Yet again, I agree! But wouldn’t you also agree that the system always had this in-built inequality? What I meant to say was that, while it was less immediately obvious at the start, the subsequent pooling and acceleration of said pooling were always going to happen within this system.

And that’s why I suspect that this was the plan all along, because it has been visible from the start, it didn’t require a retrospective if one was paying enough attention. And those who did got very, very rich.

But even if everyone would have been paying attention*, there would be no room for equality, otherwise the entire pyramid would collapse, taking everyone’s “more than” with it.

Well, yeah, it’s the pyramid scheme to end all pyramid schemes, not arguing against that. But that was the Dream.

And “not cheap” as in “had a wage,” as opposed to not being paid at all as a slave (although there were some costs involved with that as well, so not entirely free - I am not arguing for slavery in any way, I was just boiling down the expenditure). But wealth was clearly still pooled at the top, while most people were no better off than they are now, when talking strictly about wealth distribution ratios.

Edit: the only advantage they had was that land was “free for the taking” (if they were willing to do a little genocide beforehand), but even that ended up pooling around a handful of people once things and people settled in.

Nope… zero. It’s just what I feel is the right thing to do, regardless of results. And, on a more self-serving note, I will at least die with a clear conscience knowing that I did all I could do to follow and respect my principles, to be at least a quasi-decent human being.

Agreed, that was the “advertised” goal, and the overall shape things took once it was set into motion. But looking at things now, in retrospect, I genuinely believe that’s just what everyone was told to sell them on the idea, with the actual plan being very different for those who had access backstage, y’know?

I mean, it’s much easier to motivate people to uproot their lives (regardless of how abysmal their living conditions were at the time) by promising a Land of Opportunity For Everyone, instead of telling them “yeah, we’re a bunch of rich guys who want to get even richer, and we need cheap labour to get things started, then work for us, so that we may accumulate all of the wealth.”

To be perfectly frank, I can relate… Not gonna give up trying, just that I’ve never had much use for optimism given how things have been going overall.

That guy was ridiculously correct about a frightening amount of things…

Again, no such issue, I’d actually have a bit more respect for LLMs were they this eloquent and pleasant!:)) Glad to have generated a crumb of something good!:D

Damned fine quote and personal reinterpretation, no apologies needed!:))

Oh, I’m not putting this on any individual citizen, I’m genuinely sorry if it came out that way!

Sharing is virtuous, and everyone should most certainly try to share more (within their means, of course!), but the game was rigged long before those who are alive now ever existed. Unfortunately, as long as the system itself doesn’t change, individual action can only achieve so much in terms of offering fair conditions and opportunities for everyone…

From my understanding of it, the American Dream’s going just fine! The only problem is most people misunderstood that it was about all of them.

…aerodynamic?

Jeesus, I would have immediately exited the call/room/building without saying a thing.

I never even tried, and none of my former employers took me seriously. “Oh, isn’t it cool, we have a Punk now, too!”

Thoroughly enjoyed surprising them by doing exactly what anyone else would expect: quitting the instant they started doing shady shit. Blindsided the lot of’em.

Easy! Coffee until the aftertaste persists, then tea to wash it down!

Well, that would be nice, but it’s still not all of them. Unfortunately, I own a Zenfone 10 as my main driver, and Asus have not released the unlock tools they promised since Zenfone 9. And, afaik, this is applicable to a lot of the top producers, with a few exceptions.

I can’t wait for the new regulations to properly settle in, hopefully we’ll start seeing full unlocks with the upcoming generations…

Jesus, yeah, I have a lot of friends in that position… I was lucky enough to be able to quit before things became outright quicksand and am looking into completely different professions at this point. I don’t want to touch a computer for anything other than fucking about in my free time. Maybe some data entry, but that’s it. At least the diversity somewhat negates the impact of just how dire things are, I guess.

I honestly don’t know how we’ll get ourselves out of this one if things keep going the way they have.

Dammit, I really need to rewatch that one, I think my brain always misses the point because, again, fast cars go vroom…

Need to rewatch the third as well, now that you mentioned it.

Ooh, well, thank you kindly for clarifying the first one, at least! I was always under the impression that, although oil (or lack thereof) caused that apocalypse, the nutsos were just driving around on diesel all day long, and it kinda’ didn’t make much sense to me:)) But, hey, fast cars go boom, brain happy!

It’s like we’ve taken it upon ourselves to turn reality into THE stupidest version of any dystopia ever imagined by a human brain…

You want Terminator? Sure, but Skynet will be crap and people will die en masse due to infrastructure fuck-ups.

You want 40k? Sure, but the Men of Iron will be LLMs. Good luck figuring out those STCs once you develop beyond bonking pieces of wood together. Again.

You want 1984? Ok, but Big Brother is a Blackbox algorithm which has no idea what a human being is and just corrupts your feeds until it’s nothing but inaccuracies and YouTube Poop and is selling your actual waist size and toilet paper preferences to random online advertisers.

You want Waterworld? Well, here! Have all the water you need! Good luck with your ocean based society once your flesh will start slow-roasting in about 30-40 years of living like this!

You want Mad Max? Well, better make it happen fast, because there won’t be enough oil for it! Maybe solarpunk? Also, we’re doing Waterworld first, let’s see how you make it through that.

There are more, I’m sure, but I’m pissed off now.

At this point, bricking a smartphone by flashing dodgy ROMs is a rite of passage.

Edit: at least it was before everyone started bootlocking like assholes…