Apparently Vanguard has a whole proxy voting system that I left on the defaults!

Solidarity doesn’t have to mean they like have a club with a secret handshake. Their goals are aligned, and they tend to work towards those goals, even without explicit coordination. It’s rare to see anyone in the ownership class work against those interests. You don’t see a lot of the owners saying “we should give people more time off” or “we should let the workers have a say”. It’s pretty consistently “we should squeeze people for more money”. It makes the news when ownership is like “We’re going to pay people more”, and it doesn’t make the news when labor is like “i’ll just work a little more off the clock to catch up”.

Contrast with labor, where people are often undermining their interests. Being anti-union, voting against regulations that would protect them from exploitation, giving away labor for free.

Solidarity doesn’t mean they’re all in love and never squabble. But it does mean that they will prioritize their class’ interests, especially if it’s in conflict with labor.

I assume rich people often keep enough shares to control who sits on the board, and thus who is the CEO. There’s a lot of people sitting on multiple boards, folks know each other, blah blah blah.

Also many shareholders aren’t really involved. I don’t even know how it works if you own shares through Vanguard or something. I’ve never been asked to vote on company policy.

From what I’ve seen in start-up land, leadership is a lot of in-group bro times. It’s all gut feel. Shouldn’t expect rational, honest, decisions from them.

The rich have class solidarity. They’re not going to casually fuck each other over like that.

Nice! I got about two remorts in, but haven’t played in a while. It’s a pretty solid mud.

I’ll always have a soft spot for Project Bob, which I think shut down. Diablo-style items and a very fast paced combat system. Alas. Time marches on.

200 is a lot of people for a mud. The only one I know of that’s that big is aardwolf. Which do you play?

I typically buy music , most often from Bandcamp. I figure $10/mo gets me one or two albums I can keep forever. I tend to be more depth-first with music, where I get really into a band for a little while then move on, so this works for me.

One of the guys at my old job submitted a PR with tests that basically just mocked everything, tested nothing. Like,

with patch("something.whatever", return_value=True):
  assert whatever(0) is True
  assert whatever(1) is True

Except for a few dozen lines, with names that made it look like they were doing useful.

He used AI to generate them, of course. Pretty useless.

As we see more examples of our institutions giving bad, cruel, and nonsensical outcomes, support for violent responses like Luigi will grow. I think a lot of the people involved in perpetuating injustice don’t even see themselves as bad people. Some corrupt prosecutor that knowingly sent innocent people to jail could be bleeding out on the sidewalk at the feet of their past victims, and they’d be like “what did i ever do to deserve this??”

Why do we even have laws if they’re not going to protect people from abuse? Shit like this is why people cheer for Luigi. People are just trying to get the basics - health care, shelter, food - and the rich are taking too much.

It doesn’t feel like there’s any class solidarity in the US except between the very rich.

I think two of the somewhat fancier grocery stores I go to have grinders there. The more basic one I usually go to I don’t think does. I don’t drink coffee myself, so I’m not 100% certain.

This doesn’t seem like something that benefits the majority of people.

If it was like “here’s free (or at least legitimately cheap) access to some virtual actors. Go make the movie of your dreams, kids!” maybe that would be cool. Maybe there are people out there with brilliant ideas that are blocked by not having real actors to act for them. Maybe.

But this just seems like another way for the rich to keep more wealth for themselves.

That’s not really small town though, in my mind. I was thinking of like suburbs where people drive everywhere.

People in walkable cities tend to be hottest. Daily exercise does a lot of good for bodies.

I think some people are bad at reading through no real fault of their own. Then they feel, consciously or subconsciously, embarrassed and angry when they try.

I also think a lot about a woman I knew that was like “analysis is stupid. Sometimes a story is just a story!”, and that was very strange to me. I asked some more questions, and she said she hated how in school they were always reading and being told to find the secret meaning. I was like, your education failed you. The game isn’t find the meaning. The game is finding a meaning you can support in the text.

Like, Dracula can just be a book about a dude that bites people. But you can also look at it and be like “hmm so these women abandon their ‘motherly’ duties of raising children and staying in the home, and the only way to ‘fix’ them is for some men to hold her down and penetrate her with a big piece of wood? Hmmm”

But, also, you don’t have to think hard about everything you read. You don’t analyze every TV show, even though you could.

That’s a terrible way to get news.

Other people already gave most of the answers, but

Parks. Go for a walk. Play a game with folks (Frisbee, soccer, whatever). Ride a bike. Read.

Meetups. I go to a tabletop RPG one. That’s not unique to cities, but I can walk to this one and there are probably more people attending than you’d find in a less populous area. I also used to go to a basic neighborhood hangout one. There are many others.

The library is free. Many books and other media to enjoy.

This city has beaches. It’s $3 for the subway ride there , or if I was really broke I could ride a bike.

There are free museums. I don’t go that often but they’re interesting.

But also

And to make it worse many of them probably have a 1 bedroom apartment so its not like you can sit in there all day long (at least i cant).

I realize im still spending money by being in my house out of town, but still, at least things I buy are owned by me, and im not paying someone else every time I want to do anything. If I want to stay at home all day I have tons of stuff to occupy my mind without going nuts.

I don’t think I accept this premise. I stay home in my one bedroom without any more trouble than when I lived in the suburbs. A computer full of games doesn’t need a lot of rooms. I have plenty of entertainment here. I don’t see what’s stifling about a one bedroom. Maybe a tiny studio I could see. But even so, when I lived in a whole house it’s not like I went skipping from room to room.

I memorized my friend’s phone number. It’s because she’s a lawyer, and that seems like a good number to have memorized.