Prelude to the Apocalypse

[orange808]

Rational person: Should we send food to Cuba?
'Merica!: Of course not! They are a strategic priority. Starve them.
Rational person: Do we care about the people that live there?
'Merica: Shit no. They're a strategic priority. They need to overthrow the government so we can have more influence there. (Ya know, for democracy and the people--and shit.) They need to starve for freedumb.
Rational person: What will we do to help them after we get better control of our borders?
'Merica: What? I don't understand the question. That's crazy. Why would we do anything? They're a poor country because they be so lazy! If they weren't so lazy, they wouldn't have needed a revolution to begin with. I thought everything was just fine before they got a new government. I liked owning all their shit and dealing with their aristocrats. They're just lazy. Like... duh! 'Merica!
Rational person: So, a change in government there won't make the country any richer, but it benefits us? So, we want them to kill each other so we can have more influence--and they won't get anything better in the end?
'Merica: Bingo baby! Mission Accomplished! The will of their people and democracy don't mean jack shit. I just need that strategic advantage.

[vol.2]

Hopefully China or Russia will help them if we don't. People needs to eats.

[orange808]

Hey Manchin! Was this "funded", you fucker?
https://www.manchin.senate.gov/newsroom ... zation-act

Nope. Sure wasn't, motherfucker. Didn't raise taxes. It's pork, fucker. Hypocrite fucker.

[Mischief Maker]

This race of the rich pricks to recreate space technology from 60 years ago reminded me of this.

[Sengoku Strider]

You know, I didn't know this. But I 100% always suspected.

[BryanM]

I'll give Musk one thing - reusable boosters were supposed to be something Nasa should have pursued decades ago. The shuttle program was an absolute waste of time, lives and resources that never would have happened if decisions weren't being made by imbeciles.

Outside of that, yeah he's a liar, hypeman, bullshitter, scam artist, etc. When you actually take the time to mull over the claims he makes, especially when it comes to his ventures, it's very difficult to find much truth in them.

I obviously spend a bit of time pondering what might have been if public research were funded more effectively. Even a small fraction that was spent on the covid vaccine or the annual military budget raise could have saved millions of lives.

Don't spent much time on trolley problems, they're rather simple things. It's not completely impossible something good could happen, if we had good goals.

[Mischief Maker]

Man, I wish my phone had a little more FREEDOM!!!

This is the greatest thing since Trumpy Bear.

*Chef's Kiss*

[Steamflogger Boss]

https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/ ... 1258899456

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no57yDmPO6E

[orange808]

Apple needs to take off the gloves. Pegasus is using exploits to circumvent DRM and sideload software. The DMCA forbids that and we all know it. Sue Pegasus, multiple states, and the federal government for DMCA violations. Get a court order to find out who is reverse engineering the OS and send them a DMCA cease and desist as well. I would also go after the money they got for selling DRM circumventing tools. It's illegal.

[BulletMagnet]

Just a reminder that even amidst a pandemic and a self-styled "historic labor shortage" the corporations we're constantly told to bend over backwards for would rather exploit prison labor than pay a wage decent enough to make their jobs worth applying for.

[BryanM]

Yeah, we should maybe outlaw at least domestic slavery. Should, but not going to.

These stories of people in the west hiring dowsers to use their psychic powers to find water are very rad. There's always something going on over there, even when the sky's not on fire. Explosive beetle population thanks to dried out trees and winters being too mild to cull them down a bit? Cool beans~

[vol.2]

there was a NYT story a few weeks ago about amazon's attitude towards hiring. i suppose it's well-known, but was new to me.

apparently, they structure their blue-collar jobs so that employees leave in 2-3 years tops in order to keep people from getting entrenched. not only does it make the whole union thing kind of impossible, but it leaves the system open to more automation, which is their real labor strategy going forward. they basically inferred that amazon is going for Jetson's style robot workforce

hopefully the prison thing gets sorted, and i have some hope that at least will see progress because it's so clearly bad for everyone. the looser drug laws are going to lead to a huge drop in populations if it continues to follow it's present trajectory, and the whole industrial complex won't be able to sustain itself. i don't think it's going to go away, but it will probably go down to level of 1950s wallet factories or something.

[Sengoku Strider]

hopefully the prison thing gets sorted, and i have some hope that at least will see progress because it's so clearly bad for everyone. the looser drug laws are going to lead to a huge drop in populations if it continues to follow it's present trajectory, and the whole industrial complex won't be able to sustain itself. i don't think it's going to go away, but it will probably go down to level of 1950s wallet factories or something.

Spoilers: they'll make something else trivial an imprisonable offence instead. There are states who have contracts that literally require them to provide a certain number of convicts to for-profit prisons.

there was a NYT story a few weeks ago about amazon's attitude towards hiring. i suppose it's well-known, but was new to me.

apparently, they structure their blue-collar jobs so that employees leave in 2-3 years tops in order to keep people from getting entrenched. not only does it make the whole union thing kind of impossible, but it leaves the system open to more automation, which is their real labor strategy going forward. they basically inferred that amazon is going for Jetson's style robot workforce.

