> cannot all be sold because they would flood the market and decrease their own value. So Bob Ross, Inc. is cleverly keeping them under lock and key and letting the scarcity drive prices up.
Personal pet-peeve.
And yes, I know it doesn't really matter to most people.
I guess you're the first person I've seen use it, so it can't rise to the level of pet peeve for me, but using "urks" instead of "irks" made me cringe on about as visceral a level!
People that say that sometimes irk me with their pedantry. You don't hear it so much anymore, though, as all the people who once cared are elderly or gone.
Language is mutable. I think the best thing you could do is let it go. Perhaps even ascribe a stronger meaning to this "incorrect" usage: it theoretically could be, but it won't be, because it can't be given the circumstances.
Sometimes people hide behind this detail in order to absolve themselves of responsibility, though. That’s not as benign as a mere shift in language. OP may have been pointing out responsibility rather than nitpicking language.
“We cannot pay you more, or we won’t be able to hit the margins the market expects from us this year.”
“We can’t license this sports event for wider audiences”
“We can’t sell all of Bob Ross’s paintings or their value would go down”
I promise you, there are countries out there where that type of person is widely looked down on (usually the countries that had to fight off colonizers).
Like I said, just look at countries which resisted colonization.
For example - one of the fundamental mechanics of colonization is to find people willing to sell out their countrymen for personal profit. While there are always a few people like this, it's far from the norm; and those people are remembered with searing hostility.
A specific example that comes to mind: British land-owners exacting high rents on Irish farmers would often seize their property and hold a local auction. The entire town would turn out, the original farmer would make a small token bid to buy back their farm, and no one would bid against them.
Ireland also invented boycotts, where the entire village would shun scummy landlords.
Egalitarianism isn't just a reaction to colonizers though - it's the default state of humanity [0].
And research shoes that placing material possessions at the centre of your life is inversely correlated to your emotional well-being [1]. Pretty hard to believe that this would be the default.
So, American culture is clearly twisted. It might not be the most perverse in the world... But it's up there. This is a fact well recognized in the world, and almost entirely ignored in America itself.
Yes, on an individual basis, Americans can be quite lovely. Friendly and well meaning, might go out of their way to help you, and so on. Sure. But the fact that Americans can really believe that humanity, at its core, is willing to sell out their neighbors for profit says everything about Americans and nothing about humanity.
Really? Just America? I know of no country, having lived in more than a couple of them, where people don't do what they can to make money or increase the value of what they have for personal economic benefit.
Americans are no less or more human than anyone else, and this idiotic posturing about some inherent difference that makes one group of people or country somehow stupider, more wicked or more avaricious than others is a bad habit no matter what direction it flows in or who its pointed at..
> where people don't do what they can to make money or increase the value of what they have for personal economic benefit.
That wasn't the argument. You've moved the goalposts to a different stadium.
What was claimed was that "milking every dollar out of anything valuable is burned into people's souls", and somehow, from that, you heard "people do what they can to make money for personal economic benefit". Curious.
> Americans are no less or more human than anyone else
No one said Americans aren't human, or less human.
> this idiotic posturing about some inherent difference
No one said it was inherent. In fact I said the opposite; that people are generally egalitarian unless warped.
> that makes one group of people or country somehow stupider, more wicked or more avaricious than others is a bad habit
Nope. Countries have different characters, and it's okay to talk about it. Also, some countries - cough - have extremely powerful and capable groups that have been working for decades to warp the national character; say, by instilling rampant Islamophobia, or working to undermine critical thinking and general education.
I hope you ask yourself how you got this much wrong on a reading of a rather simple comment. Something clearly hit a nerve.
>What was claimed was that "milking every dollar out of anything valuable is burned into people's souls", and somehow, from that, you heard "people do what they can to make money for personal economic benefit".
Both things are in most cases essentially the same, and a person trying to get every possible dollar out of anything valuable for their personal gain indeed doing what they can to make money for themselves. This is in my experience a habit not at all unique to Americans..
That aside, you generalized about America, to a degree that's absurd for a nation of roughly 320 million people, which also happens to be one of the top countries in the world for charitable giving on a per capita basis and in absolute terms.
