There's an article I'd read sometime in the past year or two, and I still can't remember where I had it bookmarked. But it went into detail about a movement in India, with the not-so-subtle intention of spreading its populace and influence throughout the world.
Like with actual money and government/business moguls involved or something if I'm remembering right. Or at least that's how it sounded.
The guy makes some good points. The only part I'm unsure on is whether the trap is actually the main point for the move (and PR spins that can be made) or if there's more to the strategy. Like say, hired false flags that are being planned?
In either case, if it's happening in a leftist city or state, it's probably not worth getting heavily involved. You don't want to go after an enemy who's lying in wait on their own home ground. Especially when the local governments are actively involved or complicit.
Let the idiots destroy their own communities. And hells, maybe even consider relocating relevant federal facilities and charging the cities to pay for the expenses.
And in the case of both ER and GP situations, patients are handled with a triage mentality.
In the case of an ER I suppose it can be a "little" more understandable, but with GP's it's less about time/manpower constraints and instead seems like it has more to do with keeping on friendly terms with insurance companies (costs, etc). Since they have to justify anything they do to insurance companies.
It's honestly a fucking joke. In a big book full of horrible jokes.
Could be that there's some environmental factors at play with some of the learning disabilities. The massive spike in plastic and disposable goods starting right before they were born and onward as they grew up is kind of insane.
Otherwise though, smartphones. So many tools available in such a small and portable package. Yet a lot of it's designed to be spoon-fed to the user. Both because of the limited UI and because apps were designed for maximum simplicity to appeal better to normies and elderly sorts. And also due to what used to be limited by weaker hardware.
Plus they have the perfect window seat, seeing just how horribly things played out for a lot of millennials who did try to play the game.
Widely demoralized, and a huge swathe who are openly displaying just how much they've lost their fucking minds. Many who also had a heavy hand in making this giant clusterfuck as bad as it is. Especially successful millennials who got shortcuts and easy passes without having to do anything to earn it (usually on the left, due to ideological nepotism, DEI). College degrees being useless as hell too, they've realized that pretty fast.
They can clearly see that shit's beyond broken and that none of their elders are going to do a damned thing to fix it. They generally seem to be aware that communism is absolutely absurd and not a good solution either. But that leaves them with... very few options, except to not play the idiotic game until something actually changes.
The word processing and document editing shift in expertise probably has a lot to do with Google docs. Well that and how Microsoft and other companies have adopted the "product as a service" model and royally paywalled a lot software that's supposed to be the industry standard.
And that's not to mention how much more obnoxious it might be for youngsters to learn how to pirate that shit than it was 10-20 years ago.
I can't entirely blame zoomers or public schools for not wanting to deal with a lot of that. Granted, there are open source options that are pretty solid but sometimes they can be a pain to work with.
I tend to agree.
Some people don't seem to want to admit when their memory's a little narrow or shoddy as they grow older. And further still some will often lack the humility, patience, and/or self awareness to admit when they're wrong or when they don't know as much as they pretend they do.
Lazy logic and rationale, assumption jumping, and just plain old scapegoating. It's not a new thing by any means, but it is sad to see first-hand just how many fall prey to it, giving in freely without so much as a second thought.
Having said that, there is certainly going to be some legitimate criticism to bear towards certain common trends and widely adopted habits. But maybe it would be more sensible to address those as they are rather than just trudging them up as a evidence to blanket dump on an entire generation.
Hell, who knows. Maybe some kind of cyclic generational bullshit could be put to rest if there wasn't so much petty squabbling and finger pointing.
They hate everyone and everything, including themselves. Nostalgia is probably one of the only things they still care about, and even that is a brittle love that they'll backstab the moment something unsavory bursts their bubble.
Just watching animation in some of these older shows, particularly the 90's you see so much visual detail throughout almost every scene. I took that for granted when I was a kid, but I'm impressed now with how much time and work that is to do.
A company's access and ownership of IP's are frequently flaunted to appeal to investors. It hardly matters if the products themselves are good, because there's still a magic value attached to every IP. And even more applicable when factoring in streaming services.
Additionally, using IP's that people have at least heard of makes it easier to market. Even to people who've never seen or read a thing about the original works in said IP. It means there's less money that needs to be spent on marketing as well as at least a decent number of curious and yet gullible customers who'll check it out when it comes out.
When these companies use an IP nowadays, it has fuck all to do with caring one iota about the original story or characters. It's about trying to min-max those profits with just the bare minimum level of investment and effort.
And I suspect it's almost become a sort of ego-serving career game too. A writer who can totally dismiss the original story and rewrite it in a totally different way might bizarrely be seen as somehow more employable in the industry. IE, maybe they'd cater to a studio's whims more, even at the cost of opportunities for good storytelling.
I'd say a good chunk of it is because there's a lot of ego's involved. Horrible people in arrogant circles with other horrible people in what has increasingly become a soul sucking industry.
Showrunners and company spokesman only care about spinning a narrative that makes the product look good to investors. Maximize their marketing appeal and minimize criticism, no matter how valid it might be. Fans aren't considered a cost effective source of revenue to please.
The writers themselves give almost zero fucks about telling a good story. They hate their jobs and they have no passion for creativity even if they ever used to. They're only there for the paychecks and to keep their career alive. And sometimes they'll pull asshole moves in their work just to piss people off as some kind of revenge or outlet, or because they simply think it's funny to piss on anything that can make a person happy.
Actors are much the same way, only more oblivious and less deliberate in their actions. Following trends no matter how stupid or horrible they are because that's just "part of the job".
And investors aren't quite what they used to be in the industry either. I mean obviously they're motivated by profit in some way or another, but how they value a product or a company has shifted drastically somehow. And I suspect DEI is only the tip of the ice berg there.
Ah, that's informative. I'd only heard the headlines recently but admittedly haven't dug into a lot of details. That does sound about right, with how I'd expect each of those nations to try and play things.
And yeah, I do remember that Ukraine's hit civilian targets a little bit. Not with anything particularly big, but with at least enough effort to try and scare up the civilian populace. Mostly a handful of low effort drone strikes and of course their insurgent incursions into Kursk.
Yup. I think it was Germany or the EU as a whole who's trying to remove range restrictions on arms being sold to Ukraine.
Although I'm not sure if there's still any restriction on requiring those weapons to only be used on military targets. One of my biggest concerns has always been what might happen if Zelensky tosses the table and launches long range weapons directly at Russian-civilian targets.
"Non-profit" organization located in California. That right there would be the main reason.
The organization also has a long history pushing for a range of nanny state antics, both right and left-wing. Both sides of the same coin.
People in that teetering spot close to doing it but still trying to cry for help will sometimes disappear to make it seem like that's the case. It's a little fucky, but sometimes it's a semi-warped way to try and deal with some fucky emotions.
Studios will almost certainly replace common and generic NPC voiceovers with AI options. Actual characters, they might be more hesitant to do that on.