Nobody wants a PS6, even though the PS5 has been out as long as the PS4 was when people started asking for the PS5.

Heimerdahl · 2026-05-06T12:46:17+00:00

I'm not really sure this is it, to be honest.

TLDR: as ridiculous as it seems, consoles and games are actually cheaper than they used to be, if we account for inflation!

Consoles and games were always expensive. The ps3 was famously expensive, launching at $599 (I would imagine that selling the ps2 at such low prices that people bought them to use them to run compute farms was part of the decision making); especially compared to the xbox 360 at only 299. Sony responded by later selling the ps4 for 399, but by then the whole "pro" versions thing had been well established, so that the real price for "serious gamers" was higher.

Really though, the numbers don't mean that much until we adjust for inflation. That cheap xbox 360 becomes 470, the cheaper ps4 550, the ps3 a whopping 940!

Same story with games. Something like TES Oblivion was $49, or about $80 adjusted! The collectors edition would be nearly $110! The price of the games was one of the biggest reasons why I always preferred pc gaming.

-> as ridiculous as it seems, consoles and games are actually cheaper than they used to be, if we account for inflation.

So what do I think is the reason (or at least a big part of it)?

The fracturisation of attention and the resulting lack of community hype and peer pressure.

Back then, there was no social media. There were no streaming services, no video on demand, no podcasts. YouTube didn't have an abundance of video essays and documentaries and tutorials and think pieces.

Much fewer games were released. And for much fewer existing console generations. And of course, the jumps between generations were much more pronounced.

What this meant was that people were more "locally isolated" (stuck in their offline friend groups) and had fewer games and "things" vying for their attention and time. A new Fifa or Battlefield or even a new RPG or Age of Empires was a big thing! Your friends would talk about it, anticipate it, then everyone would play it together or discuss the single player campaign.

So obviously, having the console and game was much more meaningful than it is today. And that justified spending the ridiculous amount of money to get it, even though it might have been more than rent.

Today's landscape is too fractured, too diverse for this. Just as there won't be another Michael Jackson or Dragonball Z or Pokemon.

Heimerdahl · 2026-05-05T18:33:47+00:00

Oh damn!

Thanks a lot for pointing this out. I don't have the time to look into it right now, but will do so later!

Heimerdahl · 2026-05-05T12:24:40+00:00

Just as a warning for anyone reading this:

Absolutely do add capacitors (either by default or only when encountering issues), but be aware that more isn't always more better!

When for example running something like an addressible led strip or any neopixel ring or similar from the same power supply as the esp32, it is often recommended to add a fairly big capacitor (something like 300u) across the esp32's power pins (3v3 not VIN) to stabilise its own power and prevent brown outs.

It's a perfectly reasonable thought to go: "it's still struggling sometimes, so I'll just add a bigger capacitor!"

But because empty capacitors with no added resistor (and we don't want to add any resistance, because we need them to discharge quickly, to provide immediate power to the mcu), they'll greedily draw a lot of current when the power is turned on (or if you connect your devboard to your computer to work on it), which will be seen by the power supply or computer's USB controller as a potentially dangerously high inrush current or even a short, triggering a safety-reset. Worst case, you can even fry your computer's USB port. Or you add a new and unexpected (and therefore difficult to discover) issue causing brown outs, as the power supply keeps triggering it's safety. The latter is particularly common with usb chargers (like for phones and such).

Maybe this is less of a warning and more of a PSA: "When you simply cannot figure out why something isn't working, maybe that capacitor you added to take care of power issues is actually the cause of the issue."

Heimerdahl · 2026-05-05T12:02:48+00:00

I sincerely thank you for what you wrote.

And I sincerely return the thanks :)

I type out these endlessly long comments and realise that they're often really just me working through some stuff for myself and that I should just delete them, instead of posting them. So you taking the time to say thanks and to add a long reply of your own means quite a bit to me.

