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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 19th, 2023

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  • $25 a week on groceries in 1997 is around $50 today based on currency inflation, not even accounting for purchasing power. That could easily make the difference between a nutritious diet and one that leads to chronic health conditions for people living paycheck to paycheck. In 1997, the average weekly expenditure on food per person in the US was $34. You could probably have survived off of $15/wk for food back then and maybe find an extra 2-3hr of minimum wage to meet your $25 investment, but it wouldn’t have been pretty.

    Fun fact, a $25 steak today in the US cost about $8.50 in 1997.


  • You go back in time to when you’re living paycheck to paycheck and zero financial literacy. You convince yourself to invest $100/month in Amazon no matter what, because it will be worth it. You eat nothing but instant ramen, forego preventative care, get sick from malnutrition. Your quality of life is horrible because you forego basic necessities to invest in Amazon. The dot com bubble wipes out 90% of Amazon’s value but you continue to invest because your past self told you about this, but if you just endure, Amazon will recover and you will be a millionaire.

    In this timeline, Amazon never recovers and goes bankrupt. On Twitter, you read a post about George Shaheen’s wedding, and how he’s entitled to his billions, despite predatory and exploitative practices, because his wealth could have been yours. If you had only invested $100/month since 1996 into WebVan, you’d be a millionaire.

    Investing is, at the end of the day, a gamble.


  • The “Ex-colleague with a liver disease” sent a chill through my spine. Was he an Ex-colleague because he was fired for being sick 👀👀👀? Was he healing himself or was he desperate not to die? There’s a difference.

    Work can be meaningful, therapeutic, or simply a useful tool for coping. That doesn’t mean it should be the only tool, nor should it be relied on without clinical guidance, nor should it be the expectation.

    Talk-therapy might not be for everyone, work therapy certainly isn’t. The complete lack of empathy and humanization in the post is disgusting.







  • otherwise you’re leaving money on the table.

    This is the same argument as “would you rather have 1 or 100 mil”

    But yes, you’re right to point out large companies who need to make big money to keep the lights on and, if public, stock profile. If the market perceives modest growth, it will not react kindly, leading to downstream financial losses. Some investors invest in ideas and products, most invest in perceived potential gains. No investment–>no funding–>no games.


  • Wait… I think this helps. Ohhh I think he’s saying that finding women for just sex is easy when you have money like the kings who are the richest among us. But making money is hard, and while you’re struggling to make money or making babies, the kings who already have money are expanding their harems???

    I dunno man, interpretation gets weird when you ignore humanity/ethics.





  • AI bad. But also, video AI started with will Will Smith eating spaghetti just a couple years ago.

    We keep talking about AI doing complex tasks right now and it’s limitations, then extrapolating its development linearly. It’s not linear and it’s not in one direction. It’s a exponential and rhizomatic process. Humans always over-estimate (ignoring hard limits) and under-estimate (thinking linearly) how these things go. With rocketships, with internet/social media, and now with AI.






  • I think I fall in the same camp of agreeing with a good chunk of his points while disagreeing with others and I even have laughed at many of his jokes. And I’m totally fine with that for people I enjoy watching. However, what turned me off of Bill Maher a decade ago was his overall manner and attitude. He just started coming across as arrogant, obnoxious, smarmy, and untimately unkind, even when I agreed with him, which I did not enjoy. It was much in contrast to other satirists who may have mocked people, never felt like they were out to denigrate. Maybe his content has changed, but I haven’t noticed.


  • Soleos@lemmy.worldtoEurope@feddit.org*Permanently Deleted*
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    4 months ago

    The proposal doesn’t ban the party, it suggests banning extremist individuals convicted of things like inciting hatred from running for office. In effect, it puts a damper on extreme individual members of a party that doesn’t itself reach the threshold for prohibition as a party. So I can see the logic behind it. But I agree it’s a dicey proposal and ripe for political abuse. Still, it would be contingent on court decisions so it could work with a strong (just/uncorrupt) court system.