Okay, now I’m really curious. What do they say?

Define spend. Other people are talking about converting it to stocks, but that feels like cheating, since if you’re already set up for that it’s like a bank account that goes up and down a bit.

I also thought of a used car, since I can definitely spend that much on it today, it’s probably worth about as much tomorrow, and it’s a physical thing that definitely counts as a purchase.

If it has to be things I can’t ever resell, I’d be at a loss. Maybe a bunch of radio kit on Amazon and a good meal.

Two ton blocks of steel moving a excessive speeds and making a lot of noise isn’t something you want around homes and people.

I think Lemmy takes car abolition too far sometimes, but yes, if you think about it it’s not different from the Charlie Chaplin giant factory gears that used to be a thing. It’s just that they’re so ubiquitous they couldn’t be banned or enclosed when the other unsafe machines were.

Channeling what therapists have said to me a bit: it’s not what happens that causes feelings, so much as what you think about what happens.

Maybe you’re looking at things is a winner-takes-all way here? Like, if you’re not better than them in every way, they win. It’s not actually like that, of course. There’s billions of people on Earth, and you should be the best version of yourself you can be regardless of what everyone else is doing. Changing other people is nearly impossible (another thing therapists like to bring up) while improving your skill is not, and the two are very separate here.

IRL, that I’m left-wing and atheist, because it’s a loyally right-wing area, and because the latter thing pisses off an important minority. I also avoid anything that could be seen as “playing a card”, although in the right conditions I might bring whatever personal consideration up. The only way I’m admitting the first two is if either they did first, or I’m asked point blank.

Hmm. Does Amsterdam do much with busses? A limit like that would apply to them too.

They can stay in their town if they don’t like it

Literally no. By definition small towns don’t have a lot of things in them, and so the things they do have tend to be pretty basic. If you need specialist medicine, for example, you definitely will have to go to a major city. And that’s not even getting into the open countryside people, who exist in at least the less dense European countries.

I mean, you can still hold the position they shouldn’t get a say, but not that they can totally opt out of whatever is decided.

Yep. Same vibe as old legends about the glory of battle. The tropes exist because the most powerful people are trying to motivate cannon fodder. Edit: Or justify their own position - either as a brave, chivalrous lord or a hard-working, street smart CEO.

You see the personal impact of success in whatever environment you’re in exaggerated for similar reasons. For example, good grades are worth something, and doing either really badly or better than average has consequences, but there’s diminishing returns on very high or low levels beyond that. From what I’ve seen in my life, nepotism, luck and schmoozing skills are all worth substantially more than crazy high grades. (And having the right temperament to actually build on what you earn - that one’s underrated)

No. OP got the premise a bit wrong, for one thing. And usually it was other poor people that did the sanctioned killing, anyway - it’s dirty unpleasant work that a king would have avoided in the Early Modern period.

Except “thou” in “thou shalt not kill” is the singular pronoun, while “you” would be the plural…

I have no idea what number was implied in the original Hebrew.

I’m certain there is no situation like that. It’s just a dead part of the language. Most native speakers don’t even know how to use it properly when imitating old-timey speech.

Quakers use “thee/thou” sometimes, but only because the movement has been around since just before the end of the shift to “you” for everything, and it’s fossilised in as a result. There’s a few weird British Isles dialects that preserve it too, but they’re not widespread.

Shut up and take my venture capital money! And maybe 2/3 of the whole market cap in stock options! /s

It’s always amazing when someone discovers a new way to be shitty that I hadn’t even thought of.

Meanwhile, Canada has no minimum wage exemption, and you still are asked to tip on everything.

Oh yes, can’t forget about libraries just because they’ve been successful forever.

The networking level is solved by Tor and similar, open protocols are still standard at the transport level, and the application layer is served by Linux, the Fediverse and so much more. I think the hardware level is where future efforts are the most needed. That and just resisting the change as much as possible.

(It’s not a level of abstraction, but if it was less of a mess crypto would deserve a mention as an authoritarianism-resistant way to keep funding going. Both for whatever future dystopian blackmarket, and for the providers of the infrastructure supporting it)

Somewhere like North America I could see how it makes sense. There’s a lot more road infrastructure than rail, and this can be built over it fairly cheaply and easily.

Yeah, an actual hypermobility disorder would not help, lol.

Hmm. Cows too. You have a whole operation going there. Good luck, and take it easy - you only get one body, and there are tools.

Overkill. My ladies just had a hopper feeding into a tray with a small enough gap to prevent overflow, and a piano hinge to close it up when the tray needed cleaning.