Because they were very expensive and it’s nearly impossible to find other chumps who will buy them. They also stand out exactly like one would expect so even if you only have one or two in your city you’re going to see them every time they’re anywhere near you.

You’ve never been to a bluegrass jam, then. That’s a party, and there’re plenty of songs to go along with the tunes, too. The solos are short and go off, and then you’re back at it. A song or tune only lasts so long and there’s always movement to keep it alive(which is why I didn’t say old time fiddle music since it’s also very repetitive).

Jazz jams, as someone who swing dances, are generally incredibly meh. The core audience take themselves too seriously to create a fun atmosphere, and the solos all last waaay to long. They play for themselves, often to the point where even the band is disconnected from itself. My friend once played a recording of her friends at a jam for us to practice to and it was so bad that they weren’t even in time with eachother.

Go to your local bluegrass jam and relax. Playing music with others is really important.

Economies are strongest when small amojnts change hands often which is exactly the opposite of what the current concentration of wealth seeks to do. These are people who work and vote against minimum wage increases, unions, and who constantly push propaganda blaming the working class for spending money to deflect from the fact that they don’t pay enough.

It’s not “absurd” to say that the richest among us are trying to drain wealth out of the working class because it’s happening in broad daylight. We can all see it, they don’t give a shit about their employees. It’s to the point were every 4-day work-week experiment has been a success both for employee happiness and productivity but we still aren’t seeing that schedule being adopted.

The rich do not care about you, and if millions of the working class die they don’t give a shit. Slave plantations weren’t actually all that efficient but it didn’t matter because it the abuse was part of it.

Small businesses die out, often times, because people can’t afford to buy their stuff. One of the most basic signs of a good economy is small amounts changing hands often. Places like Walmart dominate the field because everyone is so poor they need to worry about saving single dollars and many cannot responsibly buy from local businesses. It’s literally a business strategy for Walmart, Amazon, etc. to undercut long enough to drive out small business and then they keep their employees too poor to fight back.

You’re scared, and I get that, but it will be ok.

We’ve already seen dead actors being brought back through AI usage, I think Val Kilmer was one of them. She might not have the most unique looks but even I can recognize her; someone stealing her likeness to make sales is very possible and would have huge repercussions, especially with how culty her base can be.

Ultimately it should be thoroughly illegal if someone hasn’t opted into it and the legal battle should be telling the people who used the likeness should be told to go fuck themselves.

You only said one person! In this essay…

Boris Johnson’s look is/was apparently designed to make him seem likeable to stupid people. They see someone who has a decent fitting suit and think “fuck that elitist bastard” because that’s the level we’re operating on.

To be honest, I get how it has an effect but this is just insanity. The level of fuckery we permit based on the dumbest shit is just insane.

We all know that, it just doesn’t really fit here.

Ok?

I’m also not talking about absolutes, unless you’re participating in relativistic politics that only care about ideologies in reference to other ideologies and is a practice used by people too stupid to form their own opinions about platforms they’ve actually looked into.

The propaganda is lazy and obvious. I will not demand that many of them being hanged in the street but I will not sit here and act as though they aren’t immensely fucking stupid for falling for this crap. They can’t even be consistent enough in their own messaging to claim that the wool has been pulled over their eyes.

Exactly. Centrism, and the very idea that there is “moderation” to be sought between progressive ideals and back-assward conservatism, is a fucking plague. We all suffer because people don’t want to seem “extreme” and I’m fucking tired of it. We have to commit to being progressive and admit that all centrism has ever done is seek validation for and to normalize right-wing viewpoints long enough that we stop paying attention.

Or, as is the case with a lot of sex work, push people into more dangerous situations.

I trust the government, in that a government elected by a moderately intelligent population won’t be doing this fuckshit.

The biggest problem is that human beings are, by and large, far too stupid. As one guy put it, too many fully-grown adults are falling for obvious games of Peek-a-boo. There are billions of people so stupid that there are birds with greater levels of intelligence and problem solving skills.

We could have a wonderful world with a government that genuinely works for the people but instead half of us are voting our lives away just to spite already-disadvantaged minorities and the other half is voting for centrists because they’re too scared of even moderately progressive politicians. And the whole time polls show us as generally quite left-leaning, even the “conservatives” but we aren’t clever enough to see the tribalism right in front of us.

Governments are representing their people, that’s the problem, and there’s also no solution that doesn’t itself devolve into authoritarianism almost immediately. The only thing I’m genuinely holding out for is that the leaded-fuel-poisoning theory is real and we all smarten the fuck up ASAP. Reality is screaming at us to figure it the fuck out.

Dry-aged beef has spoiled. The trick to it is that you need a fairly large piece, like a whole leg or side, and then you trim off all the bad stuff on the outside. More simply, they don’t butcher it then age it. If you go buy a piece of dry-aged beef it’s gunna act a lot like any other piece of meat but if it hadn’t been butchered you could just keep aging it beyond when this individual piece would have gone bad.

Not even a little bit, and I’d say “but good effort” but really no, not even that.

https://youtu.be/x3sSFBb0ILQ

Yes, I do.

Except their weight which leads to insane amounts of energy transfer and also none of the intrastructure, like guardrails, is built to handle that much weight so low down.

The way to safer is to reduce the amount of cars.

Microsoft has had a lot of resources for decades and sucked at the most basic stuff the whole time. Not taking a stance on AI usage here, just saying that the idea that a company having more money is rarely connected to the quality of the product they create and, in fact, chasing profits often leads to products being worse.

That’s fucked up about the grocery thing. My small town where I’m from would probably have the same issue, come to think of it. There’s sorta a bus that replaces a 10-15min drive to another store, but it sucks and even once you get there there’s a giant parking lot to cross. No way an elderly person is making that trip with any frequency, which they would because they wouldn’t be able to carry that many groceries.

But anyway, I think it’s also something ya’ll need to still take responsibility for. Each state still has its major failures that don’t need to be taken in a larger context in order to be criticised. They still influence the federal election, and popular vote-wise the far-right is still incredibly numerous in the US. The best the US can muster is woefully inadequate and the worst is incredibly dangerous to everyone else on the planet including themselves. So many chances to have stopped the country having gone in this direction and yet there have been decades of embarrassing failures to stop this crap. No country is a monolith, that’s not an excuse.

Oh, and as much as they were horribly wrong, awful people, Jan 6 insurrectionists showed up.

Well, that and also people in France can take public transportation to cross the country quite easily. In the US, most people can’y even get groceries without a personal vehicle.

Not saying it’s an excuse, they’ve gotta figure this out because holy fuck, but yea. Deeply unserious country.