Right, back when they were just a bookstore. All I really know about Amazon is that they focused on long-term profitability over increased short-term profits to expand and capture more of the market, and it worked. The problem is that not everyone can do that. They spent every year since 1994 operating at a loss, when anyone else would have been snapped up by another company in the space, and it’s not clear how that didn’t happen. The landscape of e-commerce would have been very different if it had.

Exactly. A systemic issue with capitalistic markets is that they inherently select for short term thinking.

Does it make sense to destroy 90% of your profitability 5 years from now for a 20% bump in profit this quarter? Well, yes, it does, because that’s 20% more profit to expand and take over the market.

Even if a business were to try to make good long term decisions, it would immediately be crushed and pushed out of the market by all of its competitors willing to make those shortsighted decisions for immediate profits.

Except in the case of Amazon, thanks to AWS they were able to make good long-term decisions with their e-commerce platform by making short term decisions with AWS.

CA better get their hands on some ICBMs. Keep one pointed at DC, and another pointed at Mar-a-Lago. It’s pretty much the only way a state can keep its sovereignty.

I want to agree, but terms like “vice” and “virtue” are subjective. To label what Cuckerberg and his ilk are doing as “virtue” signaling lends credibility to their idea that their vice is virtue. Similar to how the GOP calls themselves the party of “law and order”.

Even as a man, I don’t understand my fellow men’s aversion to seeking the ear of a licensed therapist/mental health professional. Cost is a concern, I get that. I have health insurance that covers it, so I don’t have to worry about that too much. So it’s gotta be something deeper. Like an aversion to confronting oneself? I understand that. Introspection can be frightening, especially if you’re encountering parts of your psyche you’d rather weren’t there. Or maybe there’s past trauma you’d rather not unpack. But a good therapist will be in your corner. They’ll be like the healer in an RPG party, dishing out buffs and heals for you, or maybe even inflict debuffs on your inner demons.

I mean, they have Alexa connected refrigerators with a camera inside the fridge that sees what you put in it and how much, to either let you know when you’re running low on something or ask to put in an order for more of that item before you run out, or tell you if something in there is about to spoil, or if the fridge needs cleaned, so I imagine a washer would do something similar?

Exactly. I can code and make a simple game app. If it gets some downloads, maybe pulls in a little money, I’m happy. But I’m not gonna produce endless mtx and ad-infested shovelware to make shareholders and investors happy. I also own a 3D printer. I’ve done a few projects with it and I was happy to do them, I’ve even taken commissions to model and print some things, but it’s not my main job as there’s no way I could afford to sit at home and just print things out all month.

And how about healthcare? Or will accepting the offer enroll me in clinical trials to have my brain implanted into a robot? Robots don’t need healthcare, pay, sleep, time off, or any of the other things fleshies need to live. Of course, the organic components, such as the brain and possibly spinal cord will require occasional maintenance, but the upkeep cost for those is minimal

POV Me after having my brain put in an Optimus robot: [Says “Kill Me” repeatedly]

He didn’t “overstay” his visa. The minute he set foot on US soil, he dropped out of the college he enrolled in and leveraged his father’s connections to land that startup job. When your family owns an emerald mine, they might not be US citizens, but they’re definitely going to make friends with US citizens, and those are the people you schmooze.

And what happens to us who were born here? Where are we supposed to go when all the jobs that we could fill are being taken by H1Bs and Optimus robots?

I believe it was a CEO of British Airways that referred to passengers as “self-loading cargo”, so it’s not like it’s new that the haves see the have-nots as a resource to be managed.

You forgot his third one, he supports stem cell research, which is odd given that his new buddies don’t approve of creating new sources of stem cells (aborted fetal tissue).

The only reason the Tea Party was successful in taking over the Republican party was that there was a huge amount of funding behind them.

That would be the Koch Brothers. Sadly there isn’t a left-wing version of them, and it feels as if the system is set up in such a way that there couldn’t be a left-wing version.

That’s interesting and terrifying all at once. If the Indian government is successful, it will basically set the precedent for other powerful entities such as autocrats, oligarchs, and corporations to also force Wikipedia to edit their content to suit their desires. I donate frequently and will keep making sure they can win.

Me and my friends walk into Musk’s office

Mr. Musk, in the name of the Senate of the American Republic, you are under arrest.

Musk: Are you threatening me, Master Jedi?

Me: The Senate will decide your date.

Musk: I AM THE SENATE.

Me: Not. Yet.

Musk: It’s treason, then.

There’s a reason he’s been having Tesla divert more resources to their Optimus robots. The man intends to have a machine army that he could use in a coup. We play our cards right and get behind cloning research, we could have a Grand Clone Army. 200,000 units now, with a million more well on the way. Begun, the Clone Wars have.

Yeah, really. I mean, there was an entire plot to assassinate FDR called the Business Plot and they counted on literally a retired general to help them pull it off, who they were going to install as a dictator. A year later the general testified against his fellow conspirators before a House committee. Nobody was actually prosecuted (huge mistake, IMO), but the final report said, “there is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient.”

Oh, he’s not using the kid as a prop. The kid is a shield. He’s so afraid of sharing a certain health insurance CEO’s fate, that he keeps his child near him.

And now they’re trying to make it about race, check this out.

I’m speaking, of course, of greedy, wealth hoarding dragons like Smaug. Who would slaughter an entire mountain of Dwarves to get his claws on wealth he will never spend, just to have it.