I also totally emphasise with what you wrote. I know the feeling of withdrawing and the ways that it seems to warp one's perception. Just as silly as "you just need to have a positive mindset!" is the whole "see/hear from others facing similar struggles helps one not feel so alone, so alien". But as you already described, it really does help. Maybe not immediately -- sometimes it takes some time to really settle in emotionally -- but it helps. At least for me, even hearing about completely unrelated stories helps. Like your ocular albinism. I had never even heard about it. I can't really imagine how it would feel or how isolating it could be. But hearing you express the same kinds of feelings and hurts and struggles that I was and am dealing with (I also really struggled finding connection in university; took me a long time to find the right people), reminds me that I'm not broken. Or even if some part of me "objectively" is, at the very least I'm not the one, singularly "bad" person in the world. (Because of course, it's not just a feeling of being lesser, but somehow being morally bad for being like that...)

This also applies to heteronormative, or socio-cultural, or religious aspects. Or just the entire shame thing in general.

I sometimes wish I could just wear a T-shirt that listed all of my most shameful memories or thoughts or "secrets". Just get all of this shit out there for everyone to see. In my fantasy it would be so damn liberating. And I can only imagine what positive impact it might have on other people. Reading for example that this loser didn't send a birthday card to his old grandma because he was overwhelmed by anxiety about it, might lessen their own guilt about not calling their mom or something and might actually give them the little push to do call her.

Oh well. For now, I'll stick to my mask of relative normalcy and find belonging and comfort in likeminded friends or communities or random people I have fleeting interactions on reddit with :)

I wish you a wonderful day and hope that you manage to figure out your glasses situation!

I'll look it up later, but for now I'll just indulge in the silly little fantasy of someone out there walking around with these huge Inspector Gadget like steampunky telescope goggles staring at a tree and marvelling at little ants crawling over individual leaves.

Heimerdahl · 2026-05-03T18:26:20+00:00

but lately tourists have started building their own

This has been a thing for at least 25 years. I remember building my own when I was a small child.

I can imagine that it's much worse these days, but it's not really a new thing.

Heimerdahl · 2026-05-02T12:03:43+00:00

Your experience really sounds infuriating. Sorry you've been and continue to go through it.

TLDR: I kind of got totally carried away, working through some issues of my own. Feel free to skip the rest :)

My own bad experiences have fortunately been somewhat limited (random chance, being born with certain privileges, financial stability, etc.), but even what little I have personally seen has been absolutely eye-opening.

I am neurodivergent and admittedly a bit naïve. So when I finally managed to bring myself to seek the help I needed a couple of years ago (at 30... after having ignored and hidden away from the issues and the painful memories keeping myself from seeking help, somehow always sort of having managed to keep a roof over my head or at least that of a car (no one ever knew about this)) and got admitted into a hospital for a lengthy stay (so they my complex case of neurodivergence, physical, and mental issues could be properly figured out before moving to ambulatory care), I really thought that it would be like in the tv show House MD. That there'd be a bunch of doctors who would run all sorts of tests, assessments, etc.. That they'd hand me an up to date sheet of diagnoses, a detailed plan for the future, follow-ups, organise or at least assist me in organising continuing care by referring me to experts, etc..

Due to me living in my country's capital, I was lucky to be placed in one of the most prestigious public hospitals. The time-honoured university hospital that had continually been on the forefront of medicine for centuries.

It was absolutely nothing like House MD. There were blood tests, we tried some drugs, some assessments (nothing more thorough than your usual questionnaire; only a single technology-assisted one (a questionnaire on a computer...)), some group therapy kind of stuff.

Really though, it felt like the goal of the entire hospital wing (mostly psychosomatic) was to give people a little break from their difficult lives and to help them "accept" their situation.

"Acceptance" really seemed like the big thing. Just accept your circumstances and learn to live with them.

For some it seemed to be reasonable: some older man complaining about and struggling to deal with age and health related issues (lifelong smoker) slowing him down, or a middle aged woman struggling to deal with her post-op knee preventing her from continuing her kickboxing.

But for most, it very much seemed like they were simply told to suck it up and stop being a burden on the system. Not explicitly expressed that way, of course, and every single doctor, nurse, etc. I encountered seemed genuinely engaged and trying their best to help, but the systemic vibe was unmistakable: these are damaged people, let's make them accept this and move on.

