Stanard

I wouldn't pretend it's not something terrorists would do. I think what people are upset about is more like: let's assume that there is a terrorist HQ being run in a school. Let's also assume their are innocent people of any and all ages in that same school. Finally, let's assume there are only two options to deal with the terrorist HQ (there could be others in reality but for this exercise there are only two options).

Option a) bomb the school, injuring and killing everyone inside. Option b) a specialized operation that will only target the terrorists but may result in casualties to your army.

People, and myself, are upset that the option being chosen seems to overwhelmingly be option a, the indiscriminate injury and death of everyone in the building whether innocent or terrorist. No judge and no jury for anyone involved, only death.

For me at least, this cartoon is not pointing out that terrorists would run an HQ in a school. It's pointing out that currently the IDF cannot, or will not, see past the fact that this is still a picture of a school. It may contain a terrorist HQ, but it's not a building labeled "terrorist HQ" with the sole function of being a terrorist HQ. This is a picture of a school that may also house a terrorist HQ. And that is a very very important distinction that seems to be wildly ignored.

If you criticize the few good/decent policies that are being passed/proposed, maybe. But at least from what I've seen, especially online, Biden and any other (D) being pushed on the people aren't seen as some savior. In fact I would argue almost the opposite. I think many Democrats see Biden and the rest of the moderates being passed off as Democrats as simply the lesser of two evils.

Likewise, just because a candidate has an (R) next to their name doesn't automatically make them evil. Their public stance and proposed policies are what make 90+% of them evil. I couldn't give two shits what letter appears next to Trump, Desantis, McConnell, etc. They're not bad people because they run under the Republican party, they're bad people because they're very explicitly against Americans that can't afford to pay them enough to pretend to care. Donald Trump almost ran as a Democrat years before he actually ran as a Republican and guess what? He's the same asshole either way that never would have gotten my vote.

So yes, if you agree with white supremacist neo-Nazi policies and ideals, or disagree with policies intended to defeat white supremacist neo-Nazi ideals, I will most certainly assume that you are a white supremacist neo-Nazi. This honestly shouldn't be that difficult to understand. And that honestly makes me think you're simply a troll but I guess I'll take the bait. In case it's not perfectly obvious by now, fuck Biden. But fuck white supremacist neo-Nazis more. Like for real, it would not be difficult at all to get a fuckton of "Democrats" to vote (R) if y'all could put up some half-ass decent candidates instead of the backwater scum y'all currently idolize. But instead of doing that and actually running candidates that stand by the true conservative ideology (what ever happened to sticking up for personal rights and small government?) most candidates (Democrats and Republicans alike) only stand by whatever will gain them the most.

I would even go so far to say that I would probably fall more under the old conservative ideology with some liberal tendencies, but I will NOT support anyone that wants to disenfranchise, discriminate, and take away personal liberties. I'm not LGBTQ+, I'm not trying to get an abortion, I don't have kids to worry about schools or lunches; I'm a straight white cis male with a Christian background that would largely be personally unaffected by any of the current Republican stances, but I do have at least a tiny bit of empathy and that's enough to see that just because someone isn't the same as me doesn't make them any less human than me. To suggest anything else is simply fucked up and evil. AND goes againstliterally everything in my Christian upbringing. So given the choice of supporting the modern Christo-fascist, or voting for literally anyone else provided they have some principles and empathy, I know who's getting my support every time without a doubt.

The article doesn't explicitly call it out, but the judge and the principle share a last name? The judge granted a much more lenient ruling than the prosecutor wanted though so I'm not assuming they're (closely) related, but I would think a thorough journalist would at least mention trying to find a link in the family tree.

I'm confused what this is trying to say. You tried defending genocide? Because that's messed up.

If you're claiming that a left-wing forum was defending genocide I'm gonna have to doubt that unless provided proof. From what I've seen genocide seems to be an ideal exclusive to the right-wing authoritarian crowd.

The only way to kill an entire population of peoples is to not allow for people to disagree with you, because people will disagree with you if you're trying to kill an entire population of peoples.

I'm not sure what you're arguing. That someone invented the iPhone and it went on to be a very successful product for a multi-trillion dollar company? The iPod was out for years before then. Before that there were portable CD players, before that were portable cassette players, and before that portable radios. Long before any of that people would set wood on fire and sing while playing instruments they carved from other wood.

