Hyperreality

Yeah, it's stupid. Given no one's ever heard of it, it's failed.

Amazon bought MGM a while ago, so I assume it'll become part of prime, or they'll rebrand it MGM Prime.

I actually quite enjoyed this, but it isn't hard-scifi and leans into religious symbology heavily. The whole lighthouse, strange meteor thing. It's not hard SF, some things don't make sense if you think about it too much. You need to suspend disbelief. Given a lot of scifi is inspired by Milton's Paradise Lost, because that's proto-SF and heavily inspired Frankenstein, I found it interesting.

Understandably that's going to be a no for some people, although religious symbology is rife in SF. There were similar themes in Annihilation, with the lighthouse and the fallen meteor. Dune also has plenty of the stuff. Super common for SF to go religious, when humans interact with very alien or very powerful extraterrestrials. Even hard SF shows like The Expanse do it, with the protomolecule and ringbuilders.

Entirely unsurprising. Relevant wikipedia article:

The Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP)[a] is a Syrian nationalist party operating in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine. ... is the second-largest political party in the pro-Assad National Progressive Front led by the ruling Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party ... Political rivals of SSNP have commonly labelled Antoun Saadeh as a fascist ideologue who formed relations with Nazis during the Second World War. ... Saadeh remained a strong admirer of Adolf Hitler and introduced Nazi symbolism into SSNP insignia. Similar to the "Fuhrer" title, Saadeh took the designation of "az-Za'im" and the party set him up as their "leader for life". The party adopted a reversed swastika as its symbol and the party anthem was sung to the tune of Deutschlandlied. ... Saadeh adopted many themes related to fascism: pushing a personality cult around the party leader, establishing a totalitarian state that policed all aspects of life, belief in "the organic whole of the Syrian Volk" ... Throughout the Second World War, Saadeh was rumoured to have close contacts with officials of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. ... Western journalists also describe it as fascist. Terry Glavin writes that it "sports its very own stylized swastika [and] sings an anthem to the tune of Deutschlandlied", while Bellingcat calls its a "rabidly anti-Semitic, fascist organization [with] international ties to the far-right." ... According to historian Stanley G. Payne, interwar Arab nationalism was influenced by European fascism, with the creation of at least seven Arab nationalist shirt movements similar to the brown shirt movement by 1939, with the most influenced ones being the SSNP ... SSNP wanting the complete control of Syria, belief in the superiority of their own people (with Saadeh theorizing a "distinct and naturally superior" Syrian race) ... Anglo-American journalist Christopher Hitchens and his team were assaulted in February 2009 by SSNP paramilitaries ... The attack left Hitchens with body injuries and a limp in his leg. Reporting to Vanity Fair in May 2009, Hitchens described SSNP as a "suicide-bomber front" that carries out terrorist operations in Lebanon on behalf of Ba'athist Syria. He asserted that SSNP was a violent fascist movement; noting its irredentist ambitions of creating "Greater Syria"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Social_Nationalist_Party

why don’t we talk about the 26 million Soviets who were killed in that war? Are the six million more precious?

This is what the far right in Russia think, and is why they don't see the irony in calling Zelensky a Nazi. Relevant article:

The dominant version of antisemitism alive in parts of eastern Europe today is that Jews employ the Holocaust to seize the victimhood narrative from the “real” victims of the Nazis, who are Russian Christians (or other non-Jewish eastern Europeans). Those who embrace Russian Christian nationalist ideology will be especially susceptible to this strain of antisemitism. ... in a 2021 article, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev denounced Zelenskiy as disgusting, corrupt and faithless. The free democratic election of a Jewish president confirms in the fascist mind that the fascist bogeyman of liberal democracy as a tool for global Jewish domination is real. ... By claiming that the aim of the invasion is to “denazify” Ukraine, Putin appeals to the myths of contemporary eastern European antisemitism – that a global cabal of Jews were (and are) the real agents of violence against Russian Christians and the real victims of the Nazis were not the Jews, but rather this group. Russian Christians are targets of a conspiracy by a global elite, who, using the vocabulary of liberal democracy and human rights, attack the Christian faith and the Russian nation.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin-ukraine-attack-antisemitism-denazify

Great name though.

Divided then conquered. For Russia and China this will be the greatest victory, one without battle.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/apr/24/how-avoid-paying-tax-maximise-income

Top earners get 75k, because people earning more than that are rarely paid in a fixed wage.

They get stock options, stuff gets moved to an off-shore company, you start a company that pays you out a dividend under the threshold, any income paid out gets spread between partners, etc.

Until the Scottish government tackles large land owners, capital, and loopholes this is partly(!!!) performative. Something's better than nothing though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4J4uor3JE

Sounds interesting. Do you have examples?

Still almost a year of this shit to go.

It's a wonder so many Americans still care at all, given they're bombarded a stream of shit constantly.

Can you imagine having to go to those meetings?

You're basically paid to go plop yourself in a chair, while some paid appartchik rattles an absurd lecture at you.

And it's not as if you're ever really off the clock. It's almost certain the Finnish ambassador's Moscow home has been bugged up the wazoo. So they can't walk around their appartment naked or get freaky with that attractive guy or gal who was winking at them at the bar. Hell, if you meet some rando and you bond over your love of pastries, you have to worry that they're not trying to steal your underpants because they want to have your DNA on file or steal your poo particles to see if you have underlying medical conditions they can exploit.

Oh, he obviously means non-white immigrants because he's racist.

Hope that clears up any confusion you may have had.