If there was a coherent point in that, I missed it.

Most of my family put their event calendar on Facebook. I refuse to have a Facebook account, and they refuse to give me updates via phone calls, so I'm largely disconnected from my family. I've complained about this profusely, but their reaction is, "Why aren't you on Facebook? IT'S FREE!"

The ability to resist using social media is a lot more complicated these days. You can choose not to use social media, but you can't choose your family.

This is more than just about individual, personal choice. It's a cultural problem.

You're buying something of value and you might be underestimating or overestimating the value of that thing but you're still getting the thing. Specifically you are buying ownership in a company.

That's not gambling. You don't get paid based on the outcome. You get paid based on the relative value of the company.

Now if that system isn't working very well for you no shit, we have been deregulating markets for the last 50 years what the fuck did you expect? But that's not a problem with the underlining system that's you refusing to do the maintenance the system needs to function properly. If you stop changing your car is oil it's going to break down.

Gambling is when you are paid based entirely on whether a predetermined outcome happens or not. That is definitely what gambling is. You do not own anything. So you only get paid if the event happens. And there is a specific event that has to happen for you to be paid. That is gambling.

They’re all hardcore republicans. They’ll fall in line with new orders tomorrow.

Even without the context we all know who I'm talking about.

I bring it up because dear God this administration is corrupt and in light of the subject of this comment what the hell was anyone expecting?

I think the real problem is about 25% of the population of any given country or dyed in the wool assholes.

From there all you have to do is push people to enough desperation that their brain stop working right. People under enormous amounts of pressure don't suddenly get better or smarter. They make bad decisions and they make more of them.

Like believing a famous pedophile who bankrupts everything he touches is somehow going to reduce the cost of groceries. Somebody who can think straight knows better than that.

It could also just be money laundering. I've seen several of these absolutely enormous thefts and they're so large that it's basically impossible to get away with it. You can't move hundreds of millions let alone billions of dollars like this and not have it be readily traceable.

If they catch the guys who did this then yeah we will know but if they haven't caught these guys in a few months then it's either North Korea or one of the other nation states or it's just money laundering. Honestly the money laundering could easily involve nation states like Russia or Iran or North Korea.

What's with the black leather jacket he always wears? Does he think he's the Fonz? Or a Ramone?

Essentially, his wife and daughter made the choice:

For a bit more on the subject:

DuckDuckGo allows you to do this. On their homepage you can choose between a regular search or an AI search. I have my default page set to no AI.

But not one you take seriously. I use a pseudonym, you use a generic one, I am at least vaguely identifiable. Responsibility is not possible with anonymity and certainly not something cowards are known for.

Have you put yourself on a pedestal, human?

100% of speech on the internet is anonymous in the absence of an agreed, formal verification of source.

What you have written might be your opinion today, I trust that at least. But it is not a truth to trust. I don't have a body of your work to reference to see if it is consistent with your other opinions. Or just an empty, reactionary whimsy. Or the work of an AI.

In the history of the written words, the name associated with them lends them value. Few will quote an anonymous coward. I expect as few will quote me, but I stand by my record of posts, consider whether they represented what I believed and compare to what I believe now. I don't expect them to mean a bean in a hill of beans, but I believe they are generally for the common good from my perspective. One might be a pebble to start an avalanche in someone. That's good enough.

What we are doing here is graffiti, I don't know why we do, perhaps to learn from each other.

So anonymous coward enjoy your free speech, you didn't have to pay for it with your name, so what value did it have? Enough for me to engage in discourse at least.

 

It was a pretence of villages, friends groups, or a topic thread. You could make a group like a village but it didn't mean anything, or it meant as much as a group of loosely acquainted strangers on a street corner listening to every random loon that walks by holding a bill board.

What was a lie, was it calling it social, it doesn't map to how we organise in society at all. You can meet with your friends down the pub without having ads shoved in your face and most importantly, you are not anonymous, you cant conceal your identity easily, unless you are a spy.

What it mapped to was an engine to harvest behavioural data, under an invitation of a rather empty, mawkish friendship, for the direction of adverts, how they make their money.

werent a typo .. that my friend was art

I’ve been to countries where the “cops” are a dude with a decades old looking revolver and a flimsy untucked button up with a badge pinned on it.

Cops get cheap when you don’t care if they take bribes or shoot a few random npcs now and again

Woooosh

What are you even talking about? I have happily confined myself to the old internet and olde internet like experiences
I pay a little bit for some services.

Delicate, fragile