I wish. My rep is on there and we had 2 progressive challengers, but near as I can tell, no real support and the result was him winning with like 70%+ of the vote.
This is the kind of place where people will shoot themselves in the foot before they vote for anyone who might raise taxes or stop bombing brown people.
I think it’s more accurate to look at it as the same kind of survivorship bias as the companies themselves. Investors aren’t voters or politicians, they’re pools of capital. The bigger the pool, the more sway they have over things. If an investor were to consistently vote in such a way that did not maximize their returns, their pool of capital would shrink relative to those who do. Thus over time, the most influential investors will be the selfish ones and the less greedy ones will be naturally pushed out.
Thinking about it terms of them “wanting more money” makes it seem like they are a static entity with opinions and if only we could get better ones things would be ok. It ignores the way in which capitalism is a process that produces the outcomes we see. It’s an inevitability that an economy run on these principles will turn out this way.
Was it called Fellowship? I’m keeping my eye on that, but it seems like it’s not exactly what I’m looking for. I think it’s only small group content and from what I’ve been told the fights are a lot of “avoid the bad stuff.” I really miss the kind of fights we had to strategize and optimize for. I might still try it anyway when it goes 1.0, but I’m really hoping for something a little different.
I want a game that is just the dungeons and raids parts of WoW. No outside grinding. You just log in with your guild and smash your face against bosses together.
Look at it from the other way around: Capitalism is dependent on endless growth to function. To that end, consumerism is one tool by which capitalists sustain that endless growth rather than the problem in and of itself. It would be no good for them if people were able to just buy a thing when they needed it and it lasted a really long time. So they find ways to induce demand. A shiny new phone every year with planned obsolescence, advertising and other forms of cultural influence that equate happiness with disposable consumption, monopolistic tactics to crush alternatives, lobbying for government policies to limit alternatives and promote financial conditions that encourage consumption over saving, etc.
You can still say that at the end of all of this people ultimately "decide" to consume or not, but... what is that accomplishing exactly? Is our plan to just hope that every single individual person decides to lower their consumption, no matter how difficult or burdensome that might be given their situation? Especially considering how lopsided the actual emissions are towards the very wealthy? And if people started doing that... do you think corporations don't aggressively push back in whatever way they can? Because that plan isn't working either.
The "personal responsibility" angle isn't actually taking responsibility, it's just acting smug and accepting our doom is inevitable, but not your fault because you already "did your part." Get organized or we all die. It's that simple. It won't be easy, but it's our only real option.
Notably, this is all a very daunting task. While we need national and international action, that isn't the only thing that matters. Activism in your community can help too. Plenty of stuff happens at the level of cities, towns, and counties. Roads and transportation. Zoning laws. Any gov or HOA requirements around grass and gardening. Tree planting. The gov's relationship with utility providers. Fighting back against destructive development projects like data centers, parking lots, etc.
This is going to depend a lot on what the town is like though. Some places are going to be too poor to build any infrastructure projects like trains without funding from higher levels of gov. Some states have passed laws which try to limit local gov's ability to enact environmental legislation. In some places it might be a pretty big uphill battle politically to make any big changes.
Ultimately the important thing is to gather enough people who can be engaged in the process that whatever your goals are become achievable. And hey, going back to the consumer side of this, if you have a lot of people, a boycott or strike becomes more of an effective option.
So to echo your final dismissive line: Go touch grass (then rip it out and replace it with native plants). This is coming from someone who's been dealing with chronic depression for years and is finally making an effort to get out there and connect with people again. If I can do it, you can. (Maybe, idk your circumstances, maybe you have a condition even worse than mine.)
It’s a condition called hipsteritis, and unfortunately it’s terminal.
I do get you though. I’m not as extreme as what you’re describing, but I’ve definitely had this reaction to some things.
For me, one version of this is sort of an overcorrection to unreasonable expectations. If something is super popular and a bunch of people recommend it to me, I’d expect it to be the best thing ever and… that’s just not how that works. The most popular things are the things that are acceptable to the most people, not necessarily the best or what would be your favorite, so I go see the thing and if it’s just ok I feel like I have to push back against everyone overly praising it.
