Exploitation is a loaded term, with many negative connotations. It’s more neutral to state the same thing as, “Nobody gets to be a billionaire without accruing the surplus value of other people’s labor.”

And that’s true of Notch, too. Minecraft wouldn’t exist without countless people who built the computers, the OS, the Java language, built out the Internet, operate the electrical grid, operate the payment networks, litigated and legislated copyright law, et cetera.

Now, you might say that all of those people got compensated for their labor, and it’s true. (That’s why the negative connotations of exploitation don’t apply.) However, the result of their labor unlocks immense value, which they do not share in because of the way the Internet developed. We could easily imagine a different scenario in which the online services won, an alternate reality in which Notch worked as a programmer for PepsiCo-Prodigy-AOL, and got paid a very good salary to create Minecraft for it. Then, it would be fair for the company to reap all of the subscription fees generated by putting the game on their network service.

We can say that in both scenarios, as long as we’re imagining, Notch would have put in the same amount of work. In one, though, he’d live a decent, middle-class life, with a corporation reaping the surplus value of his labor. In our world, he’s a billionaire, benefiting from the surplus value of others’ labor.

Yes, but he gets so deep into character, he could turn American!

Sacha Baron Cohen.

The appeal of Trump’s rhetoric and populist message is entirely subconscious, and doesn’t stand up to even a few moments of critical analysis. Baron Cohen has a genius-level understanding of how to get into people’s heads, and what’s more, he can do it fluently, on-the-fly. His U.S. presidential candidate character would totally dismantle MAGA.

Also, it’s not even the same corporation or factories behind them. It’s just a brand name at this point, and the product has nothing in common with the old, good one. For example, Maytag bought Amana, and then Whirlpool bought Maytag. (It’s enlightening to read the list of Whirlpool-owned brands.)

So your decision is to feign helplessness. I can only point this out, but it is your life and your decision to make.

Do you understand? Do you own that decision as your personal choice? I ask because posts like this one indicate otherwise.

Another harsh truth that I learned from existentialist writers, especially Albert Camus, is that we are cursed with freedom. How we choose to deal with what the world gives us is entirely up to us, and refusing to choose is also a choice. If we choose not to try to be somebody worth having as a partner, well, that is a choice.

I also understand depression, and that making that effort may not be possible. Then, healthy alternative is to affirmatively make the choice not to try, and to own it. Sometimes, people call this, “owning your shit .” Paradoxically, it helps a lot by putting you back in control of your own life, instead of feeling like the universe’s chew toy.

So, listen to me or not. It’s your choice.

Harsh truth: No, it’s not enough. You have to convince somebody that their life will be better with you in it. Loyalty and respect are requisites for a good romantic relationship, not the reasons to get into one.

Not quite. The Santa Clara decision gave corporations equal protection under the 14th Amendment, is law in the same sense that Citizens United is, and has been applied many, many times. The 2010 decision held that 1st Amendment protections apply to corporations.

It’s a 19th century idea that appeared in the published decision of the Supreme Court in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co.

Only—get this—it wasn’t even what the Court decided. Instead, it was the guy in charge of recording the decision for publication who declared “corporate personhood” in the headnote (summary) of the case. And would it surprise you to learn that the guy was the former president of a railroad company? We just sort of went along with this not-precedent until the Citizens United case.

Honesty, I don’t think that there is a Great Filter. The Fermi Paradox strikes me as not very well-reasoned. A whole hell of a lot of things would have to go exactly right for civilizations to make contact, rather than it being the default assumption. There are lots of filters, not just one Great one.

But the closest to a Great Filter is that space is really, really. stupendously big. The chances of even detecting each other across such distances is vanishingly small, much less traversing them. Add in the difficulty of jumping the metabolic energy gap to become complex life, and that could reduce the density of civilizations down to a level that they’re just not close enough to each other in spacetime to admit even the possibility of contact. And we’re hanging our hat on some highly-speculative concepts like alien mega-structures harnessing whole solar systems to allow detection.

I think a lot of persnickety, smaller filters combine to make interstellar contact between civilizations against long odds. Perhaps the best we’ll get is spectral signatures from distant planets that are almost-conclusive proof of some sort of life.

It could be a word, like everybody or everything, perhaps a synonym for “24/7”.

When times is the diner open? Everytime!

Sheer bloody-mindedness.

Thank you for this moment of Zen.

I don’t have much to contribute, except that I recently got to a see a friend’s backyard. The whole street is built in an old quarry, so the yard abuts a weathered rock wall, which makes it a quiet, secluded enclave. You’d never know that you were in the city if you woke up there, and you’d almost expect to see gnomes and fairies among the maze of trees.

As in my other reply, the Constitution allows the suspension of habeas corpus in cases of rebellion or threats to public safety, and without that writ, charges and sentences are irrelevant.

I’m not sure if I’m joking. In any case, the writ of habeas corpus is the legal tool that a court can theoretically use to compel the appearance of a prisoner before it. It is the legal doctrine that underlies the right to trial, and I say “theoretically” because courts rarely need to issue one; it’s just standard procedure to bring people to court to face charges.

By suspending it, Abraham Lincoln could detain those people he deemed dangerous seditionists indefinitely, because the detainees would have to go to court to challenge their detention, and there was no way to get to court. The effect of suspending it again is that it wouldn’t matter that Baboon (autocorrect and I’m leaving it) and Stone were pardoned, or that there were even criminal charges.

Lincoln did it, George W. Bush did it. Barack Obama did it. The Constitution contains a clause which allows it to be suspended due to rebellion or threats to public safety. It’s a dangerous thing to allow a president to do, but the MAGA danger might be greater.

Why aren’t these guys in jail? Seriously. I mean, I know the theory of the rule of law and all, but even our widely-acclaimed greatest president suspended habeas corpus when insurgent seditionists tried to overthrow the Union.

I’m no expert, either, I just read about death grip in Savage Love, and it always made me cringe and wonder, how in the hell? Then I learned more and figured it must have something to do with the skin being able to glide back and forth.

From what I understand, the penis is supposed to have a mobile skin system, so it can glide up and down. The “death grip” is when guys get a tight grip and crank it up and down to get maximum stimulation. Circumcision can (often?) remove the entire mobile skin system, leaving the penis skin as tight as the skin on, say, your thumb.

Get a tight grip on that, and start cranking, and it’s basically trying to rip your dick off.

An attempted handjob by a woman from a country where circumcision is rare, so she went for the death grip.