It goes along with how they’ve stopped calling it a user interface and started calling it a user experience. Interface implies the computer is a tool that you use to do things, while experience implies that the things you can do are ready made according to, basically, usage scripts that were mapped out by designers and programmers.

No sane person would talk about a user’s experience with a socket wrench, and that’s how you know socket wrenches are still useful.

Mine is that a cellphone should be a phone first, instead of being a shitty computer first and a celllphone as a distant afterthought.

Ah, le fumé monsieur.

But isn’t it such a weird coincidence that “apolitical” always happens to be the same as “whatever is best for moneyed interests?” Like being able to take free software and repackage it for sale?

Free as in freedom has been political since, like, the 1970s. I think the more important question is, when did people come to believe that free as in beer is apolitical?

When I was looking at conspiracy theories about the submarine, this was basically the metatheory. That they’ve so heavily brainwashed us that we can read something like this and go, yeah that seems realistic.

Is it better or worse that I think someone made this by hand?

The best part about Bayeux Tapestry memes is, the Bayeux Tapestry itself came pre-memed. For example, this section has a naked guy in the margin for, I’m pretty sure, absolutely no reason at all.

What else are they gonna put in their tailpipes?

Of course, they’d charge you $300 for having to make the effort.

They should just start posting rules. You know, screenshots of laws, photos of stop signs, warning labels…

Even apart from that, it implies that a sixth grader is not only a gay furry, but he has no problem letting his teacher know he’s a gay furry.

I think not caring about being cool only amplifies preexisting coolness. An entitled boomer isn’t gonna become cool just because they’re even less self-conscious about their obnoxious opinions.

No future but what we make for ourselves—and we sure have done a shit job.

The actual goal of political economy should be the well-being of the people. Price stability can be a means to that end, but it can also diminish standards of living. Certainly, price stability is not an end in itself.

To clarify what I mean, this current inflationary period is being caused by transient supply disruptions. They’ll clear up on their own. Apart from Japan, what are the central banks of the world doing? They’re trying to throw their economies into recession. Because of transient inflation that was not caused by runaway demand.

It’s tricky to talk about actual gold standard days, since economic data aren’t very reliable that far in the past, but historical accounts don’t exactly paint a rosy economic picture. Whether there was price stability, I’m really not sure, but I do know there was mass unemployment, frequent economic crises, and widespread poverty.

Finally, the Eurozone… Their recession following the global financial crisis lasted longer than other advanced economies, because the Stability and Growth Pact is the opposite of sensible economic administration. Indeed, Europe is in a downward binge-purge spiral of—crisis happens, better ignore excessive deficit rules and let the ECB buy sovereign debt at its discretion; well the crisis is over, time to fuck up European economies again; oh no there’s another crisis, better ignore the SGP again.

At some point I might have to leave the US, so it’s a shame that Europe isn’t a viable alternative.

Nothing has inherent value. Inherent value shouldn’t be confused with practical value. Anyway, while gold has some practical value nowadays, being a corrosion resistant electrical conductor doesn’t explain why people wanted gold more than a hundred years ago. Thinking there’s something special about gold that makes it valuable irrespective of social beliefs or practical uses is just… the world’s least interesting religion.

The fact is, money has value because it’s the only thing that can be used to pay taxes. So for the next level, I’ve never quite understood what “social construct” means. Is being punched for cosplaying a Nazi a social construct? Not the justification, but the fist, is the fist a social construct? Is being harassed by the IRS because you’re a sovereign citizen who uses self-issued Freedom Dollars and doesn’t believe the Sixteenth Amendment was duly ratified so income taxes are illegal, is the harassment from the IRS a social construct?

One time someone told me that paper money is worthless, so I said, fair enough—I’ll take that worthless paper off your hands.

He, uh, didn’t take me up on it.

Sounds like an early experiment in artificial neural networks.

The blond side guy was Jared Leto. Edward Norton sure morbed all over him.