Corporations do get things wrong plenty often. Successful corporations will not invest more than they can afford to on anything, and won't mass produce a product that their user-surveys and number crunchers say won't make them money. Sometimes those surveys and numbers are wrong, but a corporation doesn't build a worth of trillions of dollars by making stuff and putting it all directly in the dump.

I agree with you almost entirely. There are definitely deceptive advertising practices all over by every industry. And subliminal messaging is in use everywhere. Both are getting worse all the time as people trade privacy for convenience, myself included. A quick search will reveal many results of people talking about how they've talked about something for the first time that they have no interest in and being shown ads for it later. Advertising has reached the point where companies can tell when a woman is pregnant before she does and start advertising accordingly.

I also agree that for most of this, consumers are the virtually powerless underdogs. The only way to truly stop it, if there even is a way to stop something like subliminal advertising, is legislation.

All that said, I do think that consumers can do more than we are. In the current world it seems like waiting for politicians that are bought and paid for by these companies to pass legislation that these companies don't want is the wrong course of action if the goal is to decrease consumption. Nations want you to consume because that makes the economy look better.

However, educating ourselves, and more importantly each other, on these deceptive advertising practices, and taking an active stance to consciously combat said practices can make an immediate impact while we wait/hope for meaningful legislation. If we're watching a movie or TV show with friends and see some subtle product placement, call it out. When we're at the store take a moment to consciously think about whether we need some product, and what the consequences of buying said product are. How much energy is used, what kind of waste does it make both during production and after consumption. If it's recyclable, how? And how much energy is used in doing so? We should all demand to know what our local recycling policies are. Not just what they accept as "recyclable" but whether they actually recycle or just send it to a dump anyway. And wherever possible opt for options that are better for our world and better yet, going without when possible. I see a lot of "keeping up with the Joneses" in the modern world, and so much waste that seems reasonable avoidable.

I think I got a bit sidetracked. I definitely don't think we as consumers can do everything, and I think pretty much the full responsibility should fall on corporations and those in power, but currently that's largely not the case. And I don't think we have time to wait for that to change.

Ultimately I definitely think we largely agree; maybe slight differences in the how, but the end goal seems the same. As far as I can tell we are allies. We can and should help each other and others to advocate for personal changes and policy/legislative changes to combat the rampant over-consumption and over-production in the world today. I don't have children but I still want a livable Earth for future generations so so much.

You're making several assumptions that I don't think I've said or even alluded to. I don't think I've mentioned religion or motivation at all. All I've been trying to say is I disagree with the death of innocent people. I've agreed with you 100% that I do not have a good grasp of the situation and frankly I don't think you or most people do have a full grasp of the situation. You probably know more than me, good job. I still disagree with any person, country, military, religion, etc. taking the lives of innocent people. I recognize that sometimes it can mean fewer deaths in the long run, but seeing as I don't have absolute knowledge of the situation it's not my call to make. I'm not arguing whether one side is doing more harm than the other. I'm not arguing whether one side is more evil, or what their reason for killing is. I'm arguing that innocent people dying sucks. This will be my last reply to you/this thread because I don't have anything else to say. Killing innocent people should be avoided wherever possible because innocent people dying sucks. I'm not sure how that's such a hard concept to grasp or why anyone would argue that killing innocent people is good but evil does exist in this world and it sucks.

Have a wonderful day and may you achieve any and all of your non-evil dreams.

True, although to be fair the first iPhone wasn't released until late 2007. Timeline of Apple releases

How optimistic to think you'd make it to trial for your theft.

I assume the guy is a stock photo, but in case anyone else is trying to figure out where you've seen this guy before, like myself, where I most recognize him from is his use in "The Open House"; a horror game where you play as a potential home buyer, and his picture is used as the realtor. It's a fairly simple looking, point-and-click style game iirc. A sort of interesting concept but I haven't played it myself, just seen a couple videos on YouTube a while back.

