Extremes tend to meet 'round the other end. Company-town capitalism at this scale is a weird form of practical Communism, with shareholders replacing party bosses as the primary beneficiaries of the system and the board of directors and C-level execs replacing senior apparatchiks as the dictatorial …

Company towns, no matter the amenities offered or the prettiness of the buildings, always turn out to be bad deals for the workers, and are about serving the shareholders above all else. Something that Silicon Valley tech firm employees might want to bear in mind as they enjoy that "free" lunch (hint: TANSTAAFL).

Interesting. Still, if that's what Nolan's trying to do, it would be more "science-fictional" if someone said explicitly that this 5-th dimension connection interface, while not actually love, was best thought of by the character in those terms as the metaphor best suited for humans. The motivations of love and hope…

The Wizard of Oz is understood more to fall into the genre of fantasy than SF, dealing with magic and non-existent creatures and such. So those standards don't really apply. Where fantasy asks us to suspend our disbelief and not go to much into the "whys" of how major plot-driving mechanisms happen, SF usually tries…

And while you're at it, Kamai, prove that God DOESN'T exist. Because the burden of proving a positive assertion will never do for the faithful when you can be asked to prove a negative.

They're going to talk about how it would "interfere" with the working of a "free" market and burdens the corporations with unnecessary regulation. They'll probably throw in a "what about the children" argument, too. It's all BS, but the mouth-breathers in the base will completely buy it as they always do.

All the stirring statements about net neutrality in the world don't make a difference if in the next breath you defer to an agency you placed in the charge of once-and-future lobbyist for an industry that loathes the idea.

Oh, they hate to be called out on their self-centredness and selfishness. With my NPD person I quoted her verbatim some insanely selfish statements she'd made in certain contexts and (with those she couldn't deny) she simply refused to process why they were so awful, hurtful and inappropriate.

Sorry to hear your father is like that. You're taking the right course, even if you can't fully cut your ties — with close family or work supervisors it's not always so easy or practical to purge a toxic person from your life.

I've had to deal for decades with a family member who, amongst other personality flaws, likely has NPD (probably the least diagnosed disorder out there given how wonderful they think they are). After a row that challenged her self-perception I surprised her with a brutally honest conversation about why I would be…

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client is falsely accused by a dimwitted fictional character in the film of supporting her claim that microwaves zap the nutrition out of food. He did not make any such scientifically unsupported claim, since he is a reasonable man with a reputation to uphold. While critical of…

That's still the most surprising thing for me, that they broke with tradition and elevated a Jesuit to the Papacy. The hierarchy must have been truly deceiving themselves if they thought one of these intellectual badasses would be pliable.

It should be a non-issue for those who believe in supernatural entities (because mysterious and unknowable ways and all that jazz) but those of them who are making it an issue are doing so because they're highly invested in selling the idea of an omnipotent Bronze Age deity who looks like Zeus and supports their very…

Even if John Ransom is right (and he isn't, because demiurge != divine) as a conservative finance pundit he should be all for the RCC trying to be more relevant in the West: that's where the Church gets its money from, and the infallible market — hallowed be its name — has obviously for the most part decided that if…

So many varieties of trolls, too. Most of the trolls I've seen — automated, deliberate, or mentally ill — have been frustrated authoritarians, usually of the right-wing variety.

I was just responding to the initial comment, which I didn't think was misogynistic. I wasn't following the other discussion.

At this point one would have to be a noxious misogynist to make someone think one was part of gamergate.

"Actually it's about ethics in games journalism" (please click through to the SFW tumblr link before attacking)

I'm willing to bet this clueless git lives in Beverly Hills or Brentwood, CA and hasn't collected a paycheque since the day she got married and quit the PR job she held for a few years after graduating from Vassar. And "kids arrive in overflowing cars from less fortunate areas"? That would be her code for Mexicans and…

Even better are the books or TV shows that feature some master of weaponry stealthily killing with a silenced revolver.