pachrist
@pachrist@lemmy.world
Why are you reading this? Go do something worthwhile.
- Comment on Make Congress Earn Average American Wage. 6 days ago:
I have always heard people make this argument, and since it’s Great British Bake-off time, I’ll use it as the example.
There’s no prize, and the pay per episode is fairly minimal. Less than $500/episode for contestants. Plus, they get ~$2000 stipend for ingredients. On the fly converting pounds to dollars, so these are guesstimates.
What that means is that Great British Bake-off does not find the best home baker in Britain, it finds the best baker who can afford to take time off to be on the show. If you can afford to miss school, work, or being a parent for 12 weeks, you can’t compete.
Same applies here.
If you can’t afford to live on the salary, you’ll only get people in office who don’t need the salary. We already get that to some extent with campaigning costs. This could make it worse. The barrier of entry is higher.
Instead, we need a performance review with real consequences other than “Guess I don’t get re-elected, but I still get a book deal.”
- Comment on Having different opinions in a nutshell 1 week ago:
Disliking things everyone else loves is easy.
If you want to make people mad, be indifferent towards the things people love. That gets them every time.
- Comment on Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force 2 weeks ago:
You can call that feudalism, among other things.
But that’s because it’s intentionally hard to tell if it’s feudalism in a capitalist hat or capitalism in a feudalism hat. That’s what oligarchy is.
Capitalism in itself is private enterprise, which is where capitalism defenders usually start trumpeting that capitalism isn’t actually evil. I think you can maybe make an argument that totally unregulated capitalism isn’t evil, because it’s basically anarchy. But the reality of human greed hits hard and always leads to self-regulation (collusion) and external regulation (coersion), which muddy the waters and lead to oligarchy and feudalism regardless as politicians and businessmen consolidate power.
- Comment on you can date the time period by popular catch phrases 3 weeks ago:
I guess this is the place to remind everyone that we did not save the cheerleader, so we did not save the world.
She’s dead.
- Comment on America’s Decline in 1 graph 4 weeks ago:
That’s my point a little bit. Unions were not keeping wages consistent with productivity, their leverage was. Then they lost that leverage. A lot of people want to bring back unions with no changes, and capitalists have learned it’s better to just close the Starbucks.
This is something that will only be changed through legislation, and since no political party sides with the worker, that’s a slim hope. Government is literally the biggest collective bargaining tool we have. It’s a union, but we’re losing that as well to corporate interests.
I think it’s telling where unions have had staying power, and where they haven’t.
- Comment on America’s Decline in 1 graph 4 weeks ago:
This graph is a bit of a misnomer.
Why did union membership drop? Did people decide it wasn’t worth it, or were unionized jobs the first to be automated and shipped overseas?
- Comment on Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI and layoff-happy CEOs: 'Everyone I know, their bosses are slowly getting psychosis' 5 weeks ago:
It’s unfortunately sustainable because people buy things they like before things they need.
For all of us, for everyone 1 person we know who has a decent job and loves to play games they buy with disposable income, we probably know 5 who shouldn’t buy the game they’re buying because they’re already behind on their sewer bill.
- Comment on Funny how that works 1 month ago:
They brought back beef tallow for fries.
Mission accomplished?
- Comment on Climate Summit 1 month ago:
It’s not real science, because the fire is not as harmful as the pollution or gasses, but you have to remember that most conservatives are so self involved they forget about other people and the scale of the problem
How many teenie tiny fires would it take to make the world a bit warmer?
A million? A billion? Maybe a trillion little fires.
There are 1.699B cars on the road. By conservative estimates, average time of the road per day is ~30 minutes. If we pretend that they’re all 4 cylinder engines, and average 1500RPM, both low estimates, that engine fires 3000 times per minute. For 30 minutes a day. For 1.669B cars.
Over the course of a year that’s 55,810,000,000,000 fires. 55.81 quadrillion. In one year.
And that’s just cars. Not planes. Not trains. Not boats. Not power plants. Not even cow farts.
They know that there is some number that’s too much. They know we’ve passed it.
- Comment on When God Sings, We All Sing 2 months ago:
Yeah, the deities of the world sing together, not just creating the world, but all of history as well, then they go and live it out what they sang.