This leads me to an aside that's not really an aside - I've always gotten frustrated with people who say it's impossible to write Superman because he's too powerful, he's an outdated character, etc. His arch nemesis is the living embodiment of crony capitalism, and in a practical sense is pretty much completely immune to all of Superman's standard methods of evil-fighting.

A movie about a Kansas farm boy whose core strengths are physical up against the living embodiment of capitalist exploitation, media manipulation and the abuse of science for power is just about the most "now" movie you could make.



Incidentally, none of this is a galaxy brain move to piece together. This comic is from 1989. They totally knew Trump was gonna get fat:



The President Luthor storyline already happened back in 2001:



This is from Batman #666 in 2007. I gotta hand it to Grant Morrison for nailing 2020/21 pretty much exactly:

[vol.2]

Spoilers: they'll make something else trivial an imprisonable offence instead. There are states who have contracts that literally require them to provide a certain number of convicts to for-profit prisons.

I honestly think there's a good chance that stuff will get rooted out. Yes, it might just shift over, but it's on the public chopping block, and there is at least some bipartisan support for prison reform for it to be a popular political bone. Certainly much more viable than police reform.

[BryanM]

This leads me to an aside that's not really an aside - I've always gotten frustrated with people who say it's impossible to write Superman because he's too powerful, he's an outdated character, etc. His arch nemesis is the living embodiment of crony capitalism, and in a practical sense is pretty much completely immune to all of Superman's standard methods of evil-fighting.

Eh, there's lots of problems with the character. He's a child's power fantasy with simple white and black morality. A world where being a supercop is all you have to be, to be the best person possible. And even within that framework he's a farce - he has to constantly sandbag himself during his time in the Justice League just so the weak little kids can feel like they're helping. You call Lex Luther a capitalist monster - I call him a hero using his superpower of money to align collective interests toward changing the world for the better. (For some.)

Superman is the poster child of radian individualism and cult of self thought.

This is why all the good Supermen stories change aspects of him with their knockoffs. And the best ones are when he's a monster: Homelander, etc. That's because the character is prime raid boss material, an utter god. On every dimension - He could easily crush Luther economically with his superbrain and alien technology if he was serious about it. It's just not a priority for him, he'd rather goof around with Lois all day. (Thank god for that small mercy.)

(Also, I like Irredeemable's take on the power set. Localized reality manipulation is cool. Also acknowledged the amount of pressure a Moralman would feel - every second Clark spends playing around, thousands of people die horribly from his slacking around. Superdickery, I believe this is called.)

Power's the question in all conflict, and Superman has all of it and uses nearly none of it. So uh, he's a bad protagonist and a good antagonist by design. Authoritarianism power worship and anti-intellectualism in one.

Spidie-Man, now there's a guy who can get his ass kicked in without breaking the suspension of disbelief.

but it will probably go down to level of 1950s wallet factories or something.

oof, it was way worse in the past if anything.

When Slavery By Another Name aired on PBS during one black history month I was like "...wat."

Lots of reasons certain people romanticize those days and want to go back to them.

[vol.2]

I meant more in terms of scale, not human rights abuses.

[orange808]

I believe Amazon will have already hired and dismissed 10% of the entire American workforce available to work at their facilities (the portion that is willing and able to work the jobs). Without the ability to move their distribution/warehouse facilities, they have already gone through a much larger amount of the local available workforce for each individual facility--versus the ten percent nationwide. Naturally, labor is limited by location.

It's unsustainable. They better double their robot investments, because they are going to run out of human resources before they engineer proper replacements. Not actually well planned. Those distribution centers are not liquid and the company can't afford to hop around the map. Furthermore, the shine is off with local government. Cities aren't competing for an Amazon unit and the tax breaks are drying up. Moving is too expensive.

Bezos thought he had it figured out, but the process doesn't scale. You run out of people.

[GaijinPunch]

I believe Amazon will have already hired and dismissed 10% of the entire American workforce available to work at their facilities (the portion that is willing and able to work the jobs).

The funny (?) thing is about Amazon, they treat their engineers just as shitty. No pissing in a bottle, but if you run in engineering circles they have a whorable reputation. They require managers to PIP (lay the groundwork to fire) the bottom 10% of their team. Doesn't matter if they achieved all their work or not. Most managers don't want to do that so they hire someone with the intention of making them the sacrificial lamb. (Hire to Fire). People have talked about this for years and finally a document leaked not long ago confirming everything. From what I've been reading the word is getting out and now that all the tech hubs across the country hiring like crazy they're having a hard time retaining talent.

[system11]

I believe Amazon will have already hired and dismissed 10% of the entire American workforce available to work at their facilities (the portion that is willing and able to work the jobs).

