Peyote would be the strong medicine in the four corners area, weed is everywhere.

There’s also a lot of users of “strong medicine” in that area… it can make the stories more vivid.

Pro and Home is where they test-market the worst of the garbage… some of it does make it into Enterprise - a surprising amount has gotten into Office 365 - but, yeah, not enough to make it completely dysfunctional.

Unobtanium…

Making things that can only be made in 0G, then bringing them back to Earth to sell.

I suspect the manned ISS isn’t too keen to add a continuously operating 1000C furnace component to their collection of modules.

And, yet, the “authoritative story” is reaching you through your senses. In court hear-say is inadmissible, for many reasons.

What causes you to trust the channels that the story reaches you through more than the direct channels of your own perception?

Was that trust earned, or simply granted?

I rented a house with some friends while at University… come to find out, the reason the owner rented it to us was because the neighbor was doing extensive renovations for 16 months… at 12 months the landlord “let us” switch to a month to month lease, then when the renovations completed she served us notice to vacate within 3 weeks.

One to mix the kool aid, one to serve the kool aid, nine for the kool aid servers to sleep in while preparing for the crowds coming to drink the kool aid…

Were I a neighbor (with a lot of money) in this situation, I think I’d be waiting until Zuck tries to use those properties, then registering my neighboring properties via overseas shell corporations and starting a Cuban Embassy infra-sound attack regime, right up to the limits of what’s legally “acceptable” for construction noise limits - shutting it off as the cops approach the neighborhood, then restarting it at random times every day for as long as this construction is taking. When a formal complaint is filed, document return of the noise cancelling headphones as “obvious adequate relief.”

the 80s action guy who’s totally justified in crashing dozens of cars during rush hour cause he kills the one bad guy in the end

Axel Foley is my hero!

It’s all entertainment - what I will never comprehend (though they are so simple it’s easy to understand) is how a glimpsed female nipple is a bigger problem “for the children” than GI Joe spraying a village with napalm and bullets.

roughly translates to “fuck you, got mine”.

In the US you much more frequently hear it the other way around: “I got mine, now you fuck off.” Until they “get theirs” they maintain the pretense of sociability.

The spread of the superhero (Übermenschen) to ubiquity in pop culture, especially Hollywood

You mean, like Superman (1938), Flash Gordon (1936), Captain Marvel (1941), etc.?

the cost of this kind of inviduality is.

The thing is, it’s a rare individual who “benefits” from the direction we are continuing to move in. Unless they’re a bunch of sadists who like watching the rest of the world suffer while they insulate themselves with security forces, that they can’t really trust, because where do you get the people to maintain the security?

A society where the richest can walk down High Street in London without a thought to “personal security” is better for the people at the top, too. Unless they’re sadists.

The full view thing is … interesting, unique in my experience. It’s one of the few “good” things about the recent unpleasantness. Hopefully all this blatant graft, corruption and just plain evil in clear view leads to some reforms.

“Back in the day” a lot more people went to church on a regular basis. They also beat their children on a regular basis, and a much larger percentage of those children grew up to perpetrate violence, domestic and otherwise, in their adult lives.

The core teachings of Jesus, Buddha, the Dalai Lama, and the rest are good. People standing in the pulpit saying whatever it takes to fill the pews and get donations… less good on average. Theory is easier than putting that theory into faithful practice.

startup costs are basically zero, there is no need for a top end PC, whatever you have now is probably good enough to start.

Unless your true heart’s desire is a faithful Crysis II sequel…

Try it, if you are having fun that’s pretty much all that matters.

Also, don’t expect to have the production value of a AAAAA $800,000,000 development team, even if you do use AI. There’s only so much one developer can do, no matter how sharp they are. There were tons of awesome single developer and very small team games that came out of the 1980s - so, if you can get happy with 8 bit style you might just surprise yourself.

Well, of course, it’s different than a Casino. It’s bigger. It’s a longer running game. But it still pushes those “get rich quick” addiction buttons. You’re right, there are addiction awareness resources built up around traditional gambling channels, disclosure that “the house always wins.” In a sense, the stock markets are a long enough, slow enough running game that many players do actually die before the longer running Ponzi schemes collapse - so maybe the lack of addiction support groups is a little big justified there.

There’s also an unclear distinction drawn between “day traders” and “long term investors” which is so fuzzy as to be meaningless anywhere near the boundary, if there even is a boundary. How can you tell if your mutual fund is day trading?

That people keep buying into… so the cycle continues.

More’s the shame. Our last console was a PS3, it was such a non-fun waste of time that we never bought into the 4 or 5. I used to buy a new PC title a year or so before than, really none new since StarCraft II.

I used to think that the market “drove engagement” - keeping people with money interested in the dealings of the companies they invested their money in.

Lately, I feel like it’s just a giant Casino.

Some companies will also supply Macs - several of my colleagues got MacBookPros just by asking for them. I, unfortunately, missed the “open funds” window and must wait until the current “all POs over X$ must be signed by GOD” phase passes.