if you think this is frightening or disturbing, wait until you take a look at their genetics.

You aren't going to like what you find out.