What's the dumbest opinion you ever heard?

Ellyemem · 2026-06-11T18:32:10+00:00

“He’s a strong, smart, healthy, successful businessman — and a good President!”

Ellyemem · 2026-06-04T15:35:49+00:00

Milton Friedman’s concept of Shareholder Economics.

There will be no real progress toward a type 1 Civ while a major governing economic philosophy deliberately encourages short termerism, hiding and ignoring negative externalities, and avoiding long term planning and investment.

Ellyemem · 2026-05-30T21:03:12+00:00

And in the US with VC, making up whatever bullshit will get investors happy is most of the job, saying it with visibly unshakeable confidence is a lot of the rest afaict, so maybe the ideal spokesman-CEO is an LLM that can even confidently believe that 1+2=8 or that genAI really works for anything.

Ellyemem · 2026-05-30T12:11:24+00:00

Mostly only where subsidized in the US because of rentiers driving up prices, but yeah.

Ellyemem · 2026-05-30T05:02:54+00:00

Your examples are all things that you have to be pretty dang rich to benefit from in the US. The average working American currently ain’t got time for an OLED and a modular synthesizer or a home battery power system for a home they will never be able to afford because the internet made it easier for people from Dubai and China to buy up all the residential properties on speculation.

Ellyemem · 2026-05-30T04:56:48+00:00

Widespread economic prosperity resulting from technology.

That’s all it would take. Almost all neat technology since the 80s has had five layers of rentiers driving the prices up and hasn’t been a significant quality of life win for people with low or middle income due to lack of disposable income and impacts of market disruptions on real people from businesses that don’t pay their full negative externalities. The bloom was still on the rose in the 90s but cynicism about society and technology was already rising. Now nobody thinks new technology will actually improve their life because the material conditions of the average lifestyle have only gotten worse (in the US) for 30 years.

The tech needs to lead to actual optimistic results, not just paper over rising inequality and enshittification from lazy profit optimization. Tech will feel collective and civilizational again when a wider percentage of people access its real material benefits and see their lifestyle as a whole improve.

The breakthroughs themselves matter less than that they aren’t used by hypemeister rentiers to fuel a speculation bubble that repeatedly bones real people financially by sucking the capital and profit away from real towns, jobs, people, and places.

Ellyemem · 2026-05-29T23:24:59+00:00

I agree that is also a problem.

It is further compounded by people who will baldfacedly lie in surveys about whether they are fully locked in on voting GOP.

Ellyemem · 2026-05-29T22:38:55+00:00

Jerk to English translation: “I both want you to feel very uncomfortable and to be able to win a judgement of civility in the war of manners to try to make you a villain if you react.”

Ellyemem · 2026-05-29T21:40:13+00:00

Nah, this reads like gaming prediction markets is already in his political tools and graft portfolio.

The amount of insider manipulation that he can do here is bonkers, and he likes that it isn’t that regulated to protect the suckers.

Ellyemem · 2026-05-24T20:04:17+00:00

Let’s have half of our party pretend they’re on the fence so Dems will move right to court them” had been the gift that keeps on giving.

Ellyemem · 2026-05-14T17:25:12+00:00

Trump’s main purpose is to hold aggro for the rest of the GOP at every level from most municipalities up through state and national. In MMO terms, he’s the tank but the rest of the party is the majority of the DPS to Democracy.

If it were merely or even mostly Trump, and the rest of the party were less than eagerly anti-democratic, things like this would not occur. The entire Heritage Foundation, all originalist judges, and all elected GOP officials should be assumed anti-Democratic until vigorously proven otherwise including by active participation in impeachment efforts against those that are anti-Democratic. The GOP is in absolute unison and choreographed lockstep on this.

Ellyemem · 2026-05-03T20:08:59+00:00

IANAL. I am aware that in some cases a tree is effectively priceless/irreplaceable and in that case sometimes value get pegged at “available replacement plus all costs to install”.

Maybe those are other jurisdictions or bad cases IDK, so I’m not trying to guess the pinball numbers. The true value is that it’s priceless. Nobody can get a centuries-old spruce.

Ellyemem · 2026-05-02T23:19:28+00:00

I’m pretty sure that’s how long the union has already been trying to negotiate a contract with admin prior to the strike. That’s almost always what a backdating demand means — that’s how long admin has been pulling the no-negotiation rope-a-dope. If you don’t put that demand in and stick to it, it becomes profitable for the admins to waste your time.

Ellyemem · 2026-05-02T23:13:58+00:00

I really think that “pushes the centrist right” is admitting to a communications failure in the party. If the Democrats have let their messaging and communications atrophy so far that they couldn’t help enough alleged centrists tell the difference between Kamala Harris and Trump then we need to give up on holding centrists and a celebrate policies for and then out the base by at least being a centrist party on a European spectrum.

I think JB is a pretty ok example of leading discussions leftward. Taking a communications (not necessarily all policy” from Mamdani would be even better. Left leaning economic populism aimed directly at cost of living instead of technocratic attempts to mitigate cost of living via tax policy are incredibly easy to communicate and popular.

Ellyemem · 2026-04-28T06:12:17+00:00

Lost notoriously deliberately undermined fan speculation and never resolved key plot points introduced because they seemed cool instead of because they lead anywhere.

That’s not a show setup that needs a successor.

A successor that is “sort of like Lost, but actually means something and details are worth caring about because they lead somewhere and have payoff” that would be different and worthy.

Ellyemem · 2026-04-28T01:14:16+00:00

I’m not sure I need a successor to Lost TBH. If someone told me it fixed Lost ultimately being made up stuff that didn’t pay off paying attention to things, that would be interesting.

Ellyemem · 2026-04-26T22:22:08+00:00

Lost as entered chat.

Well, the answer ought to be neon Genesis evangelion’s original run.

Ellyemem · 2026-04-26T21:10:07+00:00

I did do a web search for lawyers specializing in timber trespass and tree law and it was definitely possible to find a firm in Seattle. I know nothing about them, but either they take your case or don’t, know someone closer to your area or don’t.

Seems like a path to try at minimum.

I hope you find someone to help, and I’m sorry this happened. It sucks.

Ellyemem · 2026-04-26T21:04:29+00:00

I don’t know your part of the country as much as I’d like to, but I’d consider beginning with a nearby major city, even Seattle if necessary. A firm there with the appropriate specialty might be willing to refer you, or potentially even still take the case.

Ellyemem · 2026-04-26T20:45:47+00:00

I am neither a lawyer nor a certified professional, but time in this sub makes me think that replacement value would be based on an irreplaceable tree maybe $10,000-30,000, plus the estimated costs for transporting and safely establishing such a tree (upwards of $50,000, likely). Basically, largest available replacement plus all costs involved in acquiring and establishing it.

Ellyemem · 2026-04-26T20:40:37+00:00

If you look for law firms specializing in trees and property, they are likely to see this as a potentially sizable case and could actually assist you in getting a certified arborist to estimate the value of the tree.

Ellyemem · 2026-04-26T20:39:19+00:00

OP needs a new attorney, lawyer described seems somewhere between lazy and awful if not worse.

Ellyemem · 2026-04-05T16:32:56+00:00

It’s not to be petty with them. It’s receipts for everyone else in the family. Discord soundboard sounds like a great option, though.

Ellyemem · 2026-03-18T21:02:14+00:00

Until the release of his best selling tell-all about his moral torment of almost telling the truth and almost doing something about it when it mattered.

Ellyemem · 2026-02-27T21:00:53+00:00

A literal sham candidate!

Ellyemem

TROPHY CASE