a lot of self professed socialists and left wing people have absolutely no consciousness on imperialism and when it comes down to it could easily be convinced of being fascists
seriously when the reaction to people making very realistic observations on how the structure of the global economy is unsustainable, especially for the first world, is “great way to make people support socialism by telling them their lives are gonna be worse under it”…
if you define quality of life and freedom in terms of access to cheap commodities and convenience at the cost of others, you might not be a socialist!!
If you love Tree Law, the beloved subreddit is open again. I highly recommend sorting by top/all time.
To clarify after some questions:
(American) Tree Law is very satisfying because the cases often involve someone damaging trees that don’t belong to them, usually for an aesthetic, mercenary, petty, and/or spiteful reason. However, American tree law comes down like a HAMMER on such people, and they will get mighty fines. If the tree dies, in fact, they’ll be on the hook to replace the whole thing, and as it turns out, trees ain’t cheap. As the article above summarizes one incident in Reddit terms:
To rephrase it as an AITA post: am I the asshole if I cut down 32 trees on my neighbor’s property, but instead of just charging me a $32,000 fine, now they’re going to make me build a road and find transplanted, equally mature trees to replant?
Tree Law is perhaps one of the few branches (I didn’t even mean that to be a pun) of American law where self-entitled wrongdoers WILL face consequences. NBC Universal wants to maul a row of city-owned ficus trees to deprive striking workers of shade during a heat wave? Oh boy.
Trees are one of those things whose worth is weighed in years, whose value is inclusive of all the time that went into making it what it is. A mature tree is a MATURE tree; you cannot replace it with a sapling and call it good. You don't just replace the tree; you must replace the years of the tree. And it turns out that finding those years to replace is both difficult and expensive.
It's one of those lovely situations where a wrongdoer is forced to restore the situation to its former glory, cost be damned, and if it's "too expensive" or "too inconvenient" or "I had no idea" or "this is so much trouble" then tough shit, asshole, you fucked around and by God you WILL find out.
I had a very young kid with a hereditary heart condition come in today to be seen. My colleague excitedly told him that I play “that ‘dungeons and dragons’ game just like you do!”
The kid deadpans me with “I DM for 8 people who keep splitting the party, I think that’s why I’m really here.”
Relatable, kid, relatable.
Does anyone remember what happened to Radio Shack?
They started out selling niche electronics supplies. Capacitors and transformers and shit. This was never the most popular thing, but they had an audience, one that they had a real lock on. No one else was doing that, so all the electronics geeks had to go to them, back in the days before online ordering. They branched out into other electronics too, but kept doing the electronic components.
Eventually they realize that they are making more money selling cell phones and remote control cars than they were with those electronic components. After all, everyone needs a cellphone and some electronic toys, but how many people need a multimeter and some resistors?
So they pivoted, and started only selling that stuff. All cellphones, all remote control cars, stop wasting store space on this niche shit.
And then Walmart and Target and Circuit City and Best Buy ate their lunch. Those companies were already running big stores that sold cellphones and remote control cars, and they had more leverage to get lower prices and selling more stuff meant they had more reasons to go in there, and they couldn't compete. Without the niche electronics stuff that had been their core brand, there was no reason to go to their stores. Everything they sold, you could get elsewhere, and almost always for cheaper, and probably you could buy 5 other things you needed while you were there, stuff Radio Shack didn't sell.
And Radio Shack is gone now. They had a small but loyal customer base that they were never going to lose, but they decided to switch to a bigger but more fickle customer base, one that would go somewhere else for convenience or a bargain. Rather than stick with what they were great at (and only they could do), they switched to something they were only okay at... putting them in a bigger pond with a lot of bigger fish who promptly out-competed them.
If Radio Shack had stayed with their core audience, who knows what would have happened? Maybe they wouldn't have made a billion dollars, but maybe they would still be around, still serving that community, still getting by. They may have had a small audience, but they had basically no competition for that audience. But yeah, we only know for sure what would happen if they decided to attempt to go more mainstream: They fail and die. We know for sure because that's what they did.
I don't know why I keep thinking about the story of what happened to Radio Shack. It just keeps feeling relevant for some reason.
happy Thursday the 20th
I’d have to wait months or even years for another chance to reblog this, so why the fuck not?
next days you can reblog this on a Thursday the 20th
August 2015
October 2016
April 2017
July 2017
September 2018
December 2018
June 2019
February 2020
August 2020
You know, just in case you wanted to set your queue for the next 6 years
TODAY
Since it’s now August 20, 2020… The next days you can reblog this on a Thursday the 20th:
- May 2021
- January 2022
- October 2022
- April 2023
- July 2023
- June 2024
- February 2025
- March 2025
- November 2025
- August 2026
If you wanted to set your queue for the next six years.
The way I've already seen uncountable "Netflix is hiring!" Ads. They're really just gonna hire scabs and pretend the WGA strike isn't happening....
This is a reminder to anyone who wants to go into screenwriting. This is not an opportunity to get your foot in the door. Do not take any writing jobs during the strike. This includes freelance or “script editing” jobs.
You will be a scab. Scabs are barred from union membership. By crossing the picket line to get your foot in the door you’ll be burning one of the most important bridges in your life. You will actively be harming your future job prospects.
This strike will end one day. Those writers who are out picketing will reenter the writers room and start producing work with the legal and financial protections and guarantees they’re fighting for, and you will not be among their ranks. You will be a scab. A traitor.
A lack of union membership will harm your prospects job wise. Do not scab. Knowledge of your scabbing, traitorous ways will cost you your ability to make friends in the industry. Do not scab. Support the WGA as they fight for your rights. Do. Not. Scab.
be pro-aging but wear sun screen. sun protection is not beauty industry propaganda it will save you. wear it. or else.
using tumblr mobile and seeing people talk about a desktop layout change is like hearing a timer suddenly start ticking down. I am safe for now but I hear the danger