Idk what it is, but I think I get plenty of fiber in my diet but I still regularly have problems with this. My doc told me drinking water with the fiber is important, but I’m pretty sure I’m already drinking lots of water too. So… idk, if it gets bad enough maybe I’ll go look into it some more.
Plus, we have no idea what being stuck in a lich's body does to the human psyche, so he has at least that much excuse for the evil he does do outright and knowingly.
That's the thing that made me start thinking about this. There's almost an interesting angle there with his body seemingly mysteriously changing how he feels, but they never do anything with it. I think some kind of internal struggle and mystery around it could have been a good plotline. I didn't finish watching it, but there was another trash isekai about a guy becoming an evil boss from a video game he played (A Wild Last Boss Appears) and there was a bit of that going on with the personality of the real character he's inhabiting slowly overtaking his own. Although at least for what I saw, they didn't really do much more with that either.
I've been watching "A Livid Lady's Guide to Getting Even" separate from my group. I have a bit more room for trash in my schedule.
That said, I feel kind of odd about the show. It sort of reminds me of my issue with Overlord: We follow the protagonist most of the time as someone to root for, then they do some absolutely heinous things that feel like they came out of nowhere, then we go right back to them being vaguely sympathetic. I'd say it's one of the problems with doing a villain as protagonist TV show because it's hard for time spent with the protag not to make a connection. However, I feel like there have been some good examples of shows where the protag is the bad guy or becomes the bad guy either due to a "road to hell is paved with good intentions" or "corrupted by circumstances" plot devices.
The one that most comes to mind is Breaking Bad. It's a long road from push over high school teach and family man to ruthless drug kingpin and we're there every step of the way to see how it happens.
This show and Overlord don't really feel like that. The protagonists just kinda do evil shit every once in a while and nobody really acknowledges how fucked up that is. The most recent episode really hammered that home for me.
idk, I'm just overthinking a trash show. It's just that sometimes I can't help but watch some of these and think of what they could have been with more competent... everything.
Yeah he got that wrong, but I think this still highlights the dynamic at play. Regan pushed the horrible cultural narrative around welfare, but then he was followed by Clinton saying he was going to “end welfare as we know it.” Softer language than Regan, but pushing in the same policy direction, enabled by Regan’s earlier propaganda, and in the act of making it bipartisan, he normalized it as a position that we’ve been stuck with ever since.
This week I went to my first anime convention: Anime NYC. It was alright. I don't regret going, but I probably wouldn't go out of my way to go again. It's like 90% people selling stuff. I'm more used to gaming conventions where there's a bunch of stuff to do because companies are showcasing upcoming games.
I did enjoy seeing all the cosplayers though. There were so many. A LOT of them were either from gatcha games or really popular stuff like One Piece/Demon Slayer, but I did also see quite a few from shows I liked.
A few Jojos ones, but save for one Star Platinum, only from part 5/6. I guess it's easier to cosplay the characters that don't have muscles that put bodybuilders to shame.
One Violet Evergarden. I was with my mom who I recently introduced to anime and she loved this show, so she was happy to see that.
There was a Frieren meetup that we went to see. (It was weirdly difficult to find lol.) Funny thing is the character composition. There were only two Frierens in the entire group. Most were Stark or Fern, then one Himmel and I think two Eisens.
There was also a meetup for Apothecary Diaries, but it was at the same time as a panel we went to instead.
On the way over to the Frieren meetup we saw the Blue Lock meetup and I found it kind of funny because I'm reasonably sure literally every cosplayer there was a woman. I didn't really consider it's appeal to female audiences, but now that I think about it I guess it makes sense.
There was one person is a big Garfield mascot costume with a bikini on top of it.
One guy was David from Edgerunners.
One Megumin.
And some others, but you get the idea.
Also holy shit, I haven't been in the Javits Center since I was a kid. I did not appreciate just how fucking MASSIVE that place is. It takes like a minute or so to walk from one end of the building to the other.
Don't let the trashy stuff fool you. It's actually just a genuinely good comedy. One of my favorites anime.
Yeah but I've never heard anyone use it that way. I don't think anyone would mistake you for talking about underwear in most scenarios.
I wish. My rep is on there and we had 2 progressive challengers, but near as I can tell, no real support and the result was him winning with like 70%+ of the vote.
