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it would be so awesome

There are real labor problems here. Base pay is often insulting. Customer tips carry too much of the burden. Workers need better protections, more transparent algorithms, protection from arbitrary deactivation, and actual recourse when the app or a customer screws them over. Car-dependent delivery is also an environmental and infrastructural problem, though in a denser city I’d still be doing this work; I’d just be doing it by bike.

But when people talk about delivery work, I rarely see them talk to actual delivery workers. I see a lot of abstract arguments about convenience, consumer decadence, “hustle culture,” and internalized neoliberalism. Meanwhile, when I’m out working and waiting in restaurants for orders, the other Dashers I meet are usually people who only speak Spanish, people who read as neurodivergent, visibly physically disabled people, or some combination of the above.

I have not met this mythical Disco Elysium poor ultraliberal hustlegrinder-wannabe people seem to be arguing with. Maybe that archetype exists somewhere. If it exists among any kind of gig worker, it would probably be rideshare drivers. But most of what I see looks less like “rise and grind” and more like “this is one of the few forms of work available to people who need flexibility, low barriers to entry, limited managerial surveillance, or a way to work around language barriers, disability, burnout, chronic illnesses and injuries with symptoms that come and go unpredictably, caregiving, résumé gaps, or discrimination.”

That does not make the current system good. It means the current system is filling a real gap that a lot of supposedly better systems do not even acknowledge.

As a disabled person who is burnout-prone and demand-sensitive, contracting as a delivery driver has given me an unprecedented level of financial flexibility. I can work when I have capacity. I can stop when I’m deteriorating. I can build my day around my actual body instead of being trapped under a manager who thinks “reliable” means “able to perform the same way every day no matter what.” That matters. It does not cancel out the exploitation, but it is also not fake just because it is politically inconvenient.

And delivery itself is not some inherently decadent evil. Sometimes people live alone. Sometimes they are sick. Sometimes they are disabled, exhausted, overwhelmed, grieving, overloaded, or recovering from something else - perhaps the stress and fatigue induced by their own job. Sometimes they need medicine, groceries, or a meal that will actually unplug their sinuses instead of whatever generic community-care slop someone thinks they should be grateful for. Humans are allowed to need specificity. “Food” is not the same as “the food I can actually eat right now.”

A serious labor critique would ask how to make delivery work safer, better-paid, less tip-dependent, less car-dependent, less algorithmically punitive, and less precarious. It would ask what kinds of flexible, accessible work should exist for people who cannot thrive in conventional employment. It would ask how cities could support bike delivery, worker cooperatives, public infrastructure, and real protections without simply replacing one bad system with a moral sermon about how nobody should ever want takeout.

But a lot of the discourse does not do that. It treats convenience itself as suspicious. It treats wanting flexible work as false consciousness. It treats the needs of disabled people, immigrants, and other people who can't fit into traditional employment structures as details to be swept aside in favor of a cleaner political image.

First: THIS RECALL IS NOT STATE SPECIFIC. IT IS NATIONWIDE.

here are the specific products and dates:

FDA page on this:

So some fanartist drew a “sexy” (read: booby) version of a (cartoon) character who is traditionally very non-sexualised. Fans of the character got mad about it because it’s kind of groundbreaking how that character is written and portrayed and this art totally ignores the entire point of the character. They demanded the art be deleted. In response to that other people said, well what the fanartist did may be distateful but they have every right to draw what they’re into. The two sides fight for days and each starts a harassment campaign and even report their “opponents’” accounts.

So far so typical. But things eventually come to a head and they decide that this will be settled by votes - not through a poll. Through donations to a children’s education charity via each side’s portal. Whoever can get the highest amount of donation wins.

First | Prev | Part 10

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Shapiro drowning in Dubois’ EVA suit. Dubois with Shapiro's suit taped to him and her helmet balanced on top of his head

Grace looking at the camera confused while the core time circle around him like the one girl surrounded by five guys meme

Stratt reclined on a couch looking demure with a coffee mug and using Grace's legs as a lap board for her tablet. Grace is dead asleep, obviously snoring with his mouth wide open and covered in reports. His glasses are on Stratt's head.

Carl walking by the camera with Grace thrown over his shoulder. Grace is visibly pleased and yapping.

Illyukhina walking by the camera with Grace thrown over her shoulder. Grace looks vaguely ill.

Yao passionately doing karaoke with each of the core staff members.

Lamai asleep on a prototype coma bed.

Steve Hatch maternity shoot with the Beatles.

Grace and Dimtri using a centrifuge to make butter.

Grace and Dimitri getting yelled at by Lokken for using a centrifuge to make butter.

Dubois carrying Grace and Shapiro under each arm to the cafeteria. They all are talking like this is a normal occurrence.

Yao hanging upside down from a simulator that glitched with a straight face while Illyukhina is crying laughing on the floor below him.

Compilation video of the world's greatest minds dropping tools, tripping, and running into the glass walls.

Videos of the astronauts defeatedly drifting away from the mock ship in the buoyancy tank after losing their grip. The others are dramatically reaching out for them.

Redell teaching the Russians about New Zealand bombing dives in the training pools.

Shapiro, in formal wear, standing next to a slideshow titled “How I Cloned and Replaced the World Leaders”

Dubois - “My Alien Seduction Tactics"

Grace - “Middle Schooler vs Scientist”

Dimitri - “Using the Incorrect Equipment for Correct Results"

Hatch - “Yoko Ono: First Contact?”

Lamai - “How Not to Use a Coma Robot”

Lokken - “Grace is an Idiot”

Leclerc - “The Ice Age and You”

Stratt - “Things I DO NOT Have Time For”

Carl - “Securing a Home Depot for Idiots”

Yao - “Worst Times to Make a Joke”

Illyukhina - "Benefits of Vodka in Space”

Reddell - “What I Did in 1989”

Illyukhina passed out on top of Dmitri (also passed out) surrounded by a minefield of bottles none of which are for alcohol.

Leclerc looking upset and holding a penguin plushy.

From the planets’ perspectives, Grace landed on Erid around the same time that the beetles got back to Earth. I thought about Earth racing to launch the taumoeba to Venus at the same time that Erid was racing to save Grace from starvation. Grace was healing his starved body at the same time Earth was healing her desecrated lands. Even if they didn’t know it for so many years afterwards, they were healing together. When Grace was well enough to start truly living on Erid, Sol had already begun to shine again.

"there's only this content out, what about the content i want" people wanted that content, so they made that content. this is a YOU problem.

it's like going to a potluck and saying "why didn't anyone make chocolate cake." when you didn't bring anything and everyone else worked hard on their food.