When my niece was a toddler I taught her her first joke: “Why did the chicken cross the road? To escape the capitalist regime!”

Of course she had no idea what it meant, but man listening to a toddler clumsily pronounce “capitalist regime” was funny 100% of the time.

The whole thing is full of that kind of “drink their own kool-aid” propagandist thinking. It’s wild they expect anyone to take them seriously here.

I blame Meta. My Oculus Rift CV1 was working great until some random software update and now for some reason it won’t read my sensors as being connected via USB3.0 cable despite them being so, instantly rendering my expensive VR device a giant paper weight.

I’m still salty about Oculus starting out crowdfunded then selling to Facebook. What a fucking betrayal.

Remember kids, nothing doesn’t apply to you, everything was made specifically for you. If you find yourself in a community that seems like it doesn’t apply to you, remember that you’re never in the wrong place, obviously it is that community who is in the wrong.

Yeah to be clear, if it sounded like anything I said was meant as absolution, it was not. Regardless of which camp they fall into or how they display their wealth, it is impossible, to the best of my reasoned understanding, to acquire mass wealth ethically. I assume all of the ultra-wealthy are morally compromised in some capacity or another until proven otherwise.

I think there are kind of two different groups that get conflated, actually: the wealthy, and the “professionally wealthy.” The wealthy are often discrete and not showy, but the “professional wealthy” are those whose wealth or fame itself is central to their empire, even if not as directly as the influencer wealthy. But these are the Kardashians and the socialites and tech bros, all of those who serve as sort of aspirational versions of wealth. There is no shortage of them, no doubt, and I’m sure even the quietly wealthy have a lavish indulgence or two (a yacht being very likely), but based on my experience I really think there are sort two clear and distinct communities of wealth.

I’ve known some disgusting rich people (born and raised in the wealthiest county in the entire country) - for some reason they love Costco. They don’t even do their own shopping but they insist on Costco. Unless they’re aggressively right-wing.

This is kind of tangential, but I wish people would make distinction between Marxism and Leninism. Marx didn’t say shit about the vanguard party. Imo, we can reject Leninism without having to reject Marxism.

Also don’t waste your time arguing with me, because I am woefully uneducated and stupid, but I can only work with what I have, ya know?

It’s cool to learn the official guidelines; thanks for doing the legwork here!

I’ll accept the lowercase L (in my East Coast based US education we were taught liters should always be capital L, but that seems to either be flat-out incorrect or have fallen out of fashion), but googling images of the cans shows me no space between the number and the unit.

It’s nothing. Without a unit those are just numbers. A can of coke isn’t 12, it’s 12floz.

Or so my metric companions don’t shit themselves in their panic-induced rage at the sight of imperial units, a coke can isn’t 355, it’s 355mL.

“Squidward flute” made me cringe so hard I almost passed out. God please tell me none of you are actually that lame

As I said in a other comment, I think “they didn’t live long enough” is a bit of misconception. I’ll repeat my comment here rather than writing it out again:

"So I’m no expert, so take this with a grain of salt, but it’s my understanding that while average ages were much lower in the past, this number is heavily skewed by infant mortalities and deaths due to preventable disease. As I understand it, the expected age of an otherwise healthy individual was pretty comparable to us today. More people died young, but those who didn’t lived about as long as us. So I don’t think not living long enough for skin cancer to take effect really jives with my understanding of history.

But again, I’m not an expert and the likelihood that I’m just an idiot who is wildly misunderstanding things is, frankly, high."

Source? This is my point, that I think we lack evidence for that claim.

I’ll say that I think if the situation was truly as simple and non-nuanced as you describe, I wouldn’t have any reason to be confused or uncertain on the topic.

But as stated, since even those who adhere to best practices seem to be at higher risk with compound exposure, I think your claim of simple acclimation is a little lacking. I think there is truth in what you say, but far from the whole truth and it is what is missing which eludes me as well.

So I’m no expert, so take this with a grain of salt, but it’s my understanding that while average ages were much lower in the past, this number is heavily skewed by infant mortalities and deaths due to preventable disease. As I understand it, the expected age of an otherwise healthy individual was pretty comparable to us today. More people died young, but those who didn’t lived about as long as us. So I don’t think not living long enough for skin cancer to take effect really jives with my understanding of history.

But again, I’m not an expert and the likelihood that I’m just an idiot who is wildly misunderstanding things is, frankly, high.

I mean I definitely see your point, but as I understand it even field workers are encouraged to use sunscreen and farmers and others who spend a lot of time outdoors are at greater risk of long-term damage, not lesser, despite this supposed acclimation.

Those make sense to me, but I’ll be honest with you, where I struggle is with the idea of sunscreen. How did our ancestors live outside constantly without any sunscreen but if I’m outside for more than 2 hours in the summer without it I come home looking like a burnt lobster?

I’m sure the answer is that I’m ignorant, or the “natural causes” of yesteryear were really just undiagnosed skin cancer or something, but I have to admit it does seem like a real negative adaptation here from the viewpoint of my uneducated mind.

You have already been paying Google for that 6+ hours before even a penny came out of your account - you’re just been paying in data. We have to stop pretending Google is some good guy that left an open platform in the world and just said “if you use it we’ll show you some ads.”

Ads aren’t even the main revenue stream for Youtube, data is. All of these points about “paying for a service” become moot the moment we acknowledge the value of the data Google is farming from our interactions. This is how we’re paying for Youtube. If you choose to buy Youtube Premium, understand that you’re paying to not have ad interruption. You aren’t paying for Youtube, because that was already happening, you’re just paying for the convenience of avoid ads.

Learning how to let a thought whose moment has passed go gracefully is also a skill. I understand we have extenuating circumstances that make doing so more complicated for us, but that unfortunately that does not absolve us the hard work in learning to be a respectful conversationalist as well.