So yes, countries can have different tendencies in certain ways, and it's possible for the narrative that people in a country buy to be warped by political interests, but even in these cases, generalization is stupid, and so too is giving a particular, fashionable focus to making americans seem to be particularly warped people about this.
Do you perhaps speak as a European? There's a continent riddled with simmering racism and many of its own social problems. If you're from any number of other parts of the world, feel free to make some concrete argument for why their people are in any way less subject to personal greed, or propaganda or failures of critical thinking.
I see no evidence of it. Nationalist idiocies, racist tendencies, propagandistic narratives and bad economic habits abount just about everywhere in the world, and in some countries much worse than in the United States, which itself has no shortage of differing opinions and critical thinkers.
It also (at least until the current orangutan came to power, again,) has historically been one of the most welcoming countries on earth for immigrants from nearly anywhere, including Islamic countries.
Again, generalizing about this country is plainly mistaken and easily at risk of being downright stupid if done out of ideological spite.
> Both things are in most cases essentially the same
Lol, no. Not at all.
A person doing what they can to make money for themselves might take a rough and underpaid job to support their future.
A person "milking every dollar out of anything valuable" might frack the land and ignore the costs, start illegal wars for profit, sell arms to genocidal dictators, turn healthcare into a for-profit industry, etc. You getting it?
> you generalized about America, to a degree that's absurd for a nation of roughly 320 million people
I don't love to generalize - but it isn't untrue, and I didn't pretend not to be generalizing. I could point at any number of statistics to back that up, but here's the main one: 98% of American voters decided arming genocide wasn't a red line.
> So yes, countries can have different tendencies in certain ways, and it's possible for the narrative that people in a country buy to be warped by political interests, but even in these cases, generalization is stupid,
Because Americans give to charity?? That argument doesn't track. And it's weird you think it does. Bill Gates was one of the most greedy, predatory and damaging individuals the world has ever seen; but he gives to charity to whitewash his image. You know who else gave a lot to charitable causes? Maxwell and Epstein. Citizens might give some of their disposable income, but what's that worth when they're fine with their taxes dropping bombs all over the world, funding dictators and genocidaires?
> Do you perhaps speak as a European? There's a continent riddled with simmering racism and many of its own social problems.
I speak as someone who has traveled and lived in both. And America's racism and social problems are on a different level. I never claimed Europe or anywhere else was perfect; just that America is exceptional. And it is.
> feel free to make some concrete argument for why their people are in any way less subject to personal greed, or propaganda or failures of critical thinking.
Name one other country in the world where 98% of voters would ever decide that arming genocide wasn't a red line. "Israel!" ... Ok, that one was too easy. Name one other.
> it also ... at least until the current orangutan came to power ... has historically been one of the most welcoming countries on earth for immigrants from nearly anywhere, including Islamic countries.
Lol. I don't know where you've been the past 24 years, but that's an extremely ahistorical statement. The kids in cages, which you saw, during the Trump admin, were built by Obama and persisted under Biden. Obama laid the foundation for Trump's "Muslim ban". It's weird how people forget these facts, and get real stroppy about it when they're brought up.
> Again, generalizing about this country is plainly mistaken and easily at risk of being downright stupid if done out of ideological spite.
You keep saying that, but it isn't actually true. The world has considered America the number one threat to global peace, stability and democracy for the past 22 years, and they are 100% correct to do so. There are countless reasons why - bombs dropped, dictators funded, climate damage, global propaganda, surveillance, wilful torture and other abuses of international humanitarian law, and so on.
To ignore all this because "generalizing bad" is what's actually absurd; and it's absurd that Americans can't grasp that. It's ridiculous to see them work themselves into a whataboutist lather when called out on any of it. Take a shred of responsibility for the national character which the whole world can see and which is threatening life on this planet in seven+ ways.
Your whole comment is so full of cherry-picked points, contrived arguments and bullshit in general that I don't know where to begin. You're generally arguing from bad faith and ideological fixation too.
Just a few of points though:
>A person doing what they can to make money for themselves might take a rough and underpaid job to support their future.