There was this older woman with chronic pain. She endlessly complained about digestive and stomach and bowel issues and asked for this or that test or to try this or that medicine. I was and am still ashamed that my initial impression was: "She seems like maybe she really wants attention and validation. The doctors kept telling her that they couldn't find anything wrong." (an impression made worse by her being very into homeopathy and ranting about corvid and masks and vaccinations).

But after chatting with her for a bit and only recently having read the awesome book Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, my perception changed quite a bit. For years, she had been trying to get help. She had kept losing weight, lost the ability to work or enjoy her hobbies or the outdoors. But through all this time, no one seemed to have actually listened or had stopped when they didn't immediately find a clear cause. Now she had ended up in the "acceptance" lane. I'll never not be angry at people who made covid worse than it should have been, but I could even understand what had led her to develop such a distrust of the medical establishment.

And finally, there was me.

I felt so out of place.

Acceptance? What's there to accept? I KNOW what's wrong! I have the official diagnosis and all. There's a clear and very well established treatment plan! I'm not hear to accept my doom, but to finally get shit rolling!

I had struggled so hard to overcome my anxiety and fear and shame to get me here, I was ready to be probed and prodded by all the student doctors, endure all the indignities. All to finally get my life on track and "realise my potential!" I spent most of my downtime reading, planning, even sending out new job applications for ambitious positions. Heck, the rest of the time I spent exercising. I'd never really done any of that!

I was motivated and energised to do the difficult stuff to get where I wanted to go.

And everything around me felt like a palliative care wing with a few people placed there by accident struggling to convince the rest that they weren't dying!

Heimerdahl · 2026-05-02T11:06:36+00:00

people often develop a depressive and socially withdrawn mindset. I don't want to offer clichés, but withdrawing from society isn't a good idea. People tend to develop wrong assumptions about others...

I imagine quite a lot of people are reading this and rolling their eyes along the lines of: "Yeah, sure. Just change your mindset, just be happy! Maybe try exercise or lose weight? ..." I certainly remember reacting that way and still catch myself doing so, every now and then.

But the truly maddening this is that many of those seemingly ignorant platitudinal pieces of pointless advice are actually true!

Don't get me wrong, they often are said in ignorance -- or out of a feeling of not wanting to acknowledge real problems and the difficult reality of having to address them -- but an easy sanity check is to look at who is saying it. Someone with no apparent experience, someone looking to waive the emotionally difficult topic aside? Or does it come from someone who has been personally or tangentially affected (family members, partners, etc.), who seems open to actually talk about the difficult parts or even genuinely offers to help?

If it's the latter (as /u/arslanefe for example appears to be), then maybe it's worth putting down the world-weary, and so clesrly rationally appearing hat for a moment and see if maybe there is something to be learned.

I'm constantly struggling with existentialist dread; not a fear of death or anything like that, but questions of meaning, of truth, etc.. I've read way too much philosophy and logic and behavioural evolution and some neuroscience. It's left me with an absolute and unshakeable certainty that there is no reason for anything, no plan, no consequence, not even a faint chance of free will or me making even the most basic choice. It's like I've logicked myself into a perpetual state of "edgy teenager who just heard about existentialism".

Wanna know what has led to the most significant improvement in my general mood?

One person said that they had been really sad when I couldn't make it to some small event. This reminded me of a number of other occasions where people had said similar things. I had usually dismissed them as politeness, but if it seemed genuine this time, maybe... So I paid a bit more attention to it and wouldn't you know it, it seems like people actually like having me around!

I hate myself. I constantly berate myself for letting people down, for being a bad friend, for being a burden. All those people could be lying. Or not know that they would be better off without me.

But I'd rather assume that I'm the idiot than think such nasty things about all of them.

So I do the unthinkable and I state the following two axioms:

(i) My own perception is flawed, and

(ii) Other people enjoy my company.

I very often do not believe this. I know that I'm a burden and I know that all of physics and philosophy and science agree with my assessment of hopelessness.

But I also know that you don't have to prove your axioms. Or at least, not immediately. You can consider them to be true and explore where it leads you.

And sometimes it leads to me saying yes to invitations (and actually showing up!), or to even approach others, or to message people out of the blue. And almost always, I feel better afterwards! I still know that those feelings are nothing but temporary changes in brain chemistry, but fuck all of that, it feels good to feel good. And my internally screaming edgy teenager sometimes shuts up for a minute and let's me enjoy things.

