merc
@merc@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on How tf do people who work 8-5 M-F get any life done? 4 days ago:
Jobs paid enough so one person could stay home is how it worked
That’s a fantasy. In the 1800s and before there was so much at-home work to be done that it was a full time job for someone (virtually always the wife). She had to do the baking, cooking, mending clothes, cleaning, etc. all without any electrical appliances. That included no refrigerator or freezer, so shopping had to be done a lot more often. There were also no cars, so people either had to walk to do their shopping, or they used a horse. But, if they used a horse, then there was extra work related to keeping the horse alive and in good shape. Clothes were also a lot more expensive, so a lot more time was spent either making clothes at home and mending clothes that had holes, worn spots, etc. It wasn’t “to do chores and whatnot”, it was a full-time job involving more work than a typical a typical job from modern days.
Then there was WWI, then the “roaring 20s”, which is when electrical appliances first started appearing, and then the stock market crashed and the great depression hit. During the great depression, if either the wife or the husband could find work, they were lucky, and probably had to support the whole family. During the great depression, a lot of worker protections were put in place through the New Deal. But, the jobs weren’t there.
Then WWII hit, and for a while the US was manufacturing things for the rest of the world without being in the war itself. That helped the economy get going again. When the US joined the war, the economy was really going, but there was rationing in place so the workers who were earning money weren’t able to spend it. When the war ended, the US was in an incredibly strong position. Workers had savings to spend once rationing was removed. Every other country had had its industrial base smashed by the war. As a result, the US manufacturing was in high demand all over the world. For contrast, even though the UK was also one of the “winners” of WWII, rationing was in place until 1954.
So, high demand for industrial workers, worker protections left over from the New Deal era, labour-saving electrical appliances being available for the first time, cars everywhere… it was a unique set of circumstances that meant for maybe the first time in history a man could work a blue collar job and have a wife who stayed at home and just did “chores and whatnot”. That lasted a few decades. People blame Reagan for a lot of it, but really by the time he was elected that golden period for blue collar workers was already ending.
Also, keep in mind that strong protections for workers didn’t just happen. The government didn’t just decide that it would be nice to workers. Workers had to fight hard for those rights. The 8 hour day is the result of fights that were very violent. Bombs were thrown at cops. Supposed ringleaders were hanged by the government after show trials. FDR pushed for laws to protect workers because the alternative was rioting. If today’s workers want to share in the wealth, they need to riot, they need to be prepared to die. Nothing’s going to change if it’s just complaining that “this isn’t how it should be”.
- Comment on Why exactly are nursing aids paid so poorly? 1 week ago:
There are certain jobs that people really want to do. No matter how little the job pays, there will be people willing to do that job. Often these are the most important jobs.
That’s not a good match for a purely capitalist system where someone can’t survive on their salary. Unions are one way to fight this. Traditionally nurses had strong unions, but these days no union seems to be particularly strong. The other way is for the government to get involved and say that certain jobs are important enough that they get special exemptions from the purely capitalist system. That could mean different minimum wages, special tax exemptions, or all kinds of other things.
- Comment on Looking for a career change? Then look no further! 1 week ago:
Also sleep in a poorly ventilated room, in a tiny hammock, with 50 other men. Don’t worry, you’d probably sleep well because you’d be so exhausted from the crushing physical labour. You’d be eating simple, unflavoured bread / crackers that are so hard that they need to be dunked in water for several minutes so they don’t break your teeth. And, speaking of teeth, your new job does come with healthcare, but that’s mostly tooth pulling and limb amputations. Anything else and you just need to suck it up. No sick days either, you show up for your shifts, 12+ hours a day, 7 days a week. Sickness is probably pretty common. 50 men sleeping in the same crowded, airless room. No washing, no soap. Toilets are simply a plank with a hole above the ocean. No toilet paper either.
But, you do get to sing sea shanties.
- Comment on The speed of light 1 week ago:
If you’re going at the speed of light minus 1 m/s and you turn on a flashlight, the beam emitted by the flashlight will be travelling at the speed of light, according to your measurements. Time passes slower the faster you travel.