A person "milking every dollar out of anything valuable" might frack the land and ignore the costs, start illegal wars for profit, sell arms to genocidal dictators, turn healthcare into a for-profit industry, etc. You getting it?
Say what? You're comparing an average person trying to make ends meet (presumably in some other country) with very specific, powerful, corporate or government special interests in unique positions of power to do these things in the US? You do understand that other countries also have select powerful interests doing all those things and similar for the sake of financial extraction yes?
>And America's racism and social problems are on a different level.
On which continent have their been several major wars in just the last 125 years, with ethnic cleansing and genocide as an explicit part of their tragic landscape, often supported by all kinds of regional populations? This aside from many European states also having their own enormous migrant ghettos with persistent racial tension between said immigrants and their white European neighbors.
>Name one other country in the world where 98% of voters would ever decide that arming genocide wasn't a red line.
First, did you pull the 98% out of your ass or have you a source for whatever the hell you're even talking about in this context? Secondly, many other countries sell arms to governments that have practiced genocide. I don't consider Israel a genocidal state (though its current lunatic in power is pushing the boundary) but taking that aside, it receives arms deliveries from, among others, Germany, the UK, Italy and Canada. So?
>Because Americans give to charity?? That argument doesn't track. And it's weird you think it does. Bill Gates was one of the most greedy, predatory and damaging individuals the world has ever seen; but he gives to charity to whitewash his image. You know who else gave a lot to charitable causes? Maxwell and Epstein. Citizens might give some of their disposable income, but what's that worth when they're fine with their taxes dropping bombs all over the world, funding dictators and genocidaires?
This is such a mishmash of cherry-picked stupidity that I feel silly replying, but since i'm here: What the hell do Epstein, his girlfriend or Bill Gates have to do with the general statistical tendencies of charitable giving among Americans? They neither take away from these charitable giving and tax-funded foreign aid tendencies or stain them in any way. They are separate contexts with no basis for comparison.
Also, as mentioned above, many, many countries fund dictators, or sell them weapons or contribute to dropping bombs somewhere for assorted reasons.
Generalizing isn't entirely a bad thing, but the kind you're vomiting out here is plain idiotic, ideologically fixated and loaded with ridiculously selected arguments.
The only thing I illustrated was the bizarrely cherry-picked stupidity of your specific points. Arguing with people who replace rational analysis with ideological fetishism is tedious anyhow.
Says the guy who thinks arming genocide (as called out by the UN, the Pope, every major human rights organization and the vast majority of genocide scholars) is fine - as long as other Western countries are doing it too.
Further evidenced by the ridiculous claim that America was "one of the most welcoming countries on earth" before Trump - as if Harris didn't just run on a platform of being harsher on immigrants than Trump, or as if Biden didn't deport more immigrants than anyone ever before, or as if Obama wasn't nicknamed the deporter-in-chief, or as if every Dem admin for 17 years hasn't increased ICE funding.
You do know how to distinguish between the number of legal immigrants a country lets in and facilitates entry for vs their efforts at stopping illegal migrants?
I have my many criticisms of US immigration policy and how its ICE agency manages its part of that, but lets compare apples to apples before throwing shit on the whole bowl of fruit.
Also, just like the U.S, many other countries (including Mexico itself by the way) enforce deportations, border controls and militarized border security against illegal migrants. It's nothing unique to the United States. The current administration has skewed the trend with its harsh rhetoric and anti-migrant policing drives but yeah, there's no shortage of documented evidence showing that the U.S. has a long history of being exceptionally welcoming to immigrants by global average standards. It's a country literally built by them, whose demographic reflects this across the board as it does in only a few other countries worldwide.
Yes, let's compare the Democrats immigration policy to that of other developed countries.
Which countries are separating kids from their parents in their thousands, caging them in mesh, giving them foil sheets to sleep under, making them drink toilet water, and then losing track of them completely? Name one other.
> It's nothing unique to the United States
... US immigration policy is uniquely cruel, and racist, including when Democrats are in power.
> there's no shortage of documented evidence showing that the U.S. has a long history of being exceptionally welcoming to immigrants by global average standards
Every American is an immigrant, unless you're native American (who were genocided over hundreds of years). So, yeah I guess so. Doesn't really affect the current topic though.