This is the kind of place where people will shoot themselves in the foot before they vote for anyone who might raise taxes or stop bombing brown people.
What did you think it might be? That seems like the pretty obvious point.
I think it’s more accurate to look at it as the same kind of survivorship bias as the companies themselves. Investors aren’t voters or politicians, they’re pools of capital. The bigger the pool, the more sway they have over things. If an investor were to consistently vote in such a way that did not maximize their returns, their pool of capital would shrink relative to those who do. Thus over time, the most influential investors will be the selfish ones and the less greedy ones will be naturally pushed out.
Thinking about it terms of them “wanting more money” makes it seem like they are a static entity with opinions and if only we could get better ones things would be ok. It ignores the way in which capitalism is a process that produces the outcomes we see. It’s an inevitability that an economy run on these principles will turn out this way.
Was it called Fellowship? I’m keeping my eye on that, but it seems like it’s not exactly what I’m looking for. I think it’s only small group content and from what I’ve been told the fights are a lot of “avoid the bad stuff.” I really miss the kind of fights we had to strategize and optimize for. I might still try it anyway when it goes 1.0, but I’m really hoping for something a little different.
I want a game that is just the dungeons and raids parts of WoW. No outside grinding. You just log in with your guild and smash your face against bosses together.
“Legal you say? We can fix that!”
Luna’s videos have been so informative and interesting. Honestly they kind of make me want to go to Vietnam someday.
Ah yes, just like all the other countries that democratically voted for their own people’s interests. Those were all totally left alone by the US.
Yeah. My dad is an atrocious driver who has gotten lucky so far.
Look at it from the other way around: Capitalism is dependent on endless growth to function. To that end, consumerism is one tool by which capitalists sustain that endless growth rather than the problem in and of itself. It would be no good for them if people were able to just buy a thing when they needed it and it lasted a really long time. So they find ways to induce demand. A shiny new phone every year with planned obsolescence, advertising and other forms of cultural influence that equate happiness with disposable consumption, monopolistic tactics to crush alternatives, lobbying for government policies to limit alternatives and promote financial conditions that encourage consumption over saving, etc.
You can still say that at the end of all of this people ultimately "decide" to consume or not, but... what is that accomplishing exactly? Is our plan to just hope that every single individual person decides to lower their consumption, no matter how difficult or burdensome that might be given their situation? Especially considering how lopsided the actual emissions are towards the very wealthy? And if people started doing that... do you think corporations don't aggressively push back in whatever way they can? Because that plan isn't working either.
The "personal responsibility" angle isn't actually taking responsibility, it's just acting smug and accepting our doom is inevitable, but not your fault because you already "did your part." Get organized or we all die. It's that simple. It won't be easy, but it's our only real option.
Notably, this is all a very daunting task. While we need national and international action, that isn't the only thing that matters. Activism in your community can help too. Plenty of stuff happens at the level of cities, towns, and counties. Roads and transportation. Zoning laws. Any gov or HOA requirements around grass and gardening. Tree planting. The gov's relationship with utility providers. Fighting back against destructive development projects like data centers, parking lots, etc.
This is going to depend a lot on what the town is like though. Some places are going to be too poor to build any infrastructure projects like trains without funding from higher levels of gov. Some states have passed laws which try to limit local gov's ability to enact environmental legislation. In some places it might be a pretty big uphill battle politically to make any big changes.
Ultimately the important thing is to gather enough people who can be engaged in the process that whatever your goals are become achievable. And hey, going back to the consumer side of this, if you have a lot of people, a boycott or strike becomes more of an effective option.
So to echo your final dismissive line: Go touch grass (then rip it out and replace it with native plants). This is coming from someone who's been dealing with chronic depression for years and is finally making an effort to get out there and connect with people again. If I can do it, you can. (Maybe, idk your circumstances, maybe you have a condition even worse than mine.)
It’s a condition called hipsteritis, and unfortunately it’s terminal.
I do get you though. I’m not as extreme as what you’re describing, but I’ve definitely had this reaction to some things.
For me, one version of this is sort of an overcorrection to unreasonable expectations. If something is super popular and a bunch of people recommend it to me, I’d expect it to be the best thing ever and… that’s just not how that works. The most popular things are the things that are acceptable to the most people, not necessarily the best or what would be your favorite, so I go see the thing and if it’s just ok I feel like I have to push back against everyone overly praising it.