- Comment on Anon plays World of Warcraft 1 week ago:
It was extremely satisfying to be out in world doing a PvE question only be jumped by a casting player that suddenly lost them abilty to cast when the Felhound activated, or when the theif is walking up to you in stealth only to be outted by the felhoud that could see through it.
Back when I played warlock, felhound was the PVP pet. Nothing else was useful for PVP except maybe the Succubus if you were really good at using its seduce ability and could avoid accidentally putting DOTs on whatever you were seducing. Even then, that was only really useful in one vs. many fights.
With the 20 and 40 person raids, you were one of many that accomplished the goal
That’s how it was back in the Molten Core and AQ raids. But, then the quests started talking about you as if you were special. For instance in Shadowlands, they started talking about you as being “The Deathwalker” or something. As in, you’re the one and only person who is able to enter the realm of the dead as a living being and then return. But… every other PC in the game is also “The Deathwalker”, and whenever you’re in those zones, you see plenty of other "The Deathwalker"s walking around near you, doing quests.
- Comment on Anon plays World of Warcraft 1 week ago:
That, and nobody had documented how everything worked yet. And, there wasn’t a good way to communicate outside the game. And there was no group finder, etc. so the only way to work together was to chat.
In-game chat was essential to playing the game. It was essential to understanding the game. And it was somewhat self-policing, because if you got a bad reputation on your realm from chat, it would be harder to find groups.
These days most chat happens outside the game. Nobody chats in-game to understand the game. Nobody needs the community features of the game to do quests, group content, even raids. Realms are meaningless because most content is cross-realm, so you can’t get a bad reputation if you’re an asshole because you never see the same people again.
I don’t think there’s a way to go back to 2004. But, it still seems like Blizzard shot themselves in the foot multiple times when it comes to community features.
- Comment on Anon plays World of Warcraft 1 week ago:
See, I very much liked the gear reset.
I didn’t start playing when the game first came out. By the time I hit level 60 people had been raiding for months, maybe even a year. Back then, a lot of raiding was about getting fire resist gear so that you could get a bit further in Molten Core. If you were behind, there was no real way to catch up unless you had people who were willing to do work on your behalf to get you the gear you needed.
The Burning Crusade launch basically reset everything, so people who hadn’t had a chance to do raids were on an even footing with people who had.
It was pretty amusing that heroes that were fighting the primal elements of nature were then having a difficult time with mutated boars. But, at least it was mutated boars on another planet. Eventually it was just “oh, you’re on a new island. I know you’ve previously killed a god on this same planet, but the birds on this particular island… they’re tough”. That was poorly explained, but the reason for the gear reset was clear.
To me, there were two big issues with WoW. One was that people constantly wanted new buttons to push, so classes just kept getting more and more complicated to the point that while a MOBA might have 6 ability buttons you use regularly, WoW might have 15ish, with another 20 that are situational.
The other one is just that the story keeps collapsing under its own weight. Increasingly it’s a personal story – it’s not that you’re an adventurer and participated in an event that saved the planet. You’re the individual person who saved the planet (and so is everybody else in the game). And then, because this expansion is over, you, the individual who saved the planet, has to go kill 20 boars on this newly discovered island where apparently boars are as tough as gods. Nobody on this island recognizes you as the hero who saved the planet, so you need to build your reputation up again, and eventually you get to fight the newest god who is destroying the planet.
- Comment on Title 1 week ago:
Recruit an offensive line entirely of ex-sumo wrestlers
After the first play they’re completely exhausted and unable to continue.
Sumo wrestlers are good at sumo wrestling. Those are matches that last between 2 and 30 seconds, after which the wrestler gets about an hour to rest.
- Comment on Title 1 week ago:
Offside is essential to keep the game interesting. Otherwise you just have a big dude who hangs out next to the goal all game and you just launch the ball up to that dude whenever you get possession. There’s no strategy, no passing, no running with the ball, no dribbling, just launch it to the big guy.
