Shareholders own the company. Their private ownership is only “public” in that they can sell off their share, to anyone.

It’s a joint-stock company. Of course that’s capitalism. Jesus fucking Christ.

Nutty Professor II: The Klumps.

‘But the laaaaaaaw!’

Ignoring ethics is why you’re wrong about this. Nobody’s arguing non-existence - and you can’t win an argument against nobody. The issue is something else, as I’ve repeatedly explained to you, but alas, you are functionally illiterate.

‘We’re deliberately rejecting this law.’

‘But the law!’

‘Laws can be changed.’

‘But the law!’

‘This law is bad.’

‘But the law!’

‘Civil disobedience is strategic.’

‘But the law!’

‘Do you speak English?’

‘But the law!’

Alongside the finger-wag to oooh-so-scary report me, yeah, I’m about done humoring you. You know less than nothing, you patience vampire. Next time try to act less stupid.

Oh my god, you think that’s a threat. Go right ahead. Do it. I fucking dare you. Say the worst things you can imagine about me - your imagination is sorely lacking.

What a perfect cap to this inability to imagine anything but the status quo. On being asked why you’re lying to me, about me, you think you can threaten to run and tattle. To whom, fucknuts? The mod of this community is one of the people whose behavior you’re incapable of understanding. The admins don’t give a damn about sufficiently polite efforts to drag sense out of you.

That you pair this with once again dismissively calling someone “kid” is masterful stupidity. It’s dumber than what I’d make up, as a joke. Bravissimo. You perfect fool.

The grapes of wrath aren’t usually so literal.

I prefer the one with the cups.

Is that Alan Davies?

Windows 95 legitimately had better UI than that “Material” bullshit, via relief shading conveyed through four fucking colors. The hierarchy of elements is instantly visible. Buttons even popped in and out when clicked. There’s just no excuse for how minimalism fetishists have taken over user experience.

“My argument still stands.”

“That was my only argument.”

“I didn’t have an argument, bro.”

Yeah, you’re just an asshole. You don’t care what words mean.

You don’t care about anything I’ve said past mocking your surface-level ignorance. You are stuck on that. I have been talking about everything but.

What you’re doing is trolling and you’re not very good at it.

Civil disobedience: forbidden.

Discussion civil disobedience: banned.

Advocating to allow the discussion of civil disobedience: unreasonable.

Jesus Christ, what is the origin of political change, in your reality? Suggestive whimpering?

Dipshit-come-lately thinks the issue with ‘uhh do you know anything?!’ is that I genuinely didn’t understand their stupid question.

Look up the word “or.”

If your only argument is acknowledged in the first sentence, maybe you never understood the conversation.

Copyright laws exist. No kidding. What next? What’s the rest of your point?

People saying they shouldn’t exist, are not ignorant.

People saying they don’t care, are not ignorant.

Neither position is challenged by some rando parroting ‘but laws.’ Do you understand that laws can be changed? Do you understand how and why that starts? Do you speak English?

Dismissive dickwad behavior is good, actually - if you’re dismissing Nazis. Or anyone else who deserves a blunt rejection. It is fine and valid to deny people civility, when their rhetoric is inherently abusive. Respect and patience have limits.

Swearing at people absofuckinglutely has its place in online discourse. If not for the assholes themselves - then for the people they’re trying to fool.

Anyway.

Discworld has a few parallel threads. Release order starts with The Colour Of Magic, which is fun and short, but not exactly top-notch material. See explanatory flowchart. Those first few novels have a real Season One vibe.

The traditional introduction seems to be whichever book catches your eye. Or whichever you happened to find first, if you’d heard good things about the series. That’s how I wound up reading Ringworld by Larry Niven, because cultivating your interests in the 90s was a much fuzzier experience.

Apropos of little - how long ago did Sean Hannity say he’d get waterboarded?

And those are the only two options.

Jevon’s paradox says this might not help. If shipping gets faster, cheaper, and cleaner, because ships get free power on top of their engines - are we likely to do less of it?

Good old ethical Microsoft.

Honestly I miss reddit circa 2015. Obviously before The Idiot and half the world lurching toward fascism - but also back when “fuck off, Nazi” was treated better than being a goddamn Nazi.

The proliferation of “civility” is poisonous to online discourse. It is always the wrong metric. Trolls love being polite monsters. r/Politics even went a step further and demanded all opinions be taken in good faith. Do those idiots know what trolling is? Do they not understand bad faith… as a concept? It only works because people mistake it for good faith. Demanding everyone do that is a gift to trolls.

Moderation requires common-sense identification of who’s being an asshole. It’s never about no-no words. If a script could handle the job, we would let it.

Lemmy has far too many communities with rules going ‘never be rude to anyone ever!!!’ and then zero enforcement when someone calls you a cunt for gently correcting their grammar. That is the worst of both worlds. Anyone sincerely trying is going to hold back from just dealing with assholes appropriately, like an adult, but those people are then left with no recourse against pointlessly toxic shitheads. I don’t want a screaming match. I want words to matter.

Also if you enjoy Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett has a similar deep snark. Discworld’s a whole mess of books but you can kinda jump in anywhere. I recommend Guards! Guards! or Going Postal. He did Good Omens with baby Neal Gaiman, and they’d write chapters separately, then throw out every joke they’d bought thought of.