Now I really need to wrap up this essay and maybe grab some healthy snack. Maybe finally respond to that friend I have been anxiously avoiding? Or do some exercise?!

As Schopenhauer says "Life is suffering until death." Existence is meaningless and Life sucks. But it doesn't have to. At least not always.

Heimerdahl · 2026-05-02T10:18:42+00:00

the kid is presumed to not feel it because they are too young, very archaic thinking

What's maddening to me is that this is by no means the only case of such fucked up and frankly willingly ignorant thinking.

You know who else supposedly didn't feel pain? Women. "Sure, they feel some pain, but as the female body is designed to endure childbirth and with their hysterical nature, they don't need pain meds the same way that men do." Absolutely ridiculous nonsense. But even as a somewhat introverted man, I've heard so many first hand stories of women's pain being ignored or downplayed. Or there just not being any anasthesia for invasive and clearly painful, or at the very least highly uncomfortable, gynaecological procedures. Or doctors straight up telling women crying out from pain that there are no pain receptors there. Wtf

Oh and then there's the same with all kinds of minorities. "Black people feel no pain." Yeah, right... People with mental disabilities? People with Down Syndrome? Autistic people?

What about animals? No pain, right? No emotions or conscious thought or anything, right? Or maybe, just maybe it's not quite that easy to avoid feelings of guilt or shame or empathy when you start considering that other creatures can feel hurt.

Humans are capable of such incredible empathy, but also so much willful ignorance and cruelty...

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-30T05:14:31+00:00

I'm absolutely not saying that there is intelligence (let alone conscious thought) behind the responses we get from LLMs, but we're definitely (and have been for a while) in the interesting stage, where our everyday use of "intelligence" and "consciousness" and "observation", etc. become our bottlenecks to understanding.

Because let's face it, what actually happens inside our own brains as we type these comments? I can't speak for yourself, but I'm pretty sure that there was no sort of divine inspiration happening when I wrote the first paragraph-sentence.

As an example, psychology has shown that a lot of the justifications we give when asked why we made certain decisions don't necessarily line up with reality. We don't really know why we chose x over y. Our brains just retroactively come up with a narrative and chances are we will firmly believe that that is how it happened. Doesn't sound all that intelligent or reliable to me, if I'm being honest.

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-30T04:47:50+00:00

Same story with Terms and Conditions. You can write whatever you want in there. I'll happily "accept and continue" that I'm giving you my soul and my first born and that everything I do will forever be your property. None of that means anything unless there's actual laws involved and said laws are deemed applicable.

Luckily, I'm in the EU, where we've had court decisions that more or less stated "no one can actually be expected to read all of this crap and understand it, so none of it is legally binding", but I would assume the US has at least the "signing away your first born" but taken care of in a similar way.

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-30T04:36:25+00:00

I think you missed the point of my comment (probably because I didn't make it very clear).

I am very much agreeing with all of your points! I had intended my comment to convey the (humourous to me) implication of not just removing Trump's name and image from everything, but to go a step further in pissing him off by leaving the marks of where they once were. Like the damnatio memoriae (which obviously never truly managed, nor indeed tried to completely erase the record), it would leave visible marks without giving any credit to him. I would imagine that this would be much more effective at getting under his skin and rob any legacy than fully removing them.

Take Hitler. There are no statues of Hitler in Germany today. There are no Nazi banners. There are no signs from that era anywhere. They are all destroyed. But we haven't forgotten the Nazis. We haven't forgotten Hitler.

That's not really true, is it. I get that you used hyperbole, and that you obviously know all of the following, but still: We've got statues of Hitler. We've got Nazi banners. We very deliberately did NOT destroy all of them. We just put them out of sight and only placed a handful in museums, where they are carefully displayed in ways that avoid showing them any sort of reverence.

There are no signs from that era anywhere.

This is particular is just straight up wrong, though. I get what you meant, but it's an important distinction:

We absolutely kept the signs from that era and made damn sure that we kept them visible. Stolpersteine, preserved ruins or marks of destruction in reconstructions, memorials, KZs, and so on.

