Works on my machine. :P

Definitely regretting not getting a photo. I don’t tend to take a lot of pictures in general. I think I maybe have like 2 or 3 from the trip and they’re all group shots with my friends.

That could be it. It looks similar.

I don’t think so, but that looks like it might be worth a try.

That looks sort of like what I remember. I’ll give it and your other suggestions a try. Thanks!

There are so many cases I’ve seen of some piece of art getting commodified in ways that just kind of fly in the face of the original work.

The one that always comes to mind is Madoka Magica.

Idk if it will turn out good or not, but I don’t think the problems you mentioned are really an issue. I assume they aren’t just going to shoot a one to one remake with English actors, it’d be adapted to the culture it’s being presented in. (To be clear, I haven’t heard anything about the remake, this is just speaking generally.) Sort of like how there’s a US and UK “The Office” which aren’t just the same show but different actors.

While those specific cultural examples couldn’t just slot into a movie set in America, the themes still fit really well. It’s not like the US doesn’t have economic inequality and all. There’s a reason why Parasite and Squid Game got such international attention despite language and cultural differences.

That said, I’m generally anti-remake/franchise. Come up with your own original ideas dammit!

Also, I sure do love jelly-filled donuts.

I don’t know how much money it costs, but if it’s not going to financially hurt him and you don’t care about your burial, then it seems fine. Like I don’t believe in religious stuff, but other people do and I understand why. But you don’t even really need to get that deep into it. It’s a thing he wants and will make him happy. Just think of it like any other purchase.

I posted a question about it a few days ago, but atm my tiny project is to get my town to plant more trees along the sidewalks so it isn’t so torturous to walk anywhere when it gets this hot. I tried emailing someone from a department I think handles this kind of thing, but not 100% sure and I haven’t heard back yet. I guess I’ll follow up soon if I don’t get a response.

I don’t look at companies like people, because they’re not. They’re profit optimization machines. Thinking about it in terms of blame is like getting mad at a math equation. The truly depressing thing about all the evils of capitalism is that they’re entirely rational and expected outcomes of the incentives and structures of the system. To a company, spending money to make a thing they can sell is functionally equivalent to spending money lobbying the government to get more favorable regulations. There is no moral calculation involved. Sure there are people who make those decisions within the companies, but over time the ones that make less financially lucrative decisions lose out to those who will do anything for a buck.

Recognizing this dynamic as our greatest barrier to progress is a necessary step to solving the problem. In order to be able to fight against such a powerful and organized enemy, we need to get as many people on our side and activate them enough to take coordinate collective action. To this end, we’ve seen how this individualized blame game has hurt our cause. (And the fossil fuel industry is at least partially responsible for pushing that narrative to the forefront.) People are naturally going to be hesitant to do things that diminish their quality of life and seeing people judge them for not doing so when they’re already living with so little while the rich pollute to their hearts content can make people feel alienated from the struggle. It makes it seem like these activists and politicians don’t understand or care about their circumstances. It makes it seem like we’re being petty and disingenuous by going after relatively small things. Nobody likes to feel like the bad guy, so they may even overcorrect and be more receptive to climate denial. Even if they accept the premise and reduce their consumption, if they’re convinced that this is sufficient and take no additional action, we’re still screwed. It also doesn’t help that the gov has been doing things to make even individual consumption changes even harder. China has made great strides in making cheap solar panels and electric vehicles, but we can’t have that, think of the shareholders! Lets put trade barriers up on their import.

Don’t get me wrong. I would never tell someone NOT to modify their behavior. If you are in a situation where you feel you can drive less, eat less meat, etc… go for it. My problem is using this framework as an overall marketing strategy for climate action. Look, climate change has just gotten worse over my lifetime. In fact, it’s gotten worse at an accelerating rate. Whatever we’ve been doing… IT HASN’T BEEN WORKING! Whatever tiny gains have been made by changes in consumption have been totally eclipsed by the wastefulness of the elite. If something isn’t working… you do something else.

USA #1!.. at a bunch of things you don’t want to be #1 at.

110%. Walkable cities and trains. Let’s do it.

That is exactly what I’m trying to push back against. Guilting people over their tiny contribution to climate change is hurting the cause, not helping it. It’s a problem intrinsic to the consumption-oriented liberal approach to climate activism, but not exclusive to it.

Waaaaaaaay less than the people who have used their power to corrupt said system. Capitalists wouldn’t have spent this much money on lobbying and propaganda if it wasn’t needed. They try their best to keep some people from voting and the rest from having any viable choices that reflect what they want.

It’s just counterproductive to conceptualize our current situation in terms of individualized guilt. It’s not like going to privately check a box every few years is doing much more than choosing to consume a bit less. We need to be organized. Our enemies are and they’re winning.

My point is, the important part isn’t assigning blame, it’s taking actions that actually have some path to success. You really can’t ethically consume your way out of climate change. Identifying the corporations and governments most responsible for blocking progress isn’t a mere moral victory, it’s focusing our efforts.

What’s properly amazing is taking a slightly less well-paying job because it’s on a bus route,

Sure, but not everyone can do that. And I don’t mean it’s just difficult, but literally there are a finite number of jobs and housing options that will fit that criteria. As our societies are set up now, it is not physically possible for enough people to make a sacrifice like that for it to make a difference. That’s why collective action is needed to make those big structural changes in the first place.

And if these big companies have the economic system so stitched up that individual choices barely matter, then what on earth makes you think they won’t have the political system similarly stitched up so that individual activism doesn’t make a difference either?

