Video killed the radio star

Yeah idk I’ve read it like 4 times and still struggle to find a coherent thought here.

Anti-shit underwear? Sign me up!

The “signing up for Planet Fitness membership but not actually using the gym” is the real idiot tax. Well, yeah, I guess this one is too.

I mean you’re not wrong in a sense. Their marketing campaign centered around targeting a specific demographic (high income insecure millennials)…those that would spend a lot of money to get their own exercise equipment than go to the gym with other people around.

Now there’s nothing wrong with that (with wanting your own exercise equipment, at least). I just wish people realized other gym goers don’t give a shit about you. I literally don’t remember anything about anyone after the gym (like “wow that dude was so fat”).

But alas, here we have our lovely corporate propagan-….I mean “Public Relations”…manufacturing insecurity in the mind of the consumer.

As much as I dislike Planet Fitness’s predatory business model, I do gotta say they used this “gym insecurity” manufacturing from other PR firms to their advantage. “We know you’re insecure about going to the gym. Here’s a gym for the regular joe. Super cheap and the gym won’t have those judgmental gym goes (who never existed in the first place) that other gyms have. It’s only $10 a month! Yeah, we make it so you literally need to give us your left kidney in order to cancel your subscription, and yeah 90% of our revenue comes from people who never actually use the gyms, but hey, if you’re one of the 10%, then that’s even better since the 90% basically pay for your membership, new equipment, clean gym, amenities, AND the gyms won’t be crowded!”

So yeah…predatory as fuck…but at least their PR campaign centered around taking advantage of a manufactured insecurity rather than adding to it? Or maybe by perpetuating this myth that there really do exist a bunch of toxic gym goers at other gyms isn’t really helping…I’m not so sure now haha.

They hired some PR firm that did a really good job of marketing the enshitification to a specific demographic (high income millennials)

“I’m pretty iffy on ECT”

“Doctors should’ve loaded her up with pills instead of ECT in her case”

Sounds like you don’t see the merits in ECT, which is perfectly fine. I just disagree with your methods of reasoning used to support this conclusion.

It’s anecdotal. There are mountains of data and studies now. Still amazes me that people still argue “Oh, well X is bad because I know 1 person who had a bad experience”

They invited him to the party! Of course they like having him around! 🙂

Imagine seeing your dead relative reanimated as a robot so that scientists could study you 🗿

You’re saying we could reactivate the gene and get infinite teeth?? 🫨

Wait long enough and you get the real certificate

That’s why surveillance has been, is, and will always be an issue and something to be concerned about.

All it takes is a concentrated power system to abuse that power and use surveillance to their benefit.

Could you imagine if the Nazi’s had the amount of data, information, and surveillance capabilities of modern day US?

WHAT?? You haven’t seen that movie?

How dare they make us tell our customers how much everything will cost!

Yeah, the economy is going great for the top few. That’s what’s meant by “The Economy”. Always has been.

Peasants, We have increased your daily crumb rations by 1.2%. Be grateful for that.

Oh that is by design my friend. The media will often obfuscate the protesters’ true aims, instead focusing on a very, very small number of “agitators” (either real or imagined) to try and delegitimize them to the public. They want people to think “Oh those crazy, privileged, liberal college students don’t know what they’re doing”.

It is all one giant, well oiled machine.

Oh boy…so this is how I understand it (as someone who has spent many years in the tech industry - I got out of it thank god - as well as have worked closely with university engineering research departments while employed in tech), but could certainly be missing some critical components here, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

So, the tech industry in the US is heavily subsidized with taxpayer money (like many other industries in the US…yes folks, even the US “Free Market Capitalism “ isn’t really a “Free Market”, as that short experiment has shown it wouldn’t last 2 seconds…but that’s a whole other topic).

As you may know, the tech industry is critical for US “defense” operations. Like helping Israel defend themselves from those ravenous and dangerous Palestinians.

So how does this work in the US? Taxpayer dollars go to funding certain “defense” projects thru the Pentagon mostly. That money then ends up making its way to defense contractors like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, etc. The government basically gives these contractors money and says “Go make new tech that can help us build better bombs and weapons and stuff. And if there is any tech developed that can be used for other private industries (think consumer tech), then great. But that is sort of secondary. All we care about is the weapons”. Of course, the language in these contracts are much more nuanced as to avoid any moral hazards with knowing what exactly it is you’re working on; something that took me a while to finally figure out. But, that’s essentially what it boils down to. “We’ll give you taxpayer money and your company will be very profitable. All we want is for you to use your resources to develop weapons, and if you do that we will keep giving you money”

So these contractors get their money, and hire smart engineers to help with these projects. Well a major component of this is that these contractors are heavily invested in academia and universities, because that’s where they get their smart engineers from. These contractors may also fund departments at Universities for research and development. How much specific universities are tied in with these contractors is of course university dependent, but most are tied in some way or another.

The goal of most of these protests is to stop the universities from collaborating with these defense contractors that help to support these horrific wars and injustices we’re seeing today, which if you think about it is a very ambitious goal. These students are directly challenging a major component of the military industrial complex.

THIS is why we see such a strong response from those in power trying to quell the protests and demonstrations.

I mean just take a look at the response from law enforcement. It is much, much stronger than the response from, for example, the January 6th insurrection.

Whenever you see a strong response from LE, that should immediately make a blip on your radar. It means that whoever LE is going after is directly challenging power, or some component of power/the status quo. Seeing such a strong response, you should immediately be asking yourself “Damn what are these people (students) challenging/demanding that is such a threat to those in power?” And once you begin looking into it, it all sort of starts to make sense.

Either way, I wish these students and protesters all the best of luck. Major changes in policy often start in universities, so I am crossing my fingers that this evolves into a greater challenge on the military industrial complex apparatus.

Free Palestine. 🇵🇸

What do you even do for something like this? A literal child? Do you lock them up for life? Rehabilitate under close supervision and reassess? Can someone like this even be rehabilitated?