Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

Part time here too even though I was recently able to score a year's supply of Kn95s.

However, my office has very strict rules. You have to wear a mask if you get up from your open floor plan desk and take one step. But if you are sitting at your open floor plan desk you can take your mask off because the virus knows to stop if you are sitting working, making the bosses money.

I don't usually reply to the same post twice, but rules R stupid.

I was at a Moth (hi Thurgreed!) storytelling show in Chicago. The club had a very strict mask required rule. The only exception? You could take it off when actively eating or drinking. It was a crowded bar. Everyone was "actively drinking" all night. Sitting two feet away from strangers.

When did I have to wear a mask? When I got called to tell a story. I was on a stage 5 yards from anybody telling a story and had to keep a mask on. Fucking stupid.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

Something don't jive here, homey. Maybe read an article or two.

My in-laws got it flying home, my oldest went skiing in Utah and got it there, and my next-oldest went back to school for the start of the quarter and got it there. Our house is a COVID-free zone. We told the in-laws they should stay longer and fly home later, but they didn't listen....

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

My in-laws got it flying home, my oldest went skiing in Utah and got it there, and my next-oldest went back to school for the start of the quarter and got it there. Our house is a COVID-free zone. We told the in-laws they should stay longer and fly home later, but they didn't listen....

B-I-L now has it. Some think it was from the marathon on Sunday. He came by here on Tuesday to borrow a rapid test, and that was negative. No idea where he got it.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I don't usually reply to the same post twice, but rules R stupid.

I was at a Moth (hi Thurgreed!) storytelling show in Chicago. The club had a very strict mask required rule. The only exception? You could take it off when actively eating or drinking. It was a crowded bar. Everyone was "actively drinking" all night. Sitting two feet away from strangers.

When did I have to wear a mask? When I got called to tell a story. I was on a stage 5 yards from anybody telling a story and had to keep a mask on. Fucking stupid.

For immunocompromised me, this is the kind of thing I have to avoid. I walk in a place, assess whether or not they apply common sense, and if the answer is no I leave. But it's 90% common sense, 10% rules.

We need a rule to just be careful in a sensible kind of way.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I don't usually reply to the same post twice, but rules R stupid.

I was at a Moth (hi Thurgreed!) storytelling show in Chicago. The club had a very strict mask required rule. The only exception? You could take it off when actively eating or drinking. It was a crowded bar. Everyone was "actively drinking" all night. Sitting two feet away from strangers.

When did I have to wear a mask? When I got called to tell a story. I was on a stage 5 yards from anybody telling a story and had to keep a mask on. Fucking stupid.

I can see the underlying thought though. You can tell a story with a mask on. You can't eat or drink with one. Will the same amount or more virus potentially be released into the air? Prolly.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I don't usually reply to the same post twice, but rules R stupid.

I was at a Moth (hi Thurgreed!) storytelling show in Chicago. The club had a very strict mask required rule. The only exception? You could take it off when actively eating or drinking. It was a crowded bar. Everyone was "actively drinking" all night. Sitting two feet away from strangers.

When did I have to wear a mask? When I got called to tell a story. I was on a stage 5 yards from anybody telling a story and had to keep a mask on. Fucking stupid.

This is indeed stupid, but you may be surprised to learn that people are still trying to make the best of a bad situation.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

For immunocompromised me, this is the kind of thing I have to avoid. I walk in a place, assess whether or not they apply common sense, and if the answer is no I leave. But it's 90% common sense, 10% rules.

We need a rule to just be careful in a sensible kind of way.

That's pretty much how I've been operating as well, especially since Omicron became so prevalent. And I assume the unmasked indoors are diseased and give a very, very wide berth.

Local numbers are still ridiculously high, but seem to be either plateauing or decreasing a bit. I think the number of home tests have skewed the "official" numbers down. For example, none of my family has had a PCR test and therefore officially counted, but all tested positive on home tests. (Dad--most vulnerable and the one we took all the superhuman precautions for--still negative despite living with my positive mom this whole time.) Hospitalizations slightly down though. Still high, but lower than last week.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Hear me out. Wordle, but hourly.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Hear me out. Wordle, but hourly.

With my average of 4.5 turns per day I’d be accused of churning the file.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Yeah, but do we actually have Capitalism? On the left coast you have titans of industry admitting their model is to create monopolies for themselves: https://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-t...ers-1410535536

On the other coast, you have a finance industry using a largely rentier model.