Oh 100%. I’m deeply concerned that there may be no peaceful, democratic way out of this. But that’s step 2. Step 1, regardless of what our strategy ought to be, is organizing. Whether we need voters, protestors, boycotters, or an army, we need people who are able to coordinate with others. It’s not individual activism, it’s collective action.

To the people who are saying “Yeah but you’re the one who buys the oil!!!” Please stop. Please think about any of the context surrounding those supposedly individualist decisions. Please think about what the most practical solutions are for fixing the problem. You can do that and be helpful or you can be smug and look down on others.

Sure, you buy and drive the car, but you didn’t:

• Design towns and cities that can only be easily traversed by car.
• Decide where jobs and housing were located.
• Spend millions of dollars to lobby against public transit.
• Spend millions of dollars to lobby against regulations.
• Spend millions of dollars to lobby against green energy investments.
• Spend millions of dollars to lobby for imperialist wars to access oil.
• Spend millions of dollars to spread misinformation about climate change.
• Decide what cars were available to buy and at what price. (Demand driving supply only makes sense if consumers have a way to signal that they want something that isn’t being offered. The main market way of doing that would be to not buy anything until the right good is offered… but as stated above, people can’t just opt out of needing a car if the places where they can live and work are built around cars.)
• Decide to be too poor to buy luxury goods masquerading as green alternatives.

Framing the issue in terms of individual decisions lets the people who have most actively stood in the way of progress off the hook and ironically shirks any real responsibility to fix the issue. You think by saying that it’s us doing it that you take responsibility for your actions and therefore because YOU got a hybrid car or some shit, you did your part and everyone else needs to do the same and it’s not your responsibility anymore. Needing to put in the political struggle to take on the corporate interests destroying the planet takes effort that deviates from your normal life. You have to actually talk to people, work with them, and take part in collective action. And your responsibility isn’t over until the problem is solved.

Also, sort of related: I always take issue with how dealing with issues like climate change is framed in terms of making sacrifices. Like sure, are we going to be able to do as much excessive consumption as we do now? No. But there are so many climate policies that would also just make life better for people in the short/medium term. We would be happier, healthier, and safer in a world where we got rid of our dependence on cars and replaced it with walkable cities and good mass transit. But instead of talking about how good it could be, instead the message ends up being “You’re a bad person for diving a car. You need to give up using your car and go either walk to your job which is too far away and across a bunch of busy streets or cram yourself onto the underfunded public transportation that is crowded, slow, unreliable, and falling apart.” No wonder people get so defensive. We don’t want them to have to use the bad infrastructure. We want it to be so good that it’s the best option by far. Pitch that future instead of lecturing people.

TL;DR: I WANT TRAINS! GIVE TRAINS!

This seems over engineered. I’m pretty sure a simple program that just replies “yeah sure” to anyone from the right department asking about something would outperform most CEOs.

“In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.”

But being serious: AOC and politicians like her ARE us “doing it for ourselves.” For a very long time, the vast majority of politicians elected in the US have gotten there by getting the backing of wealthy capitalists. They don’t say “common sense things” because those things aren’t good for the people who helped them get elected. If they did say those things, those capitalists would not only stop funding them, but fund their opposition more. The result is a government comprised of politicians who very rationally don’t represent us. (That’s not to say some of them aren’t crazy on their own, but them being there is a rational outcome of self-interested actors.)

In order to get a politician who does and says things that are good for people, you need an absolutely massive grass roots effort to win an election against the might of rich donors. AOC was one of the notable times when we managed to do that. But this shows the limitations of that strategy within our current electoral system. For every AOC, Illhan Omar, or Mamdani, there are literally hundreds of more races which are still dominated by big money. It took not only a massive on the ground organizing effort locally, but also a lot of support from engaged people across the nation. And it’s way more costly for the average person to contribute to a campaign than it is for a billionaire. So even if a lot of us want this, it’s going to be really difficult to get a critical mass of wins to actually make an impact.

So that’s why they’re a big deal. They might be basic social democrats in some less corrupt countries, but here they are the few who are unbought. What they say is less relevant than the fact that they are able to say it at all.

The same thing that it’s been for almost every war the US has been involved in since WWII: We want a government that will be good for US business and military interests. Iran in particular we’ve been fucking around with for over half a century. If the question is why now? It’s anyone’s guess. It’s Trump, he isn’t exactly the most sane president we’ve had, even amongst the evil bastards. Distraction from Epstein? Distraction from shitty domestic policy? Trying to create enough chaos to try to justify canceling elections? Israel pushing for it particularly hard? Trump just randomly losing it over something stupid? A spot opened up in our war calendar? Who knows?

No. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what current AI models even are. They’re not smart and they don’t think. They are just reflections of what has already been. Whatever was fed into their training. They aren’t going to magically solve a problem in some way none of us would have because it’s kind of an amalgam of all of us. (and a LOT of bots) You also can’t separate governance from politics. There is no one best answer which everyone is happy with, and the various groups or individuals with those varied interests have varying degrees of influence over the process. If the AI came out and was like “socialism all the way baby!”… do you really think that the people in power who benefit from the current system would just be like “Well I guess the AI said it’s right, time to give up our power.”

That’s not to say there’s no place for AI. Machine Learning can be used as a great tool for statistical analysis to help answer specific questions we have in implementing priorities we’ve already decided on, but just like everything in statistics, it doesn’t matter how good your math or data was if you didn’t ask the right question in the first place.