KombatWombat

Cool, thanks!

This meme's text has figures about "now" but doesn't note that it is mostly a paraphrased quote from Deus Ex, a video game set in a fictional dystopian version of America in 2052. The speaker is not in fact talking about 2024 America. But even for the past figures, I would want citations.

The first part seems to be talking about tax sources as a portion of total taxes raised, which isn't easy to search for. I did find a table that cited whitehouse.gov and recorded income collections compared to total GDP at least. It did peak in 1945, but only at 7.1%.

The US Bureau of Labor doesn't seem to have records on self-employment before 1948. The only thing I could find talking about self-employment in 1900 was a blog post that said it was 50%. 90% self-employment sounds like a lot of subsistence farming and odd-jobs work, which isn't exactly the ideal economic model.

The Deus Ex part is part of a longer conversation, but here is the relevant section:

JC Denton: Just answer the question.
Leo Gold: Don’t believe me? It’s all in the numbers. For a hundred years, there’s been a conspiracy of plutocrats against ordinary people.
JC Denton: Do you have a single fact to back that up?
Leo Gold: Number one: In 1945, corporations paid 50 percent of federal taxes. Now they pay about 5 percent. Number two: in 1900, 90 percent of Americans were self-employed; now it’s about two percent.
JC Denton: So?
Leo Gold: It’s called consolidation. Strengthen governments and corporations, weaken individuals. With taxes, this can be done imperceptibly over time.

That sounds great, where do you get it?

If you had lived at an earlier point, there's a good chance your eyesight would have been better. Not just because of natural selection for genes or whatever. The modern spread of nearsightedness is primarily attributed to greater time spent indoors, looking at things close to you like books, and particularly during childhood. It is largely nurture instead of nature.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220927-can-you-prevent-short-sightedness-in-kids

FEMINISM HAS CONTRIBUTED INDIRECTLY TO THE MALE LONELINESS EPICDEMIC BY EMPOWERING WOMEN TO SUCCEED IN SOCIETY WITHOUT RELYING ON A TRADITIONAL RELATIONSHIP. WHILE THIS SOCIAL PROGRESS SHOULD BE CELEBRATED, WE SHOULDN'T DISCOUNT THE STUGGLE THIS CREATES FOR DISENFRANCHISED MEN SUFFERING FROM MOVING GOALPOSTS AND A LESS DEFINED IDENTITY WITHIN THEIR COMMUNITIES. PRESSURE TO MEET OUTDATED EXPECTATIONS CAN INSTILL LINGERING FEELINGS OF FAILURE IN THE WAKE OF A SIGNIFICANT CULTURAL SHIFT. SO REMEMBER TO BE SYMPATHETIC TO THE STRUGGLES OF THOSE AROUND YOU! ARRROOOOOOOO!

Actually, a 10-button mouse for $30 seems pretty good. If it is uncomfortable like OP's example suggests, I wouldn't use it as a first choice, but it could be a cheap backup that I could swap in without needing to change bondings. I would use all of those for MMOs, and probably most of them for shooters/MOBAs.

If you say you are of the same religion as a bigot, you're telling the bigots that you agree with them, even if you don't.

Hitler and I may have agreed that the sky is blue, but if someone uses this to say we agree in general, they are simply being unreasonable. There are countless denominations of Christianity as a result of people disagreeing with each other about history and values. The Christian label is not synonymous with bigotry, and we could use more counterexamples if people seem to think otherwise.

This could probqbly an alias for "user error".

Me too!

Besides exhausting the audience's willing suspension of disbelief if they think about it, it honestly just feels like a waste of potential when shows do this. Redemption arcs go hard.

Fred Johnson immediately got to work investigating the job after it went wrong, and when he was convinced he was working for the wrong side, immediately dedicated himself to working to make amends. He continued to do this for years (decades?) all while making himself a progressively bigger target when just looking the other way from the start would have served him very well. He was never a villain. He just worked with limited information in his backstory. And since then basically everything he does is aimed at the betterment of the belters/humanity. His early victims probably would have forgiven him relatively quickly if they saw what he was doing afterwards and knew the initial setup. They cared about the cause more than their own lives after all.

It is true that before reaching adulthood children are a financial burden for society, but primarily they are a financial burden on parents. Tax breaks help make it more affordable and a viable option for more than just the wealthy.

But you seem to be of the opinion that having children is a selfish act that society should punish rather than encourage. Some people are not responsible enough to be good parents, or otherwise are not in the right circumstances where it would make sense. But generally children are an investment in society's future, and very much worth the costs of supporting with projected future contributions.