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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 27th, 2023

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  • Been like ten years since I’ve seen the movie and I heard the sequel wasn’t great so don’t have complete context.

    Anyway, jailing her is the right move for a punishment based society. She was an adult and committed crimes and stuff. There are some mitigating factors like childhood trauma, that most of it was accidental, and lack of fatalities (because it was a Disney movie, but it stands). To dissuade others, she should be jailed.

    In a rehabilitation based society with a focus on maximum gain, it’s probably not the move. Most people would have a hard time in that situation— it’s not far off from someone experiencing significant mental stress and reacting poorly to being swatted. Except the police were, iirc, hired thugs sent to assassinate her. (Or, as some might say, the police.)

    Even kind of hating the character due to overexposure, I don’t fault her too much for how she reacted. In the US we have the standard of what a reasonable person might do, and I’m not entirely sure she would be convicted of most charges even here.

    Now factoring in the potential uses of a magical monarch, it’s probably wasteful to throw her in jail. Tourism and industrial uses alone offset the benefits of throwing the book at her. Is it fair that a more useful person could get lenience? No, but the gain heavily outweighs the nonexistent benefits. It would probably be best to let her do her thing but remove her inherited power. Further displays of intentional violence should be met with imprisonment. Or I guess outright execution, since you can’t really imprison someone like that, but I’m not pro death penalty.



  • I think so. I have mild ADHD apparently. It makes sense and explains why I have so much difficulty doing things sometimes.

    So now I know. I got meds for it but don’t take them (as others will say, how messed up is it that the cure to ADHD is a pill to take regularly?). The meds help tremendously when I do take them, and revert me back to what I’m used to when I don’t.

    At worst, it’s just how I’ve lived my life before but knowing it’s not exactly my fault I feel so bad doing certain things. It’s still my problem to do them, as it was before, but knowing helps a little. And at best I have medication that helps. All upsides!

    Also if you think it’s depression, I’d recommend a CBT book like Feeling Good. Self treatment is effective. I am not depressed but have still benefited from recognizing when my thoughts are irrational and redirecting them to more realistic, less unhappiness-inducing ones. Could be good practice until you get a therapist, and per the research, can be about as effective as having one (likely for low level depression, I am not an expert)









  • Well, yeah, and I suppose with the erosion in rights and healthcare in other countries too, maybe humans are just not great at standing up to power.

    Perhaps it’s just that, as an American, I am quite frustrated at the lack of respect corporations offer customers. Recently I’ve noticed a lot of skincare buyouts and subsequent shit tier reformulations, but they’re often done by French companies. Maybe it’s more a western thing— I typically buy most of my stuff while in Japan these days because their companies at least continue to provide good products. But their culture treats workers horribly so it’s not exactly ideal there either.


  • With massive businesses in the US, I operate on one very simple assumption: Americans will take anything. Low quality products, price hikes, evil behavior— nearly 100% of the time, it doesn’t matter. Americans will take it lying down.

    Very rarely, there will be significant pushback. Usually this leads to a minor walking back, but the thing that was tried will probably be tried again. Among hundreds of “this is now worse” decisions, maybe two or three are actually significantly haltered or occasionally truly stopped every year.

    I don’t even really blame them. American consumers have been treated like absolute shit for so long, and the draw of escapism on TV is probably hard to resist.


  • Don’t think anyone has actually bought a phone for the thinness since like, 2016, but also a case isn’t a decision of thinness. The people who use their phones without a case continue to do so because they like the look and feel, and those who use a case for protection will want it regardless of whether the phone is 5mm thicker.



  • Imo upper class should be limited to the ability to live the rest of your life without working ever again. Otherwise there’s no meaningful distinction between middle and upper class. Stuff is stuff, and more expensive stuff but no other significant separators isn’t enough to put regular Harvard alum in upper class. If they permanently lost the ability to work, they’d die too.

    Class should always be about means to live— middle class should be able to comfortably live and be able to survive bouts of unemployment. This is sadly not the case anymore (though I argue it is because the middle class is simply disappearing), but by letting the meaning erode, we allow the uppermost classes to acclimate society to lower standards. The middle class should be able to go some weeks without employment. The middle class should be equally comfortable as standard non-founder Ivy alum, cheaper stuff notwithstanding. There can be differences of luxuries and ability to move up, but anyone working full time should be comfortable, housed, and not fearful of a layoff or hospitalization.

    Then upper class should be those who could quit forever and continue to live. Ofc, in an ideal society, everyone should have means to live, not merely the middle and up. In America this is not the case though.


  • They’ve made a stunning amount of progress in accepting credit cards in the past couple years though. I’m there pretty regularly and the shift has been wild. By spring 2023 I didn’t really need cash anymore. By fall, I used cash maybe twice.

    There was one thing I was sure I’d need cash for— nope, the hotel paid them and added it to my tab. Back in the day, that mostly happened only if you skipped out on a reservation and the restaurant wanted to collect the cancellation fee. Which has never happened to me so I guess I’m not sure it worked exactly like that.

    I know a lot of people here hate credit cards and only use cash, but it’s honestly a pretty large hassle to get cash in every country you visit. Using the same card everywhere is way more convenient and cheaper (exchange fee + no % back like with a credit card)