- Comment on AI girlfriends VS Egirls 2 months ago:
2 AI, 1 cup.
- Comment on I would like to play a calm game 4 months ago:
I know you said MacOS, but if you ever get the chance, Che k out Eastshade. It’s the most relaxing, lovely, fun little game I have ever played.
- Comment on Nova Launcher unashamedly inserts malware ads into your home screen now. 8 months ago:
Worst part is I paid for it years ago. Now I have to pay again? Nope. Great while it lasted, but it’s buggy garbage now.
- Comment on Schlip schlop 8 months ago:
Nah, this is things like most Tarantino films, particularly Pulp Fiction, where it’s a good movie, but every 17 year old you meet who loves it only loves it because everyone else loves it.
- Comment on Such a dreamy guy 8 months ago:
Obviously Jississippi.
- Comment on [deleted] 8 months ago:
Yeah, but if you rename Greenland to Epstien Island, suddenly the US has never been there, is uninterested in it, and doesn’t have any knowledge of it. On the other hand they might just react it entirely.
- Comment on Anon lives on a budget 9 months ago:
I do think it says something about the American dream that if you want to make ends meet, selling your blood is one of the best options.
- Comment on Settings you believe ANY game should have? (This is me advocating for a restart/reboot button on ALL games) 10 months ago:
System clock in the top right corner.
- Comment on Dude read the rules of woman only community and decided to post anyway 10 months ago:
I feel like accidentally commenting there is a Lemmy right of passage. It got me, and continues to almost get me. They generally have good discussion.
- Comment on Feynman rules 10 months ago:
The secret to this, which works on all children, mine included, is to turn it and ask them what they think. Leads to more fun answers as well. Not right, but fun.
- Comment on a sight to behold 11 months ago:
Bowel movement. Alternatively, bowel master, which is probably that poor nurse’s nickname now.
Hey Ian! Want to BM my next campaign? 😙
- Comment on Jesus hates American "Christians" 11 months ago:
I think the rationalization of shitty behavior is key. Everyone is the hero of their own story, and there is no end to the mental gymnastics or cognitive dissonance people will go through to remain the hero.
It’s almost Occam’s Razor. It’s easier to believe someone is a selfish hypocrite than some kind of moral-less grifter.
That’s not to say there aren’t grifters, just that the vast majority have drunk the kool-aid and keep drinking it because of a warped sunk-cost fallacy scenario. If I stop drinking, I have to admit I was bad and wrong, so I double down and stay the good guy.
- Comment on Jesus hates American "Christians" 11 months ago:
They do. That’s why they’re so hateful to anyone who contradicts them.
- Comment on So...how the fuck do I trust *anything*? 1 year ago:
it’s the same goddamn cycle over and over
This is the key. The people you can trust are the people who are going against that cycle.
Bringing up the Bible on Lemmy is generally a no-no, but I love Ecclesiastes. It’s a book about meaninglessness. Everything is the same as it has always been and there is nothing of true value; everything is meaningless. It’s the same goddamn cycle. While when it was written is debatable, it’s comforting and horrible to know someone thousands of years ago saw things the same way I do. Comforting, because I’m not alone in how I feel. Horrible in that people still feel this way after thousands of years.
The writer’s conclusion is to fear God and keep his commandments. The commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Loving your neighbor as yourself means being kind and empathetic. Kindness and empathy solve nearly everything.
So, even though it may achieve nothing, be kind and empathetic. Cling to people who are kind and empathetic. Be an oasis amid the hate.
- Comment on Too soon? 1 year ago:
Horst Wessel shot and killed at Utah Valley University event.
I need this Onion article.
- Comment on 1 year ago:
It’s not accurate. Way more than one user says this.
- Comment on So glad I suck dick 1 year ago:
I read this comment and now MasterCard keeps calling me.
- Comment on Saw this on r*ddit, had to share with my people 1 year ago:
Just recast a Bond movie from Pineapple Express.
James Franco would be worse than Seth Rogen as Bond, because he’d take any sexually aggressive scenes too seriously.
So Seth Rogen gets to be M, Danny McBride is Q, and Amber Heard is the Bond girl.
Kind of fits, in a shitting the bed kind of way.
- Comment on Saw this on r*ddit, had to share with my people 1 year ago:
Vin Diesel as M.
- Comment on Thoughts?? 1 year ago:
I’d hazard it’s most companies.