I’m reminded of the redaction that was a page of black lines with a single word, approximately center-page, that was still legible:

research

You know, all of the twenty first century so far in the US could be someone mucking around with a monkey paw.

…Or a time machine.

To be fair, Clinton won the majority in 2016. Trump won because the EC fucked America. Again, as per the last time a Republican was elected without being an incumbent.

If we don’t fix the Electoral College, I anticipate more Republicans will be unexpectedly elected in upcoming general elections.

A hill I will die on: Marie Antoinette deserved better.

Source: The You’re Wrong About episode about her. (on buzzsprout)

The first thing that comes up on a websearch is books being chained to desks, to keep them from getting borrowed. I can’t imagine monks chained to their desks will be motivated to do good work, let alone fine art like illumination. Especially if they’re under a deadline, which would serve to propagate errors and misspellings.

Middle-ages cloistered monks really had a lot of time on their hands and no other entertainment, so yeah, crazy art of whatever comes to mind.

Mostly that you have way more theory than I do. It’s good to know that these ideas can work when we’ve a collective mind to make them work.

I remember there was an end-goal of a communist state to ultimately disband bureaus. Marx explained how to get things started, less the ultimate goals, so I might be thinking of a dubdivision of communist theory. Soviet communism (lower case, like soviet – referring to committees) still had public officials in its provisional state that had more power than the common citizen, at least within the purview of their office, but officials trusted with power is regarded as a necessary evil.

Participatory democracy (in which everyone votes on every little thing – at least every thing to which they’re a stakeholder) is another model that works similarly, but again, without some amazing databasing tools and personal platform customization, it’s not possible to do this effectively even if we master internet voting: We’d need to find a balance between reducing constituent administrative burden and providing enough time and means so that everyone is sufficiently participating in their civic duties, and voting as suits their personal best interests (and not on any superfluous issues that don’t concern them).

Communism and democracy are multiple models aiming for the same outcome, but again, we expect to get closer without ever reaching absolute perfection of even distribution of power… Well, we expect to get closer when a society actually strives towards doing so, contrasting allowing a select few elites secure political power for themselves.

A witchier version of the same sentiment.

As a note, communism involves some ideas that are impossible or nearly so.

Imagine a society in which every person has exactly the same sociopolitical power as every other person; representatives and officials do not have additional power; that’s a property of a truly communist society. We don’t believe that can be done IRL.

Imagine a society in which everyone’s needs are met for an extreme body of needs (say as defined by the UN Universal Declaration of Human RIghts). The only transients that exist either are in a short line to be issued a dwelling, or don’t want one. Everyone is fed. Everyone has their own stuff. This isn’t impossible, but is difficult as heck to reach.

Communism is a goal that a society tries to reach similar to a zero homicide rate We don’t expect to get there, but we do want our society to ever get closer, as we discover new means to approach that limit.

We reach for the ideal of a communist society. We never expect to actually get there.

Now I’m imagining a Total Recal / Demolition Man universe where a snappily-dressed hologram cashier takes your order while smiling and making eye contact with the wrong point in space. The occasional glitch or static for bonus points.

You may not be able to actually talk to her; she may just respond to your touch-screen selections.

Coming soon!

I believe that’s a hall of superior courts, but I may be thinking of a similar brutalist building.

Roller skates!

Isn’t this the Hawkeye pose in comics?

(Hawkeye pose = the butt+boobs twist commonly used on covers that looks ridiculous when Hawkeye is drawn in the same pose, and he is, unofficially, at least).

Not a mock-up. This really happened.

But could a McDonald’s site manager afford to dress like this? Or be allowed to?

That was amazing! Thank you for the link!

CARGO SKIRTS!

Is CE the backward USB or the HDMI? The former would be a cause for far more annoyance, especially when I’m plugging something in by feel.

The trolley problem thought experiment does a whole lot of work to define personal responsibility. IRL it’s difficult to be the guy who does the evil thing for a good outcome, and easy to kick the can to the next guy, even while making it worse.