The funny (?) thing is about Amazon, they treat their engineers just as shitty. No pissing in a bottle, but if you run in engineering circles they have a whorable reputation. They require managers to PIP (lay the groundwork to fire) the bottom 10% of their team. Doesn't matter if they achieved all their work or not. Most managers don't want to do that so they hire someone with the intention of making them the sacrificial lamb. (Hire to Fire). People have talked about this for years and finally a document leaked not long ago confirming everything. From what I've been reading the word is getting out and now that all the tech hubs across the country hiring like crazy they're having a hard time retaining talent.

I nearly applied for a role there once. Glad I didn't. Then of course a big US corporate bought us and it's little better. I've been on the receiving end of a PIP threat in the past, they are also commonly used to shuffle people they actually want to keep, into roles they'd prefer them to be in - also good for firing disabled people.

When you see all this going on it's quite easy to understand how so many people get suckered into thinking Communism is some kind of answer. I wish I'd just become a plumber or carpenter or something else practical and unrobotable. I was actually wondering how much it would cost to learn to be a HGV (truck) driver - it'd be nice to have something vaguely useful to fall back on.

[BryanM]

Bezos thought he had it figured out, but the process doesn't scale. You run out of people.

Eh, they just rehire the people they laid off later. It's a classic cycle meant to avoid promoting or giving a raise to anyone. Really just an elaborate way to hand out paycuts and instill desperation in peasants. People are only decent to one another when they're comfortable, it's dog eat dog otherwise.

When you see all this going on it's quite easy to understand how so many people get suckered into thinking Communism is some kind of answer.

You mean the literally five people on the internet you know who want to abolish hierarchies and have everyone be their own boss >_> Not one drop of the impure, eh.

Star Trek was always a pipe dream, these guys blew through our energy reserves, rendered future huge swathes of land uninhabitable, and now we have jack squat to ever get there. Great filter, et el..

[vol.2]

So far as I know, the world has never seen anything even close to "communism" on a government-level scale.

There are plenty of people who want more federal control in the states and government to help combat corporate abuse and promote infrastructure. That's not even close to communism. Federal education, robust protection for workers, universal health care, a living wage, decent public transportation, clean drinking water. It's civilized is what it is.

[GaijinPunch]

I nearly applied for a role there once. Glad I didn't. Then of course a big US corporate bought us and it's little better. I've been on the receiving end of a PIP threat in the past, they are also commonly used to shuffle people they actually want to keep, into roles they'd prefer them to be in - also good for firing disabled people.

Join TeamBlind -- not sure how many UK companies make the rounds there, but plenty of people expose the seedy under belly of their employer. Everyone shits on Amazon. Everyone. There are other PIP-friendly companies (Roku likes to dish them out I hear, and Netflix apparently just fires you on the spot if you look at someone the wrong way). Pretty interesting insights.

[BulletMagnet]

So some outside experts asked to check the data being produced by the "Cyber Ninjas audit" in Arizona, and the former AZ Secretary of State directing said audit passed along some numbers to them; said numbers apparently showed that the count was running very close to the officially certified results.

So the state Senate president subsequently locked said director out of the building.

Nothing to see here, folks! Or here! We totally haven't gone openly authoritarian, and conservative voters would never tolerate, let alone revel in such a thing! Keep chasing The Bipartisanship Fairy!

Everyone shits on Amazon. Everyone.

Baffled as to how that would be a surprise to literally anyone with a brain; nobody gets that big by playing fair, let alone playing nice.

[GaijinPunch]

Baffled as to how that would be a surprise to literally anyone with a brain; nobody gets that big by playing fair, let alone playing nice.

Because everyone thinks gigantic tech companies lavish their employees with money and perks. Most of them do. Amazon does not.

[BryanM]

God, even there it depends on your position. The people Google hired to scan books for Google Books were treated as subhuman and most definitely did not get any of the free Krispy Creme bacon cheeseburgers.

In contrast, the people that were working on Youtube feedback surveys and A/B testing still had their souls and sense of humor intact. Very peculiar, to encounter a human that isn't dead inside.

[BulletMagnet]

Because everyone thinks gigantic tech companies lavish their employees with money and perks. Most of them do.

That's because most of them have few employees to begin with; most of the grunt work is done by algorithms and the like. If Amazon ends up automating its supply chain to the extent predicted by others on here it will eventually join them, because only the high-paid higher-ups will be left.

[vol.2]

you think big tech sucks. look at Frito Lay:

https://twitter.com/greenhousenyt/statu ... 6753016834

fucking corn chip bastards. shouldn't buy anymore i guess

[Steamflogger Boss]

Yeah, this was close to home for me. I know people that work there (Topeka location where the strike was). Trash company.

[GaijinPunch]

Because everyone thinks gigantic tech companies lavish their employees with money and perks. Most of them do.

That's because most of them have few employees to begin with; most of the grunt work is done by algorithms and the like. If Amazon ends up automating its supply chain to the extent predicted by others on here it will eventually join them, because only the high-paid higher-ups will be left.

Amazon has plenty of engineers, and big tech companies are usually competitive so they can keep talent. Amazon is one of those weird ones that always shits on everyone.

[Steamflogger Boss]

This had me laughing pretty good.