Idk what it is, but I think I get plenty of fiber in my diet but I still regularly have problems with this. My doc told me drinking water with the fiber is important, but I’m pretty sure I’m already drinking lots of water too. So… idk, if it gets bad enough maybe I’ll go look into it some more.
That's the thing that made me start thinking about this. There's almost an interesting angle there with his body seemingly mysteriously changing how he feels, but they never do anything with it. I think some kind of internal struggle and mystery around it could have been a good plotline. I didn't finish watching it, but there was another trash isekai about a guy becoming an evil boss from a video game he played (A Wild Last Boss Appears) and there was a bit of that going on with the personality of the real character he's inhabiting slowly overtaking his own. Although at least for what I saw, they didn't really do much more with that either.
I've been watching "A Livid Lady's Guide to Getting Even" separate from my group. I have a bit more room for trash in my schedule.
That said, I feel kind of odd about the show. It sort of reminds me of my issue with Overlord: We follow the protagonist most of the time as someone to root for, then they do some absolutely heinous things that feel like they came out of nowhere, then we go right back to them being vaguely sympathetic. I'd say it's one of the problems with doing a villain as protagonist TV show because it's hard for time spent with the protag not to make a connection. However, I feel like there have been some good examples of shows where the protag is the bad guy or becomes the bad guy either due to a "road to hell is paved with good intentions" or "corrupted by circumstances" plot devices.
The one that most comes to mind is Breaking Bad. It's a long road from push over high school teach and family man to ruthless drug kingpin and we're there every step of the way to see how it happens.
This show and Overlord don't really feel like that. The protagonists just kinda do evil shit every once in a while and nobody really acknowledges how fucked up that is. The most recent episode really hammered that home for me.
idk, I'm just overthinking a trash show. It's just that sometimes I can't help but watch some of these and think of what they could have been with more competent... everything.
Whenever there is a fantasy action show and one character uses a gun I like to joke “I cast gun!”
Yeah he got that wrong, but I think this still highlights the dynamic at play. Regan pushed the horrible cultural narrative around welfare, but then he was followed by Clinton saying he was going to “end welfare as we know it.” Softer language than Regan, but pushing in the same policy direction, enabled by Regan’s earlier propaganda, and in the act of making it bipartisan, he normalized it as a position that we’ve been stuck with ever since.
I generally don’t take many pictures. I just have this one from the Frieren cosplay meetup.
EDIT: Oh, looking close at the pic, there was one more character in there. I assume the guy with green hair is the drunk priest.
This week I went to my first anime convention: Anime NYC. It was alright. I don't regret going, but I probably wouldn't go out of my way to go again. It's like 90% people selling stuff. I'm more used to gaming conventions where there's a bunch of stuff to do because companies are showcasing upcoming games.
I did enjoy seeing all the cosplayers though. There were so many. A LOT of them were either from gatcha games or really popular stuff like One Piece/Demon Slayer, but I did also see quite a few from shows I liked.
A few Jojos ones, but save for one Star Platinum, only from part 5/6. I guess it's easier to cosplay the characters that don't have muscles that put bodybuilders to shame.
One Violet Evergarden. I was with my mom who I recently introduced to anime and she loved this show, so she was happy to see that.
There was a Frieren meetup that we went to see. (It was weirdly difficult to find lol.) Funny thing is the character composition. There were only two Frierens in the entire group. Most were Stark or Fern, then one Himmel and I think two Eisens.
There was also a meetup for Apothecary Diaries, but it was at the same time as a panel we went to instead.
On the way over to the Frieren meetup we saw the Blue Lock meetup and I found it kind of funny because I'm reasonably sure literally every cosplayer there was a woman. I didn't really consider it's appeal to female audiences, but now that I think about it I guess it makes sense.
There was one person is a big Garfield mascot costume with a bikini on top of it.
One guy was David from Edgerunners.
One Megumin.
And some others, but you get the idea.
Also holy shit, I haven't been in the Javits Center since I was a kid. I did not appreciate just how fucking MASSIVE that place is. It takes like a minute or so to walk from one end of the building to the other.