I’d be willing to devote taxes to social media without ads and featuring a non-malevolent algorithm. If it allowed people to communicate with each other like Twitter or Facebook, it would be a service to the benefit of the public.
Once upon a time, at least here in the states, we believed in a government that served the public good.
In the US, internet piracy is not a crime, but a civil infraction. And yes, our media overlords have been trying to make it a crime for decades.
For most definitions of supernatural, no.
I believe in unidentified areal phenomena, not that it’s ETIs or aliens, but that something’s up there doing its thing.
I believe in ball lightning even though we don’t have a model of electrodynamics that explains it.
There’s some weird shit out there, Horatio, that isn’t explained in our philosophy. I’m sure we don’t have all the answers. I just am okay with knowing we don’t know what those answers are.
As for ghosts, spirits, afterlife, etc. There’s strong evidence those things do not exist, just in the stark silence where there should be noise.
I do pretend that treating my cat well and wearing cat themed tees and keeping cat kitch does please the cat gods. 🐱👤
He’s doing a suck job of it. The things he’s gutting are pennies towards his dark-souled oligarch masters. Cutting small government projects like the NEA, PBS or like FOSS grants is only used as an appeal to fiscal responsibility conservatives that aren’t willing to cut into old-people benefits like Social Security and military sacred cows. Not because gutting tiny projects does anything useful, rather it gives the vibe that representatives are doing something.
This is an appeal to the imbicile MAGA though the tech bros might have specific FOSS projects that compete with their own commercial offerings. Not enough to cut all FOSS grants, though.
1978 US Automotive Companies: If we make a product that locks our customers in, they’ll be our customers forever!
1978 Japanese Automotive Companies: The US gave us their required parameters. If we make a product that works then customers will keep buying our stuff.
2025 US Tech Companies: If we make our products contingent on proprietary software and hardware, we’ll lock them in.
2025 Chinese Tech Companies: The US gave us their required parameters. If we make a product that works and they can utilize freely, they’ll keep buying our stuff.
Not our first rodeo.
It is always morally preferrable to pirate things made by giant corporations
Fixed It For You.
Regardless of what is regarded as a crime against the state, it is wrongdoing against the public to support corporations that seek to extract more wealth than value they produce.
Intellectual property rights were a (very) temporary monopoly to give creators an incentive to create in order to build a robust public domain.
Copyrights, patents and trademarks no longer do that. So charging for content is now rent-seeking
Corporations, their share holders and the plutocrats who own them pull wealth out of the economy by hoarding it. The whenever you buy from anything but directly from the creator, you are reducing the wealth in the economy since your money goes straight into Scrooge McDuck’s swimming coffers.
And our public domain only contains stuff from a century ago. Steamboat Willie became public domain just a year or two ago. Copyright holders and courts even assert all content should be owned and licensed, including SCOTUS. (Though the US Supreme Court is a traitor to the United States and its constitution.)
Pirate everything. Steal from companies for they have already stolen from you.
Borderlands 2 was written by Anthony Burch, and featured a lot of HAWP style humor. It had plenty of material that didn’t land but plenty that hit the mark.
Burch also set a bar that 3 failed abysmally.
Those aren’t gambling. they’re surprise mechanics that are ethical and fun.
This isn’t about justice, this is about billionaires paying enough to make an example out of him.
MEGAUpload cooperated with law enforcement when they asked. The charges were trumped up by the record labels. And it’s likely they were less afraid of the piracy and more afraid of the new free music launch featuring a bunch of migrating artists.
Pepperidge Farm remembers.