- Comment on Pro tip 1 week ago:
If what OP said was actually true, then it would make investigating child porn cases nearly impossible. Someone does have to watch the footage to determine if a crime was committed, and often the people who have to do that end up having major mental health issues as a result.
- Comment on Anon is incompatible 1 week ago:
They only have USB-C on iPhones because they were forced to.
They went to USB-C only on their computers on their own.
- Comment on Anon is incompatible 1 week ago:
plug-in?
- Comment on Music just isn't good anymore 2 weeks ago:
There’s a reason why things are popular. People like it.
The only drawback is that to make a “Billboard #1” type hit, you need extremely broad appeal. So, often it’s stuff that nobody hates instead of something that people who know a certain niche genre absolutely adore. You’re unlikely to get a jazz song as a #1, or a twangy country song, or any song with lyrics that any group might find offensive,
- Comment on Music just isn't good anymore 2 weeks ago:
I’m going to attack the other side of the graph.
- 1973: Stevie Wonder, Higher Ground Catchy lyrics, very funky, heavy use of the Wah pedal
- 1977: Fela Kuti, Opposite People Africa’s tank on funk music. Screw western norms of 5 minute songs. Have 10 minutes of jamming before the vocals even come in.
- 1967: James Brown, Cold Sweat One of the first funk songs, downbeat on the 1s, one chord groove, lots of improvisation, bass forward, lots of focus on the groove and not the lyrics, etc.
- 1967: Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, Ain’t no Mountain High Enough Delicious Motown, but in particular focus in James Jamerson’s incredible bass line
- 1959: Take Five, Dave Brubeck 1960s jazz with a 5/4 beat
- 1965: Marty Robbins and Johnny Cash, Streets of Laredo A “modern” cowboy remake of a folk song that goes back centuries
- Comment on Music just isn't good anymore 2 weeks ago:
The only music that was released in my teens that I like is stuff I never heard until I was maybe 30. I look back and think it was such a shame that I missed that era when it was current/new.
- Comment on Music just isn't good anymore 2 weeks ago:
My dad was like that, but the music he liked was from 1750 to 1830 or so. If there’s no cello, he’s not interested.
For me, my favourites are from the funk era. I don’t think I knew that kind of music existed until I was in my 20s. Now it’s my go-to kind of music.
- Comment on Music just isn't good anymore 2 weeks ago:
I can find “new bangers”, but there’s also a whole lot of “holy shit, the kids have absolutely no taste in music”, which I think is a often what the olds think of new music. I think that’s the typical drop you see on the graph as people get older.
OTOH, to me the absolute worst era of music was the popular stuff coming out when I was 5-20 years old or so. That era just sucked. As a kid my general impression was “Holy shit, my peers have absolutely no taste in music”. It was only years later that I actually discovered music that was made during that time that I had never heard about. So, I suppose there was some good music back then, but it wasn’t the stuff that was on the radio, on TV, in the movies, etc. The best era for music, IMO, was 10-20 years before I was born. And, it isn’t even music my parents introduced me to. They had pretty poor taste in music too, and never played that stuff. I only found out about it decades later by exploring music on my own.
- Comment on Music just isn't good anymore 2 weeks ago:
I wonder how you could adjust the whole graph based on connections to friends.
When people are under 10, they don’t have that much agency in choosing music. They just listen to whatever their parents listen to, or whatever their parents put on for them. In their teens they start getting to choose music and have a lot of classmates and friends who can be sources for hearing new music. In their early 20s that continues with university and/or first jobs. But, after a while that tails off and people have smaller social circles so they are introduced to fewer new things.
That could also explain why music from before people were born is somewhat popular. It’s something you might have been introduced to by your parents, or possibly by friends in your teens or 20s, or maybe something you discovered on your own later. When you’re 40+ you still might have people introducing you to music that existed before you were born, but you’re probably not being introduced to the new music very much. And if you are, it’s the popular stuff, which often sucks in all eras. Maybe if you have teenaged kids you hear what they like at some point, but that’s a small window, and often what they like is the popular gunk.