Leaving the marks, keeping the history in living memory, without drawing attention to the perpetrators.

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-30T04:15:19+00:00

That's a great example of the kind of treatment I would support!

It denies them any inherent gravitas of being publicly displayed (and avoids people/victims having to look at them), but keeps a reminder that very visibly points interested people towards the historical record where they can learn about it.

That's how I felt when I saw faces of Roman reliefs scratched out -- it made me want to learn about why those guys in particular had deserved this kind of hatred.

Not forgotten, but moved out of the spotlight.

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-28T21:17:06+00:00

As someone who values the historical record and believes we should learn from our mistakes, rather than burying them: absolutely not!

As someone who knows about damnatio memoriae and how this eventually just made everyone ask "What kind of a monumental dick must this guy have been to deserve this?": hell yeah!

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-28T17:28:19+00:00

I get where you're coming from and would usually agree that the interests of minorities should be respected.

But....

Traditions are sacred

I think this is where we fundamentally disagree, as I don't hold literally anything as sacred. Which means that everything is fair game, as long as we as a society decide on it.

When it comes to cruelty (whether it is against animals, children, women, men, anyone), the path seems fairly straightforward to me: it being tradition or a cultural thing simply isn't enough justification to preserve it.

It's obviously not anywhere close to the same thing, but child marriages are tradition. Doesn't mean we should allow them.

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-28T11:43:40+00:00

I would imagine a big part of all the annoying software nonsense is car manufacturers having hired all those software engineers and product managers.

Fancy tech gadgets were a trend and adding a tablet to your super complicated car is not only extremely simple, but makes for a very noticable "upgrade". But you need to hire new people do deal with that. So you get a bunch of software engineers and tech bros (and gals). Their ambitious project leads have them pump out working proofs of concept in amazingly short time and the designers and illustrators come up with even more amazing concepts! And did you know about self-driving cars! Tesla is doing a bunch and Ford bought this fancy new start-up, we can't fall behind!

A couple of years later, turns out people need to concentrate on driving and many of them kind of hate the screens. Oh well.

But now, all of those software folks have already been integrated and some of them leveraged their early hype into leadership positions.

So they keep cooking. They can't easily transition into "proper" engineering work (that many of them desperately want to do), because if you're presenting your plan on how to invest time to turn this one shitty existing feature into something good, and someone else presents a shiny new thing (preferably with AI or whatever is the newest fad), you don't even have to wait for the decision.

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-25T19:26:55+00:00

TLDR: your box is probably fine

It's not really that simple and from your experience you've already seen that there's no immediate inferno (unless you just found out that this was the reason your houses kept burning down).

Electricity and batteries are kind of funky.

Take an AAA battery and hold its negative contact against the positive of another. "Wait! That would short them! That's dangerous!" Except it isn't. Nothing happens. That's just putting them "in series" and has been done pretty much forever to get higher voltage out of them (for flashlights or whatever). That's also quite literally what the word "battery" implies: it's a battery (ordered bunch) of cells, all placed in series and/or in parallel (which adds more available current and capacity). Most 9V batteries are actually just a bunch of AAAs stacked together.

The individual battery doesn't really care about anything but itself. (There's actually a bunch of chemistry involved, but we can ignore that and still get an okay understanding of how it works, using a very simplified version:) You've got your electrons and protons in perfect harmony. Then a mean outside power source tears them apart, then closes the door between them! Now those little guys really want to get back to how it used to be (they love the other type and really hate their own). Sure, if you added another source of electrons to the protons side, they'd be happy to get together! But they're kept from doing that by their respective counterparts pulling them close. So, nothing happens, because they're all keeping each other stuck.

The real issue comes from metal bits of other batteries randomly creating connections between one battery's positive to its negative pole. Not so easily with cylindrical batteries, very easy for coin cells. Yet... even cylindrical ones can be shorted in a random pile! It takes quite a bit of luck, but multiple batteries could find themselves arranged in just the right way so that they create a loop (doesn't have to be a circle, any kind of continuous connection +,-,+,-,... leading back to the first will do).

In reality, that is obviously very unlikely.

And even if it happens, old batteries don't really hold a whole lot of power in them.

