@Rook said in State of Things:
It just goes to show how easily swayed and driven today's people can be, out of ignorance.
... Today?
"Did you hear that Duchess Genevive was seen sleeping with the stable boy?"
Boom. Fall of a household.
I don't feel bad for tulips, because the tulip industry has a lot of very smart and well-funded marketers.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
I suspect the product would have to exist mainly as a digital image, or certain as an image to be effectively appropriated.
I have a waggish sense of humor.
@Misadventure said in State of Things:
I suspect the product would have to exist mainly as a digital image, or certain as an image to be effectively appropriated.
IoT garage door opener maker bricks customer’s product after bad review.
This scares me much more than a number of dedicated amateur social engineers harassing an innocent small business owner.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
@Thenomain I remember that. What had surprised me even more was the programmer's arrogance after this had gone down - I can see how someone might get carried away, not realizing they are being assholes to their own customer, but the fucker doubled down on it when confronted.
The future of not owning any of your stuff but just basically the (revoke-able) license to them sucks.
How about the lawsuits filed after bad Yelp reviews? As much as this has almost never worked, LA Law has taught us that lawyers are cool and anything can be litigated. I fear to think what these forums would be like if we had any lawyers here.
I mean amoral lawyers.
Fine, I mean ambulance chasers and IP trolls.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
@Thenomain Lawyers, amirite.
@Rook said in State of Things:
It just goes to show how easily swayed and driven today's people can be, out of ignorance.
I blame the major media outlets. Everything has to be a 2-way horse race because it’s easy to understand and it sells. Four different viewpoints? That’s too complicated. Viewpoints that are shades of grey? Whoa no; that requires too much thinking. Let’s reduce everything to two simple sides so we can have a brawl on TV and #ratings! ...Yup, that’s a sure way to send the level of discourse to the dumpster.
This conversation has definitely already happened on one of the stations:
Anchor: Should Comey have stayed in office?
Senator: Well, no. He was—
Anchor: Ah, so you’re happy he was fired?
Senator: Well he certainly shouldn’t have remained director of the FBI after—
Anchor: In other words you agree with Trump?
Senator: Absolutely not! He—
Anchor: But wait! If you’re glad Comey was fired, how can you not be on the same page as the president? Why are you being a hypocrite?
Senator: Listen here, it’s more—
Anchor: Sorry! That’s all the time we have!
We have got to somehow break the link between profit and sensationalism/misinformation and/or really invest in educating consumers to be savvier media consumers, but we’re doing neither.
One of the biggest failings of the modern era is that we didn’t use the rapid increases in knowledge and technology to try to mitigate the negative sides of human nature, instead we just put them all on steroids.
MUSH-free since 02/2017
This may or may not change in the future.
I absolutely blame the repealing of the Fairness Doctrine.
@Monogram said in State of Things:
We have got to somehow break the link between profit and sensationalism/misinformation and/or really invest in educating consumers to be savvier media consumers, but we’re doing neither.
One of the biggest failings of the modern era is that we didn’t use the rapid increases in knowledge and technology to try to mitigate the negative sides of human nature, instead we just put them all on steroids.
This will never, ever, happen.
Why? Simple truth. It doesn't make money.
Those in power want to keep the power, and that includes the hefty nest egg that they clutch to their belly like a dragon with gold.
They want people ignorant. They want people unthinking. They want people who panic easy. They want people who will just follow those who yell the most and just capitulate because 'that's just the way things are'. They relish in that. Because then they get to dictate the why, how, who and when's and everyone dances to the pied piper.
Sure, there are those of us who realize the sinking ship and absolute apathy and stupidity rampent everywhere.
But ask you this. When you see what is going on around you and can point and say 'why isn't anyone seeing that?!?' and realize it's true, very few others are seeing it, then you know the problem.
@Rook said in State of Things:
Interesting. I hadn't heard of this... but it just goes to prove a few things.
Anything can get all twisted and turned to mean something entirely opposite... but the sick thing is that people then believe that new meaning. It just goes to show how easily swayed and driven today's people can be, out of ignorance.
That's the scary part.
You could take a picture of, I dunno, a daisy in a pot and post a meme of hatred, get a huge internet segment to push it as a joke, and suddenly I would bet that daisy sales at florists would plummet.
Doesn't that scare the shit out of any of you?
Nope. Whenever I get tempted to get my undies in a bunch over this I think of what would happen if my wife wore this pendant in Canada:
Things change. Meanings change. Associations change. It's called "life" and if you're scared of it you may wish to consider the possibility of never leaving your home.
Yeah, fair. There are people in India and who've lived primarily on Native American Reservations who still have largely positive connotations toward the swastika, and to whom the Nazi connotation is learned in history class later in life. My first job as a reporter was on a Res in rural AZ and it mind-fucked me to see it on random old bridges and in regional art. But I got used to it after awhile. The corruption of positive symbology by ignorant fucks is, sadly, an age-old tradition.
@Three-Eyed-Crow I'll go a step and a half farther than that: aside from Europe and its satellite cultures, the swastika has never been tainted in its meaning. It took me a few seconds to find that pendant on Taobao. Swastikas are common good luck charms and images all over east and south Asia. You can find them in temples, on buildings, on business cards, in homes, on jewellery ... and it's really jarring the first few dozen times you see them.
Now ... well, when I went to Canada last summer I was wearing a bracelet. This one:
Take a closer look at the barrel-shaped bead near the centre...
@WTFE said in State of Things:
Whenever I get tempted to get my undies in a bunch over this I think of what would happen if my wife wore this pendant in Canada:
Wouldn't you have to un-bind her feet, first?
@Thenomain: Do you have any idea how painful it is unbinding bound feet? I only do that to her as punishment.
@Three-Eyed-Crow Hold up... there are Indians, honest to God ones from India, living on Indian reservations in America, like Native Americans?
@WTFE, I think he lost a word in there: "people in India and [those] who've lived"
@ArmedCarp said in State of Things:
@Three-Eyed-Crow Hold up... there are Indians, honest to God ones from India, living on Indian reservations in America, like Native Americans?
No (well, maybe a few but not enough to be statistically significant in any sense) but what happens is that that image occurs in both locations.
@The-Sands said in State of Things:
@ArmedCarp said in State of Things:
@Three-Eyed-Crow Hold up... there are Indians, honest to God ones from India, living on Indian reservations in America, like Native Americans?
No (well, maybe a few but not enough to be statistically significant in any sense) but what happens is that that image occurs in both locations.
There actually were random Sikh golf course developers there doing various projects while I was working in those parts (oh, Parker, Arizona. At random times, I miss you). But, yeah, I meant that the image is found commonly in both places (and in East Asia, which I had less awareness of).
Yeah, they show up here and there indeed. 
@Thenomain I remember that. What had surprised me even more was the programmer's arrogance after this had gone down - I can see how someone might get carried away, not realizing they are being assholes to their own customer, but the fucker doubled down on it when confronted.
The future of not owning any of your stuff but just basically the (revoke-able) license to them sucks.
