Depends if you’re hungry.

The modlog is public. You can see exactly what comment led to the ban if you search for it.

The US state department lawyers and the British House of Lords have evidence. That’s why they’re pursuing convictions of the Chinese leaders involved. No, wait— sorry, I misremembered. They both concluded there is insufficient evidence.

Also, YouTube ads are about the most random things. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ad on YouTube for anything that I would actually buy. I’m not even nearly immune to ads, either. Show me a product that solves a problem for me and I’ll strongly consider it. Consciously and I’m sure subconsciously.

Google knows what I do for a living, where I live, and what I spend money on. Google also knows that I use YouTube primarily to watch videos in other languages. It’s not a secret to them. Yet they insist on trying to sell me products or services that have zero relevance to anything that I do. In English.

It makes me wonder if they’re even trying to profit through ads. I know the answer – no, not really – the advertiser is the customer, not me. It must be too complicated for them to realise that they could charge more for ads the more sales they led to.

Yeah, we’re definitely working with different models.

I know what you’re saying. But basic hygeine, etc, work against some illnesses while other health scares require different strategies (as well as good hygeine). I think we may be talking at cross purposes, working with very different models of the world and of what’s possible.

If we took this approach to those other germs and viruses that you mention, quality of life and life expectancy would plummet as fast as infant mortality shot up. There’s nothing special about Covid in that regard except that it needs more respect than many other issues.

Edit: I edited my comment because I was a bit rude. I apologise for that.

Personal responsibility is the answer if the question is, ‘Would you like to contribute to millions of unnecessary deaths and further countless suffering?’ It clearly doesn’t work as a public health strategy.

I prefer to believe the planes stay in the sky because of the druid rituals on the solstices.

The number of big babies who huffed and puffed at being asked to not stand on other people’s feet. Unreal. As if keeping 6ft distance from complete strangers in the supermarket is a major request. Like, why do you need my body heat we don’t even know each other.

I disagree that a flop means lost revenue. This is an industry that’s so adept at hiding income to avoid paying taxes, actors, and every other studio worker that dodgy accounting is known as ‘Hollywood Accounting’. Maybe we’re talking about different things. When I say Hollywood, I mean the movie industry as a whole.

Hollywood has failed to capture some income streams. From theatres, for example, as you say. But there’s still too much money to be made (and too much propaganda potential) for enough big money to leave that the problems of monopoly finance capital go away.

Good point. And it’s a lot easier to accept ‘failure’ (there could still be something learned in a game that doesn’t quite hit the mark) if the budget isn’t astronomical.

There are games like FFXV that get quite creative on a big budget. (Not sure if it’s AAA.) I enjoyed that game but some of the novel features bugged me a little bit and they skimped on some important features, I thought. Maybe there’s a better formula for trialling novelty than an all or nothing approach.

One day!

I can’t remember who it was. A famous actor, anyway. They were talking about what’s happened with movies. There’s nothing in the middle.

It’s either $100m+ or less than $3m. Either it gets a big producer and they pump so much money into it that it must be safe because it can’t lose money. Or is a small producer doing it for the love, but a small budget doesn’t go very far. The risky narratives done well would be funded somewhere between the two extremes but it’s just not how it’s done anymore.

In a strange way, to get more money in for the riskier productions, we need to get the money out of Hollywood. Can’t see it happening, myself.

Probably not with the US around. It’s never let any other country live in quiet peace and prosperity. It’s always worth being optimistic, though.

The US is still bitter that Hawaii was more advanced than the United States of Backwards way back when.

but other scientists are not so sure.

Is it just me who thinks we should act as if it is going to collapse soon, even if a few scientists aren’t sure?

I don’t have any nukes. I’m not a state, nuclear or otherwise.

Richard Seymour talks about the dangers of social media platforms in The Twittering Machine. This isn’t trifling. It leads to real harm. One factor is downvoting, as you say.

It’s so easy to click it nonchalantly because you disagree. But to the person who only sees potentially thousands of downvotes, it can hit their mental health hard. Maybe this depends on the kind of content, but idk. I’d expect someone to feel more down if they’re being genuine, giving advice about a hobby, something else that is personal in some way. This probably includes politics, as politics reflect values and can be wrapped up in a how someone sees themselves as a ‘good person’; which makes it difficult if you’re then made to think you’re wildly off the mark and, possibly, a ‘bad person’.

If downvotes are getting you down, you may want to reassess how you engage with social media. The best antidote is logging off for a while. Touch grass, get some fresh air. Don’t engage with the communities that give you grief.

More broadly, yes, Reddit is toxic af. More so than many other places. Twitter can rival it at times but the format can take the sting out of some of the pile-ons. Some of that toxicity has come to the fediverse.

It’s been especially noticeable since the API thing as new users have just seen the fediverse as a Reddit alternative. As in, Reddit but on a different server with a different brand name. Many seem not to have cared whether the culture is the same here. Or they haven’t realised that an instance might have instance-wide rules (it’s not only community rules that one must understand).

Up until the API thing, Redditors occasionally brought Reddit toxicity with them, but they were outnumbered and tended to change their ways or disappear. Now, they might get support for that kind of behaviour from other new users.

In fact, if you look at some of the user accounts of the people chastising you – for (a) being concerned out yours and others’ wellbeing and (b) for wanting to improve/maintain a positive culture – or dismissing your concerns, they’re new accounts, probably come from Reddit recently with some of that toxicity. Maybe this would have happened two months ago? I can’t remember anything like it around here, though.

Here’s hoping the Reddit culture a swift end.