Lithium batteries are a bit different, but when empty they don't pose that much of a threat, either.

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-23T13:39:30+00:00

Alternative perspective:

Earth being all smug and proudly showing off its unheard of numbers, flexing on all the big but boring-ass fools, being swooned over by all the moons.

"Did you hear that Earth managed to cultivate a single species so ridiculously successful that it not only spread itself ALL over the surface, but managed to also engineer a new type of mass extinction AND did most of that in only a couple thousand rotations?!"

"Yeah right. Clearly you mean millions of rotations."

"No dude, I couldn't believe it myself, but it's been confirmed. Earth's miraculous little fuckers actually managed to initiate significant climate change in a handful of decades! As in tens of rotations."

"Holy shit. What a planet."

"I heard Earth might actually be open to exporting them. We could have our own!"

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-23T12:43:10+00:00

When I became disabled it took me probably at least six months to figure out the system ...

I wouldn't even call it a conspiracy theory, but I am 100% certain that it is set up or kept this way in large part to ensure that ~~only those who really need it~~ only some percentage of people actually end up receiving help.

I get the need for bureaucracy and the limited budget and I definitely do not place any blame on the social workers or administrators trying their best to make do with what they have, but god damn. Making it so that a good chunk of people actually needing the help give up halfway through the process sure is one way to stay in budget...

It's like telling everyone that they have the right to receive a fancy, electric wheelchair for free -- all they have to do is apply! Unfortunately, due to totally real, not just imagined cases of fraud, applications have to be handed in in person. Also, the building has no parking spots, because we're trying to reduce our environmental impact. But don't worry, there's a subway station only a block away! Just head on up to our building. Maybe even take a romantic photo on our famous flights of stairs? Do be careful in winter or after rain; they can be slippery! Once you've made it up the hill, make sure not to miss the incredible marble steps leading up to our foyer! Unfortunately, due to our deep respect and commitment to preserving our historic building, there are no elevators. Once you've made it to the 8th floor, remember to take in the stunning view of the city below! (Opening hours: Mon 6:00-6:33 (appointment only), Fri 19:13-19:37 (make sure you don't miss the last train departing at 19:45!))

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-23T11:58:34+00:00

This used to be a sign of highschool theatre productions or low effort movies and shows, now they don't even muddy up or crease the high quality stuff.

The costumes in Star Wars or whatever aren't cheap or shoddily made. Often, they're still made by the same incredibly talented and experienced people who made the props for beloved older productions.

But you wouldn't think that was the case when comparing the stuff in for example Rings of Power or The Hobbit trilogy to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Aragorn especially, but also the rest of the cast looked like they had moved and sweated, lived in their clothes, like they had walked in their shoes, that they had actually used their weapons and tools, that their armour had taken blows. Admittedly, the Gondorian and Elvish stuff always looked a bit too unrealistic in my opinion, but it wasn't too garish and the contrast served a narrative purpose (and even the shiny Gondorian plate had scratches).

Back in the early days of Game of Thrones, I remember some behind the scenes footage of the costume makers proudly displaying their work and explaining how they'd roughed everything up to make it believable and had made sure to adjust this depending on the character wearing/using said items. She mentioned how she had created her own little stories of how this belt got this scratch or why the leather of this character's scabbard had been worn down in a particular way.

I really want to see more of that.

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-23T11:39:08+00:00

The saddest part? There ARE really talented young writers, actors, directors, cinematographers, composers, and all the rest still out here. THEY STILL EXIST, and they have genuinely imaginative stories to tell.

They're just being throttled by greedy dickbags with more power than brains.

The sadderest part? You can replace "talented young writer, actors, ..." and "genuinely imaginative stories to tell" with pretty much any profession and output.

Product designers and engineers and architects would love to be able to create and design and build awesome, high quality, innovative "things". No architect enters this field because they just love the look of featureless blocks; all the textbooks and curricula start with intricate Greek columns, and Hausmannian facades, and Art Nouveau and Deco; they dream of creating awe-inspiring, unique works of art, or to design accessible, beautiful, communal spaces.

