That was very helpful, thanks!
Only problem I have left is getting NGINX Reverse Proxy Manager set up, so that I can offer Overseerr webpage. The Let’s Encrypt cert generator keeps throwing an internal error at the last step. Something is preventing LE from reaching my server, and I’m too clueless to solve at this point.
It was fascinating to watch the rideshare companies convince their San Francisco drivers to actively support and evangelize the bill in California that ruined their ability to get benefits and employment protections, then turn around and extract so much value away from those drivers in the period since that most of those drivers, who tended to be American-born and have relatively nice cars, have been replaced by recent immigrants driving fleet-owned older cars. I would also not be shocked to learn that the latter are being cheated by whoever signs them up and helps them navigate Lyft and Uber’s processes.
The intellectual and professional desert of center-lib media is fascinating: The same rotating cast of five MSNBC guests who are on every day, all day, are now primary fodder for print stories trying to get in on wishcasting monetization, like this Guardian piece. Newsweek and HuffPost literally report MSNBC show opinions now, like they’re news.
There are hundreds of qualified law professors and law firm partners with either deep legal theory or direct practice experience relevant to the Trump cases, but good luck hearing from them. Instead, we get Vance, Litman, Katyal, McQuade, and Weissman, all day every day, and now also in print.
This desert isn’t good for us. The MSNBC wishcasting monetization model left Americans poorly prepared for the Mueller outcome. The guy was canonized as a genius Marine Superman who would undoubtedly smite Trump; other professional voices weren’t invited on.
About 25 years ago, I took in a shitty Brazilian-made .380 to be destroyed by local police dept. Filled out the form and answered questions from a young officer who seemed incredulous that I actually wanted a gun destroyed.
After I finished and was escorted out to the reception area, I used the bathroom. When I came out, I heard the officer yell to everyone the back area, “Hey, does anyone want a Taurus .380?”
I have a vague memory of a $10B cash shipment going missing in Afghanistan.
What is the problem with holding hands for these two?
I like this cat.
Yeah, judging from the various statues’ junk, the full-sized device was def not necessary.
Isn’t the dominant theory for its use something about knitting gloves?
Historically, American millionaires had a much higher rate of prior bankruptcies than the general population. A good way to squelch entrepreneurship is to make failure so onerous that it’s not worth the risk.
China’s system has a potential duality:
Everyone from the top to the bottom plays along when the pie is expanding, and endemic corruption can be treated as a predictable cost of doing business.
However, when the pie stops growing, there isn’t the level of contract assurance that other rich countries offer. The Pareto optimal competition between powerful interests once growth fully stalls will be very interesting to watch. Xi will have his hands full, picking winners and losers, and lots of billionaires and centimillionaires will head for the door, taking significant capital with them. Worse, foreign investment will tail off, and decreased predictability will cause foreign companies to look hard at production in other places. At the bottom of the economic ladder, corruption will be much more apparent and challenging.
Xi’s bet seems to be that he can use technological repression tools to manage discontent in a downturn. We’ll see; he may be right. If the Stasi had had access to Palantir, Israeli spy software, and Chinese hardware, Checkpoint Charlie might still be in place.
Prediction: The world will return to something that looks like feudalism, with increased clamping on birth rates until a few rich holders remain with their human retinues solely there to entertain and flatter them. Otherwise, AI and robotics will cosset them.
Once production is automated there is little need for workers, and once knowledge work is automated there is no need for a professional and technocratic class. Consumers have nothing to spend, so they are effectively a drag on the economy of wealth.
That world then looks a lot like the time before the merchant class developed. Everything of any quality is made for the wealthy, and everyone else exists solely at the pleasure of their masters.