- Comment on Streamline it 2 weeks ago:
Including the economy. Access to the Atlantic, exclusive access to the Gulf of Mexico, and controlling almost all access to Mexico would mean its economy was much bigger than Arizama.
- Comment on Streamline it 2 weeks ago:
What time is it in Washconsin?
- Comment on Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer 2 weeks ago:
Fuck you they were. They wanted to sell you a computer so that you’d install Office. They never wanted you to do whatever you wanted with it. They intentionally changed internal APIs to break third party software that they didn’t want people using. This is also the era where they were constantly spreading FUD about Linux, convincing people that merely using Linux meant you were legally liable for patent infringement, etc.
- Comment on Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer 2 weeks ago:
If I were some powerful corporate exec, I’d be paying someone whose job it was to make sure something like this never happened, or if it happened it was at least never recorded.
I mean, even before the viral “Developers developers developers developers” chant he was a nasty, sweaty mess.
- Comment on heater 2 weeks ago:
That would generate a lot of smelly steam, but would be safe otherwise.
- Comment on The Matrix 2 weeks ago:
In the end it turns out to be. But, it’s what prevents him from living a quiet, pleasant life like Cypher wants to do.
- Comment on The Matrix 2 weeks ago:
Yeah, so even if the simulated world has steak instead of goop and gives you a cushy office job, Neo is the kind of person who can’t just accept not knowing.
It’s not that he’ll enjoy life in the real world more. It’s that he can only truly understand if he gives up all these comforts to know the truth.
That also goes to the criticism that people (sometimes jokingly) have of The Matrix. That in 1999 Gen X was so spoiled that a steady, well-paying office job with a cubicle was so terrible that Neo tried to escape it. The reality was that in a sense his fatal character flaw was curiosity. His actions as a hacker drew the attention of the agents. When Morpheus gave him a choice, he gave up the comforts of good food, an easy and boring job, not being on the run all the time, etc. so that he could know the truth, because he just couldn’t accept this simulated reality.
- Comment on The Matrix 2 weeks ago:
Neo decides that uncomfortable knowledge is better than blissful ignorance. I think most adults have had experiences where they wish they could go back to being less informed about the cruelty and brutality of the world and just live in ignorance, but most people don’t get that choice.
Morpheus asks Neo if he wants to live in blissful ignorance (the way Cypher eventually decides to do) or if he wants to deal with the uncomfortable reality. Part of being a computer hacker is that quest for knowledge for no real gain despite the risks.
- Comment on The Matrix 2 weeks ago:
Morpheus says that line to Neo from within the Matrix. I think he’s basically saying to Neo that if he just used words to explain it, Neo would never fully understand or believe it. Aside from his encounter with the agents, Neo has never apparently questioned whether he’s actually living in reality or in a simulation.
Keep in mind that this is 1999 when the peak of computer graphics is Quake 3, Unreal Tournament and Crazy Taxi.
- Comment on The Matrix 2 weeks ago:
It can be interpreted that way. That doesn’t mean that anybody who doesn’t see it that way is wrong.
- Comment on 2 weeks ago:
The bank loans its ten billion to you
A bank that’s subject to government regulation isn’t going to do that unless “you” have billions in assets to justify that kind of sale.
and you pay me those ten billion for the bank
And surely you report that sale on your taxes and pay the relevant taxes, right?
No one’s net worth has changed.
Except you, once you’ve paid your taxes.
You default on your loan to your own bank.
Ok, so “you” missed the payment. Now what? You think “you” can walk away cleanly? Declaring bankruptcy to wipe your debt is only something that’s available if the government provides that kind of mechanism, and generally that’s only available to people who have otherwise followed all the rules, which wouldn’t include buying a ten billion dollar bank when they had no assets.
The only way this scenario works is if you ignore all the laws. But, if you’re ignoring the laws, why not just make it simpler and simply steal the bank’s assets?
- Comment on 2 weeks ago:
come to an agreement in principal with the bank to buy it
I assume this would go as well as Gamestop trying to buy Ebay.