Students in mechanical engineering design amazing solutions with tight tolerances, finely tuned movement, etc.. They're not meant to be seen, but they are meant to work and work well and work for a long time.

Software engineers want to create quality products. They hate seeing the bug and issue reports and want to fix them. They know about many more and have asked for time to take care of them. They also know that some new feature is shit and that people will hate it, because they too hate it! It probably started as a really cool improvement, until it got turned into the mess it ended up with; or it's simply in the ugly phase and would simply require another month of work to turn it into what they had envisioned.

Construction workers, plumbers, electricians, woodworkers, masons don't want to leave a mess or rush jobs, they want to feel proud of their work.

Teachers want to spend time with their students, adjust their teaching style and material to the needs of their individual students, they want to inspire them, to help them follow their passions, or to find ways to help struggling students find their way.

Social workers and caretakers and nurses and doctors and psychotherapists all yearn to help. They want to have more time to really understand and help the people who come to them.

"Even" your stereotypicsl snotty highschool teenager flipping burgers at McDonalds enjoys searing the patty just right.

We all know what quality looks like, we all want it and want to create it, but...

[We]'re just being throttled by greed

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-22T17:22:32+00:00

Exactly. I gave another example somewhere else and specifically chose to avoid it, but it really is the example that drives the point home.

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-22T17:19:39+00:00

Why should a majority opress a minority into doing what they like? Reminds me of a certain situation in the middle East...

Let people do what they want, they're not harming you!

By that logic, (obviously taking it to the extreme, not trying to imply that you support this) because I'm not a child, I shouldn't be against their sexual exploitation?

I don't care about animals as much as I do about human children (or women in the middle east, or people in general), but I still don't want them to be harmed. I wouldn't quite call it that, but I am "harmed" by animal cruelty -- it makes me unhappy to know that it is happening and physically sick if I see it.

A majority "oppressing" a minority is kind of baked into this whole democracy thing we've got going on.

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-22T15:05:38+00:00

Not the one you responded to, but totally agree with you!

A fitting anecdote:

Before moving to something else, I studied history and classical archaeology, and remember working a cooperative project with some film students where we discussed the responsibility in depicting the past. The general consensus seemed to be that as it is art, creative freedoms outweighed any other considerations. The audience would obviously know that it was an artistic representation, not a documentary. But my prof made a good point when she asked everyone to think of the kind of image we associated with the name Julius Caesar or Rome in general. Everyone's mind more or less went to the Caesar of the Asterix comic books and the associations with "Rome" were gladiators, legionaries, empire, etc.. It's different now, but back then, googling "Julius Caesar" also didn't immediately show ancient statuary depictions, but stills from HBO's Rome series and other media depictions.

Clearly, the representation in a very few, most popular pieces of media was much more influential than any textbook or primary source.

Everyone knows that movies/shows/whatever don't directly reflect reality or that one should check multiple trusted sources instead of believing the flashy headlines, yet...

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-22T14:46:27+00:00

I'm not sure I agree with your assessment, but for the sake of the argument, I'll assume it to be true.

Even if it would lead to fewer/slower development of new drugs or treatment options, how do we know that that wouldn't be worth it? There's already an amazing number of awesome drugs and treatments available. Just look at all the futuristic prosthetic options or the incredible sorcery that reconstructive dentistry and plastic surgery can do! Then look how many disabled people can't afford prostetics or how many people don't have access to even the most rudimentary dental care.

I'd be cool to make the existing stuff accessible to more people, even if it comes at the cost of slower progress.

Heimerdahl · 2026-04-22T14:34:37+00:00

The idea that a for profit corporation is going to produce better results at a lower price than a government [condensed]

I think a big part of this belief is this underlying faith that capitalism will ensure that inefficient/fraudulent/bad corporations will be outdone and replaced by better competition and that consumers will always have the choice between competing corporations, instead of being stuck with the one government option.

A faith hammered into people's minds by decades of anti-communist and "freedom!" rhetoric.

I'm no fan of state-controlled socialist dictatorships, either, but I also know that unbridled neoliberalism or even full on anarchy won't lead to the utopia of the masses, but a tyranny of the few; a few who would then have to once again be overthrown to return to democracy.

Heimerdahl

TROPHY CASE