That's kind of what that (tired and overused term) "late stage capitalism" is: monopolies, oligopolies, and lack of competition. Companies seem to naturally gravitate towards cornering markets or collusion. The sad thing is that both in the US and the EU (and elsewhere too probably), antitrust laws have become a joke in practice. Capitalism needs checks and balances, and keeping the free market working is the most important one even for the more laissez-faire minded. That means strict rules around market share. a free market cannot function without meaningful competition.

Everybody should get an A at Harvard. It is required for true DEI.

good luck getting into a university physiotherapy program if you don't have all As

My father was an excellent student, his son not so much.
He attended mostly British schools and said that getting good grades or marks as they're called was very difficult and he finished 2nd out of 10,000 in his university entrance exams.

Those "rare genetic anomalies" can be up to 1.7% of the population who are born with intersex trait

You're saying that 1.7% of the population is hermaphrodite?

I seriously doubt that....

I've known women and men...most were straight, some were homosexual....

I've yet to meet someone that was not readily categorized as "dick" or "no dick".....that I've ever known.

Gender is a sociocultural construction. Usually it aligns with one's biological sex, but not always. It's certainly more than a feeling.

This is something being pushed in the past 5-maybe 10 years....and it's bullshit.

Anyone old enough to to remember back as far as the 2000's and before knows that this wasn't a thing in society....sure, we knew there were outliers as with everything. It used to be listed in the books as an official mental disorder....it still should be.

Aside from rare genetic anomalies you are a boy or a girl.....depending on where you have a dick or not.

Geez, life was SO much more simple a decade or so ago.....

...but their megaphones are drowning out reasoned discussion and making it all but impossible.

And recently...BULLETs have drowned out reasoned discussion.....

Hard to discuss when you assassinate people trying to openly discuss differences...

I was actually wondering how many close friends people typically had before social media.

I have never done social media and was around LONG before prevalence of SM and even the internet itself.

I''ve pretty much always had the same group of about 10-11 ( 1 passed a couple years ago )....very close friends I stay in touch with on a very regular basis. I live around many of them and those outside of my state...I"m on group text chats, and we *GASP* actually call each other and talk too!!

I've never found lack of social media accounts or interactions to inhibit my love for and interactions with my long term close friends.

Do most people not have real life friends numbering more than say 5+?

What about before the internet?

Remember the old saying goes:

"Friends help you move.....

........REAL friends help you move bodies...."

There's no speculation that increases CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere lead to the more heat being trapped. We've known that since the late 19th century.

Step two is a GM app store
Step three is subscriptions for all the apps in your car. Cruise control? There's an app for that. Aircon? App for that too.

Buy a second hand car? You'll need to pay for all the options the original buyer already paid for.

Hey now! Nopey is not fat! He’s just..multi-faceted.

(Previously, an Employee) ”Hey boss! Got that email you sent me. That fake AI letter you sent me about my termination? Ha! That’s a good one! Almost fooled me there for a minute.”

(T-Accounting 101) ”Yeah, about your TPS expense reports..did you get the memo that said don’t fucking steal shit? That was kind of a central theme in all those mandatory ethics courses.”

I find paddle shifters to be much more fun than a clutch and stick setup for manual shifting (even if its just telling an auto gearbox what gear to use). But i've always had a disconnect between what my feet, and what my hands, are doing. Driving a two pedal car is already a lot of focus and strain in auto D.

I've tried paddle shifters....and just doesn't work for me...

I mean, how do you down or upshift while turning the wheel...? When turning the wheel hand over hand I can't keep up with which paddle is which...

I've always had manual transmission cars all my life so far...stick on the floor.

Sadly, that's getting harder to find these days....not sure what I"ll get when the current car goes out to pasture...

"Universe 25 was a 1960s-70s experiment by John B. Calhoun that created a "mouse utopia" with ample food, water, and nesting sites, but no predators or disease. The experiment demonstrated how an overpopulation of mice, despite a lack of material scarcity, led to a social breakdown known as the "behavioral sink". This collapse included social withdrawal, aggression, a breakdown of parental care, and a cessation of reproduction, ultimately leading to the colony's extinction." -GoogleAI created summary.

We don't want to admit it, but we're so successful and wealthy that we cannot see the value of struggle.

Or, if you want the Space version, WALL-E fat lazy human civilization.

The problem is, removing resistance makes us weaker not stronger.

Remember you said that when you have 179 subscriptions to manage in your life. You act as if Greed isn't looking to fuck you in every hole it can. All day, every day.

You already admitted how more than once you've been fucked. And had to un-fuck yourself. See how easy that initial fucking was? See how you're already wondering how you're getting fucked elsewhere right now?

Stop defending Greed and start championing consumer honesty and business ethics instead. Your monthly task list shouldn't have to start with auditing how Greed is getting away with fucking you. Why? Because AI will turn monthly that task in a mind-warping daily grind. Imagine dealing with email spam today without spam filters. Yeah. THAT fucking bad.