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Here's a personal Branson story, that I think resonates with the essay.

Me and my brother, growing up in the '80s and '90s, absolutely loathed being dragged to any corny-ass Branson thing (Andy Williams, ugh) except Silver Dollar City, the amusement park. We went so many times we knew the layout of SDC by memory: where the glassblower was, where the saltwater taffy store was, where the blacksmith shop was. SDC was about watching artisans recreate old-timey crafts, the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by daisystomper at 10:26 AM on May 16, 2024

Though maybe Yakov Smirnoff is more the Kurtz in this story.

In Soviet Branson, the horror says "you, you".
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 9:19 AM on May 16, 2024

So we doing this JD Vance shit again now that the 2024 election is on the horizon?

The 90s Simpsons reference in this article was a nice touch; nostalgic pop culture references will make the liberal millennials kick at Lucy's football and to try understanding and compromising with rural white conservatism yet again.
posted to MetaFilter by AlSweigart at 6:44 AM on May 16, 2024

I challenge him to testify. Maybe it could be 'perfect' testimony. He should try.
posted to MetaFilter by mazola at 11:22 AM on May 15, 2024

My own death and the destruction of the world are inextricably linked in my own mind. I figure I have less than ten years left and dwell in morbid curiosity of how much of the climate collapse I will see before I go, and in what way the collapse of climate and society will cause my death in advance of the life expectancy I was given when I was born. My bet right now is inability to get medical care for an easily treatable condition.

We've been hearing about this stuff... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Jane the Brown at 7:30 AM on May 9, 2024

Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains pork worm infection of the brain (CNN)
posted to MetaFilter by Brian B. at 11:40 AM on May 8, 2024

Like, there were Eighties comedies where chasing gay men with a baseball bat is treated as a comedy beat. I wish I could remember which one, but it fucked me up and I didn't even know I was gay when I saw it.

I will step away for the night now. This is a major trauma point for me, and the way it was so casually regarded up until Matthew was hung on that fence to die, like RIGHT UP UNTIL HE WAS DISCOVERED... It's like an Emmitt Till moment. Burned into my brain, and it... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:21 PM on May 6, 2024

I'm just gonna add that going after Steve Engelberg of ProPublica, when that nonprofit is doing the best journalism on the planet -- and exactly the kind of work Ken says he wants to do -- is a weird flex.
posted to MetaFilter by martin q blank at 1:03 PM on April 30, 2024

People have difficulty believing that *other people* have inner lives and shouldn't be subjected to suffering.
posted to MetaFilter by Zumbador at 10:34 PM on April 25, 2024

Wasn't the off-label usage of Ozempic causing a shortage of the product for patients taking it to manage their diabetes?

I don't know if this is still an issue, but it's worth keeping in mind, again, that this "off-label usage" would be, for the most part, for people who would be considered to have a medical condition by their doctors (being overweight). I'm not saying you specifically mean this, but the underlying rhetoric on this topic... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by praemunire at 1:42 PM on April 17, 2024

I liked the article but I’m pretty deeply anti cruise. As far as I’m concerned they’re environmentally disastrous floating disease pits. And then I think about the money. I feel like I have, in recent years, sort of clawed my way back to the middle class but I could no more spend $17,000 on a week’s vacation than I could fly to the moon. And if I could, my god. There is so much more to the world. And there is so much need for that money in most of that ports they visit, but so little of it gets... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mygothlaundry at 10:53 AM on April 7, 2024

by the time it came back down from the executive suite they would have either blessed it ("go ahead"), delayed it ("mayb 3Q?”) or denied it (”no budget") without capitalizing or punctuating much of anything.

It seems to me that the poor writing there is (intentionally or not) signifying something quite different. It conveys the notion that "I'm so important that I don't have time to spend crafting a well-written reply."
posted to MetaFilter by Johnny Assay at 4:42 AM on April 7, 2024

This to me is the key bit...
"Part of the problem, Willetts explained, was that Britain’s richest twenty per cent had largely been spared the effects of the past fourteen years—and that made it genuinely difficult for them to comprehend the damage."

It matches with the observation that the UK and US are poor societies with some very rich people (Financial Times, archived) and my own experience. I meet plenty of people who are... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tomp at 3:17 AM on April 4, 2024

Ignoring the rise of zero-hour contracts/the precariat and the horrendous-on-the-ground inflation and price-gouging by utilities in the UK.....

To take one sector: Salaries in the UK for scientists & academics are still shit and have been shit for a long time....and taxes were not low.

However, that used to be offset by the

-robust welfare system (cradle-to-grave support)... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by lalochezia at 2:27 PM on April 3, 2024

Whenever I see average UK salaries, I am just floored. People will be making far less than I am to do a job at least at my level, and then there will be some news article like "this winter, heating costs expected to rise an average of 1000 pounds per household" and I just can't even imagine how there is a functional economy at all - how do people make, like, 25,000 pounds a year and spend maybe 2/5 on rent and then a thousand pounds on heat and food is also absurdly... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 1:09 PM on April 3, 2024

If humans were meant to fly, they would have been born with wings.

