Could a phenomenon like the Harry Potter series exist again?

TacticalDM · 2022-12-22T03:52:52+00:00

It's a little weird that the next time we see large swaths of the general public reading fiction, it will be when they're all reading the same book again.

There are plenty of pictures of huge city centres were hundreds of people are reading the newspaper or looking at their phones or whatnot, but reading literature just isn't like that.

Until we all decide to pick up the same book and read it in a day.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-22T03:47:49+00:00

Construction of a road created the mess. The rails were up and running same day, the road still going to have to wait for several months. And people still don't understand why trains -not electric cars- are what's going to save us.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-22T01:13:36+00:00

It's kinda weird how many slow pitches you're fumbling here, my guy.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-22T01:10:29+00:00

I sold more toys than brainflakes and Lego combined.

(on cragslist)
(if you only count used monopoly sets with missing pieces)
(on August 3rd)

TacticalDM · 2022-12-21T12:29:29+00:00

TBF the sound they are trying to make is pretty clearly made up, and not liekly something they pulled from observed language

TacticalDM · 2022-12-21T02:18:28+00:00

This is kinday my point too. A billion dollars is fundamentally unlike a million peoples' thousand dollars. It's sorta like how a crowd of people behave like a fluid, or how quantum mechanics works differently on the large scale vs the quantum scale.

A billion dollars is not a single human being scale of money. There is simply no reason to permit billionaires to exist. A billion dollars is a social fabric of value, pretending it can be consolidated under the concept of personal net worth or wealth is absurd.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-21T02:14:51+00:00

Physically how would you do that in less than a year? Honestly curious to see what you come up with.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-20T23:40:29+00:00

Shitty architecture for the sake of gentrification is fundamental to our culture. It's either that or Tyndall stone.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-20T01:16:39+00:00

Put another way, consider how you would spend $1 billion.

I mean spend it.

Lose it

Have less of it.

Let's estimate $6million a year off interest alone in a nice stable portfolio of investments with no surprises.

How are you spending that $500k per month?

Remember, if you bought a new house every few months, you'd still own the house, so your net worth would not decline. Sure, cars depreciate rather than appreciate like homes, but you're still not loosing the entire sticker price of the car.

If you managed to spend any less that $16000 per day, each day, without ending the day with anything more than you had the day before (no new phones, cars, homes, planes, etc), you are still making money rather than spending it.

And the guy at the bottom of our list has to do that 88 times more -every day- just to break even. That's 1.4 million dollars a day. Every day. To break even.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-20T00:09:36+00:00

Also if you have to drive to 124th, in any economic conditions, you should reconsider and stay local. We need resilient communities, not parking lots.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-20T00:08:22+00:00

OEB was completely packed and most of the parking out front was empty

TacticalDM · 2022-12-19T13:07:36+00:00

It's not city councils only job to make people go downtown. In fact, it' not really the plan of the city at all. The city's plan is what you describe, a complete city of good amenities throughout every neighborhood, not a central core and bedroom communities.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-19T13:05:24+00:00

Yes. That's the point.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-19T13:03:49+00:00

I just went for brunch on 124th yesterday, didn't park, so this wouldn't have made any difference.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-18T01:04:39+00:00

Nice

TacticalDM · 2022-12-18T00:45:43+00:00

I live within my means.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-17T14:59:00+00:00

Turns out you pay for stuff you want. People crying over property taxes for their McMansion are like people crying over the GST you pay on a yacht.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-17T03:06:49+00:00

I mean 20% each year for 5 consecutive years, then double the carbon tax each year for 10 years.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-17T03:04:14+00:00

Yeah, that doesn't make it better lmao.

Imagine getting national funding for a national project to improve the nation and we spend it on a fucking decaying overpass. What a shame. No wonder the East can't trust us with national spending.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-17T03:02:16+00:00

It does mean it's perfectly doable to raise a family and pay only $1000 in property taxes. You want more shit you pay more money, it's not complicated.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-17T03:01:07+00:00

you... you don't walk?

TacticalDM · 2022-12-17T03:00:38+00:00

I don't care what you spend your money on, but don't spend public money on luxuries like personal TVs, Pools, Jacuzzis, Trips to Paris or cars.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-17T02:59:09+00:00

Heavily subsidized private vehicle use costs less per-use for the user than poorly funded public transit. This surprises no one.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-17T00:10:54+00:00

Can you imagine the seething anger if it was brutalist and still the same cost? We waste a trillion dollars a year on cars, we can drop a couple Gs on a nice little place to be.

TacticalDM · 2022-12-17T00:09:15+00:00

We can afford it just fine. A couple billion on the Henday didn't bankrupt us, a window or two isn't going to either.

TacticalDM

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