“when I mention some semi-obscure thing I’ve never really talked about before”

Advertisers know your traffic (unless you’re blocking all cookies) so all they have to ask it, “Target this ad at users that saw this podcast.” The end. People really don’t understand how online advertising networks work. Advertisers don’t have to have any relationship at all to the placements (websites you visit). The…

Dumbasses don’t consider consequences - that’s at the very core of what makes them dumbasses. It’s not deciding to do stupid shit that is stupid, it’s their steadfast belief that a bad outcome will not happen to them. Or not bothering to mentally enumerate the potential outcomes (other than the best outcome) at all.

“Knock knock!”

I’ll also add that people prefer a world in which bad things happen to people who deserve it (and vice-versa.) It makes our world more explainable. The human brain has evolved over not accepting “shit happens” as an answer.

It’s think people have a predisposition to want to feel like they know something other people don’t know. I would guess that this may have something to do with our evolutionary design - knowing something that somebody else don’t know can give you survival advantage over peers (ie over fixed resources or other tactical…

it’s crazy to say that we live in a dystopia because Jamie Chung had to work a single day in a year on Succession to keep health insurance through her union

That access to basic health care in the USA is dependent on whether or not you’re working is stupid. Dystopic might be stretching it, stupid certainly isn’t.

How did we get to this point where companies, big companies, decide the best thing to do was to stop making stuff?

You don’t have to assume anything - you can just read the bill.

Cops and politicians drive on those roads, and their civilian cars would be limited to posted limits, so I wouldn’t call my assumption that they would be changed based on faith in their good faith diligence rather than simply their own self-interest.

“A lot of speed limits exist simply to generate ticket revenue.”

I’m fascinated by Americans who react to things that are in widespread use in other places in the world with, “It is impossible that this works.”

When somebody suggests that because something can be circumvented, it’s useless, I know I’m not dealing with somebody that’s very bright. Literally everything on planet Earth can be circumvented. The locks on your car can be circumvented very easily by somebody who is determined to do so, therefore to remain logically …

Actually, it screams “government me 0.00000000000001% harder, daddy” and wouldn’t you know it, the kids are behaving like they’ve just been grounded for 50 years.

Sure, actually, let’s enforce the rules we already have. Let’s do that by adding so many cops that any time you speed, you are stopped and ticketed, and thus you cannot speed.

It’s called a computer and/or cellphone. Nerds do a lot of the things you take for granted, the least you could do is support the occasional application of their craft that results in less death. Never stop repeating to yourself: the people dying in car crashes are very often people who did not cause the crash. This…

“They are revenue generators”

some real “I don’t even *own* a TV, man” energy

Some of the smartest and most successful people of all time have also been addicts. The answer is simple: it’s designed to exploit the chemistry of the brain, it makes her feel good, and she values that feeling more than the harm it may be causing her and/or society at large (which I contend is real to some degree but…