You realize that as an analogue to AI this means "If humans were meant to think, speak, and write, they would have been...oh wait."
posted to MetaFilter by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:59 AM on March 22, 2024

If humans were meant to fly, they would have been born with wings.

Seems disingenuous, the general-intelligence LLMs are replicating something humans can already do and using large amounts of electricity to do it. And the slimy way the LLMS were trained, without the consent of the people whose words/art/music/code became part of the training data, does not inspire confidence that the corporations have our best interests at heart.
posted to MetaFilter by subdee at 9:58 AM on March 22, 2024

assuming the EU was willing to welcome the UK back.

that's a pretty big assumption to make. and even if they were willing, the terms would be draconian.

for sure the UK would have to join the single currency, and would no longer have the opt-outs

Brexit traded the UK's leadership position in a major trade bloc, defined on its terms and with special rules, for a handful of lies.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 6:35 AM on March 18, 2024

And India put something on the moon under Modi, if you're looking for another data point along those lines.

It's almost as if fascists care more about symbols and appearances than people.
posted to MetaFilter by tommasz at 1:07 PM on March 14, 2024

Ted Cruz, the senator that flew to Cancun while hundreds of Texans were freezing in a winter apocalypse we were vastly under prepared for, in pat because Texas isn't on the power grid? Yeah. Stupid state.


An astounding number of people in my social circles reveal the terror of the bell curve by going.... It's just porn? There are other sites? I don't care if it's illegal? Sigh. This is why we can't have nice things. Even when I point out that they can't get... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Jacen at 1:53 AM on March 17, 2024

No no no, this was spurred on by the election of a black man as President. All else follows.

The election of a black man as president, the fact that you can be gay (and sometimes even trans) and live a good life rather than being totally marginalized and crushed, the fact that women are allowed to say on TV even that they don't like being harassed and sexually assaulted, etc.

It's not that they don't trust... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 8:53 AM on March 13, 2024

A few sick or dead children is a small price to pay to support local businesses!

This is, unironically, how American car culture and the local businesses that depend on it work.
posted to MetaFilter by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 6:38 AM on March 13, 2024

The only amorality I see here is that of people voting for Biden despite his support of genocide because things will be better for them personally.

Amorality. Of course you say you're not voting for Trump, because there is no optimal choices in a fallen world, so your concept of amorality contains democracy itself. Instead of sullying your hands with a free and personal decision, it is easier for you to accept the church chosen strong men to usher in... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Brian B. at 6:53 PM on March 3, 2024

We've already made paperclip maximizers. They run on wetware and are called "for profit corporations."
posted to MetaFilter by Zalzidrax at 4:13 PM on March 11, 2024

Perhaps one day we'll be scraping old vBulletin forums that haven't yet been exposed to AI, much like finding pre-nuclear age steel that is prized for it's lack of contamination.
posted to MetaFilter by msbutah at 12:41 PM on March 11, 2024

Body cameras are rather inexpensive. MUFLY makes a model under $300. Anyone who considers themselves marginalized should be using them to document the oppression they think is going on. The school won't allow it? Sue them and cite how the people in charge of enforcement of their rules to prevent oppression are failing. Toss in how the school is mandated under law, how the lack of enforcement by a public servant is like police bodycam justification, how you reported the problem and now... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by eruonna at 7:29 AM on February 27, 2024

The FBI should investigate and prosecute everyone involved in creating and sustaining a system wherein minorities are targeted, harassed, and attacked and murdered. Do that, and no one is incentivized to threaten extrajudicial violence, since you seem so concerned about that issue (it is a part of the american mythos that we have all these stupid fucking weapons to counter oppression by our government, reap what we sow and all that).

We have to fight for the smallest... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by polyhedron at 6:40 AM on February 27, 2024

Not necessarily true, Foosnark because we were also promised jetpacks
posted to MetaFilter by ashbury at 5:05 AM on February 27, 2024

I have to say, as someone who was bullied a lot and was really, chronically afraid that I'd end up dead, I find myself wondering how the kids who did this feel - are they upset at all, or are they hugging themselves with glee because they got to beat a peer to death and won't face any consequences? This really pulls some stuff up for me because I spent a lot of time in my youth really, truly believing that my peers would kill me for fun if there weren't any consequences.
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 1:37 PM on February 26, 2024

I suppose the thing I'm worried about is:
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
posted to MetaFilter by constraint at 11:56 PM on February 21, 2024

i prefer to call it the war on drug addicts
posted to MetaFilter by MonsieurPEB at 11:08 AM on February 10, 2024

at least not in functioning civil democracies

I thought we were talking about the UK? The same place that put coin-op utility meters in houses?
posted to MetaFilter by aramaic at 6:55 AM on February 9, 2024

Rothko's Basilisk is the idea that if you don't accept Rothko's greatness as an artist, you will be tortured with infinite Rothko paintings in the form of municipal graffiti abatement programs.
posted to MetaFilter by surlyben at 11:12 PM on February 7, 2024

Our culture demands that everyone have a favourite everything, a hobby they’re dedicated to, and even ‘obsessed’ with (‘discover your latest obsession’ says a patronising trailer for some shallow series we are, of course, meant to ‘binge’ on). I believe it’s all part of the current tyranny of the extroverts, but I don’t consider it normal or even particularly healthy. You’re fine, IMHO.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Phanx at 1:21 AM on February 2, 2024

This is awesome. I was (and am) such a huge fan of WKRP and everybody there - Johnny, Bailey, Venus, Travis, The Big Guy, Jennifer, Les, even Herb, once we got to see a bit more of his heart.

