Bethany Plays

But unlike the adult in this strip, Calvin’s dad actually APOLOGIZED for yelling at him when he saw how guilty his kid was:

But unlike the adult in this strip, Calvin’s dad actually APOLOGIZED for yelling at him when he saw how guilty his kid was:

so, the basic idea of investment was once upon a time, "i need money to start a business." "i will give you money to do that, if you give me some of the profits" "okay."

the stock market allegedly simplifies that process, and allows for massive amounts of people to invest in a company, and get profits, and a small share of voting power, in return. crowdfunding! yay!

except. except. people dont actually invest in companies in order to see that business flourish. they dont even KNOW what all theyve invested in because banks do all that shit now. the "stock" is just a really weird form of currency, and the rich assholes consolidate and do weird shit to still have all the voting power. the investment isnt for the investments sake, its with the hope that Number Go Up in the future, creating this stupid fucking infinite growth or bust problem we're running into.

(quote from the videos used in my accounting course)

I AM BITING AND SCRATCHING AND HURTING THE FINANCIAL SECTOR SO MUCH. HATE KILL KILL KILL.

WHY THE FUCK DID WE LET THIS HAPPEN.

"invest in a company, and you will get a share of the profits and voting power in how its run" is literally the most straightforward way to crowdfund a company under capitalism. "buy and sell random shares as the market fluctuates, never touching the companies you are investing in" is fucking nonsense garbage.

also if the original intent was still the primary way of making money on the stock market, that would help curtail the infinite growth problem, because "my shares give me like $200 a year" is a good deal! you don't need to wait for the stock price to change, you just...get money from the company! because you own part of it! you won't get RICH off of it unless you happen to strike gold, but it's a solid return on investment model. SOME people would still choose the risky "give me no dividends for now, i think this company is gonna get BIG" option, but companies with a steady business would still be very attractive to the majority i think. as it stands now though, why would you EVER bother with a steady company, when you can trade literally minute to minute if you want? so we incentivize being sensational over doing anything WELL. fucking. make stock mean anything again PLEASE.

the stock market allegedly simplifies that process, and allows for massive amounts of people to invest in a company, and get profits, and a small share of voting power, in return. crowdfunding! yay!

[...]

i'm not a capitalist at all, i am pretty heavily socialist, but if we GOTTA do a capitalism, this is not a terrible system as it was conceived. pretty fair, all things considered. it pisses me off how much this all sounds reasonable on paper, but is a complete trash fire in reality.

not trying to start a fight here, I broadly agree with most of this post, but I wanted to push back against this part slightly.

I think if this concept sounds good at first glance, you need to take a second glance. the problems which emerged were ultimately baked in from the very beginning, more specifically baked into the part about passive income.

if some can choose to not work and still receive a wage equal to or greater than a working person's wage, then a working person is being ripped off to give them that wage. sImple as, no way around it.

i do agree that it was always going to unravel into the late stage capitalism nightmare we have now. i abhor the free market, the lie of meritocracy, and any general idea that if given total free reign everything will just sort of "work itself out" fairly, which always ends up at "if you're poor you probably deserve it." and i think any system that prioritizes personal riches, no matter how regulated, will just end up with like 15 people hacking the system to stay on top, up to and including ravaging entire countries.

my point is less "this should have worked!" and more "i can see why some capitalist idealists thought this would work." and "we could probably add some band-aid fixes that even capitalists would agree to to make things a little better in the short-term."

i do appreciate the pushback though, cause like. how the fuck would anyone but my followers know any of that. i'd probably offer the same pushback if i saw this post.

altho i will also say re: the environmental impact, i don't think that's a capitalism issue specifically. raiding other countries to steal their resources basically goes back as far as countries have existed, we just as a species need to confront it regardless.

It can also be found on Google Drive here and on Bluesky here.

It is focusing on Christian nationalism and anti-abortion rhetoric.

She forces a human rights org to take Down a detailed report on orgs targetting what would often be called “women’s health” because it mentioned transphobes in the margins.

She is willing to let attacks against fundamental rights of cis women slide because she was mentioned as a footnote.

Most sourcebooks do need more big stupid tables.

Most sourcebooks do need more big stupid tables.

In Super Mario 64, changing areas between the overworld and a course does not restore Mario's health, so it is possible in many cases to cause Mario to go to a different area with 0 health, resulting in him dying immediately after arriving. This is most commonly seen when selecting the "exit course" option with precise timing after taking mortal fall damage.

A rare variant of this occurs with the Big Boo's Haunt entrance. If Mario defeats the Boo in the courtyard that contains the cage leading to the course, and then reduces his health so that a Boo approaching from behind deals the last hit to him and also pushes him towards the activation area of the cage, he will enter Big Boo's Haunt with 0 health. This will make him die immediately, as seen in the footage.

Source: hazysplays8766

In Season 2 the Big Bad is defeated because, on the one hand, Spike does think his love for Drusilla is more important than the fate of the world (and so he is willing to betray her and work against her plans because of his own feelings of jealousy) and, on the other hand, Buffy does not think her love for Angel is more important than the fate of the world (and so she is able to send Angel to hell even after his soul is restored).  This illustrates one of the key themes of the second season: the idea that romantic love should not be something that you allow to control you, however tempting that might be and however much it might hurt not to.  While Angelus and the Judge both argue that ‘passion’ is what makes us who we are, the show itself suggests that to allow yourself to be ruled by passion is to become something not quite fully human.

I remember when this was open for public comment. I wasn't the only person who said "this is kind of stupid, actually". But here we are.

I'm not sure it's the weirdest, per se, but one that's always stuck with me is this one educational title I played as a kid that was like a choose-your-own-adventure novel crossbred with a 4X strategy game, at two wildly different scales. You'd follow the narrative of the player character's life, and periodically you'd be asked to make some sort of lifestyle choice; after each choice, the game would "zoom in" to the interior of the player character's body, and you'd play a single round of a turn-based strategy game where you'd deploy various types of immune cells to combat invading armies of pathogens, with the resources available to you influenced by the lifestyle choice you'd just made. I'm not sure what the actual story was, because the turn-based strategy layer was so cryptic and poorly balanced that I never survived more than half a dozen turns before dying of strep throat or genital herpes or something.