scratchee

In this country our sewage and drainage are largely combined in the same sewers (we built the system before anyone had the idea of separating them, and now can’t afford to fix it), so hard to believe it could cause any problems, probably just improved the flavour of the broth a little

Be fair, cats usually struggle with grammar, this one did very well.

Serious answer: the actually wealthy are too good at tax dodging, so taxing them is rarely effective, plus they can scare governments by threatening to fly their private jets to some other country if they were actually threatened with effective taxation.

I’ve heard it claimed that the only effective way to run a wealth tax is to do a single massive one off tax with no warning or lead time, that way the ~~cockroaches~~ wealthy can’t run and hide in the woodwork quickly enough.

Not only relevant to recursion, but also to 6 word stories. Truly perfect!

Ah no, all your dead relatives are there, all trapped in one room. Welcome to the barrel of monkeys, in you go.

Ok, this gives me a great idea - a warlock whose patron is his own mlm scheme, he has to sell his shitty “get magic quick” scheme to lots of people to power up. “Just dedicate and focus your energies to the collective and you too can gain godlike powers, share it with your friends and loved ones. Join now and you’ll be empowered in no time. Empower 4 others and you’ll get candle lighting privileges! Reach archeon tier like me and you’ll be throwing fireballs, just 7 short tiers to work through, what better use for your time?”

I mean… the developed world has settled on slightly below break even (or very below break even in a few cases). So yes, that did happen

Equally of course, if we use our mighty intellects to override our breeding instincts entirely then we’d arrive at the same extinction rather more quickly.

So you know, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Given our current birth rates in the western world I’m less worried about our breeding instincts than our inability to convince everyone that their children should live in a better world than them, apparently that’s the instinct that broke first.

The age is useful when considering risk of enshitificarion. A well established and respected vpn has probably figured out how to run profitably, and will probably only go to shit after being sold out or a similar major internal upset, a 3 month old vpn may be offering below cost deals to undercut (or just catch up with) the market whilst the startup funding lasts, in which case they’ll have no choice but to start turning the screws once they have some customers

Ankle [eeoh] sore [us]

De-emphasising the bracketed bits

The difference between a fascist government and a democratic government can be distressingly thin, something we should all be aware of by now.

In this case, the EU has just proven it is currently on the right side of that divide. When extremely unpopular and authoritarian ideas were considered, the public felt able to voice their disapproval and the government felt they had to listen. That is a crucial step. Good for you all.

Sadly it likely will continue to require major work to keep the public on guard against future attempts like this one, but that’s life.

I admit that when you said “big fan” I imagined a wind turbine in reverse.

Zooming into the picture, I see it’s more like desk fans on sticks. I’m sure they’re bigger than that really, but is it really too much to ask for a windmill that does work that way?