> It's a country literally built by them
I think you're thinking of slaves. It was built by slaves first, and then immigrants.
> whose demographic reflects this across the board as it does in only a few other countries worldwide.
... And?
For the last couple decades, US immigration policy has been one of bipartisan brutality and atrocity. It's nice that America was a melting pot for the world; it's cool that there's a mixed demographic (though I don't know how cool actual native Americans are with it all). I love the Statue of Liberty and the poem under her - but that welcoming spirit isn't reflected in modern American policy, and hasn't been for quite some time.
Everything Trump is doing now is simply an extension of policies laid over the last few decades by both Democrats and Republicans. If Americans refuse to acknowledge that then the problem is never going to be fixed.
I'm not even going to bother replying to the other crap you piled on. As in your other comments elsewhere, you seem to selectively pick superficial, cliched ideological talking points and consider those to be a solid response.
Just one thing though: It's very easy to take a good look at the information available about the immigration policies of many countries, among them there being a number that are much worse than the United States, and much more xenophobic than a country that right up to the present, is filled with first, second, third and so fourth generation immigrants who completely integrate and participate enormously in its governments and economy.
I asked a pretty simple question - what other developed country separates kids from their parents, puts them in mesh cages, and makes them drink toilet water?
That's not "cherry picking". It's the reality of Democrat immigration policy, going back over a decade. This is happening to thousands of children, and making some people a lot of money.
It's also not "cherry picking" to point out that every Dem admin has increased ICE's budget every year they've been in office. That's supremely relevant to the core argument, which you seem to have forgotten.
And, if it's so "very easy" to point to a developed country with worse immigration policies, then why didn't you?
> usually the countries that had to fight off colonizers
Good Lord!
France and Blighty (to pick two examples) did their fair share of empire building, however I can assure you, they do not worship at the alter of capitalism in quite the way which is endemic to the USA.
> they do not worship at the alter of capitalism in quite the way which is endemic to the USA.
What were they like at the height of their empires? During their respective long slow declines? Did their people worship the worst of their colonists as national heroes? ...
And while they are not quite as Molochian as Americans today (no one said they are, in fact the argument was that America is rather exceptional) they certainly aren't as anti-capitalist as many others. Particularly when you look at the manner in which they pursue global economic interests.
There's a certain irony to being able to introduce you to the term "Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon" (which is the more-common name for what I assume you're referring to, as Google searches for "Yellow Bus Syndrome" didn't bring anything up for me). Now you know the name, you'll see it everywhere!
Funny, I always called it “the GTA effect” as in either Grand Theft Auto 1 or 2, one of the top-down ones, once you got a particular kind of car you would see more of that same car on the road. I don’t know if it was an optimization strategy or just me falling victim to the effect I ascribed to the game.
In GTA III for example, which I have played a lot, it is definitely the case that it spawns a lot more of the players car, whatever model of car the player happens to be in.
Various sources online say that it’s because only a certain number of cars fit in memory at the same time so they use the car of the player along with some others. It makes sense, but it would be cool to get that confirmed from someone who actually worked on the GTA games/engine.
Later GTAs do this too, and at least for San Andreas I'm fairly sure its been confirmed by reverse engineering that that's how the engine works. Speedrunners use tricks to manipulate that cache so they have a better chance of getting something good.
Matching private funding brings the decision making lever to private funders, creating a mechanism to extract tax dollars with minimal government discretion and would be a process ripe for abuse by those with significant capital.
One person's gatekeeping is another person's stewardship and due diligence
In comparison to just giving money today? Just look at the number of failed green projects in the EU where somehow the executives got rich and nothing got built or if built failed to deliver. At least with matching the private sector has to put a eur down for each it receives and the fund would own participations in ventures.
Another model would be for the EIB to commit money to an investment fund and then run a tender process to select a private sector firm to manage the fund. At the individual investment level, give that manager the usual discretion to invest and manage that VC funds have and pay them a market rate with an appropriate fee structure to do it.
You could also insist on the manager raising a certain minimum amount of matching private sector money to "keep them honest".
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