It's better than socialism, no doubt. But it's also highly dysfunctional and leaves a majority of people (an overwhelming majority, according to polls) feeling like disposable cogs in a new gilded age system.

A country controlled in large part by speculators providing little if any value and monopolists (who do provide value, but at cost of eliminating competition) isn't exactly a stable or desirable situation.

So while the comic is funny, it also kinda misstates the critiques of the current system offered by the would-be "socialists." Which is understandable, as most of the people who think the system is fucked up can't concisely articulate why they think that themselves. If I were able to speak for them, I'd state the critique like this:

People are increasingly compelled to deal with more and more complex transactions and interactions as a result of: (1) rentiers compelling them to engage in new economic events that create fees and novel/enhanced income for these actors (FIRE and HC industries most notably); (2) a government that, rather than control these actors, aids them in creation of further complexities via legislation intended to go good but which actually just effects barriers to entry (hence, the decrease in new business formation); and, (3) being forced to work at jobs that provide no satisfaction and which in many cases workers loathe and only perform out of necessity and lack of options.

Even the winners in this economy don't really like it. It's brutally competitive, which can be invigorating when the result is satisfying. But I'd suggest that very little of what is done by most of the people doing well in this economy is satisfying personally or emotionally.

And if you're a loser in the system, well, you exist in world in perpetual disruption and anxiety. You're in debt, and the rentiers are drowning you a little more each month with increases in the cost of everything from which they can extract their rents. Neither you nor the winners are actually really, truly free, but you're quite literally a serf.

Who can claim this sort of existence is optimal for anyone outside the .00001%? It's a lunatic way to live. If one takes Keynes' prediction that as tech improved, we'd work less, down to 15 hours a week by the turn of the century, as rational, we're possibly the most irrational society on earth.

And UBI apparently won't fix it. We've had "UBI-lite" for the past two years and all it's done is create inflation.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

It's better than socialism, no doubt.

Is it? Can we agree on a definition of socialism before we decide?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I don't usually reply to the same post twice, but rules R stupid.

I was at a Moth (hi Thurgreed!) storytelling show in Chicago. The club had a very strict mask required rule. The only exception? You could take it off when actively eating or drinking. It was a crowded bar. Everyone was "actively drinking" all night. Sitting two feet away from strangers.

When did I have to wear a mask? When I got called to tell a story. I was on a stage 5 yards from anybody telling a story and had to keep a mask on. Fucking stupid.

It's mostly performative at this point. Rote compliance rather than thoughtful behavior.

There's a definite industry, however, invested in keeping a battle going between those with blase attitudes about it and those who remain vigilant. And also, of course, an industry invested in pitting vaxxers vs. anti-vaxxers. Hence the Joe Rogan vs. Neil Young thing.

If you're not vaxxed, something's wrong with you. You can't properly assess risk. But I also don't care about you. Caveat emptor. You wanna traffic in conspiracy theories and paranoia? Have at it. I'm not masking up to save you. If I see you in the grocery store and I give you Omicron, that's on you.

And if you want to tsk tsk me about how I'd better be afraid of Omicron and act in a paranoid fashion, you'd do better to lecture the wall. I'm not terribly interested in engaging in your demonstration of what a concerned and selfless sort you are. We're both vaccinated, boosted, and I've had two variants of the disease, and We All Have or Will Acquire Omicron.

I love most of Neil's stuff, and I have iMusic, so his move means nothing to me. And I got bored with Joe long ago (he gets too high and meanders thru his interviews). The two of them, and the rest of the "Vaccine Controversy" and "Vaccine Piety" industries can take a walk. It's not interesting anymore. Like most of Joe's and Neil's recent work.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

If you're not vaxxed, something's wrong with you.

Some examples of what might be wrong include cancer and being younger than 5.

We All Have or Will Acquire Omicron.

Nope.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Is it? Can we agree on a definition of socialism before we decide?

"A political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole."

The "regulated" part is desired. The argument there is one of degree.

The "owned" portion is not desired. But there is an argument of degree, or regarding certain services and industries, to be engaged there. I'm increasingly coming to the view that some things, like health care, might not be appropriately placed entirely in private hands. I'm also reaching the conclusion that perhaps search should be a public utility. And that data mined from consumers should belong to the public rather than the sites and search engines that compile it. Or, alternatively, that people should be paid for the extraction and use of their data (Jaron Lanier's idea).

True socialism does not work. Partial socialism, which we have, can work. The cartoon suggested that we needed true socialism. I'd say to the extent socialism works, and it does for some things, it should be employed sparingly.