I think I agree with direct action being more effective. The question is at what cost? In modern society, at least in the US, theft and other direct actions are crimes seemingly punishable by death on sight. The sheer number of news articles involving thieves being shot, especially if they're running, deeply saddens me. To me, non-violent crimes warrant non-violent solutions. But then to me it's arguable whether stealing groceries should even be a crime. Desperation will drive people to a life of crime 9 times out of 10 and who can blame them if there are no other resources available? I honestly don't know what the solution to any of this is if there even is a perfect or near perfect solution. I'm all for not letting perfection get in the way of progress (in theory at least. In practice I'm personally a bit of a neurotic perfectionist and it prevents me from getting anything done), but I hate loss of life. And unfortunately even peaceful protest seems to turn violent when a few people do something to "justify" the use of weapons banned in warfare (tear gas) and worse, deadly force. I recognize that this is likely the cost of progress, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

I do still have some vague hope in democracy, and wish more good-hearted people could be elected. But I also recognize that those that most deserve positions of power are the least likely to seek positions of power. Let alone what their chances would be to actually be granted said positions by those already in power. To be honest I feel the cards are heavily stacked against the people, and have been for some time. And all of the ways I can envision getting out of the situation, quite frankly, suck ass for one reason or another. But ultimately the answer will likely have to suck, will probably involve violence (which I hate), and will take some time. But it may be better in the long run I guess, but I don't particularly want to be the one to pull the metaphorical trigger. And I definitely don't want to be the one to pull the not-so-metaphorical trigger..

First, and I don't mean to be pedantic, I'm sure you know this but just want to clarify, putting absolutes on things like saying no one buys something is almost always false. Very few people comparatively sure, but when it comes to capitalist greed these differences matter. Anyway..

Sure they'll miss a fiscal year or two here and there. But in the case of iPhones, I can assure you that if Apple calculated that the iPhone was going to continue to not sell well and would hurt their profits to continue manufacturing, I probably wouldn't be able to hit the button on a stopwatch fast enough to measure how quickly they would shut down manufacturing. Keep in mind that there are indirect costs/profits involved in many things. e.g. The value of user data gathered by phones is absolutely accounted for, goes into profit calculations, and is probably worth more to the right people than you'd think. Apple is one of the richest, most profitable companies in the world despite releasing what we would consider to be flops several times over the years. Apple released a video game console (the Pippin) in 1996 to compete with the OG PlayStation. They brought it to the US in '97 and pulled the plug the same year. The PlayStation released in '94 and sold well through the release of the PS2 in 2000 for comparison. A colossal flop from Apple that was nixed in merely a year.

A perfect example of the indirect profits that a product can accrue is when Google was initially getting into the tablet OS market some years back (around 2011 I think is when this specific "deal" was in place). They purposely sold the first Nexus tablet at cost/at a loss, paired with a "free" gift card for the Play store; on the condition that you had to add other payment info to your Play store account. A common tactic that other online vendors use because the statistics show that you are much more likely to spend money once you've already added and saved a payment method. Google didn't require people to actually use the added payment info, and as far as I'm aware they didn't even require you to keep the payment info saved for future purposes. They only required that you save your debit/credit card in order to use your "free" Play store credit. All because the biggest hurdle to getting people to spend online is/was getting them to give their debit/credit card info to the payment vendor. They correctly predicted that when offered store credit, consumers would not only give Google their payment card info, but also not bother deleting said payment info after they added the credit from the Play store gift card. Whatever the reasons may be, whether it be because you don't trust a website, it's more convenient to buy elsewhere, etc. and whatever the store may be, once you've added payment info you are statistically unlikely to subsequently remove that info and more likely to purchase there again in the future. Gotta love it.. but alas even my bitter ass is not immune from these tactics.

As for fidget spinners, I suspect the sheer excess supply from people trying to cash in on the craze has basically cemented them as a permanent item on shelves. I remember reading stories of "normal" people that bought literal warehouses full of the things because during the height of the fidget frenzy the markup on them was insane. And then other people presumably bought up that excess supply for pennies on the dollar when the trend was dying. The capitalists that initially jumped on the profit train when spinners were trending were either successful and took their profits and left the bag holders, or were bag holders that accepted their losses by selling in bulk to someone willing to try selling them.

That went a bit longer than I intended.. In short, even flops and niche items that don't sell very well can still be profitable. I would advise against doubting the ability of greedy people/corporations to extract every possible fraction of a cent in their pursuit of profit.