I love that somebody did this, and I love that we get to listen to it.

Thank you so much for posting this, Alvy Ampersand!
posted to MetaFilter by kristi at 12:59 PM on February 1, 2024

The internet and social media have created a generation that can see anything at any moment

and are unable to rationally interpret any of it

my brother lives in a small rural community which is nevertheless fully wired/online. It's one of those places where if you want any real world social life at all, you end up with friends of all ages. I don't know if he's hanging out with any teens or pre-teens but he certainly runs the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by philip-random at 12:06 PM on January 28, 2024

I'm going to reflect that the male shift right ward is harmful to men seeking platonic relationships with other men as well. Even for Canada I'm pretty lefty and the trend aggressively right ward away from the middle is hampering my ability to maintain friendships. Like I'm not going to hang around with people socially who are anti any of the LGBTQIA2S+. Or people who are anti any tax libertarians, or express their desire to have carnal relationships with the Prime Minister via truck decals. It... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Mitheral at 11:39 AM on January 28, 2024

I know, let's drown all the supercomputers and see if that yield artificial general intelligence
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 2:57 PM on January 26, 2024

The main danger of using AI to write your work is that someone who gives a fuck will read it and presume you're a moron.
posted to MetaFilter by kittens for breakfast at 11:49 AM on January 25, 2024

being in tech right now is like being in a faith healing revival or something, and it's seriously making me wonder how various people with advanced engineering degrees from prestigious schools have managed to get as far as they have.

It's not the engineering. It's the investors who will give money to the engineering companies. They've been sold that AI will make them the money they missed in Web vX.0, and they're not going to miss this wave. So... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Abehammerb Lincoln at 11:28 AM on January 25, 2024

Greg_Ace: If they're like most companies in my experience, "the metrics" serve as more of a red herring and excuse for all sorts of cockamamie ideas to "improve the metrics" rather than contributing to any sort of actual gain in product quality.

In my experience - and I'd be curious to know if yours is the same - an excessive focus on metrics seems to be the result of management having a sense that something was taking too long or... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by clawsoon at 9:37 PM on January 24, 2024

Tired: The War On Drugs
Wired: The War, On Drugs
posted to MetaFilter by credulous at 1:35 PM on January 24, 2024

And we scoffed when Roseanne Barr claimed racism was a side effect of Ambien.
posted to MetaFilter by DirtyOldTown at 8:02 AM on January 24, 2024

The problem is people say "liberals" and sometimes they mean "establishment Democratic politicians" and sometimes they mean "the kind of people who thought punching Nazis was uncivil and should be stopped" and sometimes they mean "people who believe in classic liberalism" and only occasionally do they mean "people on Metafilter who believe in stuff like LGBTQ rights and abortion access."

I mean it's basically an... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by joannemerriam at 7:45 AM on January 23, 2024

Yes Trump sounds like a moron too, but he's still stringing words together at something approaching normal pace.

If you're truly paying attention this is entirely not the case, but there is no media machine churning out Trump Is Too Old messaging.

But really pay closer attention. Trump is fucking up his speech, mixing up people in his mind, like Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley just this past week but also many times confusing... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by hippybear at 5:50 PM on January 21, 2024

Racists (like people who are sexist, transphobic, abelist, ect) don't think there's anything wrong with their belief system. To them, it's a just, kind, "natural" and logical way to understand the world, and if everyone would just accept their proper place in the hierarchy, all would be well. By no accident, the correct place in the hierarchy for "them" is below the person in question.

There's a lot of truth in what you say, but... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ursula Hitler at 2:18 PM on January 17, 2024

In the end it comes down to being a “boy’s club” which I mean in a way that says there’s a clique that keeps you in or out.

There must be in-groups whom HR protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom HR binds but does not protect.
posted to MetaFilter by flabdablet at 11:35 PM on January 1, 2024

An inverse trolley problem

A trolley opportunity!
posted to MetaFilter by Saxon Kane at 8:46 AM on December 7, 2023

The challenge, maybe it’s an imperative, is to find ways to save ourselves collectively, to throw off the “pretense of self-sufficiency” and confess, without shame or recrimination, that we need one another.

Oh, twaddle.

Play me that tune again when you're almost sixty, have a painful and embarrassing chronic disease which dovetails nicely with your social anxiety, and you're broke. See how many friends you have left after... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by MrVisible at 6:47 PM on November 24, 2023

ThatCanadianGirl: ...retirement planning is all about predicting the future.

Which reminds me: making every one of us manage our own retirement savings was a cruel trick, because if we were very good at it, investing would be our damn job already.
posted to MetaFilter by wenestvedt